I just want to have fun.

Someone call Cyndi Lauper and tell her her time has come again!

Her album She's So Unusual was my first prized possession and first lost love (after my brother stepped on it and cracked it in half, killing it). And what have we here? It's a vintage Cyndi look accessorized with modern technology as featured in Bill Cunningham's NYT "On the Streets Column" about Fall color.

Maybe with the escalation of global warming people will let their fluorescent freak flags fly all year long! Yay for greenhouse gasses!

Oh goodness...

My brain keeps asking, what's wrong here? I loved Balenciaga's strong silhouettes and flower powered prints but this...

It's just wrong. Maybe it's because Jennifer Connelly is not exactly the fiercest face in Hollywood. She's so much softer than those hard seams allow. You would think the flowers might work in her favor, but those brilliantly strong blooms are just as structured as the shaped shoulders hovering over her like inflated balloons. And the shoes? They were commander, warrior height on the runway, and here they look, well, neutered. De-sexed. Weirdly wrapped. Here's the thing about really good fashion: It doesn't work head to toe from runway to reality. The ideas should be dispersed, incorporated, mixed-up and in. She looks like she was invited to a costume party and decided to go as "Balenciaga Girl, Spring/ Summer 2008".

Her stylist should have to forfeit one of her favorite articles of clothing. Hit her where it hurts.

I want shoulder pads?!

I'm obsessed with the below photos of Ms. Carine Roitfeld, the editor-in-chief of French Vogue and the legendary stylist behind Tom Ford's erotically charged rise to fame at the house of Gucci. While Ford seems hell-bent on raising his cheese factor to heart clogging levels (nude shower scenes in Out Magazine?? His own sultry stare selling his perfume line a la' J.Lo??) Madame Roitfeld's still got it.

She is absolutely rocking shoulder pads. Tailored, pointy, elegant even; they are razor sharp and cutting edge. And, am I wrong or is she also working a black satin arm sling in a way that makes it look like some cool, strange fabric accessory that may help you to heal if you just so happened to break a bone? That is one prepared fashionista.

I just wanted to tell you...

This is the most excited I have been about commercial fashion in a long time. There is a newness in the air. A freedom of expression is floating around, loose from the over-sexed, over-shot, consumerist focus on wearable trends.

I want to be free from the trend, free from the unwashable $15.98, disposable facsimile of a dress I feel compelled to pick off the rack at "insert trend chain name here" because it is so cheap. I want to see how the cheap-o stores attempt to water down the newest Marc Jacobs show, which is all cut up and collaged. It is focused on texture and color with displaced and replaced references to the past, present, and future. In case you can't sense the sarcasm, I seriously don't want to see what they will make of any of the looks from his shows this season, like the ones below for Loius Vuitton.




This is not to say that I am wholeheartedly in support of the elitist, big-bucks fashion houses either. That is exactly why I loved so much shown this season. This is the thinking girl's moment to shine. Comb the racks at a vintage store, raid your mom's closet, and cut up everything you own then stitch it back together sideways. Follow Rei Kawakubo's example at Comme des Garcons and let your clothes out to play.





As for the claims that both Marc Jacobs shows this season were hijacked from Kawakubo? I say maybe. I also say so what? None of us lives in a bubble; no ideas are unique. If this random aesthetic is going to be the poached prize of the season, I say let it spread. This isn't polka dots or sailor stripes. This is mash-up randomness. Everyone should try it. Looks like fun.

I want to slap my outfits silly!

Let's go batshit crazy and wear everything all at once! Let's carefully curate a mish-mash of color, pattern, and shape that somehow looks quiet and comfortable. I love it. It is elegant eccentricity. I want something new and this feels new, less slick, less packaged for mass consumption, more freaked and tweaked and wearable. This is my favorite trend of Spring/Summer '08-no questions asked--except of course, how do i recreate it in my own closet? Here are some examples:

Dries van Noten's andro-greaser-housewife look.



Dolce & Gabbana's color war and giant checkered bag! Giant!


Balenciaga's sculpted flower-power.

I want to float too.

I can't decide whether this image of a floating Cate Blanchett channeling Bob Dylan makes me want to be reborn as a classy Aussie actress with great bone structure, or wear skinny boy suits for the rest of my days. Either way I love it.

On another note, I really hope that the days of ballooning tops over stretchy black leggings are a thing of the past, but...

sweet lacy half tights can just barely be called leggings. I predict they will be stretched delicately over hip thighs before too long. Just remember they aren't opaque and you should wear appropriate over clothes please.

A match made in heaven:

C-Love 3.0 meets her future self! Maybe she finally read her free copy of Karl's don'teat book.


Fashion week(s) round-up to follow.