CITY Issue 52

CITY LIFE IN ROGUE Bombshell Beauties Tired of those baby doll dresses? This season and next, designers are drawing inspiration from 1930s silver screen starlets with sultry hemlines and glamorous gowns. Elyssa Dimant vamps it up and asks, what would Greta and Marlene wear? SPACE TRAVEL, MOD, WARHOL, VIETNAM, JFK, CIVIL RIGHTS, hippies, “swinging”: the icons and movements of the 1960s glitter our memories of that critical decade. But for those of us who breathe in and out to the rhythm of fashion, one Sixties figure has haunted our runways, our magazines, our flirtations over cocktails for some time: the figure (literally) of Lesley Hornby, better known as Twiggy. Twiggy’s pre-pubescent frame was perfect for the miniskirts of Mary Quant and the A-line dresses of André Courrèges. Those doe-like eyes, lined with charcoal and fitted with lashes perfect for a naïve flutter, revived the ideal of the ingenue, and updated it for the “modern” masses—not necessarily the ones who read Betty Friedan, but definitely the ones who worked all day instead of preparing the pot roast. Twiggy was youthful, mobile, and playful. But she didn’t go anywhere without her baby doll dresses. The last several seasons in fashion brought those baby doll dresses back. With tights, without waists, with belts; pullover, zip-up, boat neck, jewel neck—the dresses took on many forms, but they were always short and sweet. And they were everywhere. But as a hopeless clotheshorse and a dedicated follower of the runway, I knew the dresses couldn’t possibly stay in style much longer. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that at some point in August, when I was trying to choose between a cotton shift so short that you could nearly see my panties and a ruffled tank dress that, in the words of one friend, made me look “both maternal and twelve,” I didn’t think to myself “is this really me?” But what should we wear? Should we slip back to the clinical basics of early 1990s Calvin Klein, or further embrace the romantic 1970s ruffles and frills that designers have flirted with for years now? The answer walked by me last week on my way to the corner coffee shop. She was leaving the joint triumphantly, large cup in hand, and on her legs were layered red and aqua green fishnets. As I’m generally not a huge fan of fishnets, I noticed that these were not your usual punkish offerings; this chick was not a Leigh Lezark wannabe. She didn’t have dyed black hair and didn’t put on too much eyeliner. She wasn’t even wearing a wrong-sized bra. Her fishnets were vintage, the kind that seem as if they were hand-crocheted and end anywhere from under the knee to halfway up the thigh, with an elegant fitted band topper. Continuing on my way, I noticed three girls with teasy off-the shoulder tops and another with a silk satin bias-cut dress. All these fresh looks, compounded with my current obsession with transforming my long, generally limp hair into the bouncy arched waves that are slowly becoming an ideal, made me realize that we have moved forward (or backward, as it were) to enliven a seductress far less ingenuous than dear Twiggy, though certainly as beguiling. With our Veronica Lake curls and our provocative glimpses of flesh, do we, like our grandmothers before us, all just want to be that perfect combination of Marlene Dietrich, Jean Harlow, and Greta Garbo? Is fashion now just a picture book of 1930s silver screen starlets? Hints of Bombshell-itis appeared in the fall 2007 shows: the hot rustcolored Jean Paul Gaultier trench, inset with strips of chiffon, showed off ample glimpses of Lily Cole’s shapely gams; the Lana Turner–esque highwaisted short shorts at Betsey Johnson confirmed that the postman does, in fact, always ring twice; and in a dramatic couture showing at the Parc de Saint Cloud, Monsieur Lagerfeld walked a black lace gown with chiffon shredded shoulder frills worthy of Joan Crawford’s Letty Lynton. Yes, all in all, these were glimpses, and this fall season is challenging only the most daring to glam-glam it up. But as the spring collections have oozed onto blogs, mag pages, and store windows, the smoke is clearing. Whether filmy, silky, or downright sexy, the rags of the silver screen broad have taken over. Marc Jacobs, in a genius backward-progressing presentation, has given us dresses with bra and panty outlines on the outside and glimpses of teddies and lace-trimmed shorts peaking out from deconstructed chiffon. Another dress, a bustier from Giles on which I am currently fixated, showcases an abbreviated Dietrich hemline, and even recalls the sexpot’s famed swansdown coat with titillating layers of lavendar feathered tulle. At the Costello Tagliapietra show in New York, us sideliners were charmed by side-swiped satin sheaths and wrap dresses fit to costume any number of Harlow’s harlots. Both Giles and CT utilized colorful knee-high hosiery to complete the vintage vixen throwback, and their models sauntered down the line with bed-head disheveled locks. I’ve got to admit, I’m pleased as peaches. I’m thrilled to no longer look like a child’s doll and instead start dressing like … something a man would play with. Yet even with the delight of progressive wide-leg pants made famous by Dietrich and Hepburn and newly popularized by Malandrino and Nathan Jenden—and even with sultry makeup and stilettos combating neutrals and flats once again—there’s still this lingering question, as yet unanswered: if we’re moving from baby doll to bombshell, do we also have to be “floozy” to be fashionable? 36 CI T Y

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CITY Issue 52

CITY Issue 52 Contents Letter from CITY Our Friends Action Wanted City Moment In Rogue Fit The Amused Bouche Fast Food Must Haves Hot Wheels Idol Handlers Design Public Affairs Pluck of the Draw Novel Ideas Monster's Belle Not Guilty The Understudies The Hunger Elastique Where to Buy It Socials Icon

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