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…
style icons
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…
New York Style Icon: Lynn Yeager, in Person
Lynn Yeager — a longtime New York style icon — has joined Instagram, and I’m delighted. Sell Instagram Face someplace else, we’re all stocked up with Yeager here! View this post on Instagram Hi everyone! I am the last living person to join Instagram. That’s what happens during a pandemic! Please follow me and make…
Throwback Thursday: Tiffeau Dress Through the Years
I wore this vintage Jacques Tiffeau dress to a cocktail party two weeks ago. What Wendy Wore Dress: Jacques Tiffeau (acquired in 2009) Boots: Prada (2008, probably first seen here) In a post about Moschino that I wrote a couple of days before that party, I defined the “double-vintage” category of “slow fashion” as clothes…
RIP, Anita Pallenberg
I was in Europe two weeks ago when news broke of Anita Pallenberg’s death at age 75, and I want to pay tribute to her, belatedly, because she was a style icon. Embed from Getty Images In the 1960s and ’70s, Anita was a model and actress (Barbarella, Performance), but she really made her mark…
Valentine’s Day/Anti-Valentine’s Day Countdown: #6 of 14
Damn, girl! The day before hitting the stage with Coldplay at the Super Bowl, Beyonce released a surprise single and video called “Formation.” She outdid herself with this Hurricane-Katrina-referring tribute to black pride and black power. Here’s a tweet that sums it up nicely. She is the biggest star in the world, standing on a…
RIP, Anita Sarko
I was distraught to learn on Friday that iconic ’80s DJ Anita Sarko had killed herself. I didn’t know her personally, but she was a big part of the club scene that I read about avidly in Details magazine and Michael Musto’s Village Voice column. I was so fascinated by Anita that I have a…
Bonus Points for Topless Iggy Pop
I’m not a big fan of fast fashion, but I do like this H&M ad. It does strike me as a bit odd that this was done to promote H&M’s clothes-recycling program. Companies like H&M popularized disposable fashion in the first place and now they’re trying to look noble by offering a quasi-solution to the…
In Love With Mullets and Style Icon Yolandi Vi$$er
Earlier this year, my hair guru Keith Carpenter tried to persuade me to go back to the kind of pixie style he gave me in the 1990s. I was like, “NAHHHH,” because I love my mullet. I’ve done variations on mullet-y hairstyles — short on top, long in the back — for years. This photo…
What Wendy (and Stevie) Wore: Fleetwood Mac at MSG
I’ve had this photo of Stevie Nicks saved to my computer desktop for about a year, just because it’s gorgeous. I’ve always loved Stevie’s voice, music and style. I glued myself to the TV when Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy” came on MTV in the early 1980s — taking occasional breaks to spin around the living room…