It’s giant fake flower fall.
The soccer wunderkind Lamine Yamal hit the Ballon d’Or ceremony on Monday in a nipped Chanel tux with a bouffant pink flower on his lapel, like a Seussian powder puff. Natalie Portman wore a similar one, affixed to a Dior dress, on a cover for Harper’s Bazaar.
Before that, Phoebe Philo released a fecund faux flower that perched on a model’s shoulder like a parakeet. It’s $1,350.
Until recently, the giant fake flower — the G.F.F., if you will — evoked images of Carrie Bradshaw in early seasons of “Sex and the City.” But a seeming need in fashion to declare, “Hey, I’m fun!” has again reared up. No one wants to look as if they’re taking their outfit too seriously or like they have been spoon-fed by the algorithm. It’s a time of whimsy, forced though it may occasionally come off. (Sorry, I just don’t buy Yamal as a frilly Chanel flower guy.) The G.F.F. bespeaks an easy wildness, a silliness.
That silk organza Philo flower spurred my editor Stella Bugbee to search for something similar, albeit for less than four figures. She found an enormous, peak-bloom red rose at M&S Schmalberg, a New York fabric flower institution, for around $150. She has pinned it on a plain black dress when running dry on something to wear to a “nice” event.
The flowers — she now has a few — come out more this time of year, as the calendar stacks with parties. Stella had on a medium-size white dahlia when I ran into her recently at a friend’s birthday party, zhushing up her otherwise all-black outfit.
Curious, I swung by M&S Schmalberg’s sales room this week. On the seventh floor of an unremarkable building in the garment district, it held a grove of scentless flowers in every color you could imagine. As workers busied themselves at their sewing machines nearby, I was one of a handful of people combing through the crop of tweed tulips, cashmere carnations and many, many varieties in organza and silk, stored in slender cardboard boxes piled atop one another. (Select your bloom, and one of these sewers will affix a pin or a magnet to the back on the spot before wrapping it up.)
A large tulle flower, roughly as large as a head of cauliflower, ran about $250. This scale of bloom, a bit shy of Philo’s proportions, was popular, per a worker on the floor. They’re a from-across-the-bar statement. A shelf nearby held rows of tinier, $50 florets in pinks and reds, aheming for attention at a softer volume. Some of these are also available at M&S’s Etsy page.
My wife and I have a wedding coming up, and for weeks she’d endeavored to find a new dress. Finally, she gave up and bought a faux flower from Indress instead. It looks like an animated organza Koosh ball. When she tried it on with a black silk top and silk pants, we both grinned.
Other things worth knowing about:
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This week, I profiled Sophie Andes-Gascon and Claire McKinney of SC103, a youngish label making remarkable clothes that wear their handwork on the surface. (You may know them best for their links tote.) As I wrote: “Tired of being bombarded with fast-fashion and slick luxury brands, a swath of fashion obsessives now desire something more intimate.” That’s where SC103 comes in. You can read the article here.
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We also just published a profile of Szilveszter Makó, the Hungarian photographer who has shot every single fashion magazine cover for the past eight months. That’s only a mild exaggeration. But there’s a reason Elle, Interview, WSJ Magazine, Vogue and more keep calling Makó. His visual palette breaks from the glossy, airbrushed photos we’re used to. Oh, and he has a knack for putting little houses on celebrities’ heads. Though one subject really didn’t go in for all of that. Read on to find out who.
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Carlos Nazario, who has styled Rihanna and Naomi Campbell and was recently style director at large of Harper’s Bazaar, is the new editor in chief of the British fashion tome Wonderland magazine.
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ASAP Rocky’s “nifty” Chanel acorn bag.
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I can’t believe I have to say this, but if you’re going to wear a tie, don’t tuck it into your shirt as François Arnaud did this week. It looks like you were eating spaghetti and forgot to fix yourself.
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In my year-ish of being a parent, I have quickly learned there is nothing cuter than dressing a kid for Halloween. Our son is going to be a chicken. A fluffy, rotund, teeter-tottering chicken. We’ll see if he keeps the hood up. Have fun out there, and send me any photos of supremely smart costumes you see.
What we’re reading, watching and listening to:
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Max Berlinger on the sudden resurgence of wearing a T-shirt over a long sleeve. Very Brad Pitt in “The Mexican.” Also very Aeropostale circa 2004.
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“Jazz Dreams,” the new album by the band Fine, is excellent. It sorta sounds like something you’d hear on college radio in 1996.
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There is a second act in American life for Life.
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The artist Jack Jildevik photographed a full year of his outfits, not on his body but rather arranged on the floor like sleepy scarecrows. The resulting book, “Portrait of the Absent,” picks at a perennial question: Do the clothes make the man, or does the man make the clothes?
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The Buffalo Bills explain the primordial pouch with cats. (Trust us.)
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A strange, beautiful piece of writing by the novelist Lucy Ellmann about a benevolent cello (yes): “Wounds, it treated. Tears, it wiped. The blind, it led across the street — they never realized they’d been escorted by a cello.”
Ask Vanessa
I’m pregnant, and I feel a bit frumpy at work. Any recommendations for pieces that offer flexibility for growth and look sharp without necessarily shouting: “Look at me. I’m pregnant”? — Elise, Paris
There’s no question that dressing while pregnant is hard. It’s great and inspiring to look at Rihanna, Anne Hathaway and other stars showing off their burgeoning bellies in just-off-the-runway looks that they have managed to make work for them, largely by placing their unveiled stomachs front and center….Read more.
Look of the week
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