Catwalk

Pre-Fall 2011 continued. Alexander Wang.

 All photos from www.style.com

Ivy League Fashion

I have recently purchased a book called Take Ivy published by Hachette Fujingaho. The book was originally published in 1965 in Japanese, and, therefore, was naturally intended for the Japanese. It maintains somewhat of an educational tone, and I was left with the impression that the principal reason behind the book was to inform Japanese youngsters about the lifestyle of students in the best institutions in America.

Needless to say, the reason it was recently reprinted in English had nothing to do with the above. Rather, the book ended up a huge success as a refernce to style of that era in that particular part of America. Looking through the photographs, I was fascinated by the sharp style that the students in these Ivy League schools had at that time, and how much that style has been influencing American fashion ever since.

I notice that this preppy style of clothing is especially loved by many of the relatively new designers that will most likely be dictating fashion to the style-minded people of the world for the next few decades. Looking through the spring summer 2011 collections by such designers like Billy Reid, Michael Bastian, Thom Brown, Simon Spurr, and Band of Outsiders' Scortt Sternberg, I couldn't help but notice just how much this style has become a root of American wear today.

I went through some of my favorite looks from the spring summer 2011 runway shows, and tried to compile a collection of photographs that would show just how much similarity there is between what the students photographed in Take Ivy wore and what the most exciting designers today are creating.

Love Is...

New Lacoste Ad

Lacoste featuring Anja Rubik

Following some of my other advertising-related posts, I thought I'd share the new ad campaign for Lacoste. I think it's a cool idea, mixing what is their signature white polo and crocodile logo with formal evening outfits. I don't know if they are trying to say that they are planning on taking Lacoste to the next level, that the Lacoste polo can be worn with anything, or maybe it's a goodbye statement from Christophe Lemaire, who has left Lacoste to take on the role of creative director at Hermes, a much, much more high-end and expensive brand. Check out the rest of the pictures after the jump!

Most Stylish

Producer/DJ

Mark Ronson has this strictly British approach to dressing. He is always sharp and his suits fit him impeccably. Yet, he still brings something new to the table, whether it's a colorful shirt, or colorful hair. Even when spinning, Ronson somehow always manages to keep his cool. It seems like no matter where he is or what he is doing, he is always dressed to the nines. Props for that. Check out more pictures after the jump.

Androgyny 2.0

“Every man likes to dress in a skirt every once in a while” – Andrej Pejic

Fashion's male model of the moment, Andrej Pejic. Photograph by Rebecca Michael.

It’s a well known fact that androgyny has been huge in women’s fashion for quite a few seasons how. In fact, like anything that creates a huge boom, it seems to be passing, and "Victoria’s Secret" body types are being seen more and more on the runway and in editorials instead of tomboys.

What’s very new and exciting though, is not androgyny in women’s fashion (because I’m sure that if you google the two together, you will get 82376582635713057102758937586245724 hits), but in men’s fashion.

I’ve been seeing many thinner, smaller boys, with long flowing hair walk down the runway, and now with the growing popularity of Croatian-born model Andrej Pejic, I think it is safe to say that men’s fashion designers are as much fans of androgyny as female fashion designers have been for a while.

I find it a very interesting phenomenon. On the one hand there is this big emergence of re-invention and looking at things from different perspectives, and on the other hand, there is a clear movement of people trying to become equal in every meaning of the word. At first, women fought very hard to be treated the same way men were, but then spent quite some time complaining about how the idea of courtship has died and men no longer see women for the fragile and delicate beings that they are, but rather as total equals, who are perfectly capable of opening their own doors.

I suppose that after listening to women not being able to decide on whether they wanted to be adored or given the same work opportunities, the men have also decided to take a stand. After all, maybe men want to feel fragile and be courted as well? Maybe they would like for a woman to hold the door for them? Most would still say no, considering men being significantly bigger and stronger than women, but fashion has always been a few steps ahead in terms of changes in society, and it seems that it is on a totally different page all together at the moment. Pejic’s measurements, for example, allow him to walk in women’s shows, which he has done on several occasions. Meanwhile, popular fashion magazine Candy  has been playing with the idea of dressing boys up like girls for a while now, and, having a damn good time with it. If you don't believe, please check the pictures out after the jump!

Five Reasons to Watch 'The Fighter' (Excluding Mark Wahlberg's Torso)

1) Great acting.

2) A real guy movie. Now, I am a girl myself, but I really enjoy these kind of films. Maybe it's because I know that being a girl, I will never get to experience and have to go through some of the things men go through, for better or for worse. The Fast and the Furious, as much as I love that movie, is not a guy's film. This film is. Because, despite how much most men would want their life to be about outrageously fast cars and exotic women, it usually isn't (unless you are a Rolling Stone or Cristiano Ronaldo).

3) Christian Bale being his wonderful weird self again. Seriously, how many times has this man put his body through hell in order to deliver a performance? He lost about 30 kilograms to play his character in The Machinist. Then he went straight to working on Batman and buffed himself up to where he was 15 kg more than what he was before his diet for The Machinist. To make a long story short, it seems like there is nothing he won't do to make his character more believable and his performance more powerful. Here is a visual to prove it. In this film, he plays Dicky Eklund, a retired boxer - and current crack addict - known as a legend in his home town for going the distance against one of the best boxers of the time. Christian Bale once again lost a lot of weight to realistically portray a person struggling with a serious drug addiction, and his acting is great, where he manages to capture small nuances of the real Dicky's behavior and habits.

4) It's a true story worth being told. Before I go any further, i am not a big boxing expert, and I am not sure exactly how accurate this film is. But I did go on the savior of human kind, YouTube, and looked at some real fights of Micky Ward, and those seemed to be pretty spot on, so that's good news. Besides the accuracy issue, that I, unfortunately do not have much to say about, I did feel like I connected with the characters and believed that they could be real people. It's a great story to make a film about because it has all the ingredients: family, love story, drugs and jail, boxing.

5) The message this film sends. Despite the main theme of the film being boxing, and the film inside the film being about drugs, at the end of it, the story is about family. I thought the relationship with the two brothers and their mother was very well shown. In movies about the pursuit of greatness, I find that parents are always depicted as either extremely supportive or extremely unsympathetic. This film doesn't try to do that, which I really appreciate. Melissa Leo gives a wonderful performance as a mother of nine children, who tries her best at raising all of them equally, but inevitably struggles. She is by far not the perfect example of a mother, but neither is she a failure as one. That is what speaks to me as a viewer. Families are always tough to portray because the emotions that happen between people bonded by blood are often a challenge to show between actors that may know each other for a few weeks. It seems to me that the director David O. Russell and his team paid a lot of attention to this aspect of the film, and I think it really pays off.