Favorite of the Day: Giambattista Valli

After I posted this, one of my friends was surprised. Are you endorsing [glitter pants]? My response was simple.

Yes. Yes I am.

And now, with the Giambattista Valli collection shown yesterday, I appear to be endorsing sheer bottoms as well.

Paris makes me do funny things.


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The Laptop Bag

In college, I never owned a bag for my laptop. It was carelessly thrown into my backpack with Locke and Rich and Organic Chemistry textbooks. Power cords tangled with headphone cords. Scratches and pen marks littered the casing. It wasn’t until I started to commute from Brooklyn to Greenwich, CT in the winter of 2006 that I bought a real one. Gotten at a proper office store, it was pink and resembled a large, structured purse. It knocked into people on the 4 train. It sat on the floor of the Metro North. Its straps dug into my shoulder. I loved it. It made me feel like the grownup I barely was.

But it always seemed a bit fake to me. I was playing at a game. And when that job ended, the bag settled into the corner of my apartment stowing bills and miscellaneous papers. It has continued to do so for over two and a half years. It wasn’t until the early months of 2008 that I found its more appropriate replacement.


Yes, it is sitting atop The Coat. It's having an early showing due to the unseasonably warm weather. My green, swing coat peeked out briefly on Sunday.

Like almost all of the favorites, I happened upon this bag by chance. Temping in Manhattan, I had been sent on an errand to pick up a package at the post office. Through no fault of my own, I had to return to our office sans package and then once again head out to the post office. I was annoyed by the second trip, and on my way back with package finally in tow, I naughtily stopped into Brooklyn Industries.

The Laptop Bag was on final sale, and so I spent a good ten minutes considering it. Did I need it? I had a perfectly good laptop bag collecting dust next to my slowly growing mountain of fashion magazines. But the strap on this one looked more comfortable. The pockets were more accessible. Its slimness would make knocking people out on the subway virtually impossible, but it could probably still pack a punch if the need ever arose to use it in such a way. And the pattern made it youthful. I wouldn’t appear to be quite so serious. I tended to have a problem with that.

I still do.

I bought it and snuck back into the office where I hid the shopping bag in the bottom of a desk drawer. I carried the new bag out as if I had had it with me the entire time. No one noticed a thing.

Favorite of the Day: Martin Grant

I may have a penchant for Martin Grant's Fall/Winter 2010 collection because the dress I finally wore on New Year's Eve, though strapless, resembled the following one in shape, length and color.

Or it could be the limited palette, clean lines, and utter chicness of it all.

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Favorite of the Day: Isabel Marant

Until recently, I didn't know much about Isabel Marant. I sometimes came across the name while making my way through my daily blog reading, but it wasn't until I saw a pair of boots on Jak+Jil that I started paying attention to the brand. Not readily available here in the United States, the brand has a mystique surrounding it.

It's all Paris. All cool. All everything some American girls want to be.


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Favorite of the Day: Balmain

It takes a lot to push me out of my comfort zone. Once while standing outside of a restaurant, I mentioned to an acquaintance that someone teased me mildly about the fact that I always seem to wear navy. Oh honey I was going to tell you, but I wasn't sure if you knew or not.

This expands far beyond colors, but that's a story for another post.

But in Paris, the shows are always able to push me out of that space. Today it was Balmain making me set aside my issues with animal prints and suits and tightness and sexiness.

There are a lot of issues to set aside.


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Favorite of the Day: Dries Van Noten

As usual, after experiencing a certain amount of fashion fatigue post-Milan, my attention was refocused by the first crop of shows from Paris.

Dries Van Noten is one of the few designers with the ability to take the trends and emotions of a season and make them look innovative in a way that others cannot.

This season he did it with the military trend.


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The Leftovers: New York Fashion Week FW10

I came away from the end of New York Fashion Week feeling many things. Giddy that I was able to watch so many shows live from the comfort of my leggings and tees. Unsurprised by the continued exploration of the 1990s. Disturbed by the return of velvet. And a bit overwhelmed by the amount of fur.

The fur was everywhere. Covering entire sleeves of blazers. On booties and stilettos. Sprouting from purses. On collars and hems. At times the models seemed to be surrounded. Engulfed. Drowning in it.

Personally I don't wear fur. I eat meat, wear leather, and sometimes carry around a gray snakeskin clutch that was given to me as a Christmas gift by the people I worked with during my internship, therefore I don't like to spend my time sitting on some metaphorical high ground and judging those who do choose to wear it. That would be silly and hypocritical of me. My confusion about its use originated elsewhere.

Fur is one of those items that has never descended from its luxury perch. Hard to imitate convincingly and prohibitively expensive, only the rarefied few, or those willing to throw themselves into debt, could afford such things. And after a few seasons of pulling back, practicing restraint, focusing on the marketable and the sellable, it looks as if the industry tired of such shackles. Fur was how they let themselves go a bit. To definitely separate what they do from the fast fashion that they sometimes embrace. To reassert the luxury of it all.

I'm not surprised. Muting yourself never lasts all that long. But maybe The New Luxe is a bit premature. I walked down Newbury Street yesterday only to see more storefronts shuttered. Brands still find themselves on the verge of closing. But I might be wrong. It's possible that if one chants Everything's getting better enough times and tries to return to the time of decadence then the money and the jobs and the carefree attitude will follow.

It's likely that I'm being a pessimist and not a realist.

But enough of that. On to the clothes.

There were some instances where I appreciated the fur accents. Complimenting instead of overwhelming the clothes and accessories they trimmed and the girls that wore them.

At Oscar de la Renta

At J. Mendel

At Thakoon

At Peter Som

Outside of fur, fur and more fur, there was a continuation of many of the trends seen in the spring collections. Neutrals, sheer accents and shots of prints didn't disappear from the landscape but joining them were the other big trends of the season.

As I mentioned in my second Favorite of the Day for this season, the early 90s are firmly here. It's unsurprising considering that that last decade of the previous century started over 20 years ago.

You could see it everywhere.

From the varying schoolgirls...

At DKNY

At Peter Jensen

At Rachel Comey

At Rag & Bone

At Marc by Marc Jacobs

To the plaids of grunge...

At Jill Stuart

To the cut out...

At Preen

To the chunky heels...

At Proenza Schouler

To the fanny pack...

At Tibi

To the occasional pair of biker shorts.

At William Rast

The military trend, which first made an appearance in the Pre-Fall 2010 collections, continued to gather strength whether directly referenced or, in most cases, merely suggested in the tailoring and styling.

At Ports 1961

At Nanette Lepore

At L'Wren Scott

At Michael Kors

At Rag & Bone

But through the curtains of these major trends, a new decade was peeking through.

At ADAM

At Peter Som

Make way for the 1970s.


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