Leandra Medine's Blog, page 699

5 Things for 5 PM

If you are a true 9-to-5-er you’re probably seeing this on your phone and thinking, “Bye!” If you’re at any other job, consider this your late afternoon brain break.

Explore 

See Mexico City through the eyes of Marco Bochicchio, a local, 25-year-old photographer, and his dreamy Instagram account. As he told Vogue.com, “Mexico is known for being surreal.” [Vogue.com]

Touch

Into The Gloss founder Emily Weiss launched Glossier yesterday, a line of barely-there beauty products with packaging so pretty it could trick you into putting toothpaste on your face, but it’s not toothpaste. It’s the only moisturizer, balm, tint and mist you’ll ever need (if you didn’t even know you needed a mist until now, you do), and just when you thought life couldn’t get any sweeter: stickers. This set comes with friggen STICKERS! Way better for your face than toothpaste. [Glossier]

Think

Fashion Week Quiz! Take it and then tell us your score. [NY Times]

Live

…vicariously, that is, through the inimitable Wendy Goodman and her tour of a 16th Century house in Antwerp. I am telling you, it’s beautiful. [NY Mag]

Hear 

You can watch it too, I guess. IF YOU WANT. It’s Weezer’s new song on Jimmy Kimmel last night. Thoughts? Opinions? Anyone want to talk about how they’ve never done anything quite as well as Pinkerton or The Blue Album? [YouTube]

Buy Now, Wear For Now

“Buy now, wear forever.”

This is a tagline we hear constantly; the basis for common retail philosophy. We’re told to “find our signature style” and stick with it, presumably for the rest of time. Because I can’t really see myself at 80 years old still wearing leather jogging pants — actually, I can’t see myself wearing leather jogging pants ever again — I have a different philosophy. Fashion, at its best, is an outward expression of something internal. Personal style evolves with change, and change means you’re alive.

“Buy now, wear until it’s time to consign when the look no longer appeals to you” seems more my style, but that’s a bit harder to fit on a billboard.

Every season I don’t just buy clothes, I adopt an ethos that informs my shopping for the next bit of time. It’s subconscious, but it’s a pattern. Last spring I was all about the 90s redux: floral baby doll dresses and mom jeans. What appealed to me then — my last semester in college, knee-deep in nostalgia, wanting to dress like a stereotypical Gen-X slacker — no longer appeals to me.

This summer, my first where September didn’t mean “back to school,” I was feeling bohemian. I stocked up on peasant tops, kimonos, and way too much fringe. I proclaimed I was going to go WOOF-ing and emailed a woman with a livable tree house in Hawaii. I never made it to Hawaii, but my wardrobe said otherwise.

Now that it’s fall, the rural idyllic dream has come and gone. I have to put on a bra, edit my résumé and get back to real life. A kimono won’t cut it, so I’m feeling inspired by the 60s and 70s. I plan to grow a collection of mod boots and suede. Am I going to wear this recently purchased fringe pencil skirt for the rest of my life? Probably not, but that’s okay. Taste isn’t constant and fashion, like an individual, is not just the representation of something internal, it can also be the vehicle for that expression — a way to understand those feelings.

Fashion is great. It can be a tool for introspection, for self-knowledge. I didn’t realize while I was in it how anxious I was to graduate college and then once I did, how seriously different I felt as a person who could no longer call herself student. I see that now reflected in my outfit choices of the time: Birkenstocks vs. boots, bare chest vs. bra.

When we are aspire to “wear forever,” we buy into an underlying message of stasis, that the person you are now will be and should be the same one in two, five, or fifteen years. If clothes are a way to construct and portray identity, then building a wardrobe with expectation of wearing it forever amounts to assuming you will identify with the same things you do now. But clothes are not tattoos. Sure, they speak to values, varying lifestyles, and perhaps too, aspirations, but those change. I have no conception of any finite identity and my shifting wardrobe reflects that. So don’t feel bad, I guess, if and when you find that a dress you bought last year no longer appeals to your senses. That means you’re changing. And because it’s worth iterating twice, change means you’re alive.

Image on the left shot by Allasdair McLellan for W Magazine, image on the right shot by Nicolas Kantor for QVEST

Did You Watch the Mindy Project Last Night?

If you watched last night, then you know why the above picture features Dr. Mindy Lahiri with the tables turned and her butt in the hospital bed. If you didn’t watch, here’s how we got to this place:

The show begins with an apple pie sex metaphor because the Mindy Project is never not starting and ending with sex. Mindy’s narration tells us how lucky she is to have a boyfriend who showers her with romantic surprises, like a necklace for no reason, or a freshly-bladed nose hair trimmer.

“But not all surprises are romantic,” she warns. Two seconds later, mid-hook up, Danny “slips” and his peen makes contact with her butt.

*Cue intro*

Danny and Mindy enter the office the next morning, arguing about what happened — Danny said it was an accident with zero intent and Mindy doesn’t believe him. My question is why did these two need to have the conversation now? In the morning? Before their first cup of coffee in a very public environment as opposed to the comfort of their bedroom, post-coitus? Did they just say nothing after he initiated P2B contact? At the very least why wouldn’t they talk in privacy before coming in?

Because Shulman & Associates is where the party’s at, that’s why.

In the snack room Tamra is telling a very important story about how she was scouted be a model but declined — she has a job, thanks — when Dr. Faux Hugh Grant enters and is immediately iced out. No one’s over the fact that he stole what’s her face from Peter. In fact, the Peter Alliance is so strong that they apparently have merchandise, a website, a mascot, and a hashtag — #TeamPeter.

It started to make me feel bad for Jeremy, even if he does wear the same shirt every single episode. You’re a grown man, Jeremy. Not a cartoon character.

Back in buttland, USA, Mindy seeks the advice of Peter who tells her that no man just “accidentally” goes for the bronze, if you know what I mean by bronze.

“What’s the most valuable thing in the world to you, the thing that you treasure above all else,” he asks.

“My signed photo of Kris Jenner,” says Mindy.

“Do you ever not know exactly where that thing is or exactly what it’s doing?” Peter asks.

Of course Mindy knows exactly where her signed photo of Kris Jenner is and what it’s doing, and as she begins to describe its precise coordinates she has a moment of clarity: Danny’s equivalent to Mindy’s signed Kris Jenner picture is his dick.

She calls him out. He claims it was a case of poor eyesight so they ruin an eye doctor’s son’s birthday (Caleb, he turned 2) to have this confirmed, all in the name of their inability to communicate (despite their strong ability to stand in the presence of nose hair grooming). Obviously Danny’s eyes are fine, and in the heat of yet another argument he poorly explains that he thought she would be okay with him introducing a new activity without a formal introduction because he figures she’s “done it before.” He suggests she’s slept with a lot of guys and Mindy declares, “I will not be slut-shamed in an ophthalmologist’s office!”

Me either, Mindy!

Mindy once again seeks the advice of Peter. You know how they say never ask your single friends for romantic advice? Peter once broke up with a girl because his water bed made her sick, so maybe Mindy should stop taking his advice.

She doesn’t take my advice, unfortunately, and instead agrees to have Peter show her some bedroom-spicing techniques that include, but are not limited to: The Ascot, The Bagpipe, and a move that requires one’s hip pop out of place (all of which was demonstrated on a Shulman & Associate skeleton.

(Told you that’s where the party was at.)

She decides consensual butt sex may be easier than intentional hip dislocation, but that she needs confidence lubrication (probably in addition to the other kind of lubrication, one would logistically assume) to do so. Luckily for Mindy, Morgan has just gotten his official Nurse Practitioner license and can now prescribe medication.

After bribing Morgan with a photo of herself and her dad (I too find this successful currency in certain situation), Morgan prescribes her the same sedative he takes before a horror movie or when he hears a scary story.

Fun Morgan fact! He pronounces “etc” as “etka.”

Later that evening Danny and Mindy are cuddling on the couch when he tells her the magical words every girl want to hear, which is that she’s all he needs, it’s not about the sex! And just as she’s setting into the crook of his arm, putting down the brutal brown liquor/sedative cocktail she’s made for herself and probably thinking how lucky she is, he likens their relationship to an old shoe that Beverly would wear.

(Sidebar: Where the F is Beverly? I’ve seen Danny’s couch more than her. Mindy Project Writers: a Beverly mention is hardly enough.)

Mindy chugs the drink — “let’s do this” her eyes tell the audience.

Two seconds later she’s full on hallucinating and I am having traumatic flashbacks on behalf of Peter’s ex-girlfriend who couldn’t handle a water bed. I feel everyone’s pain.

PAUSE: During all of this, Morgan “Parent Traps” Jeremy and Peter so that they can finally make up, but Jeremy throws literal fire at Peter, which miraculously only singes his eyebrows and causes him to spend the remainder of the episode looking like Cara Delevingne at Givenchy.

Back in the bedroom: Mindy flies off the bed without apparent cause (though she is essentially on self-concocted shrooms) and collapses on the floor. Danny rushes her to the hospital which is why (hello, are you with us now?) we began this recap with Mindy, her ass in a hospital bed, all because she roofied herself to relax for the sex-of-butts.

#TeamPeter shows up in the ER (Peter, Tamra, Morgan, ostensibly Mindy though she’s technically there on her own accord, and Danny who is there because of Mindy, although he did claim allegiance to #TeamPeter in an earlier lie for his absence to Morgan’s N.P. award ceremony). But it Dr. Jeremy Reed is also there, and everyone knows that you can’t stay completely mad at someone when you’re in a hospital. Jeremy and Peter agree to be polite at the office, but in public, to fight constantly.

And then, just when you think the show might end without a sex scene for once (guys, remember that when you assume it makes an ASS out of you and me), we see that Mindy and Danny are once again fine, with Mindy tied up to the bedpost and Danny holding a can of whipped cream. They’re trying new things, it seems, shaking it up on a level that both of them are comfortable with, when Mindy, god bless her, tries to eat Danny’s hand.

NOW. TELL ME ALL OF YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. Are you #teampeter or sick of the fight? Has anyone else noticed that Jeremy seems to exclusively wear the same shirt? Or do they all just look similar? Did anyone try out the Band-Aid eyebrows look at work today? How did that go for you?

Cool Site Alert: Your Grandmother Does Not Shop at N-DUO-Concept

Depending on who your grandmother is, this is either a good thing (because she is still wearing the Coldwater Creek half-zip that you bought for her last Easter during a fire sale at their 69th Street location) or simply a function of the fact that she’s never heard of N-DUO-Concept (purportedly because you didn’t even know what Maison Martin Margiela was until she explained to you that it is the most unassumingly artful, not-so-fashion, fashion brand in the stratosphere — or was, at least, until news that Galliano had climbed aboard surfaced.)

Either way, it is an e-commerce website.

One that gives a substantial run to the shopping nerve centers we have come to rely upon, for its product. This is chiefly because it is still largely unknown and as a result, possibly catalogs clothes that, should you decide to purchase, will be unique to you for at least an hour.

Also, though, because smaller brands like Goladamian (skirt pants, flying saucer crop tops), Eshvi (robot jewelry) and its own signature brand, N-DUO-Concept (military coats adorned with bows, checkered shirt dresses) populate the pages to provide for you the opportunity to marvel in an onslaught of compliments directed toward your unusual though highly interesting clothing edit.

This will allow you the highly coveted liberty to lie — “Oh, this old thing? I bought it from my favorite boutique site.” No one will know you’ve just learned of it, but when they surf over, they will learn that it can hold its own salt — boasting familiar brand names like Haider Ackerman, Proenza Schouler, Dries and Borsalino, to cushion the new it champions.

I’d say more stuff, but what’s the point? Click over, enjoy, you’re welcome.

​In partnership with N-DUO-CONCEPT

It’s Kind of a Funny Story: Glenn O’Brien and Gina Nanni

Leandra Medine: How did you meet?

Glenn O’Brien: I was the creative director of advertising for Barneys, and Gina, what was your…?

Gina Nanni: Back then I was in the PR department at Barneys.

GO: You have unresolved makeup.

GN: You know, it’s really hot in here all of a sudden.

GO: I thought she was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen, so I used to stick my head in her office every day and say, “Hi Gina!” and that went on for a while…

GN: A couple of years, actually.

GN: We had a flirtation for several years, and then I — harmless flirtation — one day, we were at a party and — wasn’t it actually Richard [Prince] who prompted you to ask me on a date? And that was when I realized he was actually getting divorced, and he realized I was single, and we went on a date. We went on our first date and have been together ever since.

LM: What year was this?

GN: That was 20 years ago.

GN: God, we’re old.

We were at a party, and Glenn was with Richard Prince who I was talking to and I think he thought Richard was flirting with me and was going to ask me on a date, and then Glenn said, “Don’t talk to her! I want to ask her out,” or something like that, so I heard later.

GO: He knew that I liked you, so he was pushing my buttons

LM: So, how long did you date before you got married at that point?

GO: Five years, six years.

GN: Five or six years, five and a half years.

LM: So you’ve been married for…

GN: Fifteen years.

LM: And how old is your son?

GO and GN: Fourteen.

GO: We got busy right after we got married.

LM: What were the things that most attracted you to each other?

GO: Well I thought Gina was really beautiful but also really sweet and soft-spoken… I hadn’t seen the other side yet. She can be tough, too.

GN: That’s it? Soft-spoken?

GO: Yeah, I don’t know. I said you were beautiful. What else do I say? I said beautiful, smart, soft-spoken…

GN: You didn’t say smart.

GO: Oh, I forgot smart.

GN: Glenn was always very funny. He could make anyone laugh. We shared a lot of the same interests.

LM: How long after you got married did you launch Company Agenda?

GN: I started that two years before we were married, actually.

LM: Have you found running your own business and maintaining a marriage to be difficult?

GN: It’s easier and it’s harder. You’re not chained to a job as much, but juggling responsibilities can be hard. But I think for two people who work for themselves, we each understand a little bit more, maybe.

GO: Yeah, I can’t imagine being married to somebody who worked at a big corporation. We’re self-employed, entrepreneurial types.

LM: What has your career trajectory been like since the point that you met?

GO: It’s kind of the same because I always was visible as a writer and I had this kind of secret life as a fashion-commerce person doing ads. I still do the same thing. Except I think I’m better known as a writer now. Also, I’ve kind of gotten a little more into the art world.

LM: Right. Your apartment is full of beautiful art. Are these pieces that you’ve purchased together? Do any of them have stories?

GO: A lot of them are from friends — this is Basquiat, when he was still kind of doing stuff on the street and I was actually living on Mott. He did a big mural like this on the side of the tire store at the corner of Lafayette, and I saw him and I said, “That’s the best thing you’ve ever done.” The next day he came with that drawing. I did a lot of stuff with him. And then Richard [Prince] has been my friend for 25 or 30 years. We’ve done a lot of things together. James Nares is one of my best friends. Christopher Wool is one of my oldest friends. I’ve written a lot of catalogues for these guys.

LM: It’s sort of like my shoe closet. Is your relationship with art imbued in this personal history also?

GN: I would say so. I work with a lot of artists. That’s a big part of my business and I can say that many of our friends are artists. It’s always been part of our life together. Glenn’s first job was working for Andy Warhol.

LM: How many pieces in here have you bought?

GO: I don’t know, maybe half.

LM: How long have you guys lived in Noho?

GO: We moved in November 2001.

GN: It’s changed a lot. This whole block was basically artists and residents like SoHo used to be. This building next door used to be a parking garage. There were kind of industrial buildings. It’s probably half artists and half rich people from other countries here now.

LM: Do you still like the neighborhood?

GN: Yeah.

GO: Well, it’s the easiest place in New York to get a taxi. There’s really good restaurants around here. I actually hate to leave the neighborhood.

LM: What’s your favorite thing about the art world?

GO: I always liked hanging out with artists. All my friends were always artists and musicians. I always hated writers [laughs] I don’t know.

LM: Why do you think that is?

GO: They are too linear and logical and stuff. I kind of like the craziness and compulsion of artists and musicians.

LM: I find that writers tend to be, obviously, very in their heads. They’re difficult to be around because it’s hard to decode what’s happening in there from an outer-perspective. But what I find very endearing about creative people across the board is this very earnest sense of narcissism. It’s so hard to be a creative individual and not be vaguely narcissistic, and in some ways, it’s okay because it’s not covering itself up as anything.

GN: There are also different kinds of writers. I feel you’ve often been friends more with artist-type writers: the poets…

GO: Poets are different. They don’t count as writers.

GN: Rather than commercial writers.

GO: I guess so, yeah. I don’t know. It’s complicated. We have a friend who is a really good painter and have lunch with him once a month, and I always say “Wow, that’s so exhausting, all he did was talk about himself and his work.”

GN: Sometimes when you’re working a lot, and then you have that human interaction, you just tend to keep talking all about it…

GO: I usually don’t talk about my work until I’ve finished it, and then it’s like, “Can you read this and tell me if it’s terrible?”

LM: Do you read over a lot of his work?

GN: Almost all of it.

LM: How long have you guys been in New York?

GO: I came here to go to Columbia, so I’ve been here for a really long time.

GN: Long time. I came here to go to NYU.

LM: What do you love about New York?

GO: I wrote the introduction to Chris Stein’s photo book, and I said New York is the place where you could go be whatever you wanted to be. At least when I was a kid, you could be straight or gay, you could be an artist, you could be anything, really. When I moved to New York it was really cheap. It was cheap and dangerous, so it’s not really the same.

GN: But still, there are a lot of people who don’t fit in anywhere else who can revel in their own eccentricities, and that’s such a big part of New York.

LM: A friend recently told me that he wanted to leave New York because he didn’t feel like the city was being built for him anymore. Can you sympathize with that?

GN: Well, it’s definitely changed a lot in the last 20 year. It’s become a lot more gentrified, a lot more whitewashed. A lot of the neighborhoods are disappearing. They’re now developments where they used to be funky and there may be buildings where there’s an incredible, fabulous loft and there would be squatters next door. We don’t have so much of the rich living next to the poor mixing together. Now it’s many more incomes in zip codes. That is not so great.

GO: But I think of all these talented people from my generation — it was so cheap here that we didn’t really have to work. If you wanted to be a painter, you painted, and maybe you would do something once a week, but it was easy. Your time was your own. You don’t really have that anymore, even if you’re in Bushwick or whatever.

GN: I just read that the rents in Bushwick went up 29 percent in one year.

GO: I was just in Berlin, and whenever I go there it reminds me of what New York used to be like. People have these big apartments, and they’re cheap, and you can get a studio…People go out every night. It’s not so driven.

CF: And they give tax breaks for artists.

LM: Would you ever leave New York?

GO: It’s not in the cards for me, I don’t think.

GN: It’s hard to say. If we ever leave New York for weeks at a time, we end up getting homesick, thinking “Gotta get back to New York!” I think a lot of people are like that.

LM: I can’t tell if that’s homesickness or if that’s Stockholm Syndrome.

GN: A lot of it is loving the diversity of New York. You go to a certain place that’ great, and there’s a lot more sameness around, every restaurant is the same, there’s a certain type of person… In New York still, even though it’s becoming more gentrified, you can walk ten blocks in either direction… it’s a very different place between Chinatown and the Upper East Side

GO: I have to admit, when I was in Berlin I kept thinking, “there’s a lot of fashion here. It’s great.” People just kind of dress like bohemians…

LM: Fashion isn’t really an establishment there yet.

GO: No, not at all.

LM: Whereas here, it’s deeply ingrained in the culture so it’s hard to separate style from fashion. There’s a little bit of fashion fatigue happening right now across all of the metropolitan cities that host fashion weeks. I don’t think I ever got to experience the old/real New York. I don’t know if anyone from my generation has. I would love to hear a little bit more about your New York.

GO: During the punk days — nobody called it punk then — I look at pictures from then and think, “Wow, everybody look so great.” But it was just stuff they got from thrift stores and put together. The idea of buying designer clothes didn’t even exist.

GN: Even if you did buy designer clothes, people didn’t necessarily wear designer clothes every day, head-to-toe. Somebody might have bought a dress, but they would have worn it with vintage shoes. And they would have worn that dress for years, not gotten rid of it at the end of the season because it was out of fashion.

GO: It was always Bergdorf’s. Fashion was always above 57th street. It was society people.

LM: Glenn, when did you realize you liked fashion?

GO: I always loved clothes my whole life, even as a little kid. I don’t think I can actually say I like fashion. I kind of hate the fashion industry, but I love people with great style. Fashion is about a large group of people doing the same thing, and style’s about one person doing something remarkable. It’s “This is who I am,” not “This is who I’m pretending to be.”

LM: Who, right now, do you feel like is exuding interesting style and not just fashion, other than your wife?

GO: A lot of women I know who work, my friend Paula Grife, who is a great art director — she was an art director for Mademoiselle, then she was a great commercial and music video director and now she’s a ceramicist — Andy Warhol used to say, “The best look is a good plain look.” Paula would have on a really beautiful white shirt and some kakis and some really beautiful low-key shoes, and it would look like she wasn’t trying at all, but she always looked really elegant. And then every time we did a big job she would go out and buy something expensive, which is something I emulate myself.

LM: What do you find to be the easiest and most difficult parts about being in a relationship?

GO: The most difficult part, for me, is traveling [laughs] because we live in different time zones. I want to get to the airport three hours early, and Gina wants to get there as they are closing the door….

GN: Actually, our most successful vacations are when you’re already —

GO: I’ll meet you there.

GN: We meet each other in Europe or something because of different schedules. That’s kind of the only time we ever really have crazy fights. It involves going to the airport.

GO: Also, a sensibility conflict. It’s also like, I’ll say, “What do you want to do for dinner?” And Gina will say, “I Just had lunch at 4:30.” But that’s because you’re a businesswoman.

GN: But that’s about it.

LM: Isn’t it funny these seemingly small and tedious things can turn into such big fights?

GN: People pick up on specific things. We have friends, a couple, that also have travel issues and they went to see a marriage counselor who finally said, “I have a solution. Never take the same flight again.” Maybe they don’t. They’re still together, years later.

GO: I’m always concerned that Gina is going to be arrested by airport security.

LM: Why is that?

GO: Because she’ll bristle if they want to pat her down or something.

GN: It’s just a fear.

GO: I’m just like, whatever. I just try to avoid the cavity search. She’s more combative than I am.

LM: What have you found to be the most comforting parts of companionship?

GO: Just the usual: love, support. We have very similar sensibilities, in a weird way. The same taste, maybe. There’s not a lot of explaining to do. She knows what’s wrong with me; I know what’s wrong with her, it’s okay.

LM: That’s very important, that level of acceptance. You can fight about flights but you’re not really fighting about the moral planes that you’re standing on.

GN: The other thing I notice is that a lot of couples are very competitive with each other, which is the worst. That’s a relationship that’s not going to last. It must be why a lot of Hollywood marriages end quickly.

GO: Actors are all crazy, also. They don’t know who they are. I think artist couples… that’s a tough one, because as soon as one edges ahead in success, that’s hard, I think.

GN: It can be very personal, too. I think having a competitive attitude is just bad.

GO: I want her to be successful because I want her to support me. [Laughs]

LM: Do you have any advice for women or men who are looking for love? And then again, for couples who are already in the early stages of marriage and would like to make it to 20…

GO: I’ve told a few guys this. I’ve said, ”Skip the first two wives and go directly to the third.”

GN: I am the third wife, by the way. I think people go up later. When I was younger I dated people that I can’t imagine how now. You learn more about yourself and also figure out things that you want to change about yourself.

LM: It’s funny that people think that marriage can be medicine. You assume that things are going to change after marriage, like a guard will come down or be lifted. Nothing actually changes other than the fact that you wake up next to the same person every morning.

GO: I think a lot of women think, “He’ll be perfect once I change him.” People don’t change, or if they do it takes a long time.

LM: And you shouldn’t expect people to change. What do you think it is about Gina that has made the relationship last as long and successfully as it has?

GO: I’m considerably older, but I think she was pretty mature, so it wasn’t like, “The Beatles? Who’s that?” We always had adult conversations. A lot of times women, I think, women mature faster than men. I think a lot of times an age difference works because guys are just starting to figure it out. I can’t say any more on that subject.

LM: That’s fair enough. Do you have any particularly funny stories about each other you’d like to share? Or I’m sure you’ve heard some wild stories from his Andy Warhol days.

GO: I learned more from him than I did going to college about how to work and what work was, how to deal with people. Everybody had their own Andy Warhol. To some people he was the person who went to dinner at the White House and to others he was the person who filmed a blow job. Everybody could reflect themselves in the mirror of Warhol.

GN: For my generation, he was the reason everybody wanted to move to New York, definitely.

GO: Early on, when I was working for Andy, we went to a party — he would always take a bunch of us wherever he went; he liked having an entourage — he was like, “This is such hard work.” Before that, I never thought of parties as being work, and after that, I never thought of parties as not being work.

“Ugh, we have to go out again tonight?” That happens all the time.

LM: You had an interest in art previous to working with him, right?

GO: Yeah. I studied art a lot in college, I went to Columbia Grad School of the Arts. I think art has been fashionized because the history of modernism — I mean, modernism developed alongside science in technology, so people started thinking art was progressive and it was breaking new ground. In a way it was. Now, art isn’t progressive at all. It’s about novelty in the same way that fashion is about novelty. “Oh, that was good. Let’s bring that back this season.” We don’t really have the shock of the new so much anymore. This is a really complicated subject about which I am writing a book

LM: I’m going to ask one last question — if you could give one piece of advice, specifically to your son, your literal progeny, about relationships, camaraderie, love, what would it be?

GN: I would say to be completely open and to give people the benefit of the doubt. Don’t think you can change someone.

GO: I would say, don’t be in a rush. You’re going to meet a lot of people in your life.

Shoesday Investment Suggestion: Kitten Heels

Thought: are the people who express an ardent aversion toward kitten heels the same ones who lobby against cats? Does one have anything to do with the other?

Say kitten heel naysayers do in fact hate the shoes because they are named after the independent domestic animal, why not just call the shoes something else — like sensible footwear, for example, or the preferred shoes of Emmanuelle Alt. Dare I even try to suggest: puppy heels? I get that a thicker heel probably fits the canine bill more accurately but there’s a universal truth about to unfold among the denizens of fashion and it is this: there is no more escaping the prevalence, proliferation and dissemination of kitten heels. They’re everywhere and they’re cool.

If watching Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen meander through life, purportedly sourcing the finest goat hair to construct their cashmere capes for The Row, kitten slingbacks, mules and pumps on foot won’t do it for you, what will? Perhaps the never old, never new and therefore precisely on point vision of one Emmanuelle Alt of French Vogue and skinny jean fame, plodding circles around her Parisian comrades with the swagger of a young rapper and elegance of Catherine Deneuve, all the while emitting comfort like she is Steve Jobs and on her feet are a pair of New Balance 990s.

Of course, what actually festoon her feet are the most recent brain children of Hedi Slimane — witchy, lace up, pointed toe boots and studded pumps, the classics of Jimmy Choo (in suede and patent leather) and some of Miu Miu’s best bets. So what’s the hold up? Why are we curtailing? If street style season Volume Spring 2015 has taught us anything, it is comfort. If runway season has done the same, it’s a cry in the direction of restored femininity. Meld those two concepts (and might we suggest pairing peg leg ripped jeans and a plaid shirt with your shoes) and what are you left with?

Baby steps special made for baby heels.

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Trust us! You’ll love it. Photographed patent leather pumps by Jimmy Choo.

I Will *So* Try This At Home

One of the most rewarding experiences to come out of a Fashion Month is the notion that for every show you might feel great defeat and huge pressure to do it (it being style) better the following season, there is the sporadic though hugely welcome beacon of hope that with meager means and indulged impatience, you can try at least one trend in the comfort of your own home, within the cushiony boundaries of your own timeline.

Last fall, that beacon may have appeared in the form of sequined party pants care of Michael Kors as worn with a crisp white button down shirt and a menswear-style black blazer — two garments I am confident at least a handful of us have pre-owned for seasons. The spring before that, there was one airy white strapless mid-length dress by Chloé that could have been comfortably approximated using any number of the silk maxi skirts that trended the previous year.

This season, it is reliably all about Dries. Then again though, when is it not, right?

The Belgian designer successfully co-opted a fabric, lightweight chiffon, that he has heretofore played with minimally on his classically menswear-style blouses, which typically appear in poplin.

But the shirts here weren’t even really about the shirts — they were about what went over the shirts: little tapestry-style bralettes that packed all the punch a fictitiously pierced lip aims to compliment. And while, sure, you can wait until February to get your hands on one from the Rive Gauche boutique or conversely, until tomorrow when you have time to head to a fabric store to make your own, the other thing you can do — and let this serve as inspiration, not the blueprint for a cold case of adventures in copyright — is just walk into your closet, pluck out your favorite blouse and put it on.

Once you’ve done that, open your bra chest (get it? Get it?) and pray that the ghost of Judy Blume has been nearby and as such, has dropped a training bandeau from yonder into that magical drawer so that you can make like Dries and tube. Of course, there’s always your bathing suit drawer and the off chance that you still haven’t come into your chest, and so therefore still treat bandeaus like they are your support group. That’s cool.

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Feel me? Up for it? Talk.

All Images via Style.com

5 Things to Talk About this Morning

You’ve conquered Monday and that’s reason enough to take a morning break. Besides, Mercury is retrograding so we basically have no choice. Instead of doing whatever it is that you’re supposed to be doing, catch up on these 5 things instead.

Important Conversations: Jennifer Lawrence Covers the November Issue of Vanity Fair, Speaks Out Against Nude Photo Leak

“Just because I’m a public figure, just because I’m an actress, does not mean that I asked for this,” she told Vanity Fair. “It does not mean that it comes with the territory. It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can’t believe that we even live in that kind of world.” [Vanity Fair]

Watch Beyoncé’s “Flawless” Remix Featuring Nicki Minaj

It will pump you up on this Tuesday morning.

Karl Lagerfeld Must Have So Many Stamps on His Passport

Next stop on the Chanel Métiers d’Art show tour: Salzburg, Austria. Votes on the December 2nd runway theme? [i-D]

Reasons to Text Instead of Actually Talk on the Phone

You may have heard that the iPhone 6 is ripping out more hair than the entire waxing salon line-up of 6th Avenue, causing women and men with buns to tweet in anger (#hairgate) as they long for the more simple pain of using a rubber band. Well, turns out beards aren’t safe either, hence: #beardgate . [Business Insider]

Jimmy Fallon and will.i.am Make “Basic” a thing of Beauty

Ew!

Vanity Fair cover shot by Patrick Demarchelier, Chanel image via Reuters/Benoit Tessier & Beard photo shot by Stephen Reganato

Pumpkin Spiced Horoscopes

Mercury is in retrograde this month, which is the planetary equivalent of your boss going out of town or when your substitute teacher has a hangover. Read: everything slows down. (You’ll also forget things, lose stuff and potentially break your phone.) Susan Miller has given us all full permission to put our heads on our desks and take theoretical disco naps until at least the 26th, but before you close your sleepy eyes, let’s talk horoscopes:

Happy birthday, Libras. How do you feel being galaxy twins with A$AP Rocky? If you’re looking for a Halloween costume then might I suggest Liberace since you can’t spell “sequined tuxedo” without your sign. You can’t spell it without “Bonnie Tyler” either, bright eyes, because there’s a Total Eclipse of the heart/full moon on October 8. (And another eclipse on the 23rd.) You may feel jittery or anxious during this time because eclipses bring change and sometimes uncomfortable truths, but, per Susan they’re your friends because they “show you latent situations you would have never known existed so that you can get help quickly.” Real friends will help you through this so-called “friend” of an eclipse as well, so make sure you’re following them back now on social media. As for love, your best days are the 18th & 19th when “Mars and his lover Venus will flirt with each other in the evening sky.” 

Scorpios, for Halloween you guys should put Swimmies on your arms and wings on your back, then tell people you “float like a butterfly, sting like bee.” Remind them that you’re a Scorpio if they miss the joke. K. So we have two eclipses coming up but the second one (occurring October 23rd) is happening in your sign. Since it’s a solar eclipse, Susan predicts a man might leave your life — if you’re dating a guy and you feel him doing the slow fade, let him. Eclipses are all about starting over. Speaking of, you may start a new, creative project this month. Maybe you’ll become one of those exceptionally skilled pumpkin carvers, the kind who pulls gourd innards from out of the Jack-O-Lantern’s mouth so it looks like he’s barfing. Regarding work, have the money talk on the 15th, but it’s the 10th that Susan feels is really strong. In fact, she suggests rescheduling any  earlier meetings to this day to push them even more in your favor. Just make sure you set, like, 100 alarm clocks, because Mercury’s retrograding and being a bitch.

Since you Sagittariuses are already half horse, half human, grab a wig and stick some flowers in your tail. Halloween surprise! You’re a centaur from “Fantasia.” You don’t get to revel in the sleepy haze of Merc’s annoying retrograde  — you Sagz are having a busy career month —  but the retrograde could cause communication issues so let all moon dust settle before making quick decisions. The eclipse on the 8th is gonna light up your house of love, kids and pregnancy, which is great because pregnancy is trending. It’s also gonna light up your house of creativity, but note that you and a colleague may butt heads in the process. This “dynamic tension,” as Susan calls it, will ultimately drive both of you to end up with an even better finished product than before the head ramming. She also hinted that October 28th is your best day to buy a new couch.

Capricorns, Susan is playing mother hen to you this month. She will probably make you wear a turtleneck and tights underneath your Halloween costume if it’s cold. Rather than declaring she’s ruined Halloween for you, however, maybe consider the fact that turtlenecks are cool and you’re getting free candy either way, so calm down. Still: don’t sign papers this month. Don’t buy a house. Don’t act impulsively. Stay away from all Best Buys. Travel, but triple check the labels on your luggage. You’ll make an important new friend, but they might be older than you so don’t rudely bring up age. Here’s the good news: Mars is on your side, making you extra-attractive to the 11 other signs. (Probably your own sign, too, but all other Caps may be checking out their blowouts in the same mirror.)

You should dress like a 1969 hippie, Aquarius, then carry a sign that says “ASK ME ABOUT MY SIGN,” and when people ask you, you can burst into song all about the age of Aquarius. If you’re traveling this month be diligent as fuq to dot your t’s and cross your eyes because the eclipse on Oct 8 is really coming for you. That was just a test, by the way. Did you pass? (It’s “dot your i’s and cross your t’s,” so I hope you’re taking me and this eclipse a bit more seriously, now.) It’s not all womp-womp noises, though: on October 9 and 10, “a golden triangle will appear in the sky, all made up of friendly planets in fire signs. Lucky you, your air sign element blends beautifully with fire.” What does this mean? Not sure. But also, good things for love, career and breakthrough opportunities.

Ah, Pisces, not even you can escape the paradox of Susan Miller predictions: she says that due to Mercury in retrograde, this will be a slow month, but then because of the two eclipses, it will be a fast one. Maybe it’s both, similar to how “sexy fish” would be a paradoxical (but not impossible!) Halloween costume. I’m sure someone’s figured it out. Now, on October 8th (that’s one day away) the eclipse is going to send some news your way that is going to shock you harder than a carpet shuffler touching a doorknob. Deep breaths, it will all work out for the best. It’s good to be prepared though, in case your surprise happens to get filmed for a bad reality show called, “Eclipsed!” The month gets better as it carries on: the 15th brings money, the 25th puts an emphasis on your social life. Come the 28th, Neptune’s gonna have a one-nighter with the Sun, resulting in ” a wonderful aspect to enhance creativity and love.”

Don’t lock yourself out of the house this month, Aries.  At least not when you’re dressed up like “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” (tutu scene) for Halloween and it’s below 50 degrees outside. (Capricorn hated this idea but maybe you can wear sheer tights just in case.) Other things to beware: sending the wrong email to the wrong Rob. Taking your earrings off in cabs. Making decisions too quickly. Basically, treat this whole month as though you’ve had too much to drink but you are in an environment where you very much need to KITC — Keep It Together, Carol. The thing about Mercury retrograding is it gives you an excuse to not rush. Meanwhile the good thing about these eclipses is it will force you to see things at the end of the tunnel in a new light. On the 25th, you’ll have Mars in your career house, a movement that caused Suz to predict big things for your job (a new title, responsibility, power) come 2015.

All members of the Taurus clan are welcome to go dressed with me as the entire cheer squad from Bring it On for Halloweezy if you’d like. All members of the Taurus clan are not, however, encouraged to buy the new iPhone 6 Plus if you haven’t made moves already. Mercury, man. Always getting in the way of life. Mercury’s going to cause a lot of backsliding — redoing projects, redoing medical tests, redoing messy buns. The eclipse of the 8th will bring news that shocks us. (Please let it be that the O.C. movie is finally happening.) When things calm down after the eclipse goes all apeshit on our lives, however, we’ll see the next move much more clearly, further solidified by the eclipse on the 23rd that will move up timetables in our favor. Our best romantic dates will be October 18, 19 and 20, so let’s make sure to carry around a fresh supply of Chapstick and let the stars uncross in our favor.

Geminis, at the very least your sign wins this month for Most Creative Susan Miller Inro, where in regards to the retrograde and 2 eclipses that I’m sick of typing about, she offers the following: “…don’t be blue. The month has many special moments spaced over the entire month, like multi-colored sprinkles on a pretty cupcake.” The woman loves an edible metaphor, and I can’t say I blame her. (Smells like a Halloween costume to me.) With the first eclipse on October 8th comes an end to something in your life, and you may receive troubling news. Sit on it, don’t act too fast. Eclipses happen for a reason. However, there’s a small crew of Geminis who are going to be having The Best Eclipse ever! The planets’ alignments with their very specific hours of birth and what not will cause a select few to have everything go their way. Attn: non-special Gemini — find one of these people. Declare them as your Gemi-twin and hang on through the solar system ride. By the 23rd, everything will even out. If I were a human Magic 8 Ball and you just shook me I’d reply with an inky, mysterious, “Outlook’s good.”

Just because you’ve got a hard shell doesn’t mean you’re impervious to the two eclipses and long bout of retrograding-ass Mercury we have going on, Cancer. You’ll feel it too. Susan thinks the course of this month will go in a direction you never saw coming, which makes sense, because do crabs have eyes? Oh you do. I apologize. But at least that means you could be a pilot for Halloween! Eclipse-shit aside, sounds like the 10th is a good opportunity for you to advance in your career, land a deal, or make more money. In fact, just when you were about to send out a mean sub-tweet about eclipses in general, maybe I should let you know that the one on the 23rd is going to help you find love.

Hey Leos, I have an idea: why don’t you and your friends and maybe a few strangers go as the entire cast of The Lion King on Broadway replete with subway singing and airplane flash-song-ing? Sure it requires a little dedication, but you’re a Leo. I think you can handle it. Anyway, while Susan’s been repeating the same dance regarding retrograding Mercury and the 2 eclipses, she put it best for your sign: “October brings an array of delays, forgetfulness, and postponements, but you have a choice. You can view October as a ball of frustration and pull your hair out, or you can see October as a full length, funny cartoon movie, too silly to take seriously.” Let’s go with the latter, for your hair and all of our sakes. You may travel so just make sure your passport is hung from your neck. A family situation may arise, or a health issue, but ride it out — no sudden movements. You’re a lion, Simba. Everything the light touches will be yours if take this month to chill.

Virgo, I hope you and I are ok. I know you feel kind of shafted because you didn’t get your September horoscope until mid-birthday month, but maybe that was a foreshadowing of Mercury in retrograde and now you’re a better person for the delay. Try to not get angry with Mercury — it is your ruling planet, after all. Instead, take the opportunity to think through decisions. Sounds like money will take a turn for the great around the 13th. Speaking of $, go shopping. Mars is going to be in your house by the 26th, encouraging you to meet new people and acting as a planetary wing-woman. (You’ve got Venus on your side too, so get a haircut. You’ll look great.) Just before this, on the 18th, Susan Miller suggests you throw a house party, which is precisely why I’ve been advising each sign as to what their costumes should be. We were hoping you could make the theme Early Halloween to poke fun at the retrograde, and you yourself could dress up as Susan. Or the solar system. Or both.

Illustration by Cynthia Merhej

What to Wear This Week Visualized

Don’t you ever wish someone lived inside your closet? You couldn’t see this person, it might not even actually be a person, but when prompted on the account of fatigue, laziness, whatever, it would shout at you: “High waist jeans, bottom left. Plaid button down from center fold. Wear it over striped shirt — the one that’s bedside. Black and white loafers. Red socks.”

This tune would change according to varying factors be they weather, mood or simply day, and just like that, without even having had to think, you’d be dressed. For today, for tomorrow, for whenever you needed the advisement of a voice you trusted, you believed in — you knew would never fail you.

Of course, in the modern world, the posterior voice has a name and even comes with the silhouette of a human who need not live in your closet; he or she is called a stylist. But there’s a fundamental difference between the conception described above and the occupational dresser-getter because the voice, you see, is actually yours. You might not realize it, but it only tells you to do things you’d probably have wanted to, or tried to do anyway.

Can I be real here?

I want to be that voice. For you. Which is precisely out of where last Friday’s What to Wear Next Week was born. But I understand that even the most scrupulous market research might not be enough to incite a wheel falling into motion so here you have it: all three outfits worn by me. You should know that I think I have a fever. Also that my sinus-plagued eyebrows feel like shimmying caterpillars.

But that is neither here nor there.

When I said wear a boxy blazer with a mini skirt, this is what I meant.

The pictured garments include a Stella McCartney blazer located on The Outnet (but you knew that), a t-shirt by Adam Lippes, skirt by All Saints and boots by Eugenia Kim.

When I said consider fringe and suede the sorority sisters you never had, I meant:

The jacket is Isabel Marant, the shirt dress is Christopher Kane, the jeans are Paige and the retired masseuse-inspired sandals are Chloé. The sunglasses are by Vint & York.

Finally, when I said wear fitted overalls, I was in fact envisioning the particular pair I once wore on the cover of a book that I once wrote.

The bow tie here is Saint Laurent, the shirt is from Everlane, the overalls are Stella McCartney (though Frame Denim makes a mean pair, too), and I feel like I’m about to ski. Down a mountain void of snow.

Cheers.