Beer Budget, Champagne Taste

I've just been surfing on Style.com some more... Pardon the naive wondering, but what happens to these things after the 30-second trip down the runway? Here's a dress by Valentino. Red. Thoroughly beaded, from shoulder to knee. Is it worth all the ten gazillion hours it takes to attach beads and lace and sequins to temperamental fabrics? Do they have machines that sew and embroider beads? Can't someone do a reality TV show behind the scenes at one of these couture outfits? I bet there's some entertaining catfighting that goes on in the Beading Department.

I'm pretty sure that if I worked in one of these places, I'd get assigned to an even more nerve-wracking job, like pressing the pleats into this blouse-- the last step in a 10,000-hr. sewing epic. I'd be the quiet, affable character in the background while the Beading Ladies dished about each other, but then 5 minutes before the end of the episode, the cameras would suddenly find me hunched over my steamy workbench. Givenchy's guy, Riccardo Tisci, would be there breathing down my neck, so he'd get a good noseful of the fumes generated by melting fabric. Whoops! Hey, Ricky baby, no worries, we can get the girls to sew a sequin patch over the hole!

I get so many ideas from surfing these slideshows... mostly for colors I would never think to combine. Like that gunmetal grey-and-peach bow (Valentino). Why do they look good together? Would they still look good together if they were yarns instead of silk and lace? Probably not. Unless you could preserve some of the depth/3-D structure in the knitted garment. My really crude sense of color theory is that maybe I like these two together because they are shades of blue and orange-- contrast colors! Is that right? Or maybe it has something to do with the silver and taupe that offset them?

And for some reason, I really like this dress, from the Chanel show. And it's not because of all the embroidery on the sleeve, I don't think. Or the puritanical neckline. It's that long line of white buttons, parallel and so widely offset. And the pocket hidden in that front panel seam. Just how much could you pare out of the rest of the garment and still have it look amazing?

And in the category of "ingenious but I'd never wear it," check out the wrap she's got around her neck. It's a horse, folks. Made from hundreds of layers of felt, stacked into a 3-D horse-stole with the help of some beads for spacers. Your kids would love you for years to come (dress up!) and the Saturday Morning Warriors at your estate sale would heave this thing up out of a box and call out, "Margaret-- check out THIS thing!" but you absolutely could never, as you live and breathe, wear this out of the house. Couturiers, last question. What were you thinking? What are you supposed to say when you're at that friend's party, and they're like, "I can't BELIEVE you made that! You are sooo CREATIVE, Ricky! Ohmigod! I HATE you!!!"