Snow Blindness: Where am I?

Nemo hit New York and all of New England just when the lights were dimming and the front row sucked their last bits of juice from the thirsty photographers. The timing seemed almost deliberate as though Mother Nature was saying,"Enough with this madness". With flight cancellations in and out of all three airports, she all but stopped editors, buyers and the European contingent from even entering the city. I felt for the designers who were scheduled without contingency plans. but the shows did go on with or without the important invited guests. It was probably a boon for the hordes who are usually herded into the "Select Standing"areas. Many of them scored front row seats so the press/video images would show a crowded venue. Unfortunately, it looks as though there was precious little, so far, to get excited over. If confused ideas, endless parades of tepid looks and  mojo-less major players are your thing, then you scored. I've looked and looked and looked again and all I've seen is snow.

Alexander Wang just showed and the pressure of his appointment to Balenciaga shows. The cool is still sort of there , but the sex has left the building. It was like a lover that suddenly doesn't do it for you, no matter what drugs or drink you take. A sea of grey, dark grey and even darker grey was the palette and most of the jackets over skirts and knit Jammie pants fell below the hips in a twenties meets teens vibe. I liked that. What left me cold were the shapes which became arch, self-consciously studied and hard a la Cristobal but without any of the artistry or magic. It was a little like Marc Jacobs/Louis Vuitton. 

The Wang collection looks like the distilled vision (the cheap one, more specifically) and his Balenciaga will most likely be the jacked up version. Even the sweaters and T-shirts that are his stand-by, crowd-pleasers were hard and awkward just like his predecessor, Ghesquierre. An origami fold at the shoulder of several jackets, coats and tops looks to be the message, his couture shape as it were. I fear there will only be more of that in the future. Not one look was sexy in a sexy sort of sexiness. If you like your sexy served up on a cold plate, all stiff and hard  (and not in that good sort of way) then you can start the heavy breathing. I'm mystified because the Pre-Fall was pretty hot, kind of cool and not so leaden. I'm just sayin'..

* images courtesy of style.com  Video courtesy of Vogue.com

NEWS FLASH ! NEWS FLASH! NEWS FLASH!

Now, finally things are getting interesting. It appears that John Galliano has finally found a halfway house that's uniquely suited to his talents. According to Vogue and a very in the know, up to the moment, always in the loop insider, he's to be admitted to the Oscar de la Renta Institute for further observation and an aggressive battery of occupational therapy. Considering the Oscar de la Renta Institute has been listing in the shallows for the past few years, their star patient may be just the boost they, and he, need. Between the classes in lace embroidery, ball gowning, sweater setting and tweed suiting, not to mention intensive classes in Cha-Cha-Cha-ing, this could just be the place for him to regain his strength, repair the damage and re-imagine his future. One can not help but figure the influence and gentle nudging of Nurse Wintour, the post modern doppelganger of Nurse Ratchet. Her tough love methods of covert intimidation and deal brokering may just be what everyone needs at this juncture. I for one am extremely curious as to how this will all play out, as I'm sure many of you will be too. Until I have more intel and can decipher the coded language, I'll get back to you soon.

Fluff Chance, Candy Striper

Heidiland: An Alpine Alternative

I’m not kidding when I titled this story Heidiland. This is the sign you see on the way to Hotel Therme Vals, an alpine getaway high up in the Swiss Alps. I think of skiing, cold, snow and treacherous routes, whether by car or by skis, when I think Swiss Alps. It’s where I learned to ski. (The kiddy hill was the parking lot) I had no idea that nestled in this skiers paradise is a thermal bath spa that takes your breath away, literally.

The adventure begins the moment you see in the distance, mountains, peaks, rock formations and snow, lots and lots of snow. The autobahn shrinks to a 2-way road that winds and winds ever upward through a valley and then like a goat herded by Goat Peter (yes, this neighborhood was his, along with Heidi and Grandfather) The car hugs the side of the mountain with a guard rail-less passenger side that drops down hundreds of meters. That part was tough to look at. Once in the tiny town we checked into a hotel that was a mid-century modern dream, complete with a 4 star restaurant. Our room looked out over the town below and up to the mountains that rose at a 90-degree angle.

As it was early evening, we put away our bags and went down for dinner that lasted 3 hours and included 6 courses, each more delicious than the other. Dessert was fantastic but not as amazing as the midnight bathing program that started when dinner ended.
Stone, concrete, slate and bronze are the ingredients to this fantasy experience. The hot water springing up from the earth fills several different pools. Some are large and others small, and all in different temperatures from ice cold to 110 degrees. The rules of the spa for the midnight session is SILENCE, so all was hushed with only ambient music playing in different areas. The water is loaded with nutrients that we all drank and bathed in. (that water one drinks goes to work on your digestive track...big time.) Sleek, spare, dramatic and elegant only begins to describe this jewel.

The most mysterious pool was the largest that sat outside under the stars that filled the sky. It was warm with a cloud of steam drifting above with jets under the surface. Inside we found a warren of saunas that started warm and progressively got warmer as you pass through. With large slabs of black granite like sarcophagi, we tested each until I could feel my bones begin to turn to liquid. This was all just in the first night.

My experience in the past with European sauna/baths is the unsettling co-ed rule. Every man, woman and child crowds together naked in the same room to sweat it out. That alone is a bit too close for my taste but being the only black man in a sea of sweating pinkies is equally unsettling. Everyone stares. They're all staring at me and I'm as naked as they are but for some unknown reason I'm the target of a whole steam filled room's roving glance. It's enough to make all of ones confidence and attributes dissolve in the haze. Fortunately, Vals was a bathing suit, bathrobe-clad crowd. My Speedo was a touch outre' compared to the surf jam wearing guys and dads, but hey...I was just feeling free to be me.

 Early the next day after a breakfast that we didn’t want to stop refilling our plates we took a hike up the mountain road above the hotel for 2 hours. It was a relentless climb but the view and scenery was breathtaking. Once at the top of the route we found a tiny café nestled on the side of the abyss and had a lunch that was perfect. For the descent, we rented little one-man toboggans and skidded our way down the way we’d come. I was terrified of rocketing off the side of the road, but fortunately that didn’t happen. Before heading back to the spa for a late afternoon “cure” we wandered through the town with its ancient chalets, church and square. I’ll let these pictures speak for me.

I’m writing this from my room looking at the lights of the village, like candles, still in my robe and slippers from the spa. Early tomorrow morning we’ll have head to toe massages, breakfast and then wind our way down the mountain and back to Zurich and the airport, that is if I don’t decide to stay. I found a sweet herd of goats that I could tend and float in these miraculous steaming pools for the rest of my days. Happy New Year all. Make this year one that not only excites and satisfies, but also one that restores!

The Short Game

When things go horribly wrong my first instinct is to choke. All I can think to do is to escape or at worst bury myself deep under the covers. This response is good for about 2 or 3 minutes and I invariably man-up and move straight ahead; smack into the oncoming bummer that can be as wrenching as a lost business/career or as truly dreadful as a death in the family, whether blood-related or chosen. Facing tragedy of this sort the reflex to flee is understandable. The fact of the matter is that once it's acknowledged, one is forever changed. There's no going back as the road we were just on has disappeared and whatever route we see in the distance is foreign and unknowable. I hate that uncertainty. I hate when things change, though some changes one knows to be for the best. It's the seemingly random changes with no obvious benefits that leave me uncomfortable and disoriented.

Spring2013 A Wang

That's what I'm feeling at this moment in front of the fire preparing to cook dinner. I'm removed from the city for the weekend but the news of PPR's appointment of Alexander Wang to direct Balenciaga, creatively, has followed me here. Though I run, I can't hide. Why do I run? In short, it's kind of like when you imagine being in the middle of an earthquake, all you can think of is survival so you seek shelter in the most absurd places. These days feel much like a symbolic quake has befallen the fashion world. A second Golden Age has come to its end. That ending has been coming for the past 10+ years but it's here now. The days of design houses with clear identities, their designers with a developed aesthetic in charge of the image, the product and the direction it would take, this is all in the past now. Most designers don't even sketch any more. It's now about product development, tech packs and stylists. It's all about branding and the brand. The funny thing is that the "brand" has little to do with the product. In fact, the product doesn't have much bearing on the bigger picture. What does have bearing is the buzz. The designer as bad boy( there are almost no girls to be the designer or bad, for that matter...) the bag as "IT", the show as spectacle and the hyperbole surrounding the proceedings parade as fact.

Spring2013 A Wang

If you can get past the fireworks of the show, hang onto the thread of reviews, resulting ad campaigns to the day the clothes land on the selling floor, you'll likely see something that vaguely resembles the initial presentation minus the Greek chorus telling you how game changing these clothes are. They're far from that. Other than some banal shopping bag stuffers, the bulk of what you'll find are a few over the top runway pieces priced to be borrowed and a slew of bits and pieces (bags, etc). Its those bits that you'll see on the street, the all important street, that birthplace and graveyard of all great design... Almost nothing else. The only thing that matters is the buzz on the street and all the crap that gets watered down and shoveled into the gaping maw of the masses. That stroll down the "street" is a grim march. And that's how I view the appointment of Alexander Wang to Balenciaga. A 29 year old club kid is not an Yves Saint Laurent who took the reins at Dior at the age of 21. Neither was Ghesqiuere. In 15 years Ghesquiere was little more an influential designer than when he started. Sure there were some great bags and shades that hit the marketplace, even a few pairs of shoes. Other than a few isolated seasons with compelling clothes and shapes, though they never hit that all important "street" unless you count the smoking area in front of Conde' Nast or the Miracle Meter that sits smack in front of MBFW entrance at Lincoln Center. There were unusual fabrics employed that were more about research and development than fashion. What did appear on his watch were for the most part aggressively de-feminizing clothes that said much more about him than it did the women he was hired to dress. I don't count editors as women, more as devices. They were all too happy to emasculate themselves in those harsh, unappetizing clothes.

Spring2013 A Wang

The one shred of hope I have is the fact that the spring 2013 collection by Wang was lyrical, technically challenging and sophisticated. Gone were the banal T-shirts, leggings, and dumb uniform we associate with redundant models and their faceless, fleshless figures. The cantilevered dresses, jackets and cool graphics played off of clothes dissected and hanging together by his force of will were a leap above and away from his compatriots. Altuzzara, Gurung, Proenza Schouler and a herd of other post grads with little identity beyond party pics and capsule collections with Target, H&M and Kohl's, didn't come close to his effort. Perhaps, there is something there that is being forced like a hothouse bloom. We'll just have to wait and see. Some critics dislike him for "trying too hard". I would say the opposite. None of these guys try hard enough. They're satisfied with a few editors, stylists, fashion directors and the model of the moment with one hand down their pants and the other reaching for clothes off the rack. Knighthood by the likes of Princess Diane von Furstenberg and Ms. Wintour is enough validation for most. The client, the actual woman who buys and wears, is left somewhere out in the cold.

Spring2013 A Wang

 Many people think that Wang's appointment has everything to do with the emerging Chinese market. There's probably a fair amount of truth in that considering Mr. Pinault's statements to the contrary. (He protests too much.) I loved the statement regarding Wang's visit to the Balenciaga archives to soak up the mood of the house and sink his teeth into its DNA. He was reported to have "wanted to spend the night" there, it was all so fascinating. I guess there wasn't time as he was reported to be on the party circuit the following night in NYC... At the risk of sounding like a meannie, I hope that he makes a bolder statement than Hedi Slimane and a more inspired effort than Raf Simons. The short game is the new long shot, but, hey... this is the new game with new rules.

Monkey Business

I, like so many other New Yorkers, am stressed out. With the hurricane, the election and our early- bird blizzard, things have just gotten to be a little too out of control. Anxiety is the new normal and upheaval is the order of the day. One doesn't have to be flooded out of their home, without electricity or heat or water for going on 2 weeks, unable to find gas or public transport to get from what was once your home to your job to feel a sense on unease. All those mornings I didn't want to get out of bed are nothing to the feelings I've had of late. Things just don't feel right.

Fortunately, the election went the way I'd hoped. That's all I'll say about politics. Except, I'm still struck by the look on Anne Romney's face as Mitt conceded. In her red Oscar or Fiandaca or whatever it was she wore, with those boulder sized rock crystal beads around her neck, she looked as though she'd been woken from some nightmare only to find that the dream was real and all of it while standing in front of millions of people. So much for smug, self satisfaction.

 Smug self satisfaction is the operative phrase. Fashion today, or more to the point, the fashion business, has drowned in its own puddle of standing water. Reading the news of Balenciaga, the exit of Nicholas Ghesquierre and the machinations of LVMH to somehow show up PPR, Nicholas' supposed dissatisfaction with the lack of "support" given by Mr. Pinault, his unhappiness at the "freedom" and "license" so freely given to Hedi Slimane for his re-tread of (Y)SL, all of this "business" is stultifyingly dull and has nothing to do with fashion. Fashion, that poor unsuspecting victim, not to mention all of us who have followed her, as though she were a siren song or the pied piper, have come to a place in the forest empty of trees, water, sky or light. It's a scorched earth we stand on.

Slimane's (Y)SL means little or nothing to me. Other than editors and the conglomerate that owns and supports it and a few die-hard sheep it has no validity. Balenciaga has been the same in my eyes for years. Sure, the accessories, shoes and bits and pieces made money and noise.

lock-step editors

The gush of hyperbole from editors like Suzy Menkes at the International Herald Tribune and others at the Times, WSJ and a host of blogs/bloggers made Ghesquierre out to be the most influential design force of the past 10 years. The item he sent the world scurrying to copy was a pair of cargo pants. Gee. ( I know I over simplify, but I'm trying to make a point here. Work with me on this...) From his beginning where he "designed"a much photographed vest that was a COMPLETE copy of one by the master of collage, Koos van den Akker, put an sour taste in my mouth. Koos was my last boss before I struck out on my own. There is only one Koos, and fortunately the world is about to learn a great deal more about him thanks to an up-coming book and documentary film.

Nicholas who pointedly avoided the Balenciaga archive made one unfortunate misstep by that decision. The ethos of Balenciaga's approach to design was that the fabric, no matter its property: hard or soft, must move with the body. Never should it be in combat with the body. Despite all the creative experiments that Nicholas achieved with his fabrics, many of them man made state of the art manipulations of disparate materials they rarely worked with the body. Hard, harder and rock hardest is one way to describe them.They were the stuff of a trend poisoned editor's dream. Aggressive, self-consciously studied clothing rested on the shoulders of models like provocative sandwich boards, one moment drwing attention and the next repelling it. The rare times I came upon women in the street wearing the label it was too often re-issued designs from the original archive. They were often coats that made your heart stop. So, no tears from this corner. If LVMH now wants to give him his own label, he should remember that is in name and contract only. One need only to look at Galliano and his eponymous label to see that it is only yours as long as you have a job. The moment you're no longer essential, the name stays and you go.

There's a lot more to be said on this. I don't want to go on and on and risk boring you.  The newspapers and blogosphere are jammed with innocuous stories and pathetic bits passed off as news. It's not. Tory Burch's legal problems with her husband Chris of C.Wonder fame (and the guy whose money set her up and continues to head her business' board) is all just a mammoth luxury problem. Anna Wintour and DVF climbing in between the battling parties is unseemly. Kate Moss' supposed nervous breakdown while shooting CK ads in panties sans bra with Marky Mark is simply fantasy. The prescribed Valium to help cope wasn't as effective as coke. Simple math.

Model pregnancies, break-ups and break downs isn't news. Reed Krakoff looking at the camera in a NYT's story about being the consultant to the architects in charge of building the new tower in the Hudson Yards that will house the new Coach headquarters as though he were president of MOMA instead of a handbag company and another that couldn't make a dress that storm victims would take even if it were offered for free. He can design a great bag, but that's the beginning and end of story. He knows how to buy pedigreed art, furniture and homes like the best of them. But that's not rocket science when you have that kind of money. It buys you a cozy seat on the board of the most important body of American Fashion designers, too. In the end, this is all just monkey business. The big ape getting throttled by the rabid chimp with the hairy low hanging balls. Its all just a jungle, and we're just the suckers off to the sides watching helplessly like forlorn bunnies forgotten on the sofa.

*all images shot by me at Montreal's Musee' de Beaux Arts

New York City: Humbled and Healing

The unimaginable happened. Hurricane Sandy, that unwelcomed and uninvited guest to this teeming city of communities and commerce stealthily slipped up the coastline breaching every barrier in her path. Like so many storms in the recent past New Yorkers had become immune to worry, sure that the weathermen and women were simply hyping a flurry or drizzle to grab the spotlight from the bigger stories in the world.

Preparedness for many of us consisted of buying extra mixers to go with an extended cocktail hour and a back up of popcorn to get us through the extra films we’d rented. Many of us eschewed the nasty business of taping our windows simply because the messy residue of glue left behind was more trouble than its worth when time came to remove it. Better to just kick back, keep the yummies coming and for god’s sake have enough batteries at hand for the TV’s remote. I even ventured to New Jersey to an auction of art and mid-century modern furniture the day the storm hit thinking I’d have an edge with fewer people as foolhardy as myself to venture out. Needless to say, the sparse auction room was but a trick of the eye with 1000 people on the internet and phone lines bidding everything out from under we poor suckers sitting impotently on our folding chairs.

Well upon leaving at 7 p.m. the rain had started and there was a bit of a gust in the air. By the time we got to the Goethals Bridge and on into Brooklyn Heights (I needed to close my windows, block the fireplace, a wind tunnel for soot and wild life, get some fresh undies, my computer and my rain boots) the rain and wind was blowing sideways down the street. Staying on the UWS seemed wise considering the Mayor had shut down all public transport and closed almost all the bridges; so needlessly dramatic, not to mention inconvenient to my way of thinking. Throughout the night I kept waking up to the screaming wind and rain battering the windows but chalked it up to a noisy storm. It wasn’t.
The following morning showed me and everyone else from New England to North Carolina and New Jersey most dramatically of all that Hurricane Sandy came, saw and conquered us all. Power for many tens of thousands, if not millions is but a memory, even a week after the event.

Lower Manhattan (from 39th street down) is without light, water or heat, other than what little generators are able to muster. Businesses are shut for the time being. Underground garages, basements of buildings and lobbies and low-lying parks are submerged. The subway system to a large degree is a series of subterranean waterways. Many, many homes in the outer boroughs were burned to the ground with remaining gas lines still burning unabated. Trees are down throughout the city and suburbs taking with them essential power lines, access to roadways and internet/cellular services are compromised in unprecedented ways.

All of this is just to say that unlike the past where we all squeaked by with little more than a snow day from school or some branches and the odd tree down in a park or some less fortunate neighborhood, this time we got kissed by the big one. All we can do is exercise patience, be helpful and understanding to those around us who are suffering the same discomforts and keep an eye on how the state and national government work through this catastrophe for and with us. That is a telling and important story, of its own. The next time we are threatened with a visit by a boisterous, inelegant blow-hard like Sandy, let’s do all we can to keep her where she belongs… outside instead of in.

Frankenstorm: and Sandy was her name-o!

the sun room with Silas Seandel (attr.) bronze table

It seems that I've traditionally reported to you all from the storm centers of the eastern seaboard. More specifically, the nerve center of art, style, finance, architecture, real estate and society: East Hampton. Well, I have an apology to make; I skipped the gilded confines of our dacha in the woods for the grittier environs of NYC and rural New Jersey. New Jersey was due to the Rago Auction of 20th century modern furniture, objects and art on Sunday in Lambertville. On an almost deserted New Jersey Thruway we rocketed our way to Rago early Sunday morning in time to preview the lots before the gavel dropped promptly at 11 a.m..

(my) Silas Seandel sculpture

The sky was a silvered grey with clouds shaped like racing chariots. The air pressure was shifting causing my feet to swell in my new Tod's. About an hour into the proceedings I was ready to cut them off and walk bare foot. Despite a light rain it was hard to imagine that a cataclysmic weather event was barreling its way up the coast. The distraction of a Nakashima furniture, Bertoia sculptures, Jensen sterling flatware, Prouve, Adnet, Parzinger lighting and Robsjohn-Gibbings chairs and tables took my mind off of the house in East Hampton surrounded by mature trees, 8-foot potted Elephant ears plants on decks, around the pool and heavy chairs and lounges here and there all over the property. The fact that 3/4 of the house is made up of large planes of glass gave me little comfort. But I turned my attention to beauty, and the game of bidding against sharp shooting collectors in the room, but also an army of bidders on the phones and Internet.The skylights overhead in the auction space kept the room abreast of the storm's progress.

Silas Seandel tables

The problem with collecting steadily over the past 10 years for a apartment, house and a studio/showroom leaves little room for more. When I've found things I love they are gotten for the long haul, not to be flipped and switched for something else. I feel the same about my friends. I'm not an up-grader by nature unless its shoes, clothes or phones. Other than lamps that could be squeezed into the mix, I was limited to small objects. There was a cast steel sculpture by a furniture maker, Silas Seandel, known for his amorphous bronze and aluminum occasional tables, like enormous kidney shaped masses. This piece suggested an armless figure in patinated steel. It drew me like a magnet and I swore to myself ( and Anton with the auction paddle) that that was coming home with us, NO MATTER WHAT. Beyond this treasure were a pair of Jacques Adnet floor lamps with the look of bamboo in cast bronze. So delicate, so glamorous and so f%*^#$g expensive. The auctioneer actually stopped the bidding to ask if I was ok, my expression was so noticeably stricken. Oh well.

Angelo Lelli for Arredoluce

The best of the day were a pair of chandeliers from 1958 ( my birth year) by an Italian designer Angelo Lelli for Arredoluce. I'd never seen anything like them. Cast bronze arms that range against the ceiling like an enormous spider with frosted glass bubble globes like enormous cultured pearls. It resembled a modernist brooch scaled for a ceiling 80" in length and 50" across. It was so striking I would have gladly eaten below it sitting on the floor. Well one sold for $18k and the second went for a song at $12k. Silently, I wept but it planted a seed. I will never forget that chandelier and from now on whenever I have a moment to dream I will search high and low to find other examples that may come available. Light is so important to me. The feel of a well and subtly lit space is essential to my piece of mind. This work of lighting art did just that with the added bonus of being a thing of beauty to behold.

So we came back to a stormy, windblown city. I shut up tight Brooklyn Heights( my love shack) and came to West 72nd st to stay with Anton. We stocked up on food, lined up a ton of films, including Season 3 of DOWNTON ABBEY (oh yeaahhhh), The Heiress, Prometheus, Marnie, The Paperboy,

Jacques Adnet lamps

the NBC Peggy Fleming specials from the early 70's, my video of my last horse show in Palm Beach with my beloved Gomer (Fandango) and the on demand lineup of Homeland, Boss and Honey Boo-Boo. The highest, the lowest and all the flotsam and jetsam in between. I called to caretaker in East Hampton for an update and though the power is out, no real damage happened to the property. A tree or 2 down on the back acres squishing the deer fence and lots of branches and leaves all over the yard, decks and floating in the pool. Fortunately, that it. I miss not being there but this time I'm glad I tempered the stress with a little auction/retail therapy. We were the first to arrive at the auction and the second to last to leave at about 8p.m. It felt good to show solidarity with other certifiable aesthetes. Just after David Rago the proprietor and auctioneer went around dispensing shots of vodka to the hard core survivors of 1400 lots that went under the gavel. Then he and the room thanked us for coming and staying the duration.

Pamela Sunday sculpture, my next find...

The city welcomed us back with rain flying horizontally. Still, as the windows rattled and wind screamed like a deranged Harpie, we settled in, in our jammies, apple-cranberry pie with vanilla ice cream and a remote control freshly stocked with brand new batteries. Though the city all but flooded and blew away, we had a sexy new sculpture, a warm well lighted place and best of all each other.