The Coterie: testing the limits of texturing

The unofficial test for whether an item of clothing deserves to make the jump from the store shelf to my closet's shelf is that it has to strike me immediately and it has to strike me hard.

Occasionally, that must-have-it jolt comes in the form of a vibrant color or dramatic silhouette, other times I find it in the form of a unique sleeve, but most often, what most consistently draws me in and won't let me go is when I come across a skirt, blouse, jacket or dress whose showpiece nature is defined by its well-executed texturing.

Unlike a color or a cut, texturing, when done well and done tastefully, can make the difference between a dress that, at first blush, looks ho-hum and status-quo but upon closer inspection reveals the kind of detailing that makes its wearer feel as if she's walking around in a one-of-a-kind.

A textured shoulder will be the detail that separates your simple black sheath from the sea of other simple black sheaths in your office; a Winter coat that incorporates one type of texturing along the hem and another down the back is what will earn you -not the many J. Crew peacoaters- all those on-the-street "Oh my God, your coat is so cute!" compliments; a textured neckline is the distinguishing feature that makes the Stella & Jamie LLJ pictured above miles more memorable than its boring, boxy Wilson's counterpart.

I love texturing. Always have. But what I saw on Monday in nearly every designer's Fall/Winter '08 collection challenged my longstanding allegiance toward all cuts simple and sophisticated.

For what I saw was not just a textured back or a textured hem but rather a textured back and a textured hem and a textured neck, and across the bodice, a multitude of pleats, drapes, overlays, pintucks and dramatic interruptions of each of these with other pleats, drapes, overlays and pintucks.

During my run last night, I spent the entire hour -and thus missed the first half of "The Biggest Loser," despite its being directly in front of my face- dismissing ideas of what to call this particular trend.

Ultimately, I just went for the obvious -- texture upon texture (upon texture).

Enjoy.

Roping, ruching, and rolling at the neck
Jill Stuart

Cashmere blouson sleeves meet a series of grosgrain and satin overlays on the left,
silk crepe swathed in pleated mesh, cinched by canvas and leather on the right
Mint by Jodi Arnold

Lurex shoulders and dramatic jersey draping drawn in by a bow-shaped cummerbund
Julie Haus
Mesh-winged matte silk pleats buoyed by darted taffeta and bifurcated by velvet.
I want. I reeeeally want.
Bensoni

A veritable buffet of texturing, from tight blocks of ruching at the neck and hem, to a sprawling effect across the shoulders, to thin, longitudinal pleats on the bodice, to simple draping down the skirt
Iódice

This dress was on the short list for favorite item of the entire show, an honor earned more for its back than its front -- simply stunning.

Black mesh collides with ivory quilting collides with neon leather -- an '80s explosion!
Single Dress

The Coterie: a structured affair

So this...Got me into here:

No wait, here:

And once inside, I realized my Chocolate Factory comparison from last week may have been written with my tongue pressed a little too firmly in my cheek.

This place was, in all seriousness, a veritable wonderland for anyone who loves to talk, look, buy and breathe fashion.

I expected all along to gravitate toward ASJiNE standbys like Robert Rodriguez, Mint and Karen Zambos Vintage Couture, but as the hours ticked by and my red satin flats logged another lap, I found myself no longer looking for a familiar name on a placard but rather drawn toward uniquely-cut pieces, the majority of which, it turned out, came from a crop of brilliant, unfamiliar lines like Stella & Jamie, Erik Hart and Form.

Considering the volume of information and inspiration with which all this Coterie-ing hath filled my head, I decided it'd be better for you in terms of keeping your 'scroll finger' from developing a callus and for me in terms of not losing my mind trying to weave everything into a single cohesive post, that I break down my 180+ photos, my eight identified trends and my five newly-in-love-with designer discoveries into more manageable, one-per-day portions.

Today's focus is on a hugely popular trend I hope is here and here to stay: structure.

Enjoy.

Oh, and please, try to remember that a decent camera does not a decent photographer make.

From the stiff sleeves to the hard-pleated neckline to the giveless fabric - I found in this dress a piece of pure, structured perfection.

Ardistia*

The pretty party frock's perfect date -- a structured silk topper.
Biba

So strictly structured I half expected to find hinges -not a zipper- on its side.
Chace

No double-sided tape required on this securely stayin'-in-place kimono-sleeve dress.
Candela NYC

Even the handbags have lost their slouch
Jack Rabbit

What I imagine the Dita von Teese of the Victorian Age might have worn on her way home from work...
Mackage

Hervé Léger + Salvador Dali = strikingly structured strapless.
Iódice

The wearable-for-work version of Miu Miu's Spring '08 structured runway skirt
Chloe & Reese

And because I'm an unabashed fan of reality TV and all the people it has launched into semi-stardom, looksies at whosies I bumped into while making my way over to the Anlo booth:
So entranced by the extent of Jeffery's unique tattage -not to mention the charming contradiction of his preppy ensemble- I found it quite difficult to keep my hand steady and my celebriwhoreitis under control.

Thankfully for her and me, only LC's (ahem, underwhelming) eponymous collection was present at yesterday's show...

*unfortunately, the Ardistia representatives wouldn't allow me to take any photographs of what was hands-down my favorite collection of the entire show. So that you could still enjoy the view of one of their Mouret-inspired designs, I included an image from their website.

For the more modest stripper - the 'wedding white' platform

The skanky yin to my slutty yang:

From my four-paneled dog print to yours...

Due to the logistical drama that is in-law-to-in-law niece-sharing, Santa agreed at the last minute to swing by our abode a day early this year. Though I was initially concerned celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus on the 24th instead of the 25th might jeopardize the size of our holy windfall, my fears proved short-lived as I soon realized our arrangement allowed me an extra 24 hours to do nothing but sit on my duff, lube up with Laura Mercier 'Tarte au Citron' soufflé body creme and take photographs with my new jazzamarazz camera.

"What to shoot first...what to shoot first...," I said to myself, maundering from room to room, Monte keeping a quick clip at my heels.

"How about this?" my Father says, handing me a large, relatively thin square-shaped package.

"What is it?" I asked, curious but skeptical that whatever it was it couldn't be nearly as first-photo worthy as Monte using my niece's upper-arm chunk as his personal popsicle. "This wasn't under the tree, was it?"

"No, we wanted to give this one to you separately -- open it," my Mother instructed with an eye-twinkle, wedging herself between the two of us, "you're gonna die, just die."

Now I know only a handful of you have ever met my Mother, but trust me when I tell you this woman put the first and second 'p' in "proper," so when she breaks out the slang on Christmas morning - violent slang, no less - you know something truly fantastic is about to drop.

But even my highest expectations couldn't have prepared me for this...

Here's hoping for four-paneled dog prints underneath every one of your real and artificial trees tomorrow morning!

have a very Merry Christmas,

Johanna

Something to get excited about...

Yesterday, after two plus years of tumultous love/hate-edness, I finally ditched my Treo 650 and in its place picked up the aptly named LG enV (in silver, people, not orange), thus making the jump from a 330K pixel camera to a still-not-great-but-much-improved 2M pixel one.

Evidence of this improvement:

Treo-taken

enV-taken

And yes, I did feel obligated this afternoon to test in various dressing rooms this higher pixelage with a little shoppy-shoppy excursion to Georgetown .

Check back Monday for the results...

I can't think nor write in this GD heat

I sat down last night and then again this morning prepared to write a what-to-wear-in-99-degree-heat post complete with an unrelated picture of the baby lovepuff sleeping on top of my wallet - his way of ensuring I don't leave without arousing his "you're-leaving-me-alone-again??" fury - and more topic-appropriate recommendations from both "If I had a sugar daddy..." and "Since I don't (yet)" price points, but on both occasions, I got as far as promoting a threads-free Tantric Sunday, tissue-tees and v-plunge linen cover-ups before the AC-free stifle of my apartment (the pup and I both prefer jungle hot over a faux cool) caused a complete creative-writing meltdown.

So while I'm out doing my best poolside impression of Eva in Capri (coinslot included), do me a favor and grant me a teensy bit of slack on the minimal creative output you'll see here today.

The kind of slack, I guarantee you, I won't be granted elsewhere...

Why looking in NYC is better than buying in DC

A Burberry display on MadAve. First of all, why do they get all the giant silver orbs? I looked this morning on my way to work, and the ConnAve store only has a few small ones haphazardly thrown to one side of a crocheted blazer and chino capris ensemble. If any Burberry location needs distracting metallic props, it's the one in DC, not the one in Manhattan. This white bell-sleeved mini with ruffle-detailing isn't that memorable, but the shoes took my breath away. With the way my flats had been hurting my high arches all day, I was thisclose to challenging their "Sorry, we're closed" signage and making a beeline for the shoe salon. In retrospect, it was a good thing I wore the blouse I did that day, for it was the distasteful prospect of pairing such avant garde pumps with a preppy-cute button-up that saved me from blowing my savings in one fell swoop.
This Valentino skirt was easily my favorite find of the entire trip. I don't know what it was about this half-moon flutter skirt I loved so much - I'm not typically one for that ethereal, weightless style - but something about it wouldn't let me go. Literally. I stood, head tilted, staring at this skirt for at least 10 minutes. To get a closer look at the craftsmanship, I even squatted Chinaman-style, which is no easy feat in just-out-of-the-dryer cigarette-leg super-skinnies. Each of this skirt's "petals" was rimmed with silk-trim, and I imagined some zaftig Italian woman taking painstaking care to sew each one just so on that gauze-thin chiffon base. I'd have left the hem scalloped instead of straight-edged and paired it with a slim silk lantern-neck shell, but I'm willing to accept the possibility that Garavani knows something I don't.

The accompanying shoes. These d'Orsay triple-cut-out peeptoes look a bit bridesmaid-ish as is, but in my head, as soon as I saw them, I swapped champagne for black and silk for patent leather with animal-skin-embossing. Perfect with a pencil skirt and cropped box-cut jacket.S and I intentionally stayed away from Saks' high-end boutiques - your Fendis, Chanels, Balenciagas, etc. - so as not to even allow ourselves to consider how a four or five-figure purchase might impact our credit scores. You can understand our anger, then, when we came across this beautiful structured Zac Posen satchel ($1,895) hanging like a mid-priced Kooba in the "affordable" first-floor accessories room. Hmpf.

I expected more of an emotional reaction upon finally meeting YSL's 'Tribute' pump. In the end, they looked better on Gwen Stefani than they did shined to the hilt under the halogen glare and bright blinks of tourists' flashbulbs. In fact, they looked remarkably pedestrian in person -- as far as platform Mary Janes go, of course.

In this window, it was all about the shoes. Those slingback platform peeptoes were in one word, incredible. Textured grey suede at the "peep" and black patent leather up and around the "sling." Those $1,195 4.5-inch pumps outshone everything in the Oscar de la Renta showroom.

I never really paid much attention to Celine designs, but this window stopped me dead in my croc-embossed gladiator sandal tracks. The two dresses flanking either side of the T-back black and white silk column gown I could take or leave, but that dress in the middle...that dress had me calculating what a jail sentence for a first-offender charged with felony larceny might look like.

This pair of black-label Armani tulip dresses made me think of my girl L, because you'd need teensy shoulders like hers to successfully pull them off. And skinny ankles, a toned back and fat-free underarms, of course. I preferred the textured silk of the strapless number but the sliver-thin crescendo straps of the one behind it. And yes, I'd buh-bye those distractingly chunky necklaces. Some thick swipes of mascara, a Bottega Veneta box clutch and a set of seven gold bangles -- that's all this lady doth require.

After all that wishing, hoping, loitering and illegal plotting, I allowed myself the reasonably-priced high-waisted black skirt I'm presently wearing - this one unlike its four slim-fitting sisters has wide-panel pleats and an A-line flounce - and then headed over to the Strand for a book. Well, two. I figured since Angelina says "educating herself" is when she and Brad find her at her sexiest, perhaps I'd give this whole being-a-woman-of-substance thing a second chance.

Second favorite OKC moment.

Not since I took a nasty spill at mile 23 of my first marathon while stealing a glance - okay fine, a series of glances - of myself in reflective glass have I come across a situation thicker with laugh-out-loud irony as I did on Saturday night when I came across this Magnum XL condom wrapper atop a Holy Bible in my bedside drawer at the OKC Sheraton.

I think you'll agree with me there's no commentary needed.

The gun show

In terms of fashion, the spectrum at today's gun show was about as narrow as the bola ties that rested atop a vast majority of the vendors' puckering-at-the-buttons short-sleeve dress shirts.

There were orange/brown/yellow camo jumpsuits, leather vests paired with denim button-ups, polyester dress pants with elastic waistbands, too-tight fringed halter tops with the NRA logo, and tapered balloon-seat khakis with "Shoot 'em first, dial 9-1-1 second" t-shirts complete with cartoon characters and faux blood spatters.

There were mullets, buzzcuts, knicked shaved heads and beards as long as Manson's.

Let me be clear, these clothes, these hair "styles" -- I'm not talking solely about the men.

The first picture, shown above, is probably my favorite of the day. One of my companions explained to me no, it wasn't a joke, and no, I shouldn't - really, I shouldn't - ask the rather menacing, rather humorless merchant in Chinese for a pricelist for display case four.

Once I put on my glasses and realized this man wasn't flanked by a pair of Mickey Mouse Club flags but rather two commemorative Nazi banners, the sass on the tip of my tongue crept back into my throat and I quickly aborted playing the will-my-looks-get-me-out-of-any-situation? game.


Of all the thousands of firearms at the show, I was most drawn to this four-barreled beauty. Not for its functionality (it only holds four cartridges, after all), but for its inevitable "holy shit, does that thing shoot four bullets at once??" elicitation. For the record, it doesn't, and if it did, it wouldn't be a very reliable nor accurate piece. It's not very sexy after the explanation, but if I had the $795 necessary to acquire it, rest assured I would make up one hell of a good story to go with it.

Oh, and yes, I did take off my black polish this morning. Not for long - I'm in between first and second coats as I type, in fact - but I just couldn't bring myself to disrespect the Nation's Gun Show with half-chipped 'Black Ceramic' fingernails. What would Big Dan at the Ammo Shack have thought when he clearly put in the effort to bring his A game with the "Huntin' Terrorists is my hobby" suspenders?

This is my second favorite picture. As hard as both C and R tried to convince me these were not "creepy ex-boyfriend stalker guides" but training manuals for bail bondsmen and repo-men, I found them all too conveniently located next to the only table of geek catnip (i.e. novelty Star Trek and Marvel Comics' weapons).

A way to bring the beauty of machine guns into the boardroom or to your couch for the Sunday morning talk shows. I have the "classics" mug (given to me by R as a gift) and even though I can't prove it with metrics, I know for a fact getting to look at an original, drawn-to-scale Izhevsk Mechanical Works-manufactured AK47 first thing in the morning has made me a more productive, more intuitive analyst.

And finally, my only purchase of the day: a Glock 19 lapel pin. Since I can't afford and can't legally have in the District a real version of my dream pistol quite yet, I thought I might as well get the accessory equivalent thereof.

As I told a friend of mine whose texted response to my pin purchase was, "Did you get a real Glock to go with it?":

"Darling, if I had $950 to blow on an accessory, it would go toward my YSL Tribute Pump fund, not another gun."

Qiutian jian, gun show!

Found: the perfect accessory

Forget a pair of go-to work heels, a perfect LBD that makes your waist look a size smaller, or that versatile clutch that goes with everything from your premium jeans and dressy tee to your deep plunge satin evening gown. What every fashionable girl wants, what every fashionable girl needs is a made-to-order sculpture mug of her pet from Groundhog Blues Pottery.

Two made-to-order sculpture mugs, to be specific.

Like your Chanel 'Black Ceramic' nail lacquer, Archipelago Sugar Cane & Coconut hand salve and Clinique 'All About Eyes' under-eye revitalizing gel, it is not only preferable but downright necessary to have one of your smuckerbug's mugs at home and one at the office.

And no, having this mug at work won't make you look like that pathetic, laugh-behind-her-back woman who has a Christmas portrait of her cat Jingles on her desktop background and a custom-made mouse pad of the two of them in matching flannel onesies with a faux log cabin backdrop.

This is totally different. Totally.

The exhibit.

Today was the perfect New York Saturday.

I woke up to crisp, Upper West Side hotel sheets, had an early-morning, on-the-go breakfast of Spanish tortes and cappuccinos from Zabar's, and enjoyed a long sunny walk through a Central Park teeming with runners, strollers and in-love couples.

Finally, we exited the park in the 60s and made our way up the flight of shallow concrete steps to the entrance of the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art.

'American Chic' was a much smaller exhibit than I expected, both in size and audience. Housed in one of the Met's smallest spaces on the lowest level, Nan's collection of evening gowns, pantsuits, resort wear, jewelery, and high heels was only given one medium-sized room and three tiny auxiliary rooms, all of which were completely devoid of natural light.

And any sort of guidance.

Harold Koda, the exhibit's handler, offered his patrons very little insight as to why or how he chose and grouped the pieces he did. Within some of the individual showcases, themes were identifiable - in the stunning 'black and white evening' collection, for example, where I learned that this classic combination, in Nan's own words, "is often the guise of the vamp and the femme fatale" and "allows a woman to project a quietly charged elegance and controlled allure" - but for the vast majority, there seemed no obvious logic behind Koda's selections.

In the room off to the right of the main hall, a one-shouldered seafoam green cashmere column dress was flanked on one side by a pair of navy, high-waisted raw silk trousers and on the other by a red bandeau bikini. In another showcase, a very '80s long-sleeved tri-colored velvet knee-length holiday frock stood shoulder-to- shoulder with a sleeveless beige Yves Saint Laurent silk crepe cocktail dress with matching shell-button bolero. And next to that, Mrs. Kempner's 1949 pink and purple strapless coming-out gown.

Huh?

One might have thought the essays preceding each floor-to-ceiling display would have served as a guide to that particular collection, but again, no. Though they were extraordinarily well-written, these pieces were little more than general commentary on Nan's upbringing, her lifestyle and and her couture-as-art viewpoint.

Overall, it was a showcase hardly worthy of a woman whose style Andy Warhol called "iconic."

But as I told R in response to his apology for our mutual disappointment, the privilege of getting to see the 1969 Madame Grès bordeaux silk jersey gown with crucifix-esque back - the one I risked getting booted to capture on film when I snapped the illegal photo above - was well worth the trip.

Well, that and the triple berry pie from Cafe Lalo.