Lynn Yaeger: Signs of Patti Smith and the Pope at Ann Demeulemeester

There is a woman — let us call her Albertina for reasons that will become clear shortly — getting dressed for a night of fun, sometime in the near future ... maybe November 2013. She puts on a lacy, ruffled, midnight blue confection, meant to be worn with stilettos, but it's been a long day and her patent loafers are looking awfully good. So she sticks those on her feet instead, and then, because she's cheerful (it's almost Christmas!) she adds a whole bunch of ironic necklaces — blown-up rapper-style nameplates that say things like "cool" and "help" — and, even, a tiara. You may think she looks silly, but, in fact, it's just the opposite. She has, as F. Scott Fitzgerald described one of his heroines almost 100 years ago, "that look that no woman, however histrionically proficient, can successfully counterfeit — she looked as if she were having a good time." This person, this season, is the creation of Alber Elbaz at Lanvin who offers, in what has been an interminable-seeming, often extremely dull series of fashion weeks, an excellent antidote to the prevailing depression, a shot of sartorial methamphetamine to counteract the sluggishness.

Via: Lynn Yaeger: Signs of Patti Smith and the Pope at Ann Demeulemeester