I love for people to find inspiration in Jane Austen. Really, I do. But from time to time, I look at something allegedly inspired by Austen, and I think – huh? Did we read the same books?
And so it is with “Sense and Eccentricity,” a supposedly Austen-themed lookbook from Wildfox, a Los Angeles-based women’s knitwear brand.
Founding partner Kimberley Gordon waxes rhapsodic about Austen (“Hard working, poetic, confidant and extremely comical. . . and it makes me sad she couldn't be alive today so I could have her over for dinner and a sleep over with all the girls”); dedicates her new collection to the joys of sisterhood and “the ultimate sister, Jane Austen”; and hawks a complete set of the novels, bound in rose-pink covers, available for $199.
Then we scroll through pix of lissome models cavorting in legwarmers, low-cut undies or “Mrs. Darcy” t-shirts; fetching the home-delivered milk while wearing lipstick; or – in my favorite moment of vintage-fashion weirdness – draped leggily over a flower-adorned “W,” in a pose that’s more Druid sacrifice than Dashwood sisters.
Interspersed among the photos are apposite quotes from various writers, including Austen, whose contributions include two of those seemingly delightful, oops-it’s-out-of-context snippets of dialogue delivered by a couple of Austenian paragons of sibling kindness: Caroline Bingley and Robert Ferrars.
I kind of like the pink covers, though
2 comments
Jul 24 2014 06:48PM by Mags
"Interspersed among the photos are apposite quotes from various writers, including Austen, whose contributions include two of those seemingly delightful, oops-it’s-out-of-context snippets of dialogue delivered by a couple of Austenian paragons of sibling kindness: Caroline Bingley and Robert Ferrars." And they say irony is dead!
Jul 24 2014 06:54PM by Deborah Yaffe
But does unintentional irony count?