Dear E. Jean: My fiancé and I are moving to a new apartment in L.A. right after our wedding (in Wisconsin), and we're thinking of not registering for gifts. We don't want a lot of useless things we don't need! Instead, we'd like to just set up an anonymous donation account where guests can give money. My future mother-in-law is obsessed with appearances and is horrified that this looks cheap. Who is right?—Don't Want to Be Tacky
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowMiss Don't, My Daffodil: I once attended a wedding on an Indiana soybean farm—the bride's parents were prosperous agrarians of Polish descent, and the groom's family was Italian—and we practically tore our pockets inside out topping one another tossing cash into a bushel basket that went round and round the dance hall. I staggered away from the celebration without a dime to my name, but the couple got enough cash to furnish their little nest.
More From ELLEAlthough some people might be surprised by this tradition, Carley Roney, founder with her husband, David Liu, of Theknot.com, agrees with you: "If you aren't lucky enough to be born Italian or Chinese (two cultures where greenbacks are the norm as a wedding gift), do both: Register and start a 'cash registry.' And be sure and spread the word through your mom and bridesmaids that you'd love the money."
"And if you register for just a small number of gifts," says Lisa Birnbach, author of True Prep and the authority on preppy weddings, "when your mother-in-law's friends see you've gotten what you sought, they might send you money anyway."

GettyWhen does "faking it" serve us, and when does it hinder us? This week ELLE.com is exploring a wide variety of topics, including why we accumulate fake friendships, why we're so quick to judge a woman who surgically enhances her features, and why faking is essential to our careers, closets, and finding closure.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm skeptical of "flirting experts." People are subjective, and the whole 'flip your hair, whisper suggestively in his ear' advice I read in magazines growing up seemed far cheesier than it did likely to be effective IRL. I'd ask myself, 'Are these masters skilled people technicians or just good confidence BSers?' These days, given my personal experience—none of my friends nor I fully understand flirting yet, lo and behold, we still have successful romantic exchanges in life—I believe the latter.
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowFlirting, from what I've heard and observed, is built on confidence. It's founded on the idea that if you don't act like randomly shutting one eye—or you know, winking—is awkward as f*ck then it won't be. Given this, I talked to three experts—one on relationships, one on online dating, and the last, a professional wingwoman—about how to cultivate a non-tacky flirting method. It does exist, and it won't make you want to die from embarrassment, promise.
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In Person

Just start a conversation—don't worry about witty openers. Rachel DeAlto, author of Flirt Fearlessly, suggests using your environment or even just flat-out introducing yourself. "Starting a conversation isn't about pick up lines, it's about thinking of something that you would have a genuine interest in knowing," DeAlto advises. "For example, 'What's that you're drinking? How do you know Tom? How long have you been going to these events?'"
Complimenting is pretty overt, effective flirting. "People are suckers for praise—genuine praise. If you notice something nice, say so," Michelle Mathison, a dating coach with Hire a Wingwoman advises. "It will get you an easy smile and usually great feedback to open the door for a nice conversation." So start with the tie, the eyes, whatever appeals most to you (personality is fine too if you're shy about body parts). "Flattery does get you everywhere, as long as it seems genuine," Julie Spira, author of The Perils of Cyber Dating, adds. "Keep it visual, while keeping your clothes on."
If you're shy, actually say you're shy. "Don't use this to outsmart him or as a strategy," Mathison warns. "[But] when you tell a guy that you're shy, very often it breaks the ice because guys can feel shy, too or at least a little nervous. So go ahead give the compliment—just be honest, but remember to keep it light. You'd never want to say anything that would be TMI, example, 'I'm so shy I want to puke or run to the bathroom.'"
If you're not interested in the conversation, just back off. Chemistry is when "you actually feel good and want to talk this person," Mathison says. "Once you're really not feeling it, just move on. The beginning should feel light, fun, and easy."
Don't ask really deep personal questions. "Avoid, avoid, avoid," Mathison says. "You do not need to know about deep emotional scars from childhood, for example, when you are just starting to flirt with someone."
Talk about what you love doing or are really good at to look automatically confident. "If the things you are good at or love doing could be seen as a little boring, talk about something fun you recently did," Mathison adds. "And if all else fails simply get the pressure off you and ask him some questions."
You will fail if you 'try' to be sexy so don't. "Like Yoda said 'Do. Or do not. There is no try.' Do not try to be sexy, just be confident. Guys know when it's not natural," Mathison says.
Pretend (or just be) an egomaniac. "Stand tall, take a deep breath in, and realize that they are lucky to be talking to you. Seriously," DeAlto says. "I have my clients repeat mantras—and actually set them as reminders on their phone—so the next time you are walking in to meet a date that intimidates you? Repeat to yourself, 'I am a total catch and they are lucky to be spending time with me' over and over."

Online

Follow the same strategy you would in person. "Don't overthink what you are going to write," Mathison says. According to DeAlto, "Your written conversation should be a text version of you naturally. Asking for friends to help you word a couple messages until you get your groove going is great, but stay real. You want to translate naturally, not rehearse a script."
Don't get too sexual. "It will kill off the romance of it all. Light sexual innuendos are cool but going into clear details isn't. That's just too much," Mathison says.
Make sure your conversations are as much them flirting as you. "Flirting is a dance, not a one man show," DeAlto says. "Don't overdo it or monopolize the conversation. It's all about them, not you. Make them feel like the center of the universe."
Keep it short. "I believe in the Steve Jobs rule of thumb as it relates to emails. Keep your correspondence to five sentences only," Spira advises. Grab something off their profile. "Starting a conversation with something short and sweet is the way to go," DeAlto says. "[Write] 'Really? A master in the kitchen? I may have to see it to believe it ;) ' or 'You have an amazing smile, and your profile made me laugh out loud. I'm Rachel :)' You may be cringing at the emoticon use, but in text it's important to convey some type of emotion—preferably warmth."
Spellcheck and get their name right. "Calling 'Jimmy' the wrong name as 'Johnny' may make your guy think you're just a serial dater," Spira says. And with flirting effectiveness period, pay attention to what your love interest says back. "You'll know by his responses if they're working. "
Finally, on-screen or off, don't try to banter like they do in movies. "It isn't real," Mathison says. "Someone had time to think and come up with every word each person would say, and how they would react. It's simply not how relationships go. I recommend looking within and coming up with what you authentically want in a relationship. Go after that, and be deliberate about it. If you want a fun relationship, think of fun things to do. If you want great laughs, see comedies together and tell jokes—even if you're not the best joke teller. Find humor in your day-to-day life. You get to say and design your relationship, not a filmmaker."

Getty ImagesAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowPhoto: Getty Images
Everything about the abrupt arrival of Patrick J. Adams exists in irony. First, there's the uncanny chance that after 14 years of scrapping in Hollywood's starving artist district, the perfect role led him straight back home to the chilly Canadian Mecca of Toronto, Ontario, where USA Network's top-rated workplace saga Suits is filmed. Then consider how his boy-faced yuppie character, Mike Ross, ascends the ranks as a lawyer while hushing up that his pristine Harvard Law degree doesn't exist. Adams immediately became the show's SAG Award-nominated breakout actor in a sea of seasoned vets. There is also, unfortunately, the bitter truth for the millions who swoon for Adams' endearing wit weekly: He only has eyes for Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario, who is also in the thrills of her big break.You could chalk it all up to chance, or perhaps fate, but after an eternity of struggle, this charming man isn't taking success for granted. With Suits premiering its third season tonight, Mike Ross's star is still on the rise, and he's happy to find (most of) his life on solid footing at last. Irony, really: you could say the same for Adams.

Getty ImagesThe first question that comes to mind when a spouse cheats is: Why? A study by the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, attempted to answer that question and found that the reasons behind infidelity differ greatly between the sexes. For men, it's typically about the sex — the more sexually excitable they are, the more likely they are to cheat. For women, it's more about the level of satisfaction in her relationship; if a woman is unhappy in her marriage, she's 2.6 times more likely to cheat.
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowRegardless of the reason, there's one thing that's certain: Infidelity is devastating. And often, being unfaithful finally brings some long-hidden relationship problems to light. "In many cases, it forces issues to the surface of a relationship that would have never otherwise been dealt with," says Kevin Hansen, author of Secret Regrets: What if You Had a Second Chance? Read on to discover what lessons these five women gained through their personal experiences with infidelity.
More From ELLEReason #1: "My husband was abusive, and I wanted comfort."
"From the day I married my husband, I knew it was a mistake," says 50-year-old Elizabeth Smith.* "He was abusive, controlling and expected me to quit my job to make a home for him." A little over a year into the marriage, she began having an affair with a man that she worked with. "I had no illusions that I was in love, but it was eye-opening to be with someone that made me feel good about myself, made me laugh and respected me for who I was — not who he wanted me to be," she says. "The affair helped me find myself and proved to me that I could live a life independent of my husband. It also gave me the courage to ask for a divorce. Twenty-five years later, I'm married to a wonderful man. We love making each other happy, and never try to change who the other person is," she says.
A takeaway: The confidence she gained from her affair may have given Elizabeth the spark she needed to get out of a bad relationship, but deception is not the best way to deal with an abusive relationship, says New York City psychologist Michael E. Silverman, PhD. Get help first from a trusted friend, family member, therapist, spiritual advisor or one of the numerous nationwide resources instead.
Related: Why Men Cheat
Reason #2: "We began to resent each other."
When Vanessa Myers*, 28, married her husband six years ago, they both couldn't wait to have children, but after their wedding day, something changed for her. "I started to really love my job, and kids didn't seem to fit into the picture," she says. Her husband was hurt by her change of heart, and began to resent her. "We started fighting a lot, and I resented him for resenting me and we were just constantly hurting each other," she says. "One night I caught him trying to slip off the condom and that was pretty much the end of our sex life." Ultimately, the lack of intimacy lead Vanessa to cheat. "I met a guy online and we dated for about a year," she says. "It ended when my husband caught me." Vanessa and her husband agreed to seek therapy separately and together, and were able to save their marriage. "The biggest lesson I learned was that if I was unhappy in my marriage, my husband was only 50% to blame." she says.
A takeaway: The fact that there was unaddressed anger in the relationship created fertile ground for an affair, says Dr. Silverman. "Coupled with the lack of sexual intimacy, there was nothing left to hang a relationship on," he says. Dr. Silverman stresses the importance of open and honest communication in a relationship as a way for a couple to stay connected — before one of the spouses seeks comfort or intimacy outside of the marriage.
Reason #3: "I was bored and unhappy."
At 35 years old, Barbara Gisborne was living the American dream. She lived in Madison, Wisconsin, with her loving husband and two children — but she was miserable. "My husband was a good man, but I was bored inside and out," she says. "In our community, I always felt like a square peg trying to fit in a round hole." That year, she was in Chicago on business and met Bob, an Australian man, on an elevator. "We had an instant connection. We exchanged numbers, kept in touch, and I decided to fly out to Australia to see him and get him out of my system," she says. "Instead, I fell in love." She left everything she knew — her hometown, her husband, her job and her country — to start her life over with Bob in Australia. "I became strong, independent, confident and much worldlier," she says. "That was 25 years ago and now I can say that my affair was the turning point in my life's journey. Today, Bob and I are married, own a winery in Australia, and have five children and 10 grandchildren between us."
A takeaway: Though Barbara's story ended up with a "happily ever after," that's not often the case when it comes to infidelity, which is why Dr. Silverman suggests looking inside yourself if you're unhappy or bored with your relationship. "Healthy relationships grow and evolve, and feeling bored is a symptom of relationship stagnation. Rather than having an affair, increase the romance, change habitual patterns within the relationship and communicate more about your feelings and needs." Before making over her life, Barbara may have changed up the pace by booking an exotic vacation with her husband or girlfriends, or discussed moving to a new city and starting over.
Getty ImagesReason #4: "My husband was a workaholic."
For 10 years, 49-year-old Barbara Singer created a life independent of her husband because he was never around. "Gary was totally consumed and exhausted by his work — there was nothing left for me," she says. "I was totally committed to my family and gave it my all, but knew in my heart that I certainly did not want this for rest of my life." One night, she met up with Tom, an acquaintance, and ended up staying out all night with him. Within a few weeks of meeting him, she ended her marriage, and two years later, she and Tom were married. But within a month, he died of a heart attack. "Meeting Tom was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me. He came into my life and woke me up, showing me ... that life is precious and that at any given moment, it can all be taken away, so if I have a dream or a goal, I better get moving on it," she says.
A takeaway: "Barbara felt alone for many years, and feeling disconnected from your partner is the genesis of most of the affairs I see in my practice," says Dr. Silverman. The remedy? Speak up and begin a dialogue with your partner. Engaging in open, honest communication about each person's needs is the key to help a stalled marriage. To find out more about Barbara's story, go to LivingWithoutReservations.com.
Related: Apparently People Are More Likely to Cheat During the Holidays
Reason #5: "He was unfaithful first."
Larie Norvell had only been married about a year when she found out that her husband had cheated on her. "I was very angry, but I was also very hurt, because I felt like I wasn't enough for him — like there was something I wasn't doing for him as his wife, which is why he felt the need to go outside of our marriage," says the 33-year-old. That jumble of mixed emotions was the impetus for her affair. "I cheated on him — mostly for revenge, but in retrospect, it was also because I wanted validation. I wanted to know that I was still desirable to other men," she says. Once her affair was discovered, the couple separated for a few months — but then began to seek counseling and were able to salvage their marriage.
A takeaway: Retribution is a common feeling when someone has been betrayed, says Dr. Silverman. "Anger can be quite powerful in clouding one's judgment," he says, which is why he urges any couple dealing with infidelity to seek counseling. Fortunately for Larie, her relationship endured the double deception. "The biggest lesson we've learned through all the struggles in 14 1/2 years is that we are enough for each other," she says.
*Names have been changed to protect identity.
From the editors of
More from Woman's Day:
11 Signs That He Might Be Having an Affair
Traits Men Who Cheat Have in Common
Reasons Men Cheat

Everett CollectionAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowDEAR E. JEAN:I need more friends. I need the love and support of comrades! I know people are busy, but I'm gregarious, smart, and married to a handsome introvert. I work from home, and I'd love a girls' night out. Yet I have no girlfriends. Is it because I'm attractive, and women don't like me because I get lots of attention? Or because my income is high? I promise I never mention it, and I'm more than willing to go to a local bar for happy hour and free appetizers. It's so awkward trying to make friends at 37. But I can't just sit at home with the cute hubby and the cute dog in our cute condo seven nights a week! Help!
More From ELLE—Friendless in Seattle
MISS SEATTLE: High income? Good looks? Is there a woman in America who believes these are disadvantages? Apparently you're here to tell Auntie Eeee there is. Drop it. You're waaaaay ahead in the friend game. But I'm afraid that what with the vodka, the fake models, the bathroom meltdowns, the competition for dudes, the selfies, the who-thinks-who-at-the-table-is-fat, and so on, girls' nights out shatter more friendships than build them.
So you can go one of two ways here:
1. The Good. Write a list of worthy causes you support (e.g., tonight I'm attending a Morgan's Place event to help find happiness for homeless dogs), select those closest to your heart, and simply keep showing up to help. You'll have a half-dozen noble new friends by spring.
2. The Bad. Hire a social-media manager from Niche or theAudience. Their cliques of influencers will entice followers to your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. Your PR agent (whom you will also hire) will then get you invited to hot events, and it's at these hot events that you'll meet your new friends.
Brutal and cynical, but it works for movie stars. It may work for you.
Related: Ask E. Jean: My Boyfriend Wants Me and the Waitress
Related: Ask E. Jean: How do I Approach My Crush
Related: Ask E. Jean: How do I Salvage My Wrecked Rep?

NBCDEAR E. JEAN: A coworker (who's distantly related to the CEO of my company) talks over everyone—including our manager—and interrupts us all constantly. I can't remember the last time I actually heard a person finish a complete thought when this woman was in the vicinity. Our team is so worn down by her that when the company hired an expensive consultant to brainstorm design ideas with us, we all went mute—true story! It also doesn't help that her voice is loud and shrill. How do we deal with someone like this?
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below—Steamrollered
MISS ROLLERED, MY PARSNIP: Hand me that geranium-red Expo marker. We'll whiteboard it:
PAIN POINT: Can't find a cab in the rain. SOLUTION: Uber (Valuation: $18.2 billion)
PAIN POINT: Can't make a power-hungry harpy shut up! SOLUTION: The Dingbat Jar (Valuation: $11)
Take Miss Shrill for daiquiris and tell her she's smarter than Madame Curie and more passionate than Joan of Arc but that everyone thinks she's an ass. Then put a jar on the manager's desk and decree that everyone who interrupts a colleague must put a dollar in—but wait half a jiffy. The jar. Hmmm. A jar. That could be an app, right? Good Lord! If that's not the WhatsApp of apps, I'll plug my hair dryer into Elon Musk's Tesla outlet.
Related: Ask E. Jean: How to Get Sexy Back, Post-Baby
Related: Ask E. Jean: How to Cope With Career Anxiety
Related: Ask E. Jean: How do I Choose Between Two Men?

Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowDEAR E. JEAN: Every woman has a celebrity crush. Well, I met mine, and he ruined my life. I'm not talking about some random drummer from a no-name band. I'm talking a big, bona fide A-list Hollywood celeb. We met accidentally, clicked, and began to see each other—casually, not in the public eye.
We had the craziest, most electric chemistry—and the best sex ever. Ever. For a second I allowed myself to believe that I could achieve the Matt Damon and Luciana Barroso fairy tale: A normal girl falls in love with the prince of Hollywood and lives happily ever after. Unfortunately, the fairy tale came to an end after a couple of months. Just when I allowed myself to develop true, real feelings for him, he made it clear he was unavailable for a serious relationship.
More From ELLEHe was the pinnacle, the dream, the one. I had him. It was amazing. I lost him. (I guess, to be honest, I never really had him to begin with, but you know what I mean.) So how am I supposed to get over him? Date someone new, someone normal? Who can compare? He was everything I ever wanted. I've had the best! Does this mean I have to settle for less?
—Destroyed by Perfection
DESTROYED, MY DAMSEL: Phoo! Ninety-nine percent of what you believe about love is self-indulgent crap. You've "had the best?" Please. There are hundreds of young Hollywood fatheads out there to break your heart. Hell, there are only 23 square miles left in the United States where you can't meet a chap who's a celebrity.
So dry those tears. You look twice as good as you looked before you met him—love has animated you—and the best way to "get over him" is to lose your brain over someone new. And don't tell Auntie Eeee you lack the spunk and imagination to fall in love again. Romance is like an endless retake—just with different chaps playing the lead. As Oscar Wilde's Lord Henry said: "We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible."

Solve Sundsbo/Art + CommerceAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowAre you a woman? Me too! So we know exactly who we are when it comes to sex: It's better if we feel an emotional connection with our partner. We're not crazy about pornography, but if it must be on, we prefer it narrative, softer lit, less violent. We are, relative to men, seductive, submissive, receptive, and monogamous. We get more attached than men do when we have sex. We want to be in trusting and respectful long-term relationships. Let's call ourselves Dutiful Wives.
More From ELLEBut wait—this just in: Journalist Daniel Bergner finds that none of the above is true! We are in fact turned on, he reports, by every contextless pornographic scene imaginable: straight and gay sex, masturbation, copulating apes. We get turned off by the too familiar (husbands…); we need distance and novelty to enjoy sex. Up to 60 percent of us fantasize about being raped by a stranger. We can have clitoral, vaginal, even cervical orgasms. We're wilder and lustier than men, but we've been brainwashed by society to believe we're Dutiful Wives. Let's call ourselves Bonobos instead, after the famously most sex-positive primate species.
Bergner lays out the history of this brainwashing and then debunks it in his entertaining new book, What Do Women Want? (Ecco). He recaps ingenious studies that have plumbed our desires, including those we deny or hide from ourselves.
Another new take on female lust is British academic Katherine Angel's Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)—a more personal journey into the wilds of female sexuality, using literature, politics, and Angel's own experience rather than science as guides. She weaves impressionistic sketches of her ecstatic sexual experiences together with musings on feminism, pornography, and quotes from the likes of Virginia Woolf and Susan Sontag.
Neither book answers the clueless query of Freud's that gives Bergner his title; in fact, neither addresses the inherent absurdity of one answer fitting all 3.5 billion of us. But they do try to expand the sexual territory women occupy in the world, and thus point us toward the questions we need to ask ourselves about sex.
Bergner surveys the history of men writing about women's sexuality. I was shocked to learn of the long-held belief that women couldn't conceive unless they climaxed—a scientific "truth" for 1,500 years that clearly was not vetted by women! Meanwhile, fear of lustful women has been spun out in cautionary tales from the myth of Pandora to whichever halls of power women manage to infiltrate today. In the 1600s, scientists discovered that orgasm was not necessary for reproduction, which only paved the way for a new myth—that of the sexless female (less scary because she can't be disappointed). In the nineteenth century, women thus became purified, the gentle reins on men's animal natures, enduring the indignities of the marriage bed—thinking of England!—to keep civilization up and running.
Bergner points out that though we now laugh at Victorianism, women's supposed monogamous tendencies remain a core assumption about feminine nature via the ruling secular doctrine of evolutionary psychology: that men spread their seed, whereas women seek a lifelong mate to provide for the offspring. This construct is Bergner's main target, and it's about time. I've noticed that evolutionary psychology is especially beloved by men. Their fairly straightforward drives are mirrored in the animal kingdom more than women's are: Unlike our mammalian sisters, we mate regardless of whether we're not in estrus; our lust doesn't aim at procreative sex—we're usually trying not to get pregnant; and intercourse isn't the primary means by which most of us achieve orgasm.
As Bergner points out, evo psych also validates the old double standard: If a guy cheats on his girlfriend or wife, it's in his nature; you can't argue with science, baby. But if she strays, she's an aberrant slut. "Does the fact that women are expected to be the more demure gender in Lusaka and New York, in Kabul and Kandahar and Karachi and Kansas City, prove anything about our erotic hardwiring?" Bergner asks. "Might the shared value placed on female modesty speak less to absolutes of biology than to the world's span of male-dominated cultures and historic suspicion and fear of female sexuality?"
Those excellent questions lead Bergner to studies that swing the needle from Dutiful Wife to Bonobo. The niftiest is researcher Meredith Chivers' measure of women looking at pornographic images with a plethysmograph tucked into their vaginas, a sensor that measures blood flow and wetness. The women watched a range of pornographic clips: straight and gay sex, men and women masturbating, bonobos copulating. As they watched, they typed about what turned them on and what left them cold.
You know where this is going. While their fingers said, "Not really my thing," their nether regions clanged the lust-o-meter's bell like a young stud showing off for his date at a carnival. The only image that didn't win the little ladies a stuffed animal was that of a hunky man sauntering on the beach, erectionless. As another sex researcher, Marta Meana, puts it, "The male without an erection is announcing a lack of arousal. The female body always holds the promise, the suggestion, of sex." The plethysmograph also found that women got more turned on by imagining sexual encounters with strangers than with friends or their romantic partners—even as they typed out their denials.
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Don Farrall/Getty ImagesAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowWhen I got pregnant, there were many things I worried about: contributing to overpopulation, getting fat, losing my inner life, being a badly dressed mother. But one thing I managed not to take into account, though this now seems unfathomable, was my vagina. That's not precise enough. From a certain perspective, you could say I gave it more than adequate consideration. Like many other women fixed in the belief that Western doctors overmedicalize childbirth, I wanted neither an epidural (the injecting of anesthetic into the spinal column during labor) nor an episiotomy (the surgical incision made in the perineum to create a larger opening through which the baby's head can pass). The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has issued a statement saying that episiotomies may lead to anal sphincter damage, severe tearing, and future painful sex, yet many doctors still make the cut. I'd amassed all the troublesome details of the natural-tear versus incision debate so that I would have ammunition should any Sweeney Todd doctor get too close. But somehow, I didn't think about the actual implications of what would happen to my insides as the baby passed through.
More from Best Sex Writing10 articles On Swearing Off Sex My Mother Taught Me the Art of Seduction Sex in the Computer Age Are You Faithful, Darling? I'm not really a vagina person. I mean, I read Our Bodies, Ourselves at age 13 and dutifully followed the collective's instructions to hold up a hand mirror and check my cervix. But I'll never buy a ticket to an Eve Ensler play or read a book narrated by someone's "c--t." So it wasn't my vagina I was thinking about when I fired my ob-gyn upon learning her episiotomy rates (90 percent for first-time mothers) or when I tried to do at least a third of the daily recommended 300 Kegel exercises to tone my pelvic floor muscles. I wasn't doing them to protect my sex life, but because my maternal-fitness teacher assured me it would help for a smoother birth, as in, help the baby's head come out—she used her hands to demonstrate a head going through a turtleneck sweater—with less trauma.
Unfortunately, the first time it dawned on me that there were two sides of myself—the me who has known the difference between the vulva and the labia since she was 12, and the me who has only been able to have an orgasm through penetration—and that there was only one vagina serving them both, which I was perhaps about to irrevocably damage, I was already six months pregnant. The lightbulb moment occurred while reading the evil What to Expect When You're Expecting. Here is the passage:
Most women find the slight increase in roominess they experience post-partum is imperceptible and does not interfere with sexual enjoyment. For those who were unusually small before conception it can be a real plus, as intercourse may become more pleasurable. Very occasionally, however, in a woman who was "just right" before, childbirth does stretch the vagina enough to reduce sexual enjoyment.
WTF?! My chest tightened. I was "just right"! No one, not a single one of my friends who had already given birth, not my mother, not a doctor, not another book, no one had told me that there would be a permanent "slight increase in roominess." Yes, mummy tummy, whatever, but I'd never heard of gapey sex forever after. People have multiple children...they must enjoy making them, right?
Enraged that I had once again let this book, with its cloying cover and tsk-tsking approach, raise my ire, I put it back in the place where my husband had hidden it from me.
Looking back, it now seems impossible that none of this had occurred to me when I decided to have a baby. All those women signing up for "vaginal rejuvenation," as it's so winningly called—I'd sort of assumed they were plastic-surgery-addicted Hollywood wives one could only marvel at for still existing, certainly not average women who'd opted for the operation because they really needed it.
Somehow, I managed to repress this new worry for the next three months—kind of amazing, considering how neurotic I am. I'm one of those unfortunate hysterics who has never had the pleasure of repressing the bad only to watch it surface in other novel and unexpected ways, like going blind whenever Father enters the room. I'm just hysterical about the thing itself.
And then I went through the "ring of fire." That's an oft-used metaphor for the final push through the vagina that brings the baby's relatively humongous head outside the mother once and for all. The rest of the little newborn body easily corkscrews out (again, relatively).
It was just before this momentous event, as I was in full-on labor, that the repressed thought returned, as clear as the vodka I'd been avoiding for nine months. I was on all fours on the bed, and every time I looked behind me, I saw the expectant and slightly anxious faces of my doctor, my husband, and the young nurse (who, I noted, had cute Princess Leia buns on either side of her head) unnervingly close to my bum. I had successfully resisted the epidural and was in agony, now sure that the painkilling hormones the natural- birth proponents promised my body would produce were a myth. But in retrospect, it's fairly obvious that I was on some kind of natural-drug trip, because even my brother was in the room—with a camera!—and I didn't mind.
"This baby is so ready to come out!" said the doctor. "Do you want to see the top of its head?" She held up a mirror.
"No," I said.
"Just give me another push like the last one, but try and keep it going for 10 seconds longer."
The baby and the external world were separated by one thing: the ring of fire. Every time I pushed, I could feel it waiting, a steel band of resistance that seemed to excrete pure, burning acid. Terrified, I urged what I would soon know was a him back in. In this state of clarity I saw the either-or, him or me—at least, the just-right-vagina me. After about two hours, each pushing contraction felt about the same as the last one: urgent, but not so urgent that it wasn't easier to ride them out than to force the baby through the ring of fire.
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The camera-shy couple. Photo: Getty Images
Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowCarey Mulligan just got married to English musician Marcus Mumford, and now her friend Keira Knightley is claiming a British rocker of her own.
More From ELLEKnightley's spokesperson confirmed that after a 15-month courtship, she is engaged to James Righton of the Klaxons. The 27-year-old actress and 28-year-old keyboard player started dating after being introduced by mutual friend Alexa Chung. Nothing further about the proposal is being provided, according to Knightley's spokeswoman: "We are not discussing any further details."
Will Knightley wear Chanel? She is the current face of the brand's Coco Mademoiselle fragrance, after all.

Getty Images (Hepburn); Bettmann/Corbis (Kelly); Starstock/Photoshot (Farrow); courtesy of the Everett Collection (remaining images)Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowNot long after we broke up, my ex-boyfriend marched me into Alexander McQueen, calling cheerfully to the shop clerk: "Hello! Have you got anything that can cope with her tits?"
His voice ricocheted off the walls. He was buying me a dress to celebrate a script we'd sold, him as director, me as screenwriter. The clerk pulled a skintight red minidress with strategic slashes at the cleavage. "We also do it in black," she offered.
More From ELLE"Yes, I'd—"
"No!" said my ex. "Red is more you."
By now I had accepted it: If you get involved with a director, you're going to be directed. As I stepped out of the McQueen dressing room, he clapped. "Oh yes, that's brilliant." It's fascinating—or just depressing—to be appreciated physically by someone who no longer desires you. My ex was madly in love with his new girlfriend. Speaking of whom: "We should buy a dress for her now," he told me. "Otherwise I can't tell her I bought you one."
Across the street, the Chloé store was like angels singing. An airy space stocked with peach, pale blue, chiffon, and ruffles. Two boutiques on opposite sides of the street, underscoring the difference between sacred and profane love. "Is your girlfriend the same shape?" the salesgirl asked my ex, pointing toward me.
"Slimmer," he said, "more delicate."
I'd known my place in the scheme of things ever since I'd first started obsessively watching movies as a young girl. Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor are the bad girls, Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly the good; Raquel Welch bad, Mia Farrow good, J.Lo bad, Gwyneth good. In this year's Last Night, Eva Mendes is the temptress to Keira Knightley's good girl. Though Truman Capote had wanted Monroe for Breakfast at Tiffany's, Hepburn was cast, specifically to help cover the fact that the story is about a call girl. If they had cast Marilyn, people would know.
This stark distinction applies to male actors to a lesser extent; Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ryan Gosling are considered serious and intellectual based on their skinniness, as was James Dean before them. Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill were lovable fat guys. (Now that they've both slimmed down, they're more, well, sexually viable.) From Stallone to Chris Hemsworth, there have always been beefcake actors. But these cineplex archetypes aren't traps the way they are for women; men are as malleable as their bodies. Ryan pumped up, Stallone got his Cop Land (Clooney is convincing as both cutup and charmer)—none lost his essence.
At 17, on holiday in Barbados (wearing a white one-piece I'd copied from Liz Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer), my friend was appalled when I screamed because I saw a jellyfish. "Would Lauren Bacall scream at the sight of a jellyfish?" she demanded. No, of course not; having seen all her films, I knew Bacall was rangy, in control, slim and long and brave. Flat-chested, slender women aren't the emotional ones on-screen; they're cool, stylish, and treated with deference. Even losing their minds in Rosemary's Baby and Repulsion, Mia Farrow and Catherine Deneuve remained chic. Losing her mind in Don't Bother to Knock, Monroe just kept losing her clothes.
I had always defined myself by my body. I had no choice, I thought. I looked different from most of the other girls at school, for whom Kate Moss was not just an ideal but an echo. Me, I was a walking anachronism with a tiny waist, expansive bosom, and child-bearing hips. I was also a neurotic teen—unreasonable, uncontrollable, everything spilling, especially my fears. My body seemed at times a cheerleader for my anxiety.
During my adolescence, there had been a long stretch of hunched shoulders and oversize T-shirts. That was before I'd seen, on a field trip to the National Portrait Gallery, Philippe Halsman's photo of the teen Liz Taylor wearing a tight gown the green of dollar bills. Unanchored within my own body, unapproached by boys, I studied her journey from child star to ingenue. She had no awkward period—when Liz got breasts, the studio couldn't get her into low-cut dresses fast enough. What struck me equally was her behavior in love, so much that I carried it with me when I moved to New York at 20 to pursue a career as a writer.
WireImage (Lopez); courtesy of the Everett Collection (remaining images)Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

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Gregg DelmanAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowDear E. Jean: I recently turned to your column archive at ELLE.com to find what you suggest for getting promoted at work, because I can't seem to catch a break in my career! But I question your advice to "suck up." What if I'm diametrically opposed to sucking up?Does that mean I'm doomed to the lower ranks even though I'm talented, professional, and hardworking? Doomed because I refuse to be a fake kiss-ass? Really? When did actual skills and integrity become passé? Why should I have to suck up or suck it up to get ahead? Between you and me, the only thing that sucks is your advice.—Miss Integrity
More From ELLE My irresistible monomaniac: Now, now. A straight shooter such as yourself must know the difference between a nut-ball "kiss-ass" who clasps her hands, dribbles out one side of her mouth, and moans at her boss, "I love your shoes!" and a talented, plucky, determined, frank young woman who pokes her head in the boss's office and says, "Miss Thompson, you just hit one out of the park!"
If you lack "the old oil" (the great P. G. Wodehouse's phrase for "smoothing the way"), no matter how many "skills" you possess, your career will likely be exterminated before you begin. Sucking up causes your coworkers and bosses to feel razor-sharp and valued, and when they feel razor-sharp and valued, you can win them to your point of view, and when you win them to your point of view, you can accomplish great things for yourself and mankind. Here's how to apply the old oil:
Auntie Eeee's Art of Sucking Up
1. Do not be covert about it. Be up-front; be candid. You don't have to stagger and collapse to the floor, but when one of your coworkers, subordinates, or bosses makes a particularly smart move, tell them why you're impressed. (Watch any Dolly Parton interview to get the hang of this—she's the queen of S. U.)
2. Do not go on and on. This is my own hideous sin. I possess such over-the-top empathy, I can't shut the hell up. I slather people with my admiration till they run from the room. Don't do this. Laud the little bastards and move on.
3. Do not extol every damn thing. A shake of your head accompanied by a look that says "Oh my God, you did it again!" can convey your compliments with as much élan—and more truth—as words.
E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com

iStockAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowWhen I got married five months ago, there was an overwhelming number of decisions to make: big ones, small ones, utterly innocuous ones. Where? Band or DJ? Cake or cupcakes? The only choices I didn't second-guess at least once were the guy I'd chosen to be my husband and that I'd be keeping my own name.
Thankfully, nobody has really argued the former—my mom, my friends, even my hairdresser have all embraced Adam with reckless abandon, but everyone, it seems, has an opinion about the latter. One they're not afraid to share.
More From ELLEThe first sign was a gift that arrived a week after our wedding: Two matching mugs, adorned with photos of me and Adam leaving the reception, grinning like maniacs, while being showered with rice. "The Lisbergs. 3.27.09," the cups trumpeted.
We laughed, put them in the cabinet, and, since there was no card, took turns placing bets on which retrograde great-aunt had been the sender...until the following day, when I received a voicemail from my younger sister: "Did you like the mugs I sent?"
At first I thought maybe she didn't realize that I'd made a conscious decision to remain a Sloan. Wrong again.
"Katie, they're adorable, it's just—you know I'm not changing my name, right?"
"Carrie, that's what everyone's going to call you anyway," she said firmly, as if I were being ridiculous.
It turns out my little sister might be onto something. According to a newly released study out of Indiana University, 70 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that a woman should take her husband's name when she marries.
The results have been widely reported across the media, and it will probably be mere weeks before a clever designer creates burning bras for us to hurl at one another on Facebook in solidarity. But to merely stand slack-jawed before the stats misses the greater meaning the survey has to offer—namely, interesting insight into who changes her name, who doesn't, and why we all have such strong feelings about the issue.
The study, "Constructing the Family in the 21st Century," was conducted by the Center of Survey Research at Indiana University and surveyed 815 randomly selected Americans; however, it's important to note that just under half of respondents came from within the conservative state of Indiana. Whether that influenced the survey results is a source of some contention.
"They were interesting questions, but that's not a random sample of the U.S.," cautions Claudia Goldin, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard, who read the study while considering it for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
But the survey is still an accurate reflection of how Americans on the whole feel, say its authors. "We were worried about that too," says Laura Hamilton, a sociology researcher at the University of Indiana and a lead author of the study, who says they compared their findings with other larger national surveys and found, if anything, that their respondents were on average more liberal.
"It seems that, nope, although we would like to see more liberal views, this is what we found," she says.
What both Goldin and Hamilton agree on is that the juiciest part of the findings don't involve number crunching at all. In fact, the survey was the first to analyze not only "practices" related to name changing—how many women are "changers" versus "keepers"—but "attitudes." Rather than merely checking a box, respondents explained how they felt about the issue at length during phone interviews.
"What was previously known is what people actually do," says Hamilton. "Ninety to 95 percent of women in the U.S. currently change their name. There wasn't a lot more to say about that." But when they made the questions open-ended, suddenly a treasure trove of information came pouring out.
About one quarter of survey respondents who said a woman should change her name added that they thought she should do so to have a marital identity connected to her husband. "Once they got married, they should give up their own identity and become part of him," says Hamilton.
The problem is that I, like so many women who marry in their thirties, already have an identity of my own—not to mention, as a writer, a last name intrinsically linked to my livelihood. And in that respect, I tend to track with the trends. "Women are marrying later, and they have a life before they're married," says Goldin. "Women who marry early are more likely to be changers."
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Gregg DelmanAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below"You're right, he is a great big male reproductive organ!" —Nicole Kidman watching Will Ferrell's character on Inside the Actors Studio (Bewitched, 2005)
Dear E. Jean: I'm a 21-year-old virgin fishing for a sugar daddy who'll launch me into a life of caviar and beautiful clothes. I recently heard about the American grad student auctioning off her virginity; right now, she's considering bids of up to $3.7 million. I want to attempt the same. It would take care of my college loans, and I could live on the interest and be free to develop my career and talents.
More From ELLEThe breaking of the hymen is reportedly painful and disappointing anyway. Why should I waste my purity on a "meaningful" college boyfriend or even a saggy sugar daddy when I can receive a pot of gold all in one go? How would I go about notifying these wealthy barons without attracting attention? —The Hungry Virgin
Hungry, my smarty-pants: Auntie Eeee thinks affectionately of your hymen and wishes the best for it; but it's unfashionable these days to snatch another young lady's bidders. (Hymen-auctioning is as old as...well, men invented virginity and they've been paying for it ever since.)
So please e-mail Dennis Hof, the proprietor of the World Famous Moonlite BunnyRanch, the legal brothel in Carson City, Nevada, at dennis@bunnyranch .com. He told me on the phone he'd be delighted to put your maidenhead on the block and that "bids could start around $50,000." Mr. Hof's the hawker of the nubile grad student you mentioned, Miss Natalie "Deflower-Me-for-Three-Million" Dylan. "She got a book deal, a movie deal, and now we're working on a new TV show," Mr. Hof said excitedly. He was in the midst of shooting a "Dr. Drew episode of Celebrity Rehab Presents: Sober House featuring my good friend Heidi Fleiss." (You know, of course, that Mr. Hof is the Akira Kurosawa of passion. His current show runs on HBO and is called Cathouse.)
"Oh! What's your new idea for a show called?" I asked him.
"America's Next Top Virgin," Mr. Hof said. "So definitely have [Miss Hungry Virgin] e-mail me, and anyone else who's interested!"
"One last thing," I said. "Before I hang up: How much money did Miss Dylan and her vagina actually pull in?"
"Unfortunately," Mr. Hof said, "the highest bidder, at $3.7 million, was an Australian businessman, and he reconciled with his wife. Miss Dylan offered to return the $250,000 deposit. In fact, I called him and said, `We're returning it,' but he said, `No, give it to the girl.' So she got a quarter of a million dollars, and bids are starting again!"
I can't tell you how heartened I am to hear men are still such imbeciles. My friend Tracy Quan, always astute about marketing anything between her eyebrows and kneecaps, and the author of the deliciously witty Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, was appalled—shocked!—to hear your idea. "She's trying to sell something," Quan said, "that should never be sold. I treasure my memories of my first lover. To be a good businesswoman, you need good romantic experience."
There are better ways to make a fortune in this world—invent an engine that runs on water, create a cellulite cream that works—without turning yourself into an asshole. So it's up to you, Miss Hungry. It's your hymen: Keep it, lend it, groom it, or donate it to a poor woman. But in Auntie Eeee's opinion, only a flimflamming trollop would sell it.
E-mail your questions to e.jean@askejean.com

Kimberly WooAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowPhoto: Kimberly Woo
"It's kind of like I fell into it but it was what I was meant to do," explained DJ Caroline D'Amore, on her transition from modeling to getting behind the decks. "Modeling is what I do to pay the bills. Music was something that I always wanted to be a part of."
Since her early days on the ones and twos—under the tutelage of the late DJ AM—D'Amore's career took has taken off. She's traveled the world playing music festivals and clubs, and she has produced her own tracks. As far as her personal style goes, D'Amore is a self-proclaimed Gemini who is both a tomboy and fashion plate. Recently, she made the bold transition from natural brunette to bleach blonde, which has her channeling either Marilyn Monroe or Kurt Cobain, depending on which mood strikes.
Later this year, D'Amore will be collaborating with Billboard as a host and producer of DJ Diaries, a TV series which will provide a behind-the-scenes look at other top DJs such as Steve Aoki, Afrojack, The Crystal Method, and more. In the midst of festival season, D'Amore spoke with ELLE.com about her style, packing for a tour, and shopping on the road.
Outfit breakdown: "The flannel and jacket I've acquired from my husband's closet. He gave me the flannel because I reminded him of a female Kurt Cobain (when I bleached out my hair and my roots came in). He didn't really have a choice with the jacket. My friend pulled it for a show he had coming up, and I jacked it right after his gig. I'm completely that girl who wears all her man's clothes. Every day I'm wearing something of his. He's a skinny rocker so it all fits perfectly."
More From ELLEIf this outfit were one of my songs, it would be: "My latest single "Music Man." I wrote it for my husband, Bobby Alt. Since I wear all his clothes, I was most likely wearing something of his when I wrote it."
My personal style is: "I'm a Gemini, so I literally have two different styles combined in one. One is the more girly '90s vibe; I'll wear a slip dress and combat boots. The other girl is a bit more fashionable and glamorous. That's when I put on the stiletto heels and the dress, and really rock it for the night. But no matter what, there's always a slight tomboy edge."
I always pack: "A red flannel, like Kurt Cobain. I wear a lot of vintage too. I always have my products like facial cream. I don't leave the house without putting on my M.A.C. Strobe Cream. Even if I'm up the whole night before or exhausted, it really makes you come to life."
You'd never catch me on stage wearing: "Little dresses are what I try to avoid. I wear more body suits, leggings, and tights. I don't think you should ever be on stage in something you might wear on a red carpet. It needs to be a bit more out there and exciting. I definitely try to be a different person. I'm more of a character on stage."
My pre-tour shopping stop: "If I'm in L.A., I'll go downtown to all the funky fabric shops in the fashion district. They have all these sew-on attachments like studs. You can grab ten different embellishments to sew onto your outfit."
The best on-the-road purchase I ever made was: Last summer, I got these kickass boots by Free People. They're black, studded all the way up the sides, and look dirty. On the road, you end up in places like Coachella that have dirt fields where you want to look cool but still brave whatever elements. For festival and DJ shows, you can't be rocking heels.

Getty ImagesAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowPhoto: Getty Images
Ladies, get excited: Brad Pitt will present Movie of the Year at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards on Sunday. {MTV}
Get this year's coverage of the MTV Movie Awards.
Wes Gordon, Altuzarra, Bibhu Mohapatra, Creatures of the Wind, and Timo Weiland are among the U.S. finalists for the International Woolmark Prize. {Fashionista}
Elie Tahari is giving you another excuse to catch some rays—the fashion label is launching its first eyewear collection next spring. {WWD}
The Kaiser Chiefs will be the first band to perform at Burberry's global flagship in London as part of the Live at 121 Regent Street series. {Burberry press release}
Rachel Roy is launching a digital magazine called The Life, which will showcase original fashion, beauty, and travel content. {WWD}
Tucker tapped director Jennifer Elizabeth to direct a film for Spring/Summer 2013 with the aim of "challenging the perception of a break-up." {Telegraph}
Veep star Reid Scott is starring in a California-themed spread for MR. PORTER, which launches on Tuesday. {The Hollywood Reporter}
More From ELLECongratulations are in order for Reed Krakoff, who will be honored by The Whitney Museum of Art at the American Art Award Gala for his commitment to New York cultural institutions and contributions to the arts. {WWD}
Nicolas Ghesquière's plans for the future have been a mystery but that's likely to change thanks to a profile of the designer, entitled "Back to Work," which will appear in a new magazine, System, in May. {The Cut}
Blake Shelton, who introduced Kelly Clarkson to her fiancé, will also be officiating the American Idol star's wedding. {The Hollywood Reporter}
British department store Liberty has revamped its furniture floors and added new home interior designers to its roster. {WWD}

RetnaAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowThe opening ceremony of the 62nd Cannes Film Festival was attended by plenty of boldface names— Asia Argento, Aishwarya Rai, Robin Wright Penn, and Elizabeth Banks all turned out for the elegant event. Banks, one of the three faces of L'Oreal, looked particularly stunning in a bold one-shoulder gown from Armani Privé's spring 2009 haute couture collection.

RetnaAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowDirector Alejandro Amenabar's historical epic Agora, about the brilliant 4th-century astronomer Hypatia, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Sunday. Lead actress Rachel Weisz made a brilliant fashion choice, wearing an elegant floor-sweeping emerald-green chiffon gown by Valentino to the event. Weisz also stars in Rian Johnson's forthcoming con-artist comedy, The Brothers Bloom.
—

Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowBlythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow
The always-elegant actresses, who appeared together in 2003's Sylvia, are as stunning as they are accomplished (Danner has won two Emmy awards and a Tony, while Paltrow nabbed an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love).
More From ELLE Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson
This duo share more than comedic talent: Both blonds boast a breezy, boho-chic style.
Madonna and Lourdes Leon
Following in Mom's footsteps, the Material Girl's preteen daughter has already earned a reputation as a fashion risk-taker, sporting hippie headbands, geek-chic glasses, and daring footwear.
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Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowChloë Sevigny, who in my opinion can look sexy in a burlap sack, boldly chose a leg-baring, straight-off-the-runway look from Chloé's spring 2009 collection for the label's Los Angeles store opening. Siri Tollerød, the leggy Norwegian model who wore look 29 on the catwalk, exuded willowy summer freshness in the scalloped high-waisted shorts and cropped bustier. Chloë, style icon that she is, chose to pair the look with a cream linen blazer (from look 5), instead of the matching navy number it was shown with in Paris. With her signature bright red lips, glowing skin, and slightly rumpled hair, her version was decidedly more, shall we say, sultry. Tell me, do you think this sweetly sexy catwalk look worked off the runway?
—Violet Moon Gaynor



Runway photo: Imaxtree; Chloë Sevigny photo: Retna

Devon JarvisAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowNew York–based designer Monique Péan has long supported organizations that aid the more than one billion people living without clean drinking water. This spring, she's debuting her own Charity: Water Collection, inspired by the transformation of muddy brown waters to blue and crystal clear using recycled gold with conflict- and devastation-free precious stones and diamonds. Ten percent of the proceeds will go toward building wells and bringing basic sanitation to developing countries.

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Sexy heels take a peekaboo tank from beachy to out-on-the-town
Photo: Peter Miszuk
Think you are Street Chic? E-mail us your photo and you could appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily.

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Channeling a vintage hipster vibe in a cardigan, skinny jeans, and fedora
Photo: Anne Ziegler
Think you are Street Chic? E-mail us your photo and you could appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily.

ImaxtreeAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowThank Gucci designer Frida Giannini for this one. There's an appealing kitschy-cool factor that you can't help but love about a tropical print—cue the Frank Sinatra CDs, slather on the silver-pink lipstick, pour the lunchtime martinis—but it doesn't necessarily translate into "gotta wear it!" pure clothing joy. However, Gucci, home of the fashionably dressed power babe, dared us all to tread back into this territory. Gucci's version of the tropical print blended in a heavy dose of abstract art, taking the spiky palm frond—compared with florals, leaf motifs are harder-edged without sacrificing the necessary retro vibe—and blending in vivid gradients of neatly grown-up color, like navy blue and foggy gray. All those complex spikes, all those chic shades—tropical prints became downright adventurous and sexy! Here's the thing: While Giannini showed off the print amid a ton of skinny suits, we think that tropical-print button-downs and trousers, no matter how sleekly done or well-styled it all is, can't help but read as Tony Manero. A dress just looks best—not too messy, nicely feminine. Pick a blousy, romantic-looking one, as opposed to anything too snug or constructed, in a print that's cool, not silly.

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Who: Alexandra Fritz
What: Black out the right way—with dark shades, monochrome layers, and a sophisticated carryall
Wear: Alexander Wang hat, Proenza Schouler jacket, J Brand jeans, Hunting Season bag, and Balenciaga shoes
Photo: Lilia De Gregory
Think you are Street Chic? E-mail us your photo and you could appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily.

ImaxtreeAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowTry something different: Whereas beforehand this feat of clever engineering—it pulls everything up and in, smoothing, flattening—transmitted instant G-5-level sex-appeal, doing it bombshell-style seems tired. Witness Audrina Patridge and Heidi Montag, who have made the bandage dress their signature look, and teeter past paparazzi in plunging, skintight numbers, dripping with so much lip gloss and false lashes and big hair, they look like extras from the Addicted to Love video who accidentally wandered off-set in 1985 and have been trying to find their way back ever since. We like the idea of cutting the power-babe fanciness down a bit, like Max Azria did for his Hervé Léger spring 2009 collection, and making it part of a more casual outfit the way Lizzie Jagger wore the trend at the Jaeger London fashion show, adding texture with tights, opting for flats rather than heels, layering on a cardigan, jacket and scarf. So fresh. For evening, it looks amazing styled in a sharp, graphic futuristic way—the singer Cassie opted for one in a breathtakingly short, sharp tube cut, in graffiti-bright neon-yellow, finished with barely-there black d'orsay, dangerously pointy heels. That's all—no jewelry, no jacket, no hair. She looked like a piece of art—entirely sexy, and ferociously edgy.

Advertisement - Continue Reading BelowThough my tendency toward sartorial minimalism is without exception, anyone who's been on the receiving end of one of my correspondences, listened to me wax prophetic on the staying power of short, asymmetric haircuts, or read any of my manifestos on why strapless is not an `everywoman' neckline, knows good and well economy of words is not one my stronger suits.
You can imagine, then, my distress when tasked to come up with a name for my new ELLE.com blog.
More From ELLEArmed with the chestnut, "Find a way to stop sounding so in love with your own writing," imparted to me by a senior editor, I decided to focus first on the scope of the blog. After toying with ideas ranging from a reader-driven Q&A column to an e-diary of my exploits with borrowed items from the fashion closet, I ultimately decided a far better use of my unique position would be to provide a daily porthole through which readers could experience what it's like, at 29 years old, to start a new career with no formal training at one of the world's leading fashion magazines.
Join me each day as I slip into something all-black and go under and behind the cover to document my yearlong experience and confront the question, "Is working there really like it is in that movie?" as honestly and with as detailed an account as ELLE's Executive Editor permits.
So glad to be back.
bowl-cut best,
Johanna



Your junior editor, committed to bringing you insider ELLE info as rare and delicious as this season's last purple conversation heart, which is in here somewhere...

Steinem: Bettmann/Corbis; Roosevelt: George Karger/Pix Inc./Time Life Pictures/Getty Images; Obama: Kevin Mazur/WireImage; Gillibrand: AP Photo/Tim Roske; Bush and McCain: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty ImAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowEvery year on Passover, we Jews sing a song about how fantastic God is, called "Dayenu," which translates loosely to "it would have been enough." You know the gist: If He'd just taken us out of slavery, it would have been enough. If He'd just parted the Red Sea, it would have been enough, and so on. Clearly, God went beyond the call of duty. So too does our new first lady, Michelle Obama. If she were just brilliant and eloquent and accomplished, it would be enough. If she were just the mother of the two cutest children on planet Earth, it would be enough. And if she were just downto- earth yet extraordinarily charismatic, that too would be enough. But on top of all that, the first lady of the United States of America has mad style.
More From ELLETrue, she's not the first. Other recent presidents' wives were elegant and glamorous, notably Nancy Reagan and, of course, Jacqueline Kennedy. Nancy's flashy, Falcon Crest-worthy Galanos gowns and aristocratic Adolfo suits were alternately gushed over and reviled for epitomizing '80s Republican excess. The world's approving eyes were glued to Jackie's Oleg Cassini column dresses and her coiffure from Kenneth, which was somehow frisky and regal at the same time. But neither of those divas was exactly of the people—I went to see an exhibition of Jackie's clothes a couple of years ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for crying out loud. Michelle Obama's style, by contrast, is sophisticated but accessible. We've heard a lot about her love of color and interest in American fashion. But perhaps what matters most is that she doesn't dress like The Wife of a President; she never appears to be in a costume for her role. She dresses like a Harvard-educated, young, professional mother: herself.
Before Michelle, first ladies have traditionally been expected to look, above all else, appropriate. Their fashion choices have usually sent the reassuring message that everything was as it ought to be, traditions were being upheld, the Queen of Camelot was keeping the castle in order. Enter Michelle.
Of course we have all dissected the night Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination. Media coverage focused on the fist bump, but all I could think about was that vibrant purple sheath (by Chicago designer Maria Pinto) Michelle was wearing with an Azzedine Alaïa belt. She looked chic and dynamic at the Democratic National Convention in a knee-length red Thakoon dress with a bold floral print—the look was immortalized in a painting by Elizabeth Peyton, which hung at the New Museum of Contemporary Art this past winter alongside Peyton's portraits of Marc Jacobs and Kurt Cobain. And she was gorgeous in graphic black and white on The View, in a dress that cost $148, came off the rack from White House/Black Market, and sold out immediately after it was modeled by the first lady-to-be. She is the first first lady to have the confidence to wear inexpensive clothes from chain stores, and when she does shell out four figures for something special, she chooses relatively unknown talents like Isabel Toledo, Jason Wu, and Thakoon Panichgul, whose work tends to be artful and idiosyncratic rather than ostentatiously luxurious.
Steinem: Bettmann/Corbis; Roosevelt: George Karger/Pix Inc./Time Life Pictures/Getty Images; Obama: Kevin Mazur/WireImage; Gillibrand: AP Photo/Tim Roske; Bush and McCain: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty ImBut what makes Michelle one of us, fashionwise, isn't just that she wears the kind of clothes that are popular with American women who have come of age in the era of Vera Wang for Target and Sex and the City. It's also that while sometimes she gets it just right and looks polished and radiant, other times she makes wacky choices and clearly prioritizes her personal style over public approval. Her firework of a dress on election night, a black and red piece by Narciso Rodriguez, was controversial and anything but safe. Her decision to wear a big glittery necklace and Toledo's beaded lemongrass lace ensemble at the inauguration provoked reactions from "regal and inspiring" to "old-fashioned" and "too cocktailish." And her one-shoulder white gown by Wu was equally polarizing. Though a symbolic color choice—and a silhouette that flattered what Wu believed to be her best feature, her buff arms—some thought she looked like she was wearing a wedding cake. She has even been criticized by the Black Artists Association for not choosing to wear an African-American designer. But like most modern women who are lucky enough to live in a time when our accomplishments are as important as our appearance, Michelle Obama really seems to be dressing for herself.
This kind of personal, individualistic style may be the norm on the street and in Hollywood, but it's extremely rare in politics. Think of Nancy Pelosi's cautious formality, Laura Bush's matronly pastels, or Hillary Clinton's traveling pantsuits. When I covered the McCain campaign on the Straight Talk Express last year, I was struck by the way Cindy McCain used fashion as armor. She always looked flawless but stiff in her size 0 St. John suits and her snug leather blazers with her hair lacquered into a helmet. You could describe her style as crisp and classic, but above all, she looked rich. I never saw her without her bejeweled white ceramic Chanel watch or diamond studs the size of raspberries in her ears. (The press corps and the campaign staff, on the other hand, always looked wrinkled and slightly ragged.) Cindy's style sent a clear message: I am not one of you; I am a member of the upper class. Don't mess with me. There was an uproar, of course, over Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's $150,000-plus campaign clothing budget, but at the Republican convention in Minneapolis, Cindy McCain wore a single outfit that reportedly cost twice that much. In a time of economic collapse, Michelle Obama's relatively modestly priced wardrobe seems even more fashionable by contrast. (Full disclosure: Wu agreed to not charge Obama for the dress, as it is to be donated to the Smithsonian Institution.)
Women have largely rejected traditional uniforms and fashion axioms in the twentyfirst century. In many professions, as we've gained ground at work, we've stopped feeling compelled to wear power suits to the office every day in order to be taken seriously. We mix things from J.Crew and H&M with our best designer pieces, we wear white in winter and black to weddings, and in our downtime, we let our bra straps show (if they're cute). It's fitting that we have a first lady who makes her own rules. Like so many American women, rather than changing the way she looks or the way she sounds to fit into her station, Michelle Obama has the power and style to transform the role instead.
A woman in the White House who prioritizes her own preferences, invites her mother (the first granny) to live with her during her husband's term in office, knows her own mind, and is not afraid of fashion bucking the status quo—that's change we can believe in. If we just elected Barack Obama president, it would have been enough. (Dayenu.) But getting Michelle along with him is the ultimate luxury.

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After sending model after model down the runway in sky-scraping platforms (I'm talking 5-plus inches), Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana chose comfort for their D&G finale yesterday in Milan. A stream of models wearing flowing gowns paired with chic flats closed out the fall 2009 show.
—Violet Moon Gaynor
Photos: Imaxtree

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The young designer created a highly-memorable and sure-to-be-loved collection again this season. Delicate, original, and totally wearable, the main ingredients were panels of organza detailed with thin strips of crushed velvet. Kane's tough-chic fall collection had a clear vision that was carried through each of the 33 looks. PS – he's a 2006 graduate of Saint Martins MA Fashion!
—Rebecca Suhrawardi Austin
Photo: Imaxtree

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I'm just two months in as the Photo Director of ELLE.com, and I can't think of a better way to christen my new post than diving head first into New York Fashion Week—what I can only describe as a flurry of organized chaos riddled with beautiful faces and the most fashionably dressed people on the planet. Offering you a backdoor into New York's week-long sartorial extravaganza as well as many, many more fashionable occasions to come, my objective with this photo blog is to offer you an intimate behind-the-scenes look at the industry—delivered with an attainable, raw, and personal twist. A little about me: I live, breath, and bleed imagery, and am completely devoted to and utterly enamored with all things photography. That being said, from this point on, I'll let my photos speak for themselves. Enjoy!
Love, Kelly