Glamour Girl
The snow has melted (thanks be!), the daffodils and forsythia are blooming, and spring has definitely sprung. So you’re probably not thinking of winter clothes anymore. But ‘tis the season for all things winter to go on sale, and that includes the most cruel of fashion accents, fur.
We in Maryland can be proud that our first lady, Katie O’Malley doesn’t wear fur. And neither does the country’s first lady, Michelle Obama, nor the first lady of France, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. There are, in fact, quite a few first ladies who shun fur, as this column by Laura Vozzella of the Baltimore Sun points out. Someone you might call the first lady of television, Oprah Winfrey, is also in the no-fur group; so is Candace Parker of the WNBA.
I expect this entry to generate some heat, and so be it, but before anyone weighs in, I think the facts are in order. First of all, you can easily get a wide variety of fake fur clothing and accessories these days that look as good as the real thing and are nearly as warm (we don’t live in Siberia; you don’t need to bundle up against sub-zero temperatures). Fabulous Furs, whose products are made of acrylic, is one purveyor. Prefurs is another.
Second, the claim that “animals are raised for this purpose” is disingenuous at best and willfully ignorant at worst. The vast majority of commercial fur these days comes from abroad, especially China, as you can see when you look at a label that indicates “fur of imported origin” or just plain “imported.” There are little to no regulations about how animals are treated. But no matter where the fur comes from, the conditions under which these animals are killed are simply horrific. They do not go gently into this or any other good night. They are brutally beaten and stomped on to render them dazed but not unconscious, and they are often skinned alive. By the hundreds of thousands.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at this video from Swiss Animal Protection, or read about it here.
This is torture, pure and simple, and no amount of prettied-up euphemism or slick marketing can change that.
If you’re going to wear fur, you should at least know what it is you’re wearing and the gruesome reality of how it got to market. Many people who coo and fuss over their pets and would never think of hurting them turn a blind eye when it comes to mink, fox, raccoon, rabbit, beaver, bear, and on and on. And since labels in the U.S. don’t even have to indicate what kind of fur is being used, you might be buying fur from Fido or Muffy that’s being passed off as something else—not that it should matter: skinning a wolf or raccoon alive is just as barbaric and unconscionable as doing the same to a cat or dog.
Quoting from the Humane Society: “On fur factory farms and squalid backyard operations around the world, over 45 million animals, including raccoon dogs, rabbits, foxes, mink, and chinchillas, spend their short lives in tiny wire cages until they are killed by methods such as neck-breaking and anal electrocution.”
Amidst all the uproar over Michael Vick and his former hobby, there was nary a peep about the cruelty the rest of us are party to if we wear, or support the wearing of, fur.
The Humane Society of the United States has a lot more info on this topic if you’re interested.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a few more points of controversy. There are many people who believe that even the wearing of fake fur is indefensible because it’s giving the impression that one is wearing real fur. This is, obviously, debatable. I wear a faux mink coat from Fabulous Furs that I make a point of telling people is fake, to spread the word that you can have a beautiful look without brutally slaughtering animals. Second, there are many vintage fashion lovers who believe that wearing vintage is the only responsible way to wear fur. Again, debatable. Sensible argument or self-serving rationalization? I have several cashmere sweaters with mink collars from the 1950s that I bought on eBay years ago. My rationale is that if it was created before I was born (1957), I’ll wear it. If after, I won’t.
But I’m starting to rethink even that stance. What, after all, constitutes “vintage”? How old? What about someone born in 1970? Or 1985? Or 1990? Or beyond? If she wears fur clothing that was manufactured before she was born, what difference does that make? You still have an infinite loop. The fur that’s skinned off a living creature today will, someday, be on an article of clothing manufactured before somebody else out there was born. So maybe this position is rank hypocrisy.
On the other hand, if, hypothetically, all slaughter of fur-bearing animals were stopped today, we’d still have millions of pieces of clothing with fur. Should we build a bonfire and destroy them all? Would that be a logical, humane position in keeping with a declaration to not wear fur?
And what about leather? It, too, comes from animals. Cat slaughterhouses in the Philippines and dog slaughterhouses in Thailand are also horrific places—30,000 animals a month are killed there. The skins from these countries end up in the U.S. and Europe as well as Asia. When we buy a leather bag or leather shoes or leather gloves, what are we really buying? (There are now many places to buy fake-leather-but-feels-as-good-as-the-real-thing, as I wrote about here, and more are cropping up all the time.)
It’s a lot to think about. But ignorance, in this case, is not bliss. It’s better to think about this stuff and make up one’s own mind than to follow along blindly and pretend these things don’t exist. Please leave your comments below.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/22/10 at 12:55 PM
Well, it was the worst Academy Awards ceremony in memory—Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin bombed so badly and so often it was embarrassing (why didn’t they demand better writing?? Billy Crystal, please come back!!)—the musical dance number was a mess, the memorial tribute kept getting interrupted by bits of dialogue that were supposed to complement James Taylor’s singing but just broke the mood, and the pace was plodding —but the Kodak Theater, dressed in ribbons and discs of illuminated crystal, looked spectacular, and so did the ladies on the red carpet.
Well, some of them anyway.
Though a rather bland, hard-to-wear pewter seemed to be the color of the evening, some of the stars pulled it off to glam effect, none more superbly than Sandra Bullock:
In a form-fitting silver Marchesa gown with sequin-embroidered bodice and satin train, Bullock was every inch the Hollywood star. She looked, in fact, like an awards statuette herself. Only quibble: her hair. As I’ve written about before, such highly formal occasions call for formal hairdos, and the loosey-goosey locks of so many starlets these days just doesn’t cut it.
Also in the pewter family, though more a barely-there ice-blue, Amanda Seyfried’s Armani Privé dress was a very Cinderella gown, but she’s so pale she sort of disappeared in it:
The ever-elegant Kate Winslet, whose sartorial taste is as impeccable as that of another Cate (Blanchett), also opted for pewter, by Yves St. Laurent, and though the gown was simple and plain, with her perfect figure and Veronica Lake hair, she, too, exemplified Old Hollywood glamour:
In addition to that silvery grey, pale, almost nude pastels were also the order of the night, with Miley Cyrus, Cameron Diaz, and Anna Kendrick donning some variation thereof. But the the knock-out gown in this colorway was the Armani Privé creation worn by Jennifer Lopez. A shimmering palest-pink silk organza with a huge train covered in Swarovski crystals, this was the statement dress of the evening. I have a feeling it’s going to divide the critics, with some hating it and some loving it, but I thought it was magnificent:
The Goddess—Meryl Streep—looked superb in a pure white tuxedo-cut silk crepe gown by Chris March, with hair up, simple square diamond earrings, and one wide diamond bracelet. She positively glowed:
Now on to color. Once again, Penelope Cruz swept aside all who came before her in a burgundy-red satin pleated ballgown by Donna Karan. She was stunning. The heiress to Sophia Loren:
But there was a return to the inexplicable ruffle fetish recently on display at the Golden Globes, with a few egregious sinners. One was Vera Farmiga in Marchesa. Enveloped in red ruffles, her face barely peeking out over the abundance of fanning and pleating, she looked like if you lit a fuse to her she would explode:
Even worse was Zoe Saldana in lavender-to-purple ombré disaster. It was Moulin Rouge meets Flamenco Girls Gone Wild:
But this is another one that’s going to divide the belles dames sans merci. The San Jose Mercury News called it “a couple of poodles that wandered into a paintball competition.” But the Telegraph of London anointed it the best gown of the night. (It’s Givenchy, by the way, designed by Riccardo Tisci.) I will say this—Saldana is barely out of her 20s, and there was a certain joie de vivre in her choice. She looked like a young girl out for her first big party, excited to be there and having fun, and she didn’t play it safe; there’s a lot to be said for that.
Here’s another that’s sure to set the tongues wagging. I admit I went back and forth on it, finally coming around, with some reservations. Sarah Jessica Parker in golden, glimmering Chanel:
First off, she’s got a whole ultra-high-glamour 1960s thing going on, with that big hairpiece, cat’s eye makeup, and the Grecian goddess silhouette of the gown. It’s an image that packs a lot of punch. (Actually, it reminds me of Streisand in her youth.) The heavily beaded steel-grey metallic rosettes on front and back were exquisite, the simplicity of the rest of the dress serving to enhance rather than detract from them. On the other hand, there’s always something odd about dresses that just fall straight from the top and conceal a woman’s body—you could be 90 pounds or 200 pounds underneath. The bodice also seemed to shift back and forth on its own as she moved. But this is nit-picking. Overall, it was a wow.
Charlize Theron is another woman finely attuned to high fashion, and she took a chance with a lavender-mauve Christian Dior satin gown. The train and drape were great, but you can’t get away from the fact that the flowers on the bodice looked like they were grabbing her breasts:
There’s no way this gown wasn’t inspired by American designer Jo Copeland, who did a similar, but, frankly, much more accomplished rosettes-on-breasts thing for a red cocktail dress back in the 1950s, and if I can ever retrieve the photo from my USB device I’ll show you.
Queen Latifah also opted for a lavender mauvey-pink in a sophisticated cut, and she looked spectacular. She really lives up to her name. Someone give this woman a scepter!
Several women had the blues, including Gaby (Gabourey) Sidibe in crystal-embroidered Marchesa, Maggie Gyllenhaal in a watercolor Dries van Noten with simple bellflower earrings, and Mo’nique in royal blue Tadashi with a gardenia in her hair, tributes, she said, to Hattie McDaniel, who was the first black actress to win an Academy Award, for Gone with the Wind, in 1940:
Helen Mirren, of course, looked gorgeous in yet another age-appropriate, figure-appropriate, one-of-a-kind gown, a Badgley Mischka of the palest lavender-blue chiffon sprinkled with sequins, with Chopard jewelry. We always expect the best from Dame Mirren and we always get it:
What we also always get is the worst from Mariah Carey. In cringe-inducing navy crepe slit up to kingdom come, spilling out of her top, as usual, and sucking in every pore to within an inch of her life, also as usual, she was a frightening apparition (and I know, I know, she considers gowns like this “conservative”):
It’s about damn time a woman won for Best Director, so all hail Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker. It was a big occasion. Why, then, did she look like she just fell out of bed? The gown was fine, a YSL bodice-embroidered, mocha-colored skin-tight sheath—her figure is fab, though she didn’t seem to know it, as she kept pressing in her tiny waist and holding her breath (even on the red carpet, before the understandably breathtaking moment of her win). But the hair. Her hair! Ugh!! This was the unkempt, undone, split-down-the-middle, hippie-dippie look of high school 40 years ago, not a grown-up look for a grown-up woman on one of the most important nights of her life. I just don’t get it:
I’ll finish with black, not, as you know, my favorite color, but Tina Fey looked very soignée in it, a one-shouldered Michael Kors sequined sheath:
Only thing I’d add would be face-brightening red lipstick, another throwback to the Golden Age of Hollywood that seems to have gone out of favor.
All in all, a tame night for which Glamour Girl had a hard time staying awake. Weigh in with your comments below.
(P.S. Still searching for a picture of Oprah, because she looked so beautiful in that dark blue Carolina Herrera gown—please, oh, please, could I have her haidresser, makeup artist, and stylist for just one night?!)
UPDATE: Found it!
And if you need more of an Oscar fashion fix, check out this Oscar Fashion Review I did for NPR in 2007.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/08/10 at 10:01 AM
