RIP, CBGB. Welcome, John Varvatos...

Posted by Nina Lalli at 6:08 PM, November 7, 2007

You heard it here first. John Varvatos made it official today that he is bringing his $3,495 leather jackets to the defunct CBGB spot on the Bowery, but Yaeger was onto the news already. Varvatos may not have been ready to chat about it last week, but Yaeger got a little someone called Debbie Harry to reminisce about the Bowery's previous fashion connotations:

"The bum stores along Houston Street," she recollects fondly. "They sold a lot of fun, interesting stuff from barrels or racks out on sidewalks. You'd find great stuff for a nickel in those days." When even a nickel was too much, she says, "it seemed like there was really good garbage. I'm not in the garbage business any more, but when I first moved here and we didn't have any dough, we found great stuff in the garbage." It was all part of an aesthetic Harry calls the Lower East Side look, a style composed of "trades, vintage junk, and ripped-up stuff."

Oh God, she's so cool.