Tracy Reese Spring Sample Sale, 552 Seventh Avenue, 3^rd Floor, 9:00am-7:00pm

Stuart Weitzman Fall 2012 Trunk Show, 675 Fifth Avenue, 10am-7:30pm

Ruthie Davis Showroom, 511 West 25th Street, 12-7pm

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.

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!

“I was not invited. Despite positive reviews of his early YSL and Dior collections, as well as a profile, Mr. Slimane objected bitterly to a review I wrote in 2004—not about him but Raf Simons,” wrote Ms. Horyn.

As best we can tell, the deliberate non-invitation was a result of Ms. Horyn's doubts about the origins of the skinny-silhouetted suit.

"Mr. Slimane insisted that he was the first to show the skinny suit," Ms. Horyn wrote. "It was a silly debate. Who cares?"

Mr. Slimane punched back–on Twitter, naturally--with a twitpic mock-up in faux Times font labeled "MY OWN TIMES."

Under a headline reading, "Miss Cathy, Freedom of the Press," Mr. Slimane called the critic "a schoolyard bully and also a little bit of a standup comedian."

"Insiders argue that she is an average writer and a bit provincial, but I disagree, she did some great things," wrote Mr. Slimane.

The French designer’s rant is best read in a French accent.

“In conclusion, and as far as I’m concerned, she will never get a seat at Saint Laurent, but might get 2 for 1 at Dior.” Burn!

This is not the first time that designers have questioned the notoriously harsh fashion critic. Last month, Oscar De La Renta took out an advertisement in Women’s Wear Daily to object to Ms. Horyn calling him a “hot dog” in a mostly mild review of his Spring collection. Apparently, she didn't mean "hot dog" as an insult.

Ever a fan of cured beef products, Lady Gaga inexplicably (and perhaps inevitably) jumped into the hot dog feud with a rap where she called out Ms. Horyn and her boyfriend.

The mind reels.

Photo Via Twitter

Kim Kardashian expected at FNO. (Getty Images)

It's already time for Fashion Week again? How did that happen? And not just Fashion Week, but the one that includes New York's annual Fashion's Night Out event. This evening marks the third-most important night of the year for Anna Wintour (besides the Met gala and whenever the president is in town), and we're looking forward to all the celebrity sightings that are sure to occur. Here are our five best guesses of A-list names to appear tonight.

1. Ryan Lochte: The Olympic swimmer was already spotted last night at the Joseph Abboud menswear show at the New York Public Library ... marking the first and last time you will ever see "Ryan Lochte" and "public library" in the same sentence. We just hope he'll be able to pick up some styling tips and avoid future disasters like this one. (We should have known Mr. Lochte would show up at any event that promised a sighting of Kanye West.)

2. Katie Holmes: The recent hermit is making her first appearances at New York's Fashion Week. Her Holmes + Yang fashion collaboration with stylist Jeanne Yang is getting its first Lincoln Center runway show. In the meantime, she's already shown up at the Style Awards, held last night in the same location, presenting the "Designer of the Year" award to Caroline Herrera, so there's a good chance she'll be sitting front-row at her show. Not to mention that she's just been announced as the face of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. Looks like life's good after Tom.

3. Sarah Jessica Parker: Now that she's such good friends with Anna Wintour and Oscar de la Renta, how could the star prepare for an upcoming Glee cameo anywhere else?

4. Kim Kardashian: She'll be taking a break from talking about the economy on CNBC to tackle fashion at Lord & Taylor tonight. (She'll be there selling her new perfume, True Reflection.)

5. Pippa Middleton: O.K., it's a long shot, but there's a possibility that Kate's sister will stick around post-birthday/U.S. Open and see all the beautiful people at Fashion Week. Especially since she's having so much fun juggling the men here.

Marc New York's "Fifty Shades of Grey"-inspired ad (Marc)

In the beginning, there was only darkness, and the lord said "Let There Be Twilight." And it was good. (Well, not really.) On the second day, the Lord said "Let Twilight beget erotic fan fiction," and lo, 50 Shades of Grey was taken from the spine of Stephenie Meyer's Mormon vampire book. On the third day, the lord populated the earth with children of Grey: the book parodies, the sex toys, the male escort services.

And on the last day, the lord looked around his creations and saw that there were still things upon this earth that were not beget by a poorly-written sex book that was beget by a poorly-written teen novel. And he said, "Whatever, just stick a statement on there saying it was 'inspired' by 50 Shades of Grey, and ye shall reap the bounty of my Kingdom."

And the fashion world listened.

This advertisement for Marc New York features Celebrity Apprentice star/Miss Universe 2008 Dayana Mendoza in a white dress, standing in a bathroom with Scottish Rugby player Thom Evans. He is wearing only a towel.

According to  Andrew Marc's fashion director Chris Gbur, this shoot was inspired by 50 Shades of Grey.

Fine. Here are some other things you can say this shoot was "inspired" by:

1) American Psycho

2) Restoration Hardware

3) The White Album

4) Sports

5) Mad Men

6) I Know What You Did Last Summer

7) The Fountainhead

8) North Dakota

9) Godard's Contempt

10) Celebrity Apprentice

11) South Dakota

Then again, those things probably don't move towels/zipper dresses like a well-placed 50 Shades allusion.

Apparently, some movie theater employees are trading in their regular workwear for a couture statement that speaks out against our city's dictatorial soda size discrimination.

Via Reddit, the shirt, which appears to come in a not-small size:

This dramatic one-piece eggshell cotton top isn't just workwear, though. The shirt is becoming the hottest thing in street style since creepy men with cameras who aren't Bill Cunningham took over Manhattan, as it's been spotted outside the most fashionable film houses in New York, too. Another Reddit-er dishes:

Yeah, I was approached by a woman in that t-shirt on 2nd ave this past weekend. She asked me if she thought I should have the freedom to choose my own soda. I told her I should have the freedom to see a movie that I paid to see without being accosted by a corporate lobbying group.

The marketing efforts of the ominously-named NYC Beverage Association (who, as far as we can tell, is not run by Mugatu) have also yielded an oddly charming social media presence to shill their sugary, larger-than-large wares. Besides somehow securing an Authorized Account on Twitter, they've also managed to capitalize on "celebrity endorsements" of their cause:

Explanation: Though Jay-Z has not explicitly endorsed an extra large Dr. Pepper for President, he does hold a minority ownership stake in the Brooklyn Nets, and has a branded outpost of his 40/40 Club inside the new Barclays Stadium, and thus, could stand to gain from larger drink sales. This does, however, conflict with Beyonce's ties with Michelle Obama, who has promoted a platform of health and anti-obesity measures, which is why she's been asked where she stands on the matter of Pro-Soda-Size-Choice. As far as The Observer can tell, she has not commented.

Also, canny, topical references:

Despite being a B-League style figure, Ms. Holmes has not yet endorsed Big Soda, either. Anyway, here's hoping the campaign for larger sodas gets more and more extreme as the summer goes on. Anything to remove us from the sordid situation of being stuck in the civic boiler that is New York City for the Summer, like the surreal, Wall-E-esque campaign in favor of the liberty to fatten ourselves beyond repair in the loving embrace of oversized mass-manufactured bubbly sugar water: A comical, and thus, only mildly intrusive distraction from the reality that we live in the world we do, in which people are actually passionate about drinking bedpan-sized sodas that pickle your body (and in the case of male Mountain Dew drinkers, supposedly do wonders for one's genitals).

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

There was The Taco Stand.

Then appeared Trend Pieces.

Soon, The Hoteliers.

Eventually, the Page Six Sightings.

Now, those for whom this was once a special, low-profile place—one unmolested by the terrors of popularity with moneyed Manhattanites—ruination is upon them and their beach. Because if a New York Times trendspotting fashion piece in the Thursday Styles isn't a sign of The End, one would shudder to think what is.

Explains the Times:

It is a pleasure, then, to note that — along a length of the Rockaway Boardwalk, particularly that stretch east of the Rockaway Taco stand near Beach 96th Street informally known as Bushwick on the Beach — New Yorkers show signs that a trip to the shore is at once an occasion for getting semi-naked in public and for preening one’s fashion sense. Take the group of women riding out to the beach on the A train, a subway caravan right out of Lena Dunham’s "Girls."

Of note:

1. We don't know who informally calls it "Bushwick on the Beach," or where it's informally known as such (as a Google search turned up nothing for the term), but kudos to the Times for excavating lexicon previously unwritten for  the rest of humanity to (informally) utilize prior to this.

2. And thus, the trope of referring to Girls to characterize any group of young women traveling in a pack of four to anywhere other young, mostly Caucasian people travel in New York City was less crystallized than it was calloused.

Also of note:

And it is only here that a sunny beauty like Sabine McCalla, the woman behind the guacamole takeout counter at Rockaway Taco, shows up for work in a T-shirt celebrating Hurray for the Riff Raff, whose lead singer, Alynda Lee Segarra, is to a certain group of Brooklyn women what Sarah Jessica Parker is to readers of Vogue.

1. Fact-check: Is it only at Rockaway Beach that beautiful young women show up to work wearing T-Shirts celebrating a band?

2. And furthermore, is the lead singer of a New Orleans band with a very niche following—or "certain group of Brooklyn women"—that most people haven't heard of legitimately comparable to Sarah Jessica Parker for these women (an assertion that makes the music writers who practically discovered them scoff)?

3. Is this week's Thursday Styles dedicated to simply trolling anyone at a computer with a palm to apply to their face and a link to give them in exchange for the distinct pleasure of being prompted to do so?

You be the judge, unless you have been in Rockaway Beach for a while, in which case, we suggest you either batten down the hatches, or take refuge somewhere still too remote for the Times' intrepid Styles Section. That place was once Fort Tilden, but it, too, shall be ruined in good time.

We live in an era in which Three Mile Island may now seem the most viable option.

Boardwalk? Try Catwalk [NYT/Styles]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Yesterday evening, after the story about a shoe began to run at the top of sites around the country, The Observer ran a piece explaining the creative origin of the shoe, something nearly every other news outlet running a story about the sneaker neglected to mention: It was very plainly and clearly inspired by a My Little Monster, a 90s cartoon, something that emerges as a common theme in Jeremy Scott's work.

Scott nor Adidas had mentioned this throughout the controversy. Furthermore, the sneaker hadn't been news since January. How, we wondered, did the sneaker get railroaded so quickly? What was the viral timeline of this story—which had a beginning and an end, and moved at an astounding pace—like?

As far as we can tell, it went like this:

January 31, 2012: Jeremy Scott's JS Roundhouse Mid ‘Handcuff’ for Adidas is announced, and fashion blog High Snobiety picks it up.

June 14, 2012, 5:33 AM: Almost six months later, Adidas posts a photo of the sneakers to their Facebook page. "Tighten up your style with the JS Roundhouse Mids, dropping in August. Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?" The first few comments on the Facebook page:

June 14, 2012, 5:40 AM: One Facebook fan of Adidas asks: "my pet monster?"

June 14, 2012, 4:20 PM: Shadow and Act, an IndieWire film blog about African-American cinema, posts about the shoes after one of their contributors sends in link to Adidas' Facebook page.

Maybe inspired by "slave-movie-fever" perhaps? Adidas brass looking to capitalize, as Anthony noted in his email? Or is this just entirely unintentional on Adidas' part, although ignorant of what the design of these new kicks might suggest to some? Or not even worth discussing?

June 15, 2012: An NBC Blog, The Grio, posts about the shoe, linking to the IndieWire post.

June 16, 2012, 1:44 PM: A Syracuse professor posts to YourBlackWorld.net with the headline "Adidas Releases New Slave Shoes with Shackles and All."

June 17, 2012, 1:19 PM: Hip Hop Wired posts about the sneakers, linking to IndieWire.

June 18, 2012, 9:09 AM (GMT): Huffington Post UK picks up the story, linking to both IndieWire and YourBlackWorld.net, and quotes extensively from the Facebook page.

June 18, 2012, 10:43 AM (EST): The New York Daily News picks up the story on their site, using the IndieWire post as a source, but incorrectly cites sneaker blog Kicks on Fire as debuting the shoes in February.

June 18, 2012, 11:35 AM: The Huffington Post US picks up the story in an unbylined post, correctly identifying the sneaker's drop-date, but linking only to Adidas' Facebook page. They're the first to get quotes from both Adidas and Jeremy Scott denying any racial motivations to the shoe.

June 18, 2012, 11:05 AM: DrJays.com, a lifestyle site, picks the story up. Their story is later linked by USA Today.

June 18, 2012, Noon: The story is beginning to go viral. Rush Limbaugh discuses the shoe on his show that morning, and the transcript—released almost instantly—reads:

If you show 'em to a black guy and they think slavery... And he had no idea it was coming, so I'll defer. I'll defer on this one to [Limbaugh acquaintance] Mr. Snerdley with his 100% slave blood. What do you bet these shoes never see the light of day? A couple or three pairs will end up on eBay. They'll be collectors items. They'll be sold. They'll show up on a Hitler video or something like that. (laughing)

Fox News posts it, and puts it on their news wire. The Christian Post picks it up and quotes from YourBlackWorld.com and the New York Daily News' report (the post, dated for this morning, was indexed by Google yesterday afternoon).

June 18, 2012, 5:13 PM: The Observer posts the actual inspiration for the shoe, which was not—as widely reported or speculated—human slavery.

June 18, 2012, 6:48 PM: Jeremy Scott Tweets out a picture of the toy that inspired his shoe. At 6:52, he Tweets out the Observer's report, ostensibly confirming our theory about his work.

June 18, 2012, 8PM: Later in the evening, word gets out that Rev. Jesse Jackson has released a statement denouncing the shoe.

Jackson told CNN this morning:

"I am stunned at the insensitivity," Jackson said. "It was a gross insult. We were prepared to engage in a boycott in 50 markets. We contacted Adidas yesterday and contacted [National Basketball Association Commissioner] David Stern, who, in turn, within a few minutes called Adidas and had it cancelled. They cancelled it because they got a call from David Stern and the threat of a real boycott," Jackson proudly declared.

June 18, 2012, 8:36 PM: Adidas announces that they're canceling the shoe.

June 19, 2012, 3:43 AM: The New York Post files a story about the shoes to go on the 15th page of today's paper. The only sources quoted are users from Facebook, and the Adidas PR rep.

June 19, 2012, 3:15 PM: The words "Jeremy Scott racist" index 221 results from the last 24 hours on Google News, despite fairly irrefutable proof that designer Jeremy Scott had no intention of offending anybody so much as paying tribute to a 90s cartoon he liked.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek