Category / Fashion

by Lexine

Category Is: Women’s Fall Fashion, 1995

US Vogue cover, September 1995

Shalom Harlow and Amber Valetta on US Vogue, September 1995. 

I was too young to remember what the average woman was wearing 30 years ago. (I was eleven and was more focused on building my pog collection than what Vogue wanted me to wear that season.) It’s a given that the well-to-dos had the latest from the Paris and Milan runways, but I don’t recall my mom or aunts or teachers sporting Gucci’s silk shirts or Calvin’s satin dresses. For those who still own one or a few of those pieces from that season, I legit envy them because those clothes are classy and ageless. Some 90s pieces look dated, but almost everything from Fall 1995 could be worn today and still be stylish. Cases in point: 

Outfits from Calvin Klein’s Fall 1995 show

Ralph Lauren’s Fall 1995 show

Dolce & Gabbana, Fall 1995

Yves Saint Laurent ready-to-wear, Fall 1995

And since pics won’t do justice, three of my favorite collections from that season…

OK, Mugler’s collection may not be for everyday wear (unless you’re Bai Ling), but everything about that show remains STUN to this day! 

by Lexine

September’s Star Face

Yasmin LeBon on the cover of the premier issue of US Elle magazine, September 1985

Though Elle magazine had been in existence since 1945, the publication was only sold in France before expanding to other countries in the 1980s, with the States getting its own edition in September of 1985. Their minimal use of cover blurbs and promoting models of color on their covers were big reasons why I once favored Elle more than Vogue, especially in the 90s when Vogue gave the same two or three white models a cover four times a year. And while many 80s fashion mag covers look dated nowadays, the simplicity of this cover (simplicity in 80s fashion?), with that pop of yellow in a backdrop of black and Yasmin giving FACE, makes it quite the timeless image.

by Lexine

Strike A Pose For June

Madonna, photographed by Herb Ritts for Interview magazine, June 1990

Once upon a time, magazine covers featured celebrities with some actual talent and substance, and everyone and their grandparents knew who they were. Some celebs got bold in their portraits, and no one took more brazen pics than Madonna herself. This could very well be my favorite mag cover of hers. It just POPS. You don’t get more in-your-face than grabbing your crotch. That a female celeb did *that* made it more ballsy; I bet the incels and prudes in 1990 sent hate mail to Interview then. I can’t imagine what the reaction would be if, say, Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter struck the same pose on a mag cover these days. Although it would be pretty cool if either of them did that.

The editorial and her interview is also worth a look! 

by Lexine

Thursday Random Thoughts

Like many real ones with social media these days, I have joined the land of blue skies. I haven’t abandoned the right-wing cesspool known as Twitter just yet, although I may consider it if I get more followers on Bluesky than Twitter.  The Bluesky app also needs some work, but I must say: it’s soooooo refreshing to see a social media site not bogged down by its MAGA manchild owner, vile right-wing trash, algorithms that are obviously drunk, and dumb bots. Here’s hoping the site stays the course and doesn’t devolve like Twitter.

I’m also on Threads and still have my IG. I got a TikTok but I haven’t touched it for a year now. (I’m just not a TikTok girl.) In the hierarchy of SM posting, Bluesky now gets first dibs on my short-form nonsense, then Threads, and, if I feel like it, Twitter.

My Vegas birthday trip pics will be coming shortly. I’ve posted some on my socials a few weeks ago, but I got a lot more pics and a whole lot to say about them!

I travel for my day job a few times a week, and some of the things I’ve been seeing on the digital billboards when I take 880 North back home…😒”Be Kind”? “Choose Love”?? What in the sappy Etsy boymom hell is that? Many people in this country certainly weren’t kind at all at the polls two weeks ago!

By the way, IT’S STILL THE MOOD

Meanwhile, that parallel universe is looking more lovely by the day. We’re all looking forward to what the Kamala administration will bring to this country after her landslide election win two weeks ago, the House and Senate going blue, Trump and Elon finally going to jail, the racists/misogynists/Nazis all staying pissed on their Truth Social accounts, and next summer bringing us the release of Xtina’s newest album and the Batgirl movie. *sighs*

I think I found THE cold-weather fragrance…

…and THE scent for femme fatales, divas, and the bad girls your mother warned you about. In other words, MY kinds of scent! It’s a few steps above Black Orchid, which I also own, and that’s all I can say because I’m not well-versed in describing fragrances and its notes (and that’s something coming from a novelist-by-night).

Someone send me back to Vegas for the next seven months with a $15,000/month stipend to cover lodging, food, gas, bills, my rent back home, and miscellaneous. I only say this because the Penguins aka my hockey team won all their games while I was in Vegas. Superstitions and all that.

I’m really gonna miss Rafa. It was only a matter of time before he hung up his racket for good. The first time I saw him play was Wimbledon 2008; I tuned in after getting curious over the whole Nadal-Federer rivalry going on then. That Men’s Finals match, honey…talk about an intro! I enjoyed watching him play ever since, and he was the total package: talented, class act, and, yup, a hottie. 😘Him and Federer defined one hell of an era in Men’s Tennis that I doubt can be topped any time soon. Happy trails, Rafa! 🫶

I know Dolce & Gabbana are sketch (as people; their clothes are fine), but their Fall 2024 ads with Miley are STUN.

The pearl-clutchers need to take all their outrage they’re wasting over how suggestive Sabrina Carpenter is in her shows and instead apply it to why Fist Brown (thanks, Dlisted) still has a career. Go after the abusers in the industry, why don’t you. Or is that too difficult for them?

Ending this post with a song that will go multi-platinum in the households of young women fighting against the emboldened, yucky incels. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll know!

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #9

Thrift stores!

Is that supposed to be a Big Bird cookie jar? 

How did I go a month into this list and not yet mention thrift stores? But anyway, it is the place where most of my wardrobe and even some of my bedding originated from. (Don’t worry–all my keepers get washed and cleaned before I wear them/place them on my bed.) The place that sold me a legit Kate Spade bag “as-is” for $8. The place where I found original editions of The Babysitters Club books for $2 each. The place of colored tag sales, exchanges only (keep your receipt), final sales, and no public restrooms. (Except at Savers stores.) And the place I wish would bring back dressing rooms! (ACS Discovery Shops and Salvation Army stores are the lone exceptions.)

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #12

90s Fashion!

(For women, to be specific. Like I follow men’s fashion.)

Those who think 90s women’s fashion was all crop tops, wide-legged jeans, butterfly hair clips, and Spice Girl-style platform shoes probably got their 90s fashion history from a Tumblr on vintage Delia’s catalogs and that’s it. As someone who owns many issues of Vogue, Elle, W, and Bazaar from 1990 to the December 1999 issues, I can safely say there’s way more to 90s fashion than that. There were traces of the 80s from the early 90s (top left pic), peak grunge and dowdy realness from 1992-1993 (top right pic), a short but memorable shot of disco glam to get rid of the grunge in 1994 (bottom left pic), hip-hop influences and retro comebacks in the mid-90s, and minimalism and nightclub-inspired attire in the late 90s (bottom right pic).

Fashion in the 90s truly had it ALL, but, more remarkably, designers placed more quality and creativity into their collections. That decade also gave us landmarks collections, such as John Galliano’s Spring 1995 (I know JG is a dubious mofo but his clothes for that season were just wow), or Tom Ford for Gucci’s Fall 1995. What happened to moments like that? Nowadays, a fashion moment involves an overpriced plain t-shirt from some fast fashion label that went viral on TikTok because some celeb wore that shirt. Yawn.

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #13

20th Century Fashion Photography!

(Top to bottom: fashion served by Richard Avedon (from the 90s and 50s), Herb Ritts, and Ellen Von Unwerth.)

The creativity and quality of the top fashion photographers of the 20th century has yet to be matched by their modern-day equivalents. Pick up an issue of Vogue or Bazaar from 30 years ago and compare the imagery in the editorials then to the ones from today, and the contrast is clear. I do have my favorites within this favorite: Avedon, Penn, Newton, Ritts, Meisel (probably the only OG still shooting quality work today), Von Unwerth, Demarchelier, Lindbergh…All masters at their craft!

by Lexine

When September Had Style

I used to enjoy fashion magazines and September was THAT month for titles like Vogue, Elle, Bazaar, etc. If you’re an old like me, you remember seeing the Fall Fashion Issues that were thick as an old school phone book (because of all the ads 😆). And their covers were 🔥🔥🔥

WTF happened???

I got my theories over why fashion mags (not just for September but for all the months) have been slipping in quality for the past decade or so, and I’m not holding my breath over wanting to see top-tier imagery featuring subjects with personality and life in their eyes again on and in the glossies these days. Like legacy media and their handling of political facts, it’s a damn shame to see the once-prestigious fashion titles phoning it in like a spoiled rich nepo baby, from cover to editorial. And if you think I’m full of it, here’s a thread dedicated to vintage issues of Bazaar from the 90s. Compare the imagery from then to what you see from Bazaar nowadays and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

by Lexine

I Adore! (2024 Met Gala edition)

THE looks that saved an otherwise meh Met Gala for me. (By the way, did anyone else find the dual themes confusing? Besides the one who’s in charge of the Gala 😆) At this point, the committee might as well rename it the Zendaya Ball because she brings IT to you to every year. Sometimes twice in one year! 

From top to bottom: Zendaya, Kylie Minogue (biased me is happy to see her there again, but there’s more to her gown than meets the eye), Anok Yai, and Zendaya again.