Last week (even though Alexa Chung was on the cover and it cost $10.oo), I bought a British Vogue at Port Authority.
In high school, Brit Vogue was my favorite Vogue, because I didn't read French and because Diana Vreeland's autobiography and a lot of other books and a night at Aspinall's and a lunch at Fortnum & Mason of shepherd's pie and banana milkshake and a Grazia magazine and a tallboy of cider had convinced me that I was destined for London, for the Courtauld and a bespoked, coldfish husband or something. I've changed my mind. London is grey and far and trashy without the BIG and convenience store of home (what I mean is: trashy but not as good at being trashy as here and also without nice malls and Walmarts and a million other things like deserts and baseball [not cricket]). And fashion magazines will never thrill me and inform me, as they did when I felt like a nervous and hopeful pre-debutante of the World; I can no longer see "blue skies ahead" in an accessories feature.
But Brit Vogue's still charming and dippy with like five Kate Moss covers per annum and a lot of fine little things you can buy at Liberty and reporting on new Airbus airplanes.
There was no interview with Alexa Chung, just four pictures of her in denim alongside an article about denim and romance of/with/in America. There was a whole lot about loving America in general, which is like 'sure YESS!' and very sweet.
A funny feature called, "Going Out vs. Staying In" imaged and styled two groups of female friends: a set of wealthy daughters-of-soandso, one of whom runs a public relations firm another who owns a new, swank nightclurrrb (our age! what?) in black leather, the other crowd, a bit younger, piling into a house in the far suburbs Upriver, models and musicians in vintage babydoll dresses and socks. The thing didn't stink of class-problems; mostly 'cause the "posh" girls were sort of Sex and the City and naff, yawn, nightclurrrb? And the girls in this Victorian house out-of-town were adorable and hip and inhabiting authentically beautiful space, principal among them a brunette called Marina who lists her influences: "Britney Spears, gymnasts, cheerleaders, anything American!" The article said her band was called Marina and the Diamonds. I looked her up on the Youtube and found:


The first is on-concept (right?) but pretty awful. The second is a big mezcla of stuff that's already happened and happened (and recently). But it's good. I like her vocal, and the EP is called American Jewels, and I guess I'm flattered. I'll pass out the next time I hear a Euro talking about American politics, but please do go on and on about our GLAMOUR (it's major.....like, TRACE CYRUS, featured below [who obv recycles a lot of British ideas but ones that kind of started as American ideas anyway and in Franklin, Tennessee and Hollywood, Orlando, and Twitter...]).

N.Y. Mag's The Cut has this (below) to offer on Tavi-at-Fashion-Week. And what? What is happening here? I need a nap!--

Last night, 13-year-old blogger Tavi joined Susie Bubble, Bryanboy, Phil Oh of Street Peeper, and Britt Aboutaleb and Lauren Sherman of Fashionista.com for a panel discussion on “The Future of Fashion Blogging” at the Evolving Influence Fashion Blog Conference hosted by the Independent Fashion Bloggers. Tavi — clearly the blogger everyone was most excited to see — won coos and applause with almost every comment. And with good reason! Some highlights below.

On personal-style blogging:
“You can write about what you care about. There’s always someone who also really loves, like, Seinfeld as well as dead dolls, as well as Prada. I think the few times I’ve tried to do more news reporting, I can only go so far until I have to make a Freaks & Geeks reference. For me it’s easier to write as a personal-style blog.”

On technology changing the media landscape:
“Nick Knight started ShowStudio in 2000, like a decade ago, and the scary part is in five years, it’s going to be like the iPhone. I remember there was this old Lindsay Lohan Disney Channel movie and she was video chatting with her friends about what they were going to wear, and that was so technologically advanced to me, and now you don’t have to be like a spy on Disney Channel to do it.”

On people saying bloggers have no business sitting front row:
“Well, if you generalize it like that, then it’s like people with computers can’t be in the front row.”

On the blogger-versus-editor argument:
“A lot of it is kind of made up. I think it started to sort of come back and gain a little more momentum when a Grazia writer was sitting behind me and couldn’t see because of my hat. But like I saw what [she] Twittered, which was ‘Can’t see behind Tavi’s bow,’ and it’s like, I think [she was] just sort of like making a joke. But then it was like [transfers to ominous voice-over voice] ‘Bloggers and Editors at War — which side are you on?’” [Audience erupts into laughter and applause]

On reading her own press:
“I read my own comments because I rarely get a negative commenter on my blog. I don’t read comments on other sites when other people have written about me and I generally don’t read the article. I have to be with myself all the time, and I don’t really want to read about myself. If somebody doesn’t like me, it’s probably somebody I’m never going to meet. It’s just part of the game.”

Non-Sporting

I wrote about Jane Aldridge some months ago (and months slow). Now Tavi Gevinson, because she persists.

Her blog, I find, is kind of unreadable. I mean I get bored (which, honest-to-G-d, happens almost never). I like the way she looks. But her age (13).

Tavi is multiple generations removed--her parents are Gen-X-ers--from most of those fans and critics who have taken to arguing her place/voice in/around the media*. So, often, folks who say she is "brave" and "special" for being curated-quirky have forgotten about or not quite wised up to a post(!)-hipster topography, where "outsider" (like, aestheticized outsider) has been normalized or at least widely valorized (like note, the twee varietals, musically/hair-liy, of the early/mid- Aughts are all over car and deodorant commercials nowadays). And okay: her age, the gimmick of her age, is why Tavi's famous--'there are so many 27-year-old stylists yawn.' And how legit', grown-up editors complain about her sudden fame/possible influence (though I think it's clear she does her own writing), I feel them, because when you're Ann Slowey and you're 40-something and you have a family and you spent your twenties in editorial indentured servitude to get where you've gotten and your shite boss made you do one season of a reality show because he's freakin' yesterday's populist.....
Do we really need children on the Internet making paid-jobs irrelevant in this cool climate? Nope.

And then there's the thing about Tavi's age (and Jane's age) that ought to be said over and over and just isn't. They are kids, and the access they permit, via their blogs, to their homes and schedules and bodies--self-portrait after self-portrait (regardless of prim or layered clothes)--is dangerous! I was in college when social-networking sites really happened in America, but I'm pretty sure that if I had been a teen or tween at the time, despite protestations, my parents would not have permitted my membership. And a publicly accessible, self-documenting blog---HELL NO, not even a little bit. I get that models are often somewhere in the 14-17 range, but I've never liked that either (when I was a tyke-with-a-September-issue, everyone [big] but Kate Moss was like 25). And beyond the blog: Tavi at fashion week. Tavi on the covers of Love and Pop. Tavi on Last Night's Party. Yuck y'all! Real talk: more than a couple of depraved people work in fashion, or host soft openings of bar/restaurants coinciding with fashion week. I just hate the idea of a middle-schooler rolling out to these cocaine vampire parties, with or without parents (think about Allegra!).

Again with age, in a personal way, Tavi is, you know, way younger than me. And it's not the first time I've noted uncomfortably that young stuff is happening in a manner I don't totally understand (there was that minute when I hated Miley and T. Swift). But here, now, a picture of a generation other than mine, younger than mine, made from some divergent materials, is forming. Petrova noted recently (not on A&P, but in our living room) that ours was, luckily and unluckily (cancer!), the first to receive cell phones and the Internet. Yes. I also enter that the term "receive" is crucial; we received, but we did not inherit. We were firsts and lasts---last to wrap telephone cords around banisters while making play dates with specific, unvarying hours and locations, last to be kids (at least for a few years) without search engines and email accounts.

We know the Internet. But do we wholly trust the Internet? And is it intrinsic to our understanding, our measurement of everything else? Somewhat, but not absolutely and unflaggingly. Granted, this pursuit of generation generalization is unsound....I knew a girl who went from chat room boyfriend to chat room boyfriend in 1997 unself-consciously, but she was singular...everybody else crushed local, polo-shirted brother-school local.

This isn't fully fleshed.

Just, there's a kind of elemental borderlessness, creepy thrill-at collectivism, sometime genderlessness I've observed in the churren. They've always (never not) been entitled to participate in, to dictate and shift this broad other-world where they can watch porn and maybe get record deals.

[pause] Anyway [pause]
It makes me feel dusty and non-sporting.

*Note: Bloggers champion Tavi as a media iconoclast, part of their print-slaying number, death to Wintour, etc. But paper magazines are essential to Style Rookie with it's scanned-in collages...I find, most have framed this discussion blindly, laden with specific industry politics.

Sponsors

One day [NOT TODAY], I'm going to stop reading blogs I hate and getting upset about them and then posting sort-of rejoinders here.

And I hardly read New York's 'The Cut,' because this girl I went to high school with writes for them sometimes and I don't trust her. I don't trust most fashion journalists. I love Guy Trebay; he's from my Pop's generation of Village Voice staff, and he isn't narrow or mean. He might be a hippie......I loved Liz Tilberis a lot. I used to like The Sartorialist, but he's gotten boring and narrow, never mean, but certainly packing limitations (and also success). The worst thing I find about most fashion journalism is its smallness, its party line. There seem to me to be infinite solutions for dressing, globally, through eons and eons, etc.---and it's the infinity that's interesting and meet.

So this post on The Cut by Amy Odell (who did not attend any of my three high schools) really bothered me, not only because of its damning industry narrowness, but also because it contains examples of that tackytacky watching-Jersey-Shore-ironically "meme" (kinna hurra). Here is a picture of Amy Odell. I don't want to get too snipey with it, but the glimpse is telling. Isn't she like any other girl who showers regularly and talks about shopping? Yes, seems to be. Boxford, Massachusetts, the finer suburbs of Cincinnati. You know? And Odell is shocked (shocked) to find that folks might actually think Jersey Shore's Snooki is es-stylish...gosh...this is a lot for me because Snooki is a genius (so are J-Woww and Pauly D and Vinny's mother). And doing stuff, watching stuff, buying stuff 'ironically' is essentially the worst thing ever. I've gotten wrapped up in Jersey Shore because it's a good show, because it's about dancers, glamorous dancers, men and women peacocking and dancing, really dancing, fighting the beat, vibing, vibing, creeping, cooking food, working at the t-shirt stand on the boardwalk. Yes it's narrow—gym and tan and laundry all the time—but the cast don't purport to be observer-reporters of fashion in total; they're just doing them, just them.

Narrowness and openness are elements of style in equal parts, to oversimplify it: one can be relatively or extremely (depending on preference of the individual) narrow about one's own appearance (an overabundance of openness toward self-style is like not knowing the self, which is no bueno past a certain age [kids ought to shop around]) and open about everybody else's (because nothing is more stylish than a good, loving attitude). Granted, I don't think everybody everywhere is stylish all the time. Clearly I'm not open to the way Amy Odell looks, because she looks like 'floating, common fashion staff' and that's flimsy to me. The only limit I hold, the only limit to my openness about other people dressing, is nativity, whether it be absolutely geographical or a bit more conceptual, I like people to be themselves from the "places" they are from, unabashedly. I like clothes to discuss identity (more than attendance to industry directives), and I find a kind of Manhattan (or L.A.)-bound uniform, rootless in a bad way, and bland. It's never the individual garments, a pair of skinny jeans or a nice blazer or a particular watch, it's their combination (I have seen Korean girls pull off conservative luxe brilliantly, because there is a pinch of avant-garde in each item and you usually can't tell the brands, and the French too can do this sort of look, but without washing or ironing too much....I suppose it fails in America because when one ought to be wearing wonderful freckled, preppy American sportswear but instead gets derailed attempting to be [sweet Jesus] 'edgy' with dumb brass and gold studs on everything it tanks....it's like actresses....it's down to actresses and how they're always on the covers of things). I'm bad at philosophy.

Back to Odell's actual post--
It's titled "Snooki Plugs Ugg, Bebe, Other Scary Labels."
What is Amy Odell afraid of? What does she want us to fear? Fear is the enemy of art (and bowels). Doesn't she know that?

I don't get so carried away with Ugg ugliness. I never wore them in their hey; I thought they were overpriced. This fall/winter I've bought a whole stable of knock-off Uggs available for purchase down the street from us at Bobby's for $5. So has Pillow. I wear them to take out the garbage and run errands and a couple of times to work (though I felt pretty guilty afterward for being so collegiate). They're slippers, which I love, and soft and warm and nowadays fantastically ubiquitous (I don't think they mean anything). They are simple, like espadrilles or muck-lucks. I just don't think they're ugly, because they are so simple and easy. Real comfort is rarely ugly to me. As I said before, they are pretty collegiate and Snooki is a student. So, by saying that she wears leggings and Uggs "to run errands," Snooki is identifying herself as a regular American co-ed (and, as I said, I wear leggings and Uggs to run errands too. I guess I'm still happy being collegiate on the weekends, though I also throw on an old, giant men's tweed overcoat [art-collegiate]).

Back in the day, in 2003 and 4, when I was a y'ung clurrber, I would buy new 'outfits' at the Bebe in Copley Plaza every weekend (also hitting up Armani Exchange and Polo and the salon-for-waxing and Calypso and BCBG...and maybe Armani Cafe [ha]). Bebe makes a specific sort of garment: short, cut-to-there, black lace, some denim, definitely sequins--clurrbwear. Why hate? It's a look, a readily available look, a sort of mall-store pop star look, Mariah and Jenny Lo for under $150. For me, it was a phase (like wearing torn up undershirts with red lace bras), but I looked good, and I get (and dig) that for some it's a forever-look.

My abundant love of Ed Hardy we can discuss another time....

The thing is
Snooki is mad stylish.

The Cut (and anybody else of a mind to condescend to Guidos) blows.

sleeeeep

Another week (a frigid one), another Lindz Lohan shoot that bears discussion.
So....okay. "Fashionart." I am continually guilty of that maybe-twee stringing words together approach to communication. That's not problematic to me (though it is an unaesthetic instance, containing, as it does, letters to form "shit" and "fart"). The clumsy bedding of fashion (a word--btw--that goes the way of "classy" more and more each day) and art for the sake of cash and noise seems a thing best left in this near-past decade. The two will meet always, but I think we ought to tread lightly for a while, get cautious and critical, dialogue rather than sign contracts (leave room for artists to be genuinely critical of the boundless market). And muses. Gawwd. I hate the very concept, antiquated, condescending to women (or rather, beautiful and/or eccentric persons).

The photographer's Page Six ramble ending in that supposed Lindz soundbite, "I want to make this iconic." ----

She is one of those figures whose very image is valuable, despite its wide availability. She has a whole life in pictures, daily pictures, tabloid pictures, pictures that contain sudden, instant, artless information (where she was and what she wore and what she was on and who she was with and what time it was and what her hair and nails looked like). She looks to us like a photograph. And really, the only iconic images (except these cuz duh) of Lindz are tabloid shots (ahem). She sells all kinds of magazines, an apt cover model, who does (unlike most actresses) know clothes and wear them well. But a set of dark, strange poses with a hazy "color story" about the 90s. Yawn.

She looks unwell (and that's not so glamorous as it has been [in say, 1995 or 2005]). En este momento, Lindz has this muscled thinness, a body that somehow signals struggle, not health. Wan, sad, raspy, a mad addict (and therefore *maybe* a kind of parasite, full of hunger and wiles and less and less luck). What a bummer.

Woah Fay-shun

The Sunday Times (of London) Style Magazine is tawdry where ours is fussy (either way...fuck 'em). But this sort of drugged, high-class ho in hotel room with chidren's toys concept falls flat everytime, outdoes the typical levels of tawdry and pointless and drivel (even if it so aptly stars Lindz Lohan). A recent Elle shoot of this type just sent me reeeeeeling. I guess Fay-shun can't help but wear its unhealth on its sleeve. But women dressing as girls is just so...defeatist. I want to see more of this. And I'm not entirely joking!

You Look So Fine

I'm not much for eyewear. I practically live in my contacts, to the point where I will only take them out at night when I'm alone or around my closest friends (conjunctivitis is on my list of possible things I could contract during one night stands). I consider a $25 sunglasses purchase from Target a luxury, as it takes me about 15 minutes to scratch them. Still, the new Oliver Peoples campaign featuring my spirit guide Shirley Manson (with Elijah Wood) makes me wonder where I might have an extra $400 to spare this spring...

"To be pleased means to say yes."

I made that much-noted Adorno phrase a touchstone in 2005. Later, I realized (thanks sis) it hardly meant what I'd imagined. In my mind, not being a great pinko (or art historian), it was a neat piece of music about affirmation and enjoyment/fun. In the author's, I think it might have been a warning against the lazy openness big consumption breeds. I can't very well go about pointing fingers at the lazy and bourgeois (because HOLA). So, for the zillionith time, I'll flip-ly appropriate the text for myself, shape it to my pleasure. Adorno was a "no guy;" he worked through a v. significant "no era." Occasionally, I succumb to "the no's"--blogs, for instance, are so often sticky "no territories." But it's not in my nature and I'm vowing to cease and...embrace. Nobody needs my negativity heaped on top of their own (or the rest of the Internet's) prodigious sum. When it comes to discoursing other folks' creative endeavors (and I'm not talking about Justin Bobby) best to avoid the stuff I don't admire. There's a lot that pleases me, a lot I say "YES" to. Here goes:

Alexander McQueen is absolutely important. Each season in Paris, people make so much noise about Karl Lagerfeld (and I'll refrain from getting into why I don't join in the noise-making...damn). But A.M. really has the goods as far as I'm concerned. These textiles! It appears no one (but for lovebug, Dries) uses difficult, think-y prints enough. I usually hate (gulp) Space and the unceasing, willynilly co-opting of Ghesquiere's brilliant early-aughts Space-Age shapes, but here it all works and it looks new (and also Elizabethan) and it's not fussy or forbidding so much as fine and full of stories. And everyone's really been listening to my advice about corsets and/or bare breasts...

Fair Padua

Fay-shun has resurfaced en Italia!

Snap

I've always admired/feared the way the English grip their celebrities. It's such a very small island with just so maaaannnnyyyy tabloids. If you are famous at one time, even for one thing, you will continue to be covered, regardless of your having any sort of career, for many eons. If you are "of the moment" you will be covered to death. So, if you're among those soignée Harry Potter children (relevant, present, A-list) or if you were once a one-hit wonder or soap (or reality) actor who now has got gouty and unemployed, either way, you will be in magazines and papers, receiving all form of publicity, great and small. It's a shame how ready to out-mode--in general--Americans are, positively exiling all who/anything that lacks "freshness" or "power." But, however charmingly encompassing their coverage, it's also a shame how ruthless English schlock journalists can be, most likely to attack or smear, outright lie-tell. Anyhow...this above lady, Nicola Roberts, is a member of Girls Aloud, the most successful of a spate of U.K. reality television bands from the early aughts (como Danity Kane). They've had something like twenty top ten hits in the U.K., though a glance at the numbers, shows them peaking at #10 and #11 in 2008. They are reaching "the end of a glittery reign" perhaps? I'm out of touch with these dynamics overseas, but I get the distinct impression that Ms. Roberts is entering the "famous as a former famous person" phase of her Brit celebrity story arc. And--mall makeup aside--she has never looked better. There should be more breasts addressed this way in fay-shun, not as overspill, but as form, through sheer fabric, or none at all (como las Minoans). It's stripper by way of Mary Quant by way of Poiret, absolutely charming. And I imagine it's being roundly mocked (that's always a good sign). Here are some more views.

New York Fashion Week, Spring 2010 Collections: Big Kids

Marc Jacobs—For a couple of seasons now, I've found his work (here and in Paris) murky. The ruffles. Those grotesque bags. That tawdry Aughts-cum-30's (or 40's or 50's) satin underwear. The sheer and ill-fitting gowns and belted coats (not so much "belted coats" as coats and belts). I don't hate this list of elements. I've sported and celebrated each of them. But, though I almost never say this, a girl would be a fool to shop these looks anywhere but in a thrift shop or a Mama's closet.

Donna Karan—I had to glance over the collection a couple of times to stop decrying the hats. They began to recede, and I felt as if these were clothes that I had made (but for their delicacy and precision). I mean, they look like the product of some extraordinary home experiment in drapery. It is as if the models wrapped themselves with the finest fabrics, trimmed, sculpted, fastened with a sash. It's ancient! I love this lady.

Carolina Herrera and J. Mendel—My second and third favorite of this sort of fussy luxe (Oscar being the clear first). Herrera is doing print and sheen in a way that I am v. ready for. The critic who invokes a tired, "Uptown-Downtown" reading does her a great disservice. The gestalt of J. Mendel is a little too tasteful (without ease), for me, but the coats, set apart, are PERFECT.

Thakoon—Whatever.....is that mean? Maybe I'm just tired.

New York Fashion Week, Spring 2010 Collections: A Backward Glance

Despite my high hopes, for the most part, this weekend's shows have read...Angelino. Of course, many BIG HOUSES won't be trotting out garments until weekdays, which accounts for (some of) the lack of lustre. But, really, there's a whole lot of designer-stylists making down(ish)-market luxe right now—the sort of clothes that belong on racks, in closets, in the mix, but not whole, total, look-to-look-to-look on a runway (not enough theater or architecture or MONEY, by miles).

Last month, on a lunch mission to buy this incredibly smart, wool double-breasted jacket, I came across two Alexander Wang satchels, one in slashed-up, buttery, dull, black leather, the other with a sort of pewter lamé treatment. They're $900 each; so, for me, no dice. But I was quite impressed. They were useful and beautiful. They had a nice weight, felt tremendous on the shoulder. They were cool and urbane and unfussy, real New York items, American Sportswear sans the Prep. However, I found myself "not getting" his Saturday showing. "Not getting" is a thing I don't think I do much. I'm no genius, mind you. I just am never that preoccupied with "getting," compartmentalizing, encompassing. I'm quite comfortable with loose and dead ends, with disconnection and collage. But here, though the "vintage football" theme is clever, the clothes just do not make any damn sense to me. The items look stiff, awkward, tailored against (not for) the body, not so much to invoke art or gender politics, as to appear modish-via-inelegance, the dullest and tiredest of hipster tropes.

The other most-buzzed as of Sunday A.M.: Ohne Titel. I have an even harder time with this stuff. Again, I dig the stated origin point of the collection, mummies. But the clothes cloy. They are of the "body-con" school, which I find severe and socially irresponsible and DONE. And--speaking of "DONE"--this haute, 80s-tinged tech-sportsgear feels very, very Balenciaga to me. These garments are over-designed, lacking permanence and...relevance?

These two, and a few not-so-worth-mentioning others, didn't take me anywhere but down the block (to some godforsakenvelvetropedbottleservicelounge).

New York Fashion Week, Spring 2010 Collections: The Way Luxury LOOKS

I've mentioned it's raining and winding and dooming all over. It's also Fay-shun Week, the last ever in Bryant Park (which is fine by me).

Did you think Fay-shun Week would become (continue to be?) irrelevant because of 'The Reception' and Lindsay Lohan's new post at the House of Ungaro? I know I did.

But, lo...a cursory glance at yesterday's Ports 1961 showing bears some fruit. People who work in/around Fay-shun will always, most-often irritate and grate on one's sensibilities. It's just so much air and also self-importance and anti-intellect and anti-women and trashbox social climbing. However, in 'Reception Times,' though I hear sceney-ness is still on the menu for some (the Alexander Wang tented gas station party does sound fun...), the fête is simply NOT the thing. I'd imagine folks are scaling back. Most Houses are incapable of affording shows, let alone superlavish pre- and post- events. So it's about the clothes, I think, and motif-de-jour, doom. The clothes are marched down runways, the same as ever, but where are they going?--toward shaky editors, shaky retailers, shaky consumers, a ghost audience. The show becomes full pantomime. Here is luxury, take a look, think about what used to be, think about what's coming, or just look, look at luxury.

Ports is a favorite. I'm a sucker for these arty, big silhouettes. And I'm happy to see them consistently (since about 2004), not just scrapped for trendz' sake. Really, there's a range of shapes, including some quite pretty kimono-cum-60's secretary-or-Jean Harlow (dependant on length and textile) sheaths. I love the coats. There is a permanence about these pieces, thoughtful and fem., minimal (even shiny), but not-so slick......matte? Puts me in mind of our Sculpture For Thursday.

Books

'Walking limitations' discourse dressing.

Hold On, I'm Comin'

Best Thing Going (For Thursday)

This here.

Elba

Oh fay-shun. You look like rainy exile.

Last night, despite drizzle and reports of a flagging guest list, The Costume Institute Ball at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Anna Wintour's Great Big Themed Fay-shun Museum Corporation Party) went off as it tends to, in a stupid, spring flash. This year: "The Model as Muse," another show that exemplifies this long-curdled era of servitude to luxury industries at the Costume Institute (the directorship of which was my childhood dream). If I'd been asked to curate an exhibition it might have worked in tandem with the fantastic "Pictures Generation" show, a study of artists' clothes and/or gender-neutral/gender-ironic outfitting in the 70s and 80s, or a show about cooperative clothes, fashion and Utopian socialism, fashion and communism. Oh well.

What this barbecue is good for is a fat folio of red carpet snaps, much more sophisticated and absorbing than most. As far as those go, I find that Marc Jacobs behaved hatefully (except maybe for that crazy, cartoon Poiret situation he put on Blair Waldorf?). And not to harp on GG stars, but is Serena wearing a bonafide "scripper gown"? Mostly, folks looked great. And I am so pleased about the return of Fortuny, and approving of their chosen "muse," the super lovely Natalia Vodianova.

Let's Hear it For the W--

I really can't remember the last time I applauded a spread of pictures in a fashion magazine. This month's Steven Klein portfolio of Madonna (and her blue-eyed, 30-years-junior, ashamed-looking Latin lover, Jesus Luz) is damn fine. I love the lighting. I love the styling--Madge as we know her best: platinum hair and black eyebrows and prim and gothic lace and crosses and gloves and a rough and lean dancer's body and a general air of having come straight from a humid, Catholic country. No need for reinvention; this is essential.

Robes

"Touch the Hem of His Garment" is (without a shadow of a doubt) my favorite Sam Cooke track. For me, he's always best in church, alone or with the Soul Stirrers, voice soaring back to the very last pew. And here, he sings of a woman who seeks to be "made whole" by simply "touching the hem of [Christ's] garment." What power of mere presence! What power of fabric and ritual! Listen and mull.

Cartoons

Last night, Petrova and I caught some blessed public access, a compilation of Marc Jacobs runway shows 1986-2005 (from his own line to Perry Ellis and back and then to Vuitton and a bridge—from long hair to short—from crack to Karen Kilimnik). It was a blast to see all of the old familiar faces, models and editors and buyers who have since recessed (these things really didn't used to be about actresses). We were moved by the eighties collections. They were sort of wholesome (full-faced, optimistic). The famous Spring '93 "grunge" collection gets so very much attention, but it did not move me half as much as 1995 (the first mannered stab at vintage dressing) or the somber, hyper-structured (read: masculine) stuff of 2004 and 2005 (a kind of luxe goth opera of a show with a dramatic set and hats and black sequin pants, the whole already funny and foreign). Youtube was not stocked with these gems as I'd imagined it would be, but I did find these: Marc Jacobs (for Marc Jacobs) Spring 1987 and Fall 2001 (preceded by a peak of 1986). The first is wacky and sweet. The second is Jacobs in the very midst of his success, "contemporary" thirties clothes, haughty and grim Marc. What do you think?