Evening Gown

First, The Rant:

90% of “ball gowns” in shops in this town are absolute bloody rubbish.

Almost everything I see in stores here seems to be made for school balls or strippers. If I had a dollar for every shiny-shiny, polyester, halter-neck, plunging, sequinned, backless, bumless, see-through, WAG-inspired, excessively-ruched monstrosity in this town, I would have enough to ring Mr. Armani and ask for something one-off.

You all know the type of stuff I’m talking about. Yeeeerrrrrccchhhhh….

Apart from embarrassingly poor taste, one thing is that most of these overpriced synthetic skank-scraps have in common is the absence of any type of sleeve. If your arms aren’t your best feature, sleevelessness is not on. Piss-farting around with a wrap all evening is also not going to work, so don’t even think about it. And when a dress does happen to have sleeves, the sleeves seem to exert some sort of irresistable, magical force on the dressmaker, such that they cannot help but create some horror that screams “discount 80’s bridesmaid!”

An elegant, interesting, tasteful evening gown is obviously a very difficult thing to make, and obviously not very popular.

And I’m not talking about cocktail dresses. I don’t give a rat’s what some people think, “black tie” and “cocktail” are two different things, and Black Tie means an evening gown. Full length. The Real Deal. No pissing about.

Now, the Rationale:

I think the search for an evening gown is going to be never-ending for me :-( I might have to design something of my own. The closest thing I’ve seen which could have been OK was a silk Carla Zampatti number, but it was sold out in my size and is no longer available:

A lovely woman called Suzie Wilkes wears an equally lovely Carla Zampatti gown.

Yes, Nina. A real, proper evening gown is an absolute must-have. I just need to find one, maybe like the one above, or this Erdem one below?

Edited to add: Have recently seen some lovely gowns in Lisa Ho, but they're not quite what I'm looking for. Still bloody nice, though.

Espadrilles

OK, let me say straight up that while I am open to conversion, I am not a huuuuge fan of espadrilles. I know folks who barely take them off in the summer months and find them indispensible, but I’ve never been a fan of their clunkiness and floppiness and flat-soledness. I don’t like my footwear clunky and floppy and flat-soled. I seem to recall a lot of sprained ankles in the 70s.

Right now, I’m wearing a pair of very neat Teva Venturas. They are not High Fashion, but they are replacing my faithful Rockports, which finally died after 9 years excellent service. Like the Rockports, the Tevas fit me really well, and look good on my feet, funky not frumpy. They are comfortable and soft and light. They won’t take me from the beach to cocktails by the pool and they don’t look good in jeans, but they will take me all over the Cinque Terre, through Rome and Florence in summer, around Balinese marketplaces, through national parks, across town on a shopping spree, to barbecues and picnics, on and off boats, and down to and from the beach.

I’m happy for anyone to point me to where I might find some comfortable, stylish espadrilles which won’t cripple me, but in the meantime, walking sandals will go where espadrilles fear to tread. Bon voyage!

ETA: Bought espadrilles, red wedge heels. Have not worn once. They're gone.

Eighteen Month Rule

This is not one of Nina’s essentials, but this has been a wardrobe essential for me for quite a few years now. The rule is:

If I haven’t worn it even once in 18 months, it goes.

12 months is too short a time. 2 years is too long, and I probably wouldn’t remember, anyway. 18 months is kind of nice middle ground.

Recently, I’ve been browsing through the “Who What Wear” book by Katherine Power and Hillary Kerr (see WhoWhatWear.com). I was interested to see that they also advocate the 18 month rule!

This rule means that the items I have

• Fit
• Still suit me
• Are in good condition
• Keep up with any changes in style I’ve made

The only only only exceptions are collectables and special “occasion” pieces such as a silk sequinned Dinnigan cardigan, a tuxedo, that sort of thing. And sometimes even these are not immune.

I don’t have a stack of vintage Comme des Garçons or Valentino, or an inherited stash of Chanel, so this rule isn’t going to clear me out of coveted designer pieces.

What the 18 month rule provides a measuring stick against the relevance of the item you’re holding up in front of you, considering whether you’ll ever wear it again.

Again, a certain ruthlessness and clear-headedness is necessary. There’s not much room for sentimentality. I wouldn’t do it with a glass of champagne in my hand, nor would I let my friends get involved unless I thought I wasn’t up to it.

A good time to apply the rule is at the change of seasons, such as when you start packing away your heavier winter stuff and heavy knits and start bringing out the shorts and sandals. You’ll have a good idea if that start-of-season buy actually got used, and you’ll have had enough of a break from your stored clothes to be able to look at them a little more objectively.

If you have ample wardrobe space and don’t ever pack away seasonal clothes, you should seriously think about trying it. It clears everything up, protects clothes from pests when you’re not using them, and helps you get organised, making it much, much easier to find what you’re looking for. Go on, try it. You’ll thank me :-)

Driving Shoes

Recently, a woman tried to blame her speeding on her high heels.

Well, nice try, hon’, but perhaps you needed a pair of driving shoes. Nina’s driving shoe is basically a light loafer, and part of what she calls “WASP-chic.”

Meh. I’m not so into it. I’m neither a WASP nor a Schumacher. I’m sure that driving shoes are comfortable and colourful and all, but those moccasinny types of shoes aren’t my style and always seem to be very narrow and low-arched, never fitting my feet.

When I go to “slip on” a shoe, it’s often something from Camper, like a low-heeled slip-on mule or an elastic-topped flat.

I think I can safely – on the road and off – leave driving shoes out of my One Hundred.

Discontinued

Should we have an entry for Discontinued? Let’s. It’s not in Nina’s One Hundred but it’s certainly in mine, and given that I’ve not adopted all Nina’s One Hundred, it seems only right that I should insert a couple of new things... even if, technically, they might not exist (now, there’s something for your Zen meditation).

It seems to be an incontravertible Law of the Universe that anything discontinued is certain to be The Best, Most Perfect Thing Ever. This law applies to sunglasses, red lipstick, shoes, t-shirts, jeans, undies, kitchen utensils, icecreams (Woe! Woe am I since the death of the Hazelnut Roll! (BOO to Nestlé!!!) ) and favourite childhood sweets.

If you find something that is the Best, Most Perfect Thing Ever, buy multiples. It’s the old “heir and spare” idea, and it’s worth keeping in mind. Stores seem to cycle their stock so incredibly quickly these days, you often have no time to hesitate. The thing is sure to be discontinued when you’re not looking. No sooner have the stores stocked for spring than the spring stuff is old and then on sale and in the outlets and the summer stuff is in and then out faster than you can blink. Don’t even wait for your Perfect Things to go on sale, although if they were on sale it would be a sure bonus and a Sign from the Universe that you shouldn’t ignore.

I have 4 pairs of a discontinued style of jeans in my wardrobe as proof.

Diamond Studs

“Best when large, real and received as a gift. But large, fake and self-purchased do the job, too.”

Amen to that.

However, I’d probably be too terrified to wear the real deal all the time, especially after my hairdresser pointed to a crack in the floorboards by my feet and said that there were at least a couple of carats down there. I prefer wearing good-quality CZ and silver crystal versions, set in silver or gold. Good, but not insurance-worthy.

Diamond studs go anywhere, with anything, and having an assortment of different shapes and sizes to choose from is also pretty handy. These definitely make my One Hundred, absolutely no argument.

Denim Jacket

Just as a pair of jeans can make a tuxedo jacket turn hip and edgy, a denim jacket can make a pair of basic sharp black trousers relax. I have a lovely, fitted, classic design worn dark blue jacket from Marcs that I’ve had for years. It just gets better and softer with age, too.

Nina thinks that the denim should be either very dark or very worn. What you’re supposed to do in the time between very dark and very worn is anyone’s guess. She also thinks that it should be very fitted or a size too small, and that’s fine if you don’t have to use your arms. I think the only tricks to buying a denim jacket are the following:

1. Style – classic or deconstructed or minimalist, just make sure it’s consistent with the rest of your stuff.
2. Size – if you’re only going to wear it with t-shirts you can go for your “true” size, but if you think you’re going to want to wear knits under it, you’ll probably want to go up a size.

And, while rules are made to be broken, I reckon denim-on-denim – of any colour - is still a no-no. It just looks wrong. I’m sure Chloe Sevigny has done it, and it probably still looked wrong on her, too, and that woman could wear a hessian sack and make it look cool. Just say no.