By Nate Freeman 9/20/11 7:02pm

Fashion Week

Peter Oumanski

The Wee Hours: LiLo Crashes Marc Jacobs Bash Before Jagger Struts On In

The hotel guests at Dream Downtown had suitcases, satchels and children piled up next to the check-in counter, waiting interminably for a chance at a room, and as they did swirls of fashionable men and women speed-walked by without a word or a look—they were headed to the last big event of the week, the after-party for Marc Jacobs and his spring and summer collection. The hotel guests ventured an occasional glace at the well-attired cohort with the mysterious wristbands, striding confidently toward the tucked-away area in the back, but mostly they slouched on pieces of luggage and scratched at purple eyes, unknowing of the scene unfolding out of sight. Read More

By Andrew Russeth 9/20/11 7:00pm

Art

Installation view of "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Ready to Wear: After a Long Flirtation, Art and Fashion Have Wed

“You could identify one another in the Castro by a certain leather jacket in the ’80s,” the photographer Catherine Opie said last Thursday afternoon. “Your jeans rolled up, a pair of Doc Martens and cock rings on your jacket: ‘O.K., I know exactly who you are.’ And then Michael Jackson wore the leather jacket and it fucked us all up.”

Ms. Opie, 50, was sitting on a stage in the basement of the New York Public Library as she explained the sartorial codes of San Francisco’s queer community. She was wearing a flannel shirt, a brown newsboy cap and chunky white glasses. Next to her were sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the women behind Rodarte, the Los Angeles-based fashion label that, after only six years in existence, has reached the pinnacle of couture.

The three women, along with Minneapolis-born photographer Alec Soth, have just released a book through the Swiss art publisher JRP-Ringier. Ms. Opie photographed some of her longtime models wearing the Mulleavys’ clothes. The Mulleavys sequenced Ms. Opie’s photographs in the book. “It taught me to give up some of my control,” Ms. Opie told the crowd, which was filled mostly with women, most of them very young. Read More

By Nate Freeman 8/23/11 8:06pm

Fashion

Garo 4

The Corset King of Alphabet City

The Observer stood in the middle of a first-floor studio tucked into what may be the last ratty stretch of Avenue B, eyes closed and arms held aloft, and ducked into a leather chrysalis.

We were being fitted for a “man-corset,” an anachronistic emblem of female oppression that once gripped only courtly ladies but now in New York can outfit any gender.

Our shit was about to get tight. Read More

By Daniel D'Addario 7/12/11 7:17pm

Art

Is Lady Gaga performer--or performance artist? (Getty Images)

Is Lady Gaga a Performance Artist?

The name of the exhibition says it all: “David Bowie, Artist.” The Museum of Arts and Design’s upcoming retrospective intends to demonstrate how Mr. Bowie’s work “has become the blueprint for contemporary artists working in performance.”

What does it mean for a contemporary recording artist to “work in performance”? Consider a star who has absorbed Read More

By Daisy Prince 10/27/10 3:08am

The Shindigger

Inside the Life of a Guinness

Lavish is not a word normally associated with book parties. Most of them are characterized by warm white wine and pallid cubes of cheese. Unless you are a member of the celebrated Guinness family, in which case your guests will be treated to Blood Orange Bellinis and delicate crab cakes in a mind-blowingly glamorous apartment Read More

By Staff 11/03/09 8:15pm

Fall Without Falling: Try Sneaks With Formal Wear!

PALM BEACH—The first thing I do whenever I arrive in Florida is carry our Norwich terrier Liberace into the ocean and wash away any dingle berries from his most private arena. I have become quite skilled at routing them. No dingle berry can escape my detection. Just call me “the dingle-berry whisperer.”

Canine hygiene Read More