- The great Hollywood costume designer Orry-Kelly with Ann Sheridan.
Seraphic Secret likes to check out the latest fashions, scouting for beautiful but modest clothing. We don’t believe that women have to reveal acres of flesh in order to appear and feel attractive. In fact, the opposite. The more chaste the surface, the more mystery and depth.
This season, it’s kind of obvious that designers have been marinating in Hollywood movies. Everywhere we see ladylike silhouettes that bring to mind the irreverant slink of Jean Harlow, the confident stride of Carole Lombard, and the animal heat of Marlene Dietrich. Also making spectral appearances are Hitchcock’s tailored blondes: Tippi Hedrin, Kim Novak and Eva Marie Saint.
We’re delighted to report that scores of design houses are featuring elbow length leather gloves, a sure sign that those who make fashion are determined to revive the classic look of the proper and elegant lady who sweeps into a room—think Loretta Young—then tugs off her gloves a finger at a time before sitting down to tea.
As always we refuse to feature pants suits. They are never feminine, rarely flattering, and fall into that black hole of fashion inhabited by sad sights such as Hillary Clinton.
Here are a few looks that made us sit up say “Mazal Tov.”
- Alberta Ferretti understands that the modern working woman wants to look professional but tailored and feminine to the hilt.
- Tory Burch has been obsessing on the lovely Chinese film “In the Mood for Love, ” 2000. Thus, her collection imagines a polished, whimsical girl who is sexy… but not too sexy.
- Looking at Aquilano.Rimondi’s collection puts us in mind of the Hollywood epics of the late 60′s where Renaissance costumes are far more interesting than the dull narratives. Here, the deeply body conscious silhouettes are adorned by stunning, tapestry like textiles.
- Hermes has been screening Rudolf Valentino films where the great silent star dressed like a gaucho and stole women’s hearts with a single wicked glance. We really like the Borsalino hat worn rakishly like a very cool Chabadnik.
- I was a very good daddy to my two girls. Proof? I sat through the entire Spice Girls movie, “Spice World,” 1997. Perhaps the worst movie evuh. But all is forgiven because Victoria Beckham’s collection is an ode to classic feminine beauty—in uniform. I strongly urge the IDF to hire Ms. Beckham to spruce up the really terrible uniforms the ladies of the IDF are forced to suffer. I guarantee, morale will, ahem, shoot sky-high.
- Think Ava Gardner in “One Touch of Venus.” Haider Ackermann drapes like a magician. Every inch of flesh is covered, but is there anything more fetching?
- Take a look at the flared hips. Lanvin’s Israeli designer Alber Elbaz focuses on womanly silhouettes in scrumptuous jelly bean colors.
- Ever since Sarah Burton’s wedding dress for Kate Middleton made the world gasp, fashionistas have been waiting to see what Burton would do next. Not to worry. Ms. Burton might be the greatest designer working today. Her McQ collection for Alexander McQueen is just jaw dropping in its technical complexity with laser cut fabrics that move like clouds of glory. The McQ line conjures film noir dames—think Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity”—in nipped waists seducing doomed chumps. Absolute magic.
Karen and I wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and fashionable Shabbat.
Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
8 Comments
An outfit called “Jewish Impact Films” made a short video entitled “Real Beauty: Let Your Inside Out.” It took me a few days, but I have found it at:
http://www.wejew.com/media/1585/Jewish_Inside_Out_Beauty/
I wish there were a way in which the ideas expressed therein could be broadcast widely to young people. They don’t read Louisa May Alcott any more.
Julie Zdrojewski
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OK I am with you Robert until seeing the last – the Sarah Burton dress. Looking at these others I think these days I am living in bizarro world – a world like – was it Lewis Carroll? – where everything is up is down and vice versa.
I am actually looking at these runway models and – well skinny comments aside – you ladies who think that you cannot look appealing unless you look like Twiggy (am I dating myself) – well the dresses look….nice.
They look like something a woman could wear walking down 5th Avenue Manhattan or Main Street USA and get – admiring glances.
Getting back to classic Hollywood – I am going to have to screen North By Northwest again tonight – for 2 reasons. It is a movie I had to mention to my passenger and neighbor while driving back from dinner tonight.
First my neighbor took me to dinner tonight to thank me for my computer help -she is 83 years young and I bail her out of her computer predicaments – when she over exuberantly starts “pushing buttons”…
Anyway I drove her in my 26 year old Mercedes-Benz – a non-descript model worth pocket change today but well maintained – and she is grabbing the passenger egress handle in anticipation of an imminent accident. Do I think I am Juan Fangio at LeMans?
Well no….
Was my neighbor overly sensitive?
Well you readers weren’t along for the ride so in the interest of full disclosure and objectivity I will bypass that question.
Which amused me and I had to remind her of one of he opening scenes in North By Northwest where the “bad guys” - thinking our hero Cary Grant was the mysterious Mr Kaplan – try to kill him by getting him drunker than a skunk and plopping him in the driver’s seat of a beautiful 1959 220S Cabriolet.
Our hero – and the car – refuse to die.
But my second point was seeing the beautiful Eva Marie Saint – stylishly clothed.
No acres of flesh exposed but stylishly dressed.
My kind of woman for whatever that counts for
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Robert:
A little nitpicky, but Clara Lou became Ann…
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Robert:
To clarify my post re Clara Lou–
Ann is spelled Ann, not Anne. Fifty years ago I had a position at The Morris Office in New York and Flo Gaines read an inter-office memo I’d written, and in which I had misspelled someone’s name. Her correction consisted of –”We are in the people business. You have to get their names right.” Yes…?
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I sat through the entire Spice Girls movie, “Spice World,” 1997.
Robert, you understand that when you give them your money it just encourages them to make more of those movies? See Charlie’s Angels for proof.
The Ferretti outfit is so stern it would make anyone wearing it the top authority figure in any room. It would take a strong man to sidle up to her and try out his pickup lines.
The Burton outfit is great except it looks like the model walked through a construction site and a coil of industrial wire fell on her head.
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Johnny:
Let us note and be grateful that in spite of giving them my hard earned money the Spice Girls never made another movie.
I’m also sort of horrified by the styling of the McQ models. I think a Veronica Lake peek-a-boo would have been much better.
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Gentlemen, I agree that the frocks are stunning. However, I tend more toward the model having walked under a tree, or perhaps a cliff, from which an alien larval life form fell on her head, instantly sucking all color from her face.
My dream is to attend one of these fashion affairs, in the front row, and laugh out loud. Victory would come when a model broke into laughter as well.
Julie Zdrojewski
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Julie – I think they starve themselves so much trying to look appealing that they have no energy to laugh.
After all having a saltine cracker would be considered “dessert”.
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