COMPLETELY RANDOM: Rodarte & Peter Pilotto

This week is New York Fashion week, and Rodarte closed their show with a whole series of Star Wars dresses.  You can see more here.  I am crossing my fingers and toes that the Mulleavy sisters convince Natalie Portman (they did the "Black Swan" costumes and her Oscars dress) to wear one!

This week also brought us the latest Target designer line:  Peter Pilotto.  I'm not familiar with this line, so I can't compare what they've done with Target to their usual stuff.  It's a youthful line with a lot of fun prints, and the best piece IMHO is this dress (which sadly seems sold out online).  Since crazy prints are on trend right now, you can't really go wrong with it!  Check out the rest on the Target site.

One more tidbit: Crazy unicorn heels!

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Harper's Bazaar February 2014

If you have burning questions for famous fashion designers, apparently you should head on over to Bazaar's Facebook page.  I'm assuming they've already gotten buy-in from everyone pictured to steal Reddit's thunder.

Also, I would kill for a poster-sized version of this because I think Choupette may be my spirit animal:

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Superbowl Sunday Edition Lucky February 2014

A toast to all of us clothes horses:  May our "fashion touchdowns" be plentiful and wondrous during the coming year!

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Elle January 2014

Every once in awhile, I've heard friends wishing they could sketch out a dream outfit and have someone make it for them.  Now it seems there's a company that does it!  They are called BYCO and they'll do all the sourcing and stitching for you, at whatever level (just one, samples, production line) that you want.

Elle had a contest to pick someone's design to have them make.  I have no idea why this annoying jumpsuit won (I guess it is better in black where I can pretend there's no pleats), but they used it to demonstrate BYCO's process:

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Marie Claire January 2014

First thought when I read this Lucy Lui quote:  Am I supposed to use that hammer to build something, or to smack my rivals over the head with???  I'm not accusing Lucy of anything, it just paints such an amusing picture in my head!

Also, thanks for the deep thoughts "supermodel" Cara Delevingne.

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Vogue sent me a subscription gift!

Here it is, my wondrous Vogue purse, sent to me as a gift-with-subscription!  This is actually the second time I've received it - they were mailing out the same one a few years back when I subscribed.  I don't have that one anymore, so you'll have to trust me that this one is slightly less lop-sided and the croc plastic is less sticky.

I seriously have no idea why they send these out.  Can you imagine anyone who reads Vogue carrying this thing, either 4-5 years ago or now?  Straight into the donation bag this goes!

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Marie Claire December 2013

Confession: I'm posting this because I like sparkly objects (natural blonde!) and it has a photo Jonathan Rhys Meyers from "Velvet Goldmine."  That's, um, pretty much it.  Go go sparkles!

COMPLETELY RANDOM: A coworker left me a present!

While I was out of the office for the holiday, one of my coworkers who happens to read this blog left me a little gift on my desk.  (There's a single red paperclip below the post-it - I apparently need to teach him better merchandising skills.)

COMPLETELY RANDOM: "Scatter My Ashes At Bergdorf's" is on Netflix streaming.

"Scatter My Ashes At Bergdorf's" is a documentary about the famous department store in New York City.  It's a great intro to modern fashion in many ways, showing you faces to put with the names of current designers young and old (with a particular concentration on Americans) and also discussing the merchandising process that is so important to building and maintaining a fashion house.  And, if you grew up loving "Mannequin" (as I did), they show the process of creating their famous window displays!

Fun fact that is briefly mentioned but not overly discussed:  During the first half of the 20th century, the major department stores sold couture that was made onsite to fit the customer, having licensed patterns from the major European houses.  This way ladies could get the European fashion without all that time-consuming travel - Neiman's would happily take your measurements in Dallas and sew up your Chanel suit made to order!

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Kim Kardashian's New Birkin

It is awful and it is huge and I cannot believe any part of this.  Not the least of which the fact that she's willing to carry it on the street.  Jezebel has the deets.

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Disney World 2013

Several years ago, Disney started selling more expensive clothes under a "Disney Couture" line.  I didn't really see any of that in the parks this time (Downtown Disney probably has some of it still - I didn't have time to get over there), but I did see these two tshirts that seem like an homage to fashion design sketches:

I didn't pick up either of those shirts (I went more vintage-y with my tshirt purchases), but look what I did find in Epcot's Morocco section:

It's not exactly that snake necklace I was considering trying to make, but it is pretty awesome!  Now I just need a whole new outfit to wear it with...

Best outfit seen in the parks:  I saw a Minnie Mouse ears headband with the requisite red-with-white-polka-dots bow paired with a solid navy shirt and navy pants with red polka dots.  Absolutely adorable.

Worst trend:  Small children in skinny jeans.  Toddlers don't need jeggings to accentuate their curves.  Five year old boys aren't old enough to choose to be hipsters.  What happened to kids wearing clothes they can run around and play in?

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Subscriber Abuse

I subscribed to Marie Claire for you, dear reader.  I assumed I'd probably be getting December as my first issue, probably late in the month.  Instead, my first issue was November, arriving in my mailbox over a week into December.  As you can see, it also showed up looking like it had been chewed by weasels.

The back is even worse, and all of the pages in the issue are bent.  I imagine them pulling the rejects from the previous month's issue, the ones that didn't make the quality cut, the ones that perhaps were used to entertain weasels, and shipping those out to their new subscribers.  What a great first impression!  It reminded me of something else - the last time I subscribed to Marie Claire and received a two month old issue that may have been delivered by a pack of wild dogs.  This out of date issue that they'd already printed before I sent in my check counts against my 12 month subscription, so they "save" some money.  So uncool.

I received my December/January copy of Harper's Bazaar the same day, and they helpfully included this letter:

Expiration notice?!?!?  Oh noes, I thought!!!  Except...check out the highlighted area.  My subscription is expiring with the September 2014 issue, which is 9+ months from now.  I'm not supposed to know to read that.  I'm supposed to freak out and renew, and then they'll trick me again in six months with the same threat of expiration and I guess eventually my subscription will outlive me!

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Jean Paul Gaultier in Harper's Bazaar

Bazaar has a monthly feature in which they ask designers to detail their average day, and I find it oddly fascinating.  This month they picked Jean Paul Gaultier, whose museum show I went to see last year.  In fact, I stuck my ticket to that show onto the original publication of the photo here and stuck that on my wall.  I liked this quote, which is also totally true for me:  "I am not singing but thinking about my work, about fashion.  You get the best and most lucid ideas in the shower or the bathroom.  So I am already working before I get to the office."

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Rachel Zoe Gives Advice On LinkedIn

"From Inseams to Instinct: Things I've Learned Growing My Business"

I can sum up how Rachel "grew her business" a lot faster than she can:  Styled magazine shoots, used those connections to get featured in said magazine, used magazine features to get reality show, used reality show to get fashion line copied entirely from vintage clothes in her closet.  See how easy it is?

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Check out the crazy!

Sometimes you hit paydirt when you click random links in the comments of celebrity FB posts.  Meet Angel, who is convinced that everything she does is stolen by Marc Jacobs and spread around pretty much every fashion house in existence:  http://truth2013.blogspot.com/

Until now, I never knew she invented taking photos with flowers and hats, and walking down quaint alleyways, on the beach, and near waterfalls.  She also apparently invented stripes, which means I owe her a great debt!  And when she says Jacobs wrote a New Yorker article about her, she means she's mentioned in an article about him in which he talks about how nuts she is and his employees all can't figure out why he talks to her.  In hindsight, he probably should've listened to them.

COMPLETELY RANDOM: Jezebel Takes The Words Out Of My Mouth

I've been featuring November's Lucky all week, and I considered posting something along these lines about their cover girl but it seemed petty and perhaps a wee bit mean.  So, um, I'll just set this down right here...

Who the Fuck Gives a Shit About Kate Bosworth