Feet! Ahh!

She did not win the award for those.

Do department stores no longer care about “the little people?”

Reported by The New York Times: Women’s petite sizes have been cut back or cut off entirely from big department stores, such as Neiman Marcus (or as The View ladies called it, “Needless Markup”), Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s. (Even the all-petite size store, Petite Sophisticate, cut back and closed stores this year.)

As if in lockstep over the past year, Saks ceased selling petite sizes, Bloomingdale’s cut the space it devotes to petites by nearly half in some stores, and Neiman Marcus reduced the number of stores with petite departments by nearly half. Neiman Marcus now carries petite sizes in just eight of its 36 stores; as of the fall, it will stock them in just two.

Store reps claim that these clothes are not selling; that there is no market for them. How could that be when women’s limbs haven’t grown drastically over the last months? Short women like I am (at 4′11″ and that important 1/4) don’t suddenly want to go naked (as if we could).

As designer Dana Buchman said, “It’s not like American women suddenly got tall. I think it’s a mistake.”

The problem really lies with something I’ve noticed myself, and why I rarely buy petite, the clothing is designed for the elderly (often shrinking) woman, not the merely small. The designs are frumpy and conservative, and not in that trendy (lace-ruffles-and-sophistication) way, either.

Petite women, [Department store executives] said, would rather wear the more youthful, skin-baring and tighter-fitting clothing in the contemporary departments, even if it does not fit them as well.

Who wouldn’t want those styles? Meanwhile, store owners and designers see this style problem, and they don’t see the immediate, and correct, fix?

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A trend for the summer, as reported by What Not to Wear’s Stacy London, is the shorts suit (or the cropped suit). It’s good for casual business and is perfect for the weather. But remember your company’s dress code and remember the temperature air conditioners leave your office. Shorts are hot hot right now, and cropped- or short-sleeved blazers pass through different temps while flattering, so these pieces are also great as mixable separates.

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The hottest shoes (IT shoes!) for summer are the red hot Christian Louboutins with cork heels, and Bergdorf Goodman has a brown suede peep-toe slingback version.

The tobacco suede is subtler than a patent black or red, but we still have the classic Louboutin toe, this time in peep-toe cork, and of course the signature red sole.

With a high, high heel and an elastic sling back, this shoe comes in at $670.

Welcome, new visitors to Lipped Media, and old yet young-at-heart, alike. There’s something for everyone here every Monday when I dig up recent posts from our network that are of special interest to style, shoes, fashion news, et cetera. Right. Right to it!

• At Style Spotlight
  • Selma Blair is a Style Icon (yes!)
  • Nicole Richie wears fierce Louboutins
  • and Britney Spears is considering a fashion career?
• High Fashion High found sweet, yet funky-contrasted pumps and Glitterella Heels!!!
• Pet-Pet has a great thought against Doggie “Saying” T-shirts, and found chic Graphic Tees. That’s interesting, because it goes along with a post I’ve had in mind here (for humans!)!

That can-do girl from Fashion is a Verb is hosting le Carnivale this week, with the question:

What movie (/ music video / TV show) do you credit with being responsible for the biggest Fashion Don’ts? In other words- Which movie started off clothing trends that never should have been?

My choice for a video is something I didn’t see much of the effects from, personally, being so young at the time (I don’t even know when this was, precisely). It’s Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” from the 80s.

I do know, thanks to The Wedding Singer and Christine Taylor as Holly Sullivan, that Madonna inspired exact clones. That’s pretty bad. (I can’t even get in to all the facets that make the look, but fortunately, this is not a current trend against which I need to make an argument.)

I do know a little more personally that those rubber bracelets really took off. Even for children, we had jelly bracelets, which were colourful. Mine were chunkier and filled with glitter—gosh, I loved those things. (They’re gone to my clothing archives of memory-only, now!)

At least this trend wasn’t something that stuck around or has come back, yet, unlike leg warmers.

Sometimes when we see a new ad, we instantly have a hunch about what company it’s for. This started for me years ago with Gap’s dancing campaign. Then came the inevitable Must-See-TV Old Navy Ads. Now there are those crazy, crazy Target ads (so fun, though!). But now we again have Old Navy … with the dancing Gap once had.

It’s fun to document Old Navy’s ads, which can also be crazy in their own way … because the fashion is often … okay not to my liking.

The newest ad is for a plaid called Madras (you can view the ad through that link; shop women through this link), it’s quite a flannel-print plaid. The way they’ve done it, it looks like a bunch of homeless, but pretty, people running around.

(And more skinny legs; the main model looks like she can’t support herself on those.)

For some examples of more fashion … not to my liking, look below.

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