Last Scottish king to die in battle / SUN 7-30-17 / Mideast royal name / Funny Gasteyer / NFC North rivals Bears / Cellphone chip holder / Loren of "Marriage Italian-Style" / Northern Indiana county seat /

Constructor: Isaac Mizrahi and David J. Kahn

Relative difficulty: Average (18:19)


THEME:"By Design"— Idioms are clued with fashion-related jokes.

• 24A: Flaunt a loose dress at a soiree? (WORK THE NIGHT SHIFT)
• 33A: Title of a fashion industry seamstress's tell-all? (ON PINS AND NEEDLES)
• 56A: What some wrap dresses are? (FIT TO BE TIED)
• 77A: Like a model's hairstyle? (CUT AND DRIED)
• 99A: Takes fashion photos using an unorthodox angle? (SHOOTS FROM THE HIP)
• 109A: Shorten some couture dresses? (TAKE UP A COLLECTION)
• 3D: Preferred means of arriving at a fashion show? (TAXI DOWN THE RUNWAY)
• 46D: Inspects a fashion designer's offerings? (GOES OVER THE LINE)

Word of the Day: A-BOMB (35D: Little Boy, e.g., informally)—
If I might OPINE (20A: Offer a thought): HONESTLY (70D: Cry of exasperation), this felt NOT SO GOOD (78D: Medium-to-poor) for a Sunday theme. I appreciate the intent of the famous-person-and-veteran-constructor match-up, I'm a huge fan of Isaac Mizrahi (I had many of the clothes from the "chic librarian" line he designed for Target, many years ago, including a wrap dress that was FIT TO BE TIED), but this one did not WIN (71A: Get the gold). A SHIFT is both a dress style and a period of working time! TAKE UP means both "collect" and "shorten, as a hem"! TAXI is both something an airplane does on a RUNWAY and a vehicle one could take to get to a RUNWAY, which is also a place where fashion shows are held! (get it? do I need to explicate all of these?). It doesn't feel strong enough to carry a Sunday puzzle; the three or four best of the set could've fit neatly into a Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm sure there are plenty who will like it; however, I was AVERSE (116A: Resistant (to)) -- but I've been told my taste in crossword themes is a bit EDGY (not as in 121A: Uneasy, but as in "risqué" or -- as I prefer to think of it -- "badass").

Fill 'er up with ... UNA BOA IST NAT FRA ANA. LEI INE HOS HAT? NIA SEZ EOE OID! OLEO SATE ELSA, ENDE ELLE. HIHO SNAP! I don't want NUN if you ain't got HUNS, HEN.

Bullets:

• 90D: Creator of an ancient pyramid scheme? (IMHOTEP)— Imhotep was apparently a real historical figure, but he's better known in pop culture (my favorite kind of culture, aside from Saccharomyces cerevisiae) as the title character of The Mummy (played by Boris Karloff in 1932 and Arnold Vosloo in 1999).
• 61A: ___ pants (HAREM)— I prefer this word clued in this, uh, fashion -- compared to previous approaches.
• 14D: Christmas threesome (HOS)— 🤔.
• 11D: Klingons, e.g. (ALIEN RACE)— TlhInganpu' wej chenmoH QeH.

I've really enjoyed blogging the puzzle this week, and thanks for your lovely comments and tweets. It takes a great deal of work to make a daily crossword blog; Rex has written this thing almost every day for more than ten years, just because he wants to, and because he cares about puzzles. I deeply respect and admire him for what he does here -- and even more so after spending eight days in his shoes on his Blogger account. So: thanks to you for reading, and many, many thanks to my friend Rex for giving me a platform to blather at you for a while. I hope to return, but in the meantime, you can find me covering the Tuesday WSJ puzzle at the Fiend, and next Sunday I'll be helping to run Boswords. Speaking of which, we've had so many sign-ups that we're in need of more volunteers: Sunday, August 6, noon-5pm, in lovely West Roxbury, MA -- only 10 miles from Natick! If you're interested (free lunch!), drop a line to boswordstournament [at] gmail [dot] com.

Signed, Laura Braunstein, Sorceress of CrossWorld

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