J. Crew: If It Came Back Today, Would You Wear It? (August 2006 Edition.)

Let's take a break from the Elaine Benis looks of the '90s and focus on what may surprise some of you as an entrant in my "If It Came Back Today" series of posts. 

I definitely believe that the vast majority of the posts will be of the vein of "what in the heck were we thinking..." when I write these, but some will be passable looks and some will even verge on great looks.

Tonight is not verging on great, but the two looks you will see tonight are not completely heinous, either.

In fact, this may be the post where real divisions show up...and with that I ask you..."would you wear it if it came back today?"

You all know I adore Edda, and think she looks beyond adorable here.  HOWEVER, OMG, those pants.  Yikes.  Sometime in the mid-00s, some stylist somewhere decided that full leg capri pants were a good idea.  Even on tall, willowy models like Edda, it is a bit of a stretch to wear them.

Making it worse is the fact that something is off about the whole set of proportions with this outfit, like had they chosen a different top, maybe less structured, to offset the tailoring of the wool (shudder) full leg capri pants, then maybe it would look okay? 

The shoes are the best part here.  You definitely should wear some kind of heel with these kind of pants and these kitten heels are wonderful. 

However, note I say you should wear some kind of heel with these pants...but I never said wearing these kind of pants was a good idea.  LOL.  :)

Oh, yeah.  Girlfriend model probably weighs 120 pounds wet and she is likely 6 feet tall and somehow this outfit makes her legs look short and her torso insanely long.  Imagine what this silhouette would do for the non-super thin world that the rest of us live in?

Okay...now it's confession time.  I TOTALLY bought into this look.  I loved the idea of these menswear separates being used as daily wear, and I figured the extra bonus was that everyone. could. see. my. shoes. better. that. way.  Yeah.  I know.  ;)

Full leg capris look BAD on me.  Like really bad.  I have no actual photos of me wearing these atrocities because all those photos did not turn out, like the camera knew something that I didn't. 

Finally...I love the separate pieces (barring the pants--but I would love them if they were longer, like regular pants) in these looks.  I just think these two styling options are best left in 2006.  Ya know what I'm saying?

Finally, the cover image of an otherwise stellar catalog.  Seriously, everything else in this catalog is amazing and will show up eventually as "this is a darn great look, and you had better believe I would wear it again."

Night, night, all!