Category Archives: Media

Not Your Daughter’s Jeans: The Ad Blitz Continues

By Editors on October 6, 2009

nydjWith ad pages plummeting and venerable titles buckling (go gently into the night, dear Gourmet), it’s become a small obsession among some of us to see who in the apparel world is actually advertising more these days. Cut to the print ad blitzkrieg this season from Not Your Daughter’s Jeans. Stacked next to evocative images from Chanel or Dior in Vanity Fair or The New York Times’ Sunday Styles, the NYDJ ad—just a product shot of “the original tummy tuck jeans” on a violet background—is about as scintillating as hospital food. We’re not trying for snark here—NYDJ is a hometown company (based in Vernon), and we’re all for jeans that flatter, especially for a price tag below $100. But we’ve simply never seen anyone wear them. They’re in Bloomingdales, but who’s buying them? Do they actually work? Or are they simply a premium version of SNL’s infamous “Mom Jeans”? We’re curious.

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Condé Nast Closes Gourmet Magazine and Modern Bride

By Erin Weinger on October 5, 2009

Modern BrideToday marks a sad day in publishing indeed. Condé Nast has announced the shuttering of Gourmet, the cooking glossy that has been in print for 68 years. Other titles in the fall out include Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride.

According to the Modern Bride media kit, the magazine has been printed for six decades as well.

Brides, Condé’s flagship wedding title, will begin publishing monthly. While Gourmet’s website will remain up “at least through the end of the year,” according to Drew Schutte, senior vice president and chief revenue officer at Conde Nast Digital.

Catch the full company memo at Mediaite.

Good thing we don’t cook and have no intention of hearing wedding bells in our immediate future. We’re still sad, though.

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‘Art for Obama’ Book, Penned by L.A. Activists, Hits Stands

By Editors on September 24, 2009

6a00d8341c630a53ef0115710ffb0c970c-piThe Hope painting, rendered by pioneering guerilla artist Shepard Fairey, felt like L.A.’s key contribution to the election of Barack Obama (though Hollywood shelled out plenty of fiscal love for the cause).

And now Fairey, along with L.A. publicist Jennifer Gross of Evolutionary Media – who co-founded the Manifest Hope project — have compiled the definitive book on art inspired by our newbie president, Art for Obama.

The soft-cover coffee table book is full of vibrantly hued pieces from the Manifest Hope project — from Ron English‘s Abraham Obama painting to Diederick Kraaijeveld‘s salvaged wood project, Mr. President. Light on words, the tome does feature a smattering of short blurbs detailing key artists and pieces.

But beyond the details, flipping through the pages, you can’t help but remember how exciting the moment was when you realized just how cool being politically active was.

–Becca Lett


Photo: Courtesy of Abrams Image

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Top Five: The Best-Dressed TV Characters of All Time

By Editors on September 23, 2009

Sunday’s Emmys had us mulling over TV’s greatest fashion plates — the women who launched trends, inspired debate and convinced us that bedazzled shoulder pads were really glam (and really, they are). After much debate, we’ve IDed the most stylish femmes to ever inhabit our boob tubes:

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Rhoda Morgenstern (Mary Tyler Moore Show)

Valerie Harper as Rhoda Morgenstern embodied the post-hippie Seventies boho on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. And next to Mary Tyler Moore’s polyblend suits and “work appropriate” neck scarves, Rhoda’s floaty gossamers, headscarves and gypsy petticoats felt like a breathe of patchouli-scented air. Plus, you know you’d rather get a cocktail with Rhoda. Mary was hopelessly square.

dm9Dorothy Zbornak (The Golden Girls)

No one wore sequins like the late, great Bea Arthur, who played the scowling, tough-love-doling Dorothy on the greatest gramma show ever: The Golden Girls. Draped in shoulder-padded layers and trim sweaters, Zbornak proved that sparkly, androgynous dressing knows no age limit.

murphybrown_11Murphy Brown (Murphy Brown)

Murphy Brown, the ultimate 80s “career gal,” brought the formerly taboo subject of single, unwed motherhood to the forefront, and was dressed to the nines will making her point. Played by the gorgeous Candice Bergen, Murphy was was clad in roomy-yet-sharp power suits that made you notice Bergen’s glacial beauty before you focused on her ensembles.
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Alexis Carrington (Dynasty)

No TV character is being referenced more in fashion right now that Alexis Carrington, played by Joan Collins. Festooned in furs, dripping with diamonds, soaked in sequins and always topped with a saucy, angled hat, Carrington was a living, breathing reflection of the wild excesses of the 80s, conceptualized by costume designer Nolan Miller (who has described his time on the show as “a designer’s dream.”) The costume department was given a weekly budget of $20,000, which went towards selecting fabrics, patterns, and silhouettes, which then were stitched by hand and sewn to fit each character. Sigh. Those were the days.

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Joan Harris/Holloway (Mad Men)

Front and center in Mad Men fan-dom is Joan Harris, convincingly played by red-headed bombshell Christina Hendricks. Her much-dissected curves are swathed in some of the most innovative, conceptually sophisticated wardrobe choices we’ve seen in awhile, thanks to costume designer Janie Bryant. Joan’s jewel-toned dresses contrast sharply against the fading idealism of the Camelot era. Total sartorial heaven.

–Julia Good

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Project Runway’s L.A. Times Challenge

By Emili Vesilind on September 18, 2009

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Booth Moore, the veteran fashion critic at the Los Angeles Times — and my old boss at the Image section there — made a guest appearance on Project Runway last night, which saw the designers cobbling dresses together out of newspaper (much to my husband’s delight, an old cover story of mine ended up being one of the most used “textiles”).

Moore, who’s a sharp, witty writer and strong public speaker, did a great job of introducing the challenge. But why didn’t they make her a guest judge? The guest judges this season have been totally unsatisfactory. Lindsay Lohan? Eva Longoria? Where are Nina Garcia and Michael Kors?

Tommy Hilfiger‘s quiet cool is no substitute for Kors’ biting sarcasm. And Marie Claire senior editor Zoe Glassner, who has exhibited questionable taste on more than one occasion, is certainly no shiny-shinned Garcia.

Without the O.G. team restored, PR is in danger of jumping the shark — and soon.

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Uh, Mission VERY Possible: TLC Seeks Nation’s Worst Dresser

By Erin Weinger on September 15, 2009

Are you a fashion victim?Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Help TLC find the worst dressed person in America for their 250th episode of “What Not to Wear.”

Your instructions:

Go to any of the following before September 25th–the Beverly Center, Disneyland, Orange County, Ralph’s, anywhere in the state of Indiana, your local Ruby Tuesday’s, Medieval Times, the Christian Audigier store, an arena football match, Jo-Ann Fabrics, a taping of The Maury show, Wal-Mart’s $1 DVD bin, Spearmint Rhino, the DIY carpet cleaner-rental-area at Home Depot, the Cat Show at the Santa Monica Civic Center, a model train convention, Michael’s Crafts, a taping of The Real World, Von Maur, the Sonic drive-through, Riverside, Del Taco at 2:45 a.m., the DMV, the A/V department of your local public library, Golden Corral Buffet, the airport Chili’s Express, any Southwest flight, a Jiffy Lube waiting area, the indoor pool at a Holiday Inn, a suburban middle school teacher’s lounge or the Verizon store on a Sunday–and find an unfortunately-styled soul who needs saving. It shouldn’t be hard.

Then, click here to go to TLC’s official entry site.

Congratulations. You just saved the world.

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Asian Designers: Forever ‘Breaking the Mold?’

By Catherine Chang on September 10, 2009
Picture 5Ever since Jason Wu was “discovered” by Michelle Obama, the designer — along with several other prominent Asian-American designers — has been commanding hefty media attention.
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal put the spotlight on this up-and-coming group, dubbing the 26-year-old Wu, along with Thakoon Panichgul, Philip Lim, Peter Som and other new talent “a design generation rising” toward their way to a “new American Dream.” (i.e. They rebelled against the traditional expectations to become doctors, lawyers and engineers to the disappointment of their conservative Asian families).

Though I was psyched to see some of my favorite designers getting media love, I had to cringe a little at the whole rehashing of the tired Asian minority stereotype. Yeah, there are a lot of Asian bankers, lawyers and doctors. Now there are Asian designers, too. Breaking news!

Yes, the piece does shed some light on what perhaps may be some little known facts about the designers — that Panichgul, before launching his line, completed a business degree at Boston University to please his very traditional immigrant parents, for example, or that Phillip Lim, switched majors quietly from business to fashion merchandising without telling his parents, before launching his line in 2005.

But we can’t help but feel in trying to illuminate the designers who have “broken the mold,” this kind of story only further reinforces it.

To be fair, as a Chinese-American writer who almost went down the corporate attorney black hole as well (before I became a meagerly paid assistant chasing her fashion dreams in the Big Apple), I understand the kind of pressure Asian parents can exert.
Still, on the Eve of Fashion Week, I wanted to hear more about the work: how Jason Wu’s chic, feminine looks are created, what inspires Philip Lim’s playful, city-girl getups, how the ethereal pieces Jen Kao is showing at Fashion Week today are conceptualized.
I mean, the mold’s already been smashed to bits. Let’s just move on.


Photo: The pixie cuteness that is Jason Wu.

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‘Coco Avant Chanel’ Premiere at the Pacific Design Center

By Emili Vesilind on September 10, 2009

Picture 22“If you don’t like the movie, I will be very said,” said French actress Audrey Tautou in her sweetly broken English, while introducing the L.A. screening of Coco Avant Chanel at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood last night.

The contemplative (and okay, sad) film, which opens in limited distribution in L.A. on Sept. 25, is yet another biopic of maverick couturier Coco Chanel (remember Shirley McLean playing the icon last year?).

But this new offering lends the most revealing look yet of how Chanel’s irreverent anti-corseting, garcon sensibilities were born. “I think it’s an unconventional way of telling a story about a famous person,” said Tautou. “We dove deeply into a short period of her life.”

Throughout the film, we see her MacGyver-ing men’s clothes into pragmatic, sporty outfits for herself and, eventually, applying her own stripped-down aesthetics to her first collection (where the story ends in the film.)

While the film’s a bit of a rehash of a familiar story, its simple, linear storytelling — and in-depth study of the icon’s style — make it worth the $10. As does Tautou’s performance as the chain-smoking, tough-talking Chanel. “She’s so definitively Amelie,” noted my friend, “but she totally transforms.” (Side note: Actor Allesandro Nivola as Boy Capel, the love of Chanel’s life, is so supremely foxy, it’s almost distracting.)

The screening was followed by a tame little soiree at the Chanel store on Robertson Blvd., which lured a gaggle of chain-bag toting fashion girls, designer Lloyd Klein, artist Kimberly Brooks and…Steven “Coju” Cojocaru.

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Vogue Extravaganza ‘The September Issue’ Debuts at LACMA

By Lizzy Epstein on September 9, 2009

Anna Wintour attends "The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion" Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 4, 2009 in New York City.“There’s something about fashion that can make people very nervous”, waxes Anna Wintour in the opening scene of The September Issue, with her iconic pageboy perfectly coiffed but minus her signature sunglasses.

If her musings are on-point, then the gaggle gathered at the LACMA Tuesday eve, to view a screening of R.J. Cutler’s all-access dramedy doc about the creation of Vogue’s September 2007 issue, would have sent shivers down any fashion naysayer’s spine. Left-coast luminaries such as Ginnifer Goodwin, Rose Byrne and Jennifer Morrison mixed and mingled with style-set regulars Lisa Love and Cameron Silver.

Cutler, was also on-hand to introduce the picture, which documents the making of Vogue’s largest September issue ever, weighing in at a whopping 840 pages. After acknowledging Wintour, Cutler urged the crowd to stay for the closing credits’ “cookies,” which included footage from the printing press’s manufacturing of Vogue’s pages and style sound bytes from featured editors and designers.

The film—more style than substance—is a smorgasbord of delicious insider moments: editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley playing tennis, fashion director Tonne Goodman’s frustration at cover girl Sienna Miller’s lackluster locks, Wintour’s glacial preview of Stefano Pilati’s preview of a YSL collection.

While Cutler fails to ask the hard-hitting questions, The September Issue does offer a hilarious and heart-warming look into Wintour’s uneasy symbiosis with creative director Grace Coddington, both of who began toiling in the Vogue trenches on the same day.

Coddington, a former model, is portrayed as fashion’s last romantic relic (even Coddington admits on set that she’s one’s of fashion’s few remaining editors who still dresses the models herself) while Wintour is shown to be forever looking forward.

However, even when duking it out over spreads and pages in the magazine, each editor maintains a reluctant respect for the other and in the end, fashion’s favorite ice queen recognizes Coddington’s “genius,” rewarding her with a hard-won majority of the issue’s interior content.

All-in-all, the film reads much as Vogue’s September issue itself; it’s glossy eye-candy at its finest.

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Tyra Banks: Invading Our Souls in a Whole New Way

By Editors on September 9, 2009

tyra-banks-gl10Tyra Banks, the heir apparent to Oprah, isn’t content to relegate her presence to our TV sets (and side-of-the-bus billboards). She, wants, as she’s lip-synched millions of times, “to be on top.”

The former catwalker launched her own fashion, style and beauty web magazine today (it was a big day for web launches), promising tips on how to do a smoky eye and “be the CEO of our lives,” as detailed in the bubbly audio manifesto welcoming readers to the site, Tyra: Beauty Inside & Out.

We’ve got to hand it to the Queen of Fierce (sorry, Christian Siriano, but you’ll always be my hot-mess tranny) for resisting the temptation to pose over and over on the cover of a glossy of her own.

But then it feels yucky that she’s found another platform to tease all those wannabe Top Models – via posts of behind-the-scenes footage from the latest cycle. (She’s even focusing on short models this season, a ploy that seems designed to deceive.)

No mention of blinged-out Vaseline jars on the site just yet, but we’ll keep you posted.

-Catherine Chang

[tyrabanks.com]

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