Lady Gaga Approves Of Tavi, Disses Cathy Horyn
Lady Gaga used her latest V column to praise 15-year-old blogger/freelance writer/high school student Tavi Gevinson, and shit-talk New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn. (Horyn once wrote a blog post expressing mild dislike of a Versace dress the Lady wore.) “Why have we decided that one person’s opinion matters more than anyone else’s?” asks Gaga, who lives in a magical world where the relativity fairy makes all opinions equally valid. We agree that Gevinson is a talented young writer, but to argue that what makes her great is due to the “democratic” nature of the Internet is to totally miss the point; Tavi would be a promising writer in any medium. And Horyn has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern and over 25 years of experience reporting on pretty much every aspect of the fashion industry; those things alone separate her categorically from the barely literate Tumbling masses (who not-coincidentally probably totally love Lady Gaga’s Versace dress!). Horyn is also one of the few fashion critics left who actually criticizes anything, ever; in a business that’s basically one giant conflict-of-interest where few seem to care about aesthetic or even ethical standards when personal and financial relationships are at stake, Horyn takes the fact that designers occasionally disinvite her as a badge of honor. Which she should. That Gaga CC’d her column to “Intellectuals” while making such a grossly anti-expert, anti-intellectual argument is maybe the most ridiculous thing about this. [V, On The Runway]
Speaking of Tavi, get ready: Gevinson’s new online project, Rookie, launches on Monday. The site will publish content that follows a monthly theme, and to suit its targeted audience of teenagers it will post three new items daily — after school, at dinner, and just before bed. Contributors you may have heard of include Zooey Deschanel, Miranda July, Winnie Holzman, Joss Whedon, Jack Black, Dan Savage, and Fred Armisen. [WWD]
For some reason, this ad campaign with Ryan Reynolds and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is really amusing to us today. Is it his wrinkly “I’m a tough guy — in a fashion ad!” face? Her “I’m totally not pushing you away, darling!” pose? (Body Language Expert Tiara Dew Dots would have a field day.) Or is it just the fact that we’re really hungover, and sometimes when we’re hungover we find things that are actually not funny to be really funny? (We’ve always assumed this is because our brains are just trying to jump-start the ol’ endorphin flow by any means necessary, standards be damned, but the temporary inability to not crack up at like mildly funny YouTube videos and Jimmy Kimmel bits has always struck us as a sad kind of bodily betrayal.) [Fashionista]
Yep, also giggling at this list of gag monograms from Lucky‘s John Jannuzzi. We want “TMI” on all our shirts and towels now. [Lucky]
Speaking of acronyms: the friendly oompa-loompa known as Snooki says her perfume will smell “like DTF.” Ew. [Us]
Corinne Day‘s manager, Susie Babchick, remembers the late photographer on the anniversary of her death: “Having been a model herself — and not a very tall one — she really understood models, and knew how to bring out their confidence. When Corinne did a shoot, she would be shooting throughout the day and not just when she was officially shooting. There’s a picture she took of Kate Moss on a British Vogue shoot, having a sandwich dressed in this beautiful lingerie. I think that’s one of the nicest photos of Kate I’ve ever seen.” Can anyone find a copy of that photo? [i-D]
Coco Rocha is on the new cover of Korean Dazed & Confused wearing a headband with horse’s ears. [HuffPo]
And Alexa Chung sports ’60s-inspired eye makeup on the cover of the latest Harper’s Bazaar UK. [HB]
- Well, this is weird and stupid: this behind-the-scenes video makes it obvious that Anna Dello Russo used eye tape to make Crystal Renn appear Asian for a Vogue Japan shoot. It’s not the first time fashion magazines have found “inspiration” in referencing yellowface (and other forms of offensive racial impersonation), but it’s always problematic. Hey, Anna Dello Russo, do you know what would be easier and less racist than trying to change a white model into an Asian model? Booking an Asian model! [YouTube]
- The male models who work at Hollister in New York City report that customers touch them and say sexual innuendos to them all the time. “I know that my bills are paid. It’s kind of like being a stripper, but it’s not as sleazy,” says one, who made $56,000 last year. [Nerve]
- Here are some tips on how to ride out a hurricane in Diane Von Furstenberg‘s Harbour Island holiday house, courtesy of a British Vogue editor: “The noise was deafening. I imagined what people had endured during the ‘Blitz.’…Irene is lashing out, punishing anyone that stands in her way. It must be time for light relief — I give myself a deluxe facial in the brightest room, my bathroom. I’m so engrossed in the arduous process of exfoliating I barely notice the storm has stepped up a notch.” We survived Irene by drawing an ass’s milk bath and having Nora give us a custom mud-wrap paraffin-dip diamond-botanicals gold-leaf-extract mani-pedi. But you do you. [Vogue UK]
- The New Yorker writes that reporter Hal Vaughan’s claims that Coco Chanel was a Nazi spy, made in his new book Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War, are “very convincing.” The book reveals that Chanel was an Abwehr agent whose code name was “Westminster,” and that she went on missions around Europe with her boyfriend, also a Nazi military intelligence officer, to recruit agents for the Third Reich. It also sheds light on the relationship between Chanel and the Jewish family who backed her fashion house financially, the Wertheimers. After the war, the Wertheimers made it possible for Chanel to re-open — and they still own Chanel today. Vaughan says, “You can’t put someone like Klaus Barbie and Chanel in the same category: she didn’t kill anybody; she didn’t torture anybody. Madame Gabrielle Labrunie — Chanel’s grand-niece — said something to me that I found fascinating. She said to me: ‘You know, Mr. Vaughan, these were very difficult times, and people had to do very terrible things to get along.’ Chanel was, very simply put, an enormous opportunist who did what she had to do to get along.” And after the war, says Vaughan, when “De Gaulle had decided that all Frenchmen had been resisters, and all this collaboration business was behind them,” it was this cultural selective amnesia that allowed Chanel to be accepted as a French icon again. Vaughan’s book will be translated into Portuguese, German, and Dutch, in addition to being sold in the U.S. and the U.K., but it has yet to find a publisher in France. [TNY]
- Fashion brands are upset with Tumblr because they feel they have invested lots of money in the blogging platform and all they get in return are requests from bloggers for fashion week tickets and free shit so said bloggers can take pictures of themselves at fashion week/wearing their new free shit and post them to their Tumblrs that five people read. Meanwhile, Tumblr still lacks such things as basic analytics, meaning the fashion companies that have invested in their Tumblr presences can’t even track their actual user engagement. Of Tumblr fashion director Rich Tong‘s latest fashion week sponsorship request, a PR who represents such brands as Kate Spade and Ann Taylor writes, “someone is completely out of their goddamn mind.” [NYObs]
- “Zombie Boy, the Mugler muse, will walk a 3-D runway during Fashion Week as an avatar dressed by Nicola Formichetti.” [NYTimes]
- Jill Zarin’s Sqweez Couture shape wear line is projected to do $20 million at wholesale this year, according to Jill Zarin. Some people have all the…shape wear, we suppose. [WWD]
- Catherine Malandrino has canceled her New York fashion week presentation. The brand had been in talks to be acquired by a company named Kellwood, but no deal was struck. Malandrino claims she’ll be back with a new fall collection in February. [P6]
- Allegedly, plus-size shopping is going to get more satisfying for customers…soon. “To address women’s weight fluctuations and other challenges unique to the plus-size shopper, apparel makers are putting a new focus on fit. They are throwing out their old clothing patterns, turning to new slimming and smoothing technology and taking a new look at the psychology of their customers.” Lane Bryant has been asking a sample of its customers to do a body scan for the store since 2004, and it uses that sizing information to develop better pattern blocks. [WSJ]
- Oh man. The Standard hotel had a party venue called the Boom Boom Room, then they renamed it the Top of the Standard, and now it’s called the Boom Boom Room again? It is too early in the day for this much nightlife naming whiplash. Fendi something sponsorship fashion week music something something. [WWD]
- Here’s a short video of Stephanie Seymour pretending to be Elizabeth Taylor for V magazine’s September issue. [The Cut]
- L’Oréal‘s net profits rose 11.6% to $2.06 billion during the first six months of this year, compared with the same period a year ago. The conglomerate expects continued fast growth in “emerging” markets. [WWD]
- Oh, look. Another story from the credulous, friendly fashion press about how Hermès is “struggling” to meet consumer demand for its eleventy-million-dollar luxury handbags. Manufacturing scarcity: Google it. [Vogue UK]