Roitfeld Style Tip: Edit Your Wardrobe

Roitfeld Style Tip: Edit Your Wardrobe
By Kate Ringo Suzuki

Carine Roitfeld was recently quoted as saying, “As you get older, you must never share your wardrobe with your daughter. Never ever. You will never look beautiful in a jean jacket and a mini-skirt, even if you have a beautiful body. You have to wear something for your age or you will look really ridiculous. There are too many 50-year-olds dressing as 20-year-olds. You have to look every five years at your wardrobe and say: 'Is it OK to wear this with my legs? Is it OK to wear sleeveless with my arms?' Then you have a cull. It's not nice but you have to do it.”

I believe that she is absolutely correct: To avoid the mutton-dressed-as-lamb look we must cull. I would go further than that, to say that the wardrobe culling is necessary to women of all ages. Given time, Ms. Roitfeld will realize that the sad truth is that the reverse is more prevalent in America, that many young lambs are presenting themselves as mutton, especially when it comes to motherhood. Americans, after all, invented “mom jeans.” Welcome to America! Fortunately, Ms. Roitfeld’s advice to regularly reevaluate our closets works to correct the even more atrocious wardrobe sin of, gasp!, looking matronly. Yes, it makes perfect sense — if you want to look your age, make editing your wardrobe routine.

Editing one’s wardrobe is something that few women take the time to do. For some reason, shopping for something new seems like a far more glamorous proposition. As a personal stylist, I see this time and time again. I help women who love to shop, who have closets that are overflowing. It is my job to help my clients make the best use of what they already own. It is my job to step in and tell them what not to wear. I tell them to stop shopping so much, to slow down, to get off the sartorial hampster wheel for a moment and take a good look at what they have now, what they have to work with, and then think more deeply about where they want to be. Like Yogi Berra says, “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.” When the goal is to look as hot as Carine Roitfeld does, then you need to shop less and edit more. So strong is my belief in the value of regularly editing one’s wardrobe, that I wrote the Everyday Glamour Wardrobe Edit Workbook, which is available to anyone on my web site, Everyday Glamour. It is a valuable tool!

I believe in Ms. Roitfeld’s advice because the benefits of editing your wardrobe extend far beyond looking age appropriate. There is a huge economic incentive as well. For one, editing your wardrobe helps to mitigate the Eyes-Are-Bigger-Than-My-Wallet Syndrome, which afflicts many fashion lovers and can have crippling effects. Recently after editing my own closet, I realized that all of my shoes, save for a pair of cage heels, were worn out. I became all too aware of my desparate need for black platform ankle booties. I’m a card carrying fashion lover. I love the basic suede short boots that Maison Martin Margiela is showing this season. And since I am afflicted with the Eyes-Are-Bigger-Than-My-Wallet Syndrome, I could not bring myself to get the Nine West version. I tried. I really did! So I split the difference and sprang for the Barneys Co-op interpretation, which was 30% off. It was a stretch but I consoled myself with another Carine gem, “The less you have, the more you enjoy.”

Of course the moment after I purchased the Barneys Co-op platform ankle booties, I felt a compelling and urgent need for the Rag & Bone brown ankle boots. I edited my wardrobe and I know I need brown boots! But they are $545. So I must meditate upon this quote from the Bhagavad Gita:

“A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires — that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is ever being filled but is always still — can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires.”

Clearly whomever wrote those words never went shopping at Barneys.

Besides dressing age-appropriate and mitigating the crippling effects of the Eyes-Are-Bigger-Than-My-Wallet Syndrome, editing one’s closet eliminates waste. Not only is it the environmentally responsible thing to do, separating the wheat from the chaff makes dressing in the morning a snap. Each time I edit my wardrobe, I ask myself: Do I really need another black lace top? Do I need yet another Wolford patterned tight? And I realize, oh my god, I have a hoard stash of Wolford patterned tights. I can’t stop. I have a problem. But you know what they say, the first step toward recovery is to recognize that you have a problem.

When you realize that you really do not need any more black lace tops or Wolford patterned tights or... whatever it is that rocks your boat... then you reach a state of enlightenment whereby you will recognize with clarity your real need. What I really need is a Rick Owens leather jacket. Uh oh.

A Rick Owens leather jacket would look good on me — especially a brown one. Everyone in New York has a black one, but since I edit my wardrobe regularly, I have a good sense of what looks good on me. Editing your wardrobe forces you to wake up and take a good long look at yourself. This wardrobe editing business is not for the faint of heart, folks. It is the proverbial slap in the face. You see your flaws, but you can console yourself by recognizing your assets. And the good news is that once you know yourself, your flaws and your assets, you can then make an informed decision about what to do about it. In the end, editing your wardrobe gives you a renewed sense of confidence.

Carine says we should be editing our wardrobes every five years, but if you are not French, if you don’t get free designer clothing, and if you do not have perfect model proportions, then I recommend editing every six months. So what are you waiting for? Go to Everyday Glamour now and get the link to the Everyday Glamour Wardrobe Edit Workbook! Did I mention that it is free? Yes, it is free! Then you can get started! Is it a lot of work? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely.

Carine Roitfeld, Naked Queen by Mario Testino, V Magazine #73, September 2011; © 2011 V Magazine, LLC.

Seeing Carine Roitfeld

Seeing Carine Roitfeld
By Kate Ringo Suzuki

I work in a boutique on Madison Avenue. I help celebrities all the time. Just last week, I helped a fashion It girl from the Swinging 60s buy some very luxurious underwear. But I will never name names.

Except for this one: Carine Roitfeld. I didn’t help her with luxurious underwear or a pencil skirt or an Equipment blouse. She didn’t come into my store. But I saw her on Madison Avenue. I saw Carine Roitfeld on Madison Avenue!! It was closing time and I was taking out the trash for the store and I froze up. It was my chance to meet Carine Roitfeld and I had trash in my hands. What made me decide to take the trash out at the exact moment she passed by my store? What are the chances? My statistics professor in college would have said, “Minute.”

I looked at her and my brain froze. I thought I was watching a television and then by the time I saw her back to me it dawned on me: This is real life. I saw eyebrows first. Then bare legs, then a chic rectangular handbag. A HANDBAG!! She was swinging it and I swear she leisurely gazed into my shop window. She is tiny. I thought she would have been bigger.

I said nothing. She may have seen me, a frozen shopgirl holding trash bags in the doorway. But maybe not. I’m mad at myself for being so shy. Next time I will be bolder. What shall I say? How about, “The more I look at your editorials from Vogue Paris, the more I realize how brilliant you are.” Too much? How about, “Hey! I write for the blog, I Want To Be A Roitfeld!” Hmm. How about, “Writing about you, your family, and the designers you love gives me indescribable joy. I’m having the time of my life.”

[Editor's note: Be sure to read Kate's brilliant advice on dressing for your figure for Thanksgiving... so timely... so right...]

Carine Roitfeld photograph courtesy of Karpowicz.blogspot.fr

Carine Roitfeld's Barneys New York Windows

I imagine many of us wonder what Carine Roitfeld has in store for the window displays she is masterminding for Barneys New York to introduce the autumn styles. Here to offer a few predictions as to what we might see behind the glass at Barneys come September is the always delightful Kate Ringo Suzuki, editor-at-large for New York. Thank you so much, Kate, I would love to see any of your fabulous concepts in Carine's hands...

Carine Roitfeld's Barneys New York Windows
By Kate Ringo Suzuki 

Carine Roitfeld has been quoted as saying: “We are very free in France. We are free with sex, with cigarettes…” And now Ms. Roitfeld’s brand of free, sexually charged styling is on its way stateside. Fashionistas rejoice! Any day now Carine Roitfeld will be lending her iconic talent to a collaboration with the Barneys flagship store in New York. Beyond styling the catalogs and advertisements, her looks will be featured in Barneys' legendary windows. Carine Roitfeld is about to get New York fashion all hot and bothered.

La Roitfeld and Barneys New York are a match made in heaven. Barneys is fun, sexy, and full of merchandise that you can’t get anywhere else... well other than The Pleasure Chest in the West Village that is. Ms. Roitfeld is the “queen of porno chic” after all. About that little label, “queen of porno chic,” Ms. Roitfeld told New York Magazine, “I’ve always been provocative, but what I’m going to do next is a new way of provocation. I did for many years porno chic. I was the queen of porno chic. And I will do something totally different now.” Do something different? Oh, Carine! Please do not change one bit! New York needs you. If anyone can stimulate our economy, it would be you!

What will the Barneys New York windows look like under Carine’s direction? Perhaps she will take cues from her past work at Vogue Paris. She could, for example, reference that famous editorial, "La Panthère Ose," from the Dec 2010/Jan 2011 issue…

Dress a mannequin as a kind of modern day Mrs. Robinson. I can see it now: the bouffant hairstyle, the Jean Paul Gaultier black leather and wool trench coat and black skinny pants… the bandaged face. Mrs. Robinson just had some work done. Just a touch. Her head is completely bandaged up save for some generously mascaraed eyes peeking out. The Mrs. Robinson mannequin is kissing a male mannequin wearing a very proper Hickey Freeman suit.

Oh, I know. She could reference that old standby, her scandalous “No Smoking” editorial from the April 2009 issue of Vogue Paris…

Show the mannequin in a white Yves Saint Laurent tuxedo jacket with nothing underneath. Pair that with black chiffon Kiki de Montparnasse shorts and Giuseppe Zanotti platform t-straps. Pad the front of the YSL le smoking with a pillow. Pregant mannequin. In one hand mannequin holds a picnic basket from Chelsea Passage, containing a baby doll purchased at nearby FAO Schwartz. In the other hand, position a cigarette between the mannequin's fingers. Puff puff. Bad mommy!

Or she could go back even further in time, back to the iconic "Corps & Lames" featured in Vogue Paris in February 2005…

The mannequin wears a full-length Gucci black chiffon dress covered with little white polka dots, exposing black panties and bare mannequin nipples. Shocking!! The mannequin is seductively positioned bending over a sterile stainless steel table, stabbing at some raw meat. Okay, so raw meat might pose a problem, what with flies and cockroaches. We'll work on it...

Whatever Carine Roitfeld does with Barneys' windows, I know it will be brilliant. And it will definitely not look anything like the windows of a certain bourgeois competitor... Looking forward to a most fashionable September to remember....

Vogue Paris editorial images © 2005, 2009, 2010 Condé Nast. All Rights Reserved.

Roitfeld Beauty Secret: No Plucking

Kate Ringo Suzuki, our plucky editor-at-large in New York, has graciously agreed to recount a very painful experience for us: the overtweezing of the eyebrows. Ladies, I hope that you will take Kate at her word and put down those pluckers today! After all, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld frequently states that the best advice she has received from her mother is not to pluck her eyebrows... and if Carine need not tweeze, we need not tweeze...

Roitfeld Beauty Secret: No Plucking
By Kate Ringo Suzuki 

I'm on a quest for “Carine” eyebrows and I’m failing. I want full, lush, irreverently sexy eyebrows, the kind of eyebrows that hint at spirited, wild, and untamed youthfulness. Instead my eyebrows are disappointingly American. I blame Sassy magazine and their damned eyebrow plucking tutorials. There is a whole generation of American women who can be correctly identified as former Sassy aficionados simply by noting the significant span that exists between their eyebrows. These days the beauty editors at Glamour and Allure are savvy enough to send their readers off for professional eyebrow shaping, but back in the early Nineties it was all about do-it-yourself eyebrows. The idea was to run a pencil vertically by your nose and pluck anything beyond the pencil’s width — except that most girls got a little confused and plucked exactly where the pencil rested on the eyebrow. OOPS! 

Did you know that sometimes — horror of horrors! — eyebrows refuse to grow back? Years may pass without picking up a tweezer and yet the eyebrows stay their plucked selves. The eyebrow lady you visit will tell you to faithfully smear castor oil on overplucked areas to stimulate growth but she is full of it. That does not work. Maybe there is a placebo effect on a very select few women who are highly suggestible types, but I’m not one of them. The only remedy for overplucked brows is to pray that they grow back, but since I’m an atheist that doesn’t work for me. I’m considering agnostic: “Please God, I might believe in you if you would help me grow some irreverently sexy ‘Carine’ eyebrows.”

Anyway, in the event that your overplucked eyebrows do not grow back, you must do emergency damage control. The emergency damage control involves booking an eyebrow shaping appointment on Madison Avenue in New York City with the queen of eyebrow shaping, the one and only Ms. Eliza Petrescu. She will charge you an arm and a leg but if you are eyebrow deficient it will be worth every penny. She is charming and kind as well as talented. She will suggest you not pick up a tweezer and when you explain to her that your brows stopped growing years ago, she will gently nod and get on with her work. She will wax, then pluck. You will wonder if you will have anything left at the end. She will use an eyebrow pencil with the lightest touch. And when you look in the mirror, you will, like magic, have pretty, somehow thicker, fuller-looking eyebrows! Not quite “Carine” brows, but an improvement!

Words of wisdom: Step away. Step away from the tweezers! And pray.

No plucking image by Kellina de Boer. Carine Roitfeld photographs courtesy of guardian.co.uk, Fashion Spot, Getty Images.

Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld: Looking Good

Our witty and wise editor-at-large Kate Ringo Suzuki shares her thoughts on Vladimir's hotness with all of us, may I say this is exciting stuff...

Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld: Looking Good
By Kate Ringo Suzuki 

Vladimir. In Russian the name means, “The one who owns the world.” Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld was born and raised in Paris and now lives in New York City; although he doesn’t own the world quite yet, give him time, he is still young. He is only 26 and he is on his way. At such a tender age, Vladimir has already pioneered the method of “pop-up” art galleries. He installs museum-style exhibitions in industrial spaces all over the world — New York, London, Paris, Milan. He represents the artists Richard Hambleton, RETNA (aka Marquis Lewis), and Nicolas Pol. Okay, enough beating around the bush. Let's talk about what we really came here for — the fact that he also happens to be hot. Time to get down and dirty...

Vladimir’s hotness boils down to a combustible combination of nature and nurture. Mix in his designer jeans and you could start a fire. Not only did he grow up in the fashion capital of the world, he is surrounded by fashion powerhouses. And by powerhouses, I refer not to luxury retailers on Madison Avenue but to the women in his life: Vlad is the son of the brilliant Parisian fashion stylist, Carine Roitfeld; the brother of the beautiful art director and model, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld; and the beau of beyond chic fashion editor, Giovanna Battaglia.

Take a long look, ladies. What do you see? You see a lean physique maintained with regular hour-long kickboxing sessions. Vladimir always makes sure that his clothes are incredibly fitted to show this off. He further emphasizes his long, lean look with plenty of black, occasionally adding touches of grey or white but never both at the same time. Because that would be too much color.

Vladi's typical work look includes black Dior by Hedi Slimane jeans of which he says, “They are my favorites. I started buying them when I was 20. They’re the best fit for me.” He also typically wears brown boots by Hogan (a gift from his fashion editor girlfriend, Giovanna), a black long sleeve American Apparel tshirt, a black cashmere sweater, (sometimes vintage, sometimes Marc Jacobs), a black Margiela coat, and tops it all off with a black Chrome Hearts beanie, but of course. Regarding the American Apparel tshirt, he says, “Any city I travel to, I always get some more American Apparel shirts, as I wear them almost every day.” Clearly Vladimir knows how to stick with what works.

That is not to say that he doesn’t mix it up a bit. When he goes out to dinner he might swap the black American Apparel tshirt with a white American Apparel tshirt. And he might shelve the black Marc Jacobs cashmere sweater for a fitted black jacket by Armani. He might even go so far as to wear gray wool pants by Alexander McQueen but never with the white tshirt. (Too much color, remember?)

Vlad, I'm teasing. The truth is that the all black wardrobe is hot and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Isn’t that right, ladies? His black on black attire says, “I am sophisticated,” “I am cool,” “I am downtown.” Vladimir is very “downtown.” He never wears a tie, he wears his hair long and loose, and he can pull off an eclectic, stand-out pendant necklace designed by Pamela Love without looking like some desperate Flavor Flav wannabe.

Hey, Vladimir! You may not own the world just yet, but your looks make the ladies melt.

Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld photographs © 2010 Condé Nast, © 2010 Patrick McMullan, © 2010 Flaunt Magazine, © 2010 NYP Holdings, Inc., © 2011 ES London Limited, and courtesy of beautyisdiverse.com and Fashion Spot.