Dallas Vintage Clothing and Jewelry Show - Review

PROS:
Condition:  Most of the pieces I looked at were in really great shape without any tears or stains or pulls.  Really beautiful and unusual pieces with great detailing.
Prices:  Beyond reasonable and fair.  I used to live Los Angeles for quite some time--I'm guessing that if this was a show in Los Angeles instead of Dallas, prices would be at least twice as much.  Today I ran across a two-piece silk Chanel maxi evening dress in perfect condition for only $595.00.  Let's just say I definitely did not get the sense that vendors were trying to gouge customers with outrageous prices.  And if I ever move out of Dallas I'm going to have to run around and hog up all the fantastic buys in this city because the pricing elsewhere will just be too high.
Selection:  There was a mix of both authentic designer and street vintage options complete with purses, hats, shoes, scarves, eyewear and any other accessory you could think of.  You'll find many more dresses than tops and pants though.  Jewelry fanatic paradiso.  A lot of the vendors display their pieces by decade which I love.
Vendors:  Friendly vendors.  Not pushy.  Helpful and knowledgeable.  Vintage Martini is one of my favorites.  Ken Weber, one of the owners, has a film costuming background and fabulous taste.

CONS:
Admission:  I have never liked the idea of paying to get into a show where you are planning on buying, but who does?  Although admission was only $10, I'd certainly rather spend the ten bucks at one of the booths.  Free parking though.
Selection:  It's not a huge show where you'll find booth after booth after booth.  All told there are about 25 booths.  I actually couldn't decide if this was a pro or a con, because I liked how it felt more intimate and how it was not overwhelming.  For me, there was soooo much to look at and I didn't know where to start.  Hard core vintage shoppers though might find it to be too small of a show.


I just had to try on this fuzzy coat cha-cha-cha
Like our page on Facebook!

 

To Rome with Love - The Fashion of American Women?

Judy Davis as Phyllis

Feminine wares of To Rome with Love?

So I ventured off to see To Rome with Love and it was more of a like.  I'm not sure what Director Woody Allen and Costume Designer Sonia Grande are trying to communicate about American women throughout this film.  Both Ellen Page's character Monica and her best friend Sally (Greta Gerwig) for the most part are clad in low rise jeans with button down shirts and masculine-reading likely-Italian-leather belts.  Both give off the vibe of 21-year-old boys dressed to go into a local bar rather than dressing as the sexy love interests that the film purports them to be.  Even Allen's character Jerry has a wife Phyllis (Judy Davis) who is draped in dull outfits (if you can call them that) and T-shirts.  All three American women look breast-less and androgynous.  Upon first glance a feminist may say this is a good thing--women don't need to wear skin-revealing outfits a la Scarlett Johansson to appear feminine.  I agree.  But in this case it comes off as making women look like they are trying to look more like men.

Perhaps Allen is attempting to highlight Penelope Cruz by shoving the other female characters in baggy attire.  Cruz's tight red dress can only make her stand out from the other women, but unfortunately the costume enforces the cliched Italian prostitute who doesn't have much to say but has much to do with her clients.  Cruz looks amazing, but I would rather have seen her clothed in something more surprising and quirky.  I will say, however, that the red dress is so ridiculous that it has a humorous life of its own.  So while Cruz and the other Italian female characters give off their feminine charms in dresses the American female characters linger in their western wear.

Regardless of the costumes, Allen delivers with his usual characters filled with neurotic tendencies, insecurities, and palatable narcissism.  Such consistency in Allen's films is what makes his films work.  In an age when most people only post flattering pictures and personality traits on their Facebook profiles, it's nice to go to a fiction film to get a slice of reality where people are just people, wrought with problems.

Like us on Facebook

Young Adult

Young Adult should be called Jung Adult.  The reason why David C. Robinson's costumes are so appealing is that he makes clear delineations between Mavis' Jung-like psychological stages--who Mavis wants to be and who Mavis thinks she should be.  Mavis' outer appearance can't help her assume her desired persona which makes watching her slip into her alcoholism and depression all the more uncomfortable to witness.  Too bad good old Carl isn't around to step into the film and help her have a much-needed spiritual experience to drive away that craving for whiskey.

Mavis' transitions from sweats to leather to tweed do nothing to help her make a transition to a better life.  Somehow watching Mavis in a mustard cardigan and a tweed-trimmed dress is more distressing than watching her shuffle around in her juvenile Hello Kitty shirt and sweats.  [On a side note, why do grown women still like Hello Kitty?  Women won't be caught carrying around a Barbie pencil case, for instance, but I reluctantly admit I have seen a woman or two pull out Hello Kitty pencil cases in my graduate school classes.  Help.  Someone explain.] 

The one constant is the gold heart necklace Mavis wears, yes the heart-of-gold-inference, that perfectly symbolizes what is really going on inside.  The close-up shots of her wearing her heart necklace are intense when you look closely and you can see the pendant move up and down with the beat of her heart.

Film critics claim that Mavis is a narcissist but I disagree.  To a point she is self absorbed but why shouldn't she be when all she desperately wants is for someone to simply care about her enough to understand her without judgement and to fulfill her emotional needs?  I think it best to call in Jung for an assessment.

When Harry Met Sally...When Actresses Wore Clothes

After watching When Harry Met Sally for the umpteenth time the other night, I realized it seemed a bit dated.  Why?  Not the clothes of the 70s, 80s, or 90s.  It was that the lead female character actually had clothes on.  Sweaters, blazers, jackets, belts, gloves, hats, boots.  Even menswear shoes.  Refreshing. 

It's not that showing off the female form is bad, and it's not that every movie nowadays jumps on the let's-make-a-deal-and-get-the-actress-naked train, but sometimes don't you want to watch a film for the sake of the story as opposed to being distracted, perhaps subconsciously, by the fact that the lead actress is half naked here, half naked there?  (Men don't answer this).  There seems to be current costuming formulas in Hollywood at the moment.  They're not new formulas, but the results are getting tiring and drab, trite and cliche.  Some well-known formulas may include:

tight tank top at some point + short shorts or skirt = Jennifer Aniston
overblown cleavage + beaucoup de lipstick = Scarlett Johansonn
tight pants + exposed midriff at some point in film = any Transformers actress
socks + underwear + open mens shirt = Cameron Diaz

To give these actresses the doubt, let us acknowledge that they have fabulous bodies to show off and can hopefully laugh all the way to the bank when their agents negotiate more money for them as they show off their beauty, even when much of the time body double skin is being used anyway.  So in that sense, I can't blame them. 

Beyond actresses, I even caught Ann Curry wearing oversexualized high heels (you know, the at-least-six-inch) during her interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  The interview, re-posted on the Internet, seems to now have been scrubbed to only feature medium close ups so we don't see the shoes.  Really Ann?  Were you trying to get arrested?  "Hooker heels" -- as Rachel Zoe affectionately calls them.  As much as I love Rachel Zoe, since when have "hooker heels," designed to make women look like oversexualized caricatures, become a good thing?

Even though Sally and Harry had intimate moments, at least the lead female was for once under a cotton sheet instead of the standard Hollywood sheet of skin.  No really, they say, the nudity is required.  For realism.  For the story.

All Good Things Must Not Come To An End

I recently had the privilege of catching a Screen Actors Guild preview screening of Kirsten Dunst’s and Ryan Gosling’s upcoming film All Good Things. Set in the 1970s and early 1980s, the film is saturated with slick costumes representing the spectrum of upper class couture all the way down to blue collar class chic. Aside from the costumes, the good performances are enough to warrant catching this film, but if you’re a fan of watching how fashion morphs from class to class and decade to decade, this film is a must-see. The film is currently scheduled for an official release on December 3, 2010.