No, this is hardly fashion news – Coco, yeah, the original one, made
that principle the foundation of her line. Crisp, simple white shirts have been
showing up on ladies ever since, to iconic results:
Even icons need to be updated,
ladies. So: What makes the ultimate white shirt of today?
The determining factors of the
shirt are as follows:
Fabric weight
Cut
Collar
No more and no less. I strenuously
object to chest pockets on women shirts – who with a bust needs that? I also
vote for decently opaque color – this is not the garment to get nasty with.
Research:
I could not think of a better place
to research this than La Garconne, a NY store that specializes in
directional clothing, fashion that is stark and bold in its daring simplicity. The
look of the moment for them requires a smaller pointed collar, straight and
even boxy fit, light weight fabric – like so:
For me, however, that cut is
problematic – you can only wear it loose, slung over a tight pencil skirt,
teetering in ski high stilletoes. Pair
it with anything else and you look dowdy, unintentionally so.
Their other offerings, while nice,
are too close to a blouse, a whole different species. As in this:
Blouses can be easier on the wearer
than the shirt – they are slouchier, require less posture, less control. But
every now and then any career woman needs to exhibit strength, and for that a
blouse is sadly insufficient. The ultimate white shirt you don when you need
an armor – like a gladiator in a white shirt (Olivia Pope, I’m looking at you!).
N. needed to create looks for the many appearances she has coming up - some TV, talks, meetings. The guidlines were simple:
- clean, strong lines
- a bit edgy, to mirror her personal style
- feminine but not frilly
- every outfit needed to have a punctuation by way of an orange element.
SaksFifth was geographically desirable.
All in all, I think it was a successful hunt. Here's what we've come up with:
Look 1:
3.1 Philip Lim - a complete look that can be separated into a top and a skirt, basic black but with a point of visual interest thanks to the perforation and the strong shoulder line:
Earrings:
I would suggest pairing with orange shoes to amp things up.
Look 2:
Top 3.1 Philiip Lim:
Skirt: DVF:
Shoes, Sophia Webster - notice the orange line!:
Necklace:
Look 3:
Top, Rebecca Taylor:
Rag & Bone Jumpsuit:
Same shoes as above. Total hotness. Pair with a black blazer and you have smooth professionalism with a creative twist. And that is what all these looks are about.
Orange Necklaces - a perfectly punchy punctuation mark of pungent color, not too much but just enough to remind you that it is spring, and that somewhere, if not in Boston, orange trees are blossoming. Because orange is:
I love Alexis Bittar's stuff, and this is no exception:
----- DO NOT READ if you don’t want to know what happens ------
Finished watching season 2
yesterday. The finale was the best episode of the season after the stunningly surprising
season opener, but lest this sentence fools you, let me assure you that
neither I nor the husband liked season 2.
How come, you may ask, given the
awesome actors and the established greatness of season 1? They lost me, at
least, at hello. When Frank (FU as he is
known by his cufflinks) shoves Zoe under the train, barely disguised in clothes
that seem borrowed from the set of the original “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,”
his character, I would suggest to you, meine Damen, jumps the shark. It
simply makes no sense within the carefully crafted realism of the first season
to have a wanna-be president commit murder by his own hand. That’s what he has lackeys
for. From that point on most of the
season spun into caricature, with all the characters, central as well as peripheral,
acting beyond reason and beyond pre-established conventions.
"House of Cards" was a show where suspension of disbelief
needed to be calibrated carefully, so as not to lose tethering to reality. It
was not, manifestly, “Scandal,” with its deliberately campy, daytime drama take
on the White House. No, “House of Cards”, from its muted palette opening shots,
advertised itself as a better framed reality. That mandate, if you ask me, was
shattered in the very first episode of season 2, not to be regained.
If Frank showed little sympathetic
humanity in Season One, all traces of it were leached out of him in this
season. But the biggest change was in the depiction of Claire. Season One
positioned her as complex and ambivalent, a woman whose armor-like stunning
outfits sometimes gave a glimpse of the vulnerability beneath. Season Two
Claire was never vulnerable, not even when she confessed to rape and abortion –
a confession that was all cold political calculation. Even her wardrobe
suffered, and most of her clothes this season were dull and forgettable. In her
stead it was Jackie Sharp’s character that played her old role, a
personification of the uneasy relationship women often have with naked ambition. Jackie
even wore the same dresses as Claire did in Season One, underscoring the changing
of the guard.
Claire, on the other hand, became a
caricaturistic Lady Macbeth. When, in the last episode, she cried over the
breakdown of her bill, the woman she enlisted to help with it, and the loss of
her earlier self the tears looked forced, fake, fleeting. There was one nice touch, though – as she
hauled her suitcase up the stairs we saw the red soles of her Louboutins – a reminder
of the blood she stepped in, like the imaginary blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands. Closing
that arc, during the swearing in, Claire covered her blood stained hands with
gloves (in a look reminiscent of Michelle Obama's latest inauguration outfit, where she wore oxblood gloves).
The most unnecessary story in this
season was that of Rachel, the former hooker, and Doug Stamper, Frank’s chief
of staff. Why did we need so much viewing time spent on a trite and tired pulpy
motif? We should have gotten more of Jackie and Remy whose relationship
encapsulated the dangers of ambition and power much more potently (and by
hotter actors).
Ultimately, the question that needs
to be asked is this: What was the second season of “House of Cards” all about and how
did it reflect present day American reality? The husband suggested that
insomuch as television, at its best or worst, is a wish fulfillment, a mirror
held up to the present, then “House of Cards” tells us that we have lost all
faith in government. A man who was never elected to be either Vice President OR
President moves from becoming, over a short period of time, one and then the
other. His climb to the highest position in 'the free world' is littered with dead bodies, literal, not figurative. Is
this how we see the presidency? Was this show, the husband asked, written by a
Republican? J
So, okay, every now and then even Miley Cyrus (wash hands and eyes ladies!) can wear something great. There was this:
The dress was a vintage Gaultier, which was amazing enuff, but there was also that awesome Chanel choker, proving that Kaiser Karl still got it:
As a kid who grew up - sartorially - in the late 80s and early 90s, I've never been able to get over big costume jewelry and especially collar necklaces. In an old cigar box (itself a relic from a time long gone) I still have among my other youthful treasures a brass ring collar with a cross. Oyi wey! NK, what would your ma in law say to that??
So here is a 'version' of the banging (given Miley's presence in this post, this work seemed appropriate) Chanel, and at $34 it is perfectly affordable! Me want.
And for your Nostalgic Friday enjoyment - George Michael at his heyday and the original supermodel squad:
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