For the second day in a row, WWD was scooped by The New York Times’s Bill Cunningham. As www.fashionweekdaily.com noted yesterday, on Monday, January 3rd, WWD ran a pictorial called, ‘Fur for All’ which showed images of various socialites and celebs donning those ubiquitous small fur pieces (chubbies, capelets, boleros) during the recent round of holiday parties. It seemed to be practically the same idea (almost the same furs and in one instance, the very same person – Sally Albemarle) already recorded by Bill Cunningham in his Sunday, December 26th ‘On The Street’ column.
And today, there is a double page spread in WWD, ‘Pink Chic’ which literally follows by two days, Bill’s Sunday, January 2nd column, ‘In the Pink’. I can’t wait to see what WWD features tomorrow.
Posted by Marilyn Kirschner
Speaking of the fashion world’s mental health issues…
I’m constantly amazed and struck by the completely contradictory and paradoxical nature of life, something that is especially obvious within the elitist world of fashion. But hey, let’s be honest. Don’t we all suffer from episodes of fashion schizophrenia? Most of us have more than just one fashion personality lurking inside; we are all asked to wear many ‘hats’ (business woman, executive, mom, wife, lover, daughter, friend, chef, party planner, shrink, etc.) and we all have many different sides, moods, needs, and creative outlets. Part of the job of fashion (and the fun, quite frankly) is to help us tap into these different sides, express ourselves, and dress for whoever we are, whoever we have to be, whoever we want to be.
Fashion schizophrenia is something that is actually nurtured and encouraged by an ever changing and contradictory fashion world, inhabited by designers who constantly go back and forth between often opposing fashion ideologies and philosophies- changing their minds and contradicting themselves from one season- or one moment- to the next.
Interestingly, (or should I say, paradoxically) one of the most CONSISTENT fashion designers of all time- the late and great Geoffrey Beene who passed away last year, was sometimes inconsistent and highly contradictory himself. This is something that did not go unnoticed by his heir apparent, Swedish born Einar Holiloekk, who is carrying on the label. (His first collection on his own will unveil during New York Fashion Week, at an informal presentation held in the company’s west 57th street atelier).
Mr. Holiloekk confessed that Mr. Beene was often “a little bit all over the place”. “You couldn’t pin him down. He would always change. But perhaps, that was his strength – he was actually quite smart”. This was also easily explained by Einar, who observed that as a couture designer, Mr. Beene had to “address the different needs of his customer” as she went from day to night, from city to country, from work to play (and what could be more contradictory and schizophrenic than that?) Thus for every pant, there was a skirt and for everything long there was something short, for everything stiff and tailored, there was something soft, floating, and ethereal. For every outfit that could be used as a daily, no nonsense ‘uniform’, there was something extravagant and highly special.
And although pants figured prominently into Geoffrey’s repertoire (not to mention the fact that he made some of the most memorable jumpsuits around), he nonetheless went on record with his disdain for pants, preferring to see women’s legs. In fact, he was quoted as saying, “I believe by the 21st century women will be wearing pants and I honestly hope I won’t be there to see it.”
-Posted by Marilyn Kirschner
