The World's a Stage

About a month ago, my friend Melanie sent me this link, which is about feathers in the fashion industry. Apparently in the last year or so, feather prices have risen by 300-700%, and fishermen are having trouble obtaining feathers for their lures. The writer links the trend to the circus performance group El Circo, which started around 12 years ago and to whom the San Francisco Bay Guardian credits the creation of the post-apocalyptic fashion associated with Burning Man.

I was very amused, therefore, to see photos from Jean Paul Gaultier’s winter/fall 2011 collection today and the large number of feathers in evidence.

From the Washington Post:

PARIS — Jean Paul Gaultier was the fox in the proverbial hen-house, serving up a feather-filled and plumage-plastered fall-winter 2011-12 haute couture collection on Wednesday.

Every conceivable bird was there. Rooster, ostrich, swan, turkey and pheasant feathers peeked out from the hemlines of trench coats and fluttered out from beneath the necklines of bustiers and other Gaultier staples. And even when they weren’t visible from the outside, the feathers were there on the inside, stuffing the puffer jackets and A-line skirts made from down-filled duvets.

Some of my favorites:

The first dress is a bit different from what I normally like – more feathers, for one, but also brighter and with a busier mix of colors. I’ve been trying to brighten my personal style though, which has been pretty monochrome since I started college, where all the free t-shirts and the convenient BDUs were black. Additionally, I love the shape – the flaring reminds me of 50s dresses. The next two dresses are pretty classic me, I think, both in color (dark) and style. I’ve liked sleeveless garments ever since I played soccer in high school and sleeves were just one more thing to get in the way of smooth movement. The lack of sleeves emphasizes the model’s shoulders, making her look stronger, and the length really compliments her height. The third dress, on the French artist Mylene Farmer, is just gorgeous – I love the flaring shorter front and the bustle-like back. It’s almost like a reverse-colored wedding dress, which reminds me of when I told my mother around when I was 7 that I wanted to have a black wedding dress (she was pretty unhappy). I also just love how crazy the fourth design is – the Telegraph tells me that Jean Paul Gaultier was the first to propose dresses for men in the 1980s, and man, he’s still at it. I love the gradient on the feathers.

I haven’t been posting this week because I just got a new apartment and have been moving. The new place is awesome! My new room is more than twice the size of my old one, and the kitchen is incredible. And now I have enough room to have my sewing machine, so it’s time to start all those projects I’ve had in mind.

In other news, today I watched the video of the Mugler Fall 2011 Women’s collection, and it is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The whole thing is stunning – the music, the hair styles, make up, stage, everything. And of course the clothing is amazing. But it actually went beyond that for me. I’ve always thought that fashion was about communicating human struggles with human things – modern Epics constructed out of cloth and dreams, wrapped around the bodies of men and women, put to music and placed on a stage. But I’ve never felt it as fiercely I did when watching this video. I don’t know what it was, but something about it really rang with me. I might be crazy, or maybe it’s just the fact that it’s really late, or maybe Nicola Formichetti is just an absolute genius. I’m going to have to watch this a few more times to figure this out.

Actually talking about the collection though: I love the silhouettes of Formichetti’s designs. The sculpted sleeves and the elegant, sleek lines remind me strongly of skeletons. Combined with the archways, it all brought me back to the Catacombs in Paris, which I explored this last March. The makeup and the hair, however, still give it a very alive, intense element. Details as small as the smooth, glossy arcs made by the models’ ponytails snapping around as the they turned on the catwalk really stand out to me.

My absolute favorite look is the first one down the runway. I love how it’s androgynous and almost masculine, especially combined with how the model’s hairstyle, but still somehow emphasizes the elegance of her very feminine body at the same time. I also love the juxtaposition of her very graceful, classic runway walk with the almost drunken stagger near the beginning.

This is why I love fashion.

So a few weeks ago, I started reading the R-A-W Shoes Blog, which is, obviously, all about shoes. This blog has taught me two things: (1) I know nothing about shoes and (2) I do not have enough of them (I’m sure my former housemates are all shaking their heads furiously right now, but it’s true). So I’d like to share a few of my favorites from this blog and elsewhere with you.

This amazing shoe is from Sergio Rossi’s Fall 2011 collection, which I found on the aforementioned blog. I love the black and white spots, even though it reminds me a bit of dogs and clowns. The curling edge is very whimsical and also sort of clown-like, but for some reason, it’s not sending me running in John Wayne Gacy inspired fear (er, if you don’t know who that is, I recommend not looking him up). Instead, it seems very cheerful and playful to me, and I could see it going well with certain things in my closet.

Speaking of whimsical, I thought the bananas were a bit much in Prada’s Spring/Summer collection this year, but I love these shoes:

They’re very Alice in Wonderland-ish to me, for some reason. I especially love the checkered heel. It kind of makes me want to go drink tea and pet cats (although I always want to pet cats, so maybe the shoes have nothing to do with it).

Again from the shoe blog mentioned above are these amazing shoes from Aoi Kotsuhiroi:

I actually love the leggings the model is wearing more than the shoes, but they’re both incredible. They appeal to the punk/goth/whatever-you-want-to-call-it side of me. Knowing me, though, I’d probably accidentally stab a hole through someone’s foot with them.

The footnote to all of this is that I’m clumsy enough that’d I’d probably break my neck along with random luckless passerby if I ever tried to wear any of these shoes. Since I’m unlikely to purchase any of them any time soon (I found the third pair of shoes online for £2,130.00) though, that’s not really a serious concern. I’m not really sure how I got from hating shoe shopping to where we are now, but so it goes (bam! Vonnegut reference!).

While at work today, I literally stumbled upon (yep, shameless plug. If you didn’t already know, guess where I work?) the Alexander McQueen website, and now I’m dooooomed.

The website is written in some sort of terrible Microsoft .NET crap, but it’s full of pretty, very expensive things. In particular, I really like this look from their Pre-Autumn/Winter 11 collection:

It sort of makes me wish I was tall and skinny, but it more makes me wish I had $2k to blow on random gorgeous things whenever I want to. Some day!