Skingraft, Manhattan's latest, horribly-named boutique. (MAO PR)

Coming straight from your most repressed memories of that time you got your foot caught in a bicycle spoke when you were eight, NoLita's hottest new store is Skingraft. That's right...Skingraft. Oh, you haven't heard of Skingraft? (And now that you have, wish that you hadn't?) Well, let us tell you about it.

The opening of Skingraft will fill the hole in Manhattan's retail market left after the recession closed such other cutting edge concept stores as meTa stasiZed, the Wart-eria and last year's Po(ly)p Pop-Up.

Created as "an experiment in performance art-inspired fashion," the 8-year-old L.A.-based company is the brainchild of designer Jonny Cota and brand manager Chris Cota, and, according to a recent press release, has dressed a bunch of celebrities including, "Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Black Eyed Peas, Mary J. Blige, Janet Jackson, Marilyn Manson, Trent Reznor, Rihanna, Shakira, Liza Minnelli, Britney Spears, and Kat Von D."
On Friday, Skingraft will be opening up its first New York location on 7 Prince Street, where customers can "purchase special samples, accessories, and limited run items. As well, Skingraft plans to curate artwork from various local artists on a monthly basis for their window displays."

To the fashion house's credit, the clothes are actually quite attractive (if mind-bogglingly pricey).

And though we expected to be grossed out after Googling both Liza Minnelli and Janet Jackson skingraft, the brand has managed to take over the whole first page of results, and is, in fact, the first result for the word "Skingraft."

Just don't try to run an image search for the company before lunch.

Diahann Billings-Burford, Kenneth Cole, Peter Vallone and John Liu (Getty Images)

This morning on the cold, bright steps of City Hall, several photographers huddled, shivering, waiting for the Two Ten Footwear Foundation conference to begin. The charitable foundation of the U.S. footwear industry was gathered to kick off Two Ten's Footwear Cares National Footwear Community Service Week (whoof, what a title) in New York, where 14 shoe companies would be dedicating their time and resources to packing meals for the New York Food NYC, God's Love We Deliver, GrowNYC, and the Occupy Sandy Recovery group.

A smattering of unlikely bedfellows trickled in: Kenneth Cole, Katie Butler of Nine West, two mayoral candidates--Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu--former Council speaker Peter Vallone, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, along with several other representatitves from the fashionable footwear industry.

Before the press conference, The Observer had asked Mr. Cole what it was like coming together with some of his contemporaries like Steve Madden, who was also involved with the program but was unable to make Monday's event. Were they friendly competitors, or was this a rivalry that only a good deeds photo opp could bridge.

"No, no," Mr. Cole said, who kept his sunglasses on throughout our conversation. "Steve and I, we're old friends."

"I feel funny being singled out," I slightly laconic Mr. Cole said after opening remarks by Two Ten president Neal Newman. "Because everyone here does a lot, and the industry does a lot." Mr. Cole went on to say that the nonprofit was an organization to "be looked at with envy" because the footwear industry "takes care of its own." It should be noted that for 75 years, Two Ten's purpose has been to provide service to those in need...provided they have been employed by a shoe company for a certain amount of time.

Mr. de Blasio was full of accolades for the iniative, saying "This is arguably our most fabulous industry here in New York City. Fabulous not just for its creativity or for what it does for the economy, but for it's heart." To Mr. Cole, he had even higher praise, calling him a template for what entrepreneurs can do to raise awareness and help their community.

Mr. Liu had a slightly different take. While praising Two Ten's and the organization's Hurricane Sandy relief effort, which provided $290,000 to over 250 footwear families, he added that the people who were getting the assistance were "some of the hardest working and some of the lowest paid workers in this city and this country."

Catching up with Mr. de Blasio after the conference, we asked who he was wearing on his feet that day. He took off his shoes, to study the label. "You know, I don't know what they are," he told The Observer, "But I know I got them at Eneslow on Park Avenue and 33rd."

Councilwoman Brewer also didn't know the name brand of her black flats with the flowers, but exclaimed: "I got them at Harry's! Always Harry's!"

Exclusive Punk-inspired collection from Moda Operandi.

Already have your invitation to the 2013 Costume Institute's Benefit, but can't figure out how to turn your epic ballgowns from years prior to fit this year's theme of "Punk"? No worries, digital luxury retailer Moda Operandi has your back: Starting on May 2nd, the site will be selling 100 one-of-a-kind, punk-inspired clothes and accoutrements from famed fashion houses.

Problem solved! Now you just have to figure out which designer you are pretending brought you to the event.

According to WWD, the items up for grabs include:

T-shirts hand-studded with spikes from Eddie Borgo; a Givenchy chiffon and leather cape, and two corseted Vivienne Westwood tartan dresses. Rodarte, House of Waris, Moschino, Prabal Gurung, Thom Browne, Preen, Balmain, Dolce & Gabbana and Ek Thongprasert also made special pieces for the occasion.

Because nothing says "punk" like Dolce & Gabbana. Actually, this was a brilliant marketing move by the Operandi founders, Lauren Santo Domingo and Aslaug Magnusdottir. The ties run deep: the Internet-only retailer received a second round of funding last June--to the tune of $36 million--from Conde Nast, LVMH and IMG (among others). Not to mention that the exhibition is made possible by Moda Operandi and Conde Nast, according to the Met's website. And as Ms. Domingo is a former contributing editor Vogue (and one of the benefit's chairwomen) and Ms. Magnusdottir a cofounder of Gilt Groupe, creating a web-based fashion event around the hottest Anna Wintour-helmed ticket of the season was probably a no-brainer.

Now we are just left wondering: Who will these ladies be wearing?

Tia Walker and Jennifer Ashley Wright (Photo: Patrick McMullan)

I went to the dentist’s about an hour before the FIT Couture Council party, seemingly because I forgot how dentists work. Namely, you go to them, and they use tiny hammers inside your mouth and then your entire jaw swells up to about the size of a baseball. I went home and tried to drink from a glass and the water spurted out of my mouth. It spurted in a little fountain, as though I were a fish. “Everyone there is going to think I’ve had a stroke,” I told a friend.

She suggested:

Inject a numbing agent into the other side of your face for symmetry. Pretend you had a cosmetic procedure instead of a practical one. As champagne dribbles down your lips, mumble to anyone who will listen "Pain for beauty, am I right ladies?" Laugh uncomfortably.

I didn’t have any numbing agents, and I figured, “Oh, hell, maybe it’ll make me look kindly. And frankly really brave, eating crabcakes and talking to Yigal Azrouel in the middle of a stroke.”

So I got to the Peek’s residence, and talked to Tama Mellon, who very kindly did not mention that I was deformed. She was with her daughter, Araminta. Her daughter is about 11 and had recently learned the saying that “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”

Pain for beauty, am I right ladies!?

Well, crabcakes, there’s one. I can come up with fifty or sixty more. I told her to think of all the women on the Titanic who skipped dessert. It seemed like a better quote to plan your diet by, albeit one that supposes that we’re all on a sinking ship.

You know, she has Tamara Mellon’s genes, so I don’t think she really needs to worry. I mean, about food. Probably nobody should ever travel by ocean.

Somehow, in the middle of that, I ended up telling Eleanora Kennedy that it’s healthiest to eat fish from shallow waters because the ones deeper down have higher levels of mercury. I have no idea whether or not that is true or if I remembered that accurately, but, well, who needs to eat swordfish, really?

The FIT committee is honoring Michael Kors this year – a designer I think was forever ruined for me by a mention in The Devil Wears Prada that fashionable ninnies love his little cardigans – but he’s a good designer in spite of being ruined for me.

Eleanora mentioned that if she had her pick she’d like to honor Galliano, and the other committee members seemed to agree. But they can’t, because, you know, he stood up in a café and announced that he loved Hitler. “As Christians we forgive” Eleanora pointed out, and I think that’s true, except he did pick the one thing you’re not allowed to say.

I mean, Karl Lagerfeld said:

“Some [ugly people] are great. What I hate is nasty, ugly people ... the worst is ugly, short men. Women can be short, but for men it is impossible. It is something that they will not forgive in life. They are mean and they want to kill you.”

FIT honored Lagerfeld three years ago. You can say lots of insane, incorrect, absurdly biased things if you’re a good designer, you pretty much just can’t say you love Hitler. That’s the only thing you can’t say.

You know who probably doesn’t love Hitler? Hamish Bowles. Every time I see him at a party I think, “That Hamish Bowles is a very nice man” mostly because he always seems to be being nice to people. He was wearing a white suit and purple pocket square. There are men who really can’t wear pocket squares (20-somethings, overeager analysts) and there are men who can (Europeans with race cars, hedge fund principals, pretty much any Prince except for Harry) and there are men who could wear a pocket square to the beach and have it look absolutely right (only, exclusively, Hamish Bowles). He always strikes me as the sort of gentleman who should be standing on a terrace somewhere in Newport, staring thoughtfully into the distance.

And then he said “Should we investigate the terrace?” and we did, and I think I willed that into being with my brain. Like some version of Carrie written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

He’d just recently come back from Paris and Marrekesh, and he bid on an Alaia pantsuit at auction, but it went to Raf Simons.

Fuck Raf Simons.

Oh! Speaking of suits, Alexandra Lebenthal was wearing this black and white striped jumpsuit. Black and whites stripes are so trendy right now. Everybody at the party kept talking about how she was really pulling it off, but I keep thinking it makes women look like they just escaped from a chain gang. You sort of want to go up to them and whisper, “Don’t stop here, keep running, you’ll make a new life for yourself in Mexico.”

I think everyone will come to regret buying those in a year. Well, that will be a lesson to them.

Just as I learned a lesson and that lesson was: Never go to a dentist again, just let the teeth rot out of your head. (Really. It was fine. I only dribbled champagne out my mouth four or five times, and I think people thought I was making some kind of statement, so it worked.)

Lilly Pulitzer in her first shop off Via Mizner in Palm Beach in 1962 (Photographed by Howell Conant)

I was shocked to hear that Lilly Pulitzer died on Sunday, the start of a week that also claimed Margaret Thatcher and Annette Funicello. Not because Ms. Pulitzer was so young—she was 81—but because I never quite thought of her as real. That’s not to say I didn’t think of her. For a long time, as a kid, I thought the Pulitzer Prize referred to Lilly. I’m not the only WASP child who had that idea.

A large part of that sentiment may have been because I grew up in Glencoe, Ill., a Chicago suburb where Ralph Lauren was our patron saint and a pair of pants was not complete without embroidered whales. My first strapless sundress was a pink polka-dotted Lilly.

Though I grew up pale and brunette, I always thought of Lilly as a kindly WASP Beetlejuice, as if by placing your hand on The Preppy Handbook and repeating her name three times, you might find yourself with ash blond hair and a low golf handicap.

If you wore a Lilly Pulitzer dress, maybe, just maybe, you might find yourself mingling at country club dinners, dating a guy who went to Hotchkiss (the very name Hotchkiss struck me as unbearably romantic) and excelling at lacrosse. I was never quite a Lilly myself, but damn if I didn’t try.

It’s easy to imagine Jackie Onassis wearing a paisley Lilly shift on Ari’s yacht, perhaps because she almost certainly did; Lilly’s designs became popular in large part because Jackie wore one in Life magazine. Ronald Reagan owned a Lilly Pulitzer tie.

(Photo by Jordyn Taylor)

In 1966, The Washington Post said that Lilly’s dresses were “so popular that at the Southampton Lilly shop on Jobs Lane they are proudly put in clear plastic bags tied gaily with ribbons so that all the world may see the Lilly of your choice. It’s like carrying your own racing colors or flying a yacht flag for identification.”

Who talks of yacht flags anymore? Suddenly, in a way most noticeable with her passing, the lifestyle that she embodied seems to have gone the way of Pappagallo button purses.

Ms. Pulitzer’s own life was as bold and colorful as her dresses; she was a beloved fixture on the Palm Beach social scene and knew how to throw a party. “There’s a Palm Beach personality: they’re manner born to the sunshine, the color, the parties and the happy lives,” said interior designer Carleton Varney, who writes a decorating column for the Palm Beach Daily News and knew Ms. Pulitzer. “People aspire to be Palm Beach, but she just was.”

All was not pretty in pink for Ms. Pulitzer in the years before she launched her dress line, however. She was raised in Roslyn, N.Y., schooled at Chapin and Miss Porter’s, and married at 21 to Herbert “Peter” Pulitzer Jr., who owned citrus groves. Bored and aimless after the birth of her third child, she suffered an emotional breakdown and found herself in a Westchester psychiatric clinic, where a doctor told her that she just needed “something to do.”

Ms. Pulitzer opened up an orange juice stand in downtown Palm Beach, and soon her biggest problem seemed to be juice stains on her dresses. That is a lovely problem to have. An effort to camouflage the stains prompted her to start a line of dresses with colorful designs, which were soon selling for $22 to the other Palm Beach ladies.

The dresses quickly took off among the Everglades Club set and eventually beyond. Her initial designs were “so simple they were almost like something you could wear going with the laundry basket to a shop in Nantucket,” recalled Mr. Varney. “The original was subtle and refined and WASPy in their cut. You had to be a string bean to wear them.”

(Photo by Jordyn Taylor)

At its height, her company was doing $15 million a year in sales. But it wouldn’t last. As Kathryn Livingston writes in her 2012 book Lilly: Palm Beach, Tropical Glamour, and the Birth of a Fashion Legend, the original Lilly Pulitzer company “croaked” in 1984, falling victim to fashion’s fickle winds. In a world of pinstripe power suits, the vibrant pastels so popular in the 1960s and 1970s suddenly seemed twee. Ms. Pulitzer’s efforts to reinvent the label with a line of comfortable, neutral separates tanked, and so did the company. “After 25 years, it was done, for God’s sake!” Ms. Pulitzer told Larissa MacFarquhar of The New Yorker, according to Ms. Livingston’s book.

The brand was revived by Scott Beaumont and James Bradbeer Jr. in 1992 then acquired for $60 million in 2010 by Oxford Industries Inc., a company that also owns Ben Sherman and Tommy Bahama.

Inkeeping with modern times, the Lilly Pulitzer label is now affixed to stovepipe pants, bikinis and iPad sleeves, as well as a line of sorority picture frames and other merch. According the Oxford company website, the brand now targets “young women recently graduated from college; young mothers and their daughters; and women who are not tied to the academic calendar”—no yacht necessary. And yet despite their mass appeal, Lilly’s designs still emanate, to borrow a phrase from Tad Friend, “cheerful money.”

The same could be said about the stores themselves. “You walk in the door and you’re uplifted. It’s such a happy place,” said Benjamin Aryeh, 52—an art dealer who owns the building that houses the Lilly Pulitzer store on Madison Avenue and 79th Street. “It’s probably the happiest clothing I’ve seen in New York City.”

The customers are “young clients in their 20s and 30s,” he said, who don’t necessarily have Palm Beach budgets. “Sometimes when they have sales, there are lines up the block.”

On Monday, the day after Ms. Pulitzer’s death, the store was abuzz with shoppers soaking in the green apple glow. “Lilly has been a part of my life since I was little,” said Brooke Kramer, 34, who hails from Westchester and took a break from medical sales to stop by the store. “I wore their kids’ clothes. I wear their golf line, and their dressier stuff for weddings.” 

There are those who say that New York is not a Lilly town, that what’s chic in Palm Beach looks out of place in a city of hard edges and attitude. Let them keep their steely graphite and cool black.

“I think you’re going to find hundreds if not thousands of women on the Upper East Side who have a closet full of Lilly Pulitzers, in much the same way that they might have a closet full of Tory Burch and Pucci skirts,” said Steven Stolman, who was hired in 1993 to help relaunch of the Lilly Pulitzer collection, and in 2008 curated a 50th anniversary retrospective at Parson’s. “New York women viewed Lilly Pulitzer clothes the way that they would view any item of apparel that suggested a much-needed getaway. How could you not put on a Lilly Pulitzer dress and not think of being somewhere sunny and warm?”

You don’t have to be a third-generation Palm Beach denizen to hope her legacy—the simplicity and fundamental joy of those designs, their brightness, their cheerfulness—will never be out of style, whether in an office cubicle, at the Hôtel du Cap or even on a bench in Bryant Park. In tough times, who couldn’t use a splash of orange?

Additional reporting contributed by Jordyn Taylor.

(Photo by Jordyn Taylor)

John Friia in the ugliest sweater in New York. (Cataldi PR)

We've seen some ugly sweaters in our time. We've also seen some ugly sweaters on the Internet, specifically on the Tumblr dedicated to ugly sweaters. There are some very heinous wool knits in this world, and we just can't pretend they don't exist just because they aren't pretty.

So when The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership held a contest this afternoon to find the "ugliest holiday sweater in New York," we were like, "Finally, some awareness brought to this issue!"

Except that New Yorkers are horrible at finding clothes that are unflattering, apparently, because take a look at this year's winner:


Sorry, 20-year-old Long Island resident John Friia, that is not even close to the ugliest sweater! It's not the best sweater, but it fits and isn't weird looking at all! It's like you barely tried. Maybe you just wore that sweater to work today and decided to give it a shot.

What's sad is that yours is not even the ugliest sweater on stage! We have to give it to the guy laughing off to the left...you know, this guy:

Now that is an ugly sweater!

If you have a spare $60,000 to spend this holiday season.(Gilt.com)

Gilt Groupe wants you to treat yourself this holiday season. Why bother with Black Friday when you can experience the sensation of being beaten and robbed from the comfort of your own home? Which is ostensibly what you will feel after dropping $59,500 on a vintage Hermès Birkin handbag, in the flash sample sale that will end on Thanksgiving.

It's not as if you should be surprised ... after all, Gilt Groupe's luxury brand has been known to dabble in Jaguar cars that haven't even yet been released to the public for $155,875. They also offer vacation homes and travel packages that cost well beyond the price tag of the bags.

THAT BEING SAID: There is nothing currently listed in Gilt's clothing/accessories department that even comes close to the $59,500 range of that 30cm Bougainvillier Shiny Nilo Crocodile Birkin, which, by the way, is already reserved. So even if you wanted a jaw-droppingly expensive handbag, you couldn't get it.

And even more distressing is the fact that these bags are a steal ... on eBay, a slightly larger version of the Bougainvillier has a starting bid of $74,999, and at a 2010 Christie's auction, smaller versions went for $59,316. Take inflation into consideration, and you actually have a steal!

It's enough to make a gal think she's actually getting bang for her buck ... provided her buck has a very large checking account and is overly doting.

Piercings to be regulated like tattoos (Flickr)

Both Hot Topic and Claire's outlets suffered a giant blow in New York last night, as Governor Cuomo signed a new law prohibiting anyone under 18 to get their ears pierced without parental consent.

"Mom and dad and the government are such fascists!"- All the tweenagers

The new law will take effect in 90 days, so watch out for the stampede of semi-rebellious sophomores as they rush to shove as many chunks of metal into their ears as humanely possible before they give up yet another right in the name of public health.

Governor Cuomo summed up his rationale for this move by explaining that "body piercing can result in severe health risks,” apparently missing the point that the (relatively) sterile environment of a mall kiosk is vastly preferable to what this new law has left as an alternative.

Which is to say that while it's true that body piercings can be a source of infection, they are far more likely to be so when pierced improperly and without the right health code guidelines that are required of the soon-to-be-illegal outlets, which actually use professionals with piercing guns and non-allergic metals. Compare that to your daughter's Juggalo friend from Spanish class who always carries around a bunch of safety pins and a lighter in his pocket just in case. And while they're already disobeying their anti-pierced ear parents, what's to stop New York state teens from getting a needle and some black ink for a sick star tattoo on their hip? It's just a slippery slope that ends with your kid getting high off of bath salts.

This law also does not set a floor for how old a child has to be in order to get pierced if their parents do allow it, so giving a six-month-old some bling is still not grounds for a call to social services.

H&M gets the Maison Martin Margiela treatment!

In Kanye West's infamous "Ni**as In Paris," (made more infamous by Gwyneth Paltrow's tweetroversy) there is a line that goes "What's That Jacket, Margiela?"

Surprisingly, Margiela is not  the name of some pretty girl, or even a French slang term for "pretty girl" (as some may originally have guessed), but the name of a Belgium designer Martin Margiela. Mr. Margiela is known for making some pretty weird stuff... at exorbitant prices.

And pretty soon, you'll be able to stand in line for days for a chance to buy cheaper versions of these designs at H&M! Yes...the latest big-name (or at least, expensive-named) designer to collaborate with a clothing outlet is none other than Kanye West's favorite: Martin Margiela!

Even though these lines won't be available till November, newly-released videos let's us know that this line will be available for both women:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AmbBNyK4B7A

...as well as men!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cSIjEtDaEaE

Can you say, "So excited to be wearing a curtain next season!"?

Kanye West, hating on clothing (Getty)

Apparently Kanye West spent his entire weekend in an Old Navy store? We don't know where else in New York you'd even find so much khaki to hate.