Over the next two weeks, you will see "Evian girls" walking around Bryant Park. They will, according to a presser, "be wearing some fabulous designs by Gracienne Myers and Viridis Luxe, including some pretty fantastic Evian Stilettos. So keep an eye out for the Evian Girls, and make sure to grab a Brumisateur Facial Spray to help keep cool at the tents!" Also, as often as the urge may strike, please do your best not to stab these women. Even with the spikes of their shoes.
The theme of New York's Fashion Week? Poor people. The Migrant Mother look is in right now, what with the recession and everything making it harder to buy that $4,000 "peasant skirt" from Saks. "Women will pare down to essentials and make what they have go further, both in fashion and in their day-to-day spending, say trend-watchers and designers who unveil spring 2009 looks at New York's semi-annual Fashion Week starting on Friday," says somebody paying attention. It's like the Depression all over again, but this time with irony.
Okay, whatever. There were no blogs during the Depression, thank god. OMG banks took farm. Mood: Pensive.
On the heels of the Vogue India debacle, where the country's poor and infirm were used as models to shill haute couture, it's just a lil' bit presumptuous to have New York runway shows with messages like "dress conservatively for the harsh economic winters ahead." Like, so what if the Euro is still kicking your ass? At least you aren't in a country where half the residents live off less than a buck twenty five a day.
And make up your mind, Fashion. Either you are trying to sell Burberry to those below the poverty line, or you're making rich people dress in sackcloth. Not both, or the time-space continuum will rip.
Regardless of the state of the economy or metaphysics, here's hoping Betsy Johnson's new mauve line is called Grapes of Wraps (ba-dum-bum).
Oh to be a blogger who yearns to cover Fashion Week! The semi-annual two week party with fancier clothes than usual is also where the power struggle between the old guard (fashion houses and their PR agencies) and the new regime (us Web 2.0 types) goes down. The two warriors clash, negotiate, and, on the dozens of occasions we've heard about, go home together. Mostly, the furor between the two erupts over credentialing — the clipboarding process where a publicist says yes or no to media outlets who want to cover their clients' shows. These days, as the DNC and RNC saw, bloggers sees themselves entitled — equally, if not more so — to the same lavish treatment and access as the established players, like those who produce their content on actual paper. Except the publicists, who are paid to promote and protect their clients' image, are wary about the wayward things a blogger might post. And the fact that she could criticize a runway show in real time, as the models are still walking. This is scary. Which is why publicists like Kelly Cutrone, of fashion PR firm People's Revolution and The Hills regular, don't want to deal with this shit. CONTINUED »
El Baño is the newest super-duper secret nightclub for X-clusive clientèle that will be making it's debut during Fashion Week, which is the proper time for fancy new night spots to reveal they're not wearing any clothes. It's already been getting all the necessary hype to convince dedicated second tier glitterati that they should have gotten their invitation "key" — yes, a physical thing — ages ago, so they can have the honor of entering a LES bodega to use the bathroom and be greeted into the secret society via sliding panel. Sort of like Skull and Bones meets Clerks. With more coke.
But before you start cursing the bourgeoisie, there are already rumors spreading that this club is so cool it doesn't even exist. And not just for plebs like you. CONTINUED »
In the United States, the only Fashion Week that top editors concern themselves with is New York's. Sure, there is the lighter fare in Los Angeles, the resort and swim collections in Miami, and yes, even the two-year-old Chicago stunt. But that is America. In Dubai, there is another incarnation all together: Children's Fashion Week. And it looks like something straight out of JonBenét Ramsey's closet. CONTINUED »
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.
Editorial Director
