A blast from the Voxfrock vault, updated with a Voxfresh gallery of Alber Elbaz for Lanvin, AW13/14RTW
Photographs: Style.com.
Longform text: allow 6 minutes to read.
Alber Elbaz for Lanvin, photo: style.com
ALBER ELBAZ is an elegant, Tweedledee of a chap with a smug/naughty smile and pop-eye spectacles that accentuate his sparkly eyes. He’s been known to be fond of goofy bow ties, droopy trousers and high-top trainers done up with extra metres of loopy white shoelaces. He likes a sockless shoe. Nothing appears to fit him particularly well. That’s him, pictured, hugging himself, pleased as a salon poodle after his recent ready-to-wear show in Paris. He is Lanvin’s creative director and one of the most influential men in fashion. Fussless chic with a modern twist or six (see gallery).
Isn’t he just smashing?
I LOVE Alber Elbaz; how utterly “wrong” he looks in a world seething with people trying so-ooo hard to look “right”. You know what I mean; fat people lipo-sucked slim, old people slicing bits off to look young(ish), wrinkly people Botoxed smooth, brown people bleached pale and pale people baked brown. Don’t get me started on almond-eyed Asians wanting walnut shaped eyes either, or walnuts wanting almonds.
“…how utterly “wrong” he looks in a world seething with people trying so-ooo hard to look “right”…”
The world has gone nuts, but Elbaz is still Elbaz, the metaphorical tip of a thrillingly lovely iceberg, the epitome of NOT WANTING. Not pining, not craving, not wishing. Just arrogantly, confidently, narcissistically being, revelling in who he is. This is the key to good fashion. Jot it down. This is how you unlock fashion’s power.
Self-acceptance like that is a miraculous accessory for striking, carefully picked clothes. It is uncommonly chic and particularly popular on fashion’s loftiest echelon where Alber “Tweedledee” Elbaz, Muiccia “Ain’t no oil painting” Prada, Jean Paul “Me neither” Gaultier, Vivienne “Who gives a toss” Westwood and, who could forget, Donna “Rhinoplasty? Don’t be a clod!” Karan, among many technically not-particularly-attractive others, direct the seasonal looks that trickle down and eventually seduce us all. Aren’t they smashing? Ugly/beautiful/ evocative/powerful/enviable/fashionable/ fabulous. Smashing.
“This is the key to good fashion. Jot it down. This is how you unlock fashion’s power…”
For a ridiculous number of years I have preached the power of a good frock, a nice suit, a new hat — the self-concept of Decoration before Alteration.
It’s still not enough. In the past few years particularly, the stream of pleas from sad little poppets wishing they were someone else has thickened through my inbox: “I’m short — how can I look taller?”, “I’m chubby, how can I look slimmer?”. “I’m thin.” “I’m florid.” “I’m in a wheelchair.” “I’m ugly.” And there are the nearly-but-never-quite-Lovelies who look marvellous to you and me, but can’t seem to envision their own worth: “I want hair like Jennifer Aniston’s,” “Legs like Jen Hawkins”, “Miranda Kerr’s yummymummybikinibody”, “Scarlett Johansson’s teeth.”
“I’m thin.” “I’m florid.” “I’m in a wheelchair.” “I’m ugly.”
Go on, I think; you might as well say it: “I hate myself.” Hate gone viral and global. While I have been banging on about the power of fashion to unlock who we are, a generation has been marinating in a culture that still, more than ever, reveres model and celebrity looks above all. Anything different can be solved — should be solved — by the right surgery, the right pill, the right diet. In fact, wishing for one painfully narrow definition of beauty has become a lifestyle, and scheming to achieve it — one way or another — a project that must never be abandoned. Self-acceptance; what’s that?
Good grief. How sad. But in counterpoint, I give you, Monsieur Elbaz and his rare, imperfect ilk; fashion’s marvellously, technically “unbeautiful” people who use clothes unselfconsciously to express who they are, and who, incidentally, wield more power in the world than most technically beautiful people ever will.
It’s time to switch allegiances and goals or, at least, expand them a bit.
Who do YOU want to be?
Janice Breen Burns, jbb@voxfrock.com.au
