New York Fashion Week--Monday/Tuesday Blahs and Bestish

Dear Kristin,
I normally wouldn't even post in this kind of situation.  But not posting reads as slacking and I promised you I'd keep it up, not slack so much. Plus, you know I'm already there--NYTimes, NYMag, style.com.  I'm seeing it and saying shit aloud and Jackson is all "What?  What is it?  Are you okay?"  Because my eyebrows go slanty, I'm rolling my eyes like Marc Jacobs can see how pissed I am, stewing in open-mouth surprise.  The worst kind.  So here I am and it's up but, damn it, New York is letting me down.  A poor, poor showing.  The worst since I started paying attention seven years ago.

Let's take my typical number one, my cat's meow, 3.1 Philip Lim:

The norm at Lim's Fall 2012.  On my desktop, this was titled PhilipLim_Underwhelmed

Look, I wouldn't hate owning this outfit.  I'd appreciated it on the hanger and would wear it with some regularity.  But this is fashion week.  Philip Lim at fashion week.  He can do better than "wear it with some regularity."  So can Theyskens Theory, which I went on and on about last season:

 I titled this Theyskens_BadShoesButFine on the desktop

At least he gave us something to play with.  The shoes are terrible--for these looks and for the year 2012.  Sidenote: The platform is just beginning to look too heavy, no?  I'm not saying it's going to leave us completely.  Boot-cut jeans didn't leave us completely, the skinny just gave it a run for our money.  Sometimes the boot-cut is the right cut.  Sometimes the platform will be the right shoe.  But it will not longer be the only shoe.  Great for height, great for a dense winter ensemble, but no longer the go-to.  Are you sad?  I think I'm ready to move on.  (I would have been devastated if this were two years ago.)  Or, if not move on, transition to the simple strappy:

For the transition.  I actually wish there were less platform.  From Zara.

Or, dare I say, the simple pointy:

These aren't perfect but they're very near what I mean and cheap(ish).  Simple, point, pop.  From ASOS.

Back to NYC's Fall Fashion Week, the great disappointment: Preen did a bright, splendid job, until they didn't.  Here are the goods:

The first half!  So refreshing! A major success compared to other shows.  I will not show you the second half. 

The booties do not work for me, too heavy and familiar, but the styling is great otherwise.  These were four of the first fifteen looks.  Oh, I was so excited.  It promised so much (and a show's final looks do tend to be the best).  Sadly, though, the flowers and freshness fell off about halfway through.  At least we had the beginning.  Same goes for Thakoon, tied with Preen for my favorite first half since fashion week got underway:

The most me.  And the shoes!  Exactly what I mean.  Saved on desktop as Thakoon_GoodUntilBad. 

I also had a ton of hope for Chris Benz, often one of my everyday favorites:

Saved as: ChrisBenz_ThisMakesMeFeelAwful

 That was the worst of it.  Here was the best:

 They look so tired with their tired hair and tired makeup, their tired see-through caps.

A bad joke.  I titled the above ChrisBenz_AwfulStyling.  Which, it's self explanatory.  These girls look a wreck.  They are exhausted.  Benz was not his everyday boyish-girl cool this time around.  He was customey and not even in a little girl's fantasy tea-party way.  More like former lady of the night who grew rich from turnin' tricks and now spends the afternoons passing time in cigar lounges were she emerges hours later with skin the texture of a dried raisin.  Bad.  How much better is this?

Almost lovely.  Almost fantasy fun.

And if I could only remove the tights, then we'd really be cooking with gas.  Which is more than I can say for Marc Jacobs, the great Marc Jacobs, who yesterday gave us this:

MarcJacobs__IsMean

The most wearable of his floppy pimp hats.  MarcJacobs_ComeOn

I almost stayed up until 1 AM to stream this runway.  With work the next morning.  I would have gone to be in tears (the dry, resentful kind).

So, this is fun!  Reem Acra gave us three looks to love:

ReemAcra_JustThree

One of which is a basic black shift dress.  A shift dress.  It's a pathetic showing for Reem Acra, a man who makes only stunning Oscar gowns.  Speaking of which, my favorite of the week and my girl from last year:

JennyPackham_ThankGod.  I just love the second one.  Best dress of the week thus far.

I narrowed it down to four.  I loved that she forced me to narrow it.  I can't go on and on, the way I did for her Spring 2011.  I'm too dispirited.  But it's really pretty and something like that jumpsuit could happen to me one day.  The others are gala gowns and I'd need an adult prom to make that happen.

The upside: At least we're not going to have to buy anything for next fall.

The downside:  Maybe I'm out of touch, no longer hip with the now, an adult.

Mini-conclusion: I can't believe how boring this week has been, even outlandish Marc Jacobs was its own kind of snooze.  It makes me wonder what the last six months in New York have been like--what's happened since I left?  Somehow, bad fashion week makes me miss it even more.  I need to come home, walk Avenue A, eat a hot bagel, keep warm beneath a giant floppy pimp hat.

Love,
J. Benny

P.S.  The Row: was so aged.  Old former hippy turned incense burning socialite.  (Old but not in an Advanced Style way.)  The Olsens can do much better.

Rodarte: was nothing special, mostly meh.  "Meh" and Rodarte do not belong in the same sentence.  And, yet, this is where we are.  Lainey liked the handprint dress.  I will never wear a handprint dress.  I will never want to.  I'll never even wish I were the type of girl to want to.  It's at once too odd and too easy, too preschool, too expected.