Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's



    Another excellent article by Guy Trebay in the New York Times.

    September 29, 2006

    Fashion Diary


    Stick Figures and New Math










    MILAN




    The Yahoo home page pops open with two bulleted stories at the top.
    Story No. 1: “Milan Refuses to Ban Skinny Models.” Story No. 2:
    “Scientists Map Mouse Brain.” Hidden connection? Discuss.




    Probably the least logical aspect of the current controversy
    surrounding skinny models is not whether a given city’s garment
    industry is able to transform itself overnight into a public health
    agency, but how anyone decides which model is too skinny and who is in
    charge. The formula being employed here requires one to take a woman’s
    weight in pounds divided by her height in inches squared, then multiply
    the result by a conversion factor of 703.




    Assuming you could find anyone in the average backstage area able to
    do the math, who has a scale? You can hardly squeeze another lip liner
    into these spaces, which are packed so tightly with photographers,
    models, dressers, hairdressers, stylists, grungy model boyfriends and
    enterprising creeps.




    “Hey, I’m putting on my shoes!” said the model Jessica Stam on
    Thursday before the Pucci show, snapping at a man who was focusing his
    viewfinder straight up her minidress. “It makes me mad. They’re like:
    ‘I’m not shooting your crotch. I’m getting your shoes.’ ”




    Modesty is a backstage luxury, so one can report that X-ray models
    are nothing new. “There are two ways of looking at it,” the seasoned
    model Angela Lindvall said at Pucci. “Models are like pro athletes,
    like boxers. You box at a certain weight. You don’t make the weight,
    you don’t get in the ring.”




    Ms. Lindvall is 5-foot-11 and, after two children, weighs 127
    pounds. “I used to be a lot scrawnier,” she said. “But you hit 20, and
    you start developing a woman’s body. What I worry about is people
    exploiting the fact that these girls are insecure, innocent, already
    questioning themselves about their bodies.”




    A name came up of a celebrated designer, with his own history of
    weight issues, who was overheard last season chiding a particular
    runway star for beefing up. This woman already looked drawn from a diet
    consisting principally of Marlboro Lights, Diet Coke and various other,
    uh, substances. The woman took the hint. She took time off to “rest”
    and came back so thin you could drive a Hummer through the space
    between her thighs.




    “They pay lip service to the problem, and then they tell you to send
    only this type of girl,” said James Scully, a casting agent, referring
    to editors and designers. “It’s not going to change until the styles
    do.”




    To judge from the spring 2007 offerings, that won’t happen soon. One
    criticism being leveled at the clothes offered on the runways is that
    they are skewed too young. The most prevalent trend favors dresses
    suitable for either anorexic Lolitas or Mia Farrow circa “Rosemary’s
    Baby.” In either case, a pact with the devil is required.




    Trying to remain adolescent forever is doomed. It takes firm flesh
    and even firmer resolve for a woman to walk out of the house wearing a
    dress whose hemline barely grazes her buttocks. For those who would
    have to consult mom if asked to identify Monica Lewinsky, the current style setter is Lindsay Lohan. Ms. Lohan is barely 20; she dresses as if she’s 45.




    • “Shoes are like a throw pillow,” Tom Ford
    once said. “You’re going to buy your expensive sofa in a neutral color,
    and then throw a wild pillow on it.” Not coincidentally, shoes are the
    money spinners at Gucci, where Mr. Ford used to work. They outsell
    every other apparel item by miles. And the shoemaker who undoubtedly
    sells more shoes than anyone in this city of fashion commerce is Diego
    Della Valle, the owner of Tod’s, the leather goods colossus.




    Although hardly a word about it turned up in the fashion press, the
    Tod’s presentation on Thursday at a contemporary art gallery drew some
    1,400 people. The installation — bags, hats, loafers, sneakers and a
    niche line of leather apparel designed for the house by Derek Lam — was
    titled “Dada,” for no very apparent reason.




    Pop would have been a more apposite reference, because Tod’s
    pebble-soled Gommino, a basic driving shoe based on the moccasin, is
    the footwear equivalent of an Andy Warhol.
    Arrayed in a grid along a gallery wall, the Gommino shoes, in bright
    colors and varying leathers, resembled one of the Pop artist’s famous
    multiples.




    Originally a summer shoe, the moccasins were for a time an emblem of
    Hollywood chic. Their appeal drooped for a while, as competing labels
    like Carshoe horned in on the market, and consumers decided that what
    looked cool on Elle Macpherson as she sprinted down 57th Street in
    skinny jeans and hauling a massive Birkin bag looked less cool when the
    orthodontist bought a similar pair he saw Kevin Costner wearing.




    Now — for reasons best known to the capricious sprites invoked when
    Heidi Klum says of fashion “One day you’re in, the next day you’re out”
    — Tod’s basic moccasins have developed the aura of a favorite piece of
    clothing you forgot you owned. This is not merely personal opinion. The
    Tod’s Group just released its earnings for the first half of 2006:
    $349.8 million, up more than 15 percent over the same period a year
    ago.




    “We’ve kind of run the gamut in the business of toes, heels,
    platforms, wedges, high, low, anything you can name and throw on a wall
    to see if it sticks,” Mr. Lam said at the Tod’s presentation. Unlike
    the cork-soled Frankenwedges seen on fashion-afflicted women clumping
    miserably around Milan, they are also “comfortable and wearable,” he
    added with little thought to how radical that idea seemed.








    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine
  • laika
    moderator
    • Sep 2006
    • 3787

    #2
    Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's



    I saw this...how is it an article? it seems like two things presented in a completely unrelated way.



    that said, i would love to hear some intelligent talk on the skinny models issue. I don't really think about models at all--they are basically invisible to me. But (this may sound like a contradiction) I am very interested in the relationship of the body to clothing. I would love to see different shapes and sizes on the runway, just for the sake of sheer surprise.

    ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

    Comment

    • fixoid
      Junior Member
      • Sep 2006
      • 17

      #3
      Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's

      skinny models is an important issue. i will not vote for a candidate who does not address it.

      my ex totally has more than 349.8 million worth of shoes...

      Comment

      • Faust
        kitsch killer
        • Sep 2006
        • 37852

        #4
        Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's

        [quote user="laika"]

        I saw this...how is it an article? it seems like two things presented in a completely unrelated way.



        that said, i would love to hear some intelligent talk on the skinny models issue. I don't really think about models at all--they are basically invisible to me. But (this may sound like a contradiction) I am very interested in the relationship of the body to clothing. I would love to see different shapes and sizes on the runway, just for the sake of sheer surprise--what happens when different bodies don the same designer's clothes?



        [/quote]





        I don't think something like this should be made a legal issue, it's basically ridiculous. It could be made into a cultural issue, yes. There could be a sort of public scorn organisations, like PETA for fur. The things is, what about all those girls who are really built like that? I have a friend, she's size 0 and the girl can eat! Different people have different bodies, I don't see how one can judge something like that.

        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

        Comment

        • laika
          moderator
          • Sep 2006
          • 3787

          #5
          Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's



          Well, sure, different people have different bodies, but it's not like thefashion industry acknowledges that! There is only one type of body that is acceptable for a model, and it happens to be the rarest one out there.



          I doagree that the ban is silly--at best it's a gesture towards action, but it's not something that is going to be readily taken up by the rest of the fashion world.



          The problem that I have, is that there is a growing community of people out there who are totally model crazy! This completely undoes the purpose of models to my mind. Models are built like coat hangers because they are supposed be just that--quasi invisible vehicles for showing the clothes. To believe (as a disturbing number of people do) that you need to look like a model to wear designer clothes is missing the point of runway shows entirely. It seems like public obsession with models and models' bodies is rapidly outgrowing public interest in good design. [^o)]

          ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

          Comment

          • Faust
            kitsch killer
            • Sep 2006
            • 37852

            #6
            Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's

            [quote user="laika"]

            Well, sure, different people have different bodies, but it's not like thefashion industry acknowledges that! There is only one type of body that is acceptable for a model, and it happens to be the rarest one out there.



            I doagree that the ban is silly--at best it's a gesture towards action, but it's not something that is going to be readily taken up by the rest of the fashion world.



            The problem that I have, is that there is a growing community of people out there who are totally model crazy! This completely undoes the purpose of models to my mind. Models are built like coat hangers because they are supposed be just that--quasi invisible vehicles for showing the clothes. To believe (as a disturbing number of people do) that you need to look like a model to wear designer clothes is missing the point of runway shows entirely. It seems like public obsession with models and models' bodies is rapidly outgrowing public interest in good design. [^o)]



            [/quote]



            Oh, most definitely, I agree with you. Girls often look at models as examples of beauty, and with the Internet it's only getting worse because of ease of access to information (look at the unhealthy ratio of posts about modesl on tFS). Models are props. And now props are not only celebrities, but they are also designers (Kate for TopShop, Jovovich-Hawk, etc.). It's strange. Of course the problem is not the models themselves, the problem is the marketing culture that sells these models, and the teenargers are happy to buy.

            Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

            StyleZeitgeist Magazine

            Comment

            • laika
              moderator
              • Sep 2006
              • 3787

              #7
              Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's

              It just goes round and round doesn't it? Of course it's not the models' fault, as you say. But those threads terrify me--i just don't get what drives the obsession. It can't be just the marketing industry. To my knowledge, it's a very female hang-up...I never see guys obsessing so uniformly about some concrete notion of "ideal" beauty.
              ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

              Comment

              • kucejoe
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2006
                • 348

                #8
                Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's



                [quote user="laika"] But those threads terrify me--i just don't get what drives the obsession. It can't be just the marketing industry. To my knowledge, it's a very female hang-up...I never see guys obsessing so uniformly about some concrete notion of "ideal" beauty.
                [/quote]



                Well, I think it is a very female hang up because, generally females
                care more about and devote more time to achieving this 'ideal' beauty.
                That's the obvious remark, but looking at the mens shows, there seems
                to be more diversity in the types of models, and thus there is no
                concrete notion of ideal beauty. To a dior homme customer, that may be
                a rail thin, pale, super young boy, but a Dsquared shopper is probably
                aspiring to a completely different body type. While there is certainly
                a difference in the types of buyers for different womens brands, the
                runway tends to show the clothes on this one type of woman who is then
                viewed as and called the one supreme ideal.

                Suspension Point Store (Online + Montreal, QC) / Tumblr / Instagram
                ...

                Comment

                • laika
                  moderator
                  • Sep 2006
                  • 3787

                  #9
                  Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's



                  You're definitely on to something there, Kucejoe. (Sorry for the awfully late response!)



                  I agree that the types of clothes offered on the runway are definitely offered to different customers, even if they are shown on the same models. For some reason women seem to take the look of the models very seriously, much more so than men do.



                  Related to this: There are tons of "niche" designers, like the ones we discuss on this thread, who are obviously not designing exclusively for the model-type. I wonder why more women don't pick up on this more aggressively.



                  I wonder if its related to the reason that so few women post on this forum....hmmmm



                  ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

                  Comment

                  • Faust
                    kitsch killer
                    • Sep 2006
                    • 37852

                    #10
                    Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's

                    [quote user="laika"]

                    You're definitely on to something there, Kucejoe. (Sorry for the awfully late response!)



                    I agree that the types of clothes offered on the runway are definitely offered to different customers, even if they are shown on the same models. For some reason women seem to take the look of the models very seriously, much more so than men do.



                    Related to this: There are tons of "niche" designers, like the ones we discuss on this thread, who are obviously not designing exclusively for the model-type. I wonder why more women don't pick up on this more aggressively.



                    I wonder if its related to the reason that so few women post on this forum....hmmmm





                    [/quote]



                    Well, if it's any indication about New York women in general - the reason Atelier failed as a womenswear store (as they told me) was because NYC women are too trendy - they buy what the magz tell them, basically. Atelier had an awesome line up of very unique designers - Ann Dem, Odette Bombadier, Ann-V Hash (as far as I remember), etc. - they did not do well at all.

                    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                    StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                    Comment

                    • laika
                      moderator
                      • Sep 2006
                      • 3787

                      #11
                      Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's



                      That is so weird and depressing!



                      I wonder if VBS is having the same issue, since they dropped AF Vandevorst and Chalayan and are now stocking still more McQueen and Viktor & Rolf....both of which are widely available elsewhere.



                      Well, i guess i have a new scapegoat for my shopping problems! Women! lol

                      ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

                      Comment

                      • Faust
                        kitsch killer
                        • Sep 2006
                        • 37852

                        #12
                        Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's

                        [quote user="laika"]

                        That is so weird and depressing!



                        I wonder if VBS is having the same issue, since they dropped AF Vandevorst and Chalayan and are now stocking still more McQueen and Viktor & Rolf....both of which are widely available elsewhere.



                        Well, i guess i have a new scapegoat for my shopping problems! Women! lol



                        [/quote]



                        LOL! My scapegoat are people with too much money and good taste - that means I can't always get the things I want on sale! That's why I LOVE Los Angeles - people have absolutely no taste. The two times I've been there for Xmas, I had a ball shopping.



                        I don't think Via Bus Stop does well, they are especially guilty of stocking only tiny sizes (which actuall works well for you!). Actually I think the only independent womens store that does well is IF. VBS has DEEP pockets though - they will fight tooth and nail.

                        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                        Comment

                        • laika
                          moderator
                          • Sep 2006
                          • 3787

                          #13
                          Re: Skinny Models, Pathetic Glamour, and Tod's



                          Yeah, I hate those people too--there seem to be fewer of them in my gender though, lol. That is so true about L.A.....I was totally stunned when I was there. I should time my next visit with the sales.



                          VBS does not seem to be doing well at all. It was like a tomb last time I was in there, especially on the second floor. The location is really bad, I think--no one really walks on Houston, and the door on Mercer is not well-advertised. It's too bad, because I do like the store. The girls are sweet and up until now, they have had very good merch.



                          That reminds me, I need to pop in and see if they got Chalayan shoes--they said they might get them, last time i checked.

                          ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

                          Comment

                          Working...
                          X
                          😀
                          🥰
                          🤢
                          😎
                          😡
                          👍
                          👎