TGIF, whorebots, 'cause it's time for Blue States Lose, our fun little game where we sort through the galleries of fucked-up hipsters at The Cobrasnake, Last Night s Party, Misshapes and Ambrel so you don t have to. Then we bring you our 10 favorites each Friday. After the jump, Joey Arak helps you with your asymmetrical haircut.
With room for nothing else? But then where will you put your lipstick?
Times shopping columnist Alex Kuczynski walks into a bra shop (the Town Shop, to be exact, which is famous for refitting women into properly-sized torture devices) a lifelong 36B.
A fire engulfed 575 Broadway late Saturday night; the Soho building houses American Eagle, Lure Fishbar, Interview magazine and, alas, Prada. Allegedly the store had just received a shipment of over $5 million in merchandise, most of which we can only hope will get marked down and sold in some Chinatown warehouse.
The pretty, sparkly ladies at Daily Candy are always ahead of the curve, recommending the best in overpriced food and fashion in places you've never heard of. One can only assume that similar sense of trendy adventure led the Daily Candy girls to recommend CAP USA sportswear in today's newsletter, where you can bling-up your Chucks or get some custom-designed Jordans with that adorable Dooney & Burke logo.
Put down your lunch and bust out your glitter-flecked black eyeliner! It's time for Blue States Lose, where we get off on sorting through the galleries of fucked-up hipsters at The Cobrasnake, Last Night s Party, Misshapes and Ambrel so you don t have to. Then we bring you our 10 favorites each Friday. After the jump, Joey Arak teaches you to appreciate the dirty scent of the disaffected masses.
We'd like to wish a belated happy birthday to Cosmo EIC Kate White's secret weapon, her daughter Hayley, who celebrated her 16th birthday yesterday. We understand the Super Sweet 16 party is this weekend — don't know the venue, but we're betting on Lexi Lehman's Crush, the go-to opium den for Manhattan's most privileged minors.
• Chanel gave Reese Witherspoon her dress for the Golden Globes, telling her it was vintage. In this case, "vintage" means "merely three years old and previously worn by Kirsten Dunst." Even worse, the dress was seriously NOT that cute. [Page Six]
• Kate Moss is so clean and sober that she was seen dancing disturbingly close to Jack Osbourne. See? REHAB MAKES YOU CRAZY! [Lowdown (last item)]
• Today, Britney Spears goes Hindu. Tomorrow, she explores radical Islam. [Scoop]
• Is Madonna working out too much, to the detriment of her own health? Certainly not if you like your disco gay pop goddesses to kill her dissenters with her bare hands. [R&M]
• Jonathan Cheban slips into his former office at Grubman-Cheban PR under the cloak of darkness for the ritual desk-cleaning. With him he takes three rolls of scotch tape, his rainbow Post-It pad, and a strand of Grubman's hair. [Page Six]
• On the website for NBC's The Office, there's a cutesy little feature which allows users to upload original photos documenting their own office torture sessions. Someone posted the picture at right with the following caption: "Art Director of a major magazine busy at work with some fashion samples for Holiday Gift Guide." Alright, kittens, IDENTIFY THIS MAN. Who is he? We know you know! [The Office]
• It was inevitable: James Frey faces a class-action lawsuit regarding the false claims in A Million Little Pieces. [HND]
• Urban Outfitters liked online retailer Johnny Cupcake's t-shirt designs, so they asked for a sample to be considered for placement with the retailer. For whatever reason, a deal wasn't worked out — presumably because Urban realized they could save cash by stealing the designs and making the t-shirts themselves. [Consumerist]
• What does your H&M location say about you? Personally, ours says "poor and desperate." [VV via Curbed]
• How to write Gay. [MBToolbox]
OK, you know those random Jack White sightings you hear about that aren't actually of Jack White? They're of this chump, Brian Ermanski — who, from what we can tell, is everything that's wrong with life below 14th Street. In this week's edition of New York mag's Look Book, we learn that Ermanski is an artist who calls himself the Prince of Elizabeth (because he works outside on the corner of Prince and Elizabeth). Ermanski makes money by purchasing shitty thrift store clothes and reselling them to overpriced vintage boutiques like Resurrection, where you'll eventually buy his crap for $75 (because you're a total sucker). When he's not jacking up the price of used clothes, he perfects his "punk fop" look by wearing the same outfit for a month and only showering once a week.
After a few weeks' vacation, everyone's favorite Friday treat is back like your cold sore. It's time for Blue States Lose, where we sort through the galleries of fucked-up hipsters at The Cobrasnake, Last Night's Party, Misshapes and Ambrel so you don't have to. Then we bring you our 10 favorites each Friday. After the jump, let Joey Arak guide you through hipster hell.
Since 1960, catty queen Richard Blackwell has been cataloguing the sartorial missteps of celebrities, compiling lists that everyone reveres just because. This year is no different, and so we seek comfort in the familiarity of Mr. Blackwell's beautifully bitchy poetry:
Yes, Mr. Blackwell and his "Worst Dressed" list have become the somewhat derided butt of many a joke for all of us living in our savvy, internetsy culture. But let us give the fellow his due! His annual what-once-passed-for-catty proclamations of the stunningly obvious, now in their 46th year ("Claudette Colbert? More like Clueless Colbert!"), have trailblazed a path for the Steven Cojocarus of the world, and for this, well, we acknowledge and quickly move on. But enough preamble: To the winners' circle! Number one with a zingy bullet was "over the hill Lolita" Britney Spears, followed by Mary-Kate Olsen ("Bag lady rags?!" As if!), and recent divorcee Jessica Simpson, whom, he writes, "resembles a cut-rate Rapunzel slingin' hash in a Vegas diner." This last description at first left us confused, then somewhat depressed when we realized that Mr. Blackwell is suffering from advanced geriatric dimentia. By the time we had made it to his description of Renee Zellweger looking like "a painted pumpkin on a pogo stick," much of the pleasure had been drained out of the entire proceeding. Yes, we love an occasional slice of sassy, but not when it's served between two pieces of crazy, rambling, old-people bread.
We don't know what sort of resolutions they made for the New Year over at New York magazine, but this week's Look Book suggests that they've resolved to be insanely egalitarian or somesuch nonesense with the inclusion of Winsome McDermott, a social worker who runs the men's shelter on Bowery. Not that we're objecting to the inclusion of McDermott in a fashion Q&A, but she's been in the helping-others biz for 20 years and is so, well, good that we're left feeling like real assholes who care far too much about shoes. Which we are, of course.
While we always love to see exposé upon exposé of the already over-exposéd skeezy Dov Charney and his American Apparel-branded clothing, we're slightly saddened that this piece in the Guardian falls under the category of "Special Report: United States of America." We don't expect the rest of the world to think fondly of us, but we'd much rather have foreign perception of American fuckitude revolve around the foibles of our Playskool government and not, you know, some random kosher-perv.
Times fashion writer Eric Wilson originally sparked our ire when, at the end of the transit strike, he let his asshole write a piece on how New Yorkers dressed crappily for their 63-block hikes to work in the freezing cold. This week, however, we'll put our hate on hold, as he's behind an article looking at the season's unending, PR-infused crop of Best-Dressed lists. The lists have become so predictable and beige that they've virtually lost all meaning, thus prompting Vanity Fair to hold off on publishing its 2006 list until it can "regain an element of surprise."
Meet Margaret Mickles, 2006's first victim of New York mag's Look Book. Mickles is a former model who, after 6 years, just left the industry after to feed her mind and pursue her education in religious studies. She doesn't really believe people can express themselves through their clothes, but that doesn't stop her from donning her funky crochet pants and pursuing a folk-esque, East Village look and hunting for mountain laurel flowers. Big words from a chick living in Gramercy. After the jump, Intern Alexis rounds up Brian Stromquist, Noah Carr, and Neel Shah for a discussion on Ms. Mickles' pickles.
• Bikini-clad Ricky Martin and his friend aren't gay. They just fuck like they are. [Dlisted]
• Now that Peter Braunstein has been caught, we can go back to freely discussing pantyhose. [Slate]
• Federal anti-terror funds pay for faux-fancy Circle Line dinner cruises. Terrorists do balk at the sight of old white people wearing Sperry Top-Siders. [NYP]
• The year in crappy celebrity wrist watches. [OAN]
• The year in odd news. [MSNBC]
• The year in random freelancers who happen to appear on Jeopardy. [FishbowlNY]
• Get the cool gadget and games your relatives didn't get you for Christmas or Hanukkah with Gizmodo and Kotaku's holiday gift guides. Click on the Best of the Year polls to choose the top gadget and game of the year, and maybe score a $500 gift certificate. Get to it, nerds. [Gizmodo]
• And finally, we end on a very serious note: Kevin Federline has launched his own website. It is a thing of mysterious, painful beauty, built from the ashes of dead souls and flecked with the vomit of those who manage to survive its launch. [Kevin Federline]
