February 21, 2006
Tuesday 

Kim Johnson Gross is “a leading style expert who believes everyone has a right to live his or her life with style-confidence.” At least that’s what it says on the Dove soap site, where Ms. Gross has a monthly column. She also writes for More Magazine (Celebrating Women 40+). I bought the March 2006 issue the other day, an impulse purchase as I passed the magazine racks on my way from the bakery to the checkout at the Giant, possibly because the cover promised an article about Tipper Gore (“What the past 5 years have really been like”), and because the cover picture of Diane Lane (“At 41, she’s strong, sexy, and full of surprises”) showed her in a spaghetti-strap red sundress (what my daughter used to call an “armpit dress”) such as I would love to be able to wear.

Kim Johnson Gross’s article in this issue is called “Dressing for What’s Next.” She writes about a party she attended that celebrated her youngest daughter’s graduation from high school and the girl’s father’s fiftieth birthday. The guests included his fiancée, a woman ten years younger than Gross. Kim Gross wanted to wear something to help her feel festive, feel good about herself and the decisions she had made. She doesn’t appear to be overweight, just single again at 50-something and having to dress for a new kind of life she hadn’t expected to need to prepare for.

The picture that accompanies the article shows a Michael Kors “body-skimming A-line” armpit dress in a blue and white print reminiscent of the psychedelic 60s ($150). It is accessorized with a Jana Feiffer linen-and-seashell bag ($325) and Constance Basto jeweled sandals ($189). It doesn’t show as much skin as the dress Diane Lane is wearing on the cover, but you’d want nice shoulders and upper arms to feel good in it. The page opposite has an ad for Prevage, a “cosmeceutical” from Elizabeth Arden that uses idebenone, “the most powerful antioxidant for correcting and preventing degenerative cellular damage caused by environmental assaults.” ($150 for 1.7 oz.)

Opposite the second page of the article is an ad for The Body Creations Collection by Hanes, modeled by Jennifer Love Hewitt (“Look Who We’ve Got Our Hanes on Now”). Jennifer Love is wearing the Body Creations L132 adjustable push-up bra (sizes 34A to 38D, $10), and the hipster 41BM panty (sizes 5 through 8, two for $6). She is also wearing spike heeled black pumps that had to have been slipped onto her feet by the photographer or the director after she climbed up on the bench she’s kneeling on, since the toebox looks like it starts about where her toenails do.

Jennifer Love appears not to have had much trouble “preventing and addressing the impact of oxidative stress” on her skin.

Jennifer Love turns 27 today.

Give her some time.

And some shoes she can walk in.

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