Iris Apfel, fashion icon, (left) seems to be a big fan of the idea of fashion-policing. Speaking to The Independent this week, the 90 year-old said:
“It seems that the fatter and uglier people are, the fewer clothes they wear. The shorts and flip-flops and tight jeans on butts that go from here to Poughkeepsie. I always say they should put people in jail for wearing clothes like that. Especially stretch jeans over size 10 — they should be outlawed. Ten years ago people were starting to look like slobs in New York, now it’s an epidemic.”
Iris, we’re doing our best to fight the good fight against bad fashion. No stretch jeans for anyone over size 10, though? We doubt our jail is big enough, even if we agreed with you!*
(Does this photo make anyone else fall off their seat laughing, or is it just us? Why is that one model knocking herself on the head? Is the one in red trying to grope her?)
The whole designer capsule collection is something The Fashion Police have never really been able to fake a lot of enthusiasm over. Honestly, we get exhausted just thinking about them: all of that frenzied shopping, the getting up at the crack o’dawn to line up outside H&M, or wherever, just so you can buy exactly the same items as the hundreds of other girls all lined up outside H&M and type the word “SQUEEE!” a few dozen times on Twitter when you finally manage to get your hands on something that is OMGDESIGNER: exhausting. And the fact that the “hero” items (dontchya just hate that term?) sell on eBay for just as much as something from the designer’s main line? Madness. Utter, Fashion Victim madness.
Anyway, all of this is academic in the case of the Giambattista Valli for Macy’s collection, because we don’t have Macy’s here in the UK. This is a shame, because if we DID have easy access to this collection then we, too, would be able to dance on a table in head-to-toe leopard print:
It would allow us to put our hands in the air, like we just don’t care! In, er, MORE leopard print:
But, of course, we can’t do any of this, because we live in the UK, and will only be able to buy these pieces on eBay, for the price of a small car. Thus, our lives will be empty and meaningless from this moment on, while our American officers are the ones who will dance on the tables:
We want to cry at the injustice of it all.
On a serious note, though: what do you think of this collection? Will you be buying any of it?
Remember bootcut jeans? Of course you do. In fact, chances are you still have at least one pair squirrelled away somewhere, and even although the skinny still reigns supreme in the denim world – for now – you’re hoping the day will come when we can all toss those tight jeans aside and get back into bootcut. Maybe that day has already come for you? Maybe you never made the switch to skinny, and have clung onto your trusty bootcuts, regardless of the vagaries of fashion trends telling you it’s time to get into wide legs, flares, or any other cut of denim. Jennifer Aniston is still wearing bootcuts, after all, so why shouldn’t you?
How do we know all this? Well, partly because we’re The Fashion Police, and it’s our job to know these things obviously. But also because we climb inside your closet at night while you’re asleep this week eBay released an infographic showing how jeans sales on the auction site have panned out over the past year. The results are not the least bit surprising: every time we write about the Battle of the Denim, you tell us you HATE skinny jeans, and LOVE bootcut. And the results of eBay’s research definitely reflect that:
Jean Sales on eBay in the Past Year:
1. BOOTCUT: 793,289
2. STRAIGHT LEG: 215,353
3. SKINNY JEANS: 214,405
So more than twice as many pairs of bootcut jeans as skinnies were sold, and skinny jeans didn’t even make it to second place on the list: straight leg jeans did.
Surprised? We’re not. While we personally prefer skinnies (Yes, we know, it’s shocking), we know that our readers have always tended to express a preference for bootcut styles, feeling that they’re more flattering to most figures. So we’re mostly just surprised that retailers and designers haven’t been taking that on board: we’d imagine one of the reasons people are buying so many pairs of bootcut jeans from eBay is because they’re not exactly easy to find in regular stores, with the balance skewed heavily in favour of skinnies, or whatever that seasons flavour of the month is. (This season: flares.)
(Actually, scratch that bit about designers. We’re not surprised AT ALL that designers aren’t making clothes which flatter people’s bodies, and which women actually want to wear. If they were, this site wouldn’t exist.)
So tell us: do you favour bootcut jeans over the other styles available? Why?
This week, certain sectors of the UK media were absolutely astonished by the news that Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, has been spotted doing a bit of shopping at her local Topshop, in Kensington.
Honestly, we’re mostly just amazed by the amazement. If she’s anything like any other British girl – and, small matter of being married to a Prince aside, the evidence so far would seem to suggest that she IS – Kate probably grew up shopping at Topshop, just like the rest of us did. Why would she stop now, just because she’s suddenly filthy rich. If YOU were rich, would you walk past Topshop on your way home, without so much as a glance? We wouldn’t. Sure, it would be great to be able to hit up the designer boutiques any time you wanted, but clothes are clothes, and we’re pleased to see that Kate apparently isn’t a clothes snob, because that’s the first stop on the fasttrack to Fashion Victim Central, as we all know.
Anyway, during her “spree” – if three items can be called that – the Duchess bought a teal pencil skirt (£38), and velvet trim boucle jacket (£65), and a pair of earrings. We have no idea how much the earrings cost, but probably around £10? Who knows.
Only the jacket was still available on the Topshop website at the time of writing, and we’d imagine that will sell out soon, the fashion world being what it is. (What it is = lots of women all desperate to wear exactly the same thing as each other, and as the Duchess of Cambridge.) You may still be able to find the items in question in-store, though, should you want to. Do you?
Straw poll, jurors: Topman have withdrawn this shirt following complaints. Is it offensive? Should they have withdrawn it?
What about this one, which has also been withdrawn?
The objections being voiced about this shirt centre around the idea that the thing being apologised for is domestic violence. We have to admit, that was the impression we got from it too, although we saw this for the first time already knowing that it had been withdrawn following a Twitter storm, and that may well have coloured our views.
Topman’s statement:
“We have received some negative feedback regarding two of our printed T-shirts. Whilst we would like to stress that these T-shirts were meant to be light-hearted and carried no serious meaning we have made the decision to remove these from store and online as soon as possible. We would like to apologise to those who may have been offended by these designs.”
What do you think: do either of these offend you? Should they have been withdrawn?
We don’t normally feature magazine spreads here, because, well, we figure that’s what the magazines themselves are for, but we couldn’t resist this time, because we absolutely love these photos of Michelle Williams, shot by Annie Leibovitz for the October edition of Vogue.
Michelle plays Marilyn Monroe in the new film, My Week With Marilyn, and channels the blonde bombshell perfectly in these images, thus guaranteeing that we’ll watch the film for the fashion alone.
The October issue of US Vogue is on news-stands from September 22nd.
Memebers of Westbro Baptist Church staged a protest against Fashion Week outside Lincoln Centre this weekend, before rolling the hate wagon onwards to protest at 9/11 memorials. Yeah, nice folks. So Christian!
Their spokesman, Steve Drain, had this message for the fashion lovers of the world:
“The whole thing is vanity! You’re going to teach the women, especially the young women of this country, to doll themselves up … All you are doing is teaching girls to be proud whores! The whole idea [of the] fashion industry is to make women look as whorish as possible and men look as effeminate at possible. Put some jeans on and fear God. Forget about all this fashion nonsense.”
So that told US, then! Putting jeans on now! God forbid people get… DOLLED UP!
Westbro also hate “fags”, women, and, well, just about everyone, basically. More reasonable Christian groups must be banging their heads off their desks right now and cursing them for preaching the exact OPPOSITE of love and tolerance.
We would say more about this – and honestly, the fashion-related comments are by far the LEAST offensive part of this group’s message, as you can see from the image above – but honestly, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, wouldn’t it? After all, they’re doing such a good job of discrediting themselves that our work here is done…
The designer, who claims not to remember the incidents, was given a suspended fine of €6,000: he was also ordered to pay €16,500 in court fees, as well as a symbolic euro to each of his targets, and to five anti-racism groups.
So, what now for Galliano? He’s already been sacked by Dior: can his career ever recover, or does his personal life and behaviour have no bearing on his standing as a fashion designer?
Iris Apfel, fashion icon, (left) seems to be a big fan of the idea of fashion-policing. Speaking to The Independent this week, the 90 year-old said:
