On This Day In Fashion on the radio!

A few days ago I taped a fun segment for radio show "KUOW Presents" about teen fashion, the bottom-up theory and two films that demonstrate the evolution and growing influence of street style versus designer style. The piece just aired, and it's always kind of wild to listen to the edited down conversation. (There's also nothing weirder then listening to myself talk about teenagers and my students like I'm a hip old lady who's down with "kids these days." I've no doubt that every 13-year-old who is forced to hear this segment while trapped in their parents' car will label me an out-of-touch nerd.) Still, I feel like there's so much more I can say (and clarify, natch) about this topic! Host Jeannie Yandel did an awesome job, as always, catching the core ideas behind the films, as well as my own gushing reaction to one of my favorite films when I was a teenager: Valley Girl.
Click here to listen to us chat about James Dean's cool style in Rebel Without a Cause and how Nicholas Cage stole my 12-year-old heart in Valley Girl.

New stories in Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air magazines

Check out my two articles offering up fun things to see and do in Seattle and the Eastside beginning on page 68 in the current issue of Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air magazines. It's always fun to work with the (local) team at Alaska!

The Basye-Davis Wedding in Seattle Bride!

The issue hit newsstands last month, so I figure it was about time to post it: Todd's and my wedding featured in the upcoming issue of Seattle Bride magazine! This wasn't a shocker, of course. After Todd proposed, one of the first people I called was Rachel Hart, the editor of Seattle magazine and editorial director of all the Seattle-based Tiger Oak publications, and one of my longtime mentors. Rachel has been rooting for a Basye wedding for almost as long as we've been friends, and we both got our wish last August. So I had an inkling she might ask to feature the wedding in Northwest Album, the section that highlights fun, local weddings, and maybe even have me pen the thing, which I happily did. But I had no idea she'd dedicate four pages to it! I feel very honored, and I think art director Alicia Nammacher did an amazing job fitting so many photos into a flattering layout. All the photos are by Cheri Pearl of Cheri Pearl Photography.

I'm featured on Kelley Moore's blog, For the Love of Design, today!

I'm honored to be featured on lifestyle expert Kelley Moore's blog, For the Love of Design. In her Ramblings column, a Q&A with design-centric types, I share my biggest pet peeves, greatest extravagances and how I feel about fashion police. If you don't read a lot of design magazines and are not familiar with Kelley, I suggest you click over to KelleyLMoore.com and spend some time getting to know her work—it's endlessly inspiring.

Credits: Photo by Benjamin Benshneider for the Seattle Times.

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Top On This Day In Fashion Moments in 2010

Is it too soon in the history of On This Day In Fashion to create a top-moments list? And can a top-moments list be such a thing if the items are in no particular order? We’ve been up and running since June 27, but had so much fun over the past six months, and ‘tis the season, after all. I couldn’t let 2010 close without commemorating a few favorite moments, like an On This Day In Fashion six months of Greatest Hits:

Um, we made the cover of Seattle Magazine? Crazy! I still pretty much shake my head in disbelief over this one. I remember on the day I went in to do the shoot for this cover, I had to quickly run off to interview NBA Hall-of-Famer Lenny Wilkens for an unrelated assignment, and I thought to myself: Is this day real, or am I going to wake up soon? I don’t care if it’s narcissistic: This cover will forever hang framed on my office wall!



On This Day In Fashion on the TV! Think of it like an “On This Day In Fashion in Seattle…” segment, in which we homed in on the anniversary of Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis’s seminal grunge collection, the moment in fashion history when

Ali on the Radio!

I just finished a really fun segment on 94.9-FM's KUOW Presents, about vintage December-released films that offer great take-away fashion. All three films were recently featured on On This Day In Fashion: Morocco (1930), starring Marlene Dietrich and her tuxedo; Saturday Night Fever (1977), starring John Travolta and his 19-year-old polyester-clad ham; and Out of Africa (1985), starring Meryl Streep and her amazing hats.

This is the second time KUOW has hosted On This Day In Fashion, and I don't think I was quite as relaxed as the first time around, but maybe it was just because I love these three films so much. You be the judge. Writers Katrina Ernst and Kristine Lloyd brilliantly wrote the Cinemodes about the films—The New York Times even picked up and linked to Saturday Night Fever (!!)—so big kudos to those writers.

You can listen to the five-minute segment on

Me on the Tee-Vee

Exciting news: Today I did a short fashion segment on Seattle morning show New Day Northwest, to talk about the November anniversary of Marc Jacobs' notorious grunge collection for Perry Ellis in 1992 and the return of grunge style in 2010. I teamed up with the stylistas at Ajentse, representing photographers, stylists and hair and makeup artists, and Heffner Management, the largest modeling agency on the West Coast, to put together a cool segment and fashion show that illustrated the "new grunge," the rebirth of a Northwest style.


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Watch the video above and read all about it On This Day In Fashion.

Q&A with Rebel Without a Cause Screenwriter Stewart Stern

Back in 1999 at the beginning of my magazine career, I interviewed Rebel without a Cause screenwriter Stewart Stern for Seattle magazine, where I was an editor. In the spirit of today's Cinemode, Rebel without a Cause, I thought it would be fun to dig up this lost interview after all these years and post it on On This Day In Fashion. The short Q&A with Stern centers around how I'd recently discovered that the screenwriter—the nephew of Paramount Pictures founder Adoph Zukor and actress Mary Pickford, and first cousins to the Loews, who ruled MGM—had traded in the jungles of Hollywood for the wilds of Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, where he was a hiding out as a docent with the gorillas. Stewart was a peach, and we talked in his garden and living room for about three hours. I didn't ask him about fashion or style, but he talked about James Dean and surprised me with a cool Jim Morrison story and another about his aunt, the legendary actress and "It" girl, Mary Pickford.

It took me hours to find this little gem—probably the fourth or fifth story I ever published—on an old disk, and now I'm determined to find the mini-cassette tape I recorded the whole thing on. I don't remember exactly what was on that tape (lots of family bits and a conversation about the homosexual undertones of Rebel comes to mind), I only remember that as a young writer I was devastated at all the words I had to cut. When (if) I ever find that tape, I'll maybe transcribe it and post the whole long-lost interview. In the meantime, this conversation is what made the cut for publication:

Cinemode: Rebel Without a Cause

It was supposed to be filmed in black and white. Rebel without a Cause was already in production when the studio made the decision to switch to color Cinemascope, introducing entirely new concepts for the cinematographer and costume designer. Thanks to the inexplicable change of plans, when Rebel was released on this day in 1955, audiences were able to drink in James Dean’s saturated red jacket, bright white shirt and deep indigo blue jeans. These three everyday items of clothing worn together by Dean have become the most iconic jean-and-T-shirt combination in movie history, and literally changed what teenagers perceived as cool. For the first time, dressing down was more favorable than dressing up.

The film about a troubled heartthrob looking for love and respect followed the success of Blackboard Jungle and The Wild One, the first films to depict young people as complicated and unhappy rather than obedient and cheerful. Director Nicholas Ray was passionate about wanting to depict the teenagers as realistically as possible, and he obsessed over every minutia of detail, even homing in on the symbolic use of color and how the costumes interacted in a landscape of primary tones.

Skirting the Law

I haven't posted a story about the history of the skirt in a while, but this item is too good to pass up. Yesterday the mayor of Castellammare di Stabia, a southern Italian resort town, "has ordered police officers to fine women who wear short miniskirts or show too much cleavage, as part of a battle to raise what he describes as the level of public decorum," according to an article in the Guardian today.

Banning short skirts and arresting women for the length of their hemlines began long before the miniskirt was introduced in 1964, though Tunisia was the first country to ban the skirt altogether, soon followed by other African and Muslim nations, including Malawi, Madagascar and Swaziland. Twenty-six years later miniskirts were again outlawed in Swaziland in 2000 when it was believed that wearing them encouraged the spread of AIDS. Many men vocally defended the ban, vowing to rape any women they saw wearing miniskirts, saying, "They want to be raped and we're giving them what they want." The classic "they're asking for it" theory often comes up when a skirt ban is on the books. One example is from 2006, when then South African deputy president Jacob Zuma allegedly raped a 31-year-old AIDS activist because she crossed her legs in a knee-length skirt, signaling her desire to be raped, according to Zuma. "In Zulu culture you can't leave a woman when

The Bra That Wasn't There

This post was reblogged from the October 22, 2010, edition of On This Day In Fashion.


They called him an “enemy of the church,” a menace and, my personal favorite, “the Bolivar of the Bosom,” a reference to the 19th-century general who helped lead Spain to independence. But Los Angeles–based designer Rudi Gernreich didn’t have a fixation on breasts, as many critics angrily contended. Nope, Gernreich was quite happily gay, and his appreciation for nudity transcended gender and singular body parts. He insisted his interest was not in exploiting women’s bodies, but in freeing them from binding, structured garments. He aimed to create clothing that followed the tides of fashion, though most of his designs—the topless bathing suit, the thong, the see-through blouse and psychedelic color combinations—were more innovative than consequential. Which is how on this day in 1964, Gernreich came to launch the No-Bra Bra, a featherweight pairing of two bias-cut triangles of sheer nylon net molded with only a single small dart. The elasticized shoulder straps, wrote fashion doyenne Eugenia Sheppard, “are as narrow as strings…and invisible as nothing.”

Light and invisible as it may have been, from Gernreich’s perspective, the bra wasn’t small enough. “I kept trying to make it briefer,” he said, “but there’s still too much going on.”

Cinemode: West Side Story

The film starts with finger snaps, of all things. Snaps as intimidation, snaps as tension, snaps as power and control and, of course, snaps as cool. Somehow, through coordinated snapping, West Side Story sets a tone for a different way of experiencing film: through color, angles, movement and sound. It might be the coolest film ever made and one of the most stylish, too. It’s the musical for people who hate musicals, a love story for people who hate love stories, a play about guys and gang warfare adapted for the screen that guys and, I’m guessing, gang members, like as much as gals typically do. When it premiered in New York City on this day in 1961, it created a new dialogue about teenagers, immigrants and the inner city, all while looking very, very cool. It’s no wonder it won 10 Academy Awards—one of which was for costume design—and reinvented what we think of when we think of musicals.

To critique or discuss just the costumes of West Side Story without folding in all of the other elements—sets, dance, songs, choreography and dialogue—would be like telling just the fourth chapter of a 10 chapter book. Because all of the artists working on the film carefully coordinated to blend their piece of the story with the others, so that one element—costumes, for instance—are never in

Cinemode: All About Eve

This post is reblogged from the October 13, 2010, edition of On This Day In Fashion.

In 1947 Bette Davis already had a dresser, the famed costumer Orry-Kelly, who had worked for Warner Bros. since the early talkies. But the two fought like cats, and Kelly’s ongoing bitchy comments about Davis’s aging looks and expanding figure didn’t help the relationship. Perhaps that’s how Paramount costumer Edith Head came to accompany Davis on a shopping trip to advise her on what to wear for the upcoming film, Winter Meeting, even though it was a Warner Bros. project. Head favored the longer hemlines that were coming into style and told Davis, “Don’t let anybody talk you into wearing a tight skirt. You’re not the type.” Davis was so smitten by Head’s straightforward advice that she bought everything Head told her to, and even copied her trademark schoolmarm haircut for her Winter Meeting role as a New England spinster and submitted a request to Paramount to loan Head out to her for upcoming projects, becoming the first star to do so. This is how Edith Head came to design the costumes for 2oth Century Fox’s All About Eve, which premiered on this day in 1950.

All About Eve is a deliciously sharp and snappy behind-the-scenes look at the cutthroat world of New York theater, and well-known for its biting dialogue, particularly the famous “fasten your seatbelts” line. But another quip, an aside from the comedic actress Thelma Ritter, who plays the maid to Davis’s Margo Channing, could have summed

Ali and On This Day In Fashion on the Radio

I just wrapped up a great Cinemode segment about fashion in film on local NPR affiliate KUOW. "KUOW Presents" host Jeannie Yandel and I talked about three vintage movies that demonstrate the power of personal style, when the means at hand are entirely limited. Grey Gardens (the 1975 documentary, not the Drew Barrymore remake), Times Square (1980) and Pretty in Pink (1986). I loved how Jeannie spliced in bits from each film: Little Edie's famous monologue about her "revolutionary costume," punk rock Nicky's call to arms, and the scene where Andi's dad marvels at his daughter's creative (and very pink) seamstress skills. You can listen to the segment here (it's about five minutes long), and while you're at it, throw a few bucks toward KUOW—it's pledge-drive time! Thanks to Jeannie and KUOW for having On This Day In Fashion on the air.

Photos: Four very different fashionistas from three very different films (left to right): Grey Gardens (1975), Times Square (1980) and Pretty in Pink (1986). What do they all have in common? The leading characters have no money but pack a lot of sartorial spirit.

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Claire McCardell Knew What to Wear

This post was reblogged from the October 8, 2010, edition of On This Day in Fashion.


“Clothes should be useful.” “I like comfort.” “I do not like glitter.” These are just a few edicts from mid-20th century designer Claire McCardell, and if they sound severe, well, she meant them to. This is a woman who earned popularity with the unseemly sounding “Monastic” and “Popover” dresses and tie-over “Diaper” bathing suit, who eschewed embellishments (“I like buttons that button and bows that tie”) and used “common” fabrics like denim and sprigged cotton—even in eveningwear—so that everyone could afford her garments. Given the elitist eye attached to those who tend to green light who and what passes muster in the hallowed halls of fashion, it’s any wonder McCardell’s comparatively plain garments weren’t purposefully tucked away in a museum basement in hopes that Americans would forever forget their yen for comfort and function and develop a never-wavering taste for poorly made and rapidly changing trends. And they could have, had the Parsons Museum not launched a retrospective of McCardell’s work on this day in 1998, and the Museum at FIT hadn’t launched its own retrospective of her designs a month later. Forty years after her death, the fashion community found a newfound appreciation for the one-time Time magazine covergirl, gushingly crediting her as a chief contributor to the “American look,”

The Introduction of the Little Black Dress

Sound the trumpets and hail Chanel! October 1 marks the Officially Recognized Day of the introduction of the designer’s iconic and history-making Little Black Dress. Yep, it was on this day in 1926 that American Vogue magazine ran a small illustration (left) of what it called Chanel’s “Ford” dress, likening the modest garment to the reliable Model-T of the era and hearkening Henry Ford’s line, "any customer can have a car painted in any colour that he wants so long as it's black." This was a time when twice a month, Vogue faithfully offered lengthy reviews of the Paris fashions, page after page of sketches of the latest coats, dresses, hats and gloves from the top French designers. Jeanne Lanvin, Jean Patou, Jeanne Paquin, Madeline Voinnet and Jacques Doucet received pages of descriptions detailing every element of their designs, from cuff to hemlines to buttons, and, occasionally, Mlle. Chanel earned a paragraph or two. But in 1926, Chanel’s casual designs were hardly considered true haute couture to Manhattan society ladies and Vogue editors; her jersey sportswear and unadorned dresses alone didn’t garner the six-day trip across the Atlantic by boat. So when the small sketch appeared in the October 1 issue it barely caused a stir, and it definitely didn’t incite the kind of rapturous praise the LBD, as we now call it, has received in recent decades. No, on this day, Vogue even curbed its usual gushing prose and accompanied the illustration with the following text:

Àli Mode: My Shoe Problem

This post is reblogged from today's On This Day In Fashion.

The Charles James sandals that made the cut.

Don't let the title mislead you: I'm not a shoe addict, or even a "shoe person." A bag junkie? Sometimes. Jewelry hoarder? Sure. But although I dream of wearing these and these and these, it’s probably never going to happen. Reason being I wear a size 11-wide heels (size 10½ sneaker) and there is nothing fun about shoe shopping—let alone shoe wearing—when you have oversize feet. (I’m about one more back spasm away from investing in these.) So when Oprah starts praising Jesus over her fabulous Louboutins and how shoes are a woman’s greatest fashion investment because everyone looks good in them no matter what their weight, I just want to throw my Bjorn clog at the TV screen. (Okay, I don’t own any Bjorn clogs. But I’m too lazy to go upstairs and read the labels of the ugly clunkers I do own, because either of us probably wouldn’t recognize the brand anyway). The point is, finding a really hot pair of shoes that are also made well in my size is a depressing challenge. Most stores stock one—one—pair of size 11s, absolutely no 10 1/2s and maybe two pairs of 10s. Forget about ordering online: Too many “11s” are 10s in disguise. At least there’s a Nordstrom Rack near my house—several, actually—with aisle after aisle of marked-down size 11s through 13s where I, along with a small group of cross-dressers, can usually find a few good scores. From there I’ve unearthed a pretty pair of black Louboutin pumps that fit terribly and four or five pairs of Taryn Rose

The Musician and the Designer: Bjork and Alexander McQueen Create Magic

The following post is reblogged from the September 22 edition of
On This Day In Fashion.
What defines the relationship between artist and muse? And how are those boundaries altered when the roles are interchangeable, when the artist becomes muse and vice versa? Observing the longtime collaboration between musician Björk and designer Alexander McQueen, it’s hard to say who influenced the other more often and at what times. But the conversation began on the subject when Björk released her fourth record, Homogenic, on this day in 1997, and her image on the album cover received nearly as much attention as the songs inside. The elfin chanteuse fans loved was obliterated, replaced by a fierce snow queen styled in a nebulous blend of intergalactic references and historical costuming. With her insect-like contacts, Leia-on-steroids hair and geisha gown of armor, Björk crossed over into a new genre, a league of otherworldly, high-fashion aliens that sanctioned the very few: David Bowie, Grace Jones, Siouxie Sioux, Klaus Nomi, Laurie Anderson, Marilyn Mason and some others. (Comparisons of Bjork to Lady Gaga are moot: Gaga’s outrageous

Fashion Week Here and There

This editor's note post is reblogged from the September 15 edition of On This Day In Fashion.


As we roll into our third month parked here on the www, you may have noticed a few recent changes and updates to On This Day In Fashion. If not, allow me to give you the dime tour: A long overdue project—masthead bios and photos—have been posted on the About Us page so stop on by and pay us a visit. Cinemode, one of the most-read features on the site, got its own page yesterday, so you can skip on over there and more easily read through our fashion-in-film movie reviews. (Coming up soon: Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina!) Also, in honor of New York’s 67th annual fashion week taking place as I write and you read, all this week we have been running a “7th Avenue Special!” series, reruns of New York–centric stories from OTDIF that highlight the history and achievements of the city’s Garment District and Seventh Avenue. I am especially fond of today’s story written by Cody Bay, about how plucky New York girls and women bandied together, stood up to their mob bosses and formed the very first garment worker’s union. I really enjoy all of the 7th Avenue Specials, but today's is a definite must-read.

As far as Fashion Week goes, you’ve probably noticed that we are Twittering things we see and like, and delivering Daily Fashion Alerts on the day’s goings-on. I think when

Thrifty!

This post was reblogged from the September 5 edition of On This Day In Fashion.

Confession: I love shopping at Goodwill. I'm not just talking about the fact that I like how the money I spend there goes to a great cause, or how you can find cheap deals on pretty much anything that goes in a person's home. My love is more serious: I get a goosebump-inducing, pulse-racing thrill from shopping there, and I'll tell you why: When you score at Goodwill, the score can be epic.


For instance, as I write this, there's a mint-condition powder pink vintage Chanel suit up for auction at ShopGoodwill.com, and right now it's going for $601 with 50 minutes left on the clock. That same suit—in that condition, of that style and color, would sell for more than $1,000 on eBay. Now that is the kind of score that gets my pulse racing! (And, yes, I love that the $601 will go toward a great cause. How can you not?)