http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/fashi ... ef=fashion
Officially, BCBG stands for the French compliment “bon chic, bon genre,” or “good style, good attitude.” I had always heard it stood for a muskier saying: “beau cul, belle gueule,” meaning “nice derrière, nice mouth.” We can’t be sure which BCBG the designer Max Azria intended, but I suspect both versions secretly go together: an illicit affair between smarts and smut.
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Mr. Azria seems to have taken Coco’s iconic look and said: “Yes, but it needs sexing-up. Flashdance the cardigan off one shoulder. Gob on more baubles. Tighten the belts, stick feathers on the hat and make it all 45 percent acrylic.”
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The top floor is dedicated to the BCBG Runway line. This is prom dress heaven, dominated by Empire-waist goddess gowns, ideal for swooshing over with a xylophone glissando to reveal to game-show contestants what’s behind Door No. 3!
Some details, however, are puzzlingly crude. The bust of a chocolate chiffon dress seems to have been appliquéd with chipped flint tools from the mid-Paleolithic era; I christened it, “Je m’appelle Wilma” ($800). It would have gone well with an animal pelt that had a tag describing it ― really ― as a Rabbit Hare Coat ($498).
Some of the infantine BCBG staff members wore their black slacks so tight it looked as if they might be growing out of them. One rolled her eyes when I gestured inarticulately toward a crumpled brown tube that looked like a costume for a grade-school biology pageant: I am Mr. Snuffalupagus’s magic esophagus. I am the Snuffalupesophagus.
“So, like, are you trying to say you want to try that dress on?” her mouth managed to ask despite both braces and gum.
Little girl, I prayed for restraint. Please don’t poke the Cobra.
“Why, yes,” I said.
I have no children, I thought, with bright ecstasy.
The dress looked exponentially better on. Under different lights, the stretchy fabric was a burnished gold. The skirt draped well, and the top was a sturdily engineered bustier lined with an all-weather, vulcanized latex material, tough enough to grip off-road or on the dance floor. Still, I worried about condensation ($800).