Isaac Mizrahi

As Mercedes-Benz / New York Fashion Week comes to a close tonight, here are the top places to review all the shows and clothes.

[caption id="attachment_2250" align="alignright" width="221" caption="Marc Jacobs"][/caption]

• Here on pursedlips.net you can watch a lot of the shows' videos!
• MBFashionWeek.com
• Style.com
• FashionWeekDaily.com
• Coutorture.com

And here is the schedule for the next week in fashion,

London

Greenwich Mean TIme:

Friday 19th February

[caption id="attachment_2251" align="alignright" width="244" caption="Burberry Prorsum Pre-Collection"][/caption]

Catwalk shows

LFW Presentations

Saturday 20th February

In a buzz-causing move, Proenza Schouler is feeding on that epidemic affliction still feverishly "haute" today in despite economic changes: the desire for instant gratification. Bagistas and fashionistas who crave the newest and hautest may be unable to resist the retail tactic PS implemented today---for just one day. A bag from their upcoming Fall line went on sale immediately after that fashion show closed, and will remain on sale for 24 hours.

However read the plain print on the listing pages: "Ships July 30th". Sure it's no secret, but is it even any real deal?

Also note this timed offer is no auction, and the purse sells at, of course, full retail for $1,850.

The style's a bit like a classic school satchel but with modern hardware. Cute, sure - but IT-covetable? We say, not without carrying it next week!

For those who are interested regardless, customers have two seen-on-the-runway choices in the "PS11 Small": black or "saddle" brown. Check them out at proenzaschouler.com.

What do you think: genius, evil genius, or dumb move?

Catch all the Autumn/Winter 2010 bags in the Proenza Schouler video after the jump.

*Updated to Add Proenza Schouler*

Tory Burch

Video unavailable. View photos.

Michael Kors

Marc Jacobs

See the videos before this day.

Zac Posen

No video. See the pictures.

Carolina Herrera

*Update* After wondering how MB Fashion Week was mostly big-nameless, we finally realized the official list is incomplete. We're trying to find more videos for you. As always, more photos are on style.com.

So even though it may be exciting that some designers this season have live streams of their fashion shows on their respective websites - like I, you might find the stalking of those times and domains a little troubling to fit into your life.

Also like I, you may have noticed on Friday, two days into New York Fashion Week, mbfashionweek.com's YouTube channel they promote still only showcased ... cars. Like---ew!!! Even today, where are all the designer videos?

(They're actually at their other YouTube account. Mmkk so why not link to it?)

Internet searches are sometimes no help in finding what we need. No thanks to some web designers slyly hinting at their most awesome content with mere image links - bah.

So to make it super easy on anyone visiting here, we're embedding all the runway show official videos from Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week so far, and after this Monday moves on, more quickly relaying them. Hopefully we'll be able to find you/us all of the other cities' weeks as well.

Mackage

Originally published on 01/11 at 8:00 pm. Re-published at 1 am on 1/12.

[caption id="attachment_2183" align="alignnone" width="320" caption="Lee Alexander McQueen's final runway wave"][/caption]

Lee Alexander McQueen, the founder and designer of Alexander McQueen, was found dead earlier today of an apparent suicide. Read an in-depth story by the source that broke the news, Britain's Daily Mail.

My farewell message:

McQueen's designs were ground-breakingly unusual, like the famed "Armadillo" pumps adored and adorned by Lady GaGa, displaying soft beauty in even darkness or pain - something interestingly ironic in my eyes. Beyond that his different pieces were so versatile from even each other - McQueen was not to be pigeonholed and would have never had "one hit". This is a designer who could have forged our future and remained a huge part of the face of current fashion throughout his natural lifespan - but the truth is he already started to do so and he shall remain beyond his body. He leaves a celebrity-celebrated and fashionista-famous legacy in style's history---and the still present, not to be forgotten.

Below is my hand-picked collection of some of McQueen's designs from select seasons, from his infamous Armadillo pumps that evoke fears of torturous pain yet hint at the graces and dreams of ballet and goth terrific fantasies to classic even medieval inspiration to coveted skull scarves, IT bags,  and his Scottish influenced plaids and European-style knits.

[caption id="attachment_2083" align="alignright" width="220" caption="Magazines are not Bibles."][/caption]

When it's comes to voicing my opinion against old-fashioned or status quo thinking, I kind of am never done and can hardly reign myself in. I have something else to add in response to things people (here: a magazine professional) have been saying relating to the immature/amateur/style-star fight turned entire war of the fashion classes (Bloggers vs. Editors).

This quote by Anne Slowey, Fashion News Director for Elle, from a December article on The Cut was resurfaced on Stylist yesterday,

"People in fashion are constantly looking for the next unique boundary-pushing extreme thing to get excited about, but, you know, it's like outsider art. What am I getting out of a 13-year-old's opinion about fashion? How does that help me distill the collections? What am I supposed to be buying? That's what an editor's job at a magazine is."

Uhh.. no.

I don't even want to put magazine staff out of their other-tasks-of-that-job but... to them, fashion fans and all consumers,  I will answer her above posed questions.

1. Entertainment?
2. It's not supposed to? Who even cares? Just do it, you're supposed to be a pro, and as for the rest of us, we can do it on our own too! It's art, it's personal!
3. What you like as long as it looks good on you!
4. No. it. is. not.

And as it pertains to retail buyers, perhaps the magazines do help but what would help more would be turning to actual or potential customers' opinion - and aren't those often fashion bloggers? Isn't that one great thing that should come from the blogging phenomenon?

Magazine staffers, you give a great service, but it's also in entertainment. I'm never going to use your pages as shopping lists for my Spring wardrobe.

Although I do read a lot more blogs and they can inspire me. Something to think about.

*Grammar update*
I'm updating this post because I've learned something that relates, and I'm sure this little part of the grammar world can be found in my article. (I'm too busy to read it all again.)
Apparently, what every English teacher I know informs of prepositions is incorrect. (If you don't want to read that page, I'll write the gist here: some prepositions can be used at the ends of sentences.)

I will now write with less difficulty and, even more happily, less awkwardness. 'Twas such an awkward rule, wasn't it?

[caption id="attachment_2072" align="alignnone" width="411" caption="The View from the Middle: We're All on Equal Ground Now"][/caption]

It isn't a popular position for a blogger herself to whine about (a) successful blogger(s), but at least that is only a small part of the upcoming several-fold rant. Well I'm not going to whine about success anyway, and I will only half bitch about the editors too. Everyone in the world is sometimes wrong and we've been reading so much of this cat fighting that I am itching to say just a few things.

First of all, everyone's mean! Sure it's safe to say that corporate-hired folks "started it". Example: AOL's Style List Katie Hintz-Zambrano pretty much accused famous 13 year old blogger, Tavi, of being no lady---whatever that means it does sound loaded. Yet then FashionIndie publisher antagonized all professionals for having expensive student loans yet small success. (Rant 2:) While attempting to argue against pros in this piece the blogger didn't exactly prove one doesn't need college with an article littered with terrible writing. See a large quote below as an example.

"Katie realize that fashion is a fickle little beast that is addicted to flavors of the week. The current flavor are over the top style bloggers like Tavi, Bryan Boy and Sea of Shoes, individuals with small readerships that manage to get attention cause they look odd* (or fabulous in the case of SeaGirl) and stand out in the streams of black, gray, and weathered that is the traditional garb of old school media types; you know, those overweight, fumpa bellied** folks who work at low readership publications like Paper Magazine and Village Voice who for years have taken over the front rows."

Yeah I've been holding in my opinions - for the most part - about successful so-called writers who are as literate as the average person but actually attempt to publish and, while successfully in their own rights by their own hands, do so with a lot of opinion but zero talent.

Why is paying college tuition as "out" as three-decade-old faded bell-bottoms? While I don't agree with the degree system, some education itself is priceless when it comes to things like grammar knowledge. Microsoft doesn't sell that in package with PCs and paying high-speed Internet bills doesn't grant us magic literary pills. Proper English is not something to disregard and learning it can not come easy. True that the average reader doesn't know better but professional writers and editors do and I am not surprised they're pissed that Jr. High-essay-level penners are so popular.

To me it's not Tavi and her front row that I think is the only upsetting thing to insiders - and I'm refreshed that at least with her I can't expect better writing than her age (although I think she far from writes worse than most adults). I, as someone who grasps the English language and is tormented by popular readership sites with authors who - to me - can't write to save their lives --- can't imagine that this is also not upsetting to those who earned their big desk jobs.

[caption id="attachment_2059" align="alignright" width="193" caption="~*If you like it then you shoulda put a belt on it*~"][/caption]

*Third part of rant: Yeah, professionals, even fashion ones sometimes, are supposed to dress "professionally"; not "crazy", most of the time---unlike girls - or boys - playing dress-up in their bedrooms and taking that to the street. Fashion is diverse, often about couture, but to me it's a lot about flattery and not at all about a drapery, cheap or expensive label, that "fits" like a shapeless sheet. Where is the beauty in this outfit (right) - complete with hideous tights that appear to be mismatched knee socks? Oh yeah, I want to take fashion tips from that. (Not that I need any from anyone after years of Stacy and Clinton - all I need, babies.)

To add to the ugliness, I cannot hold it in, silver hair (or blue as some call it) on her makes her look 90 years old. It's not cute.

However that FashionIndie representative thinks it's "unthinkable" to diss Tavi's (still-rookie?) style (and shows the position with unintelligible wording).

"[Stylelist's Katie Hintz-Zambrano] also does the unthinkable by calling her style “warrant serious eye rolls”. Oh snap!!!"

I do like that, for some time, a fashionista blogger showing her own style can lead to a following - what better way is there? Sadly, I've been horribly camera shy for several years with the reason lending itself to a future article on self esteem, weight, accepting oneself, etc. (I plan to follow that by me attempting to keep up with occasional or frequent ensemble shots, even though I still cannot be cloned---I being the only photographer my perfectionist self trusts.)

**The epidemic of not only obesity but of less-endangered-weighted women feeling frightened to be seen by the world or even themselves is my rant #4. It took me a long time to realize I am not actually fat - in fact I look beautiful, sexy, curvy, have a waist etc... I'm just no thinner than average even if sometimes larger. With only that amount of extra size on me, I've been terrified to show myself - and even though I've recently gotten over that for the most part, my fear of the camera adding 20 lbs (yep 20) is always difficult to overcome.

So to those so called indie fashionistas who are still to this day so insulting of weight as to say "fumpa bellied" (whatever that is) - yes, I am outraged at you and cannot stop at just pointing out this wrong you have made.

Yet who am I to argue? Where do I come from? (How much is jealousy, as one could excuse?) I'd let my posts speak for themselves as that is clearly all I currently have to show (and many are now missing photos, html and categories after years of changes and moves). I don't think I even necessarily deserve grandeur at this point - I've made many individual business mistakes that leave me no wonder as to why I'm not more successful, so I'm not factoring my small position or using any bitterness in this reply. I'm human open to animal weakness but that is the truth. I've just seen such horrible lashing out that I'm compelled to put my 2 cents in, as my opinionista self just needs to do. I admire the simple beauty of bloggers making it by showing their style, and I'm hopeful that I can soon make this work for myself a bit - even though I usually go out looking mostly normal (except to male opinion) and if that holds a girl back, so what(?).

I don't even mind if there's bad writing by some fabulous or even crazy fashionista making it bigger through beautiful or quirky photos of their style and others'. One, the other, or both - it must be at least visual or literary, I say - and with both makes best. A fashion news or opinion site with apparent lack of even spell check, let alone proofreading, that lends to questioning what the writer's first language even is ---- also not cute, just like a sad sack.

Stop bashing the pros and editors you appear to not even aspire to struggle to equal in talent.

I'll leave you with this quote, from Tavi's own final word on the fight she partially inspires.

"The Bloggers vs. Editors! thing is tired. If there was a real competition, editors wouldn't be willing to give bloggers press. Blogs and magazines are good for different things; it's like comparing apples with oranges. Collaboration, not competition. Always!"

(And only one grammatical error.) I kind of like her brain, just not always the eye that creates some of her ensembles. ;-) You should read that article ... and/or more of my blog. ;-)