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Feb. 05: If you're like us, you miss the good old days of guerilla art. Today's high-sheen intersection of art, music, fashion and music isn't what is was even ten years ago, when it centered around Alleged Gallery in the East Village. We asked Aaron Rose, an independent curator and editor of the upcoming book Young, Sleek, and Full of Hell (Drago) a look back at the legendary art space he founded to give voice to scrappy artists everywhere...
Hint: Street Art. What's the next stop?
Aaron Rose: A year ago I would have said "the weekend in jail," but that's not the case anymore. Some say the easiest way to squash a rebellious spirit is to bestow honors on its head. Do I agree? Maybe. These days, sadly, it seems the next and last stop would have to be Urban Outfitters. C'mon kids...make us proud.
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Nov. 04: Joan Juliet Buck took a seven-year sabbatical from writing to edit French Vogue, but she's back at work now. Her TV criticism can be read in Vogue, her book reviews in the L.A. Times, her travel essays in Travel & Leisure and, because she lives in New Mexico, she has time to write big books. We can't think of anyone better to ask...
Hint: Fashion cycles. Are we spinning out of control?
Joan Juliet Buck: It used to be that "vintage" described something old and rare and precious whose owner had been dead for years: a Vionnet dress, a Poiret coat, a Fortuny gown. Then second-hand couture was called vintage, because the people who could make it were dead. Then ready-to-wear from four seasons ago was called vintage because the designer had moved on to other things. Now vintage is what you bought last year and haven't yet worn, or wore so much that it is almost dead. So what used to be the thrill of the past has become instant necromania.
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Sep. 04: Come November, the Met's Costume Institute will hold "Wild: Fashion Untamed," promising to be one of its more provocative exhibitions, as curator Andrew Bolton hints here.
Hint: Fur and feathers. Why fashion's obsession with animal property?
Andrew Bolton: Dress-up. Furs and feathers enable you to act out your most furtive fantasies. A queen one day, a showgirl the next. It's all about sex and showmanship, which is probably why you can't beat a pimp or a tranny in a mink coat.
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Aug. 04: It's been the year of collaborations. And, like most limited-edition whores, we can't get enough of the stuff, but are we binging on too much of a good thing? We'd thought we'd ask a quickie to Colette's Sarah, possibly the world's most gifted matchmaker, about the phenomenon.
Hint: Collaborations. Are they really double the pleasure?
Sarah: Yes! Tom & Jerry, black & white, Mickey & Minnie, Los & Angeles, life & death, day & night, Caperino & Peperone-duos rule! Trios, too. Each ingredient added to the mix brings us a little closer to the perfect cake.
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Aug. 04: With Kabbalah hooplah everywhere we turn, we wanted a final yea or nay on the subject from the ultimate style guru and Barneys creative director, Simon Doonan.
Hint: Kabbalah. Kool or just plain krazy?
Simon Doonan:"It seems harmless enough but, personally, if I were going to pick a religion, I would pick one with better accessories. That red bracelet just doesn't do it for me. I would probably become an existentialist because at least you get to wear a turtleneck and a nice black beret. Who doesn't love a black beret? Just call me Simon "de Beauvoir" Doonan.
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Jul. 04: Spanning raunchy to preppy, a very diverse round of men's collections came to a close earlier this week, so we decided to ask a quickie to someone who knows a thing or two about the subject, Tim Blanks, fashion journalist and TV show host extraordinaire.
Hint: Menswear. Are guys finally getting serious about fashion?
Tim Blanks: Based on the spring 2005 collections, I would say that public schoolboys, gigolos, toreadors, chimney sweeps, voodoo love gods, Confederate soldiers, Sandinistas, cabin boys, Joe Jackson fans, Erwin Rommel, millionaire hippies, gas jockeys, Patrick O'Brian fans, grunge revivalists, magicians and those who would wear kilts are finally getting serious about fashion. The remaining two percent of the male population will just have to make do with something pink.
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Apr. 04: As the L.A. collections hit full pitch, we decided to ask a quickie to an original Angeleno designer, Rick Owens, who now lives in Paris designing for the fur label Revillon as well as his eponymous line.
Hint: Los Angeles. Fashion capital or design dust bowl?
Rick Owens:"There's something breathtaking about the heights of consumerism reached in L.A. It gives us all something nice to react against. I always drooled over the homeless kids on Hollywood Boulevard. They have the best style ever. There's something not quite as authentic about a DISCHARGE patch on the bumflap of a kid in Berlin. Consumerism has made a circus of L.A. Last fall's collection was inspired by a lady on an L.A. street corner wearing a nylon windbreaker upside down and fixing her makeup by spraying her face with Aquanet.
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 Hint Shop
If Rad Hourani were writing this blurb, it would be over already. That's because, for the soon-to-explode French-Canadian designer, it's all about extreme minimalism. Thus, the concept behind this one-size-fits-all, unisex, sleeveless T-shirt—printed with the dates and times of a calendar—is that it can be worn by anyone, anytime.
Shoptart
You might think, given his collaboration with leather-goods house Schott, that Jeremy Scott is going butch. After all, Schott created the biker jackets worn by Marlon Brando and James Dean. But no, that manly legacy is given a swishy twist, like this rococo tea print of treasure trolls in pastoral repose. Also this month: Marni, Stella McCartney, Tom Binns and more.
Message Boards
"Madonna starves herself on a raw macrobiotic kosher vegan kaballah diet and works out three hours a day to maintain the physique of a 12-year-old gymnast boy, and then has the cheeks of a 300-pound woman implanted into her face. And her forehead is like a plastic baby's bottom. It's like Nicole Kidman's forehead at the height of her botox addiction, and we all remember how unfortunate that era was." |
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