Wedding Belles: Reconciling Gender and Bridal Fashion

Weddings are a problematic and endlessly fascinating subject to me. In theory, they're a celebration of two people's love for each other and what's more beautiful than that? In practice though, they can be difficult, to say the least. So much in our culture is already about narcissism, the amplification and celebration of the self, and weddings seem to have become one more venue in which to worship the towering edifice of the ego. Wedding fashions is often the place where the bride and grooms' ideas about themselves and their guests are made apparent: will the bride subject the bridesmaids to hideous dresses? What ridiculous theme will the wedding have? Well, throw queer identity into a pretty heteronormative mix and you've got an even more sticky situation.

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My friend, we'll call her Jen, was invited to her friends Keith and Kelly's wedding this summer. Jen was originally good friends with Keith, but had always gotten along well with Kelly. Jen is a butch lesbian and her gender presentation tends towards the masculine. Keith and Kelly asked her to be a bridesmaid and wear a very specific kind of dress in the wedding party. Jen responded that she would be honored to be in the wedding party as a bridesmaid but that she didn't feel totally comfortable wearing a dress. The following is an excerpt from an e-mail Keith sent Jen in response to her request to wear the same thing as Keith's groomsmen in the wedding party:

"I know you probably think this is us just wanting it to be easy, as the not-giving-us-much-credit seems to be an overriding theme here. Believe it or not, we've given considerable thought to your role and the ceremonial sensitivities surrounding it. We were in no way attempting to shovel a gender definition down your throat by asking you to wear a dress. We were asking you to think about us rather than yourself in this circumstance, as the couple is generally the focus of such ceremonies. After Kelly got her dress a while back and began seriously thinking about what the bridesmaids would be wearing a couple months ago--this was after I'd already chosen the basics of my groomsmen's outfits--she realized that our earlier idea, brainstormed during our initial naivety, wasn't going to work out with the gown's aesthetic. The fabrics idea from before as well as any modern-style outfits just wouldn't cut the mustard with the gown's bucolic, 19th Century look. During this time, Kelly and several of the bridesmaids were throwing around ideas for dresses. At one point, it seemed to me like the dresses weren't taking into account your situation, and we had a big argument while we were outlet shopping for socks. We discussed it at length several other times and were trying to figure something out. Neither of us felt that you wearing the groomsmen's outfit would work out; so I decided to go out on a limb, maybe test the tensile strength of our relationship, and ask you to wear a dress."

Several e-mails were exchanged and the whole thing culminated with Keith and Kelly asking Jen to withdraw from the wedding party because of her discomfort with the idea of wearing a dress. Then Jen finally decided that she wouln't attend the wedding at all. It's one thing to have a preference for the aesthetic of your wedding and try to organize it around a cohesive theme, but to basically force a friend to make their gender identity conform to the theme of your weddings just crosses the line. The funny part is that while Keith insists that Jen wearing a dress is an issue of the wedding having an overall nineteenth century look, Keith's bridesmen on the other side of the aisle are slated to wear grey skinny jeans and Vans because obviously a half-nineteenth century/half-hipster theme is so harmonious and pleasing to the eyes. What's worse is that in Keith's e-mail there's a subtle implication that Jen is being selfish by not wearing a dress, that she's not thinking enough about the bride and groom's feelings and the tone they want to set for the party. I say that if they really wanted to compromise, there would have been a perfect nineteenth century get-up for Jen to wear: a foppish dandy costume.

Point-Counter Point: The Politics of Design Plagiarism

Point: I've never felt particularly strongly about fashion plagiarism. My logic has always been that yes, major chains copy high fashion designers all the time, but that high fashion designers copy vintage and street style all the time, so that at some point the situation becomes karmically balanced. Plagiarism cases that have gotten a lot of press recently have been Gwen Stefani's and Anna Sui's lawsuits against Forever 21. My response to lawsuits like these has always been that it's hard for me to feel sorry for rich movie stars or designers and that furthermore, chains like Forever 21 aren't stealing a designer like Anna Sui's business because the customer who habitually shops at Anna Sui is almost never the customer who habitually shops at Forever 21 or H&M or Zara. In other words, these mass market copies of designer clothes are catering to mass market customers (like me), not to upscale shoppers who would actually shop at Sui's boutiques. If I buy a dress that looks like something knocked-off of the Marc by Marc Jacobs line at one these large chains, I just don't feel like I'm stealing any one's intellectual property because Marc by Marc Jacobs stuff is so over-priced and derivative in the first place. When plagiarism functions within this bounded system of major designer to large chain, it doesn't bother me. (although I acknowledge that this line of argument puts aside the conditions under which Forever 21 clothes are produced, which are most likely deplorable and the subject of a whole other post)

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Counter-Point: I didn't think much about the other side of the fashion plagiarism argument until my friend who's a furniture designer/carpenter complained to me the other day that designers have few recourses to traditional legal action when one of their designs gets copied (unlike writers who have copyright law and an easier time of proving that their work has been plagiarized (thanks Library of Congress!). My friend the furniture designer told me that in fact, young obscure designers (of clothing, furniture, textiles, etc.) have their work copied constantly, which often prevents them from making their names and their reputations on their own designs. Fashionista reported yesterday that they met a jewelry designer, Bliss, at Gen Art who claimed that her designs had been plagiarized by model Erin Wasson. Wasson's copied pieces accessorized rising fashion star Alexander Wang's Fall '08 runway show. Bliss alleged that Wasson copied her design after purchasing a piece from the designer. And it gets worse....then Wasson wore Bliss' original piece in a Nylon's spread about Wasson's designs, passing off the necklace as her own. If it's true, it's really a dick move on Wasson's part, but how can the little guy (or girl, as is the case here) be protected from such infringements?

In most cases, these copyright infringement cases seem like the rich fighting the rich for the right to rip off designs that aren't so terribly original in the first place, but in Bliss' case and in many other younger designers' cases, it's almost tragic that their work is being stolen. Also, who's to say that big, established designers don't copy young, struggling designers?

Secret Obsession Ads to Remain Only Semi-Secret

That too-sexy-for-American-tv Eva Mendes' ad for Secret Obsession? It's definitely not gonna air state side. But in order to ensure that American audiences get to view the spot, Coty is previewing the ad on the internet tonight at secretobsession.com. This reads like a perfect storm of pr stunt meets television censors with the t.v. censors doing the pr stunt a roundabout favor. [Elle UK]

Sony BMG Music Entertainment agrees to pay 100,000 euros to LVMH in a copyright infringement suit. The case brought against Sony by LVMH claims three of Sony's artists —Britney Spears, Da Brat, and Ruben Studdard used LVMH's Toile Monogram and Multicolore trademarks in CD's and music videos. Will this herald the demise of unauthorized name brand flossing in pop and rap videos? [WWD]

Cartier finds a way to market more expensive shit to you: Myspace. [Guardian]

Another digital whittling victim: Jessica Simpson gets de-hipped on the September cover of Elle. [NYMag]

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Elizabeth Arden and Rocawear team to create the 9IX Rocawear fragrance. But don't get too excited, this cologne will not make you smell or be like the 'Hov. Ron Rolleston, executive vice president of global fragrance marketing for Elizabeth Arden says, “Certainly, Jay-Z is the creative force — we’ve met with him every two weeks throughout the process — but this is a fashion fragrance. He’s not the ‘face’ of the brand.” [WWD]


Neutrogena asked to change its ads by industry watchdogs who claim the company's ads are misleading. [WWD]

Purple is in, for political pundits that is. Just ask Keith Olbermann, Bill O'Reilly, Brian Williams, George Stephanopolous, and Jim Lehrer, all partisans of the allegedly nonpartisan shade of purple, and its variants plum and soft periwinkle. [New York Times]

Timberland is scaling back direct sourcing (i.e. its factories) from India and handing over its sourcing functions to third party company Li & Fung; Liz Clairborne is considering doing the same. This move by Timberland marks the first hitch in a massive boom of American retailers direct sourcing from India, however, larger retailers like H&M, Target, and Walmart continue to use Indian manufacturers. [Business Week]

Dawn Robertson has been named President of Sean John. Robertson formerly served as president of Old Navy. [WWD]

When It Rains, It Pours Bad Fashion at the Pineapple Express Premiere

To be honest, I am not quite sure what Pineapple Express is about; the television ads have been quite oblique. So I googled "Pineapple Express" and lo and behold, it's not just the name of a movie starring lovable oafs Seth Rogen and James Franco. Wikipedia informs us that it's a meteorological term too: "Pineapple Express (also known as Pineapple Connection) is a non-technical, shorthand term popular in the news media for a meteorological phenomenon which is characterized by a strong and persistent flow of atmospheric moisture and associated heavy rainfall from the waters adjacent to the Hawaiian Islands and extending to any location along the Pacific coast of North America." a.k.a. bad weather in California sweeping in from Hawaii. This could be a metaphor: bad fashion certainly swept into Mann Village Theater in L.A. last night for the premiere of Pineapple Express. Could it have come from Hawaii? Who knows, but the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly are after the jump.

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The Good

[Perrey Reaves]

Perrey Reaves' dress is smart, as in perfect for the occasion. The pattern and the cut are ultra-flattering.

[Leslie Mann]

Leslie Mann displays an ineffable California-ness in her dress and shoes and hair. Additional points for making a long-sleeved, ruffle-hemmed, and scarf-at-the-neck dress look fresh, not dowdy.

The Bad

[Emma Stone]

When will the madness of peep toe boot/pump/sling back heel hybrids stop? Emma Stone looks generally foxy here, but I can't abide by THOSE shoes.

[Adrianne Curry]

Adrianne Curry's dress performs the amazing feat of making her look statuesque and blah all at once. But the main thing here that really bothers me is the glasses. As a four eyes myself, I often wonder whether there are some contexts in which glasses ruin the look. This picture may answer my question.

[Lauren Miller]

Personally, I would feel really paranoid with a zipper right down the front of my dress.

[Kanye West]

Kanye's hip hop-meets-Mr.Rogers-meets-the-future thing can be quite good, but in this case, one wonders whether a slightly less buttoned-up, stiff style would have worked better.

[Lizzy Kaplan]

Lizzy Kaplan looks like she was lounging around in a lace teddy, but suddenly had to go the corner store for milk. Solution to being a little too naked to walk out of the house: leggings. Voila!

[Amanda Peet]

Another casualty of over-casualness: Just picking up the kids from soccer practice. Be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail!

[Shiri Appleby]

In Shiri Appleby's outfit, we encounter two difficult things to carry off: linen and suspenders. Together, a deadly combo.

[Alicia Silverstone]

Alicia Silverstone's pants and top are an utter waste of some fabulous shoes.

The Ugly

[Elizabeth Banks]

This is the kind of outfit I always tried to engineer with my friend in the sixth grade. Like oh, wouldn't it be awesome if we could turn dad's dress shirt into a dress? But then after a few minutes of being held up with safety pins, our wonderful creation would slowly slink down my torso. It didn't really pan out then and it doesn't pan out now.

[Marcela Mar]

Midriffs are for the beach.