Elle's belles

First off, apologies for the insanely cheesy post title, a very flippant way to refer to the undoubtedly very worthy recipients of Elle's 2011 Style Awards, but it's an homage to the words of Erin Kaplan from The City, which obviously makes it ok.

So even more obviously, Alexa Chung was there, presenting no less, as it is now the law that no fashion event in the UK take place without her blessing. And that's fair enough, given that she is making my two least favourite Spring/Summer trends, the frumpy midi skirt tempered by the "sexy" baring of stomach, actually look pretty decent. But I'll need a lot more convincing than this. For that I will need to see a human being who is not Alexa Chung look good in them, considering this woman makes me give pause for thought over whether dungarees might be a good idea.

The more I look at this, the more I see how hideous the outfit actually is, but the better she looks. And hence, the aforementioned law makes perfect sense.

Ah Blake, always ready just in case there's someone at the party you need to shag in the loos. Ten bucks says there are no knickers under that Pucci dress. Although unless she's got a thing for David Gandy, the designated token straight male at all these events, she may well have wasted her leg wax.

We haven't heard much about Mark Fast since the infamous fat model debacle, and this just proves that his dresses do in fact look better on people who are not a size 14. I mean duh, it's semi-sheer knitwear, and crochet is no friend to flesh. It's loving Caroline Sieber though, who easily gets my vote for best-dressed of the night.

We all know who this is, looking cheap and provincial as ever, and at least one of us is wondering why people insist on humouring her delusion that she is any way stylish.

Courtney Love and her bod are looking bitchin in Givenchy, but it still makes me sad. Because when it comes to Courtney, all I ever want to see her in is her '93 kinderwhore finest. If it's not a satin slip, fishnets and a plastic tiara, I just can't care that much. Which says as much about my ability to move on as this excellent look does about Courtney's. I can't help it, that look was formative for me.

It's all too short; the hair, the dress, everything. Unless Hermione is getting into character as an ice dancer who got too chunky to compete but just can't let go of the costume. I'm way over the nude shoe cliché thing too. Blah blah blah stylist's favourite trick. Whatever, it's just all a bit footballer's wife these days. 50 points from Gryffindor, and from whatever house Hakaan is in. I'm guessing Slytherin, as you'd need sinister abilities to design something that makes Emma Watson of all people look chunky.

For the love of god Emma Hill, you could have made an effort. Designing Mulberry bags can't be that tiring, they all look pretty much the same.

This looks like something you'd wear on a cruise to showcase the new boobs your husband bought you with his retirement fund, but it's Thandie Newton, the most beautiful woman of all time, and the world has yet to birth a designer who can make her look bad.

Crystal Carrington is ready to par-tay!

This is Noomi Rapace (nope, me neither) in Burberry, and I seriously love it, but for the fact that it is, again, way too short. I mean, I have no idea who she is but I feel we're on a level of acquaintance a mere inch below that she enjoys with her gynaecologist. Oh, god, I think I just became old.

I always think it'd be really awkward to have a best friend who was a crap designer, whose crappy designs you'd feel obliged to wear. Luckily in the case of Pixie Geldof and Henry Holland, this is never a problem, because she likes dressing in crap.

I love what Karen Gillan is wearing. The problem is, I love it so much that I wear it most Saturday nights to go to Nice n Sleazy's and drink two quid White Russians, as do about half the other people there. So it's just a bit underwhelming on a red carpet. I have a vision that Karen could be the Scottish Olivia Palermo (well, the second one, after this lady) so I'm hoping she sees this (because, y'know, all Scottish people know each other) and is inspired to step up her game and truly reprazent.

I've read a fair amount of discussion over Ellie Goulding's new hair, but why is nobody mentioning the Ronsealed elephant in the room? Her new skin.

Helena, you're prettier than this. You're prettier than, well, anything, in the whole world, still.

WHY WHY WHY are you here??????

Alice Dellal, Nick Grimshaw and Alexa, partying like it's 2009 and two out of the three are still relevant.

And speaking of clutching at glory days, the 90s ladettes were out in force...

Donna Air has gotten seriously pretty, but what else has she been doing the last decade? Boldly going where no Malibu Barbie has ever gone before, by the looks of things.

In her own mind Laura Bailey is still the prettiest sixth former at boho school, but someone should really tell her she graduated in 2003, the gap year decade is over and it's time to head on home and go to uni or get a job.

Boobs McGee brings the classy, as always. I know I keep asking this, but can someone please tell me what she's got to do with fashion again, because her stint on BNTM did nothing to explain it. Episode after episode she'd refer to these mysterious runway appearances/shoots with "top photographers", and for the life of me I can't recall ever seeing any of them.

Yawn yawn yawn granny chic ladylike red lipstick moon face quirky yawn yawn racks of this polyester shit in Armstrongs yawn yawn mumsy what was that one song you had again? oh yeah, murder on the DAAHNCEFLOOR yawn yawn yawn

And the winners were....

Best International Designer - Tom Ford (schwing)

Breakthrough Talent - Noomi Rapace

Best British Designer - Christopher Kane

Best Model - Coco Rocha (the you got skinny award)

Best Actor - Stephen Dorff (sigh)

Best Actress - Natalie Portman

Best TV Star - Blake Lively

Best Accessory Designer - Emma Hill

Musician of the Year - Cheryl Cole (musician?)

Best Jewellery Designer - Dominic Jones

Next Young Designer - Meadham Kirchoff (bravo)

Elle Style Icon - Hermione Granger

Outstanding Contribution to Fashion - Helena Christensen

"It seems that the greatest difficulty is to find the end. Don't try to find it, it's there already" - Sofia Coppola

Some time in the late 90s I bought a Milkfed beanie, which didn't suit me and my small head at all and was hence worn about twice, but was nonetheless treasured. Because I'm pretty sure Sofia Coppola and I are twin souls.


I love everything this woman does. First job? Chanel intern. Ex-husband? Spike Jonze. Current boyfriend? French new wave rock star who's best mates with Daft Punk. Home? Paris. If I were to make movies I would cast Kirsten Dunst and Bill Murray in them too. So I feel confident in saying that were we to meet for a milkshake, we'd click.

I would get (most of) the fawning out the way and start by telling her that she is my favourite director, and not to pay attention to the people who say her movies are vapid and superficial. These are the people who do not understand the inherent value in aesthetics. Her imagery looks like memories, drawing out your own and thus making each film entirely personal to the viewer, and leaving it up to them to construct their own meaning from what they see.


I think a lot of the naysayers are probably boys too. To me, Coppola's films are about the mythology of being a girl, and what the world feels like when you are one who is lost and unsure of herself in the face of the expectations placed on you by yourself and others. The external world she presents might be sumptuous, but the films are unmistakeably about the internal world.

Although I am (still) dying to see Somewhere, in which Stephen Dorff (excellent choice, Sof) is the one who is lost, although his character is apparently an autobiographical version of Sofia.


Coppola chooses actresses who exemplify the beauty of imperfection. Much like Sofia herself, Kirsten Dunst and Scarlett Johansson are beautiful not because they are perfect, but because they are interesting to look at. It's an ordinary, off-beat beauty. The same type Chloe Sevigny and Clémence Poésy (my other two leading ladies) are possessed of. And the type Keira Knightley, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Megan Fox are not.


Her aesthetic, both on screen and off, pretty much sums up my own ideal, the DNA of which was set during that 90s New York moment populated by lo-fi heroes Chloe Sevigny, Kim Gordon, Marc Jacobs, and Harmony Korine and photographed by Juergen Teller, in which everything took on the quality of a polaroid picture, steeped in memories and childhood and reality, with wit and intelligence inherent.


This is a style executed in a plain, muted, tomboyish wardrobe of ankle grazing navy trousers and slouchy t-shirts, white Converse and round-neck sweaters and practical jackets; a fresh, innocent, un-jaded, American version of classic Parisian insouciance.

The world has gone Mad

So my friend Meredith and I were having our customary fashion discussion via text marathon during the Emmys Red Carpet (thanks Ryan and Giuliana). We do it every red carpet event that E! covers, it's like our own private version of live-blogging, and I thought maybe I'd get a cheap blog post out of it, but Christina Hendricks' breasts have obliterated all other images of the shindig from my memory.

Which leads me neatly to an issue I have. Not with the boobs (they're ludicrous and she totally needs a reduction, but that's up to her, and PS; January Jones is about a million times more attractive) but with Mad Men, and the infuriating influence it's having not only on legions of overly-impressionable television viewers who seem to be under the impression La Hendricks is the first woman to ever possess breasts, but on erstwhile sensible designers.


If I have to read one more article about how to get the "ladylike" look this AW I'll, well I'll just fall asleep actually. Mad Men, gloves, red lipstick, ladies, nipped-in waists, Mad Men, circle skirts, ladies, proper handbags, kitten heels yawn yawn yawn yawn yawn.


It is beyond me why any woman would want to return to an era of servitude, even if only through the medium of costume. Who the hell are these people that WANT to dress like someone's secretary? Or a neglected hausfrau at a coffee morning?


Prada, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs (how could you do this to me Marc? Twice!), I'm looking at you.


And "the new calf-length"? Are they kidding? Please, it made Christy Turlington look frumpy. What do you think it's going to do to you? I don't care how "fresh" it looks after season after season of arse-skimming hemlines, there's a reason short skirts are perennial: they are FLATTERING. And every single dress on the Marc Jacobs AW10 runway would look better if you hacked ten inches off it.


Thank god for Philip Lim, Proenza Schouler, Isabel Marant, Gucci and Celine, all of whom proved beyond a doubt that a bit of androgyny is always sexier than dressing like the repressed secretary the boss wants to bang.

I've been waiting for this since I was 15

In a shock move, Marc Jacobs has sent women with actual discernible breasts down the runway for Louis Vuitton AW10. Doutzen, Lara... you don't know what this means to me.

Marc (who I didn't think I could love more till now) used stacked models including Lara Stone (beloved), Elle Macpherson, Laetitia Casta and Doutzen Kroes in the show, which must have been a nice step-up from Sports Illustrated for the latter two. As someone who started acquiring breasts at pretty much the exact time they disappeared from view in the fashion world, this was a Dear Diary moment for me too.

Lara and her rack in the label's AW10 campaign