Tilda Swinton




Forget Bosh, Think TIlda

Vanity Fair’s 2007 Best Dressed List is out in the September issue. Since the net is the new newsstand, July is the new September. The list, as always, is an annoying, disappointing, yet strangely uplifting list. Read the whole thing if you must.

Of course there is the same fawning, moist roll of celebrities whose ubiquitousness is mistaken for style and who get credit for being as deep as paper dolls. But there are reasons why celebrities are a part of fashion:

 tend to be very thin, so can work the clothes
 tend to be very visible, so what they wear will be too
 tend to have a lot of money, so  can buy the clothes (as if they actually do buy most of their own clothes)
 get in trouble, so  are highly visible, and therefore will be seen and so will what they wear (the gray hoodie phenomenon)
 tend to have a lot of money so  can hire personal trainers and special chefs to make them thin so they can work the clothes
or may instead choose less healthy methods, but get the same clotheshanger results
 have a lot of occasions to go to, so  need clothes
and accessories too.

The joy, however, is the welcome presence of those whose choice gives the list some sincerity:
Charlotte Gainsbourg (absolument)
Fran Lebowitz (who has done more for the white shirt and the side part than anyone of any gender)
Tilda Swinton (Listen to her lovingly describe Viktor and Rolf).
Ruben and Isabel Toledo (astounding eyes, literally, like chocolate saucers. Astounding talent. Do honestly original things. Convey timelessness and modernity at the same time. Tread in the waters of nostalgia yet walk their own edge. Have survived.

They are fashion.


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Elle is Being Re-elled

The tiny mighty Bensimon finally ceded his bikini-on-bimini-creative direction to Joe Zee. A sneak look at September’s pages shows promise. But Eric Wilson’s direct hit of a piece on this morning’s NYTimes, “Elle Has a Little Work Done,” starts with this description of editor Roberta Myers and her office: she wears Prada but takes the subway to work, and labors among “secondhand leather couches and silver floor lamps, a dark void at the end of a long, drab hallway lined with faded covers of issues past.”

Elle had already succumbed to many of the viruses that plague the glossies: led into staleness by a short Frenchman, locked into 3rd on the newsstand, budgets for all the big events (couture shows in Paris, etc) cut by its parent company (Hachette Filipacchi), a patent lack of a strong style now that models often come in size 2. As Bensimon left, his loyal gang went with him, including the style director (Isabel Dupre) and the fashion editor-at-large, Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele (whose again has a place on the VF Best Dressed List—we'll always love you, they said.). Scores of staffers as well as freelancers—publishing’s unsecret army—are gone as well.

The Bensimon look offered up lush sweeps of impossibly long, strong thighs (think Rachel Williams, who stood about 6’ 9”; sun-kissed young wrists adorned with tribalish, feathery doo-dads, and clothes that didn’t hang so much as wrap, cinch, and graze—all set in the oversaturated (and slightly underexposed) glare of paradise. There had been something Fellini-fun about seeing Elle the model ( Bensimon’s pre-Rachel paramour-obsession), on Elle the mag. But it was a one-liner, repeated over the years with a string of six-footers, and Bensimon turned into that guest at the party who just wouldn’t leave. Remember the glory days? he’d mumble up some naif’s leg. Everyone was so--tan.

Myers had better get rid of those silver floor lamps already. Zee, 38 (anyone remember Vitals magazine?), has been tweaking since January—it was swiftly made clear that he was chafing to free Elle’s teeth of the Frenchman’s bit. Now, with September’s issue, will he be able to smart and sex the rag up? His choice of photographers is promising: Matthias Vriens, Todd Cole. Talks are ongoing with talented stylists. His cover of Lindsay Lohan, however, seems an odd move. (*) She was already in trouble—and just about to be in deeper merde. Her troubles haven’t given her wings, just a bloated look under the eyes. It may be the last thing a brand new redesign needs.

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(*) I admit that in my days at a struggling-to-be-glossy mag we put a very stoned,  skinny Natasha Lyonne on the cover. Posing, she nearly fell out the window.

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While the glossies do their glossy thing and fashion rolls its own logs and trips the rejected lumberjacks, the other side of design-- the enormous trusses and decks of public works--suffers from its own deficiencies once again. The true cause has yet to come out for those who slid off the Interstate 35W bridge in their cars as it collapsed in Minneapolis. Though Gov. Pawlenty was quick to offer reassurances that the bridge was found structurally sufficient in 2005-2005, it's been listed as having several serious problems since 2001. Some 100,000 cars traveled over that bridge a day. Structures are only as safe as the institutions that oversee them. Safety plus corruption plus administrative stasis (think the Big Dig; think Brooklyn lofts; think N.O.) equals disasters. Design ought to always have good intentions, carried out with the diligence of angels. We have more than global warming to worry about.