October 20, 2008

Au revoir, Mr. Blackwell

Mr. Blackwell, the cantankerous fashion critic known for his biting "Worst Dressed" lists, has exited the runway. A former fashion designer who dressed Nancy Reagan and Jayne Mansfield, Blackwell died Sunday from an intestinal infection aged 86. He had been in very poor health since August.
A pioneer in the art of bitchy fashion criticism, Blackwell started his annual "Ten Worst Dressed Women" list in 1960, way before terms like "Fashion Police" or "VPL" had even entered the lexicon.
"If a woman who wears a shoe two sizes too small is apt to suffer from bunions, I wonder what is the fate of one with a 39-inch bust who wears a size 16 dress?," he pondered of Anita Ekberg in his first Worst Dressed list. The list would later be syndicated to countless magazines and news networks around the world.
Martha Stewart "dresses like the centerfold for Farmer’s Almanac" he griped one year. The Dixie Chicks "look like a trio of truck stop fashion tragedies trapped in a typhoon", he wailed in another. And Bjork, he sighed, "dances in the dark...and dresses there, too."
Members of the British Royal Family, Meryl Streep, Paula Abdul and Paris Hilton were regulars on the List which, like an eccentric old aunt or the dodo, will be most appreciated now that it is gone.

October 20, 2008 in MEN | Permalink

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