Star Struck Style

New York Fashion Week is back, and so are the runway reviews that I love so much!

That reminds me that I don’t know the zodiac sign of Nicole Phelps, who dismissed Jeremy Scott’s latest show for Moschino as something that “missed on both fun and poignancy.” You don’t see a bad review too often on vogue.com. My fellow Capricorn, Sarah Mower, once told me that the modus operandi for most reviews is to provide a “helicopter view” of the show. Nevertheless, the senior critics like Phelps and Mower have no problem delivering a backhanded slap every now and then. Obviously, Moschino’s show deserved everything it got. Phelps writes:

“It’s very ladies who lunch, but it’s also nursery rhymes, so it’s baby lady,” Scott said backstage of his seasonal theme. “There’s also a wink to The Nanny,” he went on, because, “Fran Drescher wore so much Franco Moschino, iconic little suits that were such a signature of the brand and that moment.” Scott is the king of camp, so The Nanny angle had potential—who wouldn’t love a Drescher sighting? But baby lady? Power suits and kindercare are an unlikely combination. His tailoring was cut to seduce with cropped jackets and short, fitted skirts, so why the toy elephants, giraffes, and seals prancing across the quilted satin and tweed?

I’m pretty sure that Phelps held back because alienating an advertiser is the last thing a critic wants to do. When Vogue Runway used to be style.com, Tim Blanks, a textbook Virgo, once wrote a middling review of Jean Paul Gaultier presentation that ensured that he would never be invited back to another show. But Gaultier was just doing what he had been doing for ages, and Tim Blanks pointed that out, just as one would expect from a Virgo. Gaultier, a Taurus, got too defensive and took the review the wrong way. Jeremy Scott, on the other hand, chose a theme that was — for lack of a better word — gross, and Phelps called him out for it. In my opinion, Phelps wasn’t hard enough on him. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how a Leo like Jeremy Scott takes this assault on his pride. Leos do not take criticism well.

I’m going to email Sarah Mower to find out Nicole Phelps’ birthday. I’m intrigued by this incident because of how rare it is to see a Condé Nast critic file a bad review. Perhaps there is a legendary feud in the making here.

I need to know!