High-waisted scribble print pencil skirt
$129 at Club Monaco
05 June 2007
03 June 2007
Gone New Yorkin'
But don't fret, I'll be back in full "harmfully judgmental" force Wednesday morning with a new, this-inspired vintage mini, a higher alcohol tolerance and a few mystery bruises.
Miss me, you fools.
02 June 2007
The casserole dress
What would you get, if you added...
The one-shouldered silhouette and rosette-adornment from this teal silk Lela Rose shift
+
The large-pleat strapless neckline from J. Lo's Michael Kors bubble-hemmed minidress
+
The tilted-bow sash from Reese Witherspoon's Carolina Herrera tea-length tank dress
And the least interesting, biggest media-whore in recent memory?
Eva Longoria, of course, at last night's ALMA awards 
And that bow distracts from the fact that she's the only Latina woman on the planet without a decent badunk-a-dunk
Skirt good, fit good, VPL bad
Last night, as we always do at minute-70 on our post-work 90-minute jaunt, Monte and I exchanged daily pleasantries with the Mayflower attendants and made our familiar right turn down DeSales Street.
Before we even passed the last of Filene's three display windows - and the prince could make his three-drip mark on the adjacent shrub - I could already hear the high-pitched, five-cocktail chorus of sorority-sister babbling pouring out of Panache.
I knew from previous attempts that unless I picked Monte up kicking and squealing, retreating back to ConnAve wasn't an option, so I took a deep breath, stood as tall as my 5'7" frame would stand, shot the dollop an you're-the-only-one-I'd-do-this-for look and forged on into the single-sided skintern gauntlet.
Predictably, the mix of Corona Light, pre-Summer weather, hell's-yeah-it's-Friday! excitement and the cutest puppy that ever was meant the two of us couldn't slip by unnoticed.
"Oh my GOD, that is like, the most ADORABLE little...hey Jen, look at...JEN, this is the dog you need to get!"
Out of nowhere, a dark-rooted blonde stumbled over the velvet rope partition in a pair of 5-inch pointy-toed pumps and headed straight for us.
"Oh my god, hi, I'm Jen -- what is this little girl's name?" the clearly on-at-least-her-fourth woman asked Monte, not me.
"His name is Montesquieu."
"Montescrew? What an odd name for just the sweetest wittle guurlll...," Jen purred, simultaneously digging her French tips into his scruff and unsuccessfully trying to balance her Vodka tonic atop the metal sphere on the pole to which the velvet rope was attached.
I thought about correcting her, but that would only lead to glassy-eyed confusion and a feeling of pretentious shame for being the sober girl walking her dog past a bar on a Friday night trying to explain to a girl well on her way to drunkdom why I named my dog after a French political theorist.
Needless to say, I let it go.
After about three minutes of basic "yes, it's expensive to have a dog" and "no, I've never left him alone to spend the night at a guy's house" conversation, she stood up, smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt and picked her tumbler up off the edge of the (occupied) table on which she'd placed it.
It was only then that I realized Jen was wearing a pretty fantastic high-waisted black pencil skirt.
"That's a great skirt."
"Thanks, it's new - my boyfriend (using her head to "point" in the direction of a babyfaced boy boisterously filling the bar with talk of how A-Rod's recent marital problems better not affect his performance against the Red Sox this weekend) hates it. He thinks I look like a grandma."
"Well you don't, it's really quite stunning. Good fit, too."
"Thank you so much," Jen said with Vodka-enhanced sincerity, "that really made my day."
"You just spilled your drink."
"Oh fuck...well, I better get back," she said, more motivated by the need to get a replacement, than to tend to the enlarging wet spot on her white silk button-up.
"And we better get on our way. But seriously, the skirt -- keep wearing it."
"I will! And goodbye to you, teeny little...what was it again? Montescrew?"
"Yeah, Montescrew."
And as she turned away to reclaim her perch at the bar, the little bit of wind her Catherine Malandrino skirt (identified by its distinct cummerbund waistband) had blown into my sails vanished.
VPL, or "visible pantyline," is nothing new, especially not in a town where women seem to think thongs, g-strings and my fitted-skirt default - commando - are tantamount to a hooker's first layer of defense. But this woman, Jen, was in her mid-20s, seemingly very appearance-aware and was unafraid to casually drop the f-bomb in front of a stranger -- in short, not the kind of woman I'd expect to be sporting a very VPL. A full-coverage brief VPL, no less.
In the short five-second window I had to do so, I certainly bandied with the idea of bringing this very elementary fashion don't to her attention, but in the end, she wasn't my friend, she wasn't even an acquaintance -- it would've seemed petty.
So instead...
"Hey Jen!"
(swiveling around) "Yeah?"
"It's Monte-skew, not screw."
01 June 2007
Contrast wrap dress by L.A.M.B.
Point. Game. Set. Match.
Thank you, Ms. Patricia Field.
Thank you for having Carrie wear "the naked dress" for her first official date with Mr. Big.
Thank you for your decision to have Charlotte don that pink strapless knee-length shift and Jackie-O sunglasses to Brady's first birthday party.
Thank you for Samantha's fleet of plunge-front, backless, come-and-get-me evening attire.
And finally, because I can't recall anything about Miranda's wardrobe that would elicit an-out-of-my-way expression of gratitude, I want to thank you for wearing this dress to the Britania Ball - an annual benefit to raise money for the New York City Opera aboard the ritzy Queen Mary 2 - in New York City last week.
Why, you ask?
By wearing for a second time in three months this too-tight, too-short, pink and black, looks-Missoni-but-I-hope-it's-not tube-dress with extended carpet-tassel skirt and a pair of whip-me-good dominatrix stilettos to a formal fundraiser, the famed "Sex and the City" costume designer proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was right not only to say implicit rules on age-appropriate and venue-appropriate dress exist but that these are rules to which we should cling long, hard and unwaveringly.
Look again -- unwaveringly.
Admittedly, this is an extreme example in every facet, including age, dress, event and expectation (I think it's only fair to hold a woman who's won multiple Emmys for her fashion sense to a higher standard), but sometimes it takes stretching the liberal "do-what-you-want-whenever-you-want" mantra to the very edge of exaggeration to get those last stragglers on-board the reason train.
And because I don't think it'd be very nice to leave you all on a negative note, not on a sunny Friday while I'm working from home in my jammies and you fools are stuck in twin-sets in cheap office chairs, here's an example of a woman right about Pat's age who's gotten the growing-old-gracefully groove down just right. Again.
Helen Mirren on the red carpet at last week's Cannes Film Festival
Office don'ts -- warm weather edition
After Monte spotted a woman walking in front of us who was in the commission of committing all but two of these warm weather professional style crimes, I thought it was about time he and I climbed back up on that high horse of ours (we got off at one point to get soft-serve and chat up a guy who might know a guy who lives near Mitt Romney) and laid out a few easy-to-follow guidelines to help keep you from becoming the office trollop this Summer.
Here they are, my warm weather professional don'ts:
Just because it's the color of sunshine doesn't mean it needs to accompany you to your cubicle. If you choose to wear bright Spring/Summer shades, make sure to do so in small complementary doses and to compensate with an at least knee-length hem, a higher scoopneck and a slightly longer pair of sleeves. On the weekend, go as nuts-o with bold prints and fluorescent yellow tiered eyelet skirts as you want, but in the office, get away with only that which you know you can get away with. Don't ruin casual Friday for everyone else.
DC humidity makes even the driest skin shine-saturated. Dewy is desirable, greasy is not. If your face tends to fall into the latter category, pick up a 100-pack of Shiseido Pureness oil-control blotting paper. 
I think we can all agree sleeveless tops are not universally flattering. This won't win me any popularity points with the readers who already think I'm "harmfully" judgmental, but I truly believe arms past a certain girth and that possess a certain ham-hock quality need to stay under wraps -- pun intended.
A nice tan alone does not a work-ready face make. Well, not in 99% of cases. Ladies, Summer-kissed skin is great for requiring less makeup - I've already buh-byed my foundation until October - but not no makeup. On the weekends, do whatever you want, but during the work week, blotchy spots, dark circles and ripe blemishes should still be tended to with at the very least a few pinpoints of concealer.
If you're going hose-free and/or sleeveless multiple times per week, that means you need to carve out a few extra minutes in the shower for some razor action. Not once a week, not whenever you can remember, but the day of, or, if you shower in the evenings, the night before. You might score a point or two in the to-wear-or-not-to-wear makeup argument, but when it comes to leg and pit whiskers, there is only one determination -- unequivocally unacceptable. And no, Europeans are not granted immunity.
I've railed against the special occasion shoe in a number of previous posts, but here I am again, because you - DC women - don't seem to be listening. Every single day, whether I'm on my way to work, on my way to Cosi or on my way home, I see dozens upon dozens of pairs of these jewel-accented strappy stilettos. In all honesty, I'd rather you were lazy with sneakers than grossly inappropriate with prom shoes.
Ah, the comfort sandal. A favorite of Peace Corps volunteers and soccer Moms alike. A good test is to ask yourself whether you'd wear these to Costco on a Sunday afternoon -- if the answer is "yes," they don't belong in the law firm.
If you keep your jacket on at all times, the bare-back halter might be an acceptable selection. My only suggestion is that if you do take this risk, purchase a bra - not petals, not pasties but a bra - that will allow you to wear your work-to-bar transition top without letting your hasn't-had-sex-in-43-days boss get a peek (or four) at the pointed effect the AC has on your sensitive bits.
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