The Fur Flies
The autumn equinox today signals earlier sunsets, cooler evenings and the return of glamour. Even in these parts, where it doesn’t snow, the nights and mornings allow for a hat, sometimes gloves and a voluptuous coat. Nothing says glamour like plush animal prints. Nothing says good taste like faux fur. Besides prints, this season there is also a bright selection of solids, adds Lucille Klein, fashion director for JCPenney’s women’s division. “The new fake furs are extraordinary looking. These coats are just what we need during drab days to perk us up. They serve a practical purpose, too,” she adds. Coats and jackets run about $160.
Canned Heat
Vanguard designer Jean-Paul Gaultier admits he’s a man obsessed with a woman in a corset. In interviews he refers to a Rilke-like fascination he had as a boy with his grandmother’s underthings. He fashioned a bullet-bra corset with pin-stripe suits and, later, costumes for Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour--a credit that turned the Frenchman into a household name. Now Gaultier wraps a flesh-tinted corset around a shapely bottle: the perfect container, he apparently figures, to hold his signature Haute Parfumerie. Unveiled nationwide exclusively at Saks Fifth Avenue this week, Gaultier’s debut entry into the competitive fragrance market has been met with “tremendous excitement,” notes Saks’ Steve Bock. “It has an ageless appeal specifically because it’s such a wonderful fragrance.” The scent is a concoction of sweet notes of Tunisian orange blossom, Bulgarian rose, Italian tangerine, Chinese star anise; spicy orchid, iris, ylang-ylang and Indian ginger, and dry down notes of vanilla, amber wood and musk. Find perfume (30 milliliters) for $150, eau de toilette (50 milliliters) for $52. No doubt the hot bottle holds well among collectors, too. Each bottle is stored in a tin can--another item Gaultier has long adored. He cut cans into bracelets as a youth; for him, the utilitarian can once considered a jewel now is a jewel case.
Happy Days Again
The eternal flame for the ‘50s, fins and James Dean burns stronger again this season, according to trend watchers. Young men have rediscovered the true-blue, five-pocket jean classic and are wearing them cuffed and closer to their actual size than ever before. And for a footnote, Hush Puppies, low-tops, penny loafers, biker boots and (yes) suede buckskins are the recent retro flavor. Interest in ‘50s-style shoes is being backed by orders and sales for fall, according to a recent issue of the trade journal Footwear News. Consider it a teen version of the return to emphasized style, pompadour coif optional.
