Judging the Judges: Monique Lhuillier Fall 2008 Collection

Season 4 judge Monique Lhuillier showed her Fall 2008 collection last month and Style.com was there:

"Lhuillier doesn't do excess. Everything must be just right. Therefore, heavy embellishment—richly embroidered velvet and all-over cabochon-jeweled embroidery—came in clean silhouettes. Alternatively, the exaggerated ruffle on a gold cocktail dress meant no embellishment."

"A flapper, one with a smoldering, smoky look, served as the inspiration for Monique Lhuillier's fall collection. The clothes she wore this time around weren't an exact copy of the styles of the 1920s but they had the right spirit: fun and sexy."

As for us, we like, not love. It's a very basic and basically pretty collection of mostly red carpet-ready, drapey-draped gowns and dresses rendered in rich fall colors with the occasional interesting embellishment. We don't really like the bedazzled bits. We didn't like them when they were the hot thing and we like them even less now that they're about a season behind us. She played a bit with silhouettes and we like the gathered skirts, the lumpy (faux?) fur coat and the tweed jacket and coat with the (faux?) fur trim. It's not reinventing the wheel and it's mostly the kind of fashion that bores us generally, but it's pretty and wearable.

What do our bitches think?

[Photos: WireImage/Getty Images - Slideshow: Project RunGay]

Philly Area Ladies, Put on Your Shopping Shoes!

Emmett McCarthy will be selling his wares in person at the Shecky's event in Philly, April 1st-3rd:

"Shop up to 50 hot brands in our emerging fashion & accessories pavilion
Sip delicious cocktails & refreshments at our 5-hour complimentary bars
Sample fabulous products & services by our supreme sponsors
Score loads of goodies in Shecky's Deluxe Goodie Bag (now in a NEW tote!)"

T and Lo will be there all three nights playing the part of EMc2 shopgirls.
Please don't show up dressed like this because we'll probably laugh at you if you do.

You're going to get some amazing deals, not only on Emmett's gorgeous stuff, but on items from dozens of companies. Shopping and cocktails! Who doesn't think that's a perfectly fabulous idea?

Thursday tickets are already sold out, so all you Tri-State area shopaholics need to get cracking. And for the Miami crowd, put aside your pin money, because Emmett's coming to the Shecky's event there later in the month.

[Image: sheckys.com]

Dao Jonesing

We haven't checked in with Miss Chloe for a while, kittens. Let's rectify that. Craft Magazine recently went on a Chloe-guided tour of her new design studio. Check it (and note that it's appropriately painted in "Chloe Dao Blue") :


She's adorable, no? And what a fabulous space. Loving some of the designs that she showed too. Very pretty and girly.


More from Craft:

"She designs most of the clothing in her boutique and works hands on throughout the production process from cutting all the fabric and more. We got a chance to be the first to see Chloe's new design studio where she shows us the designs and clothing for her new upcoming wholesale line. Can you believe she used to work in her mom's kitchen and dining room? She was gracious enough to be filmed in her sweats and no makeup, since she and her employees had just completed the Houston AIDS walk that morning."


Her store is gorgeous. We had no idea it was so huge. Now you know where that prize money went.

And how cool is this:

"This was dress featured in Chloe's runway show for Project Runway (Fall 2006) and is prominently placed in her boutique. Another version of the dress is also displayed in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C."



God, we forgot how gorgeous this dress was. We're curious about how it wound up in the Smithsonian.

Anyway, there's your Dao fix for the weekend. We're looking forward to seeing more of the line she's working on. Chloe Doll, call us!

[Video: Crazftzine.com - Photos: Courtesy of Natalie Zee Drieu/FirstView]

Judging the Judges: Zac Posen Fall 2008 Collection

Darlings, enough with these previous contestants (for now). Let's get ripping on the judges! Zac Posen's Fall 2008 collection was described thusly by Style.com:

"The models wore pompoms on either side of their tight chignons, and many of the dresses were sheer enough to reveal spangled underwear and black garter belts. After-dark options edged out daywear by a wide margin, which was too bad, because the most elegant piece here was, hands down, a herringbone-tweed sheath, and it would have been great if the focus had been more of the same. That isn't to say eveningwear is a bad thing, but crinolines—which he showed under a robe à la française and a mini-parachute dress—are quite another story.

Posen cut all of the sugar and spice with great tailoring, some of it in a soft-quilted cloque that his program notes dubbed "bubble wrap." On the harder side, a Prince of Wales schoolboy suit looked signature—it was curvy and fit like a glove—but it didn't have quite the sex appeal of a plunging Le Smoking jumpsuit."

"[S]o much of this collection looked designed not for grown-up women (ones with jobs) but for living dolls."

It's that last sentence that nails it. Look, we're all for exuberance and whimsy in fashion, which too often takes itself far too seriously. But looking at this collection, one word repeats itself to us: "silly." We have no idea what got into him, but he decided to put out a collection that looks like a joke. Oh sure, some women somewhere will plunk down the cash to wear these things, but for the most part, it comes across almost ... disrespectful. Like he's daring women to go out in these ridiculous outfits.

Granted, it's not all bad. We like the colors (when they appear), and one or two pieces are nice on their own, but all that bright, shiny tackiness or overly frilly foundation garments rendered in silhouettes that make the wearers look more like items than women just left us flat.

Et vous?

[Photos: WireImage/Getty Images]