There's one thing I don't wear in cold-weather months: skirts. Wool
pants, leather leggings, jeans—I stick to anything that (a) doesn't
require tights and (b) can easily be worn with ankle boots or tucked
into knee-high ones. But this fall I'll be going through a 180-degree
wardrobe change because suddenly I'm craving skirts, specifically
longer, to-the-knee skirts that are feminine, fitted, and fairly dressed
up.
I blame my desire for a wardrobe revamp on Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler.
It was the first look at their fall show that got me; I knew I had to
have the boxy white coat over a black pencil skirt, paired with low
d'Orsay pumps. The ensemble had the elemental silhouette of the
late-'50s and early-'60s clothes I've always been drawn to, but it also
had a stark architectural bent, combined with modernist dense wool
fabrics, that placed it squarely in 2013. That weekend, before I left
for the European shows, I ran to Bergdorf Goodman and happily laid claim
to a black stretch wool pencil skirt and a pair of Céline's nude
d'Orsay heels.
In Paris, the Céline show intensified my growing obsession. Phoebe
Philo's cream stretch wool skirts—fitted at the waist (there's no
closure; you just slip them on, which sounds very appealing) and
elegantly flared just below the knee—offered a whole new, thoroughly
enticing proportion. I knew that come fall I would have to figure out
how to work at least one Céline skirt into my closet.
But rotating your wardrobe from being pants-centric to skirt-centric
opens a sartorial can of worms. Everything has to change. My pants
silhouette was like an upside-down pyramid: loose on top (a blazer and
an untucked blouse or a cashmere crewneck), then skinnier
(jeans/leggings, usually ankle-length), and ending in a point with
stiletto ankle boots.
With the new, longer skirt, new rules apply. First, it's crucial that
your hem hits your leg at just the right spot. Above the knee is not
new and doesn't count here. The sweet spot on every woman is just below
the knee, where your leg curves in before the calf begins. If you find a
skirt that's longer, hem it. I have seen some A-list style setters
wearing their skirts a couple of inches longer, but honestly, it doesn't
work. Even on them.
Once you get the length right, you'll have to reproportion everything
else. Start with a top that either tucks in or ends not too far below
your waist. (You need the definition unless you are Gisele and look
great in a potato sack.) A slim knit turtleneck is my favorite new
choice, and once I find the right one I'm buying it in black, white,
gray, and navy. Then you have to reboot your coat options. What looks
newest with the skirt is a hip-length or an above-the-knee coat that's
boxy or cocoon-like. I love the short, round-shouldered versions that Alexander Wang premiered at Balenciaga. And the sexy coziness of the enveloping shapes at Céline, Rochas, and Marc Jacobs
are also on my radar. They look particularly warm, and after this past,
never-ending winter, would be the perfect antidote to chase away the
chills.
On to shoes. If you are anything like me—as in you're always looking
for an excuse for a new pair—here's your chance. You can still work a
classic pump with a pencil skirt, or try to snag Proenza's new,
lower-heeled d'Orsays. I like the idea of men's-style penny loafers with
a pencil skirt, which is how my mom wore them in college; Saint Laurent
and Bottega Veneta make beautiful, last-forever versions. Tights,
however, don't work with loafers. So bundle up in your coat and flash
some leg. Another no-no is wearing stilettos with a flared skirt. It's
too dated, too precious. You'll want the new bootie, which has a chunky,
stacked-wood heel and covers your ankle. While the pale celadon ones at
Céline are growing on me, I'm not sure what else I can pair them with.
Chloé, though, has navy stacked-heel ankle boots that are a dream. Plus,
this fall navy is the new black. Sold.
Showing posts with label week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label week. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 May 2013
Monday, 2 January 2012
The Tale of a ‘Fashion Terrorist’
THE novelist Alex Gilvarry was in the midst of a fashion emergency. Perusing the racks of Oak, a trendy boutique in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, he looked for a sweater to cover up a mustard stain on his plaid shirt. In a few hours, he would speak to M.F.A. students at Hunter College, his alma mater, and he didn’t want to look like a slob.
Unfolding a black sweater by Oak, Mr. Gilvarry, 30, was dismayed to find it cropped above the navel, a style that would not work on his 6-foot-3 frame. Nor would it cover up the mustard. “Oh well, it wasn’t on sale anyway,” he said.
Mr. Gilvarry hasn’t always shopped in boutiques — or worried about stains. A native of Staten Island who grew up shopping at malls, he didn’t much care about his wardrobe until he began writing his first novel, “From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant,” a satire of the fashion world and, improbably, Guantánamo Bay prison that will be published by Viking this month.
“My initial idea was to write about an artist from a superficial world thrown into a political world,” Mr. Gilvarry said. “That’s how I came up with Boy.”
Boy is Boyet Hernandez, the flamboyant Filipino “fashion terrorist” whom Mr. Gilvarry invented and who, he later learned, bears a striking resemblance to the real-life Bryan Boy, a flamboyant Filipino fashion blogger. A rising young designer, the fictitious Boy is mistaken for a terrorist and sent to Guantánamo, where he pens a memoir about the Williamsburg fashion scene, from 2002 to 2006, as well as the Philippines.
Although Mr. Gilvarry is half-Filipino, he did not travel to the Philippines until his mid-20s. The trip was an eye-opening experience that inspired him to write about someone from there. His foray into fashion was a bit trickier, though having Ashley Mears, a model turned sociology professor, as his longtime girlfriend helped.
Luckily, he could draw from his own adventures, having spent numerous Saturday nights during his college years riding the L train to the far reaches of Bushwick to attend loft parties with other aspiring artists.
Mr. Gilvarry places Boy in the center of the burgeoning scene, with his “size 30 skinny jeans” and his hair “classically fashioned after the major hip-hop artists of the 1980s.” He, too, rides the subway — “a rubber band of sexual tension, stretched and twined around the boroughs, ready to snap” — and watches as the young Brooklynites file off the L train “like cattle, their eyes drowned in eye shadow, looking as if they had never missed a party, nor would they.”
He learns that all the best parties take place in artists’ studios in abandoned factories, that red wine is best served in boxes, that cigarettes can be used as currency and that everyone sleeps with everyone else. “The designers, the stylists, the makeup artists, the bookers, the models, the photographers,” Mr. Gilvarry writes, “we were all part of an incestuous machine with one purpose: to create beauty.”
Soon Boy is among them, ensconced in a studio housed in a former toothpick factory, dating an experimental playwright (as well as a model or two), and mocking the preppy, second-wave gentrifiers, the “button-down nincompoops” who offend his sensibilities by spending their weekends in khakis and sweaters, wrinkled shirttails hanging out. A fellow designer warns Boy to avoid “conventional” at all costs, lest he end up with a career in bridal wear.
“Fashion is an easy target for comedy,” Mr. Gilvarry said.
A darker strain of comedy comes into play after Boy finds himself in Guantánamo. In an attempt to stay fashionably attired, Boy alters his orange prison-issued jumpsuit by removing the sleeves and tapering his pant legs. But while his eye for style won him friends in New York, he is mocked by the other prisoners and punished by the guards.
Mr. Gilvarry owes some of his light-and-dark satirical style to the novelist Gary Shteyngart, who was his teacher during his sophomore year at Hunter. At the time, Mr. Shteyngart was barely 30 and had just published his debut novel, “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook.” To Mr. Gilvarry and his classmates, the short, bearded Mr. Shteyngart looked more like a college student than the stuffy old novelist they had imagined.
“He made a big impression on me,” Mr. Gilvarry recalled. “Not only was he a working writer, he was writing books that I wanted to read.”
A few years later, when Mr. Gilvarry was pursuing his M.F.A. at Hunter, he was employed as Mr. Shteyngart’s research assistant as part of the school’s Hertog Fellowship, which pairs young writers with more established ones. Asked about his first impression of Mr. Gilvarry, Mr. Shteyngart wrote, via e-mail, “very tall!”
“And he knows how to write,” Mr. Shteyngart added. “So many of my women friends developed crushes on him. They called him the Mantern.”
Another mentor was Colum McCann, whose most recent novel, “Let the Great World Spin,” won the 2009 National Book Award. Mr. Gilvarry remembers bringing Mr. McCann the first 30 pages of his novel, and having it slashed to 2 pages.
“What I liked about Alex was that he was prepared to try,” Mr. McCann said. “He has an enormous desire, which is very important for a writer. Thankfully, he has equal amounts of humility as well. He’s the real deal.”
From :
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/fashion/alex-gilvarrys-first-novel-satirizes-fashion-and-politics.html?_r=1&ref=fashion
Unfolding a black sweater by Oak, Mr. Gilvarry, 30, was dismayed to find it cropped above the navel, a style that would not work on his 6-foot-3 frame. Nor would it cover up the mustard. “Oh well, it wasn’t on sale anyway,” he said.
Mr. Gilvarry hasn’t always shopped in boutiques — or worried about stains. A native of Staten Island who grew up shopping at malls, he didn’t much care about his wardrobe until he began writing his first novel, “From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant,” a satire of the fashion world and, improbably, Guantánamo Bay prison that will be published by Viking this month.
“My initial idea was to write about an artist from a superficial world thrown into a political world,” Mr. Gilvarry said. “That’s how I came up with Boy.”
Boy is Boyet Hernandez, the flamboyant Filipino “fashion terrorist” whom Mr. Gilvarry invented and who, he later learned, bears a striking resemblance to the real-life Bryan Boy, a flamboyant Filipino fashion blogger. A rising young designer, the fictitious Boy is mistaken for a terrorist and sent to Guantánamo, where he pens a memoir about the Williamsburg fashion scene, from 2002 to 2006, as well as the Philippines.
Although Mr. Gilvarry is half-Filipino, he did not travel to the Philippines until his mid-20s. The trip was an eye-opening experience that inspired him to write about someone from there. His foray into fashion was a bit trickier, though having Ashley Mears, a model turned sociology professor, as his longtime girlfriend helped.
Luckily, he could draw from his own adventures, having spent numerous Saturday nights during his college years riding the L train to the far reaches of Bushwick to attend loft parties with other aspiring artists.
Mr. Gilvarry places Boy in the center of the burgeoning scene, with his “size 30 skinny jeans” and his hair “classically fashioned after the major hip-hop artists of the 1980s.” He, too, rides the subway — “a rubber band of sexual tension, stretched and twined around the boroughs, ready to snap” — and watches as the young Brooklynites file off the L train “like cattle, their eyes drowned in eye shadow, looking as if they had never missed a party, nor would they.”
He learns that all the best parties take place in artists’ studios in abandoned factories, that red wine is best served in boxes, that cigarettes can be used as currency and that everyone sleeps with everyone else. “The designers, the stylists, the makeup artists, the bookers, the models, the photographers,” Mr. Gilvarry writes, “we were all part of an incestuous machine with one purpose: to create beauty.”
Soon Boy is among them, ensconced in a studio housed in a former toothpick factory, dating an experimental playwright (as well as a model or two), and mocking the preppy, second-wave gentrifiers, the “button-down nincompoops” who offend his sensibilities by spending their weekends in khakis and sweaters, wrinkled shirttails hanging out. A fellow designer warns Boy to avoid “conventional” at all costs, lest he end up with a career in bridal wear.
“Fashion is an easy target for comedy,” Mr. Gilvarry said.
A darker strain of comedy comes into play after Boy finds himself in Guantánamo. In an attempt to stay fashionably attired, Boy alters his orange prison-issued jumpsuit by removing the sleeves and tapering his pant legs. But while his eye for style won him friends in New York, he is mocked by the other prisoners and punished by the guards.
Mr. Gilvarry owes some of his light-and-dark satirical style to the novelist Gary Shteyngart, who was his teacher during his sophomore year at Hunter. At the time, Mr. Shteyngart was barely 30 and had just published his debut novel, “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook.” To Mr. Gilvarry and his classmates, the short, bearded Mr. Shteyngart looked more like a college student than the stuffy old novelist they had imagined.
“He made a big impression on me,” Mr. Gilvarry recalled. “Not only was he a working writer, he was writing books that I wanted to read.”
A few years later, when Mr. Gilvarry was pursuing his M.F.A. at Hunter, he was employed as Mr. Shteyngart’s research assistant as part of the school’s Hertog Fellowship, which pairs young writers with more established ones. Asked about his first impression of Mr. Gilvarry, Mr. Shteyngart wrote, via e-mail, “very tall!”
“And he knows how to write,” Mr. Shteyngart added. “So many of my women friends developed crushes on him. They called him the Mantern.”
Another mentor was Colum McCann, whose most recent novel, “Let the Great World Spin,” won the 2009 National Book Award. Mr. Gilvarry remembers bringing Mr. McCann the first 30 pages of his novel, and having it slashed to 2 pages.
“What I liked about Alex was that he was prepared to try,” Mr. McCann said. “He has an enormous desire, which is very important for a writer. Thankfully, he has equal amounts of humility as well. He’s the real deal.”
From :
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/fashion/alex-gilvarrys-first-novel-satirizes-fashion-and-politics.html?_r=1&ref=fashion
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