Jan Strimple has been an international figure in the world of fashion and modeling since she was discovered by Bob Mackie in 1982. Her striking face and statuesque frame have been featured in fashion magazines and on runways around the world. She has appeared on CNN’s Style and Good Morning America. Today, as owner of Jan Strimple Productions, she produces more than 70 fashion shows and events a year.
Q: What do you regard as the lowest depth of fashion misery?
A: Shirley Temple bows on any women over the age of 25. In her hair or on her dress. Wait, make that over the age of 8. Also, designers who push little girl fetish looks . . . Ankle socks and Mary Janes? OK if you’re 6, but 26?
Q: What is your idea of Fashion Nirvana?
A: Every American with their own live-in tailor and a full-length mirror. Our taxes could pay for this in lieu of the $1,200 toilet seats they install in government offices. We would no longer be tormented by ill-fitting clothes, smile-happy derrieres, muffin-topped teens in too-tight jeans with their carnage overflowing, too-tight bras worn with too-tight Lycra tops with back fat rippling in public.
Q: What fashion faults are you most indulgent of?
A: Country western flash and trash. It’s sooo bad, it’s good. Also, mums and kiddos dressed alike. Might explain why we’ve had a proliferation of animal prints and exposed navels in the children’s department lately. Five year old tarts? Thirty-five-year-old virgins in childish floral prints?
Q: Who is your favorite character (or characters) in fashion fiction?
A: Cruella de Ville; now there’s a woman who knows what she wants! She found her signature style and stuck to it. She was one of the first to recognize black and white as an enduring fashion classic rather than a seasonal trend. She’s not only glamorous, she’s practical!
Q: Who is your favorite character (or characters) in fashion history?
A: The unparalleled Diana Vreeland. A risk taker. A fashion dictator who could point a thin red-tipped finger at anything and make it fabulous. And j’adore Bob Mackie, unapologetic glamour cut by just the right dose of humor.
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