Slate Articles

Mad Men Style: The Drapers and the Francises

Tom Fitzgerald & Lorenzo Marquez — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:39:09 GMT

Each week, Tom and Lorenzo analyze the costumes on Mad Men with inimitable wit and charm—showing how the work of the show’s costume designer Janie Bryant reveals character, supplements the plot, and just plain looks great. This article is a short excerpt from this week’s Mad Style post. For much, much more on the costumes of “Dark Shadows”—from Megan’s leather trim to Dark Betty herself—visit tomandlorenzo.com.

Mad Men Style: Is Beth Dawes a Dark Betty Draper?

Tom Fitzgerald & Lorenzo Marquez — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:20:03 GMT

Each week, Tom and Lorenzo analyze the costumes on Mad Men with inimitable wit and charm—showing how the work of the show’s costume designer Janie Bryant reveals character, supplements the plot, and just plain looks great. This article is a short excerpt from this week’s Mad Style post. For much, much more on the style of “Lady Lazarus”—from Peggy’s power yellow to the foppish gays of yesteryear—visit tomandlorenzo.com.

Mad Men Style: How Peggy’s Clothes Define Her

Tom Fitzgerald & Lorenzo Marquez — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:32:00 GMT

Each week, Tom and Lorenzo analyze the costumes on Mad Men with inimitable wit and charm—showing how the work of the show’s costume designer Janie Bryant reveals character, supplements the plot, and just plain looks great. This article is a short excerpt from this week’s Mad Style post. For much, much more on the costumes of “At the Codfish Ball” – from Marie’s portentous gloves to Sally’s go-go boots —visit tomandlorenzo.com.

Mad Men Style: Megan’s Jacket and the Howard Johnson’s

Tom Fitzgerald & Lorenzo Marquez — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:34:39 GMT

Each week, Tom and Lorenzo analyze the costumes on Mad Men with inimitable wit and charm—showing how the work of the show’s costume designer Janie Bryant reveals character, supplements the plot, and just plain looks great. This article is a short excerpt from this week’s Mad Style post. For much, much more on the costumes of “Far Away Places”—from Peggy’s Don-like pockets to Jane’s astonishing earrings—visit tomandlorenzo.com.

Mad Men Style: Pete and Trudy’s Dinner Party

Tom Fitzgerald & Lorenzo Marquez — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:05:46 GMT

Each week, Tom and Lorenzo analyze the costumes on Mad Men with inimitable wit and charm—showing how the work of the show’s costume designer Janie Bryant reveals character, supplements the plot, and just plain looks great. This article is a short excerpt from this week’s Mad Style post. For much, much more on the costumes of “Signal 30” – from the hunky high-school boyfriend to Ken and Peggy’s office suicide pact—visit tomandlorenzo.com.

Go Vest, Young Man

Julia Felsenthal — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:18:00 GMT

Rick Santorum, the GOP presidential candidate from Pennsylvania, is known—as you’ve probably heard by now—for wearing a sweater vest. That sweater vest now has its own Twitter account, Facebook page, YouTube video, and fundraising campaign. The vest is everybody’s favorite fun fact about Santorum—but nobody seems to agree on what it’s actually doing for the politician (besides, perhaps, helping him to associate some new search terms with his blighted name). The range of responses to Santorum’s knitwear has been wide. Scarlett Johansson, who just declared the vest “so sad,” associates the look with her father. Griffin Perry, son of Rick Perry, tweeted that the vest reminded him of infamous sweater-vest-wearing football coach Jim Tressel. The Hartford Courant declared, perhaps prematurely, that Santorum had single-handedly transitioned the sweater vest from a neutral political status to a “right-wing vestment.” The New York Times positions the vest as grandfatherly; the LA Times prefers “avuncular.” Meanwhile, the Boston Herald went out on a limb and accused Santorum of “looking like a McDonald’s trainee.”

How To Make an Outrageous Runway Look

Julia Felsenthal — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:05:00 GMT

Fashion, particularly as it is performed during the biannual mania called New York Fashion Week, is all about spectacle. The clothes that go down the runway are overwrought, over-embellished versions of the garments that will eventually end up in high-end boutiques and are mere inspiration for the trends that will trickle down to more mainstream designers and manufacturers.

Is Shampoo Worth $140 a Tub?

Kim France — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:11:00 GMT

After 10 years as the founding editor-in-chief of Lucky magazine, I became, one Wednesday not so very long ago, Lucky's former founding editor-in-chief. This development brought about a number of changes. My job came with some unimaginably great perks, and in an instant, they were gone. The clothing allowance, such a glamorous lark as to be risible. The car and driver, the first-class air travel, the suites at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles. All relics of a time and a place that were suddenly and decisively in the past.

Fashion Desert

Julia Turner — Fri, 28 May 2010 01:10:00 GMT

Women dress up for Carrie Bradshaw. Standing in line for a preview screening of Sex and the City 2 in New York earlier this week, I saw outfits cranked up an extra notch or two. There was an electric green Pucci-print slip dress. A white jacquard trench coat, worn belted and collar up, in such a way that it was unclear whether there were any clothes on underneath. A red silk paisley halter dress with a handkerchief hem, paired with a visible blue sueded cotton bandeau bra and cork-soled open-toed sandals. Not all of these outfits worked—indeed, many of them were faintly ridiculous—but there was a certain joie de fashion among the moviegoers that I appreciated. It's easy to forget, as the delightfully withering pans for SATC2 roll in, that the HBO series had real merit, and one thing the show did well was challenge the American woman's relationship to her wardrobe. Carrie's over-the-top example encouraged us to dress creatively, vibrantly, unexpectedly, expressively. Sadly, the movies have both had a much duller take on clothes.

Oscar Fashion Report Card

Hanna Rosin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:31:00 GMT

Hanna Rosin: I really want to start with Charlize Theron's reach-from-behind-and-grab-my-breasts dress, but that would be playing into her Björk-like agenda. Instead, I'll kick off with the dress I've been thinking about the most: Zoe Saldana's crystal-and-purple number. This Givenchy dress (from the Paris shows, apparently) echoed one of the main styles of the night: hard-structured metallic top matched with a waterfall-like bottom. I went back and forth on Saldana's version and ultimately decided it was awful. I think it's because that bottom reminded me of those cabbagelike flowers they plant around Washington in the winter. Also, when she walked, those poufs just got in the way. What did you guys think of it?