Jean Paul Gaultier Couture: Dandies, Decadence, and George Sand.

This review may be a little on the dodgy side because I wrote it through a veil of tears while pouring chocolate truffles and absinthe directly into my mouth and smoking a cheroot in a ten-inch-long holder. GUYS, I JUST LOVE THIS COLLECTION A LOT, OK. Gaultier's a triple-threat expert in the field of awesome yet faintly ridiculous haute couture, his main failing being the restrictive nature of his influences. This season, as with so many of his previous collections, Gaultier was inspired by Victorian dandies, vintage corsetry, tuxedoes, and classic Indian fashions, but even after thirty years in the public eye he still seems to be able to turn out new ideas for stunning couture.

photos from Style.com

The show opened with Erin O'Connor in a top hat and tails, dressed in an homage to George Sand. Gaultier has long enjoyed playing with gender-roles in his shows and even though his new Menswear collection was revealed only last week, this Couture show included new "menswear couture" items as well as several womenswear outfits worn by male models.

Pre-Fall 2012: Diane von Furstenberg, J. Mendel, Moschino Cheap & Chic, Alice + Olivia, and Giorgio Armani.

Diane von Furstenberg

I think that's some kind of... digitalised houndstooth pattern? I'm not sure. What I do know is that it looked enough like houndstooth that I immediately had the stomach-turning fashion thought of, "houndstooth is so in right now". I disgust myself sometimes. It smacks of trend articles like this one, in which Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian's houndstooth outfits are compared/forced to compete for our entertainment. First of all, Gaga's is obviously better because she went marvellously over-the-top with houndstooth accessories, stockings, makeup and piano, playfully turning the "conservative and tweedy" houndstooth image on its head, but secondly... this article exists for realzies. Oh boy. I don't like "who wore it better" gossip stories at all, since they're invariably code for "here are two attractive millionaires in similar outfits -- now, you decide which one is a flawed and hideous creature!" That's not "following fashion". That's petty and needless judgement of strangers based on their appearance.

I'd like this 100x more if the belt and sunglasses were removed, since they turn it into a fairly generic party-dress outfit. Sans belt, the combination of transluscent latex-y dress, visible stocking-tops, severe shoes and  leather gloves make for a rather interesting faux-fetish look.

Leyendecker and the Arrow Collar Man.

Because I feel this blog has been tragically short on vintage suits so far, here's a post all about Leyendecker and the Arrow Collar Man.

The Arrow Collar Man is a creation of J.C. Leyendecker, a German-American illustrator of magazine covers and advertisements in the 1900s-30s. Leyendecker worked on a variety of illustrations and ad campaigns, but his speciality was these hyper-masculine, square-jawed all-American guys who spent their days smoking, posing in a manly fashion, and playing sports. The Arrow Collar Man is kind of The Man Your Man Could Smell like of the early 20th Century.

Gigola

For as long as I remember, my local arthouse cinema has been running what appears to be a never-ending LGBT film festival of dismal-looking movies about oppressed teenagers or Eastern Europeans declaiming tearfully at one another before suffering a tragicand/or dissatisfying end. But today I noticed an ad for this movie:

Stories about stylish and dangerous-looking people in suits are an immediate draw for me, but on top of this I found out that Gigola...

1. Is set in 1960s Paris.
2. It about a suit-wearing lesbian gigolo (I'm not 100% clear on the logistics of this, but I hope that it involves at least some implausible Shakespearean gender-bending).
3. Mostly takes place in what looks like the cabaret bar from Victor/Victoria, although admittedly most cabaret bars look the same.
4. Contains some kind of gambling/gun-crime related subplot.
5. Includes hand-kissing. (How can something that seems so suave in fiction almost always be so creepy in real life? Tragic.)

 

Guys, Gigola will have to be pretty awful for me not to love it. I tend not to like fiction about sex-work, since it's usually either weirdly romanticised (WTF, Pretty Woman?) or depressing, but this movie looks just unrealistic enough to brilliant. Although let's face it, I'm mainly in it for the costumes.