Gunn's Golden Rules (16 page)

From a fashion perspective, I find men are often averse to grooming because it puts their masculinity in jeopardy.

Men in Europe are more comfortable in their skin—or maybe it’s just that they’re more secure in their manhood. Men flirt with one another in France. They don’t want to go to bed together, but they don’t feel like their identity is threatened by finding another man attractive.

A strong division of gender roles is so pervasive in America,
and I think it’s dangerous. Liz Claiborne Inc. does a lot of consciousness-raising around domestic violence causes, and one day I contributed to the cause by doing a series of interviews on the topic with bloggers.

One of my questioners told me that she draws a line in the sand regarding gender. She said only men could be abusers. She said we have to take the boys aside and tell them how not to do it and the girls aside and say how not to let it happen to them.

“Everyone needs to know how to recognize whether they’ve become a victim or a perpetrator,” I said. “
Everyone,
regardless of gender, needs to know both sides of this.”

“I would never talk to a girl about how to avoid being an abuser,” she said.

Well, I call that sheer ignorance. She’s not looking at the bigger issues. I’m very pro co-ed everything. Everyone needs the same messages. Each gender’s interested in what the other’s doing. We need to tell everyone everything. What they choose to pay attention to is their issue, not ours.

In America, there’s so much pressure to be straight that if men even have warm feelings for someone of the same sex, they suddenly feel they must watch
Girls Gone Wild
on repeat until they’ve proven they’re not gay. I feel sorry for them, actually, because that’s a lot of stress to be under. We’re none of us all one thing all the time.

Maybe these guys just don’t want to be vulnerable in that way, to put themselves on the line by doing some work on the way they look? Jerry Seinfeld famously said, “People think I’m gay because I’m single, I’m thin, and I’m neat.”

Well, straight men, relax! I know just as many gay men who are big slobs. The rules of attraction dictate that you should cut your fingernails, toenails, and hair. Because I have sensitive
skin, I try to skip shaving at least one day a week, but I try to pick a day when I’m only doing groceries and hanging around my house.

Self-interest and grooming intersect. Even if you don’t like it, wouldn’t you do it just to make sure you don’t repel people who might go to bed with you? If heterosexual males are trying to attract a heterosexual female, shouldn’t they maybe at least try to smell nice?

The question is what level of dressing up and grooming is appropriate for the occasion? What you need to do for a wedding versus what you do to go to the movies is different, but you should maintain a decent baseline standard.

Does grooming take time? Yes, it does. But we need to make a commitment. Taking a shower takes time, but if you never take one, you won’t be invited out very much, so you’ll have plenty of time left over. Should you ever blow off showers? Maybe if you’re in a coma … but no, in that case someone will bathe you.

New parents are almost as bad about this as macho men. I hear from a lot of mothers of young children: “I don’t have time.”

I say, “If you think about your family as a brand, are you not a brand ambassador?” When I see frumpy mothers with impeccably turned-out children, I think they’re making their children the family ambassadors, and that’s too much pressure on someone who still picks her nose. And it’s simply not occasion appropriate for a little child to be on the jungle gym in couture.

Speaking of inappropriate, have you seen all the tabloid photos of three-year-old Suri Cruise wearing heels? It’s outrageous. People say, “She’s setting a fashion standard.” I say, “Preposterous!”

At
three
? It’s not appropriate. If you’re going to the playground to play, you should wear sneakers—Mary Janes at the very most.

Now, I liked playing dress-up just as much as the next kid, and men’s clothes are boring to dress up in, so I think all children should have free range on their mothers’ heels. But there’s a difference between a child playing dress-up and a toddler seriously wearing high heels in her size while out in the world. I agree with the people who have said it sexualizes her. High heels are meant to make women look longer and leaner. That’s not necessary for little girls. We don’t want alluring little girls. There’s something sick about it.

You don’t need to—in fact, you shouldn’t—wear cocktail dresses twenty-four hours a day. You can wear anything, as long as you wear it well. It just comes down to silhouette, proportion, and fit. At every age. You can be in jeans and a T-shirt, but you’ll look good if you’re paying attention to the shape and size that’s right for you. Besides, baggy clothing is dangerous. Isadora Duncan was strangled by her long scarf when it got caught in the wheel spokes of a sports car. Let that be a lesson to us all.

A
S MUCH AS
I encourage people to dress appropriately for events, I will grant that invites these days can be confusing. Dress instructions can be murky. People seem to stretch to think of new instructions. Fortunately for women, “black tie” no longer means a floor-length gown. It just means dressy. For a man it means a tuxedo. “Formal” to me means the same thing as “black tie,” so why not just say “black tie”? “Semiformal,” I assume, means a suit and a tie for a man and a nice dress for a woman.

The kind of thing I don’t like is a mash-up like “festive formal.” I guess it means a man could wear a bright-colored tie and cummerbund, and a woman could wear a dress that is both nice and fun?

Well, it’s too much for me. I want to be comfortable, so if I see “festive formal,” I’ll just dress black tie and let other people be festive. If someone’s going to break out some amazing dress, they’ll do it whether or not they have the “festive” go-ahead, but for the rest of us, we’re just confused.

When I was asked to present at the 2010 People’s Choice Awards, the invitation specified “Hollywood chic.” What in the world does that mean? I wore a suit.

But nothing’s as bad as “black tie” during the daytime. I’ve seen it, and it’s totally wrong on every level. Technically, if it’s formal and daytime, men should not wear a tuxedo but rather a morning coat, but who owns tails? Nobody. Even I don’t own tails, and if anyone in New York would have such a thing, I would. There should be no such thing as black tie in the daytime. It’s not correct! If a man does it correctly with the morning coat, he’ll look like he’s in an Edwardian costume.

There is a way to clarify weird instructions on invitations. If I’m confused, I will call the host or the planner and ask, “What’s expected?”

Weddings vary so much depending on where they’re being held. If it’s on a beach, you could do a sundress, but if it’s in a church, you’re probably going to want to cover your shoulders. There is an old rule about not wearing either black or white as a guest to a wedding, but I think black can be done if it’s a party dress rather than something that looks like you’re in mourning. In general, I think it’s not a good idea to wear black to a wedding, but it’s not a bitch-slap the way wearing white is.

There is a legendary story in the fashion world about the high-fashion Sykes sisters. Alexander McQueen was doing a wedding dress for Plum, but then her wedding was called off. She asked the designer to do a dress she could wear to her sister Lucy’s wedding instead.

Well, a lot of people said it was her own wedding dress dyed black. She was furious and insisted she was not “the crazy, wedding-dress-wearing psycho-chick” the tabloids made her out to be. It was a unique dress, she said, and made for her as her sister’s attendant.

Fair enough, although the dramatic floor-length dress did echo her twin sister’s wedding dress, but in chocolate brown metallic chiffon, overlaid with lace. So maybe the moral is that if your twin sister is getting married, avoid chiffon, lace, and dark colors lest you be labeled a psycho by the tabloids.

What, you’d like some more universal thoughts on shopping?

The truth is, I buy my own suits off the rack from places like Banana Republic or Hugo Boss. I really can’t afford a tailor. Those Tom Ford bespoke suits are $5,000–$6,000. People might want to spend that kind of money, but it’s never necessary. You don’t have to spend a ton of money to look good. And when it comes to shopping, even incredibly rich people have trouble finding what they want half the time, as I learned when I went shopping with two fabulously wealthy women.

Charities are always auctioning me off. The wife of a record mogul purchased me for lunch and a shopping trip. I usually take people to the Bryant Park Grill and then to Saks Fifth Avenue or Bloomingdale’s, but this auction winner wanted to go to Bergdorf Goodman. So we had lunch there, which I’d never done before. It was expensive but very nice.

My auction winner brought a friend, and they were both extremely attractive women with great figures. One had as her goal a basic black top that would go with a black sequined cigarette pant. The winner was trying to find an upbeat holiday party dress. Three hours later … no luck.

The auction winner put on a $14,000 Yves St. Laurent dress.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I don’t hate it,” she said.

“Off!” I insisted. “For fourteen thousand dollars, you are not allowed to say, ‘I don’t hate it.’”

We had people on all the floors looking for us. Luxury retailers in general have been so upset by the recession that they are acting in a very friendly way. I read in the
New York Times
about an everyday shopper who went to a luxury jewelry store on Madison Avenue and was offered a glass of champagne.

But the recession brings with it a major problem for shoppers: the dearth of inventory. Stores don’t want to get stuck with extra merchandise, so they often don’t have everyone’s size. My incredulity was vocal. “It’s the temple of high taste. These women want to spend lots of money. What’s the problem?”

The thing we kept hearing was, “We’re between the seasons. The holiday delivery is over. We’re waiting for cruise.”

It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet!

Finally, the auction winner said she would just go buy some new black Manolos because they go with everything. Well, they didn’t have her size.

Whenever people say, “I can’t get my fashion right because I’m on a budget,” I say, “Guess what? Even if you have an unlimited budget, sometimes you can’t do it.”

I’d also like to encourage you to use this anecdote as your own if you’re ever around people who are flaunting their wealth
and talking about buying expensive things. Just say: “I go shopping all the time. I’m
trying
to spend money. I mean, I tried on this fourteen-thousand-dollar Yves St. Laurent dress and thought:
I don’t hate it.
Then I thought,
At least I can leave with a pair of Manolos,
but they didn’t have my size!”

When it comes to strategic shopping, I love a surgical strike. I believe in knowing what it is you want. If it’s a lot of things, go with a list. Don’t get distracted by what’s around you.

I don’t like shopping if I’m looking for something specific. I’d rather do that kind of thing online. But I like doing shopping research, seeing what’s out there at the stores. I look at all the fashion shows, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to what the buyers are buying.

Speaking of which, do you know what the buyers are buying? Crocs.

I can’t imagine a more aesthetically offensive item of footwear than Crocs. That little strap! I shudder.

Plus, they’re dangerous. I was at Bloomingdale’s and saw a little girl sobbing because the escalator had eaten her shoe. The charms (yes, there are charms that one can purchase to embellish those dreadful hunks of plastic) get caught on things, too. I’ve yet to see any condition where Crocs look good, including the beach. Why not flip-flops? I know Crocs are affordable. Well, so are Converse and lots of other brands that don’t look like hooves.

But who knows? I came around somewhat to Uggs. I used to put Crocs and Uggs in the same sentence, but I don’t anymore. The Ugg brand has evolved. They do some much more fashionable things now. I’m not as despondent.

I know I’m in the minority on this. The Crocs people are laughing all the way to the bank. Their profits were up something
like 500 percent last year. You’ll still never catch me dead wearing them, even if it is a “casual Friday.”

Casual Fridays are an invitation for people to go too far. One day I went to visit the Parsons board chairman, whom I’d seen only in a suit. There he was in dad jeans—flood pants to boot—and a polo shirt that was way too big. I hadn’t realized it was casual Friday. It was like being the only person not told about Opposite Day. In any case, I was appalled.

The other thing that makes me crazy is the bare midriff. It’s a don’t-let-this-happen-to-you-ever category of problem. I loved the Season 7
Curb Your Enthusiasm
episode entitled “The Bare Midriff,” in which a woman named Maureen goes around the office in a tiny shirt that reveals her whole stomach—and what they call a muffin top. Larry says she’s not dressing appropriately and would she please wear a longer shirt. Maureen gets very defensive and says, “I’ve lost sixty-eight pounds in two years. I’m very proud and I want to flaunt what I’ve got!”

At a gym, a bare midriff is fine. I’ve never been in a gym—well, not since high school. I’m sure there are all kinds of things there that are just fine because they stay
there
. Things can happen around a pool or at a beach that wouldn’t happen in a formal dining room.

At the office, though, no matter what kind of shape you’re in, showing off that much of your body isn’t right. These days, though, I see accidental bare midriffs more often than intentional ones.

Low-rise jeans are great, but ladies, you need a belt, or a tunic, or a unitard. I say this to women all the time who are very pear-shaped: wear a low-rise jean, because if it fits you in the hip it won’t fit you in the waist. Just wear a top that covers the waistband.