Lynn Yaeger: Fashion Muse

Sing, muse, of crinolines piled in layers, of blunt-cut bobs and Cupid’s bow lips?

Inspirations come in many forms during the fashion collections. It has been a surprise, though not an unwelcome one, to find that this season, an unexpected one joins their ranks: the fabulously eccentric fashion writer Lynn Yaeger, who watched her own avatars on the march from her place in the stands.

Ms. Yaeger, a fashion mainstay who wrote for decades for The Village Voice during its alterna-bible glory days and now contributes to Vogue, has a signature, unvarying style: an anachronistic little bob dyed flaming red, pyramidal layers of skirt and underskirt, the exaggerated lips painted à la Betty Boop, two traffic-light dots of rouge high on her cheeks.

During New York Fashion Week, early in the monthlong marathon of shows, a new model, Katie Moore, appeared with a bob cut almost exactly like Ms. Yaeger’s, and dyed tomato-red. W Magazine reported that the look was brand new; Guido Palau, the runway hairstylist, had cut what had previously been nearly waist-length corn-silk blond hair just before the shows.

With her new look, Ms. Moore opened the Alexander Wang show, a coveted get for models.

“It’s the Mamie Eisenhower bangs,” Ms. Yaeger said with admiration. “Most people won’t go there.”

At the Marc Jacobs show later in New York, the designer showed the oversize skirts in the inverted-top style Ms. Yaeger flatters. The similarity was not lost on her or her colleagues. “Marc Jacobs was astonishing,” Ms. Yaeger said in Paris. “Yeah, it was flattering.”

And, astonishingly, as fashion month wore on, so it seemed did little outcroppings of homage. Perhaps it was merely the acquisition of Yaeger-colored glasses, but one could see a bit of her style in the ever-enlarging ball skirts of the Undercover finale and even, too, in some of the ballooning pieces at Chloé. And Ms. Moore, the Lynn-alike model, had a banner season, walking major shows in London, Milan and Paris, including Moschino, Margiela and Balenciaga.

Ms. Yaeger was humble about the phenomenon, saying that she had no plans to alter her trademark style because of it.

“I don’t know why anyone would put anything else on a runway,” she said. Nor could she fathom other styles off the runway. “Did you notice some girls actually wear pants?” she said. “I’ve never even seen pants for sale!”

By MATTHEW SCHNEIER

Source New York Times