Karl Lagerfeld

There is always a problem when you get to know the personality behind creative ventures that you like. You wouldn’t necessarily have wanted to be friends with Jane Austen or Shakespeare, and I can think of many examples of writers who, thanks to the new information culture, I know more about than I could and still enjoy their work.

Obviously the same will go for designers. We accept a lot and work under a little denial when it comes to fashion because it’s part of what makes it fun. When you see the back end of something beautiful it often involves a lot of hard work and even some dirty practices. That’s been discussed a lot when it comes to clothes and we all know we should buy more ethically.

Courtesy: mrpoplife.typepad.com

But what about the attitudes of the designers towards us? It is a fact that designer labels ignore most of the population. You or I are probably too big a dress size or too poor to be of much interest to them. When Beth Ditto first met Karl Lagerfeld, she described him as making “fat-phobic” comments to her. Bad manners, but also a pretty obvious sign that he’s just not interested in any woman who doesn’t conform to his own standards of womanhood, i.e. very slim, at all ages.

Lagerfeld was interviewed for this month’s Harper’s Bazaar magazine, in the persona of Coco Chanel, which is fun. I’m just a bit disappointed that he made the following comment:

“Harper’s Bazaar: Your clothing liberated women in the 1920s. Are you still a feminist?
Karl Lagerfeld as Coco Chanel: I was never a feminist because I was never ugly enough for that.”

I know not every woman feels comfortable with calling herself a feminist but it’s an old, lame joke that feminists are ugly and bitter. What’s wrong with wanting women to be equal and free? Coco Chanel did not call herself a feminist, but she was a successful businesswoman. She never married and yet is lauded, iconic and her designs are still incredibly influential. She helped to free women from corsets and flapper dresses and designer the Little Black Dress and invented the handbag. So clearly she didn’t need a husband to validate her achievements, she was an amazing woman all on her own.

Loving clothes doesn’t mean you have to be obsessed with living up to a physical ideal, or that you for some reason don’t want women to have political and social equality – I am keen not to slag off other blogs but I don’t read the ones that focus entirely on models because it’s sad and depressing to spend your whole life wanting to be someone else. Fashion and looks are one part of female culture, but there are actually many other parts and they can live together harmoniously, if powerful people will stop assuming that one’s value and credibility resides entirely in how well you conform to Karl Lagerfeld’s version of beauty, or indeed any one version of it. If Karl and all the other designers suddenly decreed that beauty resided in looking exactly like me, you would all have to run out and get Chanel-branded cheek implants.

Actually that would be quite cool, and easier than getting everything sucked out or reduced in order to look like this:

Courtesy: Style.com.

S

Signposts

Sadie

• Sadie’s Wardrobe is a classic “what I wore” blog of the type I love so much. Sadie is a cutie with a penchant for perfect vintage pieces. Look at her above; is this not delightful?
• Deena over at Fat Girls Like Nice Clothes Too has done a really in-depth post on the Beth Ditto for Evans collection, with the classic “changing-room photo montage”. I love the dedication.
• Daydream Lily is a beautifully-designed image blog run by a photographer with an eye for beautiful, atmospheric pictures. If you like Loveology, you will probably dig this. It directed me to the website Aspiring Couture, which features these amazing wedding dresses from ecofriendly designer Blushless. Although there is no law stopping people from wearing white dresses every day, these are thousands of dollars worth of couture-standard dress. I wish I could see bigger pictures.

Have a good weekend.

S

A Good List

I love a good list, and thanks to our friends over at Sparkling Whine, I’ve been poring over fun lists every day I can get myself onto the internet (I’m still waiting for net connection at home, *wail*).

And my love of lists is what got me excited to see Friday’s ES Magazine with its fashion week(s) round up. I devoured every detail of New York, London, Paris, Milan, etc with everyone else, but even I had fatigue despite only surveying the shows from the comfort of my own home. Now, I tend to take ES Magazine with a pinch of salt – the Friday supplement from London’s foremost newspaper, the Evening Standard, has a terrible habit of writing articles about failed property developers and musing over other ’society’ type stories. But ’style director’ Gianluca Longo’s ‘Best of’ list was perfect; pithy, light but with enough depth to satisfy a fashionista.

So, here’s my Best of ‘Best of’:

• Best Performance: At Sonia Rykiel’s Paris show, the models managed to walk and talk. And smile, instantly making them more attractive.
  

  Sonia Rykiel AW09

• Best Paris Party; The Gossip played a private gig at the pop up club Fendi-O, watched by  bemused looking Karl Lagerfeld. Beth Ditto stage dived into the ‘very thin and fashionable audience’. Brillant, just brilliant.

Marc Jacobs AW09

• Eighties Watch; Neons, big hair and hats at Marc Jacobs in New York; big shoulders & satin at Balenciaga in Paris.

A

Love magazine/I love Beth Ditto

Before I begin this post I need to say YEAH I’M BACK ONLINE! That said, I thought I’d discuss some of recent fash mag reading.

Love, Katie Grand’s new venture after the old Pop magazine (which is apparently being relaunched with the beauteous Russian Dasha Zukhova editing. She currently designs leggings). This is also biannual and so comes in a very heavy, shiny package. Most of the issue is taken up with mini-interviews with models, in the format of “who did you last kiss?/what is your favourite salad?” type-questions, which do not reveal much more about these women who tend to be lauded more for their faces than their personalities or intellects. In sharp contrast to the meandering “A-Z” of fashiony people was the really rather excellent interview with Beth Ditto.

Accompanied by a long photoshoot of BD in an array of fashions and also adorned in what Mother Nature gave her, the interview encapsulates what makes her radical, in both the political and the teenage mutant hero turtle sense. It’s not just about her non-sample size, or her sexuality, but her attitude and now it emerges, her talent for a really great fashion spread.

Fashion-wise, I liked the moody tone and the clothes, which included the Louis Vuitton feather dress, previously seen to hideous effect on Madonna (I love Madonna though). The fact that apparently Beth Ditto is the only non-mini person allowed to wear designer clothes gave me a bit of pause for thought (all the outfits were made specially). I don’t like to get into body politics on here, but it’s cool to see larger women given the chance to be edgy and to wear amazing clothes. Katie Grand’s editor’s letter said this issue was supposed to be all about reality and I think I will reserve judgement on that and the promise not to include “sample-size” models, which I assume are a size 6-8. All round, a good general grade for Love magazine!

S

p.s. Next time, my fun jaunt in the magazines of France, a country whose language I only slightly understand, but whose pictures of clothes I have amor for.

Beth Ditto On Love

It has now been confirmed that Love, the new magazine from the grande dame of style Katie Grand, will feature Beth Ditto on the cover. I’m very interested to see how she’ll look and of course, the magazine as a whole. I used to be a fan of Pop so I am quite excited.

Beth Ditto in Pop (Cred: Fashionista.com)

A