Tis the season.

I’ve been scouring the racks for  killer party dresses and this one is one of my favorites. The runway photo doesn’t begin to do it justice. It’s the LBD of the 2009 holiday season. Wear it as shown or strip it down with gladiator heels or layer it under a killer boyfriend jacket.

Aura one shoulder dress by Rag and Bone $435. At Intermix and Rag and Bone.

And just in case you can wait till March 2010 to take delivery of one of the most spectacular gowns you’re ever likely to see, order this one form Naeem Khan. Price available upon request.

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You may have noticed that I haven’t posted a blog about the “fall must haves” or the “top trends” or anything about those essential new purchases. I’ve not proposed any segment to the producers of the weekend news either, which would explain why you have not seen me on air at NBC5. (That may  also explain why this morning some woman from the Northbrook Court mall did a marketing segment on boots for fall– a trend I told NBC viewers about last fall.)

And it’s been an epiphany for fashion critics who had to sit though the ill timed orgy that was Spring 09 fashion week in Milan and Paris. I cannot remember the last time I read fashion review after fashion review that was fraught with the meaning of life. Fashion reviews suddenly turned into tracts on sociology and freakonomics.

It turns out the state of the  global economy is actually forcing most of us to take the meaning of everything, including fashion, seriously. That, at least, is seriously good news.

Thursday morning I flew to New York to meet with a client. Within minutes of landing at LaGuardia, a woman remarked “great pants!” For the rest of the day, hardly a half hour went by that someone, from people with whom I was doing business to strangers on the street, did not say the same thing. There was an audible stir, I kid you not, when I walked into Harry Cipriani on 5th Avenue for dinner. A very good looking twentysomething tried to pick me up later in the evening with the tried and true pickup line “love your pants.”

The pants!

Okay, I thought the plaid wool pants were really great too which is the reason I plopped down $245 at Marc by Marc Jacobs in Bucktown several weeks ago. I have been secretly pining for the weather to get cold enough to wear them.

At the very moment I feared that fashion (and style) had suddenly become frivolous to everyone (especially to someone like myself who takes it seriously), those damn pants reminded me that fashion/style, or a keen eye for it, has the power to attract, command attention–respect even–and garner favors from corners near and far.

I’ve been making some version of that case to my clients for years. It’s nice to confirm for myself, in spite of the times we now live in, that I haven’t been blowing smoke up anyone’s skirt.

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“Are you sure you’re just a fashion writer?” reads one of the comments on my  recent blog about Michelle Obama’s appearance on “The View.” I’ll take the compliment, thank you very much, but I’ll feign outrage: Just a fashion writer? Just a fashion writer? Just?

Just as Harper’s Bazaar produced it’s worst issue ever, just as Christie Brinkley can’t resist another ugly public divorce, just as I’m waiting for Steven Meisel’s 100 page photoshoot in Italian Vogue which exclusively features black models to arrive on these shores, my copy of the July issue of W has arrived at my door.

This issue is a must read for anyone concerned about the intersection of image, politics and the corporate world, (even if only a handfull of Bruce Weber’s photos in the otherwise cliche 36 page photo shoot are worth your time. Check out the real treat of David Slijper’s photographs instead.)

First up is “Party Time,” pp. 46-50, an exceptionally thoughtful piece on how international political leaders use and understand the power of dressing.  The deputy mayor of Paris, Christophe Girard, makes the point I make all the time. (Smart guy, he. And not just a fashion writer.) “Political life is no longer separated from real life, and political women and men know their image matters like [those of] a model or an actor to attract the public. But it’s a real danger when politicians are more concerned about their image than their ideas.”

Next, there’s “Money Honeys,” starting on page 64, about the hedge fund industry’s use of pretty young women and even models as “marketing executives”  which “has  become all but synonymous with a blonde in Theory trousers.” It’s a fascinating read into what amounts to the semi-prostitutional nature of “corporate work” for women in the financial sector.

And finally, the always fabulous and priceless pseudonym protected Louise J. Esterhazy, p.116, will confess that she “can never be president. Of course, the main stumbling block is that I’m Austrian. But it turns out there’s an even greater impediment: I’m an elitist. And what’s wrong with that?”

I suggest you spend your weekend catching up on your reading, especially since the gay Pride parade this year won’t be worth attending  just because Dick Devine retired (from his position as Cook County State’s Attorney and thus will not be atop anyone’s float. Alas, hope floats–away. Dick, you will be sorely missed!).

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The sermon at my church yesterday was “Be for something and against nothing.” Sounds good, right?

Of course it does. But I wonder if the minister, who was dressed in what I call “the social working nun uniform,” had taken a gander at how two women in the congregation came dressed to beat the heat and, um, worship?

One of the women, single and accompanied by a gay man, was wearing a floral dress so low cut and ill fitting that the vast majority of her (braless) breasts were exposed. While she was mingling before the service began, she was obsessively and compulsively tugging at the top of the dress while effervescently telling someone how much she loved to shop.

The other woman, very pregnant and accompanied by what appeared to be her baby daddy, was wearing a tank top and skirt which left not only her belly exposed but her entire self overexposed when she scratched herself (I think) and tugged her skirt even farther down only to reveal more of her Brazilian wax than anyone but her baby daddy had any right to see.

So, keeping within the spirit of the sermon, let me offer the following advice.

While we are all for a little cleavage (who could possibly be against it?) if you wear a dress in public, anywhere in public and no matter the temperature, please keep in mind that the vast majority of your breasts go inside the dress. Pulling and tugging at your dress around your bust is the fashion equivalent of picking your nose in public. (If the dress don’t fit, you must acquit!)

And while we are all for soon-to-be-moms feeling comfortable and sexy….okay, let me just stop here.

What in the world is this obsession with flaunting your sexuality while you’re pregnant?

Look, somebody thought you were sexy enough to knock you up in the first place so we get it. You’re hot. Now give it a rest.

Eat something, have a healthy baby and then do some pilates. End of story.

Just in case you’re pregnant and need some ideas on how to dress appropriately to beat the heat, I’m going to re-post a segment I did last summer for the weekend morning news. I’m all for you watching it!

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Yesterday I previewed the Burberry Prorsum men’s and women’s collection for Fall 08 at the Michigan Avenue store. For those of you who don’t know, that’s the upscale collection offered by Burberry. Kudos to Christopher Bailey for finally producing a collection that relies on savvy craftsmanship and design rather than the vulgarities of marketing. By my count, it is his first one.

I get the giggles when I think about what people get paid to write.

I owe John Galliano an apology.

I’ve never really been one that cared much for the theatrics of fashion. I’m far more impressed by the actual garments and their construction, fit and wearability. Many of the fashion shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris are not presentations of visionary design but bi-annual excercizes in egotistical masturbation for coked up designers, models, fashion editors and assorted courtesans.

Gosh Tom, you say, doesn’t that sound fun?

Apparently, not anymore to Donatella Versace who, having recently kicked her decade/s long habit with blow, produced the most extraordinary spring couture show in recent memory.

One of my absolute favorite designers, the late Franco Moschino, used to call the whole idea of runway presentations “the fashion vampiress” because it really does suck the blood out of real creativity when you have to present a collection regardless of whether you have anything worthwhile to present.

Today, a client sent me an AP article on the polygamist wives and it brought to mind two of my least favorite designers, John Galliano and Marc Jacobs. (Yes, I am a fashion heretic.)

I’ve never really cared for Galliano’s vision of how women should dress and all the theatrics he engages in on his runway for Dior have never been able to distract me from that point . (As Leann Womak once sang, “I just hate her, I’ll think of a reason later.”)

I can be much more direct about my dislike for Marc Jacobs. Copying other people’s work (sure, you can call it paying homage, if you want to look the other way) and putting your label on it year after year, collection after collection is not my idea of genius. Oh, that reminds me to CC Tory Burch on this.

So, enter the polygamist wives, who are apparently taking their fashion cues from Ann B. Davis’ character Alice on “The Brady Bunch.” Some of us fashion buzzards are  wondering how influential their look might become, given that “inspiration” in fashion is serendipitous.

Alluding to Mr. Jacobs’ penchant for “homage,” Susan Cernek, the fashion editor of glam.com wrote that the womens’  look “sounds like a good Holloween costume…or Marc Jacobs Spring ‘09.”

Well, I’ve got news for Ms. Cernek. John Galliano beat him to the punch(line) in his Dior Spring ‘07 collection. It was a collection so dreary, one wonders whether he was way ahead of the rest of us by researching fundamentalist Mormon sects. Maybe, just maybe, I’m wrong about him and the man is a visionary and a psychic!

Read the AP story on cnn.com which does a good job of explaining some of the sociopolitical aspects of these womens’ appearance and a review I wrote of the Dior exhibit when it appeared at The Chicago History Museum.

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If this were a normal year, you would now would be reading my list of the best and worst dressed celebrities at the Golden Globes in this space.

But this is not a normal year. To show their solidarity with the striking writers in Hollywood, the stars refused to cross the union picket lines and therefore the show was essentially canceled and reduced to a press conference in which the winners
were announced last night.

Oh, and the cancellation of the awards presentation meant the cancellation of something apparently even more important: the red carpet.

As soon as the news of the cancellation broke, the focus of the story in the entertainment media has been how the absence of all those designer-clad celebrities would impact, not the movie industry, but the fashion business?!

My phone started ringing and my email filled with urgent requests from reporters from TMZ, The New York Daily News and, from London, The Independent.

What are the financial implications of the cancellation of the red carpet for the fashion industry? How much money will the designers, the stylists, the hair and makeup people lose? How important is awards season to a designer? Who has the
most to lose?

Let’s answer the easiest questions first. Top notch hair and makeup artists charge on average $300-$400 an hour and they work with several clients on that day. Not this year.

Fashion stylists who dress the stars you’re most likely to care about, charge between $5,000 to $10,000 per client. Not this year.

Now, for the rest of the questions, here’s the real answer: the red carpet has now become a purely business arrangement between designers who loan the top stars and nominees free clothes in exchange for the free publicity.

Dress the right star, or one of the winners in the right dress, and you can parlay that into at least a month’s worth of free publicity for your brand.

First you have all the televised red carpet events where you are explicitly asked “who are you wearing?” Then comes the awards show which is televised to hundreds of millions of homes worldwide. After the awards ceremony, you have the daily newspaper (and now, web) coverage in which the winners and the otherwise beautifully dressed usually appear on the front page.

Then, during the following week, magazines like Us Weekly and People (and their international counterparts) will do a special coverage issue of who wore what and by whom. And then of course, the monthly magazines like InStyle, W (and their international counterparts) will add to the month long frenzy.

Given that a single page ad in a national magazine costs tens of thousands of dollars, a designer can get hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, of free
publicity.

Given that putting on a runway presentation during fashion week twice a year costs designers money, free is a very sweet deal, indeed.

So, given the numbers game that is being played, the designers with the most to lose are the young and emerging designers who have little or no money to advertise month after month in the fashion glossies. They count on this kind of publicity to propel their business and name recogniton.

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time(10-15 years ago is when it all began to change) when actors picked out and payed for their own clothes and jewelry. One can’t imagine that Elizabeth Taylor was showing up at these events in borrowed jewelry. Those days seem quaint now.

So you see my friends, they don’t call it show business for nothing!

SO…ever have one of those periods in your life that you feel so overwhelmed and overworked that it’s hard to see the blessings?

In the past few weeks I’ve been clocking some back to back 12 hour days in addition to working at least one day of the weekend. Ah, the life of a fashion stylist! This weekend was the first one in quite some time that I didn’t have to work. I really love what I do, but all work and no play makes Tom a grumpy boy.

It took this weekend of rest for me to realize that this has been quite an amazing month in my life. In October, I made my national “debut”, if you will, in InStyle magazine’s “Fashion 101″ section, page 276 to be exact.

Then on the 16th, a double whammy. I made my national television debut on In the Loop with iVillage and by the time I got home from the show , it turns out I had also made my national newpaper debut in USA TODAY which quoted me (first) in it’s article “Style becomes a real issue in ‘08 presidential race.”

With guests at Stockholm Objects

And to top it all off dear friends, as I was about to post this entry this morning, I was watching “Oprah” who was doing a show on the importance of dressing appropriately for  advancing your career, only to hear Adam Glassman, the creative director of O magazine, tell the friend who I had styled  from head to toe for the segment that she was a perfect fashion “10.”

I almost collapsed on the floor like Marie Osmond.

So, now I wonder what November will bring, besides a great Thanksgiving.

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