2:02 p.m.
I found the article below both illustrative and sobering — this is the mindset that luxury manufacturers will have to battle throughout the year:
Pret-à-rapporter: saving your pound
“I’ve spent the past couple of weeks trying to train myself not to spend. January is always a dodgy month, but this year it seems exquisitely un-chic to be thinking about splashing out on new stuff when all we’re hearing are tidings of financial doom lurking just round the corner.”
All the talk of recession is hitting home, and where it’s hitting hardest is the mainstream middle-class consumer that luxury houses have so aggressively courted for the past decade. Cutting up credit cards? Training yourself not to spend? Only going for what’s on sale? These can’t be welcome words to a fashion conglomerate CEO’s ears.
But perhaps this is my favorite part, where the author helps steel her resolve against spending by recalling the fashion disasters she witnessed during the Spring/Summer fashion exhibitions:
“At times like these, you never quite know whether it’s you or the designers who have gone mad. Is that garment before you not one of the most absurd proposals ever to prance upon a catwalk? Occasionally, you dart your eyes around the auditorium, scarcely able to believe that the audience isn’t laughing out loud.
“And gosh, looking back at the spring/summer shows, there really were some stonkers out there – clothing apparently designed without a whit of a thought to flattery or practicality . . . Yet, in so far as the sight of them has temporarily put me off rushing to the shops, I’m grateful.”
Perhaps she was referring to the mostly drab and ungainly (if not unwearable) Prada Spring/Summer 2008 collection:
Obviously, they didn’t get the Lagerfeld memo about refusing to hire models models that are too thin.
On the other side of the beauty spectrum, Gwen Stefani showcases the “IT” dress of Spring 2008 in her new music video. The Dolce & Gabbana confection that was deservedly the talk of the Milan fashion shows makes its appearance around minute 2:28, and is the best feature of the video:
Oh, what a cruel fate to be a star outshone by mere silk and chiffon. Gone are the days when record companies showered money on promotional videos. I think nearly the entire budget was blown on that one dress, since the rest of the time Ms. Stefani mostly twirls about in unremarkable constumes in unimaginative settings. Hello — a train station, a powder room and a mock Louis mansion? Pffft!
What’s the point of being an international pop sensation if you’re just going to trot out a bunch of tired old visual cliches? Even Paula Abdul had the decency to borrow from Bob Fosse (but she certainly could have used a bit of Dolce & Gabbana magic . . . sometimes I forget what was being pushed as “cool” fashion in the eighties. Quel Horror!):
