Occasionally, high fashion is pretty

No, really. I don't make fun of EVERYTHING I see coming down the runways of the fashion world. And I guess it doesn't really bother me that not one single thing is remotely within my power to own, because that's not the point. It's the vision of an artist, and I enjoy it on those grounds. Part of the artistic merit of high fashion, however, is its practicality, its wearability, its ability to transfer to the mass-production world where the Rest Of Us live. It may be beautiful, but if it's ridiculous and unwearable, it loses points. Galliano is a major example of that. Funky, pretty, even beautiful at times, but always theatrical. Never practical.

But today as I was perusing the New York Fashion Week pics, I actually found a few pieces I thought were lovely.

Okay, this one wasn't lovely. This one was ridiculous. It's from Anna Sui's fall 2007 collection and it's utterly bizarre. Is she wearing a SKUNK on her head?!? What self-respecting (even sentient) girl would go out the door looking like this?

Anna Sui did, however, have a few things I thought were decent, including this one:

Perhaps not for everyone, but I like the ethnic fabrics. This dress looks sharp and yet comfy-cozy at the same time. I also like the colors -- bright but not garish.

The Badgely Mischka show had some stunningly lovely evening gowns in it:

This silver one looks like it's made of liquid, and I love the bodice detailing. Very classy, very beautiful.

Bodice detailing seemed to be a hallmark of the Badgely Mischka collection. I think that it lends a very feminine, elegant touch to the lineup.


Bodice detailing aside, you might want to feed your models a little better... just a suggestion.




Next up, we have an outfit I saw in the Diesel collection. I had been wondering when pants waistbands would move back up and off the hips. The hipster look is cool and all, but I can't wear it due to the practical constraints of my particular physique. I think that Diesel might have tossed the pendulum a little too far in the opposite direction with this one, however:


Usually I like Vera Wang's artistic vision, but I actually didn't see much in this particular collection that interested me. This evening gown was nice, but I thought the addition of the Little Red Riding Hood was bizarre. I kept expecting someone to come out wearing a shaggy gray wolf costume.

Well, there you have it. If I had to do a redux of everything I saw today, I'd have to boil it down to a common thread of flapper-style short dresses without waistlines over dark turtlenecks and dark stockings. There were lots of others, but this one thing seemed to keep popping up in different shows as a theme, of sorts. Skirt hemlines that short just don't flatter me in the least, but they probably would if I lost about a zillion pounds first. An unlikely scenario at best. Meh.