PETA has stepped up its game against Donna Karan. Last week we spotted the anti-fur protesters outside the designer’s Greenwich Street studio, when she was exhibiting her DKNY line. And while you can be sure PETA has their signs waving there again today, for Donna Karan’s namesake collection, they went so far as to trespass Karan’s Central Park West home Wednesday night.
Trying to get one of their infamous DVDs, depicting grotesque fur trade practices, in front of Karan, a well-dressed PETA agent managed to get into her home after Karan’s assistant escorted her in, unaware of what was to go down. CONTINUED »
Marc Jacobs is having a big week. First, he’s showing his fall collection on Friday, so, ooooh!. (Try getting into that one.) Second, he’s rumored to be taking public, at the show, his three-way romance – bear with us – with long-time boyfriend Jason Preston and porn star Erik Rhodes. (Rhodes says they’re not dating, but he will be attending the show. As a friend. And Friday just happens to be his 26th birthday.)
And third, well, is that little matter of extortion.
In order to use the 69th Regiment Armory, on 26th Street, to show each season, Jacobs allegedly had to pay off the armory’s superintendent, James Jackson, some $40,000 in cash and gifts, including a Bowflex machine. In return, Jackson, who was arraigned on extortion charges yesterday, assured Jacobs the date he needed, early access to the venue, and a breezy paperwork process.
Now New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo is on the case, upset that anyone would ever feel required to pay off a public official to use public space.
Other designers, meanwhile, aren’t exactly empathizing with Jacobs. While his payments may have been forced, they may have also secured him exclusive access to the armory during Fashion Week, preventing any other designers from showing there. That doesn’t really elicit sympathy.
Fashion Week continued Saturday night with the Rock and Republic runway show and afterparty, both of which I was luckily enough to attend.
This was my first time to visit the Bryant Park tents, and it was insanely overwhelming: There were swarms of people pushing past me in an effort to get to the show on time. Except, of course, the show started almost an hour late. We were herded like cattle into an area behind the seats where we could hardly see the runway, but it didn’t matter: I was at Fashion Week, and you simply couldn’t beat the atmosphere. CONTINUED »
PARTY FOUL Like fall’s new looks, Fashion Week is supposed to preview the new It-venues, with labels hosting their after-parties at the newest, most velvet-y roped nightspots. Why, then, is the only new venue opening the Miami-import Mansion? [men.style.com]
It totes warms our heart when publicists look our for our well-being. Today, it’s M Booth & Associates who have our backs.
They’re worried that we’re “super busy” covering Fashion Week. And we’re not, really, but we are super tired from the minimal amount of output! Even New York magazine must stop caring at some point.
But if it’s a publicist showing feigned emotion, you know there’s an ulterior motive: product pushing! So who is M Booth tossing our way as a savior from skinny models and a complete lack of runway mishaps? CONTINUED »
Ah, so this is what those sign-holders were protesting when we jogged by them yesterday on Greenwich Street. Donna Karan’s collection doesn’t show until Friday at 3pm, but according to our vantage point, it appears PETA is getting a jump start on things.
Like certain websites, some publicists want to let you know every bit of minutiae surrounding their clients. Thanks to Patrick McGregor, VP of public relations at “B C B G M A X A Z R I A G R O U P” (that’s the annoyingly-spaced way he spells it in his email sig), we’re entirely up to date on which celebs word Hervé Léger by Max Azria at Fashion Week thus far.
Today is the beginning of Fashion Week. OMG, right?
In the short window of time when you might have any interest in Fashion Week and when you see the phrase “Fashion Week” and you want to die, we had Intern Anastasia introduce us to some new designers and give us her thoughts, which are entirely valid even if she has no fashion experience. CONTINUED »
Despite a busy a brief stint in “rehab,” a full-body makeover and an on-again, off-again boyfriend who tries to pass off a dead mouse as a brooch, Marc Jacobs is still the official designer of choice for high school losers, social pariahs and Courtney Love. [NYT]
Fashion Week is finally over! Which means it’s time for Anna Wintour to stop publicly molesting Roger Federer, time for the fashion assistants to flee the W. Backstage Lounge for the sanctuary of Conde Nast headquarters and time for the hordes of bitchy outrageously thin walking clothes-hangers to fly back to the poverty-stricken South American countries from whence they came.
And while we’ll sort-of miss seeing the half-starved Brazilian goddesses grimacing at the thought of squatting over the thoughtfully provided Porta-Potties, we can’t help but feel somewhat relieved that our days in the tents are finally numbered.
But for those of you who are already going through PFWW (a.k.a. Preemptive Fashion Week Withdrawal) we’ve compiled a list of sort-of easy trivia questions to test your knowledge of this peculiar tradition that draws celebrities, editors and photographers in droves and teaches perfectly healthy women to covet unwearable clothes and hate their bodies.
Take the quiz, after the jump. Answers to follow.
Much to our utter chagrin, Fashion Week is apparently still going on. And aside from trolling the tents for free goodies [Ed: Word to the wise, avoid the DHSL cookies] crashing parties and snapping photos of the fashionably impaired, we also had a chance to chat with Rag & Bone designer, Marcus Wainwright (above, left).
As it turns out, Marcus (with whom we are, obvs, on a first name basis) is a frighteningly charming and debatably handsome British man with a dazzling accent and somewhat predictable answers to our equally as predictable fashion questions. So in an effort to contextualize our brief but enlightening sit-down (er, stand-up) with Marcus, we’ve decided to include our own somewhat more revealing answers along with his.
We hope you enjoy the oddly juxtaposed result.
As it turns out, not everyone caught up in the Fashion Week frenzy is the epitome of style and sophistication. In fact, for every impeccably dressed Conde Nast girlthere are several other unfortunate souls who would have done far better shopping exclusively at Old Navy than clumsily attempting to put an outfit together.
A few of Fashion Week’s worst dressed after the jump.
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WTF is up with Wire Image’s website?
We know it’s Fashion Week and all, but aren’t they a real company that can afford real web servers so, like, people can log in and such?
Okay, we take back what we said about the Daily News’s Fashion Dish blog: “Perfect for gossipy tidbits that everyone else is reading about on other sites.” This post makes it clear that Jo Piazza and Laura Schreffler aren’t simply phoning it in. They’re Twittring it in. And them girls are cat-ty.
• Did Cathy Horyn like Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B show? No, apparently she did not. Says Horyn: “Among the words I wrote in my notebook, until my pen came to a stop, were ‘blob,’ ‘very last season,’ ‘bad secretary,’ ‘astonishingly bad,’ and ‘Ditzville.” Well, damn!
• American Next Top Model winner Caridee is, paradoxically, neither modeling nor a winner.
• Samantha Ronson (celebrity DJ and Lindsay Lohan’s sometimes-girlfriend) reminds us why sister Charlotte is the fashionable one.
• Man sues bodega. ‘Nuff said.
Another night, another party and another chance to remind ourselves that we’re not nearly as fashionable and glamorous as we like to think we are. Yes, Fashion Week is upon us, which means shapeless pillowcase dresses are the new black and naturally slender is once again the new morbidly obese.
And yesterday, we spent the better part of our evening ogling the reality stars of yesteryear at the Bravo/Entertainment Weekly party for Tim Gunn at the Soho Grand and marveling at the fact that somebody had the lack of foresight to serve miniature Reuben sandwiches at a snotty skinny-person party.
As always the event was, well, eventful.
There’s a lot to read out there, even when you’re reading about mini-skirts. Here’s our listicle guide to where to look for your niche interests.
The Sartorialist
For hipsters looking great in $600 dresses that look like they came from Good Will.
Too Fat For Fashion
Hello! This is New York. Either get an eating disorder or get out.
The Budget Fashionista
Whatever goes for fat people goes double for poor ones.
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At the Van Cleef & Arpels show last night, we learned a lot of things about New York society.
First off, living in “changing” neighborhood and working in our pajamas, it’s easy to forget that there is a whole portion of New York who spends more on maintaining a wrinkle free neck than we make. Secondly, that without a press pass, we’d never have the fashion sense or wealth to get invited to these things.
The “red carpet”—which was really more of a magenta—was littered with D-list stars. Julie Newmar arrived in a cab. Her companion was wearing a Paul Smith suit with pink strips that would have made Andy Dick blush. Sarah Michelle Gellar looked kind of old, but smiled as if her mortgage depended on it. Jared Kushner was as boyishly handsome in real life as he is in ink dot drawings.
The better stars arrived later. Ashley Olsen was escorted upstairs before photographers could shout Ashley at her a million times; Eve did not make it into the show, but was happy to report that her DUI ankle bracelet was safe for the shower, but not for the tub. Due a fire code violation, other stars didn’t even make it in.
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Why Conde Nast’s Style.com homepage has looked pretty much the same over the past few days when we’re supposedly in the middle of their biggest semi-annual event.
Ever wondered what it was like to attend a fancy-schmancy book party thrown in honor of Sudanese supermodel, Alek Wek? Well, yesterday we decided to crash Wek’s downtown bash at Socialista to find out what happens when 300 or so fashion snobs stop being polite…and start getting real ridiculously drunk on Mojitos.
And we weren’t the least bit disappointed. While we explored the cramped two-floor event space and downed champagne in a sincere—and selfless!—effort at fitting in, we spied on various washed-up reality stars and ran into our old friend Patrick Huguenin from the NYDN (whom, we’re told, “screeched with joy” at Diane von Furstenberg’s arrival) as well as the lovely Jennifer Barton (a newbie associate editor for Fashion Week Daily) who shamed/intimidated us with her tres chic accessories such as a “working tape recorder,” “ballpoint pen” and “standard reporter’s notebook.”
Fortunately, we were able to flag down just enough mango margaritas to keep from blowing our cover, and even managed to jot down a few astute observations. Our fuzzy, morning-after recollections, after the jump.
Editorial Director
