Shine On, You Crazy Diamond

My favourite way to do metallic for day: a slouchy, gold or silver sweater.  I always reach for mine on Monday mornings after a weekend of lounging in, and acclimatizing to, a comfy old sweatshirt.

Joseph ($460)

It's infinitely wearable.  A golden version I got from Mexx years ago has been everything from a beach cover-up to a date night jumper.  Old girl's on her last legs; the last time I wore it out I got Weezer's Sweater Song stuck in my head.  Thankfully, lots of brands are turning out shiny knitwear for the coming Spring.

Vince ($220)

Temperley ($475)

Whistles ($380)

Bonus points for playing off the texture,
pairing with combed cotton cargos,
distressed denim,
leather vests, or
anything tweed.

Lida Baday

Lida Baday is a Canadian fashion icon, much beloved by your average Holt Renfrew shopper, but a virtual unknown to the Under-30's.  She's been running her own label since 1987, which is about as long as I've been sucking in air and expelling CO2.

Above and below are some looks from recent spring shows.  Very minimal, in a Costa-era Calvin Klein way.  Everything is clean, spare, and monochromatic (which isn't meant to read as "boring", but does to us more experimental youngsters).

I can see why office-appropriate Baday isn't a strong seller to the girls who shell out bigger and bigger bucks the higher the hemline travels.  Cocktail dresses are now like fine dining, in that the more you spend the less you seem to get.  I, too, thought I needed a party dress with a little bit of Zazz! to it: gotta show off those adductor muscles, otherwise what's all that bike riding for, my health?

Then, I found this demure navy number at Value Village (which I say in a Pepe le Pew voice so it sounds like a French Boutique.  Hope you do too.)

The picture doesn't do it justice, although the wrinkles really do look defined.
It's incredible.  I still feel like I stole the darn thing since I got it for $6.99.  Whichever V-squared peon priced it clearly didn't know what it was; the wretched Old Navy apron dresses were running you $7.99. 

The cut is meticulous and the fabric is high quality.  Even the lining is so silky, I just want to rub it on my face.

The construction is 'just so'.  Corsetted bodice/cap sleeve combo is super flattering.

Best part = whoever this Lida Baday woman is, she must be cutting on a dress model that is shaped exactly like me!  It fits so well it's almost creepy.  I am now her biggest fan.  Must.  Buy.  More.  Baday.

Name to Know - Andrej Pejic



Pejic was just cast in Yoana Baraschi's runway show.
Yoana is known for her ultra-feminine frocks.


ANDREJ PEJIC is suddenly everywhere.  Still in his teens (that's right, HIS), Pejic has already featured prominently in many runway shows, magazine editorials, and print ads.  His two big 'gets':

Watch out for him (yep, HIM) in Marc Jacob's soft focus. stripe-heavy spring campaign:

He'll also be appearing in Jean Paul Gaultier's new ad campaign, with lookalike blondie Karolina Kurkova:

It's tough to tell the Czech supermodel apart from her costar, no?  Pejic was born of Serbian-Croation parents, but the family fled their war ravaged homeland and settled as refugees in Australia.  He (I know! I would kill for HIS lips) now catwalks in Paris and Milan.  No wonder this confusingly cosmopolitan upbringing has the fashion world enthralled.  I too adore anyone with a story or personality so unique it deflates the abstracted cliches that form the fashion industry and associated marketing, bringing it back down to me.  Humanized.

I bet someday Andrej Pejic will be at the heart of actual debates.  He'll function as a jumping off point, a pop culture reference in some tweedy professor's Powerpoint Presentation.  Androgyny is nothing new in fashion.  Yet, the extremes to which Pejic takes his look and the success he achieves because of (or in spite of) it, are an Emeritus-Professor-in-Sociology-with-a-focus-in-Gender-Studies' wet dream.

Wishing him (I tripled-checked and we're talking XY) all the best.
Now the boy just needs himself a Wikipedia entry.

Hell hath no fury...

Last week someone was selling "an ass that won't quit" on eBay.  Clicking on the item didn't exactly yield one taut booty, just one Egyptian dictator in pre-owned condition.  The joke-listing of Murabak was quickly quashed by the eBay Fun Police, but I think this one's still going and is 100% real:
"My Ex-boyfriend's Closet" is getting rid of all her ex's junk, just in time for Valentines Day.  The seller states her old beau chastised her for dressing provocatively, hence the increasing flesh content of her posts:

$20 with three day to go?!  That's pure profit, people, with the value-added bonus of giving your ex a very public "look at what you're gunna be missing" pose.  I'm sure enterprising girls everywhere are rifling through the remnants of relationships past.  Warning, gals: check the legislation and caselaw in your jurisdiction first.  The abandonment principle means that his bowling shirts, travel mug, and Hootie & The Blowfish CD become your personal property, but not for at least 30 days.  Score!

She sells sex - used Ed Hardy T-shirt, classy!

You know, I could sure use a little extra scratch this month, and I am skilled at cultivating imaginary boyfriends, usually in the service of plus-one occasions and family inquisitions dinners.  Better head down to Value Village to stock up on 'my ex-boyfriend's' clothes.  His favourite colour was blue.

Worth A Thousand - The Ex-Girlfriend Jean by Levis

from the Levis website

Worth A Thousand - Scuba Stilettos

Don't Call It A Comeback

They're BAA-AAACK!

It's like the coming of the spring thaw.

It's like the ebb and flow of the tides.

It's like the Toronto Maple Leafs being mathematically eliminated halfway through the season.

It's INEVITABLE.

Joe's high-rise wide leg jeans $170

Wide(r) leg jeans are back in.  They're coming off the bench.  Actually, they've been out of the game so long they'd left the bench, and were already showered and talking to buxom news-bunnies in the locker room.

Hudson "Woodstock" flare jeans $190

Blue jeans, the most ubiquitous item of clothing ever created, vacillate between one extreme and the other every few years.  We all have a pair of plain-jane, dark-rinse, boot-cut ones that withstand this 2-3 year cycle.  They're super flattering and generic enough to never seem dated.  Yet, they somehow always get shoved to the back of the closet to make room for BlueJean2.0.  I know I've done this countless times, like a serial monogamist who discards his comfortable, loving long-term relationship for the thrill of some hot young thing.  And guess what, time after time I go crawling back to the boot-cuts.  They've always been so good to me.

My many sordid affairs:

Destroyed

Coloured

Boyfriend

'Mom' jeans

Super-skinny

Low-rise

...
Maybe this time I'll avoid the pull of the new, however attractive that indigo vortex be.
Let everyone else run out to stock up on bell-bottomy 70s styles and wide trouser cuts.
Maybe I'll just stay in, with a DVD and bucket of popcorn... curl up on the couch with my boot-cuts.
They love me just the way I am.