Manolo for the Big Girl Fashion, Lifestyle, and Humor for the Plus Sized Woman.

July 15, 2009

Fall Couture 2009: The first thr…zzzz WHAT I’M AWAKE

Filed under: Couture,Uncategorized — Miss Plumcake @ 2:53 pm

Many thanks for all the birthday wishes! Emotions have been running high here at Château Gâteau because yesterday my beloved kid brother –who has been undergoing various unpleasant cancer treatments for the better part of a year– was diagnosed with the lung cancer that would kill him and then *JUSTKIDDING* was told by his new oncologist –the guy who invented the surgery (and performed it on Lance Armstrong)– that no, he absolutely did not have lung cancer nor did he have any cancer at all and hasn’t for quite a while, and was perplexed as to why he’d had those last four rounds of chemo and radiation at all.

Yeah. SO. Basically it was both the worst and then suddenly the best day of my life (although I did stress-buy three Hermès scarves in the process which –in retrospect– was a bit extravagant, but at least I paid cash.)

Anyway, with all this hubbub I haven’t really had a chance to chat about the Fall 2009 Couture that showed in Paris a few weeks ago. With only nine houses showing it was a slim season. Here’s a sampling from the first three shows:

Alexis Mabille
I gotta say I’m not just crazy about anything Alexis Mabille’s shown in his three couture collections. In fact, my first and predominant thought is “couture? really?” He’s like that guy at work who is PRETTY good at his job, but not really good enough to have made partner/vice president/whatever at 26, so you sort of wonder if maybe he doesn’t have incriminating photographs of senior management giving cocaine to a schnauzer while wearing a Hitler costume.

Anyway, Mabille’s barely 30, and although he worked at Dior and YSL before creating his own house, I think he’s still finding his sea legs. I don’t think he’s ever going to have the Boy Genius rep of Lee McQueen or Galliano, but he might age into a sort of interesting Old Faithful house, like De la Renta. His concept, which seemed to be a fairly literal take on a girl tangled up in her bedclothes, didn’t merit such a monster collection –47 looks!!!– but I did like this robe

Alexis Mabille robe

and thought the twisted bedclothes look was best executed through these wrapped tops.
Alexis Mabille couture

2. Armani Privé
I’m never quite sure what to make of Armani’s couture collections, it’s like my mind is still rebelling against him even doing a couture line, and although all his looks are very Armani what with the slouchy pants and the suits and the muted colors, I find my favorite looks from the collection are looks that I’d expect to see from other houses. The shoulder trend of the past few seasons continued strongly throughout his jackets and there was a good deal of Marc Jacob’s excellent Spring 2009 collection to be seen in the luxe fabrications of the shirting and sportswear-influenced pieces. Finally, while I appreciate that unlike Mabille and his wispy bits of voile nothingness, Armani’s actually made clothes appropriate to the season, his whole collection seemed unusually heavy, stumbling under the weight of its own self-referential 80’s encrusted glitz.

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Chanel
Whatever.

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July 14, 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — Miss Plumcake @ 1:15 am

It’s my birthday
There’s a first time for everything

and all I’m sayin’ is that SOMEBODY had better have ordered the Fudgie the Whale cake.

July 12, 2009

Too Big for Sexy Red Dresses?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Twistie @ 10:44 am

I, for one, never thought the merger of two airlines would lead to a sartorial showdown. It would seem, however, that I would have been wrong.

Delta Air Lines recently acquired Northwest  Airlines, and those NWA employees are now in need of new Delta uniforms. So far, so good.

The fuss has been raised over a red dress designed by Richard Tyler for Delta. While other uniform pieces are available up to a size 28, the sexy red wrap dress is only available up to a size 18…and a small size 18, at that.

And so it is that the Northwest chapter of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA has filed suit to get the red dress made available in the same range of sizes as the other uniforms flight attendants may wear.

Patricia Reller, who handles the grievances brought before the union’s executive committee is firmly of the opinion that if even one flight attendant over a size 18 wants to wear the dress, she should be able to do so. She’s also pretty sure there’s more than one woman who wants to wear it:

“If the dress wasn’t a tiny size 18, there would be less,” Reller said. “It’s a very small size 18, so that makes the numbers a lot larger.”

Of course Delta isn’t taking this lying down. Their spokeswoman, Gina Laughlin, could not explain why the dress is not available in larger sizes, but says there have been few complaints.

“The majority of pre-merger Northwest flight attendants have given us very positive feedback about the Richard Tyler Collection,” Laughlin said.

Hmmm…few complaints? Majority positive feedback? I wonder who those ‘few complaints’ came from and what the minority were unhappy about.

“The sizing of our red dress has not been an issue with Delta flight attendants since the program’s inception three years ago. This is AFA hype leading up to the election,” Laughlin said.

As for me, I think that if every other uniform piece is offered in sizes up to 28, stopping the sizes for one single popular piece at a smaller-than-average 18 is simply unfair. There just plain isn’t a good reason for denying larger employees the option of red.

July 11, 2009

Twistie’s Fourth of July Caption Madness: The Result

Filed under: Uncategorized — Twistie @ 11:17 am

Greetings, all!

As some of you may blearily remember, last saturday was the Fourth of July. Some of you may wish to forget the image I imposed on you that day, but here’s a reminder, anyway:

Liberty Girls

I asked for captions, and captions I got. Four of you responded to the challenge. Alas, only one can win. This week, the winner is Cassie for her amazing mind-melding abilities, since she had pretty much the same first thought about this image as I did:

After waking up on July 5th with no memories of the previous night save this photo, Lady Liberty wondered if she really wanted to celebrate the holiday with her sister, Lady Pursuit-of-Happiness, anymore.

Congratulations, Cassie, and thanks to everyone who played!

July 8, 2009

One of these things is not like the other

Filed under: Be Super Fantastic,The Fat's in the Fire,Uncategorized — Francesca @ 4:13 pm

Internet friend Isara wrote in with a link to the London Telegraph’s photo gallery of Beth Ditto’s 80’s-retro collection for Evans, and points out this excellent photo:

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Isara asks: “Which of these fashionistas is having a happy, wonderful life?”

July 6, 2009

From Francesca’s Inbox

Filed under: Uncategorized — Francesca @ 9:01 am

The America, she is still independent, and there is still time to catch the sales of the long weekend! All of the following are ending tonight:

Lane Bryant‘s “buy 2 get 2 free” sale on bras.

Torrid‘s clearance sale, which Francesca has posted about previously. Also they want you to know that checker patters are “in.” Francesca agrees that some of the checkered items are cute!

Roamans will take 25% off anything on their site, with code RD4THSALE.

Woman Within is offering free shipping on any order, and 40% off any one item with code WW35017.

Igigi has taken 50% off select items  with code 4THOFJULYSALE. Since some of the items on that page seem to be on sale already, Francesca is not sure whether the code works for everything on the page, or only the items ma

July 5, 2009

Crazy Like Fox TV

Filed under: Uncategorized — Twistie @ 8:30 am

I’ll admit it; there are reality shows that really, really suck me in.

Has it got Tim Gunn in it? Sign me up! He is totally my imaginary gay celebrity boyfriend and I don’t care who knows it. Call me, Tim!

Is it about making great clothes or great food? Then there’s a good chance I’ll at least check it out somewhere along the line. Hell, I’ve even sat gobsmacked through a few episodes of Semi-Homemade With Sandra Lee, which is my personal concept of Hell. I consider it part of my job for Manolo for the Brides to watch things like Bridezillas and Rich Bride, Poor Bride. It sometimes terrifies me, and sometimes amuses me, but I’m a slave to duty. I do my job.

One sort of show, though, that I avoid with every fiber of my being: the competitive dating show. The Bachelor? Nothing doing. And I have to say really nothing doing to Fox TV’s upcoming new series More to Love.

What is More to Love? Well, it’s basically The Bachelor with a higher BMI. Do you get the humor in the ‘cute’ title yet? Geddit? It’s funny, because these people are fat. No, really, that’s the entire spin, that fat people can fall in love. Isn’t that amazing?

Here’s what Fox has to say about it on their official website:

FOX is setting out to prove that love comes in all shapes and sizes with the new inspirational dating competition series MORE TO LOVE. Executive-produced by Mike Fleiss (“The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette”), the unscripted series follows a single average guy with a big waist and an even bigger heart as he romances several confident and secure plus-size women. Each week, the husky hunk will wine and dine a group of curvy women to determine if they have more love to give or if they are truly more than he can handle. When the size of competition narrows, he will have to decide if one full-figured lady will become his true love.

Of course the commercials feature a teary woman talking about how she just wants to ‘have that love story.’

Thank goodness Fox is ready to prove to her that she might find love, too…if the one man chooses her out of all the women he’s going to meet on the show. And assuming that he goes through with a wedding at the end. If that doesn’t pan out, does that mean she can’t ever find love with anyone?

Seriously, do we need Fox to ‘prove’ to anyone that we can find love? If we must have these competitive dating games on the air at all, do we have to segregate them by body type?

The heart truly doesn’t care what pant size its true partner wears. In fact, I can’t even tell you what size Mr. Twistie’s pants are. He buys his own. My only concern is whether they fit him and make him feel comfortable. It’s his heart and his mind and his sense of humor I fell in love with. Funnily enough, I think he fell for the same things in me.

And we didn’t need Fox to teach either one of us that we deserved it.

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