2019 Spring Runway: Free Shots of Brain Bleach Edition
Step Away From Pinterest Edition
Designers are Agents of Patriarchal Oppression Edition
We’re in the Fucking Stupid Timeline Aren’t We? Edition
Dear Hecate How Can We Appease You & Make This Stop? Edition
This one is mostly me being a Sewist who really does love fashion & fabric being appalled that I can’t get paid hundreds of millions for this shit.
It’s not models’ fault; this is a capitalist scam. I don’t even entirely mind the scam part that separates $$ from wealthy dicks.
Apparently, we are in the early chapters of Sherri Tepper’s “Gibbon’s Decline & Fall” (Which is a great book, and one worth revisiting, but goddamn, it’s prescient & horrifying.)
This is the scene that horrifies me every time I read the book & I’m reminded of every season.
Prepare yourselves.
You are not ready.
Get the fucking gin & a good seat.
OH GOD. Yoga socks glued to a shoe sole ARE NOT SHOES. They’re SHITTY SOCKS made by someone who hates both heels and Kitchener stitching.
Yoga socks made of neoprene are not shoes or socks, they’re just shit that will NEVER decompose in a landfill & will confuse the FUCK out of a future archeologist.
Prada, you’re supposed to be good at shoes.
They did this shoe fail again & again. (I hate colors & fabrics, too)
Duchess satin is shitty fabric for everything but ball gowns.
It’s a satin, so it snags on EVERYTHING, from dry cuticles to tweed chair seats.
It’s poly, so it’s hot & sticky if not lined well.
The ass of those Bermudas will be a snarl of popped threads after the 1st wearing.
They’re gonna produce a shit-ton of crotch-stank. Sorry not sorry. But they will. Don’t wear these in June in NYC on the subway. Yeast will grow!
Don’t date anyone who would wear those, no matter how they identify or their equipment configuration. Everyone gets yeast infections!
The awful shoes and the cheap ass polyester satin is all over Prada this season. Also Gramma’s cheap nylon knee-highs, the ones you get 3/$1 at Walgreens & come in a vending machine toy capsule. But with the Prada logo screen printed on them, so $75 a pair. Same crap, though.
Prada is being Raoul (see the written pages) - contemptuous of their customers, their models, their product.
This show is hate and disdain as the technology of clothing.
It’s all poly, so nobody will be happy when wearing these clothes.
The designs are supposed to fit badly.
There are about 10 total garments 3/4 coat
Pea coat
Bermuda shorts
Mock turtle
Scoop neck tank with strap
Wrap skirt
Swing tank
A line jumper
Tank dress
In duchess satin, chiffon, tubular nylon, an undetermined knit & their typical leather. And not even that many dyes & prints.
That’s not a collection. That’s cleaning out the storage room.
Is Prada having money trouble?
(Also, this ain’t a spring look. Even with a boob window. This is autumn. WTF are y’all smoking? Don’t share. It’s clearly toxic.)
(I like the grey and ivory. In a school uniform way).
I do like a few of the garments: this coat, this dress. The accessories are iffy, but the designs are excellent & what’s being done with the prints is lovely. I really like the coat.
But I hated all the other coats from Prada, because they look like they’re sewn by 7th graders who are gonna get a pity C in their district required Home Ec class. The hems are uneven. It doesn’t look like intentional asymmetry; it looks like shit construction & misery.
So THANK ALL THE GODDESSES FOR VIONNET which 1) designed for goddesses this season, and 2) washes out all that horror Prada inflicted.
Photos provided by Vionnet. vogue.com/fashion-shows/…
Vionnet did a lot of gowns this year, but as maxi dresses? Easy. Expect to see these in casual wear by next summer. They’ll probably be in cotton/rayon gauze instead of silk or poly chiffon. They’ll be comfy, cool, and they’ll look good on a wide range of bodies.
Vionnet did use some satin/sateen (there must have been a jobber with an excellent supply of cocaine, a great line of patter, and a LOT of satin to move...) but they used them for... cargo shorts & skirts.
So YAY! Pockets are back! Pockets in runway!!! Just... not in satin or sateen. (No, I really like these; I like the line & the ease. They’ll be comfortable to wear & for the most part, they’ll look good on a wide range of body shapes & sizes. Just use twill/poplin/matte sateen.)
This pairing of the long shorts and the light duster remind me of 1920s beach pajamas.
I quite like this; I love the abstract print & the way it flows, as well as protecting from the sun. And those are NICE pockets on women’s.
And then there’s Vivetta. Hm. So... Their head designer just had a baby (Yay! Working moms!) but... I think maybe she spent too much time time on Pinterest because there was a Pinterest fad for refashioning men’s shirts about 2 years ago, and oh boy did she get stung.
So this part of the collection is just terrifying. It’s what happens when you make a late Victorian capsule wardrobe out of a shower curtain.
Fuck that bubble skirt. We burned those for good goddam reasons. That doesn’t even make good maternity wear, even with the empire waist.
And she stole a shitload of 80s prom dresses from a Goodwill in Des Moines.
And this death to Pinterest time:
There was a fad for taking thrifted men’s shirts & cutting them apart to turn them into other garments. The blue stripe side is collar from model’s neck to hip, one sleeve repurposed, back of shirt. The other side? Another shirt.
Here’s how we turn 6 men’s shirts into a sundress with horrible sleeves.
Either that, or she’s selling to the Cthulhu market so all the tentacles can have cuffs.
Waste not, want not: use the scraps, and that one spare sleeve! Add chantilly lace bike shorts.
(I kinda like the shorts - there’s lots in this collection - but stretch lace needs to be a lot cheaper or get a lot sturdier.)
Shoes are kinda cute if you’re into peep toes.
I kinda like the guipure lace. (From a technical perspective, if nuthin’ else.) I just... It’s too cutesy and I’d really like to hang it in a nursery.
But I’m not gonna object to a lot of soft lace bike shorts on the market. When you live in a windy climate or thighs rub...
This is great for an RTW summer dress, if it stops at the knee. Just get rid of the bottom skirt. I’m not even complaining about all the lace ruffles. It’s a cute summer dress, cool & white cotton.
The butterfly is fabric producer showing off - a solid print on textured fabric.
And this suit? It’s busy and bold, yes. And it’s all about drawing attention to boobs and the wondrous source of pleasure concealed behind the all-seeing eye.
But it’s also incredibly confident. I wouldn’t wear it, but fashion as performance art? This is a good example.
And then the collection trainwrecks straight into the Reagan Administration.
I swear to fucking god, my Mormon BFF in 7th grade wore this for school pics. (I wore those fucking prairie skirts, too.)
Laura Ashley called. She wants her design back.
Oh, god I don’t even know.
It’s the revenge of the Louis-Philippe era. I’ve been snarking on the awfulness that is the transition between Regency & early Victorian and OMG here is is.
(I like the body & collar of the coat; the sleeves are BAD. And no more bedazzler for you.)
This? This I like. This will be for sale next summer, minus the icky bits noted below. Those lines of gathering are incredibly flattering for most people, and very comfortable. (Also common on maternity wear..._
Ditch the bedazzled bows and the lace on the collar.
And then there’s Menswear, which is where I started out, and what I intended to go look at, but there’s the Moncler 2 1952 Men’s collection and I am so demoralized about the state of garments I had to go look at women’s to know it’s just the END...
Now, Moncler is atheleisure, outerwear & active wear. I’m not looking for suits here. It’s street & activewear. It’s SUPPOSED to be worn in the rain, while you’re sweating. It should have a lot of wicking fabrics & weather repelling fabrics.
All stipulated.
It starts bad and never gets better:
(I had to see it. So do you.)
It’s shiny.
It looks sticky.
I think it’s polyvinyl laminated [something] so...
it’s a onesie made out of diaper cover for someone who has recently managed to make a lot of money in some late stage capitalist venture like YouTube asshattery or cornering a local drug market.
Yup, laminated. The print looks to me like ITY jersey (Which IS a comfortable fabric! It’s a fave - I don’t absolutely HATE polyester) or nylon, which is appropriate for athletic wear. It was the polyvinyl lamination in the previous that was the problem.
Yay, brimmed hats. SPF
I like seeing the color blocking in menswear. This is fine. It’s does have a bit of Holstein cow feel to it, but it’s abstract, & I’d like to see more color & pattern in menswear.
If nothing else, it makes it easier to ID bad actors when they’re not all wearing DudeBro uniform.
But this? I hate this. Not just because I think any designer who prints their name all over their clothes is NOT DOING THEIR JOB & HAS AN EGO THE SIZE OF CHICAGOLAND but b/c that fabric looks like it was intended to be barber’s capes for a chain of low-price salons.
Also Onesie!
BACK AWAY FROM THE KNITTING MACHINE, Moncler. It’s cool that you got an All Yarns Are Beautiful mod and you’ve rebuilt the Brother you found in great-aunt Esther’s attic. That’s NOT HOW YOU SHOW YOUR DEDICATION TO DEAD TECH.
Also, those boy version of khaki dress pant yoga pant sweats? That must stop now. They’re too baggy to be good khakis, too clingy by nature of the fabric to pass as khakis, lack the design details that would let someone in a uniform school get away with them & bad color choice.
Remember when I talked about how ALL Russian designers have a few nationalistic designs in EVERY collection? (It’s ok: this thread:
) They’ll have sparkly blue, red & white gowns historic cosplay & their own nationalistic symbols?
Uh oh. Guys? Um...
For those days when you don’t know if you should work out, rob a bank, or join a monastery, I guess.
Here’s the Silicon Valley Brogrammer uniform for next year: hoodie, joggers, down vest, fanny pack.
Oh, wait. That’s the Brogrammer uniform now.
For those days when you need to sweat off water to make your wrestling weight... AND you want to feel like a superhero.
Becky Home-Ecy green polyester double knit pants?✔️☑️
Thrifted khaki flasher coat? ✔️☑️
An exploded airbag filled with down around your neck? ✔️☑️
Down vest for when you’re freezing? ✔️☑️
I don’t know. I don’t understand.
More gin please.
I know it’s only 2 pm.
Boys are getting leggings, too. Okay, then.
The cape-hood-thing has got to go, though.
And I don’t understand the camo scheme: hiding from pissed off giraffes?
I get the garment - biking in wet, hot weather. So, spring in DC.
So... I’m gonna go actually sew stuff that looks & feels fun & fine. Because I need to know that clothing is not all horror.
Marilla Walker Roberts collection modern overall dress (L), Jennifer Lauren Handmade Quincy dress (R.)
If you enjoy my fashion snark... we have arrived at the #SelfPromo portion of the tweet storm!
Let me tell you the story of the State Lege trips.
My mother comes from a small town; her family has been in the area for almost 200 years now. Her g’g’grandparents on both sides founded 3 of the small towns in the area. She’s related to everyone.
(Yes, it’s possible to be both local aristocracy & white trash.) She’s also one of those people who will claim someone else’s tragedy if it attracts attention to her, especially if she’s far enough away that she doesn’t have to actually DO anything about the tragedy.
Which happened. When I was a small child. A distant family member got HIV from a blood transfusion, got kicked out of school, and Smother became an HIV/AIDS activist, 2000 miles away from the actual sick kid. Her activism consisted mostly of throwing parties (aka fundraisers.)
It’s my experience, and not everyone’s. I’m a behaviorist, and trauma is my jam.
2. So new tag: #MediaPTSD
Superheroes Need Shrinks: Batman, Wanda & Pietro Maximoff, 9/11 and mass casulty events
(or how we and our government participate in mutual gaslighting, and some thoughts on breaking the cycle for the benefit of our politics.)
3. When I decided to be a shrink, back in the dim dark days of the 1990s, my university still ran most of the student computers as terminals attached to a mainframe. There was one Win3.1 lab and 2 Apple labs. For 30K people.
#TailorSnarkWars
Battle of Opportunity
Floof, folderol, furbelows, ruffles and the horrors that are trends of technology.
Florals first: Printing a floral fabric takes good printing tech. When chintz first hit the scene in the 1720s, it was block printed in 2-3 colors, thusly.
That’s from the Victoria & Albert, 1730s. I think it’s configured for maternity wear, which just goes to show that we’ve always made pregnant people suffer.
That is a chintz, and for about a generation, people wore a lot of those patterns. Because they were hot, new tech.
Since this is a common misunderstanding: Cup size is a designation of the difference in circumference between the largest part of the chest (usually over the nips) and the smallest part, over the ribcage, with no breast tissue. 1/4
A= 1
B= 2
C= 3
D= 4
DD/E= 5
DDD/F= 6
DDDD/FF=7
Clearly, a D cup looks MUCH bigger on someone with a 27 inch ribcage than it does on someone with a 36 inch ribcage, but the volume in the cup is the same. When someone says “giant double D’s” the bustier amongst us just roll our eyes. That person has no clue. 2/4