Page 66 - Allure - November 2016 USA

TREND REPORT
Or combat boots. Or whatever. It’s the item that you tried on once as a teenager, and it looked so miserable that it still makes your skin crawl
to think of it. The item that, when you see another woman looking great
in it, injects you with petty, unfeminist feelings. None of this is reasonable, but neither is fashion. Which brings me to the runways this season.
t he runways were—what’s the best way to say this? It’s as
though all the designers held a secret conference where they
came up with a master list of the most difficult-to-wear items and then populated their fall runways
exclusively with those items. There were oversize, rough-edged trench coats belted perilously high on the waist and tweedy menswear-inspired trousers that would seem to require at least 40 inches of leg to pull off (or on, as it were). There were fuzzy midcalf skirts. There was double- breasted everything. Miuccia Prada, who is the undisputed queen of challenging fashion, outdid herself
Thom Browne
IT’S AS THOUGH ALL THE DESIGNERS CAME UP WITH A
MASTER LIST OF THE MOST DIFFICULT-TO-WEAR ITEMS.
60 ALLURE NOVEMBER 2016
Prada
with argyle tights and drop-shoulder jackets bearing fur sleeves, just in case any of us want our legs and arms to look four times as big as they are. Sheer madness, all of it.
And yet if we know anything about designers, it’s that their madness always has a method. While grappling with the fall forecast and its high- concept gear, I found myself turning to the French-born notion of jolie laide. That phrase—which Google helpfully translates as “pretty ugly”—refers
to the unconventional glory of the not quite perfect. It’s used to describe people, typically women, who sport an idiosyncratic, non-textbook beauty.
Anjelica Huston
The gorgeous lady with a gap tooth or a crooked nose or a slight asymmetry in her eyes (or all of the above)? She might qualify as jolie laide. Anjelica Huston is a commonly cited example. Jolie laide is the opposite of Barbie dolls and Kate Upton and Joan Smalls; it’s Charlotte Gainsbourg and Daphne Groeneveld and Lady Gaga. Beauty icons are not jolie laide, but style icons often are. And in clothing terms, jolie laide might be exactly what has marched off the runway and into our lives for the brisker seasons ahead.
Sound intimidating? I thought so, too, until I realized that a bit of jolie laide fashion might be a relief after all the flesh-baring pageantry of summer. Gone are the sandals and off-the- shoulder sundresses of June. Gone are the crop tops and featherweight slip dresses of July. Come fall, nobody is mistaking your outerwear for underwear, unless you habitually fall asleep in a floor-length mustard
velvet turtleneck dress. Best of all, you won’t hear the phrase “body-con” for at least six months, guaranteed. See? You’re breathing more deeply already.
Plus, the new fall clothes raise imaginative possibilities that crop
tops can’t touch. Can you see yourself draped in a tent-loose, pin-striped pantsuit? Or buttoned into a brocade tuxedo jacket with overstated shoulder pads and a matching necktie? Probably not, and that’s the fun of it. Experimenting with new identities
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