La Coquette

2004 Fashion Links

Coquette apologizes sincerely for her conspicuous absence of late--watching marathons of Laguna Beach on MTV actively sending out resumes is a time-sucking ordeal. 

We’re finding “Best of 2004” programs less tedious than in previous years (we might even venture to say utile, given our whole out-of-the-country-for-2004 scenario), so we felt inspired to give it a go ourselves. (The list’s sartorial focus is the product of many, many, hours of 2004 spent “doing the press” at our internship).

BRINGING THE FUNNY TO FASHION
Samurai Shopper- Neiman Markdown  Bargain shopping--a woman after our own hearts.
S.S. Fair The New York Times

Samurai shopping means wherever you go, there you are, dressed perfectly for polite society or combat in the erogenous zones. A samurai never says, ''I'm sorry''; only, ''I'm sorry I didn't buy more when I had the opportunity.''

Haut Art  British artist Tracey Emin visits Paris for the Couture.  (Watch as she out-attitudes the Hotel Costes staff!)
Jess Cartner-Morley  The Guardian

Oh wow.  Where to begin excerpting?  For starters, is she for real here?
"Being an artist is as much about what you can see in the world around you as what you create. I look outside now [we are driving through Paris in dappled sunlight] and I can see how truly beautiful the light is. That's what makes me an artist."

But wait, there’s also:
And she is proud of her body, which is very slim and very busty. "I like being thin. To the point where I'd be anorexic to be thin if I had to be."

We could go on, but we’ll stop with:
She loves Diane von Furstenberg dresses, and Helmut Lang jeans, and Yves Saint Laurent tailoring. But she can't wear Jean Paul Gaultier, she explains as we are waiting on Thursday for his show to start, because "I'm too sexy. It's too much, with my body. I've got it already."

Dispatches from New York’s Fashion Week 2004
Josh Patner Slate

P.S. His dispatch from 2003 is of matching wit and sparkle.

You could easily imagine that Christopher Guest's next movie might be called Fashion Week. Under fashion's big top in New York's Bryant Park lies the kind of peculiar microcosm of egomaniacs and foolish dreamers that Guest has captured so brilliantly in films like Waiting for Guffman and A Mighty Wind. Gravely serious older women in black pantsuits march around with huge black tote bags, scribbling notes. Young women with flawless bodies slink around in evening shoes with 6-inch heels at 10 a.m. Japanese businessmen gather in tight clusters, studying Women's Wear Daily with the intensity of gamblers at the track reviewing their racing forms. Twenty-somethings dressed like pop stars drink pink cocktails. Some men carry purses; others wear fedoras. Everyone looks very busy.

PARIS RELATED
Reports of Couture’s Death Were Exaggerated  (Access to this link is unrestricted).
Cathy Horyn  New York Times

The death of haute couture makes a good news story. It has a nice sound to it, like a train whistle. The editor sitting in the bar at the Ritz Hotel, eating her $35 Salade Côte d'Azur, can bemoan the fact that Versace and Ungaro are not showing. But the truth is, she has not been interested in them in some time. She is here to watch Melania Knauss, the future Mrs. Donald Trump, change her outfit for each show. She is here to see Oprah. She is here for Valentino's party at his chateau.

What she is here for, in so many words, is the action.

Lanvin Review- At the House of Lanvin, The Return of French Chic
Cathy Horyn  New York Times

Contemporary life is messy and fast-paced, and for that reason clothes should look relaxed, but few designers are able to adapt French technique to that modern ideal better than Mr. Elbaz. It might be a single-buttoned jacket in white silk with a loose back (after Balenciaga), worn over a knee-length black skirt that looks as airy as gazar, or a plain raincoat in taupe faille that is manifestly Parisian in its silhouette.

PHOTOGRAPHY
The Decline of Fashion Photography: An Argument in Pictures Not actually published this year; we found it through kottke last week and, struck by its incisiveness, immediately had dangerous feeling that maybe we COULD do the whole fashion thing for a living if there are people out there with the talent and wit of Ms. Lehrman.
Karen Lehrman  Slate

Joyeux Noël de la Floride!

Don’t hate me because I live in Paris (and spend Christmas in Florida).

Things are getting Chekhovian

The third sister arrived home from college last night.  Already, there has been drama over reckless cookie decoration,  a “Have you gained weight?” fiasco and a remote control siege (THANK GOD two of us have laptops with wireless internet, or I’d never make it out of here alive).  What we don't do, and have never done, are tickle fights.  Tickle fighting is for lightweights.

In my family, power struggles are fought and won by sitting on each other. Last night, I sat on the Middle Child in an act of solidarity with the sister who’s prettier than me, whose cookie-eating rights had been infringed upon. 

Middle Child let me sit on her for a good minute, one hand firmly holding down her head, then she said calmly, “I haven’t washed my hair in a week, does it feel greasy to you?” 

Yes, the three sisters are all 18 or older.

Lessons from Madame André

Wearing navy blue with black has replaced wearing white after Labor Day as the new fashion sin-it’s-cool-to-break.  - La Coquette

It's not that I'm dramatic, it's just that my caps lock key gets stuck from time to time.

An assistant professor of mass communication at Louisiana State University who blogs about blogs posted this yesterday:

Blogs about young sophisticates living in exciting metropolises. Blogs with more drama than Dynasty, Desperate Housewives, and The O.C. Blogs written by young ladies who have embraced their own idiosyncrasies, lived a full day, then come home to wrap it in drama & perspective as they blog it.

Here's my short A-list of blogs packed with drama:

• This Fish Needs a Bicycle blogs from the Big Apple
• La Coquette lives in Paris

Lumping me with someone who gets published in the New York Times is like lumping Girlfriends with Sex and the City, but merci quand meme!

Adventures in Babysitting, Part 1

It all starts with the booties.

Upon entering the crèche, one is met with two boxes—one marked "sale," and the other "propre"—distinguishing the dirty booties from the clean ones. I outfit my shoes with clean booties, as does my partner-in-babysitting, the twins’ grandmother. (Dare I call it a "partnership" given that when it came to changing diapers, I SOMEHOW NEVER HAD TO DO THE DIRTY WORK? Maybe I was the sous-chef? No, that doesn’t work either. The most important thing is that, given that we are talking about not one, but two babies, I WAS THANK GOD NEVER ALONE).

Once bootied-up, we pad into the nursery room where all French baby babble ceases and about 15 chubby faces simultaneously stare, like puppies at a pound, to see if you’ve come to bust them loose. Sorry guys, I'd take you all if I could, but the stroller only holds two. Once respective babies are retrieved, we are debriefed as to the girls’ feedings and bodily functions. Their grandmother and I like to call this, perhaps euphemistically, the histoire de la journee. This is why I now know how to say stinky diaper and spit-up in French.

File under: Bizarre, in a cool way

Following my post on the Parisian boutique Madame Andre, a reader named Missy commented that W magazine's January issue runs a story on the boutique as well.  Standing in a newsstand at LaGuardia Airport today, I nearly dropped my Century 21 shopping bag when I opened up W and read the first two words of the story:

The coquette, of course, is indigenous to Paris, and nowhere is that girly flirtiness flaunted with as much modern joi de vivre than at Madame Andre, the very small, very hip and very pink new boutique on rue du Mont-Thabor.

I swear this W writer and I are in no way linked, but I like the way this lady thinks. 

Shocking

That two "adults," two taxpaying adults who not only hold jobs and pay New York City rent, but ARE CARETAKERS FOR A LIVING ANIMAL could have a refrigerator stocked exclusively with condiments and Indian takeout leftovers. 

I AM SO TELLING YOUR MOMS THAT YOU DON'T EAT BREAKFAST.

P.S.  Thanks for having me guys!

"Do you want the roll that comes with that?"

Says the Dean and Deluca soup guy in one breath, to each person in line, until the phrase loses all meaning.  No one wants the roll.  The girl in front of me tries the shrimp, scallop, and zucchini soup, but refuses it with a nose wrinkle, "Oh, there's RICE in it?"

WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE LAST YEAR? 

I passed through the seven layers of the candy cane forest, through the sea of twirly, swirly gumdrops, and then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel

"C'etait juste, eh?"  I looked at the clock above the American Airlines check-in counter; it had just switched to read, "Flight 1617, 17:55 closed."

"A 'skin of the nose' job, Miss."

"Excuse me?"  One doesn't often hear a London, sort of cockney-moderne accent coming from a Charles de Gaulle employee.  I was thrown.

"I said, it was a 'skin of the nose' job!"

I had allowed myself 20 minutes to get to Charles de Gaulle by RER, if I wanted to be two hours in advance.  It takes about 40 minutes IF NOTHING GOES WRONG.  And let me tell you, THINGS WENT WRONG.  Mais, c'est pas grave--to be honest, Coquette sort of likes the rush.