Manolo says, it is the look on her face that really sells it.

The designer eyepatch, circa 2005, circa 2007.

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Manolo says, here is the best fashion blogging from this week…

Stiletto Jungle thinks that Rick Owens Wedge Clogs are the only clogs worth wearing.

All Lacquered Up attempts a water marble manicure and shares her frustrations with the technique.

Allie is Wired discusses Jessica Simpson‘s questionable personal hygiene.

Frugal Snob options for a very popular IT Bag on Bag Snob!

If you have previously been opposed to waterproof mascara, try this Beauty Snob option to see if you change your mind.

Coquette can’t decide which stylish pair of espadrille wedges to get, so she may have to get them all!

Fashion Pulse Daily is quite taken this week with the marvelous jewelry of Winifred Grace.

The Jet Set Girls reveal Chanel’s Paris Shanghai collection.

SHEfinds Broke big news: Hermes Australia Admits the Birkin Bag Wait List Was A Hoax.

Second City Style powdered, glossed, slathered and scrubbed in the name of beauty…presenting the winners of our 4th Annual Beauty Olympics!

Shopping and Info loves the simplicity of the Enza Costa Rogue tank top worn by Katie Holmes recently.

StyleBakery asked their favorite fashion bloggers to share their must-buys for spring

Stylehive Says Ruffled Handbags Are Cute & Feminine Without Being Prissy

The Beauty Stop test drives Kryolan Paint Stick foundation.

The Shoe Goddess loves how Heidi Klum strikes a pose in her Christian Louboutin “Zigounette” T-Strap Sandals!

Manolo says, some things work on almost anyone. Some things only work on the skinny models. Some things work on no one.

Manolo says, it is the summer of the Maxi-Dress!

Here is the Regan Maxi-Dress from Lilly Pulitzer, the white strapless maxi with the so-called “burnout” tropical leaf pattern. And now, we must need some colorful shoes to add interest and flavor to the dish. The Manolo recommends pink!

On the left is the Metro T-Strap Wedge Sandals from Kate Spade. On the right is the Dolce & Gabanna Estelle Wedge Sandal (which you may recognize as having been recommended by the Manolo in the green color the couple months ago).

Of the course, you are not limited to pink with the dress such as this. Indeed, almost any vibrantly happy color will work.

Manolo asks, when did Kate Hudson turn into the hardened, 53-year-old divorcée?

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Manolo says, unless you are perhaps living in the cave in the Hindu Kush, you will be aware that one of the better trends of this season is the maxi-dress.

Here is the single shoulder, beautifully draped, Theo Maxi-Dress from Joie that will have you looking like the Pallas Athena!

And, for the shoes, pay no attention to what the model is wearing, you, of the course, will require sandals of great simplicity and unusual beauty.

Sandals such as the Blaze from Elizabeth and James, which have imbibed the spirit of classical antiquity, and yet suggest not the placid classicism of Attica, but the energetic rusticity of Macedonia. And thus not peaceable Pallas Athena, but Athena Nike, resting confidently at the head of Phillip’s horsemen.

Manolo says, Miss Plumcake taking ABC television to task for refusing to run the sexy, plus-sized Lane Bryant advertisement.

Manolo says, today begins the American release of our friend Linda Grant‘s magnificent new book, The Thoughtful Dresser.

Make no mistake, if, like the Manolo, you are the reasonably intelligent person who likes the clothes, and the shoes, and thinking about why people wear what they wear, you will adore this book.

Here is the brief selection…

In the summer of 1971, I had perfect shoes. They were pink suede wedges with suede ties that did up round my ankles like Grecian sandals. They were the most beautiful shoes I have ever owned, and I was twenty and had no idea that in all the years to come I would forever be trying to find their replacement, as if they were a love tragically lost, or the Platonic ideal of shoes, or the shoes God had made especially for me. Whatever I was wearing, I only had to look down at my feet to know that they were encased in pink suede.

[...]

I wore the shoes every single day, until they fell apart and I dropped them in the kitchen bin in an act of affirmative confidence in the future: that I was only twenty and that for the rest of my long life there would be other shoes — but there was no next pair of shoes, none as good as these. Never again would I have a pair as beautiful and wearable. It must have been in part their pinkness, but also the wedge and the thongs they were tied with which all combined to make them stand outside time, outside the era they came from. The point about those shoes is that I coudl wear them right now, today. So the past goes on tormenting you, the memory of brief intense friendship with shoes — yes, exactly like a lost love.

Ayyyy! A la recherche du chaussures perdu!

Of course, it is only natural that this passage would appeal to the Manolo, for as the Manolo has long noted in his own writings, the quest for the perfect item of clothing, the perfect pair of shoes, is exactly congruent with the search for the divine. They are one and the same, expressing as they both do the innate human desire for the transcendent.

But more than that, such quests are also the reaffirmation of life.

This is something Linda Grant expresses wonderfully in her book, that far from being the frivolous frivolity, the shopping for and wearing of clothing brings pleasure, brings joy, brings wholly human satisfaction, which moreover has the power to repair and restore one’s soul.

Out of suffering comes the demand for pleasure. When we have suffered we do not care less about clothes, but more. To love clothes is to embrace life in all its joyous variety, even if all you ever do is turn the pages of a magazine and long for a fairyland, crave couture ballgowns you will never own. We all need daydreams.

So you must read this book — part autobiography, part biography, part history, part manifesto, the curious combination to be sure, but completely brilliant and utterly insightful. It will convince, as few other works can, that thinking about clothes is the ancient and worthwhile, indeed noble, human activity.

P.S. The Thoughtful Dresser Blog.

N.B. Guest post by Steven Cojocaru. Read more at Cojo’s blog CojoStyle.

Oh no pussycat, not the boots and dress hooker look? Please tell me it’s a mirage my darling Nicole Scherzinger, you are too much of a goddess to wear these meager threads. Nicole, your supple, sensuous body should be wrapped in the finest silks and you should be worshipped by a dozen well-oiled sex slaves (oh no, I sound like Bruno). I am totally rooting (and texting) for you on DWTS. PS. Tell the show’s producers I will only do the show if I can dance with Derek!! xo Cojo

N.B. Guest post by Steven Cojocaru. Read more at Cojo’s blog CojoStyle.

Jessica: no, no, no, no, no!!! Forget Ken Paves, I’m the one who tosses and turns in my California King bed all night thinking about how to ‘save’ you from yourself. You know my family once tried to ‘change me’ and sent me to Outer Mongolia to live with monks. I turned quite a few monks over to my fab team, but that’s a different story. I have found some adorable gay monks who will take you in and burn that ill-fitting boob-spilling, optical illusion dress. That dress shouldn’t be worn hon, it should be framed. Much love, Cojo

N.B. Guest post by Steven Cojocaru. Read more at Cojo’s blog CojoStyle.

I get so completely crushed when one of my fashion faves fails, I can barely muster up the strength to flatiron my gorgeous hair (but somehow I do). So you can imagine the meltdown I’m having seeing my glorious Gwen Stefani in such a catastrophic outfit. I’m not feeling the cheesy bra and see-through top mix, or the rest of the labored sex kitten head-to-toe black get-up. Stefani looks to me like a pallbearer at a Playmate of the Year’s funeral.

PS. Gwen’s completely plain ‘let’s go bowling’ shoes are making me have to breathe into a brown paper bag.

Manolo says, our friend Raincoaster has pictures from the fantastic Scottish fashion show.