Sphinx: Utterances #204-206

The latest observations:

#204. The accoutrement will take on renewed prominence over the accessory.

#205. It's time for a Tina Chow retrospective. Actually, we're overdue.

#206. German fashion is still under the radar.

- AP

53 BCE

The coin you see here is from Alexandria. It is a Ptolemaic coin, before Cleopatra. I wonder, with the current talk about currencies (be they up or down), if we might return to coinage.

I will admit that I miss having marks, guilders and francs; it was so easy to have some of each--just in case one decided to take a train that crossed 2 or more borders. I am not suggesting a return to those days, however.

But it is nice to hold in your hand something that isn't paper. Can you imagine if the Greco-Roman world had money made from papyrus? Doesn't it sound outlandish?

Paris Moment #1

 

Tourists can get so caught up in the guide book image of a place that there is a real danger of missing the reality. This is not a fashion moment, but it is real life in Paris. Photographed near the Gare Saint Lazare.

Eternal Fashion

 

This blue military jacket is the hottest fashion item in Egypt. The photo, I must admit, does not do it complete justice. That jacket, though it is standard issue, does not bore. I've wondered how an item can be repeated endlessly, retain a standard and still reveal individuality. When an article of clothing is always in fashion, does it not cease to be fashion? Or does it belong to a category known as eternal fashion? Chinos, by they way, also fall into this category.

The pyramid shown is the smallest of the Giza Three, that of Menkaure. Pyramids also have lines that do bore, but continue to fascinate. If you are familiar with any of the statues of Menkaure, you know that he too belongs to eternal fashion.

Congo Couture

 

The global brands are presenting "the now". In far-flung places away from the fashion capitals of today, there are designers who are looking at a "now" that is quite different...a sort of not-now/anti-future/post-past, where a fatigue and feather ball gown is a possibility.

- AP

Paris, 1912

 

We often forget that Paris was the absolute center of an empire; those streets created in the Second Empire are the deliberate intention to make an Imperial City. It is this era that the city never seems to forget. Put it another way, Paris continually reminds tourists of an importance that is no longer.

La mode, however, remains as one of the city's temporal powers.

The photo is the top of the Grand Palais, an exhibition hall. This "wedding cake" architecture was the official style of the time; the Impressionists and succeeding waves of movements (post-, Fauvism, Cubism) must have seemed like the counterculture to the pouffed, stuffed, trussed and befeathered creatures who ordered clothes from Doucet, Callot Soeurs, and Poiret for their morning walks in the you know where.

Sometimes it is better to be correct than to be exact...exactitude can "nail" a look, a style, so well that it suddenly becomes dead and relegated to the past.

Of course, I could be wrong.

-AP

Shopping at KaDeWe

Sometimes a quick sketch can convey more than a photograph of the real thing. For Fall, a violet satin duchesse saharienne with black wool pants. It's just a nice suit to wear this October while at KaDeWe, the department store in Berlin.

- AP

ps: the jacket is lined raspberry silk twill.

Hello Alex! Again!

 

If there is one region of the earth that shouldn't miss the opportunity to re-invent itself, it is the Mediterranean. I'm not talking about 7- or 12-day cruises, increases in tourism, and the like. To put it sharply: it is time for the re-birth of pan-Mediterranean culture. Of course, no natural re-birth happens quickly and may take hundreds of years. However, as the online review of former and future fashion, what's a few hundred years?

I won't go into too many details that are better reserved for Le Monde "Diplo" or Harper's, so here's the gist: it starts with Alex, which is how the city of Alexander, of Cleopatra, is casually called in Egypt.

There is a slight swagger, a lightness and ease that Alex represents; hopefully one can see a bit of the city's personal style here. I am not alone in being hopeful for this city. However Egypt's second city must remember that while its bigger, badder sister may have the Pyramids and the Nile, Alex is. It's as simple, as casual, as that.

Color Focus

 

Not every place in the world offers the complete color catalog from Pantone. The colors in the ad, tire rims, and shirt are all the same. In the background, one of four stone lions that were a gift from France. For a sense of place, the Nile is below street level.

If you're in Naples, what colors predominate? Tokyo? Melbourne? Gaining a quick color focus of a city isn't reserved only for professional trend forecasters or fashion editors. We all do this naturally.

- AP

Go Nomad

 

There once was a quaint debate that would repeat in travel and fashion magazines every so often: Minimal or Maximal Packing. There will always be those who travel with a sac, and those with steamer trunks. However, the time is changing in favor of quick, streamlined travel.

Imagine that you are a 27th century time traveler. What do you really need? What can you buy when you arrive?

Of course, we're talking fashionable travel.
So get a good bag. It may be expensive now, but it will always be more expensive later.

- AP

Mies + Calder

 

Several months ago, I had an "assignment" in Chicago. Chicago is one of those strange cities that can mimic other cities, other parts of the world. Summer can feel like Rio; winter like Stockholm. Even the summer sky near dusk mimics the famous l'heure bleue of Paris - though Paris has a notoriously lazy sky (forever to rise, forever to set).

However Chicago is very original when it comes to architecture. Here is a moment of absolute lyric beauty that many visitors don't have a chance to see. I've given the names of the architect and the sculptor; both are major.

Fashion isn't merely about clothing. Fashion is a reflection of who we are in a particular moment in time (and the means by which we make that reflection). In this case, think back to a time when:

- Pan Am ruled the skies
- Diana Vreeland was without equal
- the United Nations was the embodiment of humanity's progress

But Chicago's architectural glories are not all behind her. If you know the name Calatrava, then you know exactly what is next.

21st Century Toga

 

This is a costume, obviously. But look a little closer at the flare/flair of the skirt. Why couldn't this pass for daywear? Photographed in Toronto, a city more poised for the future than most.

-AP

Silk Jersey

It's Thursday. No fashion predictions today, just the simple beauty of a white silk jersey dress.

- AP

Greige Sky

 


Normally, we speak of blue skies. In Cairo, the sky has this wonderful gray-brown tone that in the 1930's would easily have been called "greige" (gray/beige). I won't go into the environmentals here; this is just a moment in time.

The structure is the Cairo Tower.

- AP

The Sphinx: Carioca Menswear 2012

Western male dress is changing. No, it is not becoming more feminine. Nor is it another oft-proclaimed return to the Dandy - which is no more than the aristocratic impulse made defiant through the available dress codes of the 19th century.

Male fashion is recognizing its beauty, which is the sole province of neither Western conception(s) of gender. There are, to be sure, undertones of this or overtones of that; reality is multi-contextual and multidimensional.

While extended fashion writing has a tendency to bore, let me posit a wardrobe for one of my fave cities (Rio de Janeiro, home of the Cariocas) for 2012:

- organdy hoodie
- gazaar capoeira pants
- silk jersey t-shirts
- feather collar necklace (Lemarié, thank you very much)
- sunga/slip du bal (as shown above) - for the balls during Carnival

Enjoy!

The Wrong/Right Space

 




I find la Place de la Concorde fascinating for all the wrong reasons. It's relatively hard to navigate (for cars and pedestrians alike), and rather...imposing. Never mind the Egyptian obelisk which marks the spot (so the story goes) where the Burbon king, Louis XVI, and his Hapsburg queen (that would be Marie Antoinette) left this world. It's an odd space/place.

It's a lesson in fashion as well: one can be attracted to the odd, the stand-offish...sometimes something totally wrong can seem so right. The mistake many make is taking the seemingly right for the absolutely right. But this is fashion's playpen; we can suspend belief in all the contradictions and absurdities that real life poses.

This is not Giverny

 




Couture is form, color, and movement - although not in that order or equal measure. Flowering plants can be a quick way to gain inspiration (Bloom, anyone?). Personally, I love it when designers figure out that silk crepe feels like flower petals.

As for yesterday: we've had the funeral. La Deneuve was wearing the YSL "heart". Every couture season, that heart was placed on the model wearing the master's favorite design of the show. Check out the following for coverage (no hyperlinks today):

http://www.iht.com
http://www.tf1.fr - 5 June edition, 20h.
http://www.france2.fr - 5 June edition, 20h.

- AP

Cairo Colors

 




In Cairo, only tourists wear white. If you don't want to stand out so much, wear blue and orange. Just a globalocal travel tip.

-AP

Predictions from this Sphinx

Here is what I spouted recently:

1. Lace for men should be more geometric. Forget the flower themes.
2. Green is the Navy Blue of the Army.
3. We're overdue for a return to more formal standards of dress.
4. Kimono with tuxedos should be worn on Opening Nights.
5.The cultural state of Technoafroasia dominates urban youth culture. Except in Germany.

Life After Yves

Fashion design can be described as the relationship between "playing by the rules" and "going with the flow." Or, more simply, tailleur and flou. In English, we're talking about contructed garments (suits, for example) and draped garments.


One example of each is shown here.

As for the passing of Yves Saint Laurent: his muse lives on. Not every designer is so fortunate, no matter what level of mastery has been attained.