Alexandra Cassaniti’s surfboard bags are too ingenious to be ignored by any stylish, landlocked girl. We’re certain that you can find a use for one of these hand-printed, limited-edition designs. The 27-year-old California- and Hawaii-raised Cassaniti creates all of her pieces mindful of function (most bags have buckles and buttons that can transform their shapes), environmental impact (next season will be even more green), and personal relationships with manufacturers (surfboard bags are made in Minnesota by a team that also creates Civil War reenactment paraphernalia). Better still, each pattern is derived from one of Cassaniti’s original ink-and-gouache paintings. “My work is not really about if you’re a surfer or not. People have told me when they wear the bags they feel connected to them. They are aware of my company and how we make each piece, so they feel they’re part of the process.” Check out Cassaniti’s Web site for more designs and videos by friend Spike Jonze.

Lightning Bolt Surfboard, $1,100 alexandracassaniti.com 

Alexandra Cassaniti’s surfboard bag, $120; alexandracassaniti.com

—Stephanie LaCava
Edited by Virginia Tupker

Modern chic and mythic traditions are woven together in these Lapland reindeer bracelets now available at Dienst + Dotter, a Scandinavian purveyor of rare objets and antiques in Sag Harbor. The bracelets caught the curatorial eye of owner Jill Dienst on one of her many buying trips through Scandinavia: “I just fell in love with the workmanship and the delicate balance of the natural leather, tin silver weaving, and the way the sunlight just bounces off the weave.” Despite their cold-climate provenance—the bracelets are made in the northernmost reaches of Norway and Sweden by the reindeer-herding Sami people—they make a perfect summer statement. Wear them generously stacked in varying widths, and over time, according to Dienst, they will develop a beautiful worn patina. What is more, proceeds from the purchase of these bracelets, each of which is painstakingly handmade using an ancient process and delicately fastened with a simple reindeer-horn button, help to support the Sami and their culture.

Lapland Reindeer bracelets, $195–$325; Dienst + Dotter, Sag Harbor, NY; (631) 725-6881.

—Veronica Gledhill

Photo: Liam Goodman

Who would have thought that supporters of Richard Nixon would be jaunty enough to don a paper dress? This relic—along with its companion piece, a disposable frock displaying the grinning visage of his rival Hubert Humphrey—greets you in the first gallery of the wonderful “Fashion & Politics” exhibit, just opened at the Museum at FIT. There’s also a shirtwaist printed with bright-red ikes that is straight out of Mad Men, an American-flag parade costume from the late nineteenth century, and a pair of red-white-and-blue sneakers that survived the 1976 bicentennial.

But not everything here so explicitly reflects patriotism or party politics. There are also fashions associated with a variety of grassroots social movements—an ivory linen outfit of the type worn by the early-twentieth-century suffragettes, who made white their special color (in homage to the purity of their quest for the vote) and a voluminous outfit, meant for bicycle riding, that the 1889 New York Times warned was “merely a resting-place on the road to trousers.”

Trousers would be bad enough. What would those Victorian scolds at the Times have made of the monokini, Rudi Gernreich’s still shocking 1964 “topless bathing suit,” here in pristine sunny yellow and encapsulating, in a quarter yard of fabric, the wild upheavals, the crazy liberation of the 1960s? (Gernreich himself flourished at the very intersection of fashion and politics—his boyfriend was Harry Hay, and in the early 1950s, they and a few other men founded the Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights organizations in the world.)

But for every happy example of sartorial progress—every Claire McCardell popover dress, freeing 1950s women for hostessing and gardening—there are more sober items on view, including an army tour jacket from the Vietnam era embroidered, WHEN I DIE I WILL GO TO HEAVEN BECAUSE I SPENT MY TIME IN HELL. (The wall text comments dryly that few of these survive, as most soldiers tossed them as soon as they got home.)

On the other hand, sometimes a single garment simply brims with universal joie de vivre. The French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac is represented by a shimmery mini decorated with a portrait of Barack Obama rendered in satin, net, and sequins; across the back is the legend I HAVE A DREAM TODAY. And speaking of dreams come true: Before you leave the museum, go downstairs to the gallery’s other exhibit, a retrospective of the work of the extraordinary Isabel Toledo. Front and center you will see the pale-chartreuse ensemble (the museum calls it lemongrass) that Toledo designed for a magnificent Michelle Obama to wear at her husband’s Inauguration on a dazzling afternoon last January. Talk about fashion and politics!

“Fashion & Politics” exhibit at the Museum at FIT (November 7, 2009; fitnyc.edu).

—Lynn Yaeger

Valentino, Look 10

Where is she going in this? How is she getting there? And how on Earth will she sit down if she ever does manage to make it there? Sometimes at the couture it’s best not to ask inane questions, to suspend your disbelief and to just let the magic and artistry float over you. This miraculous opera coat (for Renée Fleming giving a recital performance, perhaps?) simulates the idea of Valentino’s famed ruffled black tulle gown from the beginning of his career in the Dolce Vita sixties, but the pleats of the ruffles are illusions—they are the spines of shiny black jet quills that move with the wearer in sighing waves. Just one astonishing tour de force of workmanship and invention from the perfectly exquisite collection that Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli unveiled this evening—a triumphant and optimistic vision for the couture on which to end the week. Incidentally, the collection was inspired, you will be interested to discover, by the famous Black Ascot of 1910, when all the women wore black clothes, in the height of Belle Époque fashion, in mourning for Edward VII.

Valentino, Look 6

Ruffles, bustles, sparkle, lace and mink: Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli expertly revelled in grand gestures to make tiny dresses of a wispy, fragile beauty for Valentino couture.

Gaultier Paris, Look 27

Jean Paul Gaultier’s tribute to the actresses of Hollywood’s golden age was most charming and seductive when it winked at the gritty can-do spirit behind all the glamour: for example, an evening gown cut like workmen’s overalls, of amethyst silk and silver embroidery.

Giorgio Armani Privé, Look 46

The pearl-gray satin curtains, pulled back to reveal the curve of a grand staircase—a streamlined contemporary take on Dior’s fifties salon—set the scene for Armani’s study in elegant restraint. His one-shouldered siren evening gown with its scissor-line fin similarly evokes a mid-century couture look, but its innovative textural embroidery of looped fringing brings it firmly into Armani’s world.

Gaultier Paris, Look 22

From a collection that paid homage to the great beauties of Hollywood’s golden era, this dress and coat evoke the glamour of Joan Crawford in her twenties flapper-movie era, or Louise Brooks (the outfit is named “Loulou” after a celebrated Brooks vehicle) and with a nod to the high style of the great movie designers such as Adrian and Travis Banton. Like the fabled costume workshops of those great glamour purveyors, Gaultier too, unique amongst the couturiers, has his own embroidery atelier, and the results of their craft are glitteringly showcased here…

In the fading light of a Parisian evening, Karl Lagerfeld presented a staggering array of looks that defied the divide between day and night, long and short, modern and historicist. To wit, this deceptively simple wrap dress of black crepe, belted and lined in scarlet, and finished with a slender cap-toed ankle boot.

In a Chanel collection that played with idiosyncratic proportions, with panels that flapped like coattails from suit jackets and cocktail frocks alike, and lamp-shade skirts that jutted out like mini-crinnies, this outfit stood out for its sinuous elegance. Karl Lagerfeld veiled the superb sequin embroidery of the tunic in the cinnamon chiffon he used for the diaphanous, barely-there skirt, understating the magnificence in a thoroughly modern way and creating a sense of mystery reflected in the playful cloche hat and the black lace leg glimpsed through the skirt.