What do you get when you cross a talented designer, a major hottie and a classic period piece? Perfection — well at least in my book! While I can’t wait to see Leonardo DiCaprio on the big screen in The Great Gatsby, I’m also equally as excited to see the costumes — especially after hearing that designer Miuccia Prada dug deep into the Prada and Miu Miu archives for the film!

The designer collaborated with Catherine Martin, head of wardrobe and wife of the film’s director Baz Luhrmann, on the twenties-inspired flapper dresses that we’ll see on the cast — including Carey Mulligan‘s character, Daisy Buchanan.

For the adaptation, Miuccia reworked some of the classic pieces from the archives to assure that they were perfect for the period piece.

This marks the third collaboration for the designer and Baz, who first teamed up back in ’96 on the cult classic Romeo + Juliet, where the leading man, (who coincidentally also happened to be Leo), donned a suit designed by Miuccia.

Most recently, the director was enlisted to help create short films that played during the Prada and Schiaparelli exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Based on the work they have done together in the past, we’re sure the costumes won’t disappoint. Do you agree?

Katrina Mitzeliotis

First, toothpick models were fired by the Italian Prada design house and replaced by Victoria’s Secret Angels in a surprising last minute move, the night before the show on Feb. 24. Then influential designer Marc Jacobs, filled his trendsetting Louis Vuitton show in Paris, Mar. 10, with full-figured supermodels — of all ages — including Elle MacPherson, 47, new mom Karolina Kurkova, 26, (her little son is 4 months old), Sports Illustrated and Leonardo DiCaprio favorite, Bar Refaeli, 24, French actress/supermodel Laetitia Casta, 31, as well as voluptuous Victoria’s Secret Angel Adriana Lima, 28.

As stunning as these women are, they’ve been pretty much banished from top designer runways in recent years — they’ve been considered “too comercial” by snooty fashion insiders. In other words — us regular women might like to actually look like them and wear the clothes that they’re modeling.

That was a no-no for these fashion types.

Now what could account for the sudden re-appearance of “rounder” models as New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn, described them.

Could it be because sales of luxury goods, including fashion, have plunged in the past year? The Camera della Moda, the Italian fashion governing body, released figures showing that 2009 saw the most dramatic drop in sales in 20 years! Revenues were down 15%. Well, if that’s what it took to get healthy-looking beauties cataclysmically back in style —so be it.

But it’s good news for all us women.

Why? Because the fashion photos that appear in major magazines and ads, get viewed and absorbed by millions of women. And whether it’s conscious or subconscious, they are affected by the images they see.

Thousands of photos seen over the course of years do create highly unrealistic images of women’s bodies. And you know what, it ISN’T healthy to be as excruciatingly skinny as those sub-zero young girls that have populated the New York Fashion Week runways for the the past few seasons. They CAN’T possibly eat, if they want to stay THAT thin!

They are so gaunt, the clothes truly hang off them without any form or shape. They almost look like ghosts — they’re not sexy or memorable or alive looking.

It’s actually a relief to see celebrities in the front rows, and yes they’re usually wearing the same designer’s clothes, but in all of a…size four. As slim as they are — at least they’re in the range of normal.

Nevertheless, now that fashion world UBER-INFLUENTIALS Miuccia Prada — the designer of Prada — and Marc Jacobs — the designer of Louis Vuitton — have virtually decreed that the emaciated look is OUT and the sexy, curvy, lingerie and swimsuit Glamazonian Supermodels are in — it means you’ll be seeing a whole lot fewer skinnies and a whole lot more shapely curves in your fashion mags! And since more women are naturally curvy than naturally emaciated — that’s good “body image” news!

So give ‘em Elle, Elle!

- Bonnie Fuller

Email me! | Follow Hollywoodlife.com on | Become a fan