Glam Book Review: Nina Garcia's Look Book

This weekend presented some interesting style dilemmas.

For example, what perfume to wear to a local sports bar to see pay-per-view street fighting matches? What to wear while hanging out with Eve at Saks Fifth Avenue to smell perfume?

Nina Garcia, fashion director for Marie Claire magazine and Project Runway judge, had tips and suggestions for the style dilemmas most women face in her new book Nina Garcia’s Look Book: What to Wear for Every Occasion.

With illustrations by the fabulous Rueben Toledo, who illustrated her other three books, Look Book examines most situations modern women face such as “What to Wear on the Average Workday”, “What to Wear While Running Errands”, and “What to Wear When Meeting Your Significant Other’s Children”.

Underlying the book is the premise that life is a red carpet and we’d better be prepared for it in this age of cell phone photos and Facebook. For who hasn’t had the embarrassing moment of running out to errands in something we clean the house in, only to run into an important client, your child’s teacher, or your ex and his girlfriend?

For Garcia, the essence of style isn’t what you wear; but the respect one has for others and for the setting in which you will wear your clothes. The section, for example, “What to Wear for Brunch with the Girls” is not about wearing the latest fashions to upstage your friends. It’s about wearing clothes that are easy and effortless so that you can concentrate on hearing about your friend’s promotion not the designer skinny jeans cutting off your leg circulation because in the end it’s the friendship, not the clothes that ultimately matters.

With this in mind, I solved this weekend’s style dilemmas. Jo Malone’s Dark Amber and Ginger Lily, with its woodsy, musky smell, was the perfect scent to wear as a UFC fighter landed an elbow in his opponents face. I wore a navy blue dress with a leopard cardigan and tan sandals while smelling perfume with Eve. There was plenty of room to test perfumes and the ease of the dress allowed me to concentrate on the best part of the afternoon – my friendship with Eve.

Six Easy Pieces

My friend Sharon and I are considering going on "the clothing diet". Named after a New York Times article about a movement among consumers to buy less, the "clothing diet" is a regimen in which one rotates the same six pieces for a month. I can change accessories and shoes as often as I would like.

I don't know if I can handle such a challenge. We thought about expanding the idea to eight pieces. In addition, the only thing I love more than shopping is clothes. Could I subsist on just six or eight pieces of clothing for a month? Will it just give me the urge to buy home goods instead? Will I choose something sparkly and then hate all things sparkly for the rest of my life?

Should I choose to accept the challenge, my six easy pieces would be:

• jeans
• black harem pants
• black blazer
• black dress
• leopard cardigan
• beige blouse
• black t-shirt (bonus)
• white t-shirt (bonus)

It's worth at least giving a try. What do you think?

It's the most wonderful time of the year

It’s the most wonderful tiiiime of the yeaaar!


That’s right kids. It’s fall fashion magazine time. As previously blogged, the September issue of the major fashion magazines has hit the newsstands. Oozing with fall trends, advice on how to wear them, edgy photo spreads, and iconic ads, the September issue is not one to be missed.

I read the magazine at least three times. I skim it the first time, earmarking things I’d like to read. I read it the second time. The third time I cut out photographs that catch my eye for my fall fashion look book. (Yes, I really do need to get a hobby.) Then, I decide whether I will keep the magazine for my collection or send it to my hair salon for recycling.

I sort the photographs and choose the ones to which I have an emotional draw and try to make a story out of them. It tells me what kinds of textures, silhouettes, colors, and looks I’m drawn to for the season. I then try to recreate my look book in my closet.

This season, I seem to be drawn to several trends – 60s ladylike classic, 70s Charlie girl, and the military-inspired look.

The best fall fashion spread came from a surprise source – Real Simple. The magazine has a pretty decent fashion and beauty section to offset features on alternative uses for paper clips and pork chop recipes. In addition, Real Simple and O Magazine are the only ones to feature fashion for grown-ups. No fashion features with the Olson Twins, the Gossip Girls, or the Twilight Chicks.

Bottom line: Designers have finally realized that women want to look like women, not like extras in a Robert Palmer video. If you don't want to follow the trends, it's a good season for buying quality pants, coats, cashmere sweaters and classic basics.

Halle Berry Makes the Cover of September Vogue

Halle Berry's stunning career of "first" did not end when she was the first African American in 2002 to win the Best Actress Oscar.

Berry is the first African American woman to be featured on the September issue of Vogue.

This is huge. In the fashion magazine world, the September issue, especially Vogue, is the only one that matters because it sets the tone of what we'll be wearing for the next six months and beyond. The March issue previews the spring trends.

Considering Vogue editor Anna Wintour's less than kind comment that African Americans don't sell magazines, this is a huge step forward for a magazine that can sometimes be pretentious and out-of-reach for most American women. "Style for Less" items that cost $500 or more don't exactly appeal to the average working woman's pocketbook, but that's another post.

Berry is conventionally beautiful and she could easily grace the cover of any magazine at any time of the year. Her coup of the Vogue September cover is important because the so-called "fashion Bible" has sanctified that beauty doesn't always come in a blond-haired, blue-eyed, under-the-age-of-30 package.

So yes, I plucked down my next to last five dollars for the magazine. To see a strong African American woman on the cover of Vogue looking every bit as beautiful and voluptuous as Jennifer Anniston and Julia Roberts (who graced the September covers of Harper's Bazaar and Elle, respectively) was worth every penny.

Saving Liz Claiborne

I want to save Liz Claiborne Inc.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the clothing company ceded control of its brand to J.C. Penny, which is launching this fall a new Liz clothing, home, and accessories line in all 1,100 of its stores.

The move keeps Liz Claiborne alive, but at what cost?

The article goes on to discuss the strange, if disturbing, antics of the company’s CEO William L. McComb, and the disastrous hiring of fashion personality and designer Isaac Mizrahi as head designer.

Worse yet, it’s a shame to see such an iconic brand that celebrated American working women go down the tubes because the men who shape the company’s engine have lost touch with women.

The crux of the problem seemed to be the men at Liz didn’t know who they were designing for – Baby Boomers playing with their grandchildren or their Gen X daughters who were balancing work and family life.

This confusion resulted in pink gingham dresses and clovers plastered on everything from sweaters to wallets. Women weren’t responding, hence the fall of its credit ratings from investment grade to junk, because all they found in the clothes was McComb and Mizrahi’s megalomania.

But all is not lost.

Instead of worrying for whom they should design and sell, Liz Claiborne Inc. should think about the woman who started the brand. Liz Claiborne believed that women deserved to go to work looking stylish and comfortable. Women could still look like women and succeed in a man’s world.

It’s that DNA the company should tap into to save itself. Even with Ann Taylor, Talbots and Jones New York, there’s still room to design well-made clothes and sportswear for the American woman. Ann Taylor and Talbots haven’t perfected the formula, though Talbots fall collection is pretty darned close.

When or if Liz Claiborne taps into its internal compass, it will never be lost or at the mercy of Penny’s again.

Jeggings -- Love or Hate 'Em?

Most American women are wearing the wrong size jeans. Either they are too tight, creating buffets of sausage legs and muffin tops, or they're too baggy.

So I was skeptical about the idea of jeggings. A marriage of skinny jeans and leggings, jeggings have been around for the past two seasons and they're likely to take another whirl through Fall 2010.

On celebrities like these, jeggings seem like the perfect solution for flaunting a lean silhouette while being comfortable. Worn with a tunic, a blazer and t-shirt or a sweatshirt, jeggings are a stylish and modern alternative to bootcut jeans.

But like the sculpted shouldered blazer of last fall, this trend is easy to screw up. Instead of Fergie fierceness, you have Cindy cellulite. Cropped anything looks terrible with jeggings, even if you're tall and skinny. The right shoe also matters. Heels, boots and booties elongate the legs, while ballet flats have the potential to create stumpy leg.

Bottom line: Jeggings get a yellow light. Proceed with caution, but have fun.

Chic to Chic at Talbots

I LOVE the Fall 2010 Talbots collection. It's the crescendo to a style transformation that began last spring when Talbots dropped its grandma image and started producing chic, stylish basics that grandmothers and granddaughters can buy to suit their taste. I've got my eye on a few things:

How J Crew Saved Me From Myself

My mother dropped a huge bombshell on me -- she needs a kidney transplant. After we rang off with many assurances from me that my kidney was her kidney, I stared at the phone in my hand. I was numb. I needed to get out of my apartment and do something. But what?

"We get our new shipment in on Monday," a sweet voice chirped in my head.

To J Crew!

I arrived an hour before closing and tried on many variations of this season ruffled tops and "borrowed from the boys" tailoring. Everything I tried on made me feel fat and useless. So I went to the jewelry counter where I would be forever beautiful no matter how many Oreo cakesters I ate or missed trips to the gym.

"Are you looking for anything special?" that sweet voice chirped again.

"Uhh, no. I'm emotional shopping," I blurted. "My mother needs a kidney transplant and you're the first person I've told."

The angel of a saleswoman listened to my ramblings while I tried on earrings and offered to pray for me and my family.

Once I finished, she said, "I'm not going to let you buy these. Save your money. See your mother."

She was right. Even if I bought every ruffly, distressed, borrowed from the boys, sparkled, bedazzled, bejangled piece from J Crew, it wouldn't save me from the difficult decisions I may have to make in the coming months.

But a new pair of earrings would make things a bit more bearable.