My Fall checklist (coming later today)

They may not be the eight items you need this Fall, they may not even be eight items I need this Fall, but they sure are the eight items I go to bed dreaming about each night.

Stay tuned.

Oh, and no, there's no connection between my list and KimKar, it's just been a while since the divine combination of her bah'um and a painted-on tight Hervé Léger dress have been in the press, and I just thought...well, yeah.

As classy as a non-British guy who drops the c-word

Do you remember how little-girl-plays-dress-up Lindsay Lohan looked earlier this Summer as the guest of honor at the Maxim 'Hot 100' fête in her all sorts of rainbow Hervé Léger halter dress?

I can just picture her alongside her LiLo-in-training little sister Allie, deluded but sure, thinking aloud, "This will be the perfect way to show the world just how 'hot' I am."

Every time I see a woman sporting 10 opaque-white stripes across the tops of her toenails, I can't help but think of Lindsay and her technicolor dress. My tendency to immediately associate the two isn't because I recognize between them a shared brand of tackiness (though that is the thought immediately following) but rather that both were the direct result of an extremely misguided pretense.

Teaching a 21-year-old celebutante whose own mother can't seem to tell the difference between trashy and classy why a super tight, super short, super bright mini dress doesn't a talented actress imply is an endeavor for which I neither have the influence nor the patience; clearing up the ubiquitous myth that the most sophisticated way to climb down from the massage chair after a $45-plus-tip pedicure is to have one's toes resemble one's fingers, however, is a duty with which I'm more than pleased-as-punch to be charged.

Habits are hard to break, this I know only too well, but assumed truths, those you've been taught from a young age, those you've blindly accepted and likely passed onto others -- those are the ones you never think to question and that ultimately turn out to be the most difficult to leave behind.

But let's take a moment and look at this picture. I mean, really and objectively look at it. Sure, this isn't the most neatly-applied polish job, the most appealing set of toes or the most elegant pair of lobster-emblazoned grosgrain-ribbon-trimmed flip-flops, but even so, the point I'm trying to make, that the correlation between toes fashioned to look like fingers and high-class is utterly nonsensical, rings loudly and clearly.


And if you need more proof than just, oh I don't know, my opinion, I encourage you to watch an episode or two of the WE Network's can't-take-your-eyes-off-it trainwreck, "Bridezillas." The first tanorexic Long Island bride who demands her ladies-in-waiting spackle foundation over their ankle tatts and adhere to her "Crystal Elegance"-themed wedding with French mani/pedis might not convince you to step away from the stripes of "Birthday Babe," but keep watching, because with each and every class-act thereafter who, without fail, imposes the same nail uniform, you will begin to see before your very eyes the crystallization of a different correlation.

Just sayin'.

So please, join my girlfriends and me in putting a stop to the spread of the oh-so-creepy and oh-so-played-out finger-toes and opt instead for a lovely shade of 'A-List,' 'Midnight in Moscow' (see below) or, for the lower-maintenance among you, the muted Fiji Weejee Fawn or just a simple and fresh, clear-shine.

Your cooperation on this matter would make Monte oh-so-happy.

When black/white falls flat...twice

Two beautiful women with toned, healthy figures, both of whom went down the ASJINE-endorsed path of neutral, simple and elegant, but as you can see below, in a very not ASJINE-advised fashion.

As I've stated many a time on this site, dressing neutrally is neither a guaranteed pass into the ranks of the sophisticated nor does it grant the wearer immunity from a WTF critique.

On Jennifer Garner (here in vintage Balenciaga at The Bourne Ultimatum premiere), a woman with admittedly broad athletic shoulders, the first and last impression she makes is one of looking more mannish than Sydney-Bristow-sexy, namely because of the wide, high boatneck neckline. Compounding Jen's problems is the straight-up-and-down silhouette of the dress, which draws unnecessary attention to how curve-free she has become in recent years.

Were I she, I would have chosen a cut up-top that bared her clavicle or perhaps a touch of cleavage -- something that would remind us she's both athletic and feminine. On the bottom, I would have gone with a more voluminous silhouette, perhaps a tulip, bubble or even just a simple A-line. The straight-edge of the bodice transitioning into an away-from-the-body skirt would have provided Ms. Boy Hips with some womanly contours.

Onto Catherine (here in Michael Kors, exiting the "Live! with Regis & Kelly" set).

There are few women as stunning as she is and even fewer who, at almost 40, have a body that without regular exercise - her claim, not mine - look as simultaneously slim and curvy as hers.

But unfortunately, in this black tank sheath with white empire-waist cinch, Ms. Zeta Jones looks more dumpy and droopy than the younger, hotter half of Hollywood's most glamorous May-December couple. Clearly, the bra - if there even is one - is my first bone of contention; whether it's achieved through a separate undergarment or sturdy, built-in boning, that nursed-two-children bosom requires a minimum two to three inch hoist before leaving the house. Non-negotiable.

From this angle, it looks as if Catherine's has a bit of a paunch, which, if that's how she likes to roll, that's how she likes to roll. No judgment there. But if that is the case, and the roundness in her belly is not simply the result of a paparazzo's good luck in catching the actress in the throes of a deep exhale, the decision to situate a belt just below her DDs was not a figure-flattering one. Not only does the color and placement of the cinch enhance the stomach bulge below, but for heaven's sake, her heaving breasts are in a full-swing tumble over the top and sides of it as well. What looked tight and voluptuous just days before in fitted gold Hervé Léger, here looks soft, unsupported and dare I say, a bit amateurish.

Were I in her stylist's position, I would have first advised her to wear the proper underpinnings (including Spanx) and second, chosen a dress with both a showpiece neckline to draw attention upwards to her by far best asset - her face - and one that had a waist-level cinch to accentuate her curves. The rest of it, her hair, her simple jewelery, her understated five-digit crocodile bag, the self-satisfied smile -- all well done.

But flats, Catherine? Really?

Kim Kardashian makes me feel like a hypocrite

I'm not much for the "tight look."

Big blingy jewelery is so not my thing.

I roll my eyes when I see a woman try ever-so-hard to match her shoes to her handbag.

I don't particularly care for Hervé Léger's signature bandaged-fabric effect.

And when I left my pink phase behind in the Spring of 2002, I not only kissed it goodbye, I tied cement booties to it and drop-kicked it into the Seekonk River.

Yet here at a Miami Fashion Week event on Wednesday night, Kim Kardashian somehow blossoms into the prettiest, most perfectly dressed goddess who ever was.

I just can't think what it is about these pictures that's bewitching me...
Maybe the shiny hair?

No, no, it must be the exquisite eye makeup.

Lean over a bit, hon...that's it, it's your pretty white smile!

Uh-huh, definitely the smile...

Why you don't let your little sister dress you

At first glance, I actually didn't hate this dress.

The more I looked at it, though, the more angles and closeups I clicked on, the more I realized, no, I didn't hate it but I didn't really like it, either. In fact, it wasn't like or dislike I was feeling, it was more...nostalgia. I'd had this reaction to a dress before. But which dress was it? Who wore it? When? The more I racked my celeb-saturated head for the answer, the farther that bit of stored information slipped somewhere in between my second favorite red carpet gown of all time (Natalie Portman in gunmetal Lanvin at the 2005 Oscars) and the lyrics to Lionel Richie's "Stuck on you."

So I took a break, ate my cherry Jell-o cup and two slices of double-anchovy thin-crust with light-cheese and light-sauce, read thesuperficial.com, then came back with a clearer head and a fuller tummy and took a second stab at it. No sooner had I turned on my standard he's-thinking-about-me-I-know-he-is Snow Patrol did it come to me.

The reaction I had to this rainbow-hued Hervé Léger-looking dress was the same one as when, at 10 years old while watching Pretty Woman for the first time, I fell in love with the blue-and-white lycra and stainless steel contraption Julia Roberts wore when she was on her knees unzipping Richard Gere's grey pinstripe suitpants in the penthouse suite at the Regent Beverly Wilshire.

Put simply, the super-tight, super-short, pole-dancer-heeled, 7th-grade-friendship-bracelet-ed ensemble Lindsay Lohan wore last night to a fete in her honor for being named Maxim Magazine's "hottest woman in the world" at NYC's Gansevoort Hotel is the kind of ensemble a little girl with no sense of fashion or understanding of what blowjob-for-a-twenty-wear looks like might pick out when asked the question, "Honey, which dress do you think the hottest woman in the world should wear to her big party?"

For more of Lindsay looking like the X-rated hybrid of Jem and Rainbow Brite, see the pictures below.

And I beg of you, unless you want to see the tragedy that is a 20 year old looking six months shy of Rue McClanahan, do NOT click on the close-up.