Manolo for the Big Girl

Love.

(click for shoe link)

Good morning mein schnauzers! (I don’t really speak German, although I HAVE seen Cabaret a bunch of times. Plus I stole the line from the occasionally NSFW Mr Peenee anyhow.)

Today’s blog post is going to be Law and Order style: Ripped from today’s headlines.

Except by “Today’s” I mean “Yesterday and quite late the night before” and “headlines” I mean “conversation I was having with an aerialist cum chef pal of mine who may or may not also breathe fire.”

The question?

Whether one might learn to be photogenic.

Listen, I’m not going to lie: I take a hell of a picture. In person I look like an extremely posh cartoon frog and I’m at peace with that, but on camera? I’m Myrna freakin’ Loy.

See, the things that make people beautiful to look at in real life don’t necessarily translate onto film, so there is absolutely no use hating bad photos of yourself. You DON’T really look like an off-Broadway musical revue staring Lady Bunny as The Elephant Man. It’s just a bad photo.

BUT you can hedge your bets by learning how to fake being photogenic.

How? Easy. Learn how to work your light.

You do this two ways: through makeup (easy) and through posing (easier).

Makeup first:
Most people who wear makeup focus on their eyes and lips and don’t pay much attention to their skin. This, particularly when it comes to photographs, is a mistake. Even if you want to go for “the natural look” for a photo, a little foundation or powder will even out the way light bounces off your face, making for a much smoother look.

For the look above -which was taken last night after an evening out celebrating the newest acquisition of the Château Gâteau Collection of Enormous Sparkly Things: a vintage Kenneth Jay Lane necklace the size of a sheep– I’m actually wearing relatively little on my lips and eyes.

The lips are just a generic tinted lipbalm and for the eyes I simply took my trusty MAC 217 brush and blended Paradise Pearl pure pigment from Coastal Scents over the lid, ran a bit of Milani’s Mediterranean Blue eye pencil along the waterline and along the outer corner of my eye and topped it with a lick of Rimmel Sexy Curves mascara.  I just cleaned up and shaped my brows using an old brown pencil whose make and model have been lost in the mists of memory.

What I did spend a lot of time on was the highlighting and contouring of my face.  For those of us who are fat of face or otherwise not blessed with an aquiline nose, cheekbones so high and sharp people try to commit suicide off them and the generally accepted number of chins (i.e., one) highlighting and contouring the face can be a godsend.

The painfully lovely and exceedingly talented Chapman sisters can teach you this and pretty much everything else you’d ever wanted to know about l’art du maquillage (I say that in French because it sounds nice, the sisters themselves are from Norwich) through their wonderfully accessible tutorials.

Sam Chapman Contouring Tutorial

Of course it doesn’t hurt that Sam Chapman might actually be the most gorgeous woman to ever have lived and if Crystal Renn ever got a look at her she’d be cowering in her technically-plus-size Martin Margiela boots.  I highly commend these videos to anyone with even an sprinkling of interest in makeup. If you’re an old hand, they’ll be inspiring and if you’re new to the wonderful world of better living through eyeliner it’s a great place to start.

So we’ve got the makeup down, right? Now on to posing.

Any small success I had as a photographer’s/artist’s model (my plus-size fashion career was as short as my too-short-for-fashion neck) was because I knew how to literally put myself in the best light.

Part of that is just being aware of your face and how the light hits it. You know when it’s nice outside and you turn up your face to get just that perfect sweet spot of sun? That’s a really natural example of finding your key light.

The undisputed queen of key light was Marlene Dietrich.

Killer bone structure notwithstanding, Dietrich wasn’t a great beauty (and let’s not even talk about the tragedy that is Jean Harlow’s wighat)

but she knew how to play to her light when a camera –moving or still– was on her.

Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor worked lights well too, but they had the disadvantage of being actually breathtakingly beautiful, too, so it’s not as useful from an academic perspective.

A silly “key light” finding exercise, is to set up a spotlight in your house (yes, this can be a flashlight or a can light on a music stand on your commode) and practice just moving your face around in the light.

Odds are you’ll find some positions where the light just feels better, feels right.

That will get you in the habit of paying attention to the light, so the next time someone wants to snap your photo and you have a second to pose, just lengthen your neck, find your light and you’ll be surprised how much better your photos turn out.

Now someone go find me that charming Mister DeMille.

Isabella Blow was a genius, and she got screwed.

La Blow, former Tatler editor, muse, star-finder and influence-wielder would have turned 51 yesterday, and her tragic story was fashion legend even before it ended with her death-by-weed-killer in March, 2007.

She was not a pretty girl.

No true fashion visionaries are traditionally beautiful (Miuccia Prada, Diana Vreeland, Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, etc), she had a weak chin, droopy eyes and perhaps the most painfully British set of teeth to be found outside the Royal Family.

But she had an eye.

BOY did she have an eye and she decided to follow Oscar Wilde’s commandment: if she could not BE a work of art, then at least she would wear them.

Thus created was the woman Lady Gaga wishes she could be.

She was an Evelyn Waugh character come to life: high born, brilliant and hopelessly self-destructive.  Blow left England in 1979 and wound up in New York, working as Anna Wintour’s assistant (the Devil may wear Prada, but the Assistant discovered McQueen) and then for André Leon Talley.

She returned to London to work for Tatler, which is like American Vogue but smart and interesting, first as an assistant and then as its Fashion Director. She also bounced around the rest of Conde Nast and did a stint as the Sunday Times Style section (London, not New York).

During that time she developed her relationship with boy-genius milliner Philip Treacy and became his muse, constantly daring him to create a hat she would not wear (as noted above, lobsters were not a barrier to millinery).

She discovered straight-then plus-then straight-sized model Sophie Dahl (Granddaughter of Roald, which explains why the heroine of The BFG was named Sophie), Stella Tennant and perhaps most legendarily, discovered Alexander McQueen when she bought young Lee’’s entire student collection for ₤5,000 –paid for in ₤100/wk allotments as she couldn’t afford it all in one go– in 1992.

Her personal life was not a happy one.

Disinherited by her father in the early 90’s she was married briefly in the 80’s and then joined her lot with Detmar Blow in 1989. Their marriage was not a success as Isabella battled with depression and could not conceive a child. Detmar, needing to carry on the family name in order not to lose the familial manse designed by his muckety muck architect ancestor (also a Detmar Blow) temporarily left Isabella when her I.V.F. didn’t work so he could knock up some girl.  Charming, no?

As Isabella continued to suffer from depression and a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, the people she discovered and nurtured –particularly McQueen– were moving onwards and upwards.

Her friend Daphne Guinness said “She was upset that McQueen didn’t take her along when he sold his brand to Gucci. Once the deals started happening, she fell by the wayside. Everybody else got contracts, and she got a free dress” which was especially hurtful as Blow was cripplingly low on cash and was rumored to have personally negotiated the Gucci deal.

Blow tried several creative attempts at suicide, finally succeeding by drinking Paraquat in the bathroom of the family manse her husband had left her to save.

Blow’s memorial service was, as you’d imagine, well-attended and there has been a great deal of guilt –both public and private– about her treatment by her fashion friends and colleagues. Read Simon Doonan’s self-punishing recollection –published shortly after her death– here.

As a personal note, I wept when I saw Alexander McQueen’s S/S 2008 show, an homage to Isabella chock-full of Philip Treacy confections (including a quivering mob of feather butterflies which I came up with for a Halloween costume in 2001. I have proof.)

Isabella Blow did not have a happy ending, nor indeed a happy middle or beginning, but she was one of the few great characters of the post-couture era and her eccentricity has inspired a new generation of  fashion daredevils.  Have a great weekend, and wherever you’re going, put on a hat. Do it for La Blow.

While I believe firmly that some people are simply born with tremendous amounts of style, those fashionable freaks are the exception, not the rule.

Most folks with any sort of chic at all take a heavily revisionist hand to their early sartorial development.

Case in point: legend has it, moments after emerging from my mother’s womb I took one look at the delivery room wallpaper, said “Mauve? Really?” and popped back in until I could be brought into this earth surrounded by more suitable wallcoverings, perhaps something in a William Morris print.

What I fail to mention is the time in 8th grade history when Mrs Cheeseman made me go to the bathroom to wash the purple lipstick off my face, or my middle school years which were heavily punctuated by Liza-with-a-Z quality rayon “big shirts” (the bane of the Big Girl of which I still have the horrors) and deeply ill-advised trapeze top/leggings sets, the most famous of which was a head-to-toe Holstein print bestowed upon me by my grandmother who, despite all evidence to the contrary, really did love me at the time.

(this is less than ideal)
The point is: It’s a process.

As with most processes, you’ll naturally want to tweak here and there, otherwise you’ll end up in a rut and before you know it you’ll be That Lady. The most obvious examples of That Lady is the middle-aged woman who wears her hair the same way she did in high school or the sweet old lady who could stun a yeti with her “signature perfume” which she’s been wearing since 1954, immune to the idea that her nose is dead to the scent.

I can’t tell you how many folks I talk to get frustrated with their own ruts.

They complain how “it” seems to come so easily to some people while they struggle along and can’t add something to their wardrobe without feeling like it’s a costume. They shove the piece they love in the back of the closet because they felt uncomfortable wearing it, or like it was wearing them and then these poor souls feel they’ve let themselves down, like they can’t wear Capital F Fashion and might as well go back to the jeans and t-shirts, because at least then they won’t look stupid.

It just breaks the heart.

Because here’s the thing: a sophisticated sense of style takes practice and getting mad at yourself for not being good at it right off the bat is just, well forgive my language, doofy.

For the next few days we’re going to talk about the process from inspiration to realization of incorporating elements into your personal style so it feels like a natural, easy extension instead of a gimmick or costume. This is valuable for absolute beginners as well as folks who already feel they’ve got a handle on advanced fashion but want to branch out.

Stay tuned, it should be fun.

We’re in Milan now. Well I’m not, but the shows are.

I’m still here in Austin, nursing what might actually be the hamthrax and wondering how long it will be before I can go home and unearth my jammeroos, which are the pj’s I wear exclusively when I’m sick.

I’ll go back and do London later and talk about the three “plus size models” used in a show that caused two stylists to quit. I say “plus size” because two of them were American 8’s and 10’s, there was one size 12. The show was awful and the clothes are ugly, but read Style Spy’s reaction to tide you over.)

I don’t really know what to make of the Dolce and Gabbana show. I DO know they had several bloggers sitting in the front row, which I think is swell, and since I’m in big drop-drawers love with dinner jackets right now I loved pretty much all of those.

But.

Well, I didn’t HATE it, and I have a feeling it might grow on me, but as it stands right now? Meh.

I think the problem is, this didn’t really feel like a Dolce show to me. It felt like a mediocre Gaultier show with a splash of Dior. Now, a mediocre Gaultier show is still going to rock my casbah, but…I don’t know, I just didn’t love it.

Plus there were 63 exits. That’s a lot of exits. Up close the clothes are all amazing, but seriously, did they even edit at all? The show was all over the place. Do D and G ski *ahem* with Marc Jacobs?

There was the Latin cowboy look which was my favorite motif, providing some amazing jackets:

Loved this jacket, but can’t say I’m digging the pannier pants.

Very much want. But not the pants. It’s like a pumpkin is mourning in her crotch.

Yowza.

It’s tough for a big girl to do a whole severely tailored look, because our bodies fight it, but I do like –and often employ– a mess jacket over a feminine dress.

This look works better on apples than on pears, unless you’re quite tall or very comfortable with your legs since when doing a jacket/dress combo it’s best to keep the dress on the shortish side and wear a heel heavy enough to “anchor” the look.

I was not crazy about the widow’s weeds exits. It seemed messy to me,especially in the wake of Dior’s recent triumph with under-as-outer and lingerie fabrics, especially black Swiss, of which we see a lot in the Dolce show.

It either looked messy:

unfinished:

or just well, whatever the hell this is:

God, that’s a mess.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t like the show, I dug several of the exits including the unfinished one worn by Sessilee Lopez, my model of the moment. it’s just…it left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied. Like it sort of veered of into Givenchy In a Bad Way territory by way of Lady GaGa.

viz:

That’s one immaculately made bordello lampshade!

and did we really need what is essentially a cake wreck in corset form?

There weren’t any Enormous Ball Gowns so who knows what Vogue will do without them –I’m always glad to see them, but I’m just as happy they were given a break– but there were animal prints, because it wouldn’t be Dolce without them:

I’d say we’d see this on Beyoncé, but there isn’t enough gold lamé.

Thomas Jefferson, who had the decency to do many sensible things like write the Declaration of Independence, create the Library of Congress, found the University of Virginia (well okay, jury’s still out on this one) and –most importantly– grew up in my part of Virginia, is know affectionately as TJ all over his old stomping grounds, but on the University of Virginia campus he is know exclusively as Mister Jefferson. It is a sign of respect.

In that vein, please note we will refer to today’s Friday Fierceness, editrix and icon par excellence Diana Vreeland strictly as Mrs Vreeland.

I don’t think I can overstate how much I love Mrs Vreeland, so let me try to paint you a picture:

Whenever faced with a sticky situation, I have an imaginary dinner party in my head (because I am, as well we know, completely mad). I go around the table and listen to my five regular guests argue out their opinions.

Here’s the guest list:

Jesus –the free space on any ethical bingo card

Mister Jefferson — for that diplomatic polymath touch

Socrates –an ethicist who damned the torpedos

Sheriff Andy Taylor –for gentleness and the people’s touch

Mrs Vreeland –for wit, vision and a healthy sense of the ridiculous

It’s hard to say where to start with Mrs Vreeland, because my admiration runs so deep.

Yes, she was a great editor, the best Harper’s and American Vogue ever had.

Her influence in the publishing world is still felt through countless people she discovered, inspired or worked with, including the most powerful big girl in fashion, Andre Leon Talley, her protégé.

If you’re a fan of Audrey Hepburn movies you’ll probably know Kay Thompson did a note-perfect homage in Funny Face as Maggie Prescott, the larger-than-life editor of Quality magazine. “Think Pink” was doubtlessly inspired by Mrs Vreeland’s famed quote: “Pink is the navy blue of India”

After the entire scene is painted pink, Maggie Prescott is asked why she wasn’t wearing the new “it” color she championed, since everyone one else was. Her perfect Mrs Vreeland line was a dismissive “I wouldn’t be caught dead.”

Mrs Vreeland wasn’t pretty. With her enormous nose, tilted pelvis and mannish features she came down on the laide side of jolie-laide, which always makes for the most interesting beauty. I’ve always said Sarah Jessica Parker must have a copy of the editrix’s playbook somewhere, so it was no surprise when SJP posed as Mrs Vreeland for Harper’s in March.


Her memoir D.V. should be required reading for every man, woman and child with even a glimmer of intellect or style.

It’s a tremendous read that begins with a perfectly aged Mrs Vreeland applying a back plaster to young Jack Nicholson’s naked backside, slides through her relationship with Wallis Simpson, Jackie Kennedy, Balenciaga and hits every note along the way with pizzazz (a word she made famous but probably did not coin. She became editor of Harper’s in 1937 where the word first appeared in print, attributed to a Harvard Lampoon editor.)

Here, just read the first page:

(click image to enlarge)

How much of the story is true? Probably more than she gets credit for, but it doesn’t really matter. Memoirs aren’t autobiographies.

So what can big girls learn from the reed-thin Mrs Vreeland?

She knew how to occupy space.

We all occupy space, that’s science. Learning how to occupy space is an art. I don’t suggest adopting her trademark pelvis-tilting swan slouch, but learning how to hold your body with unapologetic grace and power –even if it’s not traditional grace– is, like diamonds and the herp, a gift that gives forever.

When she sat in a chair, she didn’t perch on it trying to take up as little space as possible, she was in that chair.

It all comes down to honesty of being.

Mrs Vreeland was honest. She wasn’t necessarily factual but she was honest. I was astounded after my interview with The Daily Beast went public because dozens of my beloved readers thought I was actually a team of gay men because Plumcake couldn’t possible be real.  I loathe dishonesty of personality, especially in publishing. That’s not how I roll. I am what I appear (although I am more than I appear, like the rest of us) and I have Mrs Vreeland to thank for that.

She liked what she liked, said what she thought, wore what she pleased –usually black with wild statement pieces, which might be from ancient Greece or the costume shop around the corner– and knew she was the most fabulous creature on earth.

She didn’t pretend to fit traditional beauty, and that was fine with her because her concern was elegance and elegance was something far broader than black sheaths and knowing what fork to use.

“The only real elegance is in the mind; if you’ve got that, the rest really comes from it.”

She had a vocabulary of elegance. When describing her hunt of the perfect red:

“All my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It’s exactly as if I’d said, “I want Rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple”…About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in ANY Renaissance portrait.”

…and Mrs Vreeland did love her red. Her crimson nails and lips set against her kabuki white face and black lacquered hair, and of course her famed “Garden in Hell” living room.

I could go on and on, but I’ve been drinking tea since 8:00 this morning and there are tides in the affairs of men that reallyneedtogorightnowzomgow.

So have a fabulous weekend, have fun, be glorious and remember:

“I’m a great believer in vulgarity- if it’s got vitality. A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. We all need a splash of bad taste- it’s hearty, it’s healthy, it’s physical. I think we could use more of it. No taste is what I’m against.”

We are all deeply saddened to lose Patrick Swayze who died from pancreatic cancer –a particularly evil sort– this week at 57. Rest assured, the Monday Hotness WILL be Johnny Castle, who catapulted my entire female generation into puberty, but I truly believe his best role was Miss Vida Boheme, in what may actually be the single greatest film of all time, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Love, Julie Newmar.

“Well pumpkins, it comes down to that age-old decision: style… or… substance?”
“Internal combustion, the ultimate accessory.”
“A car? Mary Alice Louise, no. This is a land yacht.”

“I think tomorrow is a “Say Something” hat day.”
[referring to Diana Vreeland's memoir DV] “Read it? My dear child you should commit entire passages to memory!”

“Oh! No one say anything frivolous for the next few moments. I am having a significant experience.”

(I love how this outfit is a wink to Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in the cross-dressing buddy film that started it all, Some Like It Hot)

“I want you to believe in yourself, imagine good things and moisturize, I cannot stress this enough.”

and most importantly, the last line has been my personal credo for years:

Larger than life is just the right size.

…it’s like lookin’ in a mirror.

Dior “Cartegena” Sandals and a collection of 17th and 18th century Mughal daggers, because a girl’s GOT to have accessories.