the Gatsby look: coming soon to a retailer near you or a catalog in your mailbox

The Gatsby look is at its best with a  musical accompaniment , even if your dancing shoes don't have ankle straps and real leather soles.

Versions of the look, diluted to varying weak tinctures, will apparently be very big for fall and winter. Winter and festive holiday dress will give the factories something to do with all the leftover sequins and spangles from last winter. No argument there. And the look is great in motion.

I wanted to discuss accessorizing the Gatsby look with Art Deco jewelry.  However,  a quick romp sans rompers through Ebay suggests that souls more prescient and more prosperous than I have been there ahead of me, and have gone home with anything I might suggest.

Fortunately, there's a lot left elsewhere, pictorially speaking anyway, and a lot of it is astoundingly alike and available at varying price points.  For example,

the blue and green triangle necklace with golden "explosions" is from GemmaRedux and will retail at about $412. The black enamel triangle necklace is from Madewell and retails at about $38. Madewell also has a multi-color version of this one.  I couldn't find a mid-point version of the triangle necklace, but the one below is from Anthro and retails at $68. There are lots more around, these are just the ones I noticed. With so many around, unless your outfit screams for a triangle necklace, wait....

Here's something else that appears in various versions at different price points. To the right, from Urban Outfitters, $39. Not a triangle, a square. To the left, from Eddie Borgo at J.Crew, $139.

This could go on and on, but you get the point. So here are some more Roaring Twenties ladies again, dancing tough times away. If you look closely, you'll see that they knew that it's our ability to accessorize that separates us from the animals.

is there a film critic in the house?

Finished sorting this afternoon's mail. I have received the latest issue of a publication called The Thread. It has Pictures and Words. The cover picture shows a woman in a dark blue woolly knitted romper. Said romper also appears in the April J.Crew catalog. I don't think it's worth trying to add anything to the previous discussions of adult rompers that have appeared on this blog in the past day or two, and I hope that the J.Crew people will reach romper saturation shortly as well.

Inside The Thread, we find More Pictures! More Words! Many not lined up in a comprehensible order! Have fun, Grammarians. I breathlessly await the tweed and sequin loafers. I do tend not to wear tweeds in the summer heat, dahlings, nor sequins, nor this combination, but you go ahead and express yourselves. Spring is coming, tra-la.

So anyway the fashion news for Fall 2011 is that the Bonnie and Clyde look from the 1930's (by way of the 1967 movie) and the Great Gatsby look from 1974 (yes, we know the book was published in 1925, but the book did not have Nifty Outfits or Cool Accessories), were the inspiration for "flared '50s silhouettes in trenches, skirts and dresses."

Well, I haven't even shopped for Spring 2011. As a matter of fact, yesterday we had snow, sleet, hail, thick fog, rain, 40-mph winds and bright sunshine, all in the same 90 fun-filled minutes, so I'm not sure I'll get to shop for Spring 2011. Maybe I'll just wait for Fall 2011. Cinematic inconsistencies aside, I like the idea of clothing with fuller "silhouettes," being of the rather fuller persuasion myself. On the other hand, my recollections of Faye's, I mean Bonnie's, and Mia/Daisy's skirts and dresses do not include "full". Slouchy, yes. Slender, indeed. Sleek - perhaps you get the picture. When I think of the '50s, I think of Peter Pan collars, circle pins, pleated skirts, circle skirts, button-down collars, Black Watch.... and shirtwaist dresses! Those I'd bring back in a minute!

I expect snippets of the copy and pics from The Thread will appear in catalogs and e-mail-ings over the next few weeks... Have you received The Thread? Wouldn't most people rather receive the April catalog before reading about next fall? Or is this a Kindly Warning in Disguise: don't spend too much now, it's going to look old, old, old in a few months.