Gender
In Lieu of All Else Red Lipstick
feature · September 30, 2008 · 0 Comments
Austerity at Bruno Pieters
feature, Designer · September 29, 2008 · 0 Comments
Bruno Pieters' austere geometry had little in common with the cheerful Lie Sang Bong's studied precision, his Spring 2009 collection had a kind of strict tailoring that came close to being a dour rebuke of the female form with boxy coats and square shoulders. This is not to say that the collection did not have a lot of sex appeal, even with precise cuts and a monochromatic palette we still got to see a lot of leg. But that kind of crisp sexuality is enough of a throwback to 80s power dressing to make it feel not precisely modern. Though admittedly we like the collection enough to see ourselves in it but we will fully admit we have throwback tastes from time to time.
Kris Van Assche's Gendered Uniform
feature, Designer · September 28, 2008 · 0 Comments
Kris Van Assche has said in relation to his own vision of menswear that he is repelled by the "uniformization of sportswear" and yet his womenswear has the distinct feel of being something of a uniform, indeed his Spring 2009 collection was very much the modernist attire of the Antwerp School.
Slim yet unrestricted, simple and and unassuming, the collection was nonetheless exactly the sort of garb a commanding creative woman has taken to be her own. It is almost a cliché at times as we have come to accept a kind of darkly dressed dominant heroine as the acceptable way of appropriating the signals of a man's authority for our own. And few designers are more qualified to riff on the shared set of gender power references in dressing than Kris Van Assche.
Paneled vest like tops, brooding oversized sweaters, Spring 2009's obligatory voluminous sheers and thankfully menswear touches with louche suit jackets made for a collection that we find vastly appealing both in its own right and as the kind of wardrobe we too wish to appropriate in our own struggles towards expressing the allure and power of the modern feminine.
The Perfect Plan: Spring Blazers Into Fall
June 26, 2008 · 0 Comments
This season, the choices for blazers are plentiful. The best part? You can wear them straight through the fall season. Blazers are undeniably making a comeback and it's not just the long lean sort either. Whether it's a marching band-style coat or a sleek smoking jacket, the silhouettes options are dynamic. Perhaps because we've been immersed in menswear lately, we've been getting pretty excited about this diversity. For the long and lean sort, Stella McCartney's single button coat is certainly versatile enough for all of your Fall needs (and, it comes in a few different colors). Georgio Armani's herringbone jacket has us thinking of cropped equestrian-like outfits and the length, thankfully, perfect paired with high waist shorts. Also, covetable are the slouchy versions. Alexander Wang's boyfriend blazer would leave room for t-shirts and loose tops and would sling inside your purse for those mid-season changes in weather. The conclusion, we've some great options.
Pink For Spring!
June 26, 2008 · 0 Comments
Even though it feels like women's collections are frequently being slated as menswear inspired, sometimes it's the other way around. This men's collections for Spring 09, so far, have shown quite a lot of pink. From Calvin Klein to Louis Vuitton to Moschino, it seems the boys just aren't afraid of the color most commonly associated with, well, princesses.
In the Moschino show, the models were proper gentlemen in red checked suiting sometimes accented with a pink prints or blocks of color. As for Calvin Klein, the statement was more sharp, when pink came down the runway in neon suiting. Among a signature black and white palette, one pink suit (there were other neons as well) made a statement about the possibility that a slick, serious Klein customer doesn't worry too much about the gender of color. Louis Vuitton effortlessly included pink as well, in the show it was used confidently from head to toe on more than just one look. So it seems a strong trend for menswear in Spring 09 and one that just maybe isn't that big of a deal. Typically, when we talk about androgyny, we're talking about women dressing like men, and in this case, it's just the other way around. No big thing. I Enjoy Being A Girl
June 26, 2008 · 1 Comment
We might be on a bit of an estrogen overdrive thanks the menswear being shown in Milan this week. This is making us exceptional prone to cooing over the silliest of girly accoutrements. Community member Fashionation has an entire post about bows that set us over the edge of feminine sanity. She has an entire collection of bows for her hair that just made us squeal like schoolgirls. But its not all giggles and tea time, serious fashion designers like Diane Von Furstenberg have been showing bows in their resort collections. Thus in the spirit of being a girl we have picked a few bow accessories for your enjoyment and a little video ditty to express just how pleased we are to be the fairer sex!
Playing By A Different Set Of Rules
June 24, 2008 · 0 Comments
We're noticing a trend more significant than black rimmed glasses cropping up in Milan. That is, diversity. Not the typical hand-picked representative sample of one beautiful model for every ethnicity, but a downright street-style version of diversity, culminating with this guy. No, we are not the only one's who haven't a clue what to do with the discrepancy between the women's and men's castings. This week, aside from Westwood's beefcake superstar, Etro showed a few models post-midlife crisis, not a new concept but certainly something you don't see in women's wear (the women's standard is, what, 21?). We can't wait for that controversial Vogue Italia issue to come out and 'wow' everyone with its drop dead gorgeous models of color. Wouldn't it be a perfect world if the women's wear side of the ball game just shut their mouths and put models like these guys on the runway? Oh wait, same designers...Eulogy, Obiturary, or Elegie?
June 2, 2008 · 0 Comments
The wider fashion press is likely to spend most of today memorializing one of fashion's true greats. Yves Saint Laurent died at his home in Paris late Sunday at 71 after a long, undisclosed illness. We here at Coutorture feel a great burden upon us as we discuss this life, for after all what can we say that you cannot hear elsewhere in the news media?
We do not doubt that all of the blogosphere will be buzzing for days to come. We wish we knew in our sadness over this passing what it is we should say. Should we focus on a straight obituary? Published biographies recounting the lives of those who have recently died have value no doubt. But certainly you can learn just as much from a wikipedia page.
Perhaps a eulogy would be more appropriate? We come here not to bury Yves Saint Laurent but to praise him? There is much to be said about Yves's incredible innovations, his work in the acceptance of ready to wear as a viable form of fashion for instance, his smoking jackets, his ever ingenious ability with menswear as womenswear, and yet we must assume that our readers are well aware of these praise worthy facts.
We imagine then perhaps our musings are more on the line of an elegy. The term "elegy" was originally used for a type of poetic metre (Elegiac metre), but is also used for a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegos, a reflection on the death of someone or on a sorrow generally. We cannot say we are much for poetry but we are certainly musing.
And so we have decided to leave you with another last form writing on death. The funeral oration is a storied tradition in classicism given by many a great leader. The true original oration came from one Pericles of Athens after the first year of the Peloponnesian War. In it, as Pericles mourns Athen's war dead, a vision of the Athenian people is given. Should you choose, you can read it in its entirety here. Pericles proposes to focus on "the road by which we reached our position, the form of government under which our greatness grew, and the national habits out of which it sprang."
Thus you can see why an ancient Greek funeral oration may have some use to grieving fashion lovers. Yves Saint Laurent embodies much of modern fashion history. Fashion today exists from the road laid by this great designer. Eulogies, obituaries, and even elegies are essentially the orations of our collective media painting a picture of who we are as fashion lovers and where we came from. Like Pericles, we may be mourning the passing of Yves Saint Laurent but we are also seeing our own fashion lineage and preparing for our fashion future.
Yves Saint Laurent once said "I tried to show that fashion is an art. For that, I followed the counsel of my master Christian Dior and the imperishable lesson of Mademoiselle Chanel. I created for my era and I tried to foresee what tomorrow would be." (1983)You're So Money
May 30, 2008 · 0 Comments
Men may be the new women but we love it even more when women are the new men. Community member Blooming Lily wrote up some darling Looka money clips that got us started on our latest women co-opting menswear kick. After all we constantly have loose dollar bills running around our giant Gucci tote (and we constantly make cracks about going to Scores because of it) thus we ask why settle for cute girly money clips when you can have hot masculine ones?
An alligator money clip from Brooks Brothers turns us on even more than the feminine counterpart from Nancy Gonzales (and its cheaper). We found options from skull money clips to Swiss army knife clips. But don't worry we threw in a few more feminine options just in case.
Roberto Cavalli
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