The DC Goodwill Fashionista started her new feature today, Blog the Blogger, and who did the premiere blog feature? Moi - of course. Check it out to find out a bit of background about me, who my favorite designers are, and where to find good bargains in D.C - plus, the site is a great, witty and oft-spot on fashion resource.
Yet another reason to hate Anne Schroeder, she says D.C. has no style. Well, maybe she has no style. So take that Shenanigans!
[Fashion stylist Rachel] Zoe met her husband in D.C., too, she tells local pub Express. She was a hostess at Washington Harbour, he was a waiter. They used to hang out at Sequoia. And — now this is important — Zoe says, "I love D.C. It's got such style."
Whaaa? D.C. and style? Do we need a fashion double-take?
To read the horrible drab, click here...
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To read the entire article, which talks a lot more about the business side, click here...“I’m very angry at the fashion industry,” she said. The industry has “no respect for accomplished women,” viewing them as “sex objects, not smart and capable.”
Her line, mainly “jacket driven,” also includes pants and blouses for business, casual and evening attire. She targets businesswomen with high net worth, female politicians — most notably Sen. Hillary Clinton — and what McLemore calls “community women” who are involved in philanthropy or who have husbands in powerful positions. ... (Know we know where Hillary found her amazing taste - and her $795 quilted coats!)
... Clinton prefers longer jackets, and her signature colors include blue and coral, which McLemore said brings out the highlights in her hair. ...
McLemore’s clothes come in five fits to accommodate all body shapes, and she designs them herself with natural fabrics primarily made in America. She recommends bold, vibrant colors for women who often appear in public or on television. McLemore picks versatile styles that can be worn anywhere, and she uses wrinkle-free materials to allow for easy traveling. ...
... McLemore has a keen sense of her customers’ tastes. Women in law, government and business “dress more understatedly and conservatively” compared with women in New York. At the same time, Washington women have an international flair and often pick textiles and colors from, say, Southeast Asia and Kenya. ...
As much as I detest myself for actually reading The Hill, it becomes even worse when I find multiple items to quote them on. Well, today their usually pointless (and, well, let's face it today's is too) 20 questions piece features S. Monae Everett, a stylist and manager at Bubbles Salon on Capitol Hill. Not that I would consider Bubbles a trend-setting cuttery, but unfortunately a lot of the male Members actually do get their hair cut there (even though they have their own in-house barber).
So, without further ado, here are the top trends in D.C. hair:
The Yeas & Neas boys, who are going on their own little recess for a couple weeks, got a fun dressing tidbit out of author/journo Bob Novak:
To read the entire item (basically what I have), click here..."It’s mind over matter,” Bob Novak said when the journalist was asked how he can bear to wear those three-piece suits in the middle of summer. ... [He] blamed it on the demands of his TV appearances.
“It looked better on television to see a vest than a big old belly,” he said. “The camera people told me those seersuckers weren’t good for TV” because of all the lines.
He also said there’s a certain type of respect that results from wearing a dark, three-piece suit on a 100-degree day, especially when you’re not breaking a sweat. People look at you and say, “That guy knows something.” ...
Because there is no real politics going on in Washington right now (sense the sarcasim?), a political newspaper decided to write about a pressing issue: High heels on the Hill. (OK, I know it's the pot calling the kettle, but I'm at least up front about the fact that this is primarily a fashion site...) At least they quoted blogger Rachel Cothran from Project Beltway. So, here is an excerpt from the earth-shattering, breaking-news report:
For the woman who works on Capitol Hill, high heels can present a fashion dilemma. Does she slip on a pair and risk the discomfort keeping up with her tall boss while walking down those marble hallways? Or does she sacrifice style and scrap the pumps? ...To read the entire piece, click here...
... “I’m a heels gal, even though it’s risky when your boss is a fast-walking Marine,” said Jessica Smith, deputy spokeswoman for Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.). ...
... Rachel Cothran, creator of Project Beltway, a D.C. fashion blog, has mixed feelings. “I love and hate heels all at once,” she said. “While they do make your legs look longer and inject a tried-and-true dose of femininity to your boring Hill outfit, they can literally be a pain.
“There’s nothing worse than limping through the Hart [Senate Office Building] hallways with five Band-Aids flapping around your ankles. And I will never understand why those cobblestone walkways were installed outside of Union Station, of all places. That being said, I know plenty of women who say they simply don’t feel pretty or in charge in flats.” ...
I’ve found a happy medium to be a wedge shoe, which provides height without sacrificing comfort. I find curvy, more feminine styles as opposed to chunky ones most flattering—there’s already a lot of shoe going on. You wouldn’t want to look like you have a brick attached to your foot.Then she goes on to give some examples of Hill-appropriate shoes - most of which I dislike, and some of which I feel aren't Hill worthy - but it's a good go. But her list of shoes made me want to do my own list. I am not including any flats, because I don't think they're appropriate (even though I wear them all the time), nor anything with too high of a heel because I'm trying to be realistic here. And for some real-life inspiration, keep an eye out for Condi and usually Laura's peds. So here are my picks for walking the marble come this fall, and "they're the coolest kicks in the cave," as Kelso would say.
For a while there, I swore off heels completely. However, once I realized that height wasn’t really the problem but rather the construction of the heel, I was a believer once again. Well-made shoes can really be an epiphany for heels, and well-made does not necessarily have to mean expensive. I love stacked heels and conical shapes have a retro vibe. They’re all over the retail stores, but you could easily look in vintage and consignment shops. Skinny heels often look too dainty for everyday outfits, and if you’re like me, you wear out the heel tips in less than five wearings. ...
... Hillrats needn’t be afraid of color or of showing toes, says an anonymous PB spy, who saw Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) wearing “the cutest open-toe green heels the other day…lime and kelly-green, maybe two-inch heels.” They should just steer clear of what the anonymous Hillgoer called stripper heels: “never okay.”
Classic in-between flat pump
Suede round-toe with a slight metallic edge
A suede wedge with a perforated twist
Penny loafers for the 21st century
Sassy sweetheart detailing on simple pump
Suede and patent come together 
Logo medallion vamped
A matte satin mishap waiting in muggy D.C.I know I should have commented in some way about yesterday's release of Capitol Hill's beautiful people list, but I've been too busy planning my August recess vacation and haven't been keeping up with my blogging, sorry. So here is my rant...
And I thought you couldn't get any shallower than The Hill's Top 50 Most Beautiful People... but I was wrong. Patrick Gavin was on MSNBC talking about the list (what they couldn't get someone from newspaper that actually wrote it?). Here are some highlights of his interview:
"Politians are getting better looking. I mean you just look at the presidential debate going on now, they're not kidding when they say when a candidate looses weight they're thinking about jumping in, because looks really do matter. So there is some truth to this sort of shallow politics."
"In this town power is definitely an aphrodisiac."
"If you have a great job, a great business card, that does go a long way in this town."
"Just look at the field now. Everyone worries about Hillary Clinton's clothes, or, you know, Rudy Guilliani's balding, or Fred Thompson's weight, or Al Gore's weight or anybody's weight. And so because of TV, Internet, YouTube, it's such a fulltime job at this point. Abraham Lincoln got away with it; he couldn't get away with it nowadays." – Responding to a question about if looks matter for politicians during the elections
DUFOUR: Nancy Pelosi is, I think, she obviously gets points for the House Speaker and being in that prominent position. But Pelosi's become sort of a style icon in the way that first ladies I don't think have been.
MSNBC: I mean she's 67 years old...
DUFOUR: Sixty-seven years old
MSNBC: ...and she's considered a hottie!?!
DUFOUR: Yeah. Six grandkids. A lot of people have raised questions of plastic surgery with her. But she looks great. She wears Armani almost exclusively. And really spreads her wings as a fashion plate really more than a lot of other women in Washington feel comfortable doing.
This was posted a week or so ago on Who am I? Why am I here?, but I found it an interesting insight and quite well written, so I don't mind being late. Here is commentary about commentary about commentary:
I agree with D.C. sidewalk blogger that flip flops precipitate a dragging gait, but neither “sexy” nor “classy fashion of women in old Hollywood” has been a hallmark of D.C. style. If anything, D.C. style is the best it has ever been. Nancy Pelosi, the most prominent female politician, has eschewed the primary-colored-power-suit-matching-pumps for a more refined, chic look. Even Hillary Clinton, no foe of the power suit during her husband’s presidency, has at least settled on a softer yellow that does not quite jump out the way the hideous '90s ensembles did. (I disagree, but everyone has their own opinion.)Still, D.C.’s dress code remains counter-intuitive to its weather, particularly in the hot, humid summer. ... The conservative formality of this city instates a dress code of suits and closed-toed dress shoes that quickly precipitate the sweat storm that is a thing of daily existence for area residents. (I will grudgingly admit that in this environment, seersucker suits make sense). I am a firm believer that style and comfort need not be mutually exclusive, but the D.C. fashion scene seems to miss both by remaining wedded to impratical dress codes. ...
... Why shouldn’t D.C.’s women be able to freely adapt to their city’s climate, which happens to be incredibly uncomfortable in the summer? In this vein, sandals of any kind make the most sense, and the style is not uniformly unglamorous. That this author is willing to give men a pass for looking “slovenly” but wills that women squeeze into pumps or stillettos or other signifiers of glamor makes his rant even more patently and ridiculously archaic.
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I finally had a chance today to catch up with some of my favorite blogs and was so excited when I came across all this great fodder on Project Beltway!
In response to some comments about Bush's Croc incident, Rachel had some pretty interesting incite into D.C. fashion and its influences.
DC is a town pretty much consumed with running the country, not with discussing breakthrough design or celebrating the trendsetting/unconventionally dressed. ... What I find most heartening and interesting part of doing this blog is observing the sheer fact that people’s attitudes about fashion are changing. ...To read the entire posting (without all of the ellipses...), click here...
... I find it truly inspiring whenever I stumble across someone in town with a look far from the K or M Street-beaten path, and it happens more than you’d think. ... It’s just one of those weird repressed-fashion-lover problems to uniquely specific to DC, and it’s at once annoying and totally interesting if you really like Washington. ...
... I think Washington is a town full of style-starved closet fashionistas: The high-powered Republican staffer who has his proscribed khaki-and-oxford costume but reads The Sartorialist and dabbles in vintage on the weekends….the Georgetown-darling partygirl who wears pretty dresses to parties but dreams of pulling off Kate Moss’s rumply, effortless chic or of channeling even a smidge of Dita Von Teese’s dramatic pinup-girl-come-to-life-aesthetic. ...
Naïveté can be troublesome. “Interns across the city face a sartorial conundrum when they land, in all of their flip-flopped glory, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol,” said Rachel Cothran, who writes a fashion blog, www.projectbeltway.com . “It makes sense that these young women haven’t yet stocked their closets with weeks’ worth of professional and stylish clothes; however, there is no excuse for showing up to work in too-tight poly-blend black pants. This is Longworth, not Lotus.” ...To read the entire article, click here...
... Cothran, the fashion blogger, added, “Interns always tend to look either too casual, too slutty, or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, too old. Some words of advice: Structured jackets and what my mom likes to call ‘little sweaters’ are your best friends.”
PROJECT BELTWAY: Is Washington a fashionable city?To read that, click here...
WDC FASHION COUNCIL GALS: WDC is growing to be a fashionable city. We have all of the ingrediants, strong economy, diverse populace, strong real estate market and a interesting mix of local fashion retail that is expanding every day. Even Capital Hill is changing! Take a stroll around the Rayburn building and see for yourself!
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