Fashion Week Recap: Toilet Paper Huge at Sean John

Posted by Nina Lalli at 3:41 PM, February 13, 2008

Photo courtesy MAO

If you've ever attended the shows at Fashion Week, you know that reading Lynn Yaeger's diary about that experience is a lot more fun that partaking in it first-hand. This time around, Yaeger gets distracted by Forever 21, dissed by Diane Von Furstenberg, sees a boob at Betsey Johnson's show, and witnesses the unbelievable at the Sean John show: a model makes it all the way down the runway with toilet paper trailing from her shoe! Oh, the horror. It's too good. (This reminds me of when my sister would pray for the baton-twirlers to drop their stick during the Macy's parade.)

But the best part might be this:

At Betsey Johnson (denim cat suits; wallpaper prints), the theme is Beat Girl, and Betsey—ever the meticulous curator—has decked out round tables at the edge of the runway with Chianti bottles, candles, and packs of candy cigarettes. Miles Davis blares over the sound system, but my suspicion that this Kerouac-ian fantasy of MacDougal Street circa 1955 is lost on many of the viewers is confirmed when I ask the fresh-faced Web editor sporting a Chanel purse (real? fake?) next to me what she thinks it’s all about, and she replies uncertainly: “Um, we’re in a café where we can smoke?”

Lynn Yaeger Hearts the Olsens Too!

Posted by Nina Lalli at 5:32 PM, November 14, 2007

It's nice to know that we are not the only freaks thinking about/worshiping the Olsen twins this week. Lynn Yaeger marvels at their modern glamour in her column:

Actually, when it comes to glamour, believe it or not, the first name that springs to mind is someone—OK, two people: the entity that played Michelle, the ugly baby on Full House. This creature may not have been much of a looker in her early years, but she—they—have grown up to be the style icons of the 21st century.

I'm not kidding! I love the Olsens! I love the way they mix vintage and unbelievably expensive designer stuff, the way they wrap their little emaciated bodies in yards and yards of fabric, their no-holds-barred trash-bag aesthetic.

In fact, the piece is not really about MK and Ash, but about Dita Von Teese, who Yaeger spent some time with recently. Check it out, people.

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.

Lynn Yaeger Goes to a Mall! And Target!

Posted by Nina Lalli at 3:26 PM, October 31, 2007

Lynn Yaeger, a self-proclaimed shopping bulimic (chronic buyer and returner), discovers the Path train this week ("like the subway, but cheaper! Different!") to visit Kohls and try on Vera Wang's entire low-priced line there. She also ventures to Target, with dissapointing results, H&M, Barney's, and Patricia Field's, where the Drag Queen queen has brought platforms to Payless. We, being cheap and hoping to be cute, love this trend. For those of you who do, too, be aware that Roberto Cavalli's line debuts November 8.

Yaeger on the End of Bleecker Street

Posted by Nina Lalli at 3:51 PM, October 10, 2007

With excruciatingly conflicting feelings of nostalgia and consumerism, Lynn Yaeger, with Robert Sietsema as her guide, takes on Bleecker Street in its current state this week.

Where there was once a Turk-run bodega, there's now a Steve Madden store; the antique toy shop that inspired Yaeger's own collection (and maybe her makeup routine) is now one of many Ralph Lauren stores.

But then again, our critics are not nearly the first to complain about the demise of this street. Sietsema recalls a few examples of stores whose arrivals seemed to signal the end of Bleecker, and those have now been replaced once or twice over. And Yaeger finds this quote from 1872:

Twenty-five years ago they were homes of wealth and refinement. Now . . . the old mansions are put to the viler uses of third-rate boarding houses and restaurants.

Yaeger Braves the F Train and the Plus-Size Market

Posted by Nina Lalli at 5:07 PM, October 3, 2007

Lynn Yaeger is at it again this week, writing about fashion for the people. She wonders what level of style is really available to bigger girls -- even average-size women? To find out, Yaeger leaves Manhattan, which we've seen many times, but usually she's heading to Paris or Tokyo, not Brooklyn. She also takes a meeting at Burlington Coat Factory, a bit of a bummer, unsurprisingly. And she ingests the alarming Skinny Bitch books, which recommend starving in order to stay thin. There's an idea. Of course, Yaeger manages to find a steal at Burlington. But could you?

Yaeger to Anthropologie: Get Real

Posted by Nina Lalli at 1:19 PM, September 26, 2007

In this week's Voice, an H&M-clad Lynn Yaeger takes on the philosophical/moral question of copying in fashion. Anthropologie, a brand that specializes in Marni- and Marc Jacobs-esque designs, is suing Forever 21 for copying. Anna Sui, who has remade looks by designers from the 60s and 70s, is suing too, and she's even pissed enough to have produced the T-shirt worn by the model above, which shows Forever 21's owners. It's all so silly, and hearing these designers whine about Forever 21 is a great mix of infuriating and amusing. Thankfully, Yaeger puts it in perspective, and them in their place.

Fashion Week is Hell

Posted by Nina Lalli at 2:50 PM, September 12, 2007

Lynn Yaeger did fashion week so the rest of us don't have to. And thankfully, she describes her week in a diary full of hilariously unglamorous moments: being in hot rooms, throbbing crowds, boring parties, pretentious conversations. Here's one of our favorite moments:

4:28 At Yeohlee, my seatmate, who is affecting a denim-and-diamonds look, whispers, "Are you a cape person?"

Lynn Yaeger and a Bunch of Pretty Young Boys

Posted by Nina Lalli at 6:04 PM, September 5, 2007

This week, Lynn Yaeger hung out behind the scenes of fashion week to bring us a little slice of life among male models. We have a few friends who would be quite jealous of this proximity to waifish pretty boys. As the designers of Duckie Brown searched for the right all-American looking "boys," Yaeger watched and tried to chat with them. (Did they not have much to say because they're shy? Nervous? Or do they just not have much to say?)

This is not what our jobs are like:

Watching the casting is mesmerizing, like staring at a super-sexy lava lamp. One hot guy after another is asked to walk down a long hallway so his gait can be subtly assessed by the Duckie team—if he passes muster (just the right swagger, just the right bump), he moves on to step two, which requires him to drop trou, revealing in most cases a pair of boxer briefs. Then he dons whatever outfit the Duckies deem perfect for him—in one notable case, a symphony of giant mismatched floral prints, so huge and garish it could get you thrown out of a carnival sideshow. "He's beautiful, and he has a sexy walk, too—he has a swagger in the tush!" Silver says of the model.

Pet Fashion Week, Death to America

Posted by Nina Lalli at 3:00 PM, August 29, 2007

Today, our head hurts and we're feeling hateful. Maybe it has something to do with spending two hours on the A train last night, only to end crammed onto a shuttle bus full of homicidal straphangers?

Anyway, it's really great timing for the ridonculous news that Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her freaking dog, Trouble, and $0 to two of her grandchildren, who apparently know what they did to piss her off. And even more convenient, our own Lynn Yaeger, who hates pets, reports today on Pet Fashion Week, from the doggie perfume to the $400 collars.

Here's a classic Yaeger line:

I quickly discover that Pet Fashion Week has plenty in common with human Fashion Week—mainly, all the really cute stuff is for scrawny, undernourished-looking animals.

We have a pit bull who we occasionally put in a zip-up hoodie when it's very, very cold. He inevitably pees on it. Perhaps he represents canine grunge or something.

Yaeger to Kerouac: 'Hey, You Old Dharma Bum!'

Posted by Nina Lalli at 6:28 PM, August 22, 2007

Today, Lynn Yaeger uses her column to write an open letter of sorts to Jack Kerouac, just to let him know how his image has made its way into today's high fashion. Hogan, the leather brand, has designed the "Jack Kerouac Project" to celebrate the 50th anniversary of On the Road.

This is perhaps the most perfect example we've seen of what is so uncool about Fashion. Looking like Jack Kerouac, in his beat-up, grungy leather jacket? Cool. Paying $1,590 for it? Eh. Not that we wouldn't like to have money, but if we weren't forced to dive through the bins at thrift stores, we might look like some kind of poseur too.

Lynn Yaeger Braves the Hamptons

Posted by Nina Lalli at 1:33 PM, August 16, 2007

The Hamptons make us nervous. Anything that's even more exaggerated in reality than its own stereotype is a little disconcerting, but usually also somewhat entertaining. Intrepid fashion insider/outsider Lynn Yaeger ventures to East Hampton this week and reports on the jitney, the shopping, and the overheard inanity.

Oh, Ralph. Could there be a more perfect Hamptons figurehead than the Bronx-born Lauren? (OK, sure, he changed his name from Lifshitz, but if your name had the word "shit" in it, wouldn't you change it, too?) His distinctive message—and one that I've always embraced—is that you can dress like a WASP, present yourself to the world as a rich twit, and call your kids Hugo and Caiden no matter what your ethnicity or what depressing hole you originally crawled out of.

Yaeger on Fashion's Rare Fatties

Posted by Nina Lalli at 3:47 PM, August 8, 2007

This week, Lynn Yaeger comments on a new study that says your fat friends make you fat:

The experts say they think the reason behind all this is that you get used to looking at people who are hefty and, after a while, guess what?—they don't look all that bad to you! You gradually shift your ideas of what's normal to accommodate a few soft rolls around the midsection, a fuller chin, a wigglier rear.

Unfortunately, the study disregards another patently obvious reason why you bulk up when your friends are heavy—they either have a lot of delicious-looking food laying around, or, more likely, their idea of a good time is a session at McDonald's.

Specifically, Yaeger looks into life for the bulky oddballs within the world of fashion, who clearly have not reaped the assumed inverse of this rule: that skinny friends would make one svelte.

From the Front: Yaeger is a Sucker for Tracy Turnblad

Posted by Nina Lalli at 4:10 PM, August 1, 2007

In case you couldn't guess this on your own, Lynn Yaeger is the funnest person to hang out with at the Voice. Since you don't work here, you just get to read her column, which is like a miniature version. This week, she talks about the new Hairspray movie, which features "John Travolta, whose face has been rendered almost unrecognizable by prosthetics and who speaks in the mannered squeak last heard emanating from the mouth of Dustin Hoffman's character in Tootsie," and doesn't live up to the original. Yaeger bemoans the watered-down-ness of the new version. "The new movie has plenty of dancing, but revolution? For that, you have to go back to the original film."

Isabella Blow, 1958–2007

Posted by Lynn Yaeger at 3:05 PM, May 8, 2007

(She herself, in an image from here)

If it can be argued that there are, sartorially speaking, only two types of women in the world, those who wish to blend in and those who dress to astonish, Isabella Blow, who died yesterday at 48, was triumphantly in the latter category. Blow had worked as a stylist and an editor, but her true talent was as muse, impresario, wild enthusiast and advocate for avant guard fashion designers. She bought Alexander McQueen's entire first collection when he was fresh out school of and was an early proponent of John Galliano, a designer so adventurous he once made a ball gown with a train of tin cans and other detritus for his notorious clochard (French for vagrant) collection.

In a time of increasing conformity, the presence of a rare magpie like Blow—who did look positively bird-like in the couture Philip Treacey hats she favored—is a considerable gift. It is a sad irony that she passed away on the same day as the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute's so-called "party of the year"—this season honoring the work of designer Paul Poiret.

Poiret, who did his best work before World War I, would have adored Blow. He thought nothing of wrapping women in velvet kimonos or lush brocade hobble skirts or mountainous ermine-trimmed evening cloaks. Like Blow, he certainly wasn't a less-is-more guy.

How many of the celebrities at last night's gala, parading up the museum's steps in gowns chosen for them by their stylists, have any real appreciation for someone like Blow; a woman who dressed for herself, the crazier her ensembles the better?

Let us remember her by dressing as fearlessly as we dare, ignoring the slings and arrows of lesser mortals, who, content in their tees and jeans, will never know the pleasures of becoming your own work of art.

Buy What You Want! Yaeger on 'The Secret'

Posted by Jessie Pascoe at 7:04 PM, March 22, 2007

(From here: Illustration by Ryan Sanchez)

This week our fashion expert, Lynn Yaeger, takes on The Secret, Rhonda Byrne's popular book on how to use the Law of Attraction to achieve personal success. In Shopping With The Secret, Yaeger writes:

I now use The Secret's secret weapon, the Law of Attraction, to attract exactly what I want. Lucky for me, The Secret has come along just in time: This season in particular clothes, shoes, and especially handbags have price tags once confined to diamond tiaras and luxury sports cars.

If you remain unconvinced of this bestseller's ways, check out The Secret's film, playing next Wednesday at The Soho House Screening Room. If this isn't near where you live, focus the Law of Attraction and a screening event will come to your 'hood.

The Soho Screening Room
Wednesday 28, 6:30 p.m.
29-35 9th Avenue
rsvp@divalyssciousmoms.com

From the Front: Yaeger on a Season "Under the Influence of the Dogs of War"

Posted by Jessie Pascoe at 2:19 PM, February 14, 2007

(Dali's in the house at Ben Cho)

This week our fashion expert, Lynn Yaeger, weaves through the threads of New York Fashion Week and finds "the runways this season are heavily under the influence of the dogs of war." She observes:

Of course, no one is admitting this outright. Vera Wang skirts around the issue—no pun intended—by claiming that the theme of her frothy collection is White Russians running for their lives from the 1917 revolution; Gosford Park–esque chambermaids with feather dusters, oblivious to the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, open the show at Betsey Johnson, where tea tables for the elite have been set up replacing the conventional front row.

When war's not on the brain, Yaeger finds warm weather and surrealism making their marks in the noticeable dearth of coats and Ben Cho's "affection for Schiaparelli-esque surrealism."

Hmm . . . War, climate change, and surrealism. And who says designers are affected by the times?

From the Front: Yaeger on Why 'Some Like It Haute'

Posted by Jessie Pascoe at 7:07 PM, January 23, 2007

This week our fashion expert, Lynn Yaeger, visits Nan Kempner's exhibit at the Costume Institute. A display of haute couture past, the late socialite's wardrobe can't help highlight the industry's contemporary wane. Yaeger explains:

Now so many faithful haute couture customers have passed away that the institution's very survival is in question, especially since the granddaughters of these customers, today's "social girls," are more often than not only interested in couture if it has the name Juicy attached.

Despite this popularity decline, Harold Koda, the show's curator, sums up couture's eternal appeal:

"I love it because it is breathtakingly beautiful. It is beyond anything you see in your life! It's like Vermeer versus the Washington Square art show."

Nan Kempner: American Chic
The Costume Institute at the Met
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY
Until March 4