Dressful

From the Elegance in Exile exhibition to Emporio Armani's Spring/Summer 2012 and several other collections, the 1920s have lately been playing a key influence in fashion. I've understood it as a collective yearning for the sans-souci of the Jazz Age, characterized not by how you'll live until your next paycheck, but by jazz, Charleston and glamorous flapper fashion.

The Artist, one of the five films nominated for an Academy Award for best costume design this year, continues with the exploration of the 1920s fashion and atmosphere. It's a rags-to-riches story of Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), dancer and actress trying to salvage George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a silent film star that doesn't belong to the new era of talking pictures.

Mark Bridges, The Artist's costume designer, used some actual 1920s dresses for Peppy Miller. The rest he had remade after originals that couldn't be worn due to old age. As Peppy progresses from an anonymous aspiring actress to the studio's brightest star, her clothes become more embellished and expensive. However, this transition from simple crêpe de chine numbers to gorilla fur is not overwhelming; almost seamless, it reflects how Peppy's personality remains unaffected by fame.

Clockwise: ice-cream sundae shoes, meat shoes, red-bean rice shoes.

Before Lady Gaga's meat dress, there were Tokio Kumagai's meat shoes.

Shoe designer Tokio Kumagai first produced his Shoes to eat (Taberu kutsu) series in 1982, reviving Elsa Schiaparelli's trompe l'oeil technique from the 1930s. As the title would suggest, the shoes were not edible. Kumagai created them using Japanese plastic food-sample production methods.

I'd love to see edible miniature versions of these shoes being sold in vending machines alongside fancy Japanese snacks.

P.S. A propos Lady Gaga's meat dress – it's not so much an issue of originality as it's a question of whether everything has been done in fashion already. Forget luxury brand management Master's degrees, fashion innovation is what's going to matter in the long run.

Male students protest against longer hemlines at Michigan State University, circa 1947. When a friend of mine posted this photo on my Facebook wall some time ago, I immediately thought this was one of the most interesting moments in fashion history I've heard of. 1947 was the year Christian Dior introduced the "New Look" in his groundbreaking Spring/Summer collection - the silhouette would have small waist, large bust and - you guessed correctly! - long skirt. If the photo really had been taken the same year (Dior presented the collection in February), the New Look must have paved its way across the pond rather quickly.

I don't think people should tell others what to wear unless asked to (and yet, I love fashion, guilty of the very same "omniscience" ... the irony! the contradiction! the beauty of it all!). Kevyn Aucoin nailed it in one of his make-up tutorial books: "Those who create rules for others are often insecure about themselves and control freaks." I wish we knew more about the context of this photo (or is it that being from a different culture, I cannot read into it in more detail?). Only then would it be clear whether the hemline protest was a clever, dallying joke or meant very seriously.

Stella Tennant in Chanel

Just as everyone wants to be French or British at some point in their lives, every fashionista is fascinated by Chanel. The tweed jacket, the Chanel 2.55, the cap-toe pumps, Chanel no. 5.  So many Tumblr photos reblogged thousands of times, so many Christmas presents, so many unfulfilled wish lists. The only explanation I have is that we all grew up with the enigma of Coco. I also suppose she has remained the epitome of elegance, albeit a bit rebellious (her contribution to fashion was revolutionary - she was one of the first to introduce modern, practical clothing).

I think a (fashion) brand is successful once it convinces its (potential) customers that it alone can give them style and class. Coincidentally, this is probably the biggest fashion illusion. For brands, one of the most important things is to have such respect and loyalty. Chanel is a prime example of this because its famous pieces suit most women. They are tried and true, they will never stick out in a negative way, you think you can't go wrong if you wear something Chanel. In a way, it's the easiest of choices. Isn't this exactly what Coco wanted?

I've written about how I don't talk much about menswear on this blog, mostly because I want to learn about menswear properly before commenting on it, and maybe also because I find womenswear to be a liiiittle more exciting ... so leave it to me to fall in love with Prada Men's Spring/Summer 2012, a collection that's decidedly out of touch with masculinity in favor of parody. Miuccia Prada says she's inspired by what she hates - in this case golf, which she doesn't play. I am obsessed with cleverness and humor in fashion, and recently Prada has been spewing out strong collections that deliver both in spades - though the side effect of Women's S/S11 reaching iconic status in a milisecond was that those pieces, especially fur stoles and flatforms, will forever be regarded as exclusively "seasonal", meaning nobody will wear them next year because they will be "out" as they've literally been everywhere ... perhaps that was the point though? to sell everything (YAY, PROFIT!) and not care about how long it lasts because surely we're in for a bunch of new surprises in September.

I heard you have to be young if you want to work at Prada, and I suppose it explains the influx of these quirky concepts you either love or hate or love to hate or hate to love.

My favorite piece from the collection is the golf bag in ridiculous daisy print. Nobody wouldn't even think of taking this thing to the golf course back in the day, and now it's become the only bag you want to take to the course. An "it" bag for golf. ♥♥♥ Miuccia Prada pokes fun at golf's rigid dress code (when I still played golf more often, what saddened me the most about the dress code was that there's basically no distinction between golf womenswear and menswear, especially regarding atrocious shoes); the most genius thing about it is that you're going to see people actually playing golf wearing these parodical pieces and some of them won't even be aware of it! I say "people" instead of "men" because if these bags will be available to customers, I think there will be many, many women calling their SAs to be put on the waiting list.

To me, Prada Men's S/S12 speaks of a contemporary comic book hero. It's funny and campy and what else are comic books anyway? This is 2011 and gender boundaries aren't as strict as golf dress code any more, so the Prada hero doesn't have to be brave and mysterious like Spider-Man or Diabolik. He's a "boy of leisure", perhaps relying on a vast inheritance, who has read all the Greek classics and never gets his clothes dirty - not even when he's playing golf.

Photos from gq.com.