Women love the push-up bra, so why are designers determined to make us hide our best assets, asks Hannah Betts
Nowadays, fashion and frontage do not mix.
As the owner of a 32E bosom, I was once informed that the Vivienne Westwood clothes I was eyeing up were for women who want to look as if they have breasts, not for those already in possession of them. On another occasion, a designer stared at my unclothed form and stuttered: "Hourglass!" in tones one might use to utter the word "paedophile". Most mortifying of all was the moment an Armani tailor waved her hand dismissively across my chest, before pronouncing: "These are not Armani!"
And now Vogue has joined in. Fashion director Lucinda Chambers makes it clear that a girl's best assets are worse than last season: they are over, over, over, and must be disguised at all costs.
In the latest edition she tells a full-chested writer who wants to know how the new spring look will work for her: "You need a minimiser bra." She brooks no negotiation. "Marks & Spencer does a brilliant one. This isn't the Eighties. It isn't a pay and display moment. Hasn't been for ages. Even Roberto Cavalli didn't put any breasts out there. Dolce & Gabbana? Elegant, quiet, ladylike cocktail dresses."
A boyish physique has long been the ideal in the lush, homoerotic environs of high style. But, of late, a glossy sub-genre has flourished in which flat-chested fashionistas scorn their well-endowed sisters, or urge them to "hide and disguise" in - ye gods - bandeau tops. Gucci and Jil Sander are mad for them this spring.
So why is it that British women - 3,000 of them - have nominated the push-up bra as the greatest fashion invention of all time? In a survey conducted by Debenhams, the cantilevering brassière scored a hefty 20 per cent of the vote, well ahead of more sophisticated stalwarts such as the stiletto and Hepburn's little black dress. With the strapless bra at number eight and the grisly chicken fillet at 15, it is safe to say that paying and displaying one's assets remains a pressing popular concern.
Breasts, one may infer, represent the difference between the haute and the high street. Where flat chests are chic and classy, so heaving bosoms are judged trashy, de trop.
This should come as little surprise. Throughout history, breasts have been the playthings of class. During the Renaissance, when Elizabeth I was wont to draw attention to her sexagenarian assets, the chic bosom demanded small and perfectly formed Diane de Poitiers-style orbs. Less than a century later, the upwardly mobile breast required the more lavish proportions of a Barbara Villiers or Nell Gywn. Victorian breasts were modest, Edwardian embonpoints; Twenties bosoms were flattened, Forties appendages were recrafted as missiles.
Currently flesh is déclassé. The fashion world is still agog at the spectacle of the voluptuous and braless model Lara Stone jiggling down Prada's spring/summer catwalk. Ms Stone is apparently a 33C, a rack that could be considered pneumatic only within the most concave milieu.
Where Hollywood once boasted sweater girls, now it favours bee stings. Even Eva Herzigova, she of the uplift that bellowed "Hello, Boys", has learnt to put them away. A straining cleavage has become the benighted preserve of the glamour model and aspiring Big Brother starlet.
However, fashion has yet to curtail Nature. Over the past 10 years the average bra size has swelled from a 34B to a 36C. Marks & Spencer reveals that a quarter of the bras it sells are a D cup or larger - a statistic that has doubled in three short years. Its sizing now extends to a J cup. Bravissimo, which specialises in lingerie for the bigger breasted, has three K-cup styles.
Learning to dress such breasts is going to be essential for the well-endowed woman who does not wish to take herself off to a nunnery (and a habit would not prove a good look). All the established Trinny & Susannah maxims will apply - subtle V-necks, soft tailoring, cinched waists, finding precisely the right level of support.
More important will be a sea-change in attitude. Just as diminutive breasts denote no lack of sex appeal, so more sizeable assets should cease being considered in inverse proportion to one's style, class, or expanse of brain. We have nothing to lose but our minimiser bras.
LET YOUR CUP OVERFLOW… IN STYLE
• Get yourself fitted. Rigby & Peller has proved the answer to many a big girl's prayers. Brigitte Razet is European fit specialist for life-changing American brand Le Mystère and is frequently to be found at Harrods (lemystere.com).
• Know your styles: balcony designs are particularly useless or unflattering for the larger bust. Experts recommend "falling" into your bra. Slot your arms through the straps and bend from the waist, letting your breasts drop into the cups. The cups should contain the entire breast, and you should centre your nipple in the fullest part. Hand-wash bras to prevent loss of support.
• V-necks, nipped-in waists, tailoring - all the old chestnuts work best. Think Jessica Rabbit proportions: an imposing bust offset by a clingy pencil skirt.
• Know which retro looks work for your shape. Hello Fifties wasp waists and Forties tailoring. Goodbye Sixties smocks and Twenties drop waists.
• This season, Vogue recommends: subtle prints, tuxedo jackets, the Fifties silhouette, Gucci or Jil Sander bandeau tops, a Lanvin black-belted coat dress and an Antonio Berardi jumpsuit.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tips for newbies on the fashion show scene
Going to your first fashion show can be intimidating. Quick's Lesley Téllez interviewed F!Dluxe's David Ninh about how to prepare for Fashion at the Park at NorthPark Center.
OK, first question: What should you wear?
Dallas weather can be so fickle, but I am going to assume it will be warm and toasty. Try to look polished! Ladies, a colorful dress will make you stand out and ensure you get snapped by roving photographers. Dressy jeans with a flirty top and cropped jacket are also acceptable. Guys, please take it up a notch and attempt to sport a casual blazer, or at least a nice button-down or light sweater.
Anything special you should bring? A notebook to jot down notes, perhaps?
Bring a digital camera to record all the action on and off the runway. Since Fashion at the Park's shows feature merchandise that is available in the stores, you can take pictures of what you like and go buy it from the store that day.
How important is hanging out in the tent where they serve the champagne?
Believe me, the champagne flows before the shows. It's never-ending. Keep in mind you can't take it in the tent during the show. Sorry!
What's your best overall advice for someone who's never been to a fashion show before?
Indulge in all the fabulousness, but don't overdo it. And don't be tacky and hit on the models roving around at the tent after the shows. Feel free to holler and cheer because the night shows tend to be more high-energy and can get a bit rowdy.
http://www.dallasnews.com/
OK, first question: What should you wear?
Dallas weather can be so fickle, but I am going to assume it will be warm and toasty. Try to look polished! Ladies, a colorful dress will make you stand out and ensure you get snapped by roving photographers. Dressy jeans with a flirty top and cropped jacket are also acceptable. Guys, please take it up a notch and attempt to sport a casual blazer, or at least a nice button-down or light sweater.
Anything special you should bring? A notebook to jot down notes, perhaps?
Bring a digital camera to record all the action on and off the runway. Since Fashion at the Park's shows feature merchandise that is available in the stores, you can take pictures of what you like and go buy it from the store that day.
How important is hanging out in the tent where they serve the champagne?
Believe me, the champagne flows before the shows. It's never-ending. Keep in mind you can't take it in the tent during the show. Sorry!
What's your best overall advice for someone who's never been to a fashion show before?
Indulge in all the fabulousness, but don't overdo it. And don't be tacky and hit on the models roving around at the tent after the shows. Feel free to holler and cheer because the night shows tend to be more high-energy and can get a bit rowdy.
http://www.dallasnews.com/
Friday, February 15, 2008
Suited for the occasion
Rockets center Yao Ming, like most NBA players, is familiar with Turner Sports reporter Craig Sager's sense of fashion, which is, in a word, eclectic, and his pace of acquisition, which is, in a word, constant.
At any given time, Sager's 30-foot by 10-foot walk-in closet in his suburban Atlanta home contains a rotating cast of 100 suits, 100 sports jackets and perhaps 200 ties — so many choices that his wife, Stacy, has to make do with closet space in their children's bedrooms.
And so Yao should have realized the potential for the unexpected when he suggested to Sager, after an interview in Yao's hometown of Shanghai several years ago, that they go clothes shopping.
"Ninety percent of silk comes from China," Sager said. "So we go to a suit shop with all this raw silk. But it's boring — all blacks and grays."
In another part of the store, however, several brightly colored bolts caught Sager's eye.
"What's that?" he asked.
Yao stared at him.
"That's the women's section," he said. "Those are for dresses."
"Well, that's what I like," Sager replied. "Let's go over there."
And so they did, which is how Sager acquired a raspberry-colored Chinese silk sports jacket that now resides in his closet, awaiting its next appearance from courtside at an NBA game on an HDTV screen near you.
"You know that look Yao has in the commercials, like he's saying, 'What's with this guy?' " Sager said. "That's the look he gave me."
The raspberry coat isn't the only item in Sager's closet with a Houston connection. Houston, in fact, looms large in Sager's sartorial legend.
At least four times a year, Sager flies to town to visit brothers Hank and Ali Taghi, whose family owns the A. Taghi men's clothing store in the Galleria area. Sager shops at practically every stop on the road, but the Taghis are his go-to guys for special occasions like the playoffs and the NBA All-Star Game.
It was Hank Taghi, in fact, who sold Sager perhaps the most famous suit in NBA television history — a silver and black reflective silk Armani number so riveting that Turner Sports officials made Sager change it during All-Star Saturday in 2001 in Washington, D.C.
"It cost, maybe, $5,000," Sager said. "It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. And they only let me wear it for a couple of hours."
The suit, which now hangs in a place of honor at an Atlanta sports bar, inspired the deathless quote from Charles Barkley that summarizes the more extreme reactions to Sager's fashion sense.
"I don't have anything against black people, white people or any kind of people," Barkley said. "But when you start letting pimps interview people, that's where I draw the line."
Barkley was joking — sort of. Fortunately, Sager enjoys the jibes from such noted fashion critics as Shaquille O'Neal, who said Sager's outfits are "horri-awful — horrible and awful combined;" TNT analyst and former Rockets player Kenny Smith, who describes Sager as "the Liberace of the NBA;" and fellow ex-Rocket and current ESPN analyst Jon Barry, who, informed that Sager shops in Houston for clothes, said, "That's interesting. I thought he made them himself."
Such comments, however, send Hank Taghi, whose current and former client list includes Hakeem Olajuwon, Barkley, Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley and others, scurrying to his customer's defense.
"Craig likes fun, colorful things," Taghi said. "He wears them well. Some people can't wear strong colors. They can't handle things that stand out. But some carry it very well. You have to have a strong personality to carry it off."
With the 2008 All-Star Game events taking place this weekend in New Orleans, Sager began preparing several months ago for his weekend ensembles. When he came to Houston last week to work a Rockets game on TNT, his first stop was at A. Taghi to pick up his All-Star coat — a navy blue crushed-velvet number with cream piping assembled for the Houston store by a London tailor.
"It's my Ringo Starr look," Sager said, referring to the fashion style preferred by the former Beatles drummer in the band's late 1960s incarnation.
More specifically, it's probably what Ringo Starr would wear if Ringo owned a New Orleans riverboat.
With the velvet jacket, Sager will wear off-white pants, a white shirt with medium blue stripes and a tie that matches navy blue pleats with royal blue fabric studded with about a half-carat of diamonds.
Tonight's ensemble will feature a peach, pink and teal jacket, light teal shirt and pants and a brown-and-light-blue polka-dot tie.
In two weeks, he'll be back to pick up a carnation-colored linen sports jacket and a few more items to take him through the regular season. And he'll probably return in April or May to stock up before the playoffs.
"I can't wear the same thing in the playoffs. Barkley would kill me," he said. "We have to come up with something new. The players elevate their game. I have to elevate mine. I don't want to wear something that I wore in November in Cleveland to a playoff game in Houston."
Sager, who set his fashion style by wearing Nehru jackets to high school in the 1960s, receives a clothing allowance from Turner, but it's not enough, he said, to make it through one trip to A. Taghi's. He doesn't know how much he spends on clothes annually, adding, "I should be on a budget. But I'm not."
Sager clearly enjoys the attention and the occasional ridicule that his style inspires among players but said, "I don't dress for TV. I dress for me.
"My first job in TV, I showed up wearing a blue and yellow seersucker suit. The director said, 'Ooh, that's not good for TV,' but I wore it anyway. You've got to have fun with it."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/5543366.html
At any given time, Sager's 30-foot by 10-foot walk-in closet in his suburban Atlanta home contains a rotating cast of 100 suits, 100 sports jackets and perhaps 200 ties — so many choices that his wife, Stacy, has to make do with closet space in their children's bedrooms.
And so Yao should have realized the potential for the unexpected when he suggested to Sager, after an interview in Yao's hometown of Shanghai several years ago, that they go clothes shopping.
"Ninety percent of silk comes from China," Sager said. "So we go to a suit shop with all this raw silk. But it's boring — all blacks and grays."
In another part of the store, however, several brightly colored bolts caught Sager's eye.
"What's that?" he asked.
Yao stared at him.
"That's the women's section," he said. "Those are for dresses."
"Well, that's what I like," Sager replied. "Let's go over there."
And so they did, which is how Sager acquired a raspberry-colored Chinese silk sports jacket that now resides in his closet, awaiting its next appearance from courtside at an NBA game on an HDTV screen near you.
"You know that look Yao has in the commercials, like he's saying, 'What's with this guy?' " Sager said. "That's the look he gave me."
The raspberry coat isn't the only item in Sager's closet with a Houston connection. Houston, in fact, looms large in Sager's sartorial legend.
At least four times a year, Sager flies to town to visit brothers Hank and Ali Taghi, whose family owns the A. Taghi men's clothing store in the Galleria area. Sager shops at practically every stop on the road, but the Taghis are his go-to guys for special occasions like the playoffs and the NBA All-Star Game.
It was Hank Taghi, in fact, who sold Sager perhaps the most famous suit in NBA television history — a silver and black reflective silk Armani number so riveting that Turner Sports officials made Sager change it during All-Star Saturday in 2001 in Washington, D.C.
"It cost, maybe, $5,000," Sager said. "It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. And they only let me wear it for a couple of hours."
The suit, which now hangs in a place of honor at an Atlanta sports bar, inspired the deathless quote from Charles Barkley that summarizes the more extreme reactions to Sager's fashion sense.
"I don't have anything against black people, white people or any kind of people," Barkley said. "But when you start letting pimps interview people, that's where I draw the line."
Barkley was joking — sort of. Fortunately, Sager enjoys the jibes from such noted fashion critics as Shaquille O'Neal, who said Sager's outfits are "horri-awful — horrible and awful combined;" TNT analyst and former Rockets player Kenny Smith, who describes Sager as "the Liberace of the NBA;" and fellow ex-Rocket and current ESPN analyst Jon Barry, who, informed that Sager shops in Houston for clothes, said, "That's interesting. I thought he made them himself."
Such comments, however, send Hank Taghi, whose current and former client list includes Hakeem Olajuwon, Barkley, Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley and others, scurrying to his customer's defense.
"Craig likes fun, colorful things," Taghi said. "He wears them well. Some people can't wear strong colors. They can't handle things that stand out. But some carry it very well. You have to have a strong personality to carry it off."
With the 2008 All-Star Game events taking place this weekend in New Orleans, Sager began preparing several months ago for his weekend ensembles. When he came to Houston last week to work a Rockets game on TNT, his first stop was at A. Taghi to pick up his All-Star coat — a navy blue crushed-velvet number with cream piping assembled for the Houston store by a London tailor.
"It's my Ringo Starr look," Sager said, referring to the fashion style preferred by the former Beatles drummer in the band's late 1960s incarnation.
More specifically, it's probably what Ringo Starr would wear if Ringo owned a New Orleans riverboat.
With the velvet jacket, Sager will wear off-white pants, a white shirt with medium blue stripes and a tie that matches navy blue pleats with royal blue fabric studded with about a half-carat of diamonds.
Tonight's ensemble will feature a peach, pink and teal jacket, light teal shirt and pants and a brown-and-light-blue polka-dot tie.
In two weeks, he'll be back to pick up a carnation-colored linen sports jacket and a few more items to take him through the regular season. And he'll probably return in April or May to stock up before the playoffs.
"I can't wear the same thing in the playoffs. Barkley would kill me," he said. "We have to come up with something new. The players elevate their game. I have to elevate mine. I don't want to wear something that I wore in November in Cleveland to a playoff game in Houston."
Sager, who set his fashion style by wearing Nehru jackets to high school in the 1960s, receives a clothing allowance from Turner, but it's not enough, he said, to make it through one trip to A. Taghi's. He doesn't know how much he spends on clothes annually, adding, "I should be on a budget. But I'm not."
Sager clearly enjoys the attention and the occasional ridicule that his style inspires among players but said, "I don't dress for TV. I dress for me.
"My first job in TV, I showed up wearing a blue and yellow seersucker suit. The director said, 'Ooh, that's not good for TV,' but I wore it anyway. You've got to have fun with it."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/5543366.html
London Fashion Week: Vivienne Westwood
The high priestess of punk, Dame Vivienne Westwood, who has vowed to vote Conservative at the next election, could not resist a political statement at her first catwalk show in London for 10 years.
She opened her Red Label collection at London Fashion Week with a male model wearing "Guantanamo Orange" underpants and a girl carrying a placard protesting for the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Star models included the daughter of actor Ray Winstone, Jaime, in a plaid micro-mini and the socialite Alice Dellal, in hot pants with her hair half-shaved in a punk tribute to Dame Vivienne.
The collection covered looks from Miss Marple to Miss Moneypenny, and models with teased "Penelope Tree" hair and platform shoes.
Dame Vivienne took her bow in a pencil skirt, platforms and a blouse covered with protest badges.
"It feels like being at home," she said.
Luella Bartley's collection - inspired by living in Cornwall and tales of witches, fairies and pixies - saw trapeze-line coats, knitted pixie hats with mismatched tweed suiting and delicate, ribbon-trimmed frocks in flower-fairy pastels.
In the front row her cool customers - Lily Allen, Kelly Osbourne, Alexa Chung, Emilia Fox and Rod Stewart's daughter, Kimberly - wore her short, strapless prom frocks.
London-based Erdem Moralioglu, winner of the 2007 £50,000 British Fashion Council Enterprise Award, proved the investment in his talent was well-placed.
The 30-year-old designer created his own spectacular fauna and flora prints, woven by specialist mills on Lake Como.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
She opened her Red Label collection at London Fashion Week with a male model wearing "Guantanamo Orange" underpants and a girl carrying a placard protesting for the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Star models included the daughter of actor Ray Winstone, Jaime, in a plaid micro-mini and the socialite Alice Dellal, in hot pants with her hair half-shaved in a punk tribute to Dame Vivienne.
The collection covered looks from Miss Marple to Miss Moneypenny, and models with teased "Penelope Tree" hair and platform shoes.
Dame Vivienne took her bow in a pencil skirt, platforms and a blouse covered with protest badges.
"It feels like being at home," she said.
Luella Bartley's collection - inspired by living in Cornwall and tales of witches, fairies and pixies - saw trapeze-line coats, knitted pixie hats with mismatched tweed suiting and delicate, ribbon-trimmed frocks in flower-fairy pastels.
In the front row her cool customers - Lily Allen, Kelly Osbourne, Alexa Chung, Emilia Fox and Rod Stewart's daughter, Kimberly - wore her short, strapless prom frocks.
London-based Erdem Moralioglu, winner of the 2007 £50,000 British Fashion Council Enterprise Award, proved the investment in his talent was well-placed.
The 30-year-old designer created his own spectacular fauna and flora prints, woven by specialist mills on Lake Como.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
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