Bustles, corsets, Wonderbras, that padded-booty underwear from Frederick's Of Hollywood — women have been dealing with figure-enhancing apparel for centuries. But the codpiece has come (heh) and gone. So it's interesting that Calvin Klein is trying to appeal to a man's vanity — or insecurity — when that's usually territory marketers use on women.

Sometimes stuff like this is like alcoholism: The first step is admitting you have a problem. You have to be willing to be labeled as "that" kind of person. It's easier with drugstore items like conditioner for "dry and damaged" hair or cleanser for "oily" skin. You can march up to the counter owning your issues, like, yeah, I'm dry and damaged and oily, so what?

But some men place so much importance on their junk, you've got to wonder if this is enabling, in a way. Or telling: Wouldn't you automatically assume there's a problem in that area?

Miller spoke with Ray Lopez, a Macy's sales guy. "When I first tried them on, it was like, ‘Whoa! Do other people notice this?'" Ray says. "You feel more confident. You have people who wear the skinny jean, and the only thing you see is the bulge. These work with the whole body." Miller, of course, tried the jeans on:

They were a breakthrough! Such comfort, such support! And yes, my confidence was bigger! It looked bigger, at least.

Ah, yes: The illusion of change. Something push-up bra, Spanx and makeup-wearing women are quite familiar with. Welcome to our world.

Something Is Getting Between Him and His Calvins [NY Observer]

You've seen the jeans, and you've heard the backlash. Obama was caught wearing bad pants. And for a president, apparently, this is wholly unacceptable. As sartorial analyst extraordinaire Givhan would have it, the president's is a tricky balance: "Few people want him to look like he spends his afternoons thumbing through his subscriber editions of GQ. But most folks would like to think he has at least heard the phrase 'dress for success'." She adds that the jeans' frumpiness - their dated wash, suspicious lack of wrinkles, unfortunate brevity and relaxed sag - undermined people's confidence in a fundamental way. "(F)or a president who has prided himself on his forward-looking philosophy, on his embrace of the new, on his youthful vitality and on his ability to project an air of reassuring cool in the face of economic meltdown, those sad-sack, grandpa jeans were off message."

Almost as soon as he'd thrown out that fateful pitch, the criticism began - from tabloid coverage to a hard-hitting confrontation with Meredith Viera, in which Obama's bizarre rationale was that his only other pair was, apparently, hipster-skinny. Givhan joins the chorus of disapproval, deeming the jeans "not at all presidential" and declaring that, in the manner of presidents before him, he'll need to sort out a go-to uniform that conveys the same easy confidence that his suits manage so effortlessly.

I am sort of embarrassed to admit it, but I didn't mind the jeans. They were dad jeans. Dads aren't supposed to look sexy in jeans - indeed, it should be discouraged. I even found the jeans kind of...endearing. They were the sort of jeans a boy's mom buy's for him - or, in the case of my own father - a man's wife. And the thing is simply this: contrary to what the Media would have you believe, not everyone is a jeans guy. Jeans, at the best of times, are, like shorts, a tricky issue for men. There's no easy way for anyone of either sex to do jeans in this day and age: at best, unless you're going for all-out hipster fop, they look like you didn't try (a look that requires trying) - or they look crummy.

What Givhan is really talking about is the pernicious denim-jeans divide of the past decade. Obama wore jeans. People wanted him in "denim." Jeans are what a prior generation thought of as casualwear: one-style-fits-all workhorses good for chores and cowboys. "Denim" involves washes and implications and detailing - or lack of detailing - and seaming so subtle and insidious as to almost justify the astronomical price-tags. Denim, whether understated or overt, is about status. This is why many of us dislike denim. Givhan suggests that Obama was out of touch in this regard, and I guess she's right. But the popping of the denim bubble is one recession casualty I'd greet with equanimity - and in a time when we're strapped for cash, there are worse things than a tacit, unintended rebuke of one of the most obscene manifestations of pre-recession cultural excess.

For the President, A Dilemma Regarding Denim [Washington Post]
Obama: No Apologies For Relaxed All-Star Look [Miami Herald]

The NY Times has a piece about plus-size clothing with the subhead, "Fashion Reaches Out to Heavier Young Women." Haha! Really? No, not really. But the story touches on Beth Ditto's line for Evans, as well as Faith21 and Torrid.

The Wall Street Journal's got an article by Christina Binkley — who previously wrote about being overlooked by fashion because of her age — in which she discusses clothes for "curvy" women. Binkley writes:

By curvy, I do not mean obese, unless you think Marilyn Monroe was fat. Women of a certain shape, it seems, have been forgotten.

Binkley talks to Michael Glasser, founder of Seven For All Mankind, Citizens of Humanity, and Rich & Skinny jeans. She asks the burning question: Why does he (and so many other designers) create clothing to fit young, thin women? Glasser "threw back his head and guffawed": "Because they're hot!"

Turns out, Cookie Johnson, wife of basketball legend Magic Johnson is starting a line of jeans for "curvy" women, CJ by Cookie. As a size 8, she can't fit into most mainstream denim lines, which use thin fit models. Guess who Ms. Johnson's business partner is? Michael Glasser.

Then there's the always-classy Daily Fail, with the headline: "Fashion's Big Fat Lie About Kate Moss's Big Fat Friend: Size Zero Brigade Embrace A Token Chubby-Chops."

But while it's great that plus-sized fashion is getting attention, let's hope reporting about Beth Ditto isn't just a trend; here today, gone tomorrow. Because what really matters is whether the women who want — need — the clothes feel as though they're being included.

This from the Times:

"I've noticed lately that they are trying to make big sizes more into style," said Kathy Salinas, as she considered a zebra-striped Piper & Blue tunic at a Kmart in downtown Manhattan this week. "You see that at regular stores, not just the plus-size stores, and that's a good thing."

Fashion First, Whatever The Size [NY Times]
Making Fashion Fit The Form, For A Change [WSJ]
Fashion's Big Fat Lie About Kate Moss's Big Fat Friend: Size Zero Brigade Embrace A Token Chubby-Chops [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Beth Ditto Makes Plus-Size Clothing Fun, Sequined, 80s
On Beth Ditto, "Promoting" Obesity & Fat Shame
Are Older Women Ignored By Fashion?
Fashion Designers Are Small Minded About Plus Sizes

Earlier: Constitution May Guarantee Right To Not Pull Up Your Pants

Dieting. The magazines would have you believe that "not dieting" is the new dieting, and it is true: not dieting is what everyone else will be announcing they are doing this season, even as they aggressively watch their portions so that their diets actually do resemble, on the basis of caloric intake, an actual "diet." My advice: keep your caloric intake limited to the point that you do not gain weight, but never say a word to anyone about how you are "not dieting." Everyone will assume you are not dieting, and wonder how you keep from gaining weight.

Jeans: Wearing them sometimes. Jeans have always, will always, forever and ever, generate some form of controversy. Some people wear them too much, and while that is okay if you live in Los Angeles, you just should not wear them to every social event anywhere else all the time, nor should you eschew them entirely. I know: they are comfortable. Except when they are not comfortable, which is when they look best, because they are too tight and you have paired them with a pair of, say, the latest peep-toe ankle boots, which is a good guide as to whether or not you should be wearing them to occasions on which you might be seen by people with larger incomes than your own. Speaking of which, that is a shortcut: how much did the jeans cost? If the answer is more than half your mortgage payment, you can wear them pretty much anywhere, so long as you are also thin, which goes without saying, right? Also, if you are in the vicinity of relative wealth and/or power and/or beauty, never wear classic "straight leg" jeans that might be confused for jeans you purchased last season, unless you want to risk be confused with the type of person who is easygoing enough to wear last season's jeans in the vicinity of wealth/power/beauty, which is probably too controversial a strategy for most, so if you choose to pursue it make sure you buy this season's straight-leg jean

Peonies. Some people think peonies are too voluptuous. Nonsense, I say! They are very pretty. But be forewarned: they die. Speaking of!

Your Natural Hair Color. I'm not suggesting you don't get your hair color treated to magnify its natural hue. But don't exaggerate... too much! The key is plausible deniability. Everyone gets her hair colored. But consider: how many lowlights would you need to make everyone believe that you are actually not everyone, in this one regard? Can you risk it? If you can, you may generate a whole controversy as to whether it is actually true that you don't highlight your hair (anymore.) Pulling this off will require an uber-exclusive stylist in whose salon you will not run into anyone you know. And what if you do? Act calm. "Ha ha ha, you really believed that?"

• Fresh off her appearance on the cover of the June Glamour, Jennifer Lopez will grace the cover of Conde Nast's supremely stupid supplement Fashion Rocks. We don't know if it's more retarded that Jennifer Lopez is supposed to represent "rock" or that Conde Nast is so used to putting pointless, overexposed celebrities on their covers to sell newsstand copies that they did it on a supplement. [WWD, 2nd item]
  
• Banana Republic, on its demographic: "Our customers are creative souls, inspired by art and culture." [Uh, Substitute "creative" for "conformist" and "insecurity and markdowns" for "art and culture" and you will have the reason I shop there! -Moe] [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Wait, seriously? NASA orange flight suits for $60 bucks? We sorta want one. [WaPo]

• Breaking News! "Jeans Still In" for college students! No way! And appearing on the crime blotter, spoons still being stolen from the dining hall. [MarketWatch]
• Dorina Dixon "D.D." Ryan died yesterday morning. The former fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar was also frequently a costume designer to Stephen Sondheim, a friend of Halston, and one of the people responsible for bringing some of our favorite books, the Eloise series, into the world. [MGross.com]
• And the finalists for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award are: too numerous to list here, Moe says. But it's one impressive class, from which we predict the three prizewinners will be Phillip Lim, the Vena Cava girls, and Erin Fetherston. Your guesses? [Vogue UK]
• First Levi's asks him to design, now Prada wants him at her parties: Will someone tell us why fashion is so relentlessly trendhumping Damien Hirst? No, seriously, we want to know. [WWD, 1st item]
• Like perfume? Then you'll love L'Artisan Parfumeur's new battery-operated "art" box that emits a burst of fragrance from magical glass beads every three minutes, yours for $230. [WWD, 1st item]
• And in other window design news, the Diesel store in London is incorporating the scorched remains of its recently burnt-down store into its holiday windows! How nouveau something!
• Husband and wife design team Y&Kei: Cried at The Notebook? [The Fashion Informer]

• Publishing heiress Lydia Hearst previews her new line of "Lydia" bags for Puma with the following deep thoughts: "I'm not the same person today that I will be tomorrow—I'm constantly changing. Even though it's the same bag, they're all completely different..." Right, they come in three colors. [FWD]
  
• Days after Polo announces a profit-soaked quarter, J. Crew announces it, too, is raking it in. Do we sense a trend? [TheStreet]
  
• In stage three of the ongoing construction of the celebrity-sartorial-complex, Hollywood moguls are swarming fashion industry executive suites. To which fashion insiders protest: "But Hollywood is too fixated on short-term buzz to ever understand fashion! To which we say: "Hahahahahahaha!" [WWD]
  
• Despite fashion critic Cathy Horyn's endorsement of their cargo pants, Wal-Mart is shifting its focus away from "trendy" pieces back to under-$20 basics. [WWD]

• Photographer Mario Testino has a secret crush on... Mario Testino! Or so he told crowds at the London College of Fashion when asked who his favorite photographer was. [Vogue UK]
• To the underwhelm-ment of activists, Nike says it wants the people who make its sneakers to fare better, announcing efforts to prevent excessive overtime amongst its factory employees and providing them education regarding unionization. [WSJ]
• You can buy a pair of jeans in England for the same price of a cup of coffee? Seriously? [Guardian]

Of course we couldn't resist seeing how fat we could get.

350 lbs, apparently.

Low rise jeans seemed like such a good idea when we were all young and lithe and had never even heard of love-handles. But these days, those of us who eat more than a grape a day fret under the tyranny of of nubile teenage jeans that mercilessly expose our muffin-like countours to a laughing world.

I don't know that this guy can do anything about it all, but if you're lucky enough to be in Philly, it's worth a shot. Maybe he can stitch a steel girdle to your waistband.

[via dailycandy]