Manolo for the Big Girl

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.

When it comes to the fashion world, especially the modeling world, I am a cold, cold jaded shrew.

I know most plus-size models are size 10/12 and travel with their own set of pads to make them look bigger. I know there’s only ever one famous plus-size model at a time and I know nine times out of ten, if there’s a plus-size model in a straight-sized shoot, she’s there like a token black model would’ve been in the early 70’s.

And it’s not that I’m bitter. I had a blast when I modeled. My neck was too short for me to ever be a real success, but I was popular enough as an artists’ model to pay my bills for a while and I got to do the occasional charity runway thing which was all kinds of fun (Mama can STOMP. IT. OUT.) and I got to meet all sorts of cool artist guys I’m glad I never slept with. If you’ve ever wanted to model and have the required beauty, thick skin and good head on  your shoulders, I say give it a try.

But when you’ve been in and around the industry for a decade or so, you can get a little jaded. You realize Crystal Renn is just the new Mia Tyler, who was the new Kate  Dillon who was the new Sophie Dahl etc etc etc.  Now granted, all those girls –except for Sophie who is back to a straight size and just as gorgeous as ever– are still working as plus size models, but only Crystal is getting the covers.  Crystal is a damn good model but I’m just about exhausted of all the kerfuffle made over her each time she gets an editorial. It’s nothing new. She’s just the token “fat chick” who is virtually indistinguishable from a skinny chick.

THIS, however, is new:

V Magazine preview courtesy of models.com

V Magazine preview courtesy of models.com

(click on the photos to view more previews, you know you want to)

What we have here are four gorgeous undeniably plus-size models in V Magazine’s upcoming “Size Issue” and you know what these photos say to me?

Supermodels are back.

Good old-fashioned Gianni Versace schmoozing, George Michael lip-synch, don’t-get-out-of-bed-for-less-than-$10,000 quoting, early 90’s supermodels and it’s

About

Damn

Time.

Because this? Is gorgeous and lush and LONG overdue. It is full on glamor and I LOVE it because dammit, life is HARD right now for a lot of people and by God if ever there’s been a time to be allowed to do a smoky eye AND a major lip, it’s when we can’t afford anything BUT a new red lipstick and some kohl pencil.

Do I think we’re going to see a preponderance of plus-sized women on the catwalk and in major fashion editorials any time soon? Not hardly. But I DO think it means we’re moving away from the size 00 models and might start seeing fours and sixes again. I think the pendulum will swing away from the hard, post-modern space-age praying mantis ideal we’ve got now back to lushness and a certain over-the-top natural sexiness that just cannot happen when you don’t have any vavas to voom.

So well played, V Magazine. Well played indeed and I  hope this is the start of something big –as it were– for all of us.

What the H-E-Double swizzle sticks is going on here? Because yesterday’s post was an earlier draft and I spent HOURS writing a totally inspiring edit that had pretty much nothing to do with that one and it disappeared like a senator after an intern’s pregnancy test.

Anyhoodle, it’s Tuesday which means I really ought to do one of those “What Plumcake Is” things, but I’m not going to because I’ve pretty much been in a Christmas coma for the past 11 days. Basically the twelve days of Christmas find me in a sort of perma-stupor, all hopped up on Mr Kipling’s “exceedingly jolly” miniature mince pies and bad champagne, which has been magically turned into GOOD champagne by the cunning addition of Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur:

So culturally speaking, I’m pretty useless until Twelfth Night which is one of my favorite feast days because I get to wear jewelry on my head and there is mandatory cake. I LOVE mandatory cake. Do you know what I also love? Booze Emotionally unavailable men with hot accents having a really good lawyer Pretty much all of Kiyonna’s dresses right now, which are all an additional 20% off until midnight tonight if you use the code RESOLUTION.

Here are some of my favorites.

Can I tell you how much I’m loving this? It’s so Studio 54. Not in a Liza or a Bianca way –although if any of you say a harsh word against either of them I will Ban You Forever– but sort of in a Marisa Berenson, sleeping with a Rothschild/wearing Grandma Schiaparelli’s old furs  continental chic way.  Plus I love the way they styled this model.

Also, how glad am I that the early 90’s are back? Back when models were models and Gianni was the only Versace that mattered (oh wait, he still is).

I love the full-on Cindy/Naomi/Christy/Linda supermodel look, and I’m hoping this lush look will bring more voluptuous models back to the catwalk because the skeletal waifs who do bizarre and other-worldly so well don’t do the glamazon thing any justice.

In a continuing theme of cat, check out this purple leopard print wrap dress:

CLEARLY not for the shy, this wrap dress is a sign that the colored animal print brought famously to the forefront with Lanvin SS09 –as notoriously sported by Maggie Gyllenhaal– can be done at a boutique level without looking like a hot mess.

although I don’t believe for a SECOND that MyBoyfriendAlberElbaz didn’t have another leading lady in mind when he designed a one-sleeve blue leopard gown:

Love. Her.

On a more conservative note, you know how I’m always yammering on about getting investment pieces that look amazing and you can wear to work/dinner/theater for three seasons if not all four?

THIS is what I’m talking about. In fact, if I didn’t have two blue dresses in almost this exact cut, I’d buy this up with a quickness. They’re also DEAD easy to dress up –think Big Jewelry- or down –flats and my own personal trick, an Hermès foulard tied kerchief-style in your hair– get it in both blue and merlot. You won’t regret it.

Finally my favorite guaranteed-to-look-good-on-everybody pick:

The “Flaunt” dress.

I. Love. This. Dress. I love that it’s simple enough for it to be one of those things you just throw on but the back is sexy without even a hint of skank. Now, I’m not one of those people who thinks “princess seams” are for apples, because they’re just not. Pretending you have a waist will not make it so. The key to dressing an apple shape is neckline neckline neckline. The particularly wide square one on the Flaunt is perfect for our apple tarts, while the a-line shape does lovely things for our pear-shaped jewels.

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.

First, remember that many of the sales and codes listed in Tuesday’s FFI are still working.

YOOX and the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum (in New York City) are teaming up for an exhibit and online project called “American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion.”  Information is here. YOOX is one of our favorite sources of designer shoes and accessories.

Catherine’s is having a buy one get one 50% off sale on bras today and tomorrow. Also, enter code 777001900 for $10 off any purchase of $50 or more (through tomorrow). Full sale page here. Clearance here.

Avenue: If you make an order that happens to come to  $50 or more, enter code AV91148 and they’ll throw in a little wristlet purse for you too (through Sunday). Here is their sale page.

Igigi’s  free shipping on everything ends tomorrow.

Swimsuits for All will

give you free shipping (US) with code SHIPITFREE. International customers: use code WORLD5 for $5 off shipping. Francesca does not know how long these will last. Their website is here.

Bloomingdales will take 20% from your Fashion, Kids, or Home purchase through Sunday with code HOLIDAY. Also, if you spend $500 or more, you’ll get a $100-off coupon to use the next time you spend $250 or more. Plus-size apparel here.

One Stop Plus is having a clearance sale.

Womensuits will give you 10% off your purchase today and tomorrow with code NOVEMBER. Francesca has great admiration for their hats.

Saks Fifth Avenue is having a sale. Plus-size apparel (some is especially nice!) here.

Happy shopping! xoxo

Francesca spent an afternoon reading the new memoir by Crystal Renn, a former “straight” size model (that is, size 00) who decided to stop starving herself and is now the most successful plus-size (12) model in the world. Entitled Hungry, the book (co-authored with Marjorie Ingall) describes Renn’s relatively happy childhood; her descent into anorexia and exercise bulimia beginning at age 14 after a scout told her she could be a supermodel; and her rise to fame after re-gaining dozens of pounds.

The book is a quick read, and Francesca enjoyed the peek into the brutal world of modeling and the many illustrative pictures of Renn, which show how much more animated and photogenic she is now that she is healthy. The writing isn’t high literary art, and the (sometimes excessive) references to contemporary pop culture will make the book obsolete in a few years, but still … it is an interesting story, certainly worth an afternoon. Francesca also appreciates that many of the statistics and observations which support the HAES movement have been published in one place.

The important aspect of this book is the messages it conveys about weight and popular media. One good one comes through strongly: that people in the fashion world have a dramatically skewed view of beauty and thinness. Another valuable message is that eating disorders are not only not healthy but also NOT WORTH IT. I’m glad that a beautiful model is getting out there and saying that even a modeling career isn’t worth the hunger, and exhaustion, and inability to focus she suffered when she was eating nothing but steamed vegetables and gum, and exercising for 8 hours a day.

Renn’s argument is somewhat weakened by the fact that she did not, in fact, give up her modeling career. Francesca thinks that what Ms. Renn wants to communicate – and obviously means sincerely – is that the best way to live is to give your body what it needs and take care of yourself, and that good things will follow. Indeed it is fascinating to read how Renn’s career skyrocketed after she went plus-size.

That message would be stronger –albeit less dramatic – if it were coming from someone who had actually given up her modeling dream in order to be healthy, and had found success and happiness some other way. As it is, the book is saying “look, I gained back the weight and now I’m a supermodel ANYHOW!” without acknowledging that it wouldn’t happen that way for most people. As Renn explains in the book, most plus-size models are forever limited to “catalogue” work, as opposed to the more artsy and more prestigious “editorial” work in the fashion magazines.

It is terrific and inspiring that Ms. Renn has broken through the plus-size/editorial barrier, but Francesca wishes that somewhere in the book she’d said that going from size 00 to 12 – and becoming healthier and more emotionally stable in the process — would have been worth it even if no one ever wanted to take her picture again.

Perhaps not THE most comfortable shoes in the history of hoof-covers (as my friend Style Spy would say) but historically significant nonetheless.  Designer Vivienne Westwood, former proprietress of the famed London SEX boutique and absolute punk icon, released her “Prostitute Sex Shoe” sometime around late 1974 I believe and these, rendered in rubber, are the current iteration.

Don’t you just love her all dolled up in what is almost definitely head-to-toe 1980’s Aquascutum a la Maggie Thatch? Alternatively, don’t you ever wonder if she and Vogue creative director Grace Coddington give each other the stinkeye at shows, each one vying to be the most terrifying British PoMo Elizabeth I impersonator in fashion?

Coddy’s got the hairline, but Viv wins on style.

Let’s be honest, Nancy Talbot, the driving force behind Talbots, inspired and sold quite possibly the world’s dullest clothes. Barbara Bush was touted by Robin Sackin of the Fashion Institute of Technology as the quintessential Talbot’s woman, “she’s perfect” said Sackin. But as much as their clothes are narcoleptic attacks rendered totally in twill and unflattering pleats, Nancy Talbot –who died Sunday– was a sister who did it for herself.

Born Nancy Orr, she met her husband Rudolf Talbot in France during World War II.

The two married and when Mr Talbot became dissatisfied with the franchise clothing store he’d inherited from his father, Nancy and Rudolf opened the first Talbots outside of Boston.

“I was always pushing poor Rudolf [...] I was an aggressive Midwesterner, but that’s how it started. We were so unique on Seventh Avenue. Everyone took pity on us. We bought what we liked.”

read the rest of the obit here.

And you know, as much as their clothes bore me to tears, I’ve got to respect a broad who stayed true to her values, was aggressively enterprising, trusted her eye and did what she loved. We should all be so dedicated.

Mrs Talbot died from Alzheimer’s disease. If you’d like to learn more about that bitch of a disease or donate to the Alzheimer’s Association (one of my favorite charities) click here.