Simon Says

Women’s bodies are revolting! I don’t mean that the way it sounds. The girls of the world have simply had enough. They are mad as hell and they are not going to take it anymore. Anarchy and change are in the air.

But what exactly is going on? Is the super-skinny trend coming to an end? Are real women—remember back when being naturally curvaceous was good thing?—about to make a giant comeback? Are Michelle Obama’s arms too thick or too thin? Will Angelina Jolie’s womb continue to burst with babies? Is the anorexic-but-busty trend—that ho look against which I inveighed in my most recent book, Eccentric Glamour (Simon and Schuster, $24), finally beating a retreat? So many questions!  read more »

Let’s start with the ho trend.

Break out the vegan, fair-trade, lesbian, sustainable tofu dogs, because on Friday, June 20, yours truly officially became a US citizen.

I am doing my best to whip myself into a patriotic frenzy in time for the Fourth of July, but I must admit it’s taking a great deal of effort. I guess I am a trifle worn down from the stops and starts of my application process, made more complex by my wicked past. Among the sticking points were my arrest record—God, that sounds so much more glamorous than it was!—and my frequent sojourns in the U.K. The Citizenship and Immigration Services officials had a hard time believing that my relentless trips across the pond in recent years were undertaken in order to hang out in an old people’s home with my fab dad.  read more »

I felt like such a turd on the night of Monday, June 2. “Turd’” is a very underused word. At some point soon I will dedicate my life to restoring it to popular usage. In the meantime permit me to elaborate on the circumstances that occasioned this unpleasant feeling.  read more »

Figuring out what to wear to your college reunion is tough at the best of times. Figuring out what to wear when the college reunion in question is not actually your college reunion, but the reunion of your significantly younger significant other—with you, as a result, running the risk of being mistaken for a sinister aging relative—is infinitely more challenging. Add the fact that the college reunion is at Brown University, only slightly less scarily trendy than Wesleyan (Barack, bonjour!) and you have the recipe for one humdinger of a Memorial Day weekend.

Things got off to an unexpectedly surreal start. Boarding the Acela last Friday, my Jonny and I found it jammed with excited alums. “Fab!” thought Scoop Doonan, “I can spend the entire journey interviewing the class of ’88 about their proposed campus dance outfits. By the time we pull into Providence station, I will have written my column and be free to enjoy the scheduled festivities.” Horror of horrors, the only available seats were to be found in The Quiet Car. No talking. No cell phones. All aboard the Trappist Express! When, in hushed whispers, I tried to pry some fashion tips out of class stars Marci Klein (Calvin’s daughter) and maternity-wear empress Liz Lange, we were violently and menacingly hushed by WASP-y academics in adjacent seats. As frustrating as this was, I derived great amusement from watching these two insanely loquacious, highly strung overachievers reduced to dumb mutes. Before taking a vow of silence, I was, however, able to ascertain that Marci—an exec producer on Saturday Night Live—planned to wear a vintage ensemble by her father, and that Liz would be toning down her high-voltage socialite glamour in a courageous but deranged attempt to be mistaken for a student. “When you’ve become a household name, you don’t need to jam it down people’s throats,” she quipped self-mockingly.

Regarding my own outfit: With no chance of ever again being mistaken for a student, and a much greater chance of being mistaken for Jonny’s grandfather, or grandmother, I figured I had nothing to lose. I opted for a poofy Thom Browne velvet jacket and age-inappropriate Ernest Sewn jeans, garnished with a series of floral shirts, switched out during the endless schedule of mixers and barbecues. Were my outfits a hit? Nobody seemed to notice or care. I was an irrelevant, invisible non-alum.

This anonymity afforded me ample fly-on-the-wall opportunities to observe the interpersonal dynamics of the occasion. Firstly, I was struck by the way in which the attendees instantaneously resumed their previous relationship dynamics. Niggling decades-old resentments and unhealthy co-dependencies bubbled to the surface within milliseconds.

However, more than the psychodramas, far more, I was struck by the shocking lack of cellulite. Let’s face it, most college reunions—or any reunions for that matter—are about weight gain, plain and simple: Who got fat? Who got fatter? If this had been my college reunion—Manchester University, Class of 1973—I know that I would have spent the entire weekend peering into jowl-adorned faces and trying to recognize old chums, sort of like gawping at that What Would Celebs Look Like If They Lived in Ohio Web site. At Brown, the opposite was the case: Those who were once chunky are now thin. Those who were thin are now thinner. Unsurprisingly, calorie intake and how to avoid it seemed to be the main topics of conversation. Nobody mentioned anything related to education or the state of academia. As a result, I was left with the impression that Brown University is more of a trendy spa than an institution of learning. Next Page >

Does one’s level of stylishness increase as one goes off one’s trolley?

John Waters, film director and my own personal Erma Bombeck, has always philosophized that breaking the law can make people more beautiful. The more crimes a person commits, so goes the Waters hypothesis, the more beautiful that person becomes. I’m starting to wonder if there might not be a similar relationship between madness and fashion. Don’t recoil in horror: We’ve all had the experience of spotting a disheveled homeless person staggering toward us on West Broadway only to realize, on closer inspection, that the individual in question is our old artist/gallery owner pal who is attired, as per usual, in Comme Des Garçons.  read more » Next Page >

Stop it! Stop asking me about Hillary’s pantsuits, or any other aspect of her personal style! If you persist, I swear to God I will stuff Mrs. Clinton into a Balenciaga bubble dress with matching gladiator spike-heeled boots, and then you’ll be sorry.

Every 20 minutes I get a jangling call from an earnest hack looking for quips about the fashion choices of the presidential candidates. These content generators are hell-bent on viewing the current political jousting match through the lens of la mode: What do I think of Hillary’s pink blouses? Is Cindy McCain hitting the mark with her fashion choices? How about that tie Barack wore last night? Oy vey! Talk about looking for love in all the wrong places.

“Fashion and politics do not mix,” I reply in a terse-but-caring Diane Sawyer-ish way. “I like my politicians frumpy and frowzy. I have no desire to see Hillary in a Cavalli leopard-print unitard with tangerine crocodile thigh-boots. A presidential candidate must always dress so as to be unremarkable. In this regard, the candidates and their spouses are doing a great job. They are all unremarkable. I have, therefore, no remarks. Goodbye!”

“Not so fast!” reply the hacks, invariably. “What about Jackie Kennedy?” Then they blather on about how great it would be to go back to Camelot, blah, blah, blah, with a stylish couple in the White House, etc.

O.K., let’s address this issue once and for all: Jackie was fascinating, but she was hardly what you would call a fashion provocateur. Glam and elegant in a socialitey way, oui! But fashionable? Barely. Jackie’s style was appropriate but prissy: Barbie goes to Washington, if you know what I mean, and I don’t care if you don’t. It was not Jackie’s drag, but rather Jackie herself—poised, breathy, slightly blank, attenuated, haunted and, above all, relentlessly skinny—who was so remarkable, not her suits and shift dresses. Given half a chance, I would happily make a few remarks about her right now, but we have to get back to the issue at hand.

My uncooperative position on this matter is usually met with gasps of disbelief: “How can you, the creative director of Barneys, not wish to see a fashionable gal in the White House?” The answer is quite simple: Because I’m not retarded, that’s why. History has shown us that if leaders start primping and vamping, then we better watch out: A stylish leader is invariably a despotic leader. Glam head of state = miserable, drab, oppressed population. Drab head of state = flossy-flossy, happy population. Not convinced? Do the words Caligula, Imelda Marcos, Bokassa, Evita Peron and, yes, Adolf Hitler mean anything to you?

When I was a kid, all the politicians had crooked brown teeth and food-stained garments, and so did their wives, and everybody applauded their self-denying drabness. They were dreary and gray so that the rest of us, myself in particular, might pursue a course that was shimmering, superficial and fabulous. While they carried the weight of public office on their dandruff-dusted shoulders, I was free to indulge in silks and satins. Public servants, politicians or whatever the hell you want to call them are duty-bound to dress with unremarkable restraint, so that the rest of us, myself in particular, might become ever more remarkable. To this day people often make remarks about my outfits. If they don’t, I rush back home and adjust my appearance into a more remarkable configuration.

Honesty compels me to admit that, in the last few days, I have started to have second thoughts. The unrelenting tedium of the current Democratic tournament—if they keep it up, Grandpa McCain is bound to get elected, and then you really will be sorry—is causing me to rethink my position. Maybe those fashion-obsessed journalists are on to something. Maybe it would perk things up a bit to add a little stylish sizzle into the mix. It certainly could not make the catfights any more annoying than they already are. Maybe I should rush to Washington with a U-Haul stuffed with this season’s high-fashion drag and start Rachel Zoe-ing those unremarkable frumpsters.

For Hillary: when she’s not working the Balenciaga, she could go all Japanese avant-garde with a little Comme Des Garçons.

For Barack: The Clockwork Orange-inspired fall collection from Jean Paul Gaultier seems appropriate for the current brawl.

For Ms. Obama: the excesses of John Galliano’s Dior collection—especially that crazy Pat McGrath maquillage—would certainly put Ms. McCain on her guard.

For Mr. McCain: a little foppish Lanvin could soften his image and solidify those histrionic Gay Republicans. What about Bill? What could he possibly wear to complement his high-fashion co-conspirator? I’ve got it! And it’s American-made, too! Yes, I’m talking Thom Browne. The spank-me-I’ve-been-naughty perversity of Mr. Browne’s fall collection seems more than apropos.

Who am I going to vote for? I’ll give you a clue: Her legs look terrible in gladiator sandals. Next Page >

Being a professional celebrity look-alike is not nearly as tawdry and pathetic as it sounds. (That would not be possible.) I know whereof I speak. Having imperson­ated Queen Elizabeth II on numerous occasions over the last 30 years—and been undercompensated to do so—I consider myself something of an expert on this subject.

As I look back at my slightly spotty but otherwise long and happy celeb look-alike career, I am filled with a warm glow. A montage of images, mostly featuring me opening nightclubs and hosting events wearing a tiara and a sash, flits through my brain. Ah, the pay may have been lousy, but I would not trade in those squishy memories for anything! And I certainly would not trade in being a look-alike for being the real thing. Why? Because to be the impersonator of a particular celebrity is much, much, much more fun than actually being that particular celebrity.  read more » Next Page >

Last week I wore a pair of six-inch Lanvin sling-back stilettos while hosting a fashion show in Dallas. They looked great with my new Band of Outsiders jacket. I told the assembled crowd of socialites that it was the only way I could see over the lectern, which was true-ish. It was all fairly transparent. Anyone could see that I invented this excuse in order to walk the runway wearing those insane shoes and have my Linda Evangelista moment.

I’m a big believer in excuses. The more baroque, the better. I see them as a form of politeness. Running late? Tell them you accidentally ingested a small bird while riding a bicycle. Forgot to show up? Tell them your pantyhose spontaneously combusted. Anything but the boring truth! If you are looking to bail on a date, then at least have the decency to fabricate an entertaining and outlandish excuse. Nobody wants to hear that you have a headache or a dental emergency. Yawn!

I once worked with a bloke who attributed a bout of tardiness to the fact that “a squirrel came in through the window and nibbled through the electrical cord on my alarm clock.” When I heard this cheeky excuse it took me back to my gritty postwar school days. One wet morning, the scabby-kneed troll who sat in front of this scabby-kneed troll foolishly told our teacher that “our hamster ate my homework.” A well-deserved spanking followed.

When it comes to dreaming up baroque excuses, schoolboys have always shown great inventive panache. However, the trolls have nothing on today’s celebs. Whenever they decide they don’t feel like doing what they are supposed to do, the red-carpet gals always pull out the big guns. There’s no “Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to dine today, Madam.” It’s more like “Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to dine today because her mother has leprosy and her husband’s testicles exploded, all three of them.” It’s never a cold. It’s never jury duty. Poisonings, car crashes, bubonic plagues—these are the things which prevent these hard-working troopers from fulfilling obligations.

The logic is quite simple: If a celeb offers up a really bonkers excuse of the my-bum-is-radioactive variety, the excuse recipient is much less likely to challenge it. It’s also a great way for the celebs’ handlers to convey the impression that their clients are unimaginably busy and unimaginably “special.”

The problem is that the excuse-fabricators have cried wolf. Now, anytime a well-known person reschedules on me, I just assume they are having an everyone-in-my-family-has-Ebola moment and respond with cackles of uncaring derision.

In the past month, two separate celebs have both offered up family deaths as reasons for rescheduling little ol’ moi. In both instances I poo-poo’d them with a “Yeah right! And I’m the Queen of Sheba” response, only to discover subsequently that they were both telling the truth. I cannot tell you who the celebs were, but here’s a clue: one was Anne Hathaway and the other was Kimora Lee Simmons. In both instances, a well-deserved spanking followed.

As a general rule I will say that the higher up the celeb totem pole you get, the less likely you are to encounter people whose alarm clocks are being eaten by leprous squirrels. Dame Edna, the self-proclaimed international giga-star, was coiffed and punctual for our appointment last Monday. (Historically, she always offered up her husband’s “rumbling prostate” as an excuse for canceling.) And then there’s Madge. No I’m not talking about Dame Edna’s old bridesmaid and sidekick, I’m talking Ciccone.

When I interviewed Madonna recently—crash, bang, clang!—she was on time. No buggering about. No excuses. If any family members had kicked the bucket recently, she wisely chose to prioritize her rendezvous with yours truly over any shivas or wakes. Look for our tête-à-tête in next month’s Elle.

Oops! Gotta go! My clavicles have just turned to chalk and my pet iguana is eating through my computer cor— Next Page >

Juicy Plum, Orange Blossom, Tiger Lily! No, these are not the names of Eliot Spitzer’s favorite tarts. Au contraire, they are the top notes of Fabulosity, the new fragrance—arriving on shelves this week!—from Kimora Lee Simmons.

Glamour-obsessed, entrepreneurial and hilarious, Kimora, the star of the Style Network reality show Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane and creative director queen of Baby Phat clothing, just might be the most insanely unpretentious person in fashion. Last week I called her on the West Coast and we examined some of the burning issues of the day.  read more » Next Page >

Best Supporting Actress winner Tilda Swinton nuked the fashion competition at the recent Oscars. With her 70’s Bowie hair—remember the cover of Low, the brilliant 1977 album?—and her black velvet Lanvin one-sleeved toga, La Swinton made all those other gals in their fussy bustier glamour gowns look like a bunch of Republican drears on their way to a constipated night out at the local country club.

Finally, courtesy of La Swinton, we got to see a bit of real individual style at the Oscars. And, while we’re at it, thank God aussi for Marion Cotillard in her exquisitely crafted Gaultier mermaid couture. Ditto Diablo Cody (am sure her real name is Phyllis Jenkins) in whatever the hell it was she was wearing. Thank you, girls, for giving us all a much-needed dollop of eccentric glamour! (Eccentric Glamour just happens to be the title of my next book, which will be released by Simon & Schuster in April and contains, among other gems, an interview with the aforementioned Tilda. Expect more thinly veiled plugs in the coming weeks.)

Hollywood and fashion have a wacky Britney Spears/Adnan Ghalib on-again, off-again kind of a relationship. They have been shagging each other since at least the early 90’s: Prancing red-carpet celebs spouting designer names are now as much a part of the marketing of La Mode as the runway shows themselves. But will these two lovers ever really seal the deal? Why, if these two bedfellows are really so mutually besotted, are the high-fashion Tildas of the world so thin on the red carpet?

The culprit here is not the cautiously gowned celebs, but rather the lowbrow media, with its zero tolerance for anything other than frowzy, ruched prom dresses. The quirky idiosyncrasy that differentiates real fashion from regular clothing becomes an instant dart board for their wicked lowbrow barbs and their “What Were They Thinking?” columns. Much as I love a bit of lowbrow barbing—I’m no stranger to it myself—the fashion police at the tabloids have created a generation of gun-shy glamour pusses. (Thanks for sucking all the fun and idiosyncrasy out of life, you muckrakers!)

The highbrow media has blood on its hands, too, but for quite different reasons: Contrasting sharply with the lowbrow folks, the fashion insiders at The New York Times and Women’s Wear Daily have, based on last week’s coverage of the Paris collections, an infinite tolerance for the deranged, the insanely unaffordable, the foam-backed and the unwearable. They sit there in their simple black tailored outfits, scribbling frantic homilies to wacky bankrupting duds that they have no intention of buying themselves but are more than happy to inflict on the rest of us.

Stuck between these two polarized viewpoints—one excessively pedestrian, the other masochistically and unquestioningly committed to codified experimentation—is you, the ordinary woman on the street. Little wonder you are such a mess!

In an effort to cut through the cackle, and get you some useful much-needed advice, I went straight to the source. I asked my sisters at Barneys, gals whose sizzlingly stylish ensembles delight me every day, about their fashion choices. What will Kimberly, Dawn, Tomoko, Amy, Suzi, Wanda and grand poobah Judy Collinson—Tilda lovers all—be opening their handbags to buy this spring? Their choices, informed as they are by an encyclopedic knowledge of what is available to the consumer at this very moment in time, will be more helpful to you than the fashion fascism of the tabloids and the elitist musings of my clever pals at the NYT.

CROSS-DRESSING FOR DOLLARS

Art director Suzi Jones took the name Comme des Garcons and dragged it to a very literal place: “I just bought one of the men’s Comme Des Garcons shrunken trench coats. It was only $870! And it is supercute for a chick.” For Suzi this is just the beginning: “I also want one of their shrunken school blazers. It’s so much cheaper than buying in the women’s store!”

FLOWER POWER

“I’m just post-baby and digging the figure-flattering Dries Van Noten floral blouse with contrasting patchwork floral neckline,” said Kimberly Oser from publicity. Almost every Barneys broad I spoke to is jonesing for a floral freakout. Judy Collinson is fully intent on snagging this seasons blue, flowered, 1959 re-imagined, reissued Balenciaga frock.

SILLY FOR SANDALS

Wanda Colon, the chicest Latina in the men’s buying office, is snagging the YSL “Tribute” sandal in blue; Kimberly is buying the Chanel (newly arrived at Barneys this season) orange flat thong with big silver CC’s, “because I have never been able to buy Chanel with a discount before. Yippee!”

Re regular shoes: Wanda is already vamping to meetings in Lanvin metallic leather platforms. Bottega Veneta devotee Dawn Brown, our head of PR, will be flaunting a pair of woven platform wedges.

Next Page >

Here’s my prediction for this coming Superfrock Sunday: Valentino! Valentino! Valentino!

I’m betting that the retiring couturier will dominate the Oscar red carpet (red is, after all, Val’s signature color!) with creations from his archives and from his final couture and ready-to-wear collections. Sunday, Feb. 24, will be Val’s day. There, I’ve said it.

Now let’s talk about this so-called “retirement.”

Is it me, or is Valentino Garavano, the tan-fastic Italian legend, enjoying the most protracted orgy of retirement celebrations in the history of high fashion? Just when you think the final curtain has come down on his illustrious 45-year career, darn me if it doesn’t whoosh right back up again. Just when you think he has gone out with a big bang, Val enters stage left and goes out with an even bigger bang. Watch out, Cher! Val’s farewell tour is starting to make your two-year slogathon look like a flash in the pan.

This longest of goodbyes kicked off last summer with a three-day, tiara-strewn shindig in Rome. A who’s who of international self-indulgent fabulousness, Val’s bash throbbed with royalty, Hollywood and otherwise: There were princesses from France, Jordan and Bulgaria. There were queens from Greece, and that was just the men!

As things turned out, this party was not so much a farewell as a warm-up. In the fall, Val wowed us with his final prêt-à-porter extravaganza; then, this spring, the final couture show, and then a flossy farewell in Palm Beach and then, and then … Just when you think the last fireworks have sputtered, they start up again.

As I watch the Valentino yacht sailing metaphorically out of the harbor—but never really going anywhere—I keep hearing, in the back of my mind, an old Gracie Fields music hall song titled “He’s Dead, But He Won’t Lie Down.”

My sister’s young man is a hundred and three.

Yes, a hundred and three is he,

And he’s real cold storage meat

From his head right to his feet,

He’s dead, but he won’t lie down.

I am also reminded of one of my primary school teachers, a sadistic creature called Miss Wibble. For the entire year preceding her gleefully anticipated retirement, we scabby-kneed urchins were all guilt-tripped into putting pennies in a tin in order to buy the horrid bitch a refrigerator. (Welcome to my gritty postwar English childhood.) She retired, got bored and returned to work six months later, giving rise to speculation that she was angling for more appliances. Miss Wibble was dead, but she wouldn’t lie down.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Valentino. I come to praise not to bury him. And I am certainly not accusing him of being geriatric. At 76 years old, the divine Signor Garavano continues to cut a dashing figure. (And when I say “continues,” believe me, I mean “CONTINUES!”)

But seriously, folks, I worship Valentino and all the old-school glamour for which he stands. (I only wish I had more access to it.) And I do not begrudge him a moment of his sumptuously extended sayonara. He deserves it all. With his joie de vivre, his pugs, his posh palazzos and his perma-tan, he is a beacon of inspiration to us all.

I am convinced that Val, with his majestically slower-than-slow curtain call, is really on to something. Maybe we should all strive to emulate him and orchestrate a big protracted wow-look-at-me whenever a chapter of our lives draws to a close. Think about it! After gowning it up for 45 years—or heck, even five years—why shuffle off into the corner with your pinking shears between your legs? Val’s ability to mark the occasion—and then mark it again, and again!—should serve as a reminder to all of us to add a few punctuation marks to our lives.

Inspired by Val, I have elected to add more panache to my milestones. When I finish this column I fully intend to celebrate with a hot cup of kukicha tea, and then another one. Next year will be my 10th anniversary at this newspaper and don’t think for a minute that the occasion will go unmarked. My hope is that the nonstop unconfined bacchanalia will carry straight through to my 15th anniversary. Speaking of anniversaries: Why let your birthday drift by with one sad little dinner, or cupcake? Mark the occasion with a bunting-decked month of glee. And then mark it encore!

With or without all the hoopla, Val’s departure is both sad and significant. Who will fill his highly polished low-rise loafers? As the super-glossy ringmaster of international luxury—it’s a szooshy job, but somebody’s got to do it—he has no obvious successor. Today’s designers, with their pretentiously enigmatic poses, shy away from the displays of chinchilla-bedspread opulence that have made Val such a total gas. Marc Jacobs, with his newfound love of diamond jewelry and his blue-chip art collection, has started to exhibit tell-tale signs that he might have what it takes, though it’s hard to imagine Val ever showing up, as Marc did at his recent holiday party, dressed as Camel Toe.

So next Sunday, when you sit down to watch the Academy Awards, why not hop aboard the Val train? Start by scenting yourself with one of his signature perfumes: say, V, or Rock & Rose Couture. (Remember it was Val who showed us how to apply perfume: You spritz a cloud in the air and walk into it. Do not hose your skin with the nozzle, like a common tart!) And while you’re at it, throw on a red Valentino chiffon gown. (If you don’t have such a thing in your closet, then that old red holiday muumuu with the applique’d snowman—worn inside out—will do just fine.) And at the end of the night, don’t feel compelled to take your frock off. The following dawn is sure to see a Val farewell fete somewhere in the World. ... Next Page >

When I was young and wild and kooky, I always imagined that I would grow old gracefully. I saw myself sitting contentedly in a rattan peacock chair—looking like a cross between Quentin Crisp and Golda Meier—dispensing bon mots to a group of rosy-cheeked acolytes clustered at my feet. Attired in naff sweats and polar fleece, I would reminisce about my long-lost fashion heyday.

I never imagined that the opposite would happen, and that as I aged I would become MORE UNRELENTINGLY TRENDY than ever! I never imagined that I would morph into a middle-aged raver. But I have. I have become like the fad-obsessed loony from that old Kinks song, pulling “his frilly nylon panties right up tight, ’cos he’s a dedicated follower of fashion.” And nowhere is my current condition more apparent to me than at New York Fashion Week. Let’s recap!

THURSDAY, JAN. 31: My first fall show is Band of Outsiders, the nifty cult men’s wear line created by former CAA agent Scott Sternberg and worn relentlessly by moi and peeps half my age. The line for the elevator—the tableau vivant presentation is on the fifth floor of a West Side warehouse—is much too long. I cannot wait around to see what I’ll be wearing next fall. Wearing a B of O jacket, Acne corduroys and a Liberty print Paul Smith shirt, I skip up all five flights of stairs, born aloft by my new silver Nike Airstar sneakers. I am easily the oldest person in the room. At 55, I am probably the oldest person in America wearing Band of Outsiders.

The truth of the matter is that fashion is having a midget moment. Our time has come. Since I am petite, and trendy men’s wear designers like Scotty are now cutting their clothes for shriveled heroin addicts with no internal organs, there is now more merch for me to buy than ever before. Tiny is the size du jour. An edgy shrunken jacket becomes, on my torso, a serviceably hip sport coat. Superskinny rocker pants? On my legs they become a nifty narrow trouser. When things were blousy and boxy—remember when Karl Lagerfeld was tubby and he always wore those Comme Des Garcons suits?—I was shit out of luck. Now, thanks to the new anorexia chic of the 21st century, I’m drowning in options. Choices! Choices! Choices! I am like a kid in a candy store. In fact, with my youth-centric attire, I probably resemble one of those unfortunate kids with progeria syndrome, that dreadful disease that causes one to wrinkle and age prematurely.

FRIDAY, FEB 1: Wearing a placenta-hued Moncler jacket, size XS, a John Bartlett turtleneck, Prada slacks and Adidas sneakers, I slosh through the rain to the Rag and Bone show at Cipriani. R and B designers David Neville and Marcus Wainwright, fellow Brits, are an endless source of fascination to me. They hail from an upper-class hoity-toity milieu—they met at the superfarty Wellington College—so I can only imagine how bizarre and declasse it must seem to their friends and family that they chose to enter the shmatte business. I am not surprised that they had to leave Blighty in order to follow their dreams. And they’re straight, and talented, and married!

When actress Julianne Moore and Tom Brady crumpet Gisele arrive, the paparazzi go berserk, trampling my Moncler in the process. It’s been reported that thanks to the writers’ strike, this Fall ’08 Fashion Week will see the mother of all celeb turnouts. I resign myself to more trampling.

Next stop, Erin Fetherston, sort of. I was all excited to go and see the ethereal frocks produced by this gorgeous gal—she looks like a beautiful albino Madame Alexander Doll—but the type on the invitation was so small I showed up at Bryant Park at the wrong time. Is this Erin’s way of trying to weed out the middle-aged ravers?

Despite this snafu, the evening ended on a positive note. Missing the Fetherston show allowed me to catch up on Tivo’d episodes of American Idol. One would-be contestant caught my attention. This spunky but massively obese gal was smiling broadly and wearing a T-shirt bearing the words I BEAT ANOREXIA. I toy with commissioning a T-shirt that reads, “I’m not suffering from PROGERIA—I’m just a middle-aged raver.”

SATURDAY, FEB. 2: I’m walking through Nolita wearing a face full of makeup. I have just lensed a segment for Full Frontal Fashion where I enthused about the nifty tailoring and spunky sportiness of Rag and Bone. “You do look well,” says an acquaintance. Should I be filling in the cracks more regularly?

SUNDAY, FEB. 3: A sporty kind of a day. A regular jog along the West Side Highway ensures that I fit into my closet of micro-garments. The downside: Between exercising and watching the Super Bowl, there is only time for Diane von Furstenberg. The show is a triumph: I love DVF’s haunting revival of the 70’s revival of the doomed late 1930’s vamp. Very Dominique Sanda in The Conformist, if you get my drift.

MONDAY, FEB 4: Thom Browne is largely to blame for my current predicament, his influential shrunken silhouettes having spawned a million tantalizing imitations. Along with being a rallying point for micro-devotees, Thom’s strange runway shows have become the new N.Y.C. epicenter of creative fashion perversity—TB models invariably resembling mentally disturbed escapees from a Pasolini movie. This season was no exception. Pale-faced lads with smoky eyes pranced round a circus ring dressed as if they were members of a perverted Otto Dix mime/military academy. The signature Browne pixie-sized tailored garments abounded. However, the finale left me with a distinct sinking feeling, and not because of the demented, doom-laden vibe. No, it was that last outfit on the runway… a 16-foot-tall bloke on stilts!!!

I hope to God this is not a harbinger of new silhouettes to come. If tiny goes out of fashion, what the hell am I going to wear? Next Page >

I just flew in from Las Vegas. I was there for the caucuses. With my citizenship interview looming, I felt it was high time I got a firmer grip on the American political system.

O.K., I admit it. That was a lie. I have no time for the American political process at this particular moment. I’m much too preoccupied with the upcoming battle between Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle to follow the race to the White House.

The truth of the matter is that my trip to Las Vegas was occasioned by something infinitely more fluffy, foofy and improbable. While Hillary Clinton was getting the creases steamed out of her pantsuit in readiness for her triumphant assault on the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, I was—wait for it!—entertaining a large group of hotel concierges! The location? The spanking new Barneys store in the gorgeously fabulous new Palazzo Resort and Casino, which opened last week.

Named after a well-known pant and owned by billionaire du jour Sheldon Adelson, the Palazzo is right next door to the Venetian. If you like to travel by gondola to shop for your Louboutins and your Valextra pocketbooks, you will be glad to hear that the Grand Canal has been extended so that it sloshes up against the entrance to Barneys.

Last Thursday: I am feeling totally Mitt Romney. I don’t drink. I don’t gamble, and I have no interest in all-night cocaine binges with hookers, and yet here I am in Sin City. Even if I were so inclined, I am much too busy being a dynamic retail exec to indulge in a lot of room-defiling activities. My colleagues and I are in the last-minute frenzied throes of readying our store for the opening party. Things take a surreal turn when Women’s Murder Club beauty Angie Harmon, Ugly Betty tranny Rebecca Romijn and songstress-actress Mandy Moore bang on the door requesting a tour, conducted by yours truly, of the racks of spring 2008 Balenciaga and Philip Lim.

This celeb encounter is the high point of my trip: I love to watch A-listers paying full retail. Memo to all you designers who recklessly hurl free frocks at every actress within screeching distance: When push come to Prada, these gals have no problem pulling out their credit cards. THEY ENJOY IT!

Friday: I am being feted by 300 of my closest concierges. (There are about 2,000 total in Las Vegas, so where the hell are the other 1,700?) They have descended on the Barneys shoe department for a breakfast co-hosted by moi and Las Vegas Magazine.

I don’t know about you, but I personally love a good concierge: My fantasy is to have them all tell indiscreet stories about their celebrity clients—“the following tidbit concerns the night I hand-delivered tacos/hair color to David Hasselhoff/Britney and was obliged to help him/her masticate them/touch up her roots”—and then give a $5,000 gift certificate to the concierge with the most disturbing story.

This idea does not go over so well with these über-discreet lifestyle providers. In lieu of this storytelling session, I deliver a chirpy introduction to the majesty of Barneys, reminding them that we do not sell pasties and G-strings.

I deem the event a massive hit when one lady approaches me and, after complimenting me on my spiel, asks me if I have taken “the Toastmaster’s Course in Public Speaking.” This reminds me of the occasion a few years back when, after a similar bout of podium badinage, a lady asked me if I had hired Bruce Vilanch to write my material for me. Clearly, something in my mien discourages people from believing that I might be capable of unfurling an engaging monologue without the support of cue-card-wielding speechwriters.

Saturday: The caucuses begin, and I get my carcass on the first plane back to New York. I make a mental note to hack into the Web upon landing and ascertain the result. I make another mental note to find out what a caucus is.

PS: If Rebecca Romijn married Mitt Romney, she would become Rebecca Romijn-Romney which would then become “Webecca Womijn-Womney” if she went on Barbara Walters.

If Mitt Romney owned an oven mitt, it would be Mitt’s mitt.

Viva Las Vegas! Next Page >

Karma’s a biatch. Delighting in other people’s misfortunes is terribly naughty and will always end in tears. I once laughed unsympathetically when my mother’s best friend broke her thumb putting on her girdle, and now, lo many years later, God has seen fit to punish me. I’m laughing on the other side of my face, for I too have incurred a FASHION INJURY!

It’s hard to say if my affliction is more or less embarrassing than that girdle-mangling horror of yore. I will let you be the judge. Here goes: I was felled by a man-bag, a Goyard man-bag at that. It happened right before Christmas. After two or three years of lugging round my luxe accessory by the handles—à la runway—I incurred a nasty case of bicep tendinitis. Though not quite on a par with Isadora Duncan’s silk scarf/sports-car-wheel strangling—the ne plus ultra of fashion injuries—mine is a painful and immobilizing condition involving months of rehab. And it has impacted my finances, big time! As a result of my fashion injury, I was obliged to buy a gorge new Goyard arms-free messenger bag, and a really naff shoulder strap for the old bag.

Old bags notwithstanding, fashion injuries have no respect for age or gender. Since going public about my catastrophe, I have been deluged with empathetic me-too stories from fashion lovers of all ages and thumb strengths. Permit me to share:

At a New Year’s Eve party, Palm Beach mega-realtor Burt Minkoff told me of the emergency-room drama that ensued after he wore a fluffy sweater and—wait for it!—a tuft of angora wool lodged itself under his contact lens. Oh! The agony of angora!

My pal Karen Boltax, a gallery owner, told me about the evil white wooden Paul Smith mules—“they look just like the ones I wore as a punk teenager”—which, suddenly last summer, gave her a nasty dose of what a Canyon Ranch doctor recently diagnosed as “tarsal tunnel syndrome.” Ms. Boltax has been slow to recover: This is probably due to the fact that she spent the holidays aggravating her condition by dancing her brains out in Michael Kors platform heels at Jose Ignacio, a new hot spot in Uruguay.

Allure editor in chief Linda Wells told me how she was once attacked and imprisoned by a velvet Prada turtleneck. “There I was in the dressing room, trapped in a designer straitjacket, mortified—fortunately, [former creative director] Polly Mellen rescued me after a 20-minute tussle,” she said, adding intriguingly, “I still can’t understand how one can get into something but not get out of it.”

Not all fashion injuries have such happy outcomes. One of Ms. Wells’ Allure colleagues, a gal who preferred to remain anonymous, once bought a pair of leather pants that were “so tight, she got thrombosis.”

Due to the current mania for skyscraper footwear, the most common fashion injuries involve falls. The trick is to turn the moment into a spontaneous Helmut Newton photo shoot. When Us Weekly magazine’s Sasha Charnin Morrison was leaving a Versace show, she had what she described to me last week as “a bronzed, bare-legged fashionista fall.” Fortunately for Sasha, Terry Tsiolis, fashion photog du jour, was on hand to capture the moment. Did she at least get flowers from Donatella as compensation for her glamorous-but-public humiliation? “They gave me a band-aid with ‘Versace’ written across it,” Ms. Charnin Morrison said.

Brace yourselves for this coming season! Offering an unprecedented explosion of new shapes, colors and floral prints, spring is nothing less than a minefield of potential fashion injuries. If you do not get blown off a cliff in a sail-like Lanvin frock, you will probably be attacked by a swarm of pollen-crazed killer bees while wearing your Balenciaga floral tunic. My advice? Don’t be selfish: Make sure there is a photographer present to capture the moment for the amusement—and subsequent bad karma—of others.

Be safe! Next Page >

What will 2008 bring? Tumult? Mayhem? Who can predict? Having no clue myself, I decided to enlist the help of somebody vital, dynamic and young, someone who, in addition, just happened to be the most compelling new celeb of ’07.

Who was the year’s brightest star? Which young Tennessee whippersnapperette shot out of obscurity and changed the way we think about fame, life and double-snapping? I’m talking about the reigning empress of the new Internet celebrities (or “ceWebrities”) that make all the red-carpeteers look dusty and worn! Yes, I’m talking about the “leave Britney alone” guy and soon-to-be reality TV star, Mr. Chris Crocker.

The following frantic e-mail exchange—Very To Catch a Predator! Very modern!—took place one week before Christmas.

S.D.: Let’s start with the upcoming presidential election: When you hear vicious people ragging on Hillary Clinton’s thick ankles—her cankles—have you ever leapt to her defense? Have you ever had a ‘leave Hillary alone’ meltdown?

C.C.: This election will be my first chance to vote, and I want to be confident in my choice. Everyone thinks it’s so controversial for Hillary to be in the running, but where are the openly gay presidential candidates? Don’t get me wrong, fag hags are great, but why have the hag when you can have the fag?

Your latest thing is getting out of a car bottomless, à la Britney. Mazel tov! Can we expect more of this kind of thing from you next year?

I am very proud to say that I am the first guy ever to give the paparazzi a crotch shot … although the media chose to ignore it, it happened! You can’t hide something so legendary, and I plan on leaving my legacy, so yes, you can expect more high-profile crotch shots. I’ll do it somewhere a little more public next time. They can publicize me crying over Britney Spears but they can’t publicize my crotch shot? It’s an unjust world.

Will you eat more or less next year? What is your dream weight? How will you achieve it?

I will eat less. I want to get down to my birth weight of five pounds and nine ounces.

How old were you when 9/11 happened? Where were you?

I was 12, so naturally I was aware of it, but like I said in the YouTube video that caused people to boycott me, I was more concerned with Britney at the time of 9/11, just as I was around the anniversary of 9/11 this year. When the anniversary of an inside job plotted by the government rolls around, my world doesn’t really stop turning. [CeWebrities have an unquestioning embwace of conspiwacy theowies.—S.D.]

Is your mother younger than me? Is your grandmother younger than me?

My mother had me at 14. I’m 20. Do the math. :)

Let’s talk about the U.S. economy, or rather, your economy: How much money will you make next year?

I don’t discuss my finances, however, if there are any wealthy Republican closet cases in need of an outing and a good hand job, I am available and ready for your coins. In 2008 my TV show will finally start airing, so I have a lot to look forward to. I personally think it is the answer to everyone’s prayers. [Chris is currently lensing a reality show, any details of which he stubbornly withheld during our cyber tête-à-tête. It’s totally hush-hush. —S.D.]

Will you still be living with Brandi from Rock of Love in ’08? Who is the bigger star? How did you meet?

I doubt I’ll be living with Brandi, but we’ll see. We’re a little too alike at times and a little too different all of the other times. I met Brandi on the Internet, the same place I’ve met every other significant person in my life.

If you could bring a celeb back from the dead, who would it be, and why?

I would bring back John Holmes so that he could fuck me. That dick was too pretty.

Which women’s accessory will become the must-have for next year? Are you familiar with Lanvin handbags?

I’m from the South, so maybe I’m jaded, but I think fashion is so 1995. How many times can leopard print come in and out of style? The only way fashion will become interesting to me is if I’m involved, and quite frankly, the offers aren’t rolling in.

Will Amy Winehouse make it through to next Hanukkah?

If she can write such beautiful, smart songs, surely she can pull herself back together. Next Page >

Not complaining—they can be quite charming! But it doesn’t seem quite fair that offspring of the rich and famous are sucking up all the glam media jobs.  read more » Next Page >

Yes, I know there's a glut of awards—so I'm presenting my own.  read more » Next Page >

Al Gore, I implore you: avoid plastic surgery, or risk being mistaken for a member of the ‘Muffia.’ Not that there’s anything wrong with that....  read more » Next Page >

How I adored this scarf-swathed, crystal-clinking New Age doyenne, petite purveyor of luxury objects to Jaggers and Vanderbilts.  read more » Next Page >

Give up, get out there and buy yourself a pair of tights (and heck, a handbag too).  read more » Next Page >

Fashion Week's clothes too gauzy—give me grubby Britney  read more » Next Page >

You can get a chai latte on every corner, but it’s increasingly hard to find butt plugs, Ben Wa balls and black latex in New York, even as Fall 2007 fashion bristles with sadomasochistic references.  read more » Next Page >

Whatever happened to the Members Only jackets, clown suits and low-rise pleather loafers that so clearly marked molesters of yore?  read more » Next Page >

Snorting piles of cocaine, driving at 90 m.p.h. and running pell-mell into the surf is exactly what famous people should be doing! It beats standing blank-faced on a red carpet promoting something.  read more » Next Page >

You may remember that famous chest-waxing scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin—Yee-ouch! And yet the hetero fellows of New York are taking it one step further.  read more » Next Page >

A manly Mr. Fix-It who would tear up at Maria Callas, Terence Sydney Doonan was the ultimate anti-bourgeois parent.  read more » Next Page >

As the model got ready to install her clothing collection at Barneys, yours truly tried to get himself out of a journalistic jam.  read more » Next Page >

I have absolutely no desire to mentor the latest generation of up-and-comers.  read more » Next Page >