Even Heidi Montag can manage to be non-annoying as she teams up with director Ron Howard to plead for financial reform. Wisely, this video features Montag’s irritating husband Spencer Pratt only in a brief, non-speaking role.

Heidi Montag Says No … Read more

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Pearl and Sparkel Toursade Necklace (left) and Cashmere Gauzy Scarf (right), available at Ann Taylor. Photo: Anntaylor.com

As spring quickly approaches, stock up on warm weather essentials. Score casual attire for everything from breezy afternoons to dressy evenings out.

Ann Taylor – Spring Style Event: Buy two full-priced items and get 25% off or buy three and get 45% off. A pair of square sunglasses, a pearl and toursade statement necklace, and a gauzy cashmere scarf are definitely pieces worth adding to your spring wardrobe.

Couture Candy – Swimsuit Sale: Up to 50% off select styles. Down from $238 to $119, this Multi-Stripe Fiji Bikini is fun and flirty for an afternoon in the sun.

J.Crew – Nab an extra 30% off all final sale items. A Marché satchel in salmon will add a hint of color to a casual weekend outfit. The size is perfect for shopping – just big enough to hold all of those gift cards from the holidays!

Sale Rack – Ann Taylor, Couture Candy and J.Crew originally appeared on StyleList on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

The latest collections from Paris were full of fur and ruffles. Check out full-screen slideshows of what you missed, including Chlo’s slouchy trousers, Chanel’s wooly boots, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac’s Bambi prints, and more.

RUNWAY
Martin Grant
Vanessa Bruno
Thierry Mugler
Cacharel
Chlo

Loewe
Tim Hamilton
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac
Chanel
Valentino
Marithe + François Girbaud

Read more posts by Lauren Murrow

Filed Under: paris fashion week, fall 2010, paris at last

She may have lost the Best Actress Oscar to Sandra Bullock, but last night’s Oscars represented several triumphs for Meryl Streep. For one thing, her turn in Julie & Julia earned her a record 16th acting nomination. Not only that, but her … Read more

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Why settle for being “Miss Congeniality” when you can be Best Actress?

And, for many, in her shimmering Marchesa gown, Sandra Bullock also earned Best Dressed at last night’s 2010 Oscars ceremony.

But how does the star’s metallic number stack up against her gowns from Oscars past? Glad you asked…

Take a look back at Bullock’s red carpet style.

Sandra Bullock’s Oscar Style Evolution originally appeared on StyleList on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

In just a few days Paris Fashion Week and the fall 2010 season will come to a close. Check out the latest collections in our new runway slideshows, and click “full screen” for the full effect.

Givenchy
Yves Saint Laurent
Hussein Chalayan
Haider Ackermann
Celine

Guy Laroche
Stella McCartney
Tsumori Chisato
Chapurin
Sophia Kokosalaki
Andrew Gn
Giambattista Valli
Vronique Leroy
Kenzo
Leonard
Ann Demeulemeester
Akris
Emanuel Ungaro
John Galliano
Costume National
Sonia Rykiel

Read more posts by Amy Odell

Filed Under: paris at last, fall 2010, paris fashion week

Kathy Ireland and Charlize Theron at the 2010 Oscars. Photo: Getty Images

When it comes to Oscars hair, each year we see similar hair styles on different celebrities. Some of them nail it while others, um, don’t.

This year’s case study: The face-framing updo.

Both Kathy Ireland and Charlize Theron wore this style to the 2010 Oscars. As you can see in the photo above, Theron looks gorgeous, while Ireland looks disheveled and overdone.

How can two styles based on the same underlying idea have such shockingly different results?

We turned to celebrity hairstylist Enzo Angileri for answers.

He created Theron’s Oscars look, and the key, he says, is to not leave anything to chance. “You have to remember gravity, and chance. Things fall, and you have to anticipate that,” he says. “You can’t know what her hair is going to look like when she gets there,” he says.

He relies on tried-and-trusted techniques to make sure hair stays in place. His mane tip: When drying the hair, he bends it at the roots, to direct the entire hair where he wants it to stay. Thanks to this process, “Charlize’s hair will only move ¾ inch from her eyebrow in either direction, he says.

The right technique, combines with trustworthy products (Anglieri uses ), will ensure your ‘do ends up a “do,” rather than a “don’t.”

Oscars 2010 Good vs. Bad Hair: The Face-Framing Updo originally appeared on StyleList on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 04:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Waiters are cruising the still-empty catwalk bearing trays of champagne, chocolate lollipops, and little notepads that say Lanvin, and the song playing on the loudspeaker before the show begins is a souped up disco version of Don’t Make Me Over, which is pretty funny when you think about, because isn’t the whole point of these hundreds of runway shows, these endless fashion weeks, to make us over into something more fabulous, something more fascinating, something more astonishing to the eye?

I am so excited to be in Paris that I manage to swallow my disappointment that this particular Lanvin show does not feature the drapy, droopy Grecian formula Lanvin of my dreams. Instead, there are stiff dresses with curiously distended shoulders; some more of that fake monkey fur which has glutted all three fashion capitals (actually, though I wasn’t in Milan I suspect Mr. Monkey was, so make that four); and models wearing black wigs with scissor-cut bangs in an unwitting homage to Morticia Addams.

At the Martin Margiela show, the ushers are cloaked in those white lab coats members of his elusive enterprise always sport. Though it’s difficult to know who, in fact, is asking you to take this particular brand of medicine: the designer himself no longer has a hand in his namesake collection. (Even when he was at the helm, he was infuriatingly Wizard of Oz-like, forcing journalists to interview him by fax and answering with unilluminating Zen koan-like pronouncements issued anonymously by the house.)

That said, this particular show flaunts numerous Margiela touches: not just the magical quartet of white stitches anchoring the label that proves to your friends that, no this isn’t just any black sweater, but trousers that at first blush appear to have a tan stripe up the back which turns out on closer inspection to be bare flesh. If you are curious as to what happens when a backless pants leg ascends to the, ahem, heinie area—well so am I, especially since the first few examples are obscured by jackets. But it is soon revealed that a little half-embarrassed skirt is employed to restore modesty. In other news, there are wide-waisted skirts that make the top half of your body look like a plant emerging from a flowerpot, and a vast trapper hat with a full veil, as if Sarah Palin had decided to don a chador while still sporting the national headgear of Alaska.

At first I think that the models at Junya Watanabe are wearing super-wide chapeaux like the one Sally Fields sports in The Flying Nun (or, for you more literary types, like the soeurs wear in Ludwig Bemelmans’s Madeline) but it turns out it’s their hair, extended and teased to cartoonishly vast proportions. I am besotted with the infinite variety of army green coats and long pleated skirts here; even if you are not a fan of camo mixed with ballet tulle, I dare you to resist the nylon air force jacket, shrunken and rendered as tiny as a bolero, but with every detail reproduced in exquisite detail, as painstakingly as a miniature cathedral.

Thirteen years ago, Rei Kawakubo launched her notorious bump collection at Comme des Garons, wherein the garments were distended with tumescent-like growths. Though almost universally reviled, Kawakubo hasn’t given up on the idea—this season she offers more padded bulges, some in that glistening polyester you can see gleaming from the last row. (I can personally vouch for this.) At first I think, enough with these yucky protuberances, these deconstructed bustles and swollen pinstripes. But then it dawns on me—at this point don’t most of us spend the winter in puffy coats anyway? Maybe we should stop trying to slim down these horrible down-stuffed monstrosities—a losing battle in any case—and just give in and make them even pouffier.

See a slideshow of the Fall 2010 Lanvin collection.
See a slideshow of the Fall 2010 Maison Martin Margiela collection.

Read more posts by Lynn Yaeger

Filed Under: fashion week diary, designers, fall 2010, fashion shows, lanvin, maison martin margiela, paris fashion week

Free Fingers — gloves you flaunt your manicure in. Photo: FreeFingersByNina.com

Free Fingers — a four-month-old collection of one-of-a-kind fingerless gloves — lends a very chic hand to the fight against breast cancer.

Free Fingers founder Nina Wexler, a breast cancer survivor, turned to knitting as a sort of therapy during her treatment for the disease, and what started as a hobby has grown into a thriving business, with 100 percent of the profit from all of her “topless” gloves generously going to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF).

“I thought fingerless gloves would be a functional, yet stylish accessory,” Wexler, who also sculpts, paints and has designed a collection of decoupage handbags for Bloomingdale’s, tells StyleList.

“For me, creating something out of nothing is so exciting. I don’t work from a pattern, I just make them up as I go along,” she explains.

Wexler has made over 1,000 pairs of gloves and just recently added a men’s collection to her assortment. All her gloves, which start at around $150 a pair, are made by hand out of luxurious yarns, such as cashmere, merino, silk and alpaca, and come in stunning color combinations.

Wexler is working with event and wedding planners, allowing brides to order custom-made gloves as bridesmaid’s gifts or to be worn in winter weddings.

Her son, musician Freddy Wexler, is also getting in on the charity act. He wrote a tribute song for her, “Mom’s Song,” which will be available for download on iTunes starting March 15, with all the profits going to the BCRF.

“As Einstein said, ‘out of adversity comes opportunity,’ and I guess that’s what I’ve created here,” Wexler observes.

Find a store near you that sells Free Fingers gloves.

And check out which famous glove was auctioned off at a whopping $350,000.

Free Fingers Fingerless Gloves Deliver Style and Hope originally appeared on StyleList on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Before I left for Milan, I was shocked when I saw this item on the February 23 issue of Women’s Wear Daily:

BLOG THE VOTE: Tavi and Bryanboy could influence the next round of CFDA Fashion Award winners. For the first time, the Council of Fashion Designers of America is including bloggers in its voting process, having sent out nominating ballots to them as well as the usual group of CFDA members, editors, retailers and stylists.

New York Magazine and Women’s Wear Daily contacted me about it so I told them, well, I haven’t received anything from the CFDA. I was literally waiting for my flight to Milan at JFK when I spoke to WWD for a follow-up:

OPEN TO BLOGGERS: Every year the CFDA Award winners are chosen by a panel of CFDA members, stylists and editors. This group expands every year, and in 2010 will incorporate a select group of key fashion bloggers. Steven Kolb, executive director of the CFDA, feels their inclusion is simply a natural progression. Weve been doing the CFDA awards for 28 years, and how we did it then is different than what we do today. Were always evolving, always trying to be current, [all] without ever compromising the legitimacy or the integrity of the CFDA, said Kolb. He declined to comment on whether Tavi Gevinson and Bryanboy are of this qualified group, explaining the committee of voters will not be revealed to the public until the award ceremony June 7. To be considered for a spot on the committee, one must have a general overall presence within the industry at the New York collections and be someone who has demonstrated an individual perspective[and] is genuine and understands the industry.

Bryanboy, for one, has yet to receive notification of any kind from the CFDA. I havent received a ballotbut if they invite me, itd be an honor. I respect the CFDA and Im excited that theyre including bloggers.

The rumor of involvement in the CFDA vote, in combination with frequent e-mail communiques and invites from major design houses, led Bryanboy to state: It feels like a sea of change [in the industry].

This isnt to say every fashion-phile with a Web address should expect an invite. Kolb was sure to stress, This is not a unilateral invitation to every person whos blogging about fashion.

Fast forward to the present… I guess I spoke too much cack a wee bit too soon. It seems that my spam folder ate my notification. The CFDA sent me a follow-up email yesterday (why I haven’t sent in my nominations) so today, March 6, 2010, I sent my nominations online.

This year’s nominees are to be revealed on March 17, 2010 so tune in to www.cfda.com.

I’m very excited!

As a blogger and fashion enthusiast, it’s an honor to be part of the nominations and voting committee.

Thank you so much to the Council of Fashion Designers of America for recognizing our voice.