Oh Jess! Rihanna's was just one of many ensembles of interest at this year's Costume Institute Gala, which is sort of like the prom of high fashion, except all the most popular ladies attend on the arm of their main gay. (Or does that make it even more like the prom?) In addition to Rihanna's tux, there was Kate Moss doing her most glamorous Norma Desmond impersonation, various tiny, little dresses, various huge, sculptural ones, some paisley, a caftan, a shout out to Vogue, and Madonna in a Marc Jacobs special—ruched, shiny, puffy in the bum and accompanied by...metaphorical antlers?

I'm sure there are people put off by such a spectacular spectacular in the midst of our great recession (despite rumors the institute was having trouble selling tickets this year, all of the $250,000 tables sold out), but I'm tickled. Look at all these preposterous, gorgeous, ridiculous dresses! Look at how much fun pretty people can have with their clothes when they're not worrying about the worst dressed list but are trying to impress designers and editors instead. If the Oscar red carpet looked like this, even Ryan Seacrest couldn't make it boring.

As for Rihanna's outfit in particular, I'm not as bothered by it as you were, Jess. It may be a bummer that there isn't some swanky, avant garde dress she could have worn that would have conveyed exactly what her tuxedo does—that she's strong, feisty, bold, in control—but there really isn't. If she had come in the perfect gown what would that have said? That she's back to normal? That she looks great? The tux is a way to acknowledge what happened, without having to talk about it (though, she should probably talk about it too). Clothes, especially on this level, are playful and full of quotations (she's not just mimicking the fellas, she's mimicking Marlene Dietrich), which means they don't fall into quite such neat masculine or feminine categories. Look closely at that tux—it's shiny, immaculately fitted, has enormous Snow White shoulders, comes with a killer pair of cigarette pants and very high heels. It's playing on the idea of a man's outfit, more than actually being one. That it plays with our notions of masculinity and femininity, and what an abused woman should look like and wear and how she should behave, is probably exactly why Rihanna chose that outfit in the first place.

Tags: Costume Institute, fashion, Rihanna, Tuxedo

Willa, I tried clicking through that Costume Institute Gala slide show, and got ... bored. You'll be shocked (shocked!) to learn that I am no one's idea of fashionable. There are many reasons I live up here in the land of the bluestockings. Among them: Here, I can get away with dressing in a combination of Goodwill, Gap, and Ann Taylor (that last saved for my high-end items: black pants).

But flipping through the frippery did make me think of a film event I attended this winter at Brandeis, featuring Alan Alda and Kate Beckinsale—who, you will also not be shocked to know, is the opposite of my type. (Cf: Rachel Maddow.) It drove me crazy how Beckinsale kept wriggling in her seat, showing off her death-defying heels, legs, and all-but-exposed breasts from first one angle and then another. We've got the point, I texted dryly to my prosecutor. She should sit still now and let my hero Alan Alda speak. My gal texted right back, "Your job is being smart. Her job is being beautiful. Let her do her job."

Tags: bluestockings, Costume Institute, fashion, Rachel Maddow

In case you haven't heard, magazines are dying right and left. Who knows which one will be next? One day, that may be the sound of Anna Wintour's head rolling across the floor. Not unlike the adult movie industry, which thought it was so ahead of the curve, technologically-speaking, that it neglected to jump on the Internet bandwagon until its product had gotten away from them and it was far, far too late, magazines and newspapers have failed to exploit the Web to their advantage. Now, they're suffering for it.

No one will ever say so of Nick Knight, the British fashion photographer who created SHOWStudio.com, a website dedicated to closing the gap between high fashion and aspirational fashionistas. Most recently, Knight pulled back the curtain on a provocative shoot for Wallpaper* magazine's sex-themed July issue. On a set art directed by designer Peter Saville, Knight shot model Mariacarla Boscono et al. for a stripped-down, hyper-sexualized layout that, according to the site, "fetishis[ed] furniture, fashion and flesh alike." But rather than play the engimatic editorial game in which readers have to wait months to see by-then bygone fashions, SHOWStudio live-streamed the whole thing so you could peek behind the scenes at life live on a fashion shoot. And they tweeted it, too.

Now, the full series of clips from the shoot are available online. Be forewarned, the videos, which can be found here, feature more than one female breast and at least one not-turned-on sex machine. In other words, they're NSFW—unless you work for a bondage gear manufacturer in Karachi, Pakistan, that is.

Tags: Nick Knight, Peter Saville, sex

Did anyone catch Anna Wintour's interview with Morley Safer on last night? (Side note: I like the way this YouTube teaser's headline makes it sound like Anna Wintour is, in fact, the Secretary of Defense. This seems like a sensible foreign policy move to me.)

Watch CBS Video Online

Despite the frisson of excitement that came with actually seeing and hearing Wintour speak—she lives! she lives!—the interview was mostly a puff piece. However, there was one moment that made me both LOL and die a little: when Safer asked, "When the time comes, will you go quietly?" and Wintour sort of smiled and batted her eyelashes and said, "Certainly. Very quietly."

First of all, like Amy Odell over at New York magazine's fashion blog, I'm not even sure what any of that means. Are we talking about when she dies? When she gets kicked off the Vogue masthead for a younger, fresher editrix? Are those concepts one and the same? Even more confusing, am I happy that Wintour plans to make a gracious exit, because I value decorum and civility and don't want her to be burdened with the "bitch" label any more than she already has been? Or am I a little heartbroken at the thought of this regal woman going off with a whimper and not a bang?

One thing I do know for sure: I wish Andy Rooney had been the one doing the interview. Every week's segment with him is like a glimpse into some unfathomable, fascinating abyss of cooter-dom. Whenever he's on, I cannot look away.

Tags: 60 Minutes, Anna Wintour

A friend of mine just directed my attention to the cover of the most recent J. Crew catalog. Is it just me, or does that flower look like something out of a production of Little Shop of Horrors, as designed by a gang of feminist psychoanalysts? (NSFW, if you happen to work in a literature or art history department.)

"What gives us our summer glow," indeed.

Tags: J. Crew, vaginas

Rarely is the public let in on how clothes actually get made—the gritty world of sourcing, manufacturing, cross-ocean container shipping, distribution and slick marketing that goes into supplying that perpetually regenerating stock of textile novelties we call fashion.

That may change. On June 7, the New York Times ran a story about the new barcode sticker called GS1 DataBars. DataBars store information that is useful to retailers, the kind of tidings that are meaningless to shoppers: inventory stats and sales data. I marveled at the possibilities of an enhanced version. What if we could scan any object in the marketplace for “behind the label” information—how would that change the way we shopped? Could we influence what got made, and how? Could DataBars be used as a tool for consumer empowerment deployed in thwarting Madison Avenue fictions and promoting cleaner manufacturing?

This concept is already being applied, albeit in a hokey manner, by a few companies that claim to be socially and environmentally responsible. Jewelry by Love Earth, sold at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, can be scanned for a “chain of custody,” which traces an ornament from the Windexed-shined, velvet-lined display case all the way back to the diamond and gold mines of origin. Icebreaker, a fashion company specializing in woolens, labels each sweater with a “Baacode.” You can enter the code on the Icebreaker website and trace the garment along the supply chain to—you guessed it—the sheep.

One of the reasons why women want to buy fashion from local purveyors is that they can “see” who made their clothes and “trace” how items were produced. This plays into social pressures (and status) associated with “ethical consumption” while feeding the desire to reacquaint our cubicle-drone selves with lost crafts and useful domestic arts, the feminine version of Shop Class as Soulcraft (Home Ec as Soulcraft?). But, if a barcode could let us “see” the steps of industrial production it might usher in a retail revolution, one whose impact goes far beyond the confines of the merely local, nostalgic and handmade: Think factoryspun rather than homespun.

Photograph of factory girls courtsey of the New York Public Library.

Tags: crafting, fashion, Home Ec as Soulcraft, Shop Class as Soulcraft, shopping, sustainable fashion, traceable retail, Wal-Mart

Rarely is the public let in on how clothes actually get made—the gritty world of sourcing, manufacturing, cross-ocean container shipping, distribution and slick marketing that goes into supplying that perpetually regenerating stock of textile novelties we call fashion.

That may change. On June 7, the New York Times ran a story about the new barcode sticker called GS1 DataBars. DataBars store information that is useful to retailers, the kind of tidings that are meaningless to shoppers: inventory stats and sales data. I marveled at the possibilities of an enhanced version. What if we could scan any object in the marketplace for “behind the label” information—how would that change the way we shopped? Could we influence what got made, and how? Could DataBars be used as a tool for consumer empowerment deployed in thwarting Madison Avenue fictions and promoting cleaner manufacturing?

This concept is already being applied, albeit in a hokey manner, by a few companies that claim to be socially and environmentally responsible. Jewelry by Love Earth, sold at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, can be scanned for a “chain of custody,” which traces an ornament from the Windexed-shined, velvet-lined display case all the way back to the diamond and gold mines of origin. Icebreaker, a fashion company specializing in woolens, labels each sweater with a “Baacode.” You can enter the code on the Icebreaker website and trace the garment along the supply chain to—you guessed it—the sheep.

One of the reasons why women want to buy fashion from local purveyors is that they can “see” who made their clothes and “trace” how items were produced. This plays into social pressures (and status) associated with “ethical consumption” while feeding the desire to reacquaint our cubicle-drone selves with lost crafts and useful domestic arts, the feminine version of Shop Class as Soulcraft (Home Ec as Soulcraft?). But, if a barcode could let us “see” the steps of industrial production it might usher in a retail revolution, one whose impact goes far beyond the confines of the merely local, nostalgic and handmade: Think factoryspun rather than homespun.

Photograph of factory girls courtsey of the New York Public Library.

Tags: crafting, fashion, Home Ec as Soulcraft, Shop Class as Soulcraft, shopping, sustainable fashion, traceable retail, Wal-Mart

I'd heard about The September Issue, a documentary that screened at Sundance, now slated for an August 28 release, that goes behind the scenes at Vogue and focuses in particular on editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, she of the unmessable bob. The trailer makes the film look better than I'd expected.

Following the Vogue team as they put together the September 2007 issue, the camera lens can't help but obsessively scrutinize Wintour, one of the the most powerful women—if not the most powerful—in American fashion. Why the September issue? "September is the January of fashion," one fashionista drawls. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Throughout, Wintour skulks about, peering out from behind the curtain of her bob at those who dare stand in front of her, sneering at oversized cover type—"It looks like it's for blind people"—and annihilating opinions left and right. It's not exactly a flattering look, but there's something compelling about a subject who can kill with a stare.

Tags: Anna Wintour, the september issue, Vogue

Has J. Crew pushed the boundaries of their symbiotic Obama relationship a little too far? Politico posted an item disclosing a press release the retailer sent to reporters yesterday, advertising the fact that Sasha and Malia Obama have been spotted out and about in J. Crew wares. Specifically, if you must know—and they really, really want you to know!—the Silk Taffeta Trench ($298), black satin ballet flats with contrast trim ($98), girls’ crushed twill trench ($169.99), and girls’ minna printed ballet flats in classic navy ($108). Michelle’s gotten much traction from her public predilection for affordable clothes, but $298 for a growing child’s coat ain’t cheap. This might be great P.R. for J. Crew, but not so much for the Obamas. The larger issue, though, is the Obama girls’ privacy. Earlier this year, Michelle’s office delivered a strong statement against planned Beanie Babies dolls modeled after her daughters, forcing the manufacturers to pull the line ("We believe it is inappropriate to use young, private citizens for marketing purposes” was the exact spokesperson-ese). And a J. Crew rep confirmed to Politico that they hadn’t run this release by the White House. Is this a lesser offense than Beanie Baby-gate, to which Michelle can turn a love-blind eye? Or does this gauche crowing mean that she should start seeing what Banana Republic has to offer?

Photograph of Sasha and Malia Obama in J. Crew coats at their father's inauguration by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Tags: Beanie Babies, fashion, J.Crew, Michelle Obama, Politico, retail, Sasha and Malia

The Paris haute couture shows have come to a close. The reviews are in and there’s discussion going on about how luxury is being “toned down” for these “hard times,” how "fancy" is being "snubbed."

In the case of the officially bankrupt house of Christian Lacroix this makes sense. He was forced to make do with bolts and scraps of fabric he already had lying around his studio. He drastically cut back on his color-happy, pouf-loving aesthetic as a result. It was the equivalent of Matisse having his pigments confiscated and being forced to complete a canvass with nothing but a stick of graphite.

But this post isn't even about the "toned down" clothes as it applies to other couture houses. Why do professional fashion critics (and editors) feel the need to defend luxury's right to exist by framing it in terms that emphasize polite inconspicuousness? It begs the question that applies to all branches of journalism concerned with the topics of luxury and consumption: What is being "toned down"—and for whom? The foreclosed masses? The Madoffed?

Haute couture used to draw its clients from the ranks of the upper middle class. Then, in the 1960s, the cost of labor went up in France, ready-to-wear in funky boutiques became hip, and custom clothes became very costly and available only to the rich. And since this time haute couture has grown increasingly costly, until, finally, it morphed into the fantasy stage production that it is today—and only available to the richest people at the top of the greatest wealth bubble that ever existed. But these haute couture businesses, with the notable exception of Chanel, operate at a loss. The richest people don't subsidize the glitter. Instead, the spectacle is financed by the perfume-and-purse buying hoi polloi, as Dana Thomas recently discussed in her book, Deluxe.

So, what I am wondering after reading the fashion show coverage is this: has the haute couture been “toned down” for the uber-rich clients? Presumably the world's richest people can continue to consume as they did before October 2008. And, in my opinion, shouldn't "tone down" their aesthetic in deference to the hoi polloi; what are aristocrats for if not cultivated excess? Or (as I sniff my perfume-drenched wrist…) is haute couture "toned down" so as to not offend the perfume-and-purse buying hoi polloi who pay for the glitter?

I wish fashion critics would take a few risks these days and sink their teeth into matters having to do less with industry gossip—is Elbaz leaving Lanvin to replace the Kaiser at Chanel?, for example—and more about matters of class. Isn’t that what fashion and luxury are largely about anyway?

Photograph of model at Christian Lacroix show by Pierre Verdy/AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: bernie madoff, Chanel, Christian Lacroix, haute couture, John Galliano, paris fashion, perfume