October 16 is Jacquetta Wheeler’s birthday.
In my new book, I refer to many celebrities from the world of fashion. Some of them are virtual household names, and some are a little more obscure than others. For instance, I reference this Gucci campaign from around the turn of the century starring Jacquetta Wheeler in the Libra chapter. I know that most kids today won’t know who Jacquetta is, but most kids won’t be reading my book because it’s 105,000 words long. I know my audience, and it isn’t people who can’t concentrate on anything longer than the caption of an Instagram post.
Anyway, Jacquetta made a great muse for Tom Ford back in Gucci’s golden years. Ford was trying to expand his repertoire by mining the sixties in this collection, and Jacquetta sort of looked like Twiggy. Yet Jacquetta was much taller. To me, she looked like a high-fashion giraffe standing next to the other girls. That’s what I associated with Libra: that long, lean silhouette — not necessarily this bejeweled top.
I believe that Libra is the sign of embellishment, but subsequent Gucci collections spoke of the uptown sophistication that makes me think of the sign. The S/S 2000 collection with its snake prints seemed more uptown to me. Nevertheless, while I do briefly discuss the Tom Ford Era at Gucci in the Libra chapter of “Star Struck Style,” it gives me more Capricorn-like vibes. What the two signs share is uptown polish. Capricorns, however, are more likely to get a little tacky to prove that they’re more sophisticated than everyone else. I don’t see irony as an effective weapon in the Libra arsenal.
You would rather kill them with kindness, right Libra?
