Fashion Magazines Have Lost Their Minds

It's official. With so little left of print publications, the few major remaining (Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Elle in the United States) have been teetering on the absurd for ages. They've now toppled.

Of the three Elle, with Nina Garcia at the helm, seemed the most reasonable. It celebrated the fun that is the fantasy of fashion along with some stuff you could really wear. The March issue, at 216 pages and healthier than usual, is both silly and sad.

Really?

Really?

Really?

Really?

I have a sheet...

Really?

Really?

What even is this anyway?

Gone are the days when a magazine had the hubris to tell you what to wear. Once upon a time Glamour even published a "What to Wear With What" chart twice a year that I looked forward to. A blessing! Yes, it can be a relief not to be restricted as to "what's in/what's out" today. On the other hand... Some love rules and feel comforted by them. Others like rules in order to flaunt them. 

 
So no rules today (other than those of decency and your own preferences). But what about inspiration? Where are we getting that from? There are a few good authorities—Jess Cartner-Morley, Alyson Walsh and Trinny Woodall—but none of them are based in the States. Vanessa Friedman is a terrific reporter for the NY Times, but she's largely not an advisor. Celebrities? How many red carpet events do you attend?

I will troll the stores to see if I can get excited. There are less of them, and I have better things to do. Once upon a time my path from work to home took me onto Fifth or Madison Avenues; lunch break meant I could run down to 34th Street or up to 59th. I don't live there anymore. Even in those halcyon days, I loved fashion magazines. I can only imagine their many thousands of readers outside metropolitan areas loved them too.

Depending where you were on your life's journey, the fashion magazines spoke to you like a wise young aunt, a hip big sister or a smart, chic girlfriend. You might not always take her advice, but you loved hearing what she had to say. Today's magazines may be amusing themselves. but they are delighting—and enlightening—no one else.

Life's Lost Little Luxuries #10: The Car Coat

Lady, you need a car coat!

 
Longer than a jacket, shorter than a coat and sporty first cousin to a topper, the car coat as a fashion piece appeared in the 1950s. There were car coats much earlier of course—long, protective "dusters" for both men and women in the early days of automobiling. With a post war economy that saw more cars in driveways, more errands run in them by the lady of the house and more young women behind the wheel, the car coat was not a fad but a necessity—a coat that would be comfortable and not bulky while driving a car.

 
I first had a car coat when I was in junior high. I had no driver's license, but a car coat was the thing to have. It was easy to throw on, looked right with casual clothing and could span the seasons. Made of less expensive fabrics than wool (typically gabardine, poplin or duck), it was a style that lived on for many years. We may still wear them, but hardly anyone calls it a car coat.

Classic vintage car coat

Not all car coats were deemed as such. A car coat could also be a barn jacket, stadium coat or a loden coat (preferably with toggles) . It was really about the length—From hip to 3/4 length, just not so long as to get in the way when you were behind the wheel. 

1965 car coats

The classic barn jacket

Car coats were modern. When she got hers my middle aged mother suddenly looked kind of hip. It was so unlike anything she had worn before. Hers was a beige chino Balmacan that was (shockingly) a little masculine. 

Today's Ralph Lauren version

So what have we learned? Sometimes a fad can become a staple after a name change. "Car coat" does sound a bit dated /fuddy-duddy. But that coat—casual and unrestrictive—is still going everywhere.

Thanks to DG for reminding me even a coat can have nine lives.

Stylish Streaming: "New Look"

 
If you expect a lovely romp through fashion, be warned. "New Look" (in 4 of the 10 episodes released at this writing) is about war. Not the war between competing fashion houses for the acclaim and the business, but WWII, that one.       

Spoiler alert not needed as we are dealing with real people and real events. The disclaimer "inspired by true events" should be warning enough that all we are about to see is not historically accurate. 

1930s Chanel designs

Chanel, 1930s

 I'm not a scholar of Chanel or Dior but have read enough on both of them to sense that sometimes in "New Look" inspiration went into the cornfield. No doubt two of the most recent books served as jumping off spots—Justine Picardie's "Miss Dior: A Story About Courage and Couture" on Christian and his sister Catherine, a member of the French resistance who paid a hefty price, and "Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War" by Hal Vaughan.

The "New Look" of 1947

Christian Dior, same year

I might quibble that Chanel and Dior would appear in greater clarity if some effort had been made to give us background. Dior's family was comfortably well-off. His father had made it big in fertilizer. Chanel led a hardscrabble life to get where we see her here, a tale familiar to some but perhaps not all.

1930s Lelong designs

Lucien Lelong

More backstory on Lucien Lelong, Dior's employer, would have helped. Lelong was Chanel's rival as the premier French couturier in the 1930s. It's not entirely clear in "New Look" that he really was a good guy. When the Nazis threatened to move all the couture houses to Berlin, Lelong negotiated to keep them open and in Paris, saving hundreds of jobs. On the other hand Chanel had decided to shutter her business in 1939 (not mentioned in "New Look") and spent the rest of WWII living in the Ritz hotel.

Chanel's  character is the most unclear. The story begins in 1943 when she is 60. She might have been a great coquette in her youth, yet she is treated here as a femme fatale, especially by a much younger looking Nazi general. She also seems flummoxed by what is happening to her. What I've read is that if anything Chanel was determined, egotistical and above all a survivor. Wishy washy she was not.

Ben Mendelsohn as Dior, Juliette Binoche as Chanel

 
Early on we see Chanel grousing that her business partners, the Wertheimers, had run off to New York ahead of the Nazi invasion of France and "stolen" her company. She lobbied with the Nazis to get it back by agreeing to visit her old friend Winston Churchill in Madrid with a plan to end the war. In an earlier subplot Chanel has paid the Nazis a hefty ransom to release her captured nephew.

Churchill with Chanel, 1920s

 
In reality when they took over, Chanel asked the Nazis, who were seizing Jewish-owned companies and property, to give the company to her as it had been "abandoned by the Wertheimers". Unbeknown to Chanel, however, the Wertheimers had sold the company to a French Christian on the condition it would be sold back to them after the war, which it was. She was not pleased to learn this, but—believe it or not—the Wertheimers still own Chanel to this day.

And the Winston Churchill plot? Yes, it happened, but the trade off was in order to free her nephew. She went; Churchill wasn't there, but the nephew was released.

The viewer with only a passing interest may take "New Look"'s plot as gospel. I've no idea what we will see in upcoming episodes, but I think it's important to remember the difference between historical fiction and fictitious history.  

Suits are No Longer Fitting

When was the last time you saw a suit for sale? Was it back when department stores were still reliably profitable and "Suits" was its own department? What was the last suit you owned/wore? For some it may be "none". I think my last was brown tweed with a pencil skirt and faux fur collar that I bought at very deep discount in the mid '90s.

By suit I mean two pieces that match, top and bottom. I wear a lot of jackets because A) I am always cold and B) a jacket can hide a multitude of flaws. Besides, three pieces make an outfit. If you're a service professional, you probably wear a suit as do most politicians. But the rest of us? It would seem suits no longer fit our lifestyles.

VP with gravitas and killer heels

 
Suits took a while to become part of a woman's wardrobe. The Victorians had outfits for tennis, golf, riding, etc. as those activities became accepted pursuits for women. Sarah Bernhardt shocked the world in 1870 with her pantsuit (she also played Hamlet in tights), but it didn't catch on. Amazingly, one could practically wear this today...

I could; would you?

A suit was reliable. My mother sewed and always had two or three in her wardrobe, usually worn with a printed blouse that matched the jacket lining. She rarely wore a dress. A suit could be made to work for almost any occasion short of a wedding. Although I remember my last suit I don't remember the first, but I recall feeling very grown up.*

Diana knew how to be taken seriously

 
So what has happened?

Obviously we lead less formal, more relaxed lives. We aren't so inclined to "dress up" for certain roles as long as we appear presentable. Some would say we are into expressing our true selves 24/7. Others would say standards have slipped.

I volunteer with Dress for Success, where step one is outfitting a client with a professional looking outfit. The other day I looked at that room of carefully hung pants suits and skirt suits and wondered if they were not all a bit out of sync. Then as usual, when my client saw herself for the first time in a well fitting suit of her choice, I realized how a suit adds polish and gives confidence. When you show up for an interview looking business-like, you look like you mean business. 

That said we tell clients her new job may be "business casual" so don't be afraid to break that suit up and wear the jacket as a blazer and the pants/skirt with other tops. 

Will the suit return in force? Doubtful. Of course as soon as something is declared dead, someone resurrects it. Fashion is one planet where one never says never...

* Slight addenda here. I may not have remembered that first suit, but I did recall the photograph. Age 5-ish and looking tres chic. Thanks, Mom!

 

 

The Girl in the Picture

It feels like I've been looking at this picture my whole life, but it's only been 69 years. 

Once my parents divorced in 1953, my mother traded her subscription to Good Housekeeping for Vogue. She sold every stick of furniture in the house, sent herself to secretarial school and began her new life (along with two daughters to raise). I hold my mother responsible for my early and never-ending fascination with fashion as well as a great cache of midcentury modern furniture in my house today.

My sister, Lonnie, was nine years older, so in 1955 she was still living at home (barely), working for an advertising agency and engaged to be married. I was 13; her life seemed as if from another planet.

Lonnie's 1955 engagement photo

I do remember my mother cutting out a photo from Vogue, mounting it on cardboard and tacking it to the wall, above the sewing machine, in the hall outside the kitchen. She said it looked like Lonnie, and it did. A glamorous and effortlessly thin Lonnie at an exotic locale in a very chic outfit*, but Lonnie nonetheless.

The pin-up on the wall

That photo followed my mother ever after, from apartments in Cleveland to her eventual apartments in New York City, ending up in a big box of miscellaneous photos I will never ever sort through. The jumble of people and years as they exit from that box is half the fascination.

I was never quite sure what issue of Vogue it had been. I now know, thanks to Beth, the proprietress over at Midcentury Fashion on Facebook. Beth is a prolific poster, covering everything fashion from ads to catalogs to vintage treasures. Her own description of her page is "for fans of '40s-'60s fashion, everything from couture to kitsch". She has a great eye, so whatever she chooses to post has interest. 

Monday is Magazine Mondays over at Midcentury Fashion. Beth posts pretty much a whole magazine, vintage copies of Vogue, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Seventeen, etc. These issues are hard (and expensive) to come by nowadays, so I love Magazine Mondays.

 
Today's issue was Vogue, January, 1955, one of the few months that only published once. Back then Vogue usually came out every two weeks. Can you imagine? This part of the editorial was shot in Sicily at "Villa Igiea, Palermo harbour". If that sounds exotic today, imagine its being 1955. The past year's hit movie, "Three Coins in the Fountain" took place in Rome, an impossibly faraway place.

Would I ever get there? P.S. Yes

 
When I saw that girl leaning against a wall, looking out to the ocean, you can be sure I didn't see a model. I saw my sister Lonnie, looking to a future she could only guess at. That marriage would not be a happy one, but there were two sons and a second, happier marriage. She couldn't sustain the dieting that for her was a Herculean task and eventually settled into a weight that was less fashion model and more Lonnie. She was such a creative dresser, she makes my efforts look paltry (but she couldn't sew on a button to save her soul).

 Lonnie passed away in 2015 at age 82. I don't think she ever took that photo seriously. I know my mother did, and because looking at it reminds me of both of them, so do I.

________________

*The white twill jacket with black knitted cuffs and collar was $18, the corduroy shorts $8.