Black & White (Tongue in Cheek)

Cute, from Anna Kendrick's SNL:

Never thought I'd write this:

Too Many Polka Dots!!!

After stripes, its all about polka dots for me.

Yes, my taste can be a little twee.

Anne Hathaway, famously Rachel Zoe's client, has switched stylists around the New Year, just in time for the Oscars.  Say what you will about Zoe or her personal appearance (steadily 70s disco glam with pants hemmed too long) she has an impeccable eye. The year when Hathaway co-hosted the Oscars with James Franco, Rachel Zoe supplied her client with a mostly fantastic line up of dresses that almost - almost! - withstood the shit storm around Franco's horrific appearance.

Then came 2013 Oscars when Hathaway won for that French Revolution Warbling Musical that I, snob that I am, refuse to name. The gossip was that the day of ceremony she found out that another actress from same film is wearing a dress from the same collection as she was planning to, strikingly similar to hers. Hathaway panicked and ended up switching, last minute, to this pepto inanity, wrinkly and needle-boobed:

And just so, Zoe was gone.
Penny Lovell (rumored) was in.
Since then Hathaway's casual style has become funkier and really fun, but her big gun formal gowns suffered, like this snooze fest, at the last Oscars, the first a little to Xena, Warrior Princess (but still ok), the second a Florida socialite in her 60s:

And so we're back to top-to-bottom polka dots. A polka dot dress? YEEES. A polka dot pant? Sure. But not top and pant. That's just blah styling.

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing after all. Dot.

In Praise of the Color Orange - Scarves (Last & Final)

Ladies, the one item in our wardrobe where color is the easiest to incorporate, which we can remove and hide away with ease no matter how small the bag we are carrying - the scarf.

Oddly enough there were few truly excellent orange scarves. Here's what I've come up with:

The best - McQ:

Summery and ethnic:

Summery and New York:

Truly orange, and up there:

Same - just as lovely, just as up there:

Gap!

When a Good Look goes Unfinished:

Faith Hill wore this Saint Laurent to the Academy (ahem ) Country Music Awards:

Great, interesting color and even the cut of the gown is good. Why doesn't it look at stunning as it should, ye ask?

The proportions are such that the top appears too blousy for her small frame and she ends up looking disproportionally bigger on the top than on the bottom. This is a case of a dress in dire need of a black belt.

Imagine it with the following cinched across the waist:

Much better.

Hill's stylist (Petra Flannery, one of the top 25 stylists) should have known better than send a client down the red carpet in an under-styled look.

And don't get me ranting about her hair. Grrrrrr.

Seasonal Needs & Wants: Trench Coat

The trench ranks up there with the most iconic looks of all time, and one of the least susceptible to changing times and fashions:

Personally, I prefer the trench's more utilitarian cousin - the anorak. With its hood and full-on water resistance, I feel it serves my needs better. But I am fully on board with the desire for the classic trench. It is the ultimate uptown look and it beckons.

I've organized  my finds in three categories by price, in a descending order: Dream, Want, Have. Ladies, we are all on some kind of a budget. That does not mean you can't dress well. I firmly believe that craftiness and solid research will make even the tightest budget work. 

Classic Tan Trench:

1) Dream, by Barneys:

Or Burberry, the classic­est trench there is:

2) Want,(still up there), from APC:

3) Have, from Bluefly (an online store that is great for discounted coats, if they got your size!), by Cole Haan:

Classic Black Trench:

An otion I would strongly suggest for those who travel. Black is a much more forgiving color.

1) Dream, by Burberry:

2) Want, by Mackage:

3) Have, by DKNY (again from Bluefly):

Not-so-Classic Trench:

Sometimes, even a classic can be punched up.

Rick Owens, the master of edgy anddark:

Leather sleeves, by Mackage:

Adorably prim:

The Ultimate: A Perfect White Button-Down Shirt

Take a men’s staple and make it your own.

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!). 

Recommendation:

Ultimate White Shirt:

But what to do for affordable white shirts, you may ask? Uniqlo. As in this one:

Seeking encouragement

in a fortune cookie message:

Chinese take-out dinner was not only delicious but profound as well.