La Coquette

Unstoppable Factor: 3%

I miss my mom.  It’s been since January that her tall, willowy frame has hugged my short and sturdy one.  I mention my frame because yesterday I was wearing a fitted shirt and a French woman asked me if I was pregnant.  It leaves an impression.  My response was cold and icy even though she just has poop for brains. 

I remember reading something by a (French) ex-Condé Nast employee, about how she told her colleague she was tired on the elevator in New York and the person looked at her like she had the plague, like one could catch “tired.”  I’ve been telling everyone I’m in good form and not drained after Fashion Week.  Even though right now, I am strangely spent.  Strange because I didn’t have that much responsibility really, (the work will come later), but it has left me all stirred up mentally. 

I’m not sure who these people are that never get tired, the ones who look like they burn 1,000 calories soaking in the tub, the ones who are always on.  I can’t trust a person who is always on.  How can you scream that 10:00 am is an uncivilized hour to be out of bed at a show?  That is a performance.  If you are tired, don’t scream.   

A good lesson:  I am constantly astonished by the overbearing confidence of those I meet--not intimidated, really, but humbled--only to learn that in fact, I can do the work just as well as they can.   I am just not as loud.

But I am self righteous!

What about when I go to magazine parties and sit in the VIP room and dance with my hands over head and wait for taxis at 4:00 am with the ex-manager from Air in my new heels and have THE BEST TIME EVER?  Then I come home and make observations about the excessive nature of the term “Ciao ciao” on my weblog? 

So that’s what I’m talking about when I say stirred up.

Fashionette

She has some great ideas for the March issue. 

Flashback Mode

Remember when I went to the shows last March?  I took some good photos that never made it onto the weblog.  Now, I’ve created an album of those photos, and put it right here, where you can see it.  This may sound staler than yesterday's baguette, but oh no no.  Because there are captions.  Plus, you don't get sneaky candid shots of the audience on Style.com. 

This is Paris Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld across the runway at Celine.  If memory serves correctly, she is every fashion insider's crush since 2002.  That is a long time in fashion years. 

This is not Carine Roitfeld, but it is a model dancing oddly in an odd little tiara at Sonia Rykiel.

Standing Perks

Unexpected benefits of arriving late to Issey Miyake show:

You get to feel the soft lamb hairs of Suzy Menkes’s Astrakhan coat as she darts past you, during the final applause. 

You hear the guys in the pit whistle for the money shots. 

You can slyly capture Diane Pernet.  You love the Diane Pernet.  (P.S. She blogs.)

What I was thinking, 4:45 a.m. Thursday

Just walked in from Purple magazine party at Maxim’s and there are shoes...everywhere.  I couldn’t decide which pair to wear.  Am so that girl with the shoes. 

Random observation:  When did everyone start saying “Ciao ciao?”  (Like “Bye bye” only with “Ciao.”)  Seems excessive.

La Coquette--Am I the imaginary socialite?

Revenge reality

As the crowd pushed out of the Andrew GN show this morning, I was behind a stylist I once assisted on a photo shoot, about a year ago.  She had actually been really pleasant to work for, and as our shared taxi dropped her at Gare du Nord that day, she had promised to send my check for 200 euro, just as soon as she got back to London.  Despite many reminders on my part, she never sent that check.

A girl could buy a lot of Liebig soup with 200 euro. 

And also sharp knives.  And rope.  And braided whip.   

It’s funny, you have revenge fantasies of what you will do when you finally get your hands on so and so, and then, there so and so is, close enough to grab her tousled brown ponytail, and you don’t even have the courage to tap her on the shoulder.  What would I have said, anyway?  “I PITY THE FOOL, WHO DON’T PAY ME WHAT HE OWE ME!”  No, I probably would have been all, “Hiiiiiii! SO GREAT to see you.  Can you please allow me to open the door of your chauffeured car?  Mind that your furs don’t brush the curb!  No, I insist, AFTER YOU!”

Martin Grant

So, yes, personal taste has something to do with it.  If you made me choose between brilliant embellishment (like Schiaparelli) and great tailoring (like Balenciaga) I would have to pick the tailor.  There, now I've disclosed my political leanings. 

Which is perhaps why I propose, as a candidate for your admiration Martin Grant.  Martin Grant was a bespoke tailor for years, working from a disused hospital in Montmartre.  And now, he is THE MAN WHO CUTS THE WORLD'S BEST COATS.  The best, Jerry.

There will be other shows this week that will have more bells and whistles, and perhaps suggest things I never could have imagined I desired, and that means something.  It means something to be swept up.  But it also means something to make beautifully simple clothes that stand on their own two feet.  Plus, Martin Grant is all low profile in his little boutique in an old Marais barber shop, which is just naturally appealing.  He's so low key the photographers couldn't even catch his bow.

(And p.s., how much do we love Jade Parfitt, the great model who opened the show?  My friend made the good observation that she looks like the actress from Cremaster 1.)

Overheard

Tuesday, on the escalators in the Carrousel du Louvre: "The skirts had waistbands right here and then the fabric just went out like THIS.  It was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen."

What I was thinking at 2:30 p.m. Monday

Martin Grant just may be my favorite designer. 

The answer is: Not the brightest idea

What are champagne and a handful of peanuts for dinner?