Joe Zee, chicken-eater

Joe Zee is fashion director at Elle, and apparently one of the nicest guys in the business (even if more people recognize him more from The City or Project Runway than his own All On the Line). So it should be no surprise that he's lavished with gifts wherever he goes...especially during Fashion Week. Though Gucci might have outdone itself with its present to Mr. Zee when they caught sight of him front-row during their Milan event this week.
From Mr. Zee's blog:

Hungry and disappointed, I shifted my focus onto the chic flash of Twenties-inspired beaded dresses coming down the runway. Then, after a long 18 hour day, I came back to my hotel room to find flowers, tomorrow’s show tickets and a beautifully wrapped package from Rossi & Grassi, courtesy of Courtney and Gucci. I tore open that package first—of course—and was surprised and delighted to find a beautiful roast chicken!

Gucci is giving away free chicken now? From the looks of their shows this year, it'd probably be smarter to give a spare thigh or two to one of the models on the runway before they go berserk and devour Mr. Zee themselves.

The humble amateur violinist. (via nytimes.com)

Joe Zee and his violin were featured in "Posessed," the Times Sunday Styles feature that gives free, tightly controlled publicity to bold face names with projects to promote (see Rose McGowan, Conan the Barbarian),  and Stephen Adly Guirgis, The Motherfucker With The Hat) under the pretense of writing about their favorite objets.

Joe Zee, whose Sundance reality show "All on the Line" starts up again in November, would like to tell us about his violin because it's a symbol of how he's good at... everything.

“I was good at everything,” said Mr. Zee. “I was like Tracy Flick, sitting in the front row and raising my hand for everything. English, math -- anything with a textbook. I was good at consuming knowledge. And I was great at home ec!” 

He taught himself how to be good at violin. “Because of the piano, I could read music. And I’m a really good mimic, so I could watch TV footage of great concert violinists, watch how they sat, how they held the bow, and tried to just mimic that, over and over. One day it all fell into place, and I just kept doing it until I got it perfect.”

It turned out Joe Zee was good at other instruments too: "After conquering the violin, Mr. Zee taught himself the viola, then the cello, then the bass. 'It was fascinating to be able to do every part of a quartet,' he said."

Joe Zee was not good at one thing: “I wasn’t so good at phys ed."

But according to his column in this month's Elle, it won't be long before he's good at that too.

"I am obsessed with dance. Hip-hop, ballet, ballroom--I don't discriminate. I watch it, I support it, and  in the past few years, have attended classes regularly in an attempt to master it."

His self-professed work ethic is impressive, but we suspect what matters now is how good Mr. Zee gets at promoting Elle on "All on the Line." And with former Elle fashion director Nina Garcia now representing rival magazine Marie Claire on "Project Runway," it's no bunny hop!

Her baby-blue, low-cut romper at the CW upfronts in May; the backless, one-sleeve, high-slit teal Versace number at the Met Costume gala; and the unflattering, eggplant Burberry Prorsum dress at the New Yorkers for Children benefit were not so well received. 

Ms. Lively does not employ a stylist. Or so she says, anyway. (A rep for Ms. Lively did not return the Transom’s calls.)

“She’s the one that looked like a mess in that Nina Ricci dress at the Golden Globes!” sniped celebrity stylist Phillip Bloch, who has worked with Halle Berry and Salma Hayek. “This is why you need a stylist. If you go to a designer, their goal is to get you out the door and on the red carpet in their gown come hell or high water. They’re never going to say, ‘This just might not be right for you.’”

And yet, Ms. Lively and other actresses, including her Gossip Girl co-star Taylor Momsen, Chloë Sevigny, MTV newbie Alexa Chung, and, sometimes, Kirsten Dunst, Natalie Portman, Tilda Swinton and Sarah Jessica Parker, are increasingly going directly to designers, visiting showrooms and runway shows, borrowing clothes and thereby cutting out the people who used to broker such deals.

“It used to be that none of the designers even knew the celebrities. The only real designers that had a presence in Hollywood were Versace and Armani,” said Mr. Bloch, who began working in the early ’90s. “We became the liaisons. Then as time progressed and everyone got greedier, they want to cut out the middle person.”

Perhaps this has something to do with stylists like Mr. Bloch, the name-dropping Rachel Zoe, and TLC’s Stacey London, who once worked with Kate Winslet and Liv Tyler, becoming themselves the stars of shows about their industry—at times gaining more publicity than their clients—and, in a sense, destroying the mystery of how the stars’ looks were constructed.

“I worked with Jennifer Lopez years ago, and her publicist came to me once and said, ‘Jennifer doesn’t like you talking about other people you work with. Jennifer wants it about her,’” recalled Mr. Bloch. Actress Debra Messing reportedly parted ways with Ms. Zoe after feeling ignored by the fame-grasping stylist. “When you’re shooting your own show and have all that shit going on that Rachel does, it’s hard to be there for clients,” Mr. Bloch said. (Ms. Zoe could not be reached for comment.)

Meanwhile, design houses are becoming more aggressive about the process, hiring “celebrity services” reps (Lauryn Flynn at Burberry; Nicole Snoep at Calvin Klein) and courting clients directly instead of going through their stylists. “There are dedicated VIP-relations people at virtually every major house that make outreach to actresses and their publicists before premieres and major award shows,” said Annabel Tollman, stylist to Scarlett Johansson and the Olsen twins and the former fashion director of Interview.

Personal stylists are an easy line item to cut in the dwindling budgets of movie studios and major networks. (’Member when Ms. Johansson reportedly missed the Cannes premiere of Vicky Cristina Barcelona after the studio wouldn’t pay for her $4,000-a-day makeup artist?) “Ellen Pompeo and I had lunch a couple of weeks ago,” said Mr. Bloch. “And she said ABC gave her $500 for hair, makeup and stylist to go on Letterman to promote the next season of Grey’s Anatomy—that ain’t gonna cut it!” (An ABC spokesperson said they do not comment on hair and makeup budget for its actors.)

But sacrificing these hardworking fashion advisers, as Mr. Bloch pointed out in Ms. Lively’s case, is not always a good idea.

“I think people who have worked with stylists believe they have learned enough that they can step out on their own,” said Robert Verdi, who’s made a career of critiquing celebrity style. “But it’s like having some legal issue pending and going to court and defending yourself because you took a few legal classes versus going with a lawyer. Which one do you think will have a better outcome?”

View a slideshow of Ms. Lively's best and worst looks here.

Ten minutes later, up walked Kanye West, who chatted with Mr. Leto before taking the seat to his right. Then, who should sit down to Mr. Leto’s left but Gossip Girl star Chace Crawford, who we’d last seen at the GQ men's wear event a few days earlier. Lastly, seated to Mr. Crawford’s left was actor Patrick Wilson, perhaps best known for his role in the 2003 HBO miniseries Angels in America. Yes, the front-row bros of Calvin Klein were all present and accounted for. And so the show began.

It was something of a monumental event. The show was not only a celebration of the brand’s 40th anniversary, but also the first time the men’s collection had been shown in New York since Italo Zucchelli became creative director (and also its return stateside after 11 shows in Milan). To say the least, it was the men's wear pinnacle of Fashion Week.

Set to the music of West Side Story, (“Boy, boy, crazy boy / Get cool, boy / Got a rocket in your pocket”), the show lasted about 10 minutes, with highlights including some foamy, space-age looking ensembles apparently born of the same manufacturing technique as bike-seat fabric. Overall, the collection was slim and chic—lots of blacks, grays and charcoals.

On the way out, the Daily Transom bumped into Elle creative director and Stylista judge Joe Zee, who was wearing old-school brown Nikes, vintage Helmut Lang jeans and a blue V-neck sweater by Pringle monogrammed with his initials.

“I thought it was great!” he said of the show. “Very architectural, very modern and slightly futuristic. But there’s also very wearable clothes in there.”

And what about all those dark recession colors?

“It’s a little, you know, somber for the times,” he said. "But in the end, it’s really investment dressing.”

Zac Posen is reportedly at work on several lower-priced diffusion lines. [FWD]

Té Casan, which used to carry Natalie Portman's vegan line of shoes, has officially gone out of business and closed for good on November 30, a store associate has confirmed. [The Cut]   

Claudia Schiffer has succeeded Naomi Campbell as the face of Yves Saint Laurent for the label's spring/summer 2009 campaign. [Vogue UK]  

Here's a slideshow of Thakoon's full collection for Target, which launches Christmas day. [The Cut] 

Elle creative director and Stylista judge Joe Zee and designer Karl Lagerfeld became Facebook friends on December 1. [FWD]  

Ms. Slowey, dressed in an understated long-sleeved black dress and strappy heels, wasn't so much nervous as she was excited about the premiere of the CW network show on which she plays the judge and mentor to contestants aspiring to be "junior editors" at Elle. At the same time, she was trying not to take the whole thing too seriously.

"I'm not a big TV watcher, so I'm sort of the belief that it doesn't really exist," Ms. Slowey told the Daily Transom. "In fact, we taped it back in April so I sort of forgot about it. There is definitely an element of self-parody involved that we're all conscious of, but I'm the first one to laugh at myself in the office, so why not on national television? I don't really care. It is a ridiculous industry. I mean, I feel very lucky to be part of it, but if you think about it, I sit around watching fashion shows and then drum up feature stories about it. It's obviously something women take very seriously, but at the same time it's kind of absurd. I'm not knocking it, I love fashion, but I hope I have a healthy perspective on it and am willing to make fun of myself."

This Anne Slowey seemed nothing like the icy, stern fashion editor mimicking Meryl Streep mimicking Anna Wintour whom we saw in the previews for the show. Was it possible that Ms. Slowey, despite her perfectly sculpted blond locks and drill sergeant outfits, was kinda cool?

Standing nearby was Maxim market editor William Buckley, one of the contestants on the show, who was born in Boston and raised in England. It became clear from the first episode that he would become the official shit-talker on the show

"Anne in the workplace is Anne in the workplace. She was hard on us because there was stuff to be done, but here she's lovely, just look at her," said Mr. Buckley, looking in the direction of a smiling Ms. Slowey. "I actually bumped into her at the Band of Outsiders preview and I swear she threw open her arms and she ran over, like, 'William!'"

Then Mr. Buckley said something the Daily Transom was strangely relieved to learn. "Anne can party, can party harder than anyone. Trust me, I've seen it. She can drink me under the table," he said.

In the debut episode, challenges assigned to the contestants included creating the perfect breakfast tray for Ms. Slowey, picking out office-appropriate attire at H&M, and designing their own contributors page, all while elbowing each other to impress their new boss on the first day of the job. (Mr. Buckley revealed that "Megan," the store-owner from Colorado, was "a bit of a bitch.")

And was this an accurate depiction of what goes into being an editor at a glossy fashion magazine?

"It depends on which magazine and it depends on your boss," said Mr. Buckley. "I'm sure Elle and Vogue are very much like that. I worked at Stuff magazine and my boss always burned my balls, she asked me to do all this crazy shit that I could never do."

"No one has ever carried a breakfast tray for me before the the show. The most anyone has ever carried was an iced latte from Starbucks or maybe, like, a bowl of soup," said Ms. Slowey. "I eat at my desk every day, I almost never take lunch. The reality of my life is the glamorous underbelly of fashion. I'm not out at Michael's every day."

Elle creative director Joe Zee said he and Ms. Slowey agreed to do the show only if they could be themselves.

"We decided at the beginning that we were going to be honest," he said. "We weren't mean to be mean. We were mean because we were being honest. It's not a documentary, but I think there are definitely elements of reality to the show."

Accompanying Ms. Slowey to the premiere party were her two nieces, Meghan and Erin Slowey. The latter makes an appearance on the show as Ms. Slowey's finicky niece who orders contestants to organize her birthday party.

"She's a little Virgo like moi, and she has her bossy, bitchy, know-it-all side, which we were kind of like O.K., that works!" said Ms. Slowey. "She's also a sweet little kid so I was kinda shocked. She scared me. I was like, oh, wow you're inhabiting this way too easily. I actually had to have a talk with her afterward, like, 'You know this isn't reality, don't be doing this to your friends at school!"

This being a Michael Kors show, almost everyone in the fashion industry who is also involved with reality television was in attendance. A sampling: Ms. Klum is Mr. Kors' co-star on Project Runway, while Ms. Zoe recently visited Mr. Kors on her own reality show, The Rachel Zoe Project, to find a dress for her client, Ms. Bryant! Across the runway, Nina Garcia, another Project Runway judge, sat with her new boss, Joanna Coles of Marie Claire, which will be the featured magazine on Project Runway after this season. Meanwhile, Joe Zee of Elle, and more importantly, Elle's new reality show Stylista, stopped to chat with Ms. Klum.

Aside from the show—or rather, shows—in the front row, there was the one on the runway: a crowd-pleasing retro bonanza of primary-colors and polka dots, with red-lipsticked models and a deafening mash-up of the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations," the Go-Gos' "Our Lips are Sealed," and Coldplay on the speakers. Mr. Kors took an ebullient tour of the runway afterwards, rather than the quick wave favored by many designers; after all, he's half the attraction now.

"I loved it," proclaimed one biased critic, Mr. Kors' mother Joan, who had been seated front-row, near Bette Midler. She wore oversized sunglasses and an aristocratic blonde ponytail, like the models. "I've been sitting since Sunday doing the looks with Michael," she revealed. Earlier, Ms. Klum had greeted her warmly with a kiss on the cheek.

"He's always pretty happy," she continued, of her son. "He does [the music] himself...he looks forward to doing it."

Meanwhile, Ms. Klum granted interview after interview to television reporters, while a publicist barked into a headset nearby: "Are you sure she wants to do all these interviews?"

Meadiabistro's Diane Clehane interviewed Mr. Zee about his career and his experience on the show. Read on for highlights as Mr. Zee discusses overeager interns, Nina Garcia's departure at the magazine, and his role on the show.

On interns' sense of entitlement:
I was at W, and I had an intern. On her first day—she hadn't done anything yet—she walked up to me and said, "I just want to ask—if you have a photo shoot with Gwyneth Paltrow, I'd like to come." Half of me was like, "I kind of like that tenacity," and the other half of me was like, "Why don't you do what we need to do here first? I love that you're putting in your order for which actress you'd like to meet. I can't believe you're doing this on day one!"

On press coverage of Nina Garcia's departure:
I don't know if surprised is the word. It was at a time when it was all about Project Runway. It has a really strong following. There was so much business press about the switch from Bravo to Lifetime, it was a topic that was top of mind. Her departure just added a footnote to all the stories and fuel to the fire. I'm not shocked about that aspect. I'm more shocked that I didn't know we were so interesting.

On getting offered to do Stylista:
The mechanics of the show were up and running prior to me coming to Elle. Robbie [Myers] was like, "Come in and have a meeting with these guys." When I did, it sounded like an interesting concept, and everything rolled really quickly. When they asked me to do the show, I said, "Sure."

On his role:
My participation in the show is minimal. I'm a judge. I only needed to come every third day. The shoot was four weeks. We usually did it after work, in the evening. It didn't really affect my workday. It was easier for me because I don't need to show up early for hair and makeup.

On what surprised him about reality TV:
The only shocking part was [how] everything happened so quickly. You're watching these shows and you think it's a longer period of time, but everything just really happens fast.