Makeovers and What Is A Stylist?

Little Missy's First Assignment  A Treasured Memory

My dear friend Cameron Silver, the King of Vintage has a site called Candid Cameron and a spirited Instagram account where he and his friends, colleagues and clients weigh in on style topics of the day. Yesterday we weighed in on the recent  Emmys Red Carpet. I called out a look I did not like, noting that it was the fault of the stylist, not the star.  The star was Robin Wright, a beautiful and talented actor.  The look was beyond bad, an ivory jumpsuit ill-fitted, trousers too long,  slicked back hair and minimal makeup.  No one on the planet could have gotten away with all three of these things worn together.  Robin looked washed out and severe---and as if she would trip any moment in her overly long jumpsuit.  I felt her stylist had done her an injustice.  Many disagreed with me, and applauded Robin for going for the shock value.  I can only shrug my shoulders.  Que sera, sera.

Robin Wright at the Emmys

Emma Stone at the Venice Film Festival

As Cameron wrote of Emma Stone, sometimes just looking pretty on the red carpet is enough!  Anyway, it got Little Missy thinking...what is a stylist, anyway?  This is one of the most important persons on any fashion project. You can have the best model and the best photographer, but without a good stylist, you will not have fashion.  My favourite stylist is Cissy Chong, who has worked with my friend the photographer Frederic Aranda.  She puts the wow factor into the fashion picture with her futuristic-retro vision.  I hope I can work with Cissy one day!

Cutler and Gross Spring 2014 styled by Cissy Chong and shot by Frederic Aranda

You can bet Cissy hand picked every macaron and tea cup!

Again, what is a stylist?  The stylist is the artist in fashion who brings the clothes and accessories and props to create the dream of the client.  Sometimes a stylist is brought in to change a star's perceived persona...especially important if the star has had bad press, been arrested and so on. Stylists have done wonders with reality stars like Kim Kardashian.  Kim's April Vogue cover was jaw dropping.  But then she was working with the best stylist in the world, the one and only Grace Coddington.

Now for Little Missy's story.  My first assignment as a stylist was truly unexpected and random.  My mother was spending the day with her friend Georgette and Georgette's younger daughter was going to spend the day with me.  Kathy was a bit younger than I, and a bit of a "tomboy".   I could see she was almost always uncomfortable at events, socially awkward and shy.  In fact I had already concluded that Kathy did not feel comfortable as a girl.  So Georgette and Kathy came over, and Kathy was dressed to the nines in a yellow and white floral two piece blouse and skirt ensemble.  I could see that she was miserable.  At least she was wearing comfortable sandals.  She had just been to one of those teenage fat farms rich people used to send their overweight children to, and had come back feeling like a failure.  Little Missy knew she had a job to do! As soon as Georgette and my mother left, I asked Kathy if she would like to change into my brother's jeans and t shirt.  The biggest smile I think I ever saw radiated YES!  This mordantly funny, wickedly intelligent fourteen year old wasted no time changing clothes and we spent the day walking downtown to lunch and to visit a friend in the hospital.   I never thought twice about not suggesting she change her clothes. It was so obvious that she was never meant to dress like a girly girl.  Of course Kathy put her yellow and white ensemble back on before our mothers returned, and we laughed at each other.  I lost touch with Kathy soon after that as her mother shipped her off to a school in Switzerland that was supposed to make her more feminine and refined!  OMG!  I am thinking about Kathy and all human beings who have been in a similar place, and sending love.  If I had helped Kathy in my first stint of being a stylist, I was forever grateful to the impulse that is in us all to want to look comfortable when we see ourselves in the mirror.

High School Fashion Autumn 2014

 Normcore is the New Chanel!

Give me a Justinfication!

We've got to blame someone for how absolutely awful the kids are looking on their first days back in high school, right?  I mean 9 out of 10 boys at Palo Alto High (James Franco's old stomping ground) are wearing CAMOUFLAGE?  Like Justin Beiber, role model nightmare?  First of all, Palo Alto High School is one of the best public high schools in the state, if not the country.  The kids here are smart and driven, by themselves and by their parents.

Little Missy Guesses Kids Like Beiber

But I'm just wondering what this camouflage is really all about.  Because life's a mess, and every where you turn you can see wars, fighting and more fighting.  And here are these kids on this idyllic high school campus situated right across the street from a tony little shopping centre, and four out of five of the boys are walking around in camouflage.  Swap that out for the real thing in a couple of years and it begins to feel really nightmarish.

The Girls Are Persuaded By What?

Here is a modest version of how the girls are dressing on the Paly campus.  As a longtime proponent of If You've Got it, Flaunt It, I can only shake my head.  Well...the weather in Palo Alto is pretty close to perfect in August.  It's what I now call my Justinfication!

Normcore is the new Chanel!

Normcore is looking better and better to me.  As Wikipedia describes Normcore:

Normcore is a unisex fashion trend characterised by unpretentious, average-looking clothing

Little Missy would really rather see this on kids than camouflage and skimpy.  It would be so simple, like a high school uniform.  Very democratic!  And who then, is the Coco Chanel of Normcore?

Steve Jobs, Mr. Normcore  Himself!

And a better role model than Justin Beiber!

Little Missy Goes To The Movies!

Summer 2014

Little Missy has seen three movies so good I must just share them with my readers!  No doubt many of you have also seen them and we can compare notes!

Number One

Yves Saint Laurent, the authorised biopic with clothes from the archives, directed by Jalil Lespert was a Little Missy dream film.  Tears unconsciously flowed from my eyes from start to finish. I watched Pierre Niney bring to life the young Yves Saint Laurent, the one I didn't know but would have given anything to have. Guillaume Galliene did an admirable job as the young Pierre Berge, the man who took on the somewhat thankless early task of organising and babysitting  the young and out of control genius designer.  Nikolai Kinski made me laugh as a perverse young Karl Lagerfeld.  The clothes, the women in their lives, the locations.....you can see this movie on line and it should be mandatory viewing for any person who calls him or herself a member of the fashion community.  You must see this movie!

Number Two

Boyhood, directed by Richard Linklater took twelve years to make.  It's fiction, but uses the same actors, and all are admirable in their work, especially Ethan Hawke as the father.  Ethan seems to specialise in long drawn out but ultimately satisfying Linklater movie sequels (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight).  The boy portrayed in the film is gorgeous and engaging, beginning at age six, and yes, he has his share of tough times and triumphs before he goes off to university.  He does seem to get off a little easy, and sometimes it seems like the really hard stuff that happens to even the best and brightest of kids doesn't happen to him.  Yes, he sees terrible things happen to his mom when she makes bad marital choices, but we don't get the sense that he has been all that affected by circumstance.  We never see him sitting in his room and crying for instance.  I would have liked a little more connection with the young boy's emotions, but maybe for this Herculean task, I am asking too much?  Read the LA Times movie reviewer Kenneth Turan for a critical review of this picture.  I am not as hard line as Kenneth, but I wasn't completely satisfied, either.  My movie audience loved the film, and everyone clapped at the end, even Little Missy.  Most of us want the likable people we watch in the movies to succeed.  And then there's Woody Allen...

Number Three

Magic in the Moonlight could be Little Missy's autobiography.  And Little Missy loves that Woody Allen wrote and directed it, because he gets it right!  An internationally famous magician genius (played by Colin Firth) has been asked by a friend to debunk a young American psychic (played by Emma Stone)  in the south of France sometime in the twenties.  Emma is staying with her mother at the fabulous villa of a rich American widow, who is trying to contact her dead husband through Emma.  The widow's nitwit son is in love with Emma and serenades her on his ukulele.  This is the most tedious part of the movie.  Colin is definitely (re) playing the part as Mr. Darcy for all it's worth, and debunking the young psychic is a metaphor for a middle aged man falling for a beautiful and vivacious young woman.  She can't be this beautiful! She can't be this vivacious!  She can't make Colin feel so alive!  She must be debunked!  But Colin falls in love with her anyway and why not?  She is young, beautiful, wears haute couture and they are in the south of France, for goodness sake!  This is like a page out of Little Missy the Authorised Version!  Let Little Missy tell you what's going to go down.  Colin will marry Emma and the honeymoon period will last about three months (maybe three weeks is more like it) until he knows he really has her.  Then Colin will spend the next thirty years trying to debunk everything he can about Emma!  Because he's jealous of her youth and beauty!  There is no more to this movie!  Trust Little Missy on this one!  This is a great great picture, but don't read anything intellectual into it!  It's just an old misanthrope seducing and being seduced by a young girl.  This is the only time in this guy's life that he will be an empathetic, feeling person, and as soon as he's got her, it's back to his mean old ways!  

Well, hope you catch at least one of these great pictures!  Little Missy hopes you are all enjoying your summer!  Send postcards!    xxxxxxx