Missed Part I of my personal fashion year in review? Here it is! Now I’ll pick up where I left off, which was August 2022, for which I have … nothing. Somehow I celebrated MrB’s 80th birthday with family and came away with no outfit photo or blog post. At least we took a weird…
Fashion
2022 in Review: What Wendy Wore, Part I
This week, I decided to look up my 2021 “year in review” posts and was shocked — not Casablanca-style fake SHOCKED but genuinely SHOOK — to discover I didn’t write any for the first time since 2011. No year-end Jewel of the Month wrap-up, even though I had conscientiously featured one of my designs each…
RIP, Vivienne Westwood
British fashion designer and outspoken climate- and human-rights activist Vivienne Westwood died at age 81 yesterday. During her 50-year career, Westwood pioneered punk, then pivoted to history-driven high fashion that provoked critics almost as much as her bondage pants did. She never caved to convention. Even in 1992, when Westwood was so established that Queen…
Slow-Fashion Sunday: Shoes That Last
I’ve had slow-fashion shoes on my mind for about a month now — ever since I took a long-delayed trip to Cobbler Concierge for some shoe repairs. I used to take shoes in need of TLC to “the guy around the corner.” (There’s always a guy around the corner in New York City.) But I’ve…
A Met Gala In Memoriam: André Leon Talley
The Gilded-Age-themed 2022 Met Gala is tonight, not quite eight months after the 2021 Met Gala, which COVID-19 delayed to September from May. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour — the gala’s chair since 1999 — worked with the pandemic-skewed calendar by creating a two-part exhibition. Tonight’s gala celebrates…
Throwback Thursday: Looking Like Liza
Liza Minnelli’s appearance at the Oscars last month reminded me that I have a personal “Never Is the Next New Thing™” situation to report. I usually apply “Never Is the Next New Thing™” to fashion trends, having long observed that the most provocative/grating/startling looks — the ones that make you say, “I would NEVER wear…
My Worst Dressed at the 2022 Grammys Is …
I started my blog in 2007 with the motto “Wear What You Want” and, accordingly, I’ve avoided naming “worst-dressed” people. I’ve decided to draw the line on someone’s look just a few times, and this is one of those moments: My worst-dressed at the 2022 Grammy Awards is the Recording Academy itself, which covered itself…
My Best Dressed at the 2022 Grammys Is …
It seemed like the producers of the Grammys show learned something from the debacle at the Oscars a week earlier. In contrast to that train wreck, the show was generally upbeat and smooth, and the In Memoriam section struck the right tone. Ukrainian president Zelenskyy addressed the viewers in a pre-recorded segment, after being rejected…
What Wendy Wore: Zoom Birthday Party
My birthday was yesterday, and I wound up celebrating on Zoom, thanks to Omicron. I did make an effort to dress festively, but only from the waist up. It made it easy to take an outfit photo. I didn’t even have to get off the couch. If those new-to-me pink-and-orange Prada glasses from 2011 look…
RIP, Virgil Abloh
When I saw eclectic designer/artist/DJ Virgil Abloh’s name trending on Twitter yesterday, I expected that he was sharing more big plans for next week’s Art Basel Miami Beach, for which he had already announced a Louis Vuitton menswear show and the debut of an electric Maybach that he collaborated on with Mercedes-Benz. But instead of…