Eye candy of the week

Kudos to Brooke for finally sitting me down and showing me this new clip for next month's premiere of "The Hills". Just like my love for Audrina's love for Justin Bobby, Monday nights at C's cozy AdMo abode will live once again!

How would I rock a pair of dramatic dress trousers at a black-tie event? You're lookin' at my answer right here. Minus the "Brian [Austin Green]" tattoo, of course.
To borrow a term from the ladies over at GFY, this ravishing redhead (Teen Vogue's Accessories Director, Taylor Tomasi Hill) at the Tuileries yesterday creates the ultimate in 'lady cum tramp' scroll-down chic. Holy legs, Batman!

I've always liked men's watches far more than women's, but this one -'The Motif'- from longtime favorite line Nixon, is making me reconsider that preference. So very pretty, no?

We all fawned over Penelope's feather-bedecked Chanel Haute Couture gown on the red carpet, but how many got to see the second dress in which she stepped out for the many Oscar after parties? Penny's always been a favorite of mine, because she's one of the few beauties who can pull off the smolder and the cute with a quick dress change and hair tousle.

Before the unfortunate bang chop. Sorry, but that's all I can think about here. That and how HRL would snap this black and gold banded skirt up in less than a New York minute and then, in all honesty, ask me, "Really, you think it's '80s?"

I just want to see these new ruffled Prada runway pumps in person. Just to touch. Okay, maybe to wear, too, but only to work.

I can finally die happy knowing a benevolent soul and not some horrid socialite earned the honor of wearing the $14,500 Proenza Schouler cocktail dress. You say serving food to the hungry, I say serving Vogue to the fashion hungry. It's all charity in God's eyes.

I get in this same exact 'J' position after crunches and before prison push-ups, but aside from the sultry look and feelin'-for-progress hand placement, the similarities end there. Oh Katie Moss, no matter how old or drugged up you get, you'll always be the most glamorous chick in the coop.

Who the flip is in charge of this? (vol. II)

My take on these superlative lists - "best dressed," "hottest," "sexiest woman alive" - editors-in-chief oh-so-love to cobble together for their big, fat Fall issues are nothing more than a subjectively chosen "who's who" of the individuals with whom that particular periodical wanted to be associated even before the initial red team of "fashion-conscious judges from around the world" had been assembled. But despite my frustration at seeing some of the names in Vanity Fair's 68th annual "Best Dressed" list released earlier today, I can't get myself in too much of a huff, because frankly, there is no other way to do it; unlike home runs, Nielsen ratings and units sold, style and beauty cannot so easily be categorized, analyzed and ranked in the objective fashion the way most commodities can.

But as unscientific and incestuously biased as many of these lists' selection processes are, Vanity Fair took this idea of promoting certain women - as opposed to the clothes themselves - to an entirely new stratosphere of absurd.

Ivanka Trump is no doubt striking in the face and has achieved an in-her-own-rite kind of professional success, but better dressed than Penelope Cruz, Cate Blanchett, Sienna Miller, Kate Moss and Rachel Bilson? Come now.

And don't even get me started on Lady Obama's inclusion...

Vanity Fair's 10 Best Dressed Women of 2007:

1. Charlotte Gainsbourg

2. Princess Alexandra of Greece*

3. Marjorie Gubelmann

4. Princess Mafalda of Hesse

5. Fran Lebowitz

6. Michelle Obama

7. Bee Shaffer (daughter of Vogue's editrix, Anna Wintour)*

8. Tilda Swinton

9. Ivanka Trump

10. Renée Zellweger*

*ASJINE approved (not endorsed, mind you, but approved)

**Because it's a nice round number, I thought I'd share with you all that this post marks my 1,000th in 212 days of active blogging. I think that earns me another half-cupcake, yes?

Penelope to band -- "Meet you in the trailer!"

It's unfair, but there are some women who for whatever reason I can't look at without wishing they were in an evening gown.

My friend Olivia, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angelina Jolie, Rachel Weisz and one of my perennial red carpet favorites, Penelope Cruz, all fit this bill -- all are women who quite honestly, to me, look out of place in anything other than a flutter-sleeved Alberta Ferretti, brushed silk Roberto Cavalli or webbed-chiffon Zac Posen. I realize this is just an unhealthy byproduct of my loving all things celebrity and all things high-fashion, but there it is. And there it has always been.

At 33, Penny is gorgeous, presumably single (we hear Josh Hartnett currently has the honor, but neither has confirmed), and should be going to a late-night John Mayer concert holding hands and making funny faces with the hiplicious Shakira. She should be wearing cute fitted jeans, sky-high stiletto heels, bare minimum makeup and have her hair pulled-back into a sexy-messy ponytail. And even though I um, was pretty sure with lady-bits like hers Penny would need some sort of upper-body unmentionable for locking-and-loading purposes, all I can say is good on her for pulling off what looks to me like a seriously successful challenge to Newton's law of gravity.

Surprisingly, I have no real judgment to pass after seeing these snaps. Penelope isn't a Mom setting a questionable example for her kids, she's not high on coke playing with hot half-Asians and sharp knives, and she's not Evan Rachel Wood. After the recalibration my standards for celebrity behavior underwent thanks to Paris Hilton and her infamous I-don't-want-to-eat-my-lima-beans! wail-face, Penny's trashy shirt, uncharacteristic as it may be, just doesn't make the criticism-cut this week.

I'd never wear it, even in L.A., even at my age, but perhaps my normally much snarkier judgment is just too distracted by how impressed I am Penelope was able to rock the shredded-back groupie tee support-free.

For more of Penny turned UVM co-ed (and Shakira looking like a 15 year old), see below:

5 best dresses of the Spring semester

Sienna Miller in vintage Ossie Miller (A+)

Jennifer Lopez in Oscar de la Renta (A)

Penelope Cruz in Oscar de la Renta (A)

Eva Mendes in Marchesa (A-)

Nicole Kidman in Balenciaga (A-)

Now that we can FINALLY bear arms

In case you didn't hear, Friday was a big day for gun lovers in DC.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit struck down the District's strict gun control law on Second Amendment grounds, and as a result, I'm now allowed to not only liberate my Israeli-made holster from a fire-proof safety deposit box in Michigan but my best-graduation-present-ever Walther PPK as well.

I wasn't going to muse about this legislation, but well, Goldfinger is on right now on the Encore-Action channel, and I just can't help myself.

Before all of you clipboard-toting Obama-ites get on my case for mingling politics with fashion critique, I'll have you know there are no two-legged, opposably-thumbed children in my place of residence, nor will there be any live ammunition. My old-school James Bond gun may be, as a crusty old Marine with whom I work told me, "a fu**in' good piece to kill a motherfu**er with at close range," but were I to actually bring my handed-down darling to the District, it would solely be for those Sunday afternoons when I piled myself into an SUV stacked with fresh-off-the-Iraq reservation contractors itching for a few hours in rural Virginia with a briefcase full of (licensed) semi-automatics and a stack of $.20 Bin Laden targets.

The obvious question that begs to be asked and answered, then, is this: "what does a fashionable girl wear when she's off to the range?"

Do I break my iron-clad no-jeans-and-sneakers rule?

Do I go for the Angie a-la Tombraider look?

Do I opt for the extended clip even though loading the extra bullets almost always ruins my cuticles?

In my view, the shooting range, whether indoor or outdoor, is a venue that falls outside my urban fashion guidelines. In other words, when I'm spending upwards of $50 on ammunition alone, my time better be spent getting better, not looking better.

I recommend jeans, of course, but not skinny jeans, not straight-leg jeans, and not anything nicer or pricier than your sole pair of wouldn't-mind-getting-'em-irreparably-soiled jeans.

As for footwear, it's a coin-toss between sneakers and boots, though I tend to favor the former because I find my taking-it-from-the-hip timing to be considerably faster when I have a less restrictive, more cushioned foundation.

Up top, depending on the weather (remember, the deeper into Virginia red country you go, the colder it gets), I'd either wear my thinnest, faded-to-gray purple MTV tee on its own or coupled with my children's size alma mater sweatshirt. More so than below the belt, a shooter's upper body needs to be agile and unrestricted, a tougher-than-you'd-think equilibrium achieved only through a not-too-tight and not-too-loose upper body garment.

As for how to wear your hair, if you're serious about hitting Bin Laden in the larynx at 10 meters with a body pistol, you'd better ponytail it like a Marine: high and tight.

And just because you're in the sticks doesn't excuse you from the makeup basics of mascara, concealer and bronzer. There's no need for foundation, cream-based shadow or eyeliner, but just because you're packing a PPK and not a briefcase doesn't change the fact that you're still a woman and you're still leaving your front door.

Once you've got the gun, the ammo, the look, and your own bevy of private mercenary instructors at your disposal, you're almost there.

The last steps are getting that NRA membership card and a custom pair of Lara Croft thigh-holsters or Bandidas-esque high-waisted ass-less chaps.

Or both.

Maybe if she'd worn *this* dress

Maybe if she'd worn this chocolate brown, bead-detailed, shirred corseted number to the Oscar Luncheon in place of the lace-placemat-atop-a-lace-tablecloth look, things would've turned out slightly more Oscar-y for Ms. Cruz two Sundays ago.

Oh right, it's about the craft, not the lady goods.

My bad.

Equilibrium

I'm not saying the young woman deserved what she got.

Not really.

But I certainly wasn't going to slacken my pace and offer my Tide-to-go stick to someone who just moments prior to spilling the better part of her vanilla Slim Fast all over herself had given me an unreasonably, undeservedly cool glare at the intersection of 15th and M.

It was the kind of glare a suit-and-sneakers girl - a wide-pinstriped-suit-and-crosstrainers girl - makes a habit of throwing at women in 4-inch, round-toed, brown croc, Mary Jane stilettos with deconstructed sidebows simply because they remind her of how proletariat she looks carrying her half-inch, block-heeled, square-toed (I'm assuming) slides in the front flap of her black-floral quilted fempack.

I'm not saying you should refuse the free bag with your three-greeting-card purchase, I'm just saying there does exist an implicit understanding you're not actually supposed to take it outside of the subdivision -- even if it's in the backseat of your sensibly-priced, character-free Japanese four-door.

Bag aside, this woman immediately struck me as the type who would proudly wear the smell of ineffective liquid meal replacement as a badge of anti-vanity rather than duck into the nearby Ann Taylor to swap her soiled top for a crisp, final-clearance button-up, and so I thought better about donating to her the 20% off coupon I'd tucked into my hardcover on my way out the door this morning.

I have to remind myself sometimes that the end-goal of this blog is not to transform everyone in DC but rather to reach as close a model of dynamic equilibrium, fashion-wise, as possible.

For every Scarlett Johanssen there must be a Beyoncé, for every Cate Blanchett a Jessica Simpson, and for every Penelope Cruz/Salma Hayek, yes, even a crawfish-faced Kirsten Dunst.

It's science. Le Chatelier proved it: