Column:

Fashion, fascinators exemplify femininity

By Gwen Daniels

Published Sept. 16, 2008

I would like a fascinator, please.

A fascinator: an oh-so-feminine headpiece dripping with baubles, a modern fashionista's alternative to a retro bride's blusher veil, a whimsical grown-up take on a plastic pink second-grade barrette.

I found the perfect fascinator online.

The model, like me, has strawberry-blonde hair with messy beachy waves: the messy beachy waves I achieve with a pea-sized dollop of leave-in conditioner and a spray bottle of salt water when the humidity is almost nonexistent and the stars are aligned.

A thin, vibrant band of peacock feather encircles the model's head. It's a peacock feather headband, the kind of headband that wraps around her forehead. Think peace-love hippie, not "Alice in Wonderland."

A lilac silk flower, large, floppy and diaphanous, blooms at one side of the headband, and swatches of cobalt blue tulle, festooned with pom-pom dots, sprouts from the silk flower, playfully covering the model's right eye.

Fanciful but quirky, unusual but striking, fascinators are fascinating. Girly, cute and fascinating.

I wish I had a fascinator.

Last week, models and celebrities and fashionable movers and shakers - generally lucky people - celebrated Fashion Week in New York City.

Yes, many fashionistas sported fascinators. (One unlucky Ports 1961 model wore a tiered brown cone thing, a cross between bronze abstract garden statue and a dunce cap, on her head.)

And they paired fascinators with everything: girlified menswear, asymmetrical Grecian minidresses with dramatic lines, flowy, voluptuous pants - hardcore clothes that proclaim, "Take me seriously!"

Together, purposeful clothes and fascinators scream an even stronger message: "Take me seriously, but remember that I'm a girl!"

Take me seriously, but remember that I'm a girl.

As women increasingly pursue business, law, politics and other traditionally male-dominated industries, we are trying to decide if the clothes fit.

Should today's superwoman emphasize or downplay her femininity? Should, indeed, can she disaffiliate from her feminine side, declare gender a moot point, a mere technicality?

As women, we are sometimes asked to decide between Fashion Week and tailored power suits. I emphasize my femininity because I appreciate and respect it because I choose to let it, at least to some extent, define me. Other women make the conscious but reverse choice to downplay or to ignore their gender.

Ultimately, our choice does help identify us.

Earlier this year, presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., turned down an invitation to appear in Vogue magazine.

"We were told by Ms. Clinton's camp that they were concerned if Clinton appeared in Vogue that she would appear too feminine," a Vogue representative told Woman's Wear Daily.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour responded bitingly in her February editor's letter.

"The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying," Wintour wrote.

Furthermore: "It's also 2008: Margaret Thatcher may have looked terrific in a blue power suit, but that was 20 years ago. I do think Americans have moved on from the power-suit mentality, which served as a bridge for a generation of women to reach boardrooms filled with men."

Gone, Wintour claims, is the day women must blend in with their wing-tipped male contemporaries. Instead, women should embrace their definitively feminine qualities.

More importantly, every woman should embrace the very qualities that define her: her personality, her interests, her character and yes, the value and meaning she herself places on her gender.

My fascination with fascinators probably says something. It could say that I'm independent and creative and confident (why else would I want a brightly-colored cloud of feathers and tulle floating above my head?), or it could say that I like attention.

Above all, my preferences in headwear and in fashion are testaments of my own choices: I am my own definition of a woman; I am, ultimately, my own person.

Take me seriously, but remember I'm a girl named Gwen.