The XX Factor: What women really think.

Forget Michelle Obama—Barbie Is the New Black Fashion Icon

Italian Vogue is celebrating Barbie's 50th anniversary—not to mention the first anniversary of its historic all-black issue (isn't that the most gorgeous photo of Naomi Campbell you've ever seen?)—with a very cool little supplement called "The Barbie Issue," full of fashion shoots starring black Barbies. Jezebel has an excerpt; may I recommend it as a mid-afternoon pick-me-up?

Should Michelle Break Up With J. Crew?

Can "Traceable Retail" Revolutionize How We Shop?

A guest post from Double X writer Erika Kawalek:

Rarely is the public let in on how clothes actually get made—the gritty world of sourcing, manufacturing, cross-ocean container shipping, distribution and slick marketing that goes into supplying that perpetually regenerating stock of textile novelties we call fashion.

J. Crew Out O'Keefes Georgia

Nuclear Wintour on 60 Minutes

Did anyone catch Anna Wintour's interview with Morley Safer on last night? (Side note: I like the way this YouTube teaser's headline makes it sound like Anna Wintour is, in fact, the Secretary of Defense. This seems like a sensible foreign policy move to me.) Despite the frisson of excitement that came with actually seeing and hearing Wintour speak—she lives! she lives!—the interview was mostly a puff piece. However, there was one moment... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)

The Erotic House of Peter Saville

In case you haven't heard, magazines are dying right and left. Who knows which one will be next? One day, that may be the sound of Anna Wintour's head rolling across the floor. Not unlike the adult movie industry, which thought it was so ahead of the curve, technologically-speaking, that it neglected to jump on the Internet bandwagon until its product had gotten away from them and it was far, far too late, magazines and newspapers have failed to exploit the Web to their advantage. Now, they're suffering for it.

Fashion Statement

Willa, I tried clicking through that Costume Institute Gala slide show, and got ... bored. You'll be shocked, shocked to learn that I am no one's idea of fashionable. There are many reasons I live up here in the land of the bluestockings. Among them: Here, I can get away with dressing in a combination of Goodwill, Gap, and Ann Taylor (that last saved for my high-end items: black pants).

But flipping through the frippery did make me think of a film event I attended this winter at Brandeis, featuring Alan Alda and Kate Beckinsale—who, you will also not be shocked to know, is the opposite of my type. (Cf: Rachel Maddow.) It drove me crazy how Beckinsale kept wriggling in her seat, showing off her death-defying heels, legs, and all-but-exposed breasts from first one angle and then another. We've got the point, I texted dryly to my prosecutor. She should sit still now and let my hero Alan Alda speak. My gal texted right back, "Your job is being smart. Her job is being beautiful. Let her do her job."

Tuxedos, Turbans, and Tulle on The Red Carpet

Swine Flu Is the New Black!

Here a pandemic, there a pandemic, everywhere you look lurks the swine flu. What's a girl to do? Get stylish with it. In the blogyard, swine-flu-inspired fashions abound. Refinery 29's Pipeline suggests you weather the pigocalypse with panache, in a sequined hood and armed with cleansing hand gel. Over at New York, The Cut offers face masks for the fashionista, including the Richard Prince nurse-styled, the besnouted, and the Gitmo-esque. Me? I prefer the look of this latex pig mask. If you can't beat 'em, you may as well join 'em.

"Sans Fards" Is French for Bullshit

The femblogosphere is a-chatter over the latest issue of French Elle, which features a series of stars—Monica Bellucci, Eva Herzigova, Charlotte Rampling among them—sans fards—in other words, without makeup. Shine's Jennifer Romolini crows "Yay!" of the Photoshopping and retouching-free issue. It's a call to arms, as she sees it, to U.S. editors in love with images of women that have been airbrushed to death: "So American magazine editors, I plead to you: It's time to step up your game." Feministing agrees, as if a woman who dares wear no makeup has come to embody the ultimate feminist act.

In contrast, Matthew Yglesias sees beyond the smoke and mirrors art of the stunt magazine spectacle that European editors have mastered as of late. These "untouched" images are no more "real" than they are "feminist."

"Obviously, artifice hasn’t, in fact, been done away with here. The lighting, the attire, etc. is all being professionally done; vast quantities of film is being shot and only the very best images selected; and the 'stars' being presented 'sans fards' are extreme outliers in the genetic lottery. All of which is no worse than conventional magazine cover art, but it’s not really any better. And just at a time when public awareness of the fakeness of magazine covers is growing, we get a new artifice presented as unadorned reality."

And he is absolutely right. All of which seems to point out what a strange charade 21st century feminism has become, a so-called "movement" in which being "feminist" means carping about milk ads and empowerment is found in staged fashion magazine layouts.

O vs. O

Waiting for a bus near a newsstand this week, I became transfixed by the cover of the April issue of O magazine, in which, for the first time in the publication’s nine-year history, its namesake/publisher/doyenne shares cover space with someone else: Michelle Obama, the first pretender to Oprah’s title of America’s favorite black female celebrity. Dayo wrote about this cover when it first came out, but it took a good long session of bus-stop staring to drive home how weird an image it actually is. There’s always been something Napoleonic about the narcissism of Oprah’s inevitable presence on that cover, and she doesn’t cede her place without a fight: The space is almost exactly evenly divided between the two women. Michelle, who towers over Oprah by half a head, smiles and spreads out her hands in a laying-down-the-law kind of gesture. Oprah holds hers together in prayer position, like a supplicant, her face turned toward Michelle, her expression tense. (Or am I overreading?) Of the hundreds of photos that must have been taken during the shoot, it's amazing that Oprah (who, I assume, gets final cut) chose this one. It's a telling portrait of uneasily shared power, right down to the fact that Michelle’s broad shoulders are literally blocking Oprah’s name.

Another striking element of the picture is Michelle’s belt, a wide strip of transparent plastic with a big round buckle (emphasizing, inevitably, the comparative narrowness of her and Oprah’s waists.) No other first lady in history could have worn that belt. (The very material it’s made of didn’t exist until Mamie Eisenhower’s day.) It brings together a mod Space Age sensibility (Twiggy might have worn it in 1969) with a populist embrace of cheap materials—it’s an accessory you could imagine finding at H & M or Forever 21. This week, watching Michelle cut a style swath through London, I keep thinking that the woman who can unseat Oprah from the cover of her own magazine, and do it wearing a see-through belt, is a force to be reckoned with indeed.

 (Thanks to Mrs. O, the invaluable Michelle Obama fashion blog, for the images.)

Motherhood Sucks—Cigarettes, That Is

Jezebel has a delightful layout from French Vogue's April issue in which motherhood gets a grand sendup. Ah, ze French. So naughty. Lovely lithe, model-of-the-moment Lily Donaldson stomps about smoking cigarettes and ostensibly caring for her "baby." Clad in pink hot pants and skyscraper heels, the model tosses the tot into the air without a care, blows toxic smoke into its cherubic face, and tests the bottle milk on her arm with a stance that suggests she's fondly reminiscing upon her pre-baby heroin addiction. Not to mention, she's got another bun in her designer-dud-clad oven. Shot by Patrick Demarchelier but born from the dangerous mind of French Vogue editor-in-chief Carine Roitfeld, the pictures are a hilarious poke at one of the world's last sacred cows—motherhood. Perhaps if American magazines weren't so whimpy about getting provocative, they wouldn't be dying in droves.

Lipstick Level Lunacy

You know, there's something about the whole lipstick level concept that doesn't make any sense to me. The theory is that lipstick is an economic indicator; supposedly during economic downturns, women will purchase comparatively cheap lipsticks rather than buy high-end frocks. But the whole thing seems like fuzzy logic to me. Either that, or from years of freelancing, every trend piece of this sort reads more blatantly as evidence of a reporter's ability to sell a so-called story that may or may not exist than evidence of an actual, real-world trend. What is more than evident if one surveys the latest fashion "trend" stories is that 21st century women are completely schizophrenic. Flats are in. Actually, high-heels are the new black. They're bringing sexy back. Wait, no, in fact it's really all about the return of masculinity by way of the '80s power-shoulder. Tie me up; tie me down. What's the word for what comes after postfeminist? Schizofeminism? The real trend piece is about whatever internal conflict is raging within women, not what's going on economically.

Seeing Spots: Am I Dizzy?

Allow me to leap to jump to Marjorie's defense on M.I.A.'s outfit from the Grammys. I've got no problem with the "whimsical" polka dots. It's the see-through mesh and the practically nonexistent skirt that have me cringing.

Don't get me wrong; I don't think pregnant women should be shrouded in mumus for nine months. There's nothing wrong with looking gorgeous or sexy while you're pregnant. And heck, there's even nothing wrong with performing while you're about to burst, as long as the doctor says it's OK: I remember how amazing Catherine Zeta-Jones looked and sounded when she performed at the 2003 Oscars while eight months pregnant.

But something that all mothers learn after they have kids (if they haven't learned it before) is that it's not all about you anymore. This is true whether you're a stay-at-home mom or a career woman or a wildly successful performing artist. Sometimes it might not hurt to ask yourself, "What would the kids say if they were old enough to see this?"

Thoroughly Modern Martha

"[George Washington] was clearly sexually excited by her," said Patricia Brady, a historian who wrote the first revisionist biography of Martha a few years ago. "When Martha decided to marry George, she didn't marry him just to be a kind stepfather to her two children. He was a hunk, and I think she decided to make herself happy. ..."

are seeking to revamp the former first lady's fusty image, using the few surviving records of things she wrote, asking forensic anthropologists to do a computerized age-regression portrait of her in her mid-20s and, perhaps most importantly, displaying for the first time in decades the avant-garde deep purple silk high heels studded with silver sequins that she wore on her wedding day.

It’s cool to know more about Martha. And I get that first lady fashion is back like black—the Smithsonian is displaying a beautiful onyx pocket watch worn by Mary Todd Lincoln after her husband’s assassination/ (I have it on good authority that DVF is an admirer.) But must we describe Martha’s shoes as “the Manolo Blahniks of her time”? I’m more interested in the mention of her late 18th-century management of five tobacco farms. What was that like? Ironically, this extreme makeover ends up bounding its subject within a rather retrograde portfolio, comprising what she wore and how she related to men and who wanted to diddle her. Exchanging the trope of the schoolmarm for that of the proto-Bovarian fashionplate isn’t really progress, is it?

Perhaps These Lady Shoes Would Have Made for a Better Farewell Kiss

Pipeline points out that a pair of women's spiked Louboutins would have made for a better shoe-weapon to be hurled at Bush in Iraq, rather than a simple pair of men's loafers. They suggest a Burberry studded heel or Louboutin for Rodarte with gold spikes, although I, myself, might have selected an Alexander McQueen's crystal-heeled boot for its goring potential. Elsewhere, Fighting Liberals suggests sending your old shoes to the George W. Bush Presidential Library, and Boing Boing has a roundup of amusing Shoegate GIFs.

Puck Daddy

Sean Avery, hockey's self-confessed bad boy, was suspended indefinitely yesterday by the NHL for making remarks to a reporter about "how it's become a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds." The vaguely gross remark was aimed at exes Elisha Cuthbert and Rachel Hunter, both of whom are now dating other pro hockey players. It was also a deliberate stunt by Avery, who walked up to a group of reporters during a morning skate and asked them if there was a camera present before delivering his comments.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, but I don't really see what's all that terrible about the term "sloppy seconds." Juvenile, yes—but making disparaging remarks about the wives and girlfriends of your opponents is habitual within professional sports. In the 1998 FIFA World Cup, David Beckham was given a red card for kicking Diego Simeone, who had reportedly made graphic and insulting comments about his wife, Victoria, aka Posh Spice. More recently in the 2006 World Cup final, Zinedine Zidane was sent off for head-butting an Italian opponent who had called his sister a whore. Sean Avery's always been an expert at aggravating his opponents. Unfortunately, this time it was the last straw for the NHL.

Avery, who is frequently targeted by his teammates for his love of high fashion, was one of my fellow interns at Vogue this summer. I never actually met him, as he was rarely in the office past his first two weeks, choosing instead to do decidedly more uninterny things like attending fashion shows in Paris and  guest-editing Men's Vogue online (their Web traffic skyrocketed). So I really have no idea if he's as much of a pig in real life as he seems to be on the ice. However, everyone at Vogue loved him, particularly the older editors, and he was very good about giving out signed autographs and pictures for friends and family. The Sean Avery Fashion Story is reportedly set to become a movie, so regardless of his character he's an excellent self-publicist.

Barack vs. Blahniks