john waters: better at soundbites than even Kaiser Karl

"I stay at 165 pounds and cook everything out of Cooking Light magazine. I only eat irresponsibly on Saturdays, which means bacon and candy. I am against [nips and tucks]. If you have bad plastic surgery, it looks like you were brought up poor, moved to LA and didn't make it. If it's good, you just look like somebody else." — John Waters. via jezebel via page six

come back FTW: brand extentions and controlled equity

Short story: American Mall Sportswear; goin' for the (amex)gold. Long story: Coach is buying back a BILLION shares to 'increase economic value for shareholders' i.e. increasing the individual value of shares, there-fore increasing brand equity and giving the overall brand a more profitable appearance. This is effectively, Coach buying themselves back from the shareholders, since they are a privately traded company they can't 'own' themselves, but buying back that many fucking shares really helps then guide who does own them. Since when did Coach become worth over a bill? Who do you know that has recently bought a Coach bag/boot/whatever? Coach was one of the first (after A&F in '98) 'mall' brands to reinvent itself as a up-market retailer with prices creeping in the the $1K territory for limited edition-or "heritage"-merch.
Following on it's heels is Jcrew, who opened its men's only "liquor bar cum haberdashery" in Tribeca. Again, exclusive merch such as vintage tie clips! Globe Trotter luggage! pre-chewed pencils by famous writers!!! Complete with a visuals scheme approved by Andy Spade.
This is in immediate timing with reports that J.Crew will issue an accessories only catalog replete with Norwegian leather goods and real gold and precious stone jewelry. These choices made to, apparently, increase the brand's perceived worth by the consumers while growing their customer base.
Even Gap is skipping along with brand boosters! Are you shocked? Probs not. The Gap flagship is partnering with Collette to make limited edition products which err more on the Collette side than the Gap side. This may be lost on what was Gap's majority consumer; seemingly more intended for consumers who (a) know what/where Collette is and (b) are probably buying their basics from Alexander Wang or at least Velvet. Though, still in the vein of making their products more worthwhile to the consumer.
All of these brands, with the exception of Coach (to my knowledge), have previously been playing the fast fashion game and turning over cheap, new, trend driven product by the truck-full to middling results. Gap suffering the most for the poor design judgment. Now, all seem to be making a 180 (that likely took 12-18 months to plan) away from un-sustainable design and trying to entice the consumer's limited budget with quality and not necessarily value. This all comes at incredibly good timing for the above brands as fast fashion retailers are being whipped with a cat-o-nine tails for contributing to the insane amount of waste on the earth! While, some articles read closer to the thesis that forever21 should be blamed for all the world's ecological problems most are dead-on with bringing to light that, yes, selling shitty product that has a minute shelf life will cause people to throw these items away faster. With notes on small movements for 'local' design by sustainable, independent designers who's pricing is a little higher due to the higher cost of NOT outsourcing to elementary school children who will never see an actual school. A movement that is encouraging to hear, but yours truly is still skeptical that in country that still pushes quantity over quality these brands will get off to a running start with their extensions and growth options. Though, I would love to be proved wrong.

again. with the rationalizing.

Below I already discussed H.Bazaar's take on the sinking economy -buy expensive! you can just buy less cheap shit!- but this morning New York Times' fashion doyenne, Cathryn Horyn, has another reasoning system consumers can ascribe to as we near the beginning of the most expensive (to produce and consume) fashion season of the calender year. Keep buying the same things, just buy the ones that are negligibly less! Follow the trends, but buy expensive because you wouldn't want to look tacky in a knock off of a 850$ gold sequined Proenza Schouler skirt that you'll likely wear twice (cost per wear is only 425! a steal!) BECAUSE YOUR ASS IS COVERED IN GOLD SEQUINS. People tend to remember a look like that. I digress, you can also buy the premium M.Jacobs velveteen trousers for $1100, but, caution shoppers!, don't tread into iconic french house Lanvin's territory in Bloomingdales! Their tweed, also timely, trousers are a whopping 150$ more and you know, in these times, we really need to limit ourselves. If you are spending over $1k on pants. Pants that may or may not last more than a season, 150 really isn't that much more to spend. That amount of money is so negligible to these designers that it will not even buy you a coin purse from their accessory lines. Do I deny that the economy is hard times for fashion houses, designers, and avid consumers? Not at all. Do I dislike any of the people or designers listed above? Bish pls, you know me. It is just laughable that the wealthy are buying down into 'cheap' categories where a blouse is still 495-695 in a feeble show that just comes off like 'See the rich! They're just like us! They are hurting! They can't take a private jet to pre-shop fall collections in invite-only showrooms! So sad!' Though, if they looked or at least instructed their assistants to look, they would find impeccable merch from new designers where the retail cost accurately reflects the worth of the garment and not the perceived worth of the label stitched inside by tiny ladies situation around 38th st and 8th ave. Though, with that much net worth, one does have to keep up appearances and cannot shame their family by wearing anything not found in Lord & Taylor or the pages of Vogue. That might insinuate that one is a liberal hippie with a rouge streak for designers not sanctioned by years of breeding and privilege. They might even be communists. Fall fashion is dangerous business. On a serious note, the article is well written and might help you put your own buying habits, or fall wardrobe acquisition plans into perspective.

no mayle

Mayle, the fashion brand by Jane Mayle, former model, is outro. WWD reported this morning that the ten-year old brand is closing up shop- literally and figuratively for the Elizabeth st retail location- after resort ships. Bad news bears

best product name of all time

Olympian swimmers have broken more world records at this seasons games than any other season EVER! Is this attributed to performance enhancing drugs? no. Zero Gravity water cube where they compete? no. It is the "Speedo LZR Racer"! Which is the compression suit almost all of the swimmers are wearing this year. Compression capri pants for men and slick looking matrix-y jumpsuit pieces for women. Like spanx, but for competition that falls outside of squeezing your ass into the last pair of size 25's on the sales rack. As someone who values living fast and being fast, this is a HUGE benefit to these athletes and brings the level of competition up to a zeus-ian level.

Harper's Bazaar: unlikely Gap enthusiast

Harper's Bazaar the magazine who's official motto should be 'price upon request' is pushing Gap HARD this fall. I love Gap, I really do. What other 10yr old saves their chore money to buy gapkids straight leg jeans and jelly sandals? Have I bought anything at Gap recently? No, however that will change this fall with the new fw08 reworked collections. But I can't help, but be wary when HB has all 8 pages of the Gap fall ad-campaign, complete with Julia Restoin-Roitfeld-as in CARINE Roitfeld's baby-as in Editrix of Paris Vogue Roitfeld. Not to mention the mag prominently displaying a Gap woven top in the 'Newest Hottest Latest' picture rundown. Also, noting the Collette pop-up store that will be outside of the Gap Flagship til Oct. 5th in the NewHotLate news rundown. AND verbally propping Gap in the editorial titled, "New Buys You'll Love Forever" which is most odd as it is an editorial that aims to hand-hold the reader as she swipes her AMEX black for the new Hermes messenger bag because 'its an update on a classic! its cool! you'll have it forever! think of the money you'll save on not buying shitty bags like Coach or Tods!" (buy that 900$ Stella McCartney blazer instead of that ratty 300$ jcrew one! It's good for you!) All of this pressure only 309 pages into the 620+ pages that is the fall fashion tome. I am not hating on Gap's PR for getting choice spots in a magazine that doesn't exactly speak to their current consumer as much as who they want their consumer to be; it's good to grow. Though I do find fault with (a) the instances of Gaps brand placement being so close together and (b) that it appears that PR is not confident that the designs can sell themselves. Seriously, 148$ for a heather gray flannel puff coat that is slimming and chic!? I am fucking there!! I want Gap to rise again and bring accessible American sportswear in the face of a fast fashion pool being over-run with forever 21s and their ilk, but I can't help but feel like pushing something so hard is jinxing it.

disposable fashion squared

NYmag kindly pointed towards an ebay listing of an authentic Marc Jacobs condom. The condom, if won from the auction, comes with a signed note from MJ encouraging safe sexxx.

This comes to the forefront right after flesh-ionistas trying to revive the mid-nineties 'band-aids as accessories trend'

While I may pout and/or sigh over not being able to acquire MJ or Alexander Herchovich stylez, I am more apt to buy-down into accessories instead of health aids. But I mean, i've yet to read the 12-step program for fashion junkies meetings. They clash with my napping and tee-vee watchin'. It also begs the question: are these legit brand extensions or smirking jabs at the consumer willing to pony up for these disposable items?

daily ricidulous

Daily Candy LA sent out a news letter this morning about FACERCISE exercises for idiot women who are internally paralyzed with fear of aging and wish their tan mug would catch up. The facercise website has such classic images as the ones above, but really, why are you paying any money or even time to this pipe dream? The new age-iness of the whole thing is belied by the portrait of Carole who looks like she has had more botox than the dented can of chickpeas in my cupboard circa my kindergarten ballet recital. Oh, if the instructional video and audio tracks aren't enough to whip your face-flesh into shape you can pay for a one on one session with Mme. C herself. Aging is a part of being ALIVEEEEEEEE. The only way to stop wrinkles is to die. You wrinkle because of loss of collagen that supports your epidermis on your skin and the natural degradation of muscle fibers. Not because your face watched too many episodes of Oprah and sat on it's face-ass instead of exercising. Even Dr.90210 gives better misguided medical advice than this nonsense.
UPDATE: nymag makes great assertions on this young face-stick body phenomena of middle age women. the types that would yoga-lates kick flip onto this band wagon of facercises.

american apparel brand extention that EXCLUDES hitachi magic wand

American Apparel has a new money makin' outlet that is neither vibrators (they've got that, obvs) nor overpriced thrift store sunglasses (ditto)! I'll give you a clue, it's what the average american apparel consumer wears with their glitter hot-shorts and tube bras. Give it second to sink in...IT'S RE PURPOSED THRIFT STORE GARMENTS! Is my usual curmudgeon-y self angry, irate, or even minorly peeved at this? No, because yours truly loves a good cash cow and that, my BFFs, may as well be a license to print money. The micro-offshoot is called 'California Select' and is an ebay store that contains hand selected cleaned up garments sourced from salv. armys and thrift outlets across the globe. The clothes are modeled on the spaced out ladies of questionable age that we have grown to love/loathe from AA's current ads and conveniently one can also buy sample AA garments. The items for sale are mostly dresses that appear to have been shortened, which makes sense as changing the skirt length is the fastest way to modernize a vintage garment. While they have quite a few items worth watching or even bidding on, don't expect to nab a stellar deal. A vintage Chloe dress just sold for over 250$, but most items can be had for under 50$ before s&h. It still begs the question, wouldn't you rather just get your own thrift store jams and alter them for 3$ total? Though, I would wear the above dress from Cali-select to it's and my own spotty death bed.