Remember in The Devil Wears Prada (which I liked despite being the only woman on earth apparently not in love with Meryl Streep) when our straight-sized heroine Andy is told by creative director Nigel that “Six is the new fourteen.”?

Well, life imitates art.

First, you must go and read Style Spy’s revelation.  She could be a plus sized model!

“But wait!” you say “Style Spy is a teensy tiny size 4!” and I say “I know. read on, my friends.”

Mme Style Spy posted a picture of one of Ford Models’ newest members of their plus division, Alyona Osmanova:

and remarked how they share almost the exact same measurements, except Aloyna is much, much taller.

Now, just for comparison, Ms Osmanova’s measurements are reported as 36″ 28″ 40″ and she stands at just a hair under six feet tall.

Cindy Crawford, one of the few TRUE supermodels, is only 5’9″ but her model card from 1992 had her measurements as 34″ 22″ 35″,  Naomi Campbell, same height, reported her measurements as 34″ 28″ 40″ on the Tyra show in 2005.

Once again:

Supermodel Naomi Campbell: 34″ 28″ 40″ at 5’9″

Plus size model Alyona Osmanova: 36″ 28″ 40″ at 5’11″

Huh?

Say what you will about the plus divisions of most modeling agencies (get a few sazeracs in me and I will) but at least back in my day –and we’re talking the late 90′s here– the plus sized models were actually plus sized: 12, 14, 16.

But I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom.

At this point, these size categories have been so bended and skewed as to be meaningless, and I think for the fashion world, that’s a good thing.

When reviewing the Chanel Resort collection, Andre Leon Talley (whose memoir ALT you MUST read) wrote:

“Lagerfeld had cast the show with a slightly more curvaceous model named Crystal Renn, not seen on any Chanel catwalk before. This in itself was groundbreaking for the house, but there was also the return of personality models encouraged to be themselves instead of robotic look-alikes.”

What I’m excited about isn’t known fatty hater Karl Lagerfeld casting “slightly more curvaceous” Crystal Renn (and THANK YOU, Mr Talley for that bit of intellectual honesty) it’s that we’re seeing a return to personality models.

We’ve kind of been doing 15 year old Eastern European automatons for almost a decade now, and they do look like robots, and while I understand the appeal having faceless identical clothes hangers must hold for a designer who wants all attention to go to his concept, not her beauty, I think we’ve gone as far as we can go in that direction and I’m extremely heartened to see pretty models once again, some of whom might even have what are recognizably womanly shapes.

I think the general acceptance of size 6 models –and dare I hope for an eight or *gasp* ten OTHER than Crystal Renn– is a much more tenable step in the right direction in the modeling industry than plopping down a handful of true plus size models as gimmick casting.

So I’ll end this little fashion rant the same way I end all my fashion rants, with a hope that fashion will start to incorporate actual meaningful diversity, not just high-heeled tokenism, into its editorials and advertisements.

So let me ask you all a question. This whole Crystal Renn Paris Vogue pubic hair kerfuffle, do we care about it?

Because although I get paid pretty well for this gig, I certainly don’t get paid enough to spend time contemplating someone else’s personal topiary unless there is great public demand for it.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, basically she took her pants off for some Carene Roitfeld-directed shoot in Paris Vogue to reveal what is almost certainly one of the finest merkins ever committed to a mainstream editorial glossy, and I kind of don’t care.

Because it’s like this: Crystal Renn is a great model. Full stop. I don’t mean a great plus-size model, I mean a great model, Dovima great, and I’m not even one of her fans. She’s got that killer clavicle and her bone structure is amazing and she is magic in front of a camera. She’s a fashionable flavor and can pretty much be considered a mainstream feature in editorials, and that’s great. I’m happy for her because I’m happy to see ANY diversity in the fashion industry, but now that she IS mainstream, can we stop following her every move? Please?

I get so tired of the sound and fury over Renn as supposed big girl role model. She’s not. She’s a model. Does she represent the average plus-size woman? No. And guess what, Linda Evanglista doesn’t represent the average straight-sized woman either. They are gorgeous freaks of nature. Honestly I’m just glad we’re getting back to visually interesting models, because this army of uniformly skeletal 16 year-olds with hard, anonymous faces is boring me to death.

So do I feel validated as a big girl when I see Crystal Renn topless with countable ribs and an extraordinarily bad Cleopatra wig?

No, not really. What about when she’s on all fours with her butt in the wind machine? Nope, not then either. But that’s okay, that’s not her job.

Her job is to visually tell whatever story the creative director of a particular editorial shoot wants to tell, just like any other model and if that involves showing off an impressively cultivated (although almost certainly fake: models, as a rule, don’t have public hair) pantyforest, so be it. I don’t care.

NSFW links here.

So it’s Sunday –well really it’s Friday, and it’ll be next Thursday when you read this, except it’ll be regular Thursday to you and Next Thursday will be NEXT next Thursday, by which time you’ll have passed Sunday, which is the day we’re pretending it to be. Got it? Moving on.

It is, as I said Sunday.  In my head, Sunday is a day where people loll around and do crossword puzzles and have all sorts of lazy but inventive sex because it’s Sunday, what else do they have to do?  In my actual  LIFE, Sundays are my busiest day of the week what with various clients and social obligations and  kicking ass for the Lord and all, but in my head? Crumpets and coitus, 100% of the time.

If ever I had a Sunday without anything to do but go to the farmer’s market and do Stuff White People Like I’d like to think I’d wear something like these:

(click images for links)

These aren’t pajamas! I know! They’re ALMOST pajamas, but …and here’s the brilliant part…they’re NOT! Which means you can wear them outside. Plus you can sort of feel like you’re in that Dolce ss2009 show with all the Noel Coward glammy jammies.

and I’d like to wear them with a slim-cut tunic or something easy in a bateau neck, like these silk/linen sweaters.

(how gorgeous is that model?!)

I know, they’re nothing on the screen BUT they’re heaven in person.

So it goes like this: It’s Saturday, and you –by some miracle of God– do not have to go to a single wedding or funeral.  The weather is beautiful and you decide to meet a few of your favorite girlfriends for tea or bevvies al fresco, telling yourselves since it’s outside and you’re getting plenty of glorious fresh air, why it’s practically like getting exercise!

You’ve got plans later that night, so you don’t want to get all dolled up, but you still want to make a bit of an effort, if only because you have longings in the loinular regions when it comes to that adorable Brazilian busboy who could muddle your caipirinha, if we know what you mean.

(click image for link)

There. Easy. Done.

Like a good sermon it is long enough to cover all the bases, but short enough to keep folks interested, plus it’s dead easy. Just toss it (the dress, not the sermon) over your head, put on a heavy-ish pair of shoes for balanced visual weight and that’s it.  I actually really like the way they styled this in the photo –although I wish the model had her arm down so I could see how long it really is– because it’s put together but not overdone.

How to wear it:

–just like the photo, with non-delicate shoes and a big bangle or two

–with “city shorts” that don’t fall much below the hem. Perfect if it’s just a little short for you.

–with cigarette pants and a loosely cinched skinny leather belt

–with an interestingly tied silk scarf and a pair of Ray Ban Wayfarers

–hung over a chair in the Brazilian busboy’s apartment

Every year about this time I buy two dresses; one to wear to weddings, and another to wear to funerals. Southerners love weddings but we LIVE for funerals, and we tend to go to both with startling frequency, especially in the summer which is when all the best people kick off. At a recent memorial service of a wonderful and deeply missed lady, not only did all the friends and family attend, but so did her husband’s dentist, barber and maybe the daughter’s former pediatrician. Plus I got to wear a mantilla. That doesn’t really have anything to do with the story, but it’s not often an Episcopalian girl gets to wear a mantilla, so I just thought I’d share.

Between making deviled eggs and writing condolence letters –on proper stationery, if you please–  if you’re going to a funeral, or desperately wondering WHAT you’re going to do now that Wedgwood has discontinued the deviled egg plate you’ve been giving six times a year since 1997 (what? We’re an egg-loving people.) if you’re going to a wedding, the one thing you DON’T have time to do is worry about what you’re going to wear.

(click image for link)

Yes, it’s the same dress.  Weddings — like funerals– are about being appropriately dressed, so while I understand wanting to look capital F Fabulous all the time, when it comes to events that are typically religious ceremonies, it’s better to be understated.  Oh, a word to the wise: Linen is not an evening fabric so if you’ve got a wedding after dark, unless you plan on wearing some serious Liz Taylor jewels, you might be better served by finding another jacket.

How to wear it:

–pearls, of course. And gloves, if you’re That Kinda Girl (probably not for a funeral, unless you’re a Known Entity and loved for it)

–flawless, perfectly polished understated make-up.

–lovely shawl or delicate cardigan. For the sake of photos AND propriety, keep your upper arms covered.

–big brooch, or cameos. I love cameos and people never wear them anymore.

–with fabric shoes. I might be the last person on earth who cares about this, but weddings and funerals call for fabric shoes. Plain leather, no matter how fancy or expensive, isn’t formal enough. If you’re going to be outside, think twice before you wear stilettos lest you sink into that lovely sacred ground.

I remember when this blog was first born someone asked me for a bit of fashion advice and since we had about twelve readers, I had the time to think it out and give her my learned counsel.

I suggested linen.

WELL, you would’ve thought that I’d suggested she go out and wear the carefully tanned hides of third-graders! She was gracious about it of course, I’ve got incredibly gracious readers, but giminy crickets, it gave me the post traumz for years.

Linen is sort of like long division, in that it sounds hard and scary but when you actually do it you go “oh, that’s it?”

Yes, linen wrinkles and crumples –though better treatments actually make linen a lot less wrinkly now than just a few years ago– but it’s a sophisticated crumple.  It’s relaxed and yet juuust a little formal, so it’s got a very lazy-weekend-on-the-private-island feel to it.

I think I’ve mentioned this dress before:

I love this dress. I want to marry this dress (actually, I have the white one and it would be a very pretty casual beach wedding dress) in fact, I’m deeply tempted to just buy a half dozen of these to add to the two I have at home and just make this my summer uniform, jazzing it up with shrugs and cardis and whatnot.

This is a true ankle-length dress, so for those of you who don’t like showing any leg at all –or for folks like me who keep less-than-rigorous waxing schedules– this is a big winner.  Plus there’s something so chic about an ankle-length linen dress. It couldn’t be easier to wear, looks fab on, and if you get the white one and iron it, you’ll get mad props for being the girl who wears floor-length white linen.

How to wear it:

–with big dangly earrings, flat metallic sandals and a fun wrap

–with a thin belt and an armful of colorful bangles

–with a 90 cm foulard tied on the diagonal around your waist, gypsy style

–with a man’s tailored shirt open and tied at the waist, Hamptons-style

The dress is garment washed, machine washable (makes it even softer, actually) and lined.

OMG YAY! It’s the Grand National!

People, there are very few things that make the small stone scarab that lives in place of my heart jump with absolute glee. Traveler weddings are one, The idea of the Archbishop of My Pants Canterbury in my monogrammed towel is another and the Grand National is the third.

One of the many many things I love about the British is they do trashy and ridiculous the way trashy and ridiculous ought to be done.

This year at Aintree the look is full-on WAG.  Fun fact: the summer I turned 20 I was, technically speaking, a WAG.  I was dating a wonderful Belgian soccer player who goes down in history as the only boy I ever really Done Wrong.  Since then, I’ve always had an affection for footballers’ Wives And Girlfriends, although the most exciting thing I ever got out of my short-lived career was a deep and heartfelt appreciation for  big nuts.

However, my affection didn’t extend to dressing like them –although this was before the days of true WAG excess– unlike these poor but colorful souls.

Now I WILL give it up to the last big girl in the hot pink dress because she looks great considering she’s wearing The Cruelest Fabric and at least her dress fits her as opposed to Captain Redbra next to her.

I also have great affection for the girl with the Bad Magenta Hair because, as some friends and I were saying just the other day, we’ve ALL been the girl with BMH. Granted I was 14 and it was 1993, but she makes the most of it. I also think I might covet her shoes.

The girl in the polka dots with the Alice band? Not so much. By which I mean not at all. Listen, I get it and I’m excited that Beth Ditto got her own line at Evans, but WOW. That’s a lot happening in one…smock/dress (sm’ess?) and I feel like we ought to talk about the shoe situation.

I love a statement shoe as much as the next gal BUT if your ankles aren’t shall we say, delicately turned, and you’ve got fleshsome feet, maybe MAYBE a shoe with a multitude of straps that look like they’re about thirty seconds away from actually cutting off all blood to your little piggies (who have been through so much!) is not the best look for you.  Would a pair of orange skimmers have KILLED you?

Oh, and the girl in yellow. Blessherheart. I am so, SO behind her in theory. Black+brights = WIN.  It’s something you see more on the continent than you do here, but her best laid plans ganged TOTALLY freakin’ agley.  I don’t even have that much of a beef with the stretch vinyl go-go boots because she had VISION and while it didn’t really work for her, I appreciate vision.

BUT.

The wrap. If you’re going to wear a wrap you’ve got to WEAR it. Don’t just sling it around yourself like the electric kool-aid acid blankey.  Either tie it –a hacking knot would’ve been nice– or pin it or do SOMETHING so it’ll stay in place.

Also, if you’re going to do BRIGHTS you’ve got to do hair and makeup to suit it. From neck down it’s HELLO I’M HERE CAN YOU SEE ME but chins up it’s blahsville. It creates an unbalanced look. Don’t ever let your clothes be more dramatic than your face. That doesn’t necessarily mean brighter or more painted, but it’s gotta balance.  Here’s a better version of the bumblebee chic:

Much better, all things considered. Plus I’d cut her for her hat.

The two pink girls I like. The tall gangly one especially –although I hope she’s wearing a slip–  because it’s loud, but it’s edited. She’s not wearing a statement dress AND a statement bag AND a statement hat AND a statement necklace AND AND AND.  She’s got the focus on just the dress and the hat, which suits her face.

The girl next to her…that’s a mess.

Listen, I hate to be heightist but some people are too short for big millinery and she? Is too short for that hat.  Plus, you can’t just put a race hat on willy nilly and expect it to work. You’ve got to get the hair out of your face, and think about your neck.  A big hat needs neck. For those of us not blessed with long necks, we’ve got to be super-careful with how we pick our accessories if we’re wearing a hat. Generally speaking, necklaces are a bad idea.  I usually just wear a pair of button-style earrings, usually pearls, to bring attention to the face and make the look polished, but not busy.

If she’d ditched the hat, gotten the hair out of her eyes, and just gone with the necklace (and found a bra that didn’t show) she would’ve been far better off.

Want to see more pictures and read some of the bitchiest copy this side of…me? Clickety click!