Ralph Lauren & Milly on the Runway + Chanel on Wheels. Seriously.

Hello again, we do hope everyone is enjoying a splendid weekend!

We promised in our previous post to share more from the Ralph Lauren RTW (ready-to-wear) show at NY Fashion Week. The LBD was the first piece in the show and we just love it.

PHOTO: Imaxtree

Women’s Wear Daily was more than complimentary in their review:

“This was Lauren at his absolute best — which is to say, fabulous.”

PHOTO: Imaxtree

Another gown and another look we love. More from the WWD story:

“For evening, Lauren conjured a range of refined types: ballerina, deb, au courant bright young thing, girls united in their high-brow opulence.”

PHOTO: Imaxtree

These are all pieces we’ll be seeing in shops come this Fall, and into early 2010.

PHOTO: ImaxTree

There was very little color in the show, but plenty of clean, elegant lines….

PHOTO: Robert Mitra

… precisely what the designer is known for.

PHOTO: Robert MItra

WWD’s review concluded:

“… his show seemed like something more than a lineup of breathtaking clothes. Consciously or otherwise, it delivered to the American industry a dazzling visual pep talk from its most powerful designer, someone who has been through booms, busts and Wall Street woes before and has always come out more than fine on the other side. Lauren’s message, loud and clear: Do what you do, the best you can, no matter what. He knows what he’s talking about.”

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Also showing at Fashion Week, Milly by Michelle Smith, another line we enjoy.  Many will remember Dr. Jill Biden wearing a Milly houndstooth dress on Inauguration Day.  Below, a look from the Fall 2009 RTW Collection.

PHOTO: Thomas Iannocone

As WWD wrote in their story on this show:

“The New York “gallerinas” — always perfectly polished and dressed in black — served as inspiration for Michelle Smith, who cooled things up for her Milly girls via a darker mood and palette, with flirty LBDs as the main attractions.”

PHOTO: Thomas Iannocone

We speculate the hemlines won’t be quite this dramatic when the actual pieces hit stores. Just guessing.

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There are several photos from Fashion Week we have yet to post, including one of this threesome, Vogue’s Anna Wintour, CBS 60 Minutes Correspondent Morley Safer and Gossip Girl star Blake Lively.

PHOTO: Andrew H. Walker/Getty

At times this week it seemed Ms. Wintour and Mr. Safer were almost attached at the hip. The reason? 60 Minutes is doing a story on the über-powerful magazine chief.

Speaking of Gossip Girls, word today that Ms. Lively’s co-star Leighton Meester is launching a singing career.  According to this story in today’s OK online, the actress hopes to have the album out sometime this year.

“It’s vibey and sexy and really fun and upbeat. I just love it. It’s the best. It’s like ultimate karaoke.”

There you have it.

BTW, Fashion Week stateside is over for this season and the mayhem has moved to London. We shall share any notable happenings we hear about on that side of the pond!

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As to our closing item today: We were tempted to write something horribly snarky about our raging Logophobia and put this in our “Help Me Understand” category.

Chanel Courtesy Photo via BornRich & Yatzer

But then we thought, “Hhhmmm… isn’t it kind of cute? In a ghastly and utterly inappropriate sort of way? We could put tape over the lettering, couldn’t we?”

This kind of errant thinking has TSU (The Spousal Unit) alarmed we are suffering from an as-yet-to-be-determined medical malady.

Chanel Courtesy Photo via BornRich & Yatzer

The special Segway can be yours via special order; it does come with its own 2.55.  What do you think? Fab? Or fit only for an individual of nouveau gauche taste?

Do tune in Monday as we’re planning another giveaway and there is every possibility it will include more from our delightful Lilly Pulitzer stationery line! Until then, G’bye!

The Problem with the ‘Preppy’ Logo, Part One

Readers familiar with The Princess and her ‘style aesthetic’ know how she detests logos. Absolutely. Positively. Loathes. Logos. On almost anything. Years of intensive counseling and continued outpatient therapy have made her more tolerant of the basic small (thumbnail size or less) image embroidered in the same color thread (we can’t stress the importance of this enough) as the product being logoed. For example, the Ralph Lauren Polo pony needs to be the same color as the polo shirt upon which it is being embroidered; she can cope with that. You know, w-a-a-a-y back in the dark ages this was generally the case for some of our more notable ‘preppy companies,’ like Brooks Brothers. The Brooks Golden Fleece was tastefully and discreetly used in a very low-key manner, visible only if you were in close physical proximity to, or actually wearing, the garment. Even Lilly Pulitzer originally hid her signature amongst the foliage in her lush tropical designs; it was always a treat to look for the secret letters, something akin to a treasure hunt as I recall. And Burberry plaid? Please. Don’t remind us. It was the lining for the coats. Period. Unlike the man’s “Exploded-Logo Polo” as seen at Neiman’s and shown below.

The Princess’s perspective does allow for a few exceptions to the ‘matching thread color issue’; most notably the LaCoste alligator. Why does it escape her ire? Well for openers, it was the original, created back in the 1930s. It’s been used for years and years and years, and it’s small, multi-color design could be deemed tasteful. Even today, as shown above, it remains in the background of the garment, allowing the focus to be the garment itself instead of vicea-versa. Imagine that. The little alligator did not secretly ingest Logo Steroids or Logo Growth Hormone and suddenly explode into an enormous beast as large as any garment would allow. Lacoste started the tradition, and then equally tasteful firms followed decades later, like Brooks and even Ralph Lauren Polo. Back then these designers did not send their refined little logos to the Logo Camp and say “Grow little logo, grow! Come back as big as Juicy Couture’s! Better yet, get infected with the LogoBird flu and spread yourself all over everything, everywhere! Be big-biggety-big like Versace, or Dolce & Gabbana!” No. They remained cool until relatively recently when things started to spiral out of control.

Let us gaze upon the hideous example of a logo gone bad up at the top of this post: the sequin Chanel logo (probably non-licensed) from an online purveyor of things. The seller writes: “Your little Fashionista will shine in this Chanel logo set in all clear crystal rhinestones!” Precisely what you would *not* want to see your toddler in, I don’t believe.

If you don’t trust The Princess on this topic, step back for a moment and ask yourself: would Babe Paley give a shower present of a Juicy Couture Gift Basket, proclaiming that the unborn child will be a Juicy Couture Baby, something that might be a bit of a surprise to the parents? Never. Happen. NeverEverNever. Do you see Grace Kelly wearing the Versace sunglasses seen above, so as to help the firm advertise their name? We think not.

Let us gaze upon the D&G Branded Tee for a youngster as seen above on the left, proclaiming “D&G Always for Memorable Brand.” Or consider having your pre-teen don the D&G Luxury Safari tee, also above, apparently notifying the world you have her living a “Luxury Safari.” How very nouveau gauche. And then we present one of our favorites: the Dolce & Gabbana Logo Cover-up in Junior sizes, shown below in white. This is perfect. If there must be a decorative element on the front of the Cover-up, why would one want it to say anything other than what it does, compliments of the good folks at Dolce & Gabbana. I don’t know what happened there for a moment, I must have been completely delusional. For a nanosecond I thought it might be more appropriate to actually put the child’s real name on the dress. Or, if we needed to save space, maybe just her initials in a nice monogram format instead of the message “D&G Junior.” But then we share the truly unbelievable offering: the D&G Onesie Logo Set at Neiman Marcus. It terrifies us. It leaves us speechless.

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If the question were asked which logo is the Most Preppy, yours truly would have a one-word response. None.

No logo at all is the Most Preppy.

PS: Do tune in tomorrow for Part Two. The Princess will take all her meds (heh-heh-heh) and then share thoughts on Logo size. Are the men currently wearing the larger logos a bit more Zegna & Brioni than Brooks Brothers and J Press? Tune in tomorrow to find out.