Spring fashion, 2013: A take-your-mind-off-the-election special edition.

Obviously the appreciation of beautiful things is a universal pleasure, but today's posts (yes, posts, plural!) are specifically a gift to everyone out there who is currently stressing out over the US election results. I'm not even American, and I still feel tense about it. So as a balm to everyone's nerves as we try to ignore the grim horrors of a 24-hour news cycle with nothing to report on until tomorrow, here are some pretty things to look at:

For a label that's managed to bridge the divide between Ready-To-Wear accessibility and fidelity to its own design history, look no further than Thierry Mugler. Four seasons on from Nicola Formichetti's introduction as the label's new creative direction, Mugler are still coming up with fresh designs that run the gamut from Lady Gaga-influenced PVC dresses to some comparatively sedate (but still fashion-forward) business attire.

Sidenote: Does this yellow dress have a crotch-moustache? (Can I say that here? Is that an unfortunate word-choice?) (It's a crotch-moustache.)

The slick PVC outfits were a nod to Mugler's history with fetishwear influences, although this season's offerings were rather more cheerful and mainstream than many of the label's past collections. Also, the high hemlines were often tempered by tight shorts worn under the skirts, which (somehow) worked rather well.

This bug-like carapace dress was a real moment of old-school Mugler, in amongst the various simpler outfits Formichetti had on display during this show.

I was pleased by the variety of different looks on offer during this show, the only continuous design theme being one of origami-like folds, which made themselves known in almost every outfit.

 Viktor & Rolf

Introducing a far softer look than in previous seasons, Viktor & Rolf have decided to take inspiration from the glamour of 1940s evening gowns. There were still hints of the old V & R in the form of metallic fabrics (reminiscent of their many robot-like designs in past years) and shoulder-pads, but both were seamlessly incorporated into the overall vintage look.

Link to Part 2: Yohji Yamamoto.

Read More

A "take your mind off the election" fashion special: Part 2.

Link to Part 1: Thierry Mugler and Viktor & Rolf.

Can I tag this with "apocalypse fashion"? Sure, why not; I do what I want. These clothes may not fulfill my strict requirements of looking like they were dragged from the dismal rubble of a dystopian cityscape and/or desert, but I think the spirit is definitely there.

This season's Yohji Yamamoto was rather grimmer than usual, full of frayed edges and the black, draped fabrics of mourning clothes. While Yamamoto has a history of dressing his models like bag-ladies (his term, not mine), this season had a more graceful look to it -- even though there were still a lot of rough fabrics and scruffy hemlines on show. The only acknowledgement of the Spring season was the amount of skin on show, but thanks to the models' aggressive demeanour and the chilly colour palette, it didn't seem like a very warm or cheerful Spring.

The accessories were one of my favourite things about this collection. They looked like a cross between caveman tools and something constructed directly from a haphazard crayon-drawing by a child.

OK, I'm going to be straight with you here: Yohji Yamamoto is pretty much the real-life Derelicte. If you don't know what that means because you haven't seen Zoolander: go watch Zoolander now, because it's awesome. If you do know what that means and are all, "But HelloTailor, John Galliano is surely the real-life Derelicte!" then I say NO, for John Galliano was too glamourous. Yamamoto really goes for it, you know? Year after year, season after season... countless hundreds of outfits made up of ill-fitting Charlie Chaplin trousers with the cuffs rolled up, and accessories made from rags. And to be honest, Yamamoto is really the only designer who can manage this look without it coming across as a gross mockery of reverse-classism.

I'm quadruple psyched about this grey outfit because I'm hoping it's what Tilda Swinton will wear to our commitment ceremony. Which will take place in a forest and be officiated by a wolf.

Read More

Elementary 1x05: "Lesser Evils".

Previously: Elementary 1x03, Child Predator. 

This show really needs to solve its "Oh, it's that guy!" problem. As in: Who was the murderer this week? Oh, it's that guy! That guy we saw on The Good Wife, or Castle, or Suits. This week's murderer was based on real-life Angel Of Death Kristen Gilbert, which makes me wonder... has there ever been a real serial killer who based all their murders off episodes of CSI? Has that happened yet? If not, it's only a matter of time. Then CSI will make a special episode about it, and the universe will implode in on itself in a metapocalyse of mediocre TV writing.
This episode saw Holmes and Watson deal with another criminal who exploits his perceived position of authority to prey on the weak. Also, this is the second time we've seen Holmes come up against someone who uses their medical expertise to hurt people who trust them, indicating that this may be a theme for the show in general. Does part of Holmes' backstory in London, and his subsequent addiction, relate to someone having exploited their power over him? It seems unlikely that it'd be a doctor because he clearly trusts and admires Watson with relative ease, but... maybe a psychiatrist? The writers' ongoing focus on power dynamics is surely there for a reason, and I suspect that Holmes' insight into dominant/submissive personalities might end up being this show's equivalent to House, MD's infamous "everybody lies" motif.

Once again, I'm surprised by how this show manages to handle complex topics such as Holmes' sensitivity towards power issues, while simultaneously using the most flimsy and cliched of motives for its weekly criminals. Weak crime-writing aside, I am continuing to love Holmes' characterisation. His constant empathy for the weak and helpless is a fitting nod to classic Holmes canon, but his identification with these people is something that's unique to Elementary. I'm very much impressed by the way Jonny Lee Miller has managed to combine the haughtiness and surety of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes with this underlying streak of eager-to-please sensitivity.
Tying in with this week's return to the hospital we saw in the pilot episode (it is the same hospital, right?), it's becoming more and more apparent that Elementary likes to focus on Watson's medical career more than any other Holmes adaptation before. Rather than Watson's medical expertise being used exclusively for assistance on Holmes' cases, we get whole episodes either themed around the medical profession or, in this case, delving into Watson's backstory. The contrast between Joan and the arrogant chief surgeon Dr Baldwin was obvious: Joan, after accidentally causing the death of a patient, retires from medicine despite her obvious passion for the work, whereas Dr Baldwin actually kills off a patient in order to cover his mistakes and keep on practising medicine.

I hadn't really thought about this until now, but Joan Watson has a great bedside manner. When she was speaking to Carrie's patient she was instantly reassuring and friendly, a real contrast from the abrupt and no-nonsense attitude she has with Holmes. This episode was full of these details: tiny moments where you really get to see how good a doctor Watson is/was, and how Holmes really does pay attention to her and notices this. One of the things that's keeping me invested in this show in spite of its dismally predictable crime plots, is the way Holmes' respect for Watson grows with every passing week. In fact, it's not just respect: he straight-up enjoys the way she is. In many ways, it's more compelling than the kind of "will they/won't they" relationships you get from most male/female buddy-cop pairings, or the faintly homoerotic banter you get for the male/male ones.

When it came to Holmes and Watson's matching his'n'hers outfits, this was the most obvious episode so far. I'm pretty sure this is a filming choice rather than a characterisation thing -- maybe something to do with lighting colours? Or else it's just a direct attempt to visually indicate the synchronicity between the two characters. Either way, while Joan's style (comfortable and soft, but flattering) and Holmes' style (nonexistent; all clothes taken directly from bargain bins) have very little in common, they always wear similar colours: grey, purple, and navy blue, with red accents. In the pilot episode it was just Holmes' tartan scarf and Watson's plaid shirt, but they seemed to have branched out since then.

Miscellaneous

• DISGRACEFUL absence of violin, but I will allow the brief mention of Holmes being a member of a beekeeping forum. Because: beekeeping forum. Could do with more actual bees, though. Bees are vitally important, always.
• Watson being all, "You're the head of a very important department," to Dr Baldwin, near the beginning. Because you just KNOW she's had to play up to the egos of arrogant surgeon dudes for her entire career
• "Failed sapphic dalliance"? Really? Eh, I'll allow it as a throwaway line. But am not impressed. 

Click here for previous posts on Elementary.

Read More

Banana Karenina.

Anna Karenina is a book about Keira Knightley falling in love with some guy from History, and then some problems happening as a result. Banana Republic is a shop that makes clothes for non-poor Americans. Finally, at long last, these two have come together to give birth to the selection of Russian literature-themed womenswear that we've all been waiting for.

The thing is, I do understand why movie tie-in fashion lines exist. They're a cynical moneyspinner, but the reason why they work as a cynical monespinner is because people like the clothes they see in movies. Unfortunately, this Banana Republic collection is so distant from its supposed inspiration that it could just as easily be a tie-in for Gossip Girl or Mad Men or... anything ever produced by Banana Republic. It looks quite nice, but what's the point?

Buying movie tie-in clothes like Twilight hoodies and Katniss Everdeen jackets is basically cosplay for people who haven't heard of the term "cosplay" yet. Dressing up is fun, and buying a Hunger Games jacket means you can feel like Katniss Everdeen on your morning commute without anyone else having to know that you're secretly in costume. Or else, sometimes you just really want to buy an outfit you see in a movie, simply because it looks good. It's self-generated product placement. But in the case of Anna Karenina, I'm pretty baffled at the decision to have Banana Republic handle the tie-in capsule collection.

Films like Anna Karenina are called "costume dramas" for a reason, you know? Obviously any type of near-accurate versions of costumes from the movie are an unrealistic hope, because they'd be prohibitively expensive and would only appeal to a small fraction of the audience. But for people who see this movie and are excited enough by the visuals that they want to go out and buy something that reminds them of it, Banana Republic's offerings seem paltry at best.
It's pretty easy to build a capsule wardrobe around a movie set in the present day, but in the case of Anna Karenina one has to take the luxury of upper-class 19th century Russia and somehow transfer it to modern, wearable clothes. And honestly, the Banana Republic capsule collection doesn't even seem to be trying. These clothes will definitely sell because they make up a decent ready-to-wear collection and will, you know, be available to buy in shops, but the only thing they have in common with Anna Karenina is the inclusion of some vaguely Russian-looking faux fur hats.

I'm no literary purist. In fact, my entire experience with Tolstoy boils down to having read the first four pages of War And Peace before abandoning it in favour of something else (probably involving aliens or superheroes). But still, the idea of attaching the name and persona of a 19th century Russian heroine to this  selection of bland pencil-skirt-and-cardigan outfits just seems dismal to me. Corsets and floor-length gowns may not currently be in vogue, but at least some effort might have been made to bring the luxury of the movie's visuals to the look of this collection. This time last year I was snobbishly complaining about the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo fashion line by H&M, but compared to Banana Republic, that was practically spot-on accurate. So for now, I'll leave you with Ulyana Sergeenko, a designer who has managed far more successfully to meld old-fashioned Russian design with more modern, wearable styles.

Read More

Gareth Pugh, Spring 2013 Ready-To-Wear.

It's important to remember that no matter how obscure your demographic, the world of fashion will have something tailored specifically to fit you. Gareth Pugh primarily designs for the alien robot market, a small but apparently significant group that's managed to keep him in business for several years. It's so hard to find clothes that flatter one's chitinous exoskeleton, you know?

This show was considerably more relaxed than anything else I've seen by Gareth Pugh. It definitely qualifies as Ready To Wear, but is that really what one wants from this particular designer? I miss the metallic robot outfits and the black-and-white pierrot gowns. And quite apart from that, Pugh just doesn't seem to be all that good at more conservative designs like these. By the previous standards of his own work this show was surprisingly wearable, but not necessarily very interesting.

This leather outfit was the low point of the show. Strapless corsets almost always look cheap, and this one is extremely poorly fitted -- a real surprise, coming from a designer who is usually so adept when it comes to structured clothing. In all, the outfit came across as a Halloween costume of some mid-level character in The Matrix.

The latter half of the show reminded me of Jean Paul Gaultier's costumes for The Fifth Element -- or a pale imitation thereof. The bell-bottom trousers seemed particularly dated, a little too close to the late '90s/early '00s to be considered a retro pastiche as of yet. The styling also seemed like something from an early '00s music video, with the models all having jagged side-partings and exaggerated eyeshadow.

The most noticeable development this season was Pugh's reluctant admission of a single colour to his previously monochromatic palette. The end result did allow for some extra variety, but I found that there was a distinct aura of White Stripes stage costume to some of the outfits, particularly this frilled-collar shirt.

The high point of the collection was undoubtedly these ribbed jersey dresses. Although they're far softer than the designs one usually sees from Gareth Pugh, the fabric choice was excellent and their flowing structure made the otherwise rather conservative silhouette into something far more interesting. Ready-To-Wear, but with enough weirdness to qualify as a worthwhile Gareth Pugh design.

Read More

Skyfall: Bond as a blunt instrument.

When Daniel Craig was first cast in the role of 007, the aim was to revitalise Bond as a more realistic action hero like Jason Bourne. Unfortunately, Casino Royale never quite lived up to that -- and the less that's said of Quantum of Solace, the better. The two main problems with Casino Royale were that it's damn difficult to make an accessible thriller about the unavoidably static environment of a card game, and also that the writers of had the wrong idea of how to make Bond "serious" in the first place. After twenty films of varying levels of quality and ridiculousness, I understand the reasoning behind trying to make a grittier 007, especially since the genre has been parodied so often already. But in the case of Casino Royale, the filmmakers' idea of how to make Bond more realistic was to excise much of the humour of the old-school films, and add more angst. As an origin story for the character we see in Skyfall, it works. As a Bond film, it was slick but not very much fun.
I'm honestly rather surprised by how excellent Skyfall turned out to be. I'd heard good things, but the concept of a well-written Bond film with nuanced characterisation hadn't even occurred to me. The phrase "best Bond ever" comes to mind, although it's probably unfair to compare a lightweight post-war spy movie with a  big-budget thriller made in 2012. Either way, this was a smarter, more modern Bond that still gelled perfectly with the legacy of the series as a whole. Rather than going for the "any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic" gadgetry of the Pierce Brosnan era, the cyber-terrorism plot of Skyfall forced Bond back into his original role as a blunt instrument. And yes, Skyfall is a movie that manages to use the term "cyber-terrorism" in a non-embarrassing fashion. Who even knew that was possible?

Low-tech Bond was an inspired idea, with 007 being handed a gun and a radio at the beginning of the movie and resorting to DIY seige warfare by the end. It all fit together impressively well with the cerebral nature of Javier Bardem's Raoul Silva, a villain whose power lies in his ability to hack into spy satellites but who is eventually defeated by the deliciously medieval method of a knife to the back. Not only did this brutal, low-tech theme make for entertaining viewing, but it made the character of James Bond necessary. There's always a certain level of disbelief-suspension required when you're watching a Bond movie, because what the hell is up with a secret agent who walks directly up to the enemy and introduces himself with his real name on every single mission? But in the case of Skyfall, we have a story that's all about the importance of real, ground-level agents -- both in the sense that MI6 is fighting against growing popular opinion that they're an outdated force in a world of ephemeral cyber-terrorism, and in the more specific sense of Bond proving his worth as a field agent.

source

I watch a lot of action thrillers, and it's very rare for a movie to get the balance right between the "OMG technology!" details like real-time GPS tracking (and, uh, invisible cars. Thanks, Die Another Day), and the more viscerally exciting stuff like people kicking each other in the face. In many cases, the kicking-each-other-in-the-face scenes can come across as superfluous because the technology seems so utterly all-powerful when compared to the fallibility of the human body. In Skyfall, however, we got the almost unheard-of combination of well-scripted action sequences and intelligent inclusion of up-to-date technology that isn't presented as a luddite-baiting threat. The 007 I saw in Skyfall seemed infinitely more useful than the character that appeared in any of the other recent Bond movies, because he'd come full circle and arrived back at his Cold War assassin starting point: a weapon to be pointed at the enemy and then let loose.
In many ways, Daniel Craig is the closest we've got to Ian Fleming's Bond since the 1960s. Fleming's Bond was ruthless and very much a product of the Second World War, and I'm fascinated by the way he's changed and evolved over the decades. Sean Connery is the most canonically similar, primarily because his movies were made more or less during the same time-period as the novels. Roger Moore was the silly, lightweight Bond, George Lazenby never really got a chance, and Timothy Dalton was darker and more introspective. Then came Pierce Brosnan, a slick '90s charmer who specialised in industrial espionage and dressed like a businessman. It seems weird to say that Skyfall has given us the "best" characterisation of Bond since the character is so malleable and often superficial, but while watching Skyfall I couldn't help but feel that this was a film that had really thought about who Bond would be in the world we live in today.
If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you've probably noticed that my #1 goal in life is to ruin everyone's fun by complaining about poor female representation in movies. Well, James Bond is the one instance where you'll ever hear me express a desire to restrict the role of female characters. More specifically, I don't want a Bond Girl to come within ten miles of making 007 "fall in love". The Bond franchise is notorious for its treatment of women as disposable sex-objects, but Casino Royale's solution to this problem never really sat right with me. As a semi-reboot of the series, Casino Royale began with a softer Bond, allowing him to develop deeper feelings for Vesper Lynd than earlier Bonds had for their love-interests. But although Vesper was considerably more three-dimensional than most previous Bond Girls, I could never really get onboard with her and Bond's relationship. Rather than making Bond more interesting by showing that he's emotionally vulnerable, Casino Royale just reminded me of all the annoying movies I'd seen (I'm looking at you, Christopher Nolan Batman franchise) where female characters are only there to be killed off so the male lead can feel some feelings

Skyfall is the first time I've been satisfied by a Bond movie both as a feminist, and as a fan. The female characters are more interesting and well-written than ever before, and when it comes to Bond's attitude to women, Daniel Craig's characterisation is impeccable. He may be sexist, but the movie itself isn't, which is always an important distinction to make. I'll go into more detail about the female characters themselves in a separate post, but for now I'll just say the way Daniel Craig's Bond treated Eve and Sévérine was a very clever mixture of old-school Ian Fleming 007, and a realistic portrayal of how a professional of Bond's calibre would act in 2012. One thing I really enjoyed was the flirty back-and-forth between Eve and Bond, which was a great modernisation of Cold War-era Bond's interactions with the many female agents he encountered. Eve is demonstrably a cool and fun person, and Bond clearly respects her and recognises her as a kindred spirit while still being very subtly protective of her. One thing all the iterations of 007 have in common is their rather condescending attitude towards their love-interests, but in this case it really worked for me.
I doubt that Bond would ever say to a male agent: "Being out in the field; it's not for everyone," because even in the 21st century he still secretly thinks that women need protecting more than men do, and he's generally just more emotionally open to women. But at the same time, he knew that Eve would be better off as a desk agent in the long run because although she's adventurous and tough and capable, she isn't a fucked-up murderer like Bond. Ten years ago, Eve's transition from badass field agent to Miss Moneypenny would have come across as a sexist tale of Bond safely putting a woman back in the office and out of harm's way, but in Skyfall this was her choice. Eve Moneypenny is awesome, but Daniel Craig's Bond is a stone-cold bastard, and he knows it. The reason why Skyfall succeeded where Casino Royale failed is because rather than going out of its way to be "gritty", Skyfall shows the balance between the danger and importance of Bond's job, and how much enjoys it. Daniel Craig's Bond, like the original Ian Fleming character, is an alcoholic womaniser who will cheerfully headbutt you in the face, laugh, and then murder a room full of people for queen and country. And the writers of Skyfall managed to put that character in an incredibly high-stakes situation and allow him some believably humanising emotional leeway in the form of his relationship with M.

Part 2: The new Bond Girls. 
Part 3: The Costumes.

Read More