The Ink Dark Moon

Where are you hurrying to? You will see the same moon tonight wherever you go.


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Ono no Komachi
Heian era poet, Japan
AD 850

(trans. by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani)

Beyond the Ordinary

Participating in a doll fashion contest is the perfect opportunity to examine one's outlook on art, design, and fashion.

For some time now, I have been thinking about the gap between high-end fashion and doll fashion, why it exists, and what I can to to nudge doll fashion along in my own small way. I'm not talking about being deliberately odd, certainly not just for the sake of it. But I am quite excited about approaching doll fashion just as an innovative designer of couture in the real world might approach their next collection. I'm fully committed to the idea.

Doing something unusual does not exempt a designer from certain overall laws of aesthetics, of course. We're still concerned with balance, with line, with texture, with color. We're still playing with cultural, historical, and even emotional references. Technique and construction still count, too, perhaps even more so. Being avant garde is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Good designers realize these things, and work accordingly. Close study of even the most dramatic or outrageous couture reveals how much serious design and execution goes into it.

Can doll fashion be more like high fashion? Probably only a small percentage of doll enthusiasts share this interest. I don't expect this idea to become universal, but the more time I spend looking at the international world of couture innovations, the more I want doll fashion to be part of the adventure. I dream of seeing doll runways alive with the artistry and excitement of Paris, Milan, Tokyo, Madrid, New York.

The 1:1 world of couture directly serves only a few thousand people worldwide, but it exists to drive the dream machine.

How could things be in our little world?

A fashion doll doesn't always have to look sexy. Sometimes she can look like a work of art.

A fashion doll doesn't have to grocery shop or run out to the post office.

A fashion doll can inspire and be memorable.

It might sound like a paradox, but I'd be thrilled if doll fashion could be both lot more serious,

and a lot more fun. Just like the real thing.

Little Black Dress: my sketch and brief notes

This sketch is one I did to envision my fashion doll's Little Black Dress ensemble on a real model. Even though the design was intended for a doll, I find it useful and enjoyable to think of it this way, as well. My personal preference is to design my doll ensembles so they could appear on a real runway as part of a collection, regardless of how wearable or fantastic the design concept. The couture fantasy is part of the allure.

Silhouettes in Black, continued

On my way to creating a little black dress for a doll design challenge, I made a brief mental stop at a Barbiedoll ensemble I designed seven or eight years ago.

In those days I paid only passing attention to the world of couture when thinking about doll design. Instead, I mostly ruminated on certain long-standing personal design themes, more focused on the world of doll clothing than taking any inspiration from the spirit of runway fashion and the latest collections.

There's nothing really wrong with that, of course-- you could make the argument it would serve someone better in this competition. But it's a design approach that no longer gives me a lot of satisfaction.

This ensemble is called Brunch at the Del, named for the famous old Hotel Del Coronado here in San Diego. If the Del could talk, it would rattle off many dishy stories of the rich and infamous. Much of Billy Wilder's Some Like it Hot was filmed there (Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, et al). I didn't design it to be specifically vintage, but the outfit still has that feel, in a doll-ish sort of way.

It's a fun outfit, but a similar look would not have been a good choice for the contest I was in. The color being included within the dress itself, especially to that degree, means it wouldn't fit the criteria, having been cautioned by the head office against making that choice... and rightly so. And while I still like the ensemble, it is almost too Barbie-esque and somehow familiar, even though it was a completely original design. That kind of look is admittedly a good fit with the doll's image, but I was committed to designing a new and interesting silhouette from scratch.

What pleases me about this ensemble is how well yellow goes with black. I also feel a successful element was the band on the bodice that echoes the curved band on the hat.

The design phase is often what takes me the longest... not because I struggle for ideas, but because I struggle with having too many of them. I'm sure many of you are like this, too.

The world of fashion is as wide as it is deep, and I would visit many intriguing possibilities along the way to my design solution. In doll design, the journey is as interesting as the destination.


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Hildegarde: joie de vivre with long gloves and a rose

The "Incomparable Hildegarde" was a beloved singer and pianist in the classic supper club tradition. She came from the Midwest to New York via Paris, and her trademarks were ultra long gloves nearly to her shoulders, and a long-stemmed rose. She even wore the gloves while playing the piano, a feat I found impressive as a child watching her on television.

Before leaving behind the topic of gloves, I wanted to include this fond postscript mention of Hildegarde, and post an old publicity still. Besides the gloves, not to mention her obvious exuberance, we can appreciate the silhouette of her classic 1950s gown.

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Ah, for the Glove of Fashion

Let's talk about gloves. I love them.

An ultra-long black glove turns a graceful arm into a calligraphic brushstroke. It eroticizes the bare shoulder and evokes vintage glamour. In black, it gives unexpected edge and intrigue to any color palette.

A contrasting glove in unexpected color is a bit of theater, sleight of hand, whimsical chic and fashion bravado.

My sister and I had demure white wrist gloves for Easter every year in the late Fifties and early Sixties.

During those same years, my mother explained that a well-dressed woman would never appear on city streets without gloves and a hat. Even as she was explaining this to us, we all knew that was changing.

When I was a young teenager I was desperate for a pair of red leather racing gloves with cutouts. I never got them, maybe because I didn’t even have a driver’s license, and anyway, all the racing I would do was in my mind.

Gloves have come and gone from the fashion scene. I picked up some great day-gloves during the Eighties when women were interested in glamour again. You could put a chartreuse leather glove with a wool jacket of plum or teal without apology.

From decades of haunting thrift stores, I have a wonderful collection of vintage gloves, and I do mean vintage: ultra-long buttoned silk gloves from the Teens, thin chamois leather gloves from the Thirties, and soft cotton gloves from the Forties and Fifties.

The little space where we hide our car registration, outdated maps, and dusty tissues is still called a glove compartment.

Recently I saw a publicity portrait of the perennially glamorous Ann-Margret, and noticed she was wearing gloves. It reminded me that gloves are kind to us Women of a Certain Age, an artful concealment of our less than perfect hands.

Young women enjoy gloves as well, although the look is sometimes more tongue-in-cheek, worn with a vampy attitude that comes from the self-conscious appropriation of another generation’s fashions and sentiments. It’s the attitude a twenty year-old with multiple face piercings might have when wearing a Fifties prom dress. We see the wearer’s quotation marks around the item in question.

From what I remember, gloves started showing up on the Runway again in about 2003, a couple of years after design houses like Yves Saint Laurent began suggesting we should all wear Corsets as Fashion (presumably to acknowledge our Inner S&M Goddess). The black-laced look may or may not have made its way into our wardrobes, but the glove did start to become worthy of consideration. When taken in context with the corset, we’re reminded of the darker side of gloves. Like fashion as a whole, gloves can go to the opera, or star in a burlesque show.

For the last few months I’ve been noticing gloves on the runway again, and I’m truly enjoying it. Designers want glamour again. Like today’s glamour, the gloves of today are more dreamlike in their effect than we remember. They seem to combine the many sides and evocations of gloves.

Of late, it's almost harder to find fashion photography without gloves than with them.

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My award for the Most Overtly Glamorous Recent Exhibition of Gloves goes to British VOGUE magazine (Oct. 2007) for their cover photo of Keira Knightley in sequined over-the-elbow tulle gloves to match the sequined dress (Chanel). That entire issue, in fact, is a veritable celebration of the glove. Trust me on this.

One page into the magazine’s glossy pages, we see a long black leather glove accenting a belted wool coat, then again on the next page with a jacket and pants (Gucci).

With one more turn of the page, we see a strapless black cocktail dress worn with over-the-elbow black gloves (Yves Saint Laurent).

Two more pages, and we see scrunched leather gloves in odd quasi-jellybean colors worn as luxurious daywear accents with both matching and contrasting leather handbags (Prada).

Three more pages, and we see long black patent leather gloves looking more like boots with their zippers and flare-shaped cuffs (Burberry). Six more pages, and we’re told by enthusiastic editors we should grab ourselves those same amazing patent leather gloves.

Just six more pages, and we see black wrist gloves worn with a black beret and a knitted gold dress, and appearing again on the next page with a crisp white blouse (Ralph Lauren).

One more page, and we see long silver tricot gloves worn with another crisp white blouse, this time with a gray knit pullover (Luisa Cerano).

Five more pages in, and Versace has gotten into the act with black leather gloves accenting pure white wool in two ensembles.

Just two more pages ahead and British VOGUE is recommending hot new looks for the season, including a long black leather glove by Georges Morand. Continuing this enthusiasm, more gloves are recommended just five pages later: all long, all in colors, all fabulous.

On and on it goes. That issue had over 400 pages, but you get the idea.

I’d say the glove has returned. But then again, did it ever truly leave?

Porter Wagoner and the Splendid Dazzling Designs of Nudie Cohn

We interrupt our regularly scheduled highbrow discussion of high fashion to bring you some notes on this week’s passing of Country Western singing legend Porter Wagoner at the age of 80.

Mr. Wagoner will be remembered in part for the splendid sequin and rhinestone-studded suits he wore as a performer. These amazing works of wearable art were designed by the incredible Nudie Cohn, otherwise known as Nudie of Hollywood. With Mr. Wagoner’s passing, I find myself awash in fond, glittering memories of the most amazing jackets I’d ever seen with their sequined appliquéd cactuses and rhinestone-rimmed wagon wheels.

My parents were enthusiastic about all kinds of music, everything from pop to jazz to country to classical. In the pre-satellite days of only a mere handful of television channels, sooner or later most baby-boomers would see, as I did, Tennessee’s Grand Ole Opry come into the living room on the Porter Wagoner Show. I would later learn that Mr. Wagoner had a long performing association with Dolly Parton, helping launch her career.

Wagoner had a distinctive voice, poignant song material, and a trademark pompadour hairstyle, but what would stay with me were the outfits he wore onstage. All that glitter, all those literal pictorial decorations would burn themselves into my young mind, and form a part of my fashion taste that never quite went away.

And so... thank you, Mr. Cohn, for your unique sartorial gifts. And happy trails to you, Mr. Wagoner, on your final journey to the Green, Green Grass of Home.

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Silhouettes in Black, first remarks

In fashion, black is quietly powerful.

Sometimes it's a welcome refuge, a safe haven.

Black is iconic.

Black is its own category, a challenge for all designers to reckon with. When we allow ourselves to think beyond the typical solutions, it forces us to think about shapes, about silhouettes. It's also about surface and texture, but what strikes us first, and stays with us, is the shape black carves in our visual field.

So does the shape need to follow the figure? This image is a style.com runway photo of a design by Stefano Pilati for Yves St. Laurent's striking Fall 2007 ready-to-wear collection.This is obviously a jacket, not just a dress, but it reminds us the body need not be followed in typical ways. Notice, too, the use of thick black tights to continue the silhouette.

Pure low-key drama.

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