i wanna be your dog

Iggy Pop has the right idea; regarding his move to Miami; "I was fed up after 25 years in huge, dark, media-centric cities. I decided to find a house and move here. I was looking for something in a kind of elegant coma with a lot of peace and convenience," (via jezebel via cnn) Even though I dog on Art Basel, is Miami becoming the new New York? Celebs and Icons, young and old, are scoping sunny properties in the penis shaped state and the paparazzi are not nearly as plague-like which I'm sure is a selling point. Though I love pastel stucco and vitamin D, I would rather follow suite with how Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon live in a beyond enviable house in the middle of the woods. Forest creatures and the like are more up my alley than leather skin 30yr old grandma's and JLO jeans. Contemplate, if New York and LA didn't exist, where would the new apex of culture and scene be? While you're at it, look at the google LIFE archives from the 1880's that depict Wallance Levinson's Brooklyn hood as little more than a trees and tall grass.

crispy critcs

I've highlighted NYT critical shopper reports before; sometimes with delight and sometimes with disgust, but, perpetual smart ass critical shopper contributer, Mike Albo is all good (in the hood). Now, before I get started, I have no ill vibes for Cintra Wilson's acid tongue and epic taste levels; Mike Albo is just fucking on all the time. To the point: Albo's current review of the Gap flagship (which occurs after Wilson's review of the Mcqueen store; how fair considering the Dow is plummeting faster than Brett Michael's hair line is receding). Quoth Albo re: the economy and our aging child star american sportswear brand, beloved by yours truly, Gap: "...o my right, a Frenchman wheeled a baby carriage onto my foot until I moved out of his way. There must have been 100 Europeans in this store: men wearing sweaters tied around their shoulders, women wearing sunglasses inside, entire families chattering and pointing. All of them had rapacious looks in their eyes because they knew time is money. They needed to buy as much as possible before the increasingly global financial meltdown turned their powerful euros into a currency as pathetic as, well, the United States dollar..."
This installation of critical shopper is a rarity in which the reviewer does not have a positive opinion at all of the selected store upon arrival, but is mostly pleasantly surprised; "..and if I were a literature grad student visiting from Strasbourg, I would have bought all three and then gone home and worn them while smoking loose tobacco cigarettes and reading Houellebecq."
However, being the whip quipper, Albo does not let some fug merch slide by, "..One look at those items and I wanted to breathe into a paper bag....a perfect purchase for someone who works in catering or an office and needs at least to pretend to care about his job."
Though, marring Albo's final assement is his realization that in Gap, like every other box brand in the U.S/earth, you will never look as good in the clothes as the visuals people dress the manniquins, unless you invest in a basket full of binder clips and pin the extra folds of the off the rack garb to your flesh. Albo's verbage on the matter: "..it is my hope that during the next presidential administration I can form the Truth in Visual Merchandising Commission and put an end to this travesty. Be warned, retailers: End this deceitful practice now! Either stop clipping or tucking your clothes, or get fatter mannequins!"
Outside of nymag:sex diaries, this is easily the best archive to pour over while pretending to work in those last eternal fifteen minutes of work.

crispy critcs

I've highlighted NYT critical shopper reports before; sometimes with delight and sometimes with disgust, but, perpetual smart ass critical shopper contributer, Mike Albo is all good (in the hood). Now, before I get started, I have no ill vibes for Cintra Wilson's acid tongue and epic taste levels; Mike Albo is just fucking on all the time. To the point: Albo's current review of the Gap flagship (which occurs after Wilson's review of the Mcqueen store; how fair considering the Dow is plummeting faster than Brett Michael's hair line is receding). Quoth Albo re: the economy and our aging child star american sportswear brand, beloved by yours truly, Gap: "...o my right, a Frenchman wheeled a baby carriage onto my foot until I moved out of his way. There must have been 100 Europeans in this store: men wearing sweaters tied around their shoulders, women wearing sunglasses inside, entire families chattering and pointing. All of them had rapacious looks in their eyes because they knew time is money. They needed to buy as much as possible before the increasingly global financial meltdown turned their powerful euros into a currency as pathetic as, well, the United States dollar..."
This installation of critical shopper is a rarity in which the reviewer does not have a positive opinion at all of the selected store upon arrival, but is mostly pleasantly surprised; "..and if I were a literature grad student visiting from Strasbourg, I would have bought all three and then gone home and worn them while smoking loose tobacco cigarettes and reading Houellebecq."
However, being the whip quipper, Albo does not let some fug merch slide by, "..One look at those items and I wanted to breathe into a paper bag....a perfect purchase for someone who works in catering or an office and needs at least to pretend to care about his job."
Though, marring Albo's final assement is his realization that in Gap, like every other box brand in the U.S/earth, you will never look as good in the clothes as the visuals people dress the manniquins, unless you invest in a basket full of binder clips and pin the extra folds of the off the rack garb to your flesh. Albo's verbage on the matter: "..it is my hope that during the next presidential administration I can form the Truth in Visual Merchandising Commission and put an end to this travesty. Be warned, retailers: End this deceitful practice now! Either stop clipping or tucking your clothes, or get fatter mannequins!"
Outside of nymag:sex diaries, this is easily the best archive to pour over while pretending to work in those last eternal fifteen minutes of work.

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.

cold stores with warm inhabitants

NYT reviews the new Jil Sander store on Howard st and I am PINING my evening away wishing I were there. Much like the Marni store on Mercer, the Jil Sander store is clean, clinical, chilly, and reflective. It also possesses the same breed of gentle, accommodating staff. There is nothing I enjoy, or respect, more than genuine, kind sales staff especially in high end stores. In every fancy-pants-y store I have stepped into, ones with actual runway shows and often fragrances to their name, I have been welcomed and more often than not offered tea or a light snack.
Am I a gajillionarie, no, but with today's increasingly youthful billionairesses and starlets no one is the wiser that I, perhaps, am most likely clad in Cheap Monday and American Apparel instead of Chanel and Alaia. Though, I like to think, especially since I have spent time in their shoes, that they really do want to bring warmth and a helping hand to what can be an intimidating situation. There is a big difference between being confident about your product and being self-righteous about it. One leads to confident users, the other to scorned shoppers who will probably egg your fixed gear bike/vespa while you are on a smoke break.

you said it brutther

"“We as a business cannot afford to have a customer take a second look and ask, ‘Do I need this?’ ” said Bud Konheim, the chief executive of Nicole Miller. “That is the kiss of death. We’re finished, because nobody really needs anything we make as a total industry.”"

above is regarding the cautious pace at which consumers are now approaching fashion purchases in this article from the NY Times that touches on the disparity between mid-level fashion actually decreasing in price since '98 and luxury goods skyrocketing and what this all means to the consumer and from an economic standpoint.
if you can clearly explain when asked by any drunk or even a blindingly sober person who is more familiar with KFC than WWD, after explaining what you do for a living, why fashion apparel costs what it does then this article is no big whoop. the slideshow noting the items that have decreased in cost (lacoste polos) stayed the same (brooks brothers suits) or neglagibley increased (calvin klein underwear) is interesting as well, but mainly read it for more choice quotes from Bud Konheim up there.

skinny tards

are you joking me? someone really said this? and people are making money off of the 'innovative' idea that a vegan diet will make you drop some serious ell-bees? new york times profiles the authors of the apparently phenominally well-selling books 'skinny bitch' and its follow up cook book. both books tout veganism as a beneficial diet choice and have such illuminous readers as "Kimberly Latham, a fashion publicist in New York, (who) said: “I would never have read ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma.’ I’m not even sure I know what an omnivore is. But I know what a skinny bitch is, and I know I want to be one.”" the authors scare the readers off of eating animal products because 'like duh they're icky' though, common sense begs to assert itself that if one eliminates SEVERAL food groups from their daily diet, whether they be grains, carbs, sugars, meat, dairy et al. you will drop some weight in a fucking hurry. also, how is it appropriate to enlist women and/or men in a diet of veganism to firstly reap its body slimming benefits and only secondly address animal rights concerns? shouldn't PETA be throwing red paint on someone involved here for the trending out of vanity fueled animal cruelty awareness? maybe they should all just, i don't know, read a real book like THE JUNGLE for example? Upton Sinclair was no skinny bitch, but at least he stayed away from such fine prose as “‘Chicken’ Noodle Soup: Just like Mom used to make — minus the pieces of decomposing, rotting chicken carcass.” ugh whatever, this exasperated vegan needs a beer and a nap with her kitties.

if you like miami so much maybe you should marry it

art basel is going on right now and i'll admit, i've been lazy and the only thing i've read the past week were the instructions on big brain academy, but i've caught up somewhat. fyi: art basel is a week long gallery show in miami's new museum of contemporary art, but like miami itself, it's pretty beat and no one in their right mind would voluntarily go there unless they really like tanning and hair gel. new york times wrote a kind of sad article on it, depicting how the gajillion artists involved display in booths not unlike those in a craft fair and comment that
"the art is heavily scripted, raucously colorful and monstrously proportioned. Parties and people-watching crowd the field of vision"...."Statement-making works are otherwise scarce. A few halfhearted gibes at the market, like the fake A.T.M. by Elmgreen and Dragset, are quickly absorbed into the briskly commercial atmosphere. Merlin Carpenter’s slapdash text painting “Die Collector Scum” sold the first day." it gives the vibe, also, that the only people buying are art-nouveau-riche, but i think the comment on merlin carpenter half ass painting i just put down shows that pretty well.
on one hand the artists who's work is selling are making out like bandits since the majority of attendants are better versed in spotting the richard prince for vuitton nurse outfits than any of the nurse paintings, even if they had a lit up sign and a free martini bar affixed on top of them. on the other, for the artists that aren't doing so well, the excess of the whole debacle glosses their work into the booth next to theirs and next to theirs making it unidentifiable and really just wasting their time. i mean, i'm not saying everyone who professes to be an arrrteeesteeee should really put effort forth and pursue that (i think you can follow and conjure my references), but even i am not so cruel to put a young, possibly naive, person into a situation where someone could easily throw candy colored liquor up on or crash into their work all while potentially destroying their ideas of their works worth and giving them a harsh introduction to the art world. over-all the whole situation feels like some bizarre real life pretending to be real life reality show in a microcosm where-in the known winners win despite their flaws and no matter how good your work is you are presently a nobody and nobody cares about nobody. however, the whole deal being in miami (have i let you know i have nothing but contempt for miami? because i do. i hate it. big time) should set off red-flags in anyone trying to be serious about anything. though, deerhoof and iggypop played and terrence koh was there so now he can buy a spare pair of balenciaga gold leggings or maybe the new latex robot outfits for spring 08? j/k i love t.koh