Arabian Nights and African Queens

Headdresses, satin appliqued capes, feathers, gold leather, football pads, teeny bikinis, looking like leather boys and lady like business women – of course The Ritchie Family is my style icon of the week after capturing my attention. The Philadelphia disco queens had several hits off their concept albums in the 70’s, but sadly, I have to admit until now I’d never heard of them.
But better late than never when the song is a yelping disco rendition of Brazil (wonder if Terry Gilliam ever considered it instead for his movie). The song, as you can imagine is this week’s pick of the week in that category. Below/after the jump is a gallery of the fantastic fashions.

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Creative Director of Vogue

Between her musings on her adorable cats and her scene stealing appearance in The September Issue Grace Coddington won my heart this week. From her early days as a super model (which I learned from the film) to working her way up the ranks of Vogue to become the Creative Director, Coddington exudes a passion for life, and a humanity that is not so common in the industry.

I love her shock of long red hair and her confident personal style that actually ignores trends but never looks unfashionable. Team Grace for sure.

Click here to see the rest of Grace Coddington

Lovable Country Darling

It takes a whole lot of love and devotion to stick by your man sometimes, but the adorable (yes, even more adorable than the toothpick that played her in the movie) June Carter had both in spades for her troubled and (if the movie is to be believed) kind of pain-in-the ass husband, Johnny Cash.

A comedian, singer, songwriter, wife and philanthropist (she and Cash helped build a village through the SOS Children’s Villages in Jamaica) June passed away with her family by her side in 2003. The man in black followed months after.

Click here to see the rest of June Carter Cash

Macabre Mistress of Diamonds

Oh, if I only had a billion dollars, the jewelry of Delfina Delettrez is exactly the kind of glorious insanity I would blow my money on. The heiress (of Fendi) designer’s pieces are wicked, funny, dark and bizarre. Salvador Dali would swoon after tripping over my already swooning body.

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Plus Sized Beauty

The Terry Richardson lensed One Size Fits All campaign, with the bodacious Crystal Renn, is one of my favorite fashion spreads of the past few years. Not just because a non waif is presented in the spread like a token freak in a size-specific issue, but because she looks ten times more rocking and amazing than her skin and bones counterpart. I don’t really want to get into the weight debate here, but I do want to praise Renn for outright awesomeness.

Once suffering terribly with an eating disorder, Renn broke the illness’s hold on her and wrote a book about it called Hungry: A Young Model’s Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves. Since then she’s quickly become the most recognized non conformist fashion model to grace the pages of the biggest fashion magazines. Just a few of her looks are below/after the jump. Having thighs that actually touch has never looked or felt so good.

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Vengeful Lovely

Full disclosure, I rented Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion for strictly vanity reasons. When I went dark with my hair and got a new brimmed Japanese hat, there was some image in mind that kept popping up. There was a trench coat, ravens, and a sharp knife…

Eventually I tracked down the image and the film series it came from and settled into this wildly stylized exploitation film. I quickly realized, of course, the I look nothing like the stunning Meiko Kaji, being that I am not a stunning Japanese beauty myself, but I can certainly claim her as a personal style icon. The vengeance outfit (trench and brimmed hat) is impeccable, but I also ran out to get liquid eye liner inspired by the perfect dark lids she somehow boasts while hog tied in solitary confinement.

Kaji’s 1973 film, Lady Snowblood was one of the inspirations for the Kill Bill films. Below/after the jump are some of images from the trippy, visually wowzer Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion.

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Actress

I went on a recent binge buying cheap vintage magazines on eBay and while flipping through a Vogue from 1972 I was struck by the spectacular bohemian elegance of Silvana Mangano, a “secret star” who “rejects fame to live on a country farm as the woman she wants to be – a wife and mother.”

I’m floored by her intriguing beauty and her lifestyle but have to admit, I’ve only seen her on screen in here late career role as the Reverend Mother Ramallo in Dune. Must add more to my netflix queue! It turns out that her family is a bit more familiar to me: her husband was the late mega-producer Dino de Laurentis (Barbarella, Flash Gordon, Conan the Barbarian, Dune, Manhunter, Blue Velvet, etc); her granddaughter is the shiny toothed food hostess Giada de Laurentiis.

Click here to see the rest of Silvana Mangano

They're terrible, sure… but just to be fair I'll let them defend themselves in their own words. These are some of Heidi's:

'Jesus was persecuted, and I'm going to get persecuted, ya know?'

'I have been the most religious person since I was 2 years old. I always felt this crazy connection to God.'

'I plan to win an Oscar. I'm very ambitious.'

'I grew up watching Britney Spears. That's someone I inspire to be, you know, like, career wise. I think the world is ready for the next pop star and I'm ready to be the next pop galaxy, so here we go.'

'[Joining the Mile High Club] was maybe the best experience I've ever had in my entire life.'

'I'm more of a modern Mother Teresa.'

And Spencer's:

'Not picking Heidi for the vice president, it's just cold.'

[On Heidi's song, "Fashion"]: 'It's the greatest song of my life.'

'My hustle is just too crazy. I'm trying to take over the world!'

'Anyone in Transformers or Twilight — that's cheating. Because if you give me a billion dollar marketing machine behind Speidi, we would be Obama right now.

'We're just heating up the water in the bathtub. It's gonna get hot!'

'I have never been so madly in love as I am with Heidi. She has the world's greatest boyfriend!'

'I secretly am the hottest rapper in the game.'

'Heidi Montag is the “new, modern day, 2010 Michael Jackson”. Like, Michael Jackson's in heaven. The Holy Spirit now has Michael Jackson juice, so boom! For all we know, Heidi gets possessed with Michael Jackson's divine spirit.'

I'm not often on 'corpulent vampire' Al Roker's side, but I do enjoy this clip.