The Asylum (17 page)

The show began, finally, with an intriguing black-taffeta version of the signature wrap, worn by a gal who definitely looked as if she could use a cheeseburger or seven.

So where were all the plumper gals?

They were hauntingly absent.

As the late great Franco Moschino once said, “Fashion is full of CHIC!”

Sunday five p.m.: It was so bloody cold that I bagged any further shows and ran home to catch Super Bowl XLI. After staring at all those haunted, wraithlike models, the adorable Indianapolis cheerleaders were a real picker-upper. With their 1950s physiques, these doll-like cuties possessed an optimistic joie de vivre not shared by those poor stringy melancholics in the Bryant Park tents.

As I watched the Colts–Bears game, I thought of all the blokes across the country boozing, belching, farting and munching their way through the Super Bowl. How different from the perverse fashion front row. Unlike sports, fashion is not about bracing fresh air and blood-pumping physicality.

Fashion is perverse. Fashion, foncy elitist designer fashion, has always, and will always be, an arch, sick, twisted bitch. High fashion has never been a cozy, caring sister. She has always been a tortured, idealized freak.

Elizabethan women wore corsets with wooden slats.

Victorian women dilated their pupils—they wanted their eyes to appear sparkling and engaging—with drops of belladonna (deadly nightshade).

Chinese style addicts bound their feet into rotting, misshapen little hooves.

Turkish women wore neck corsets!

Looking for healthy role models in the world of fashion, or trying to legislate them, is a total waste of time. This situation will never change, because fashion is not in the business of selling the bouncy, the smiley, the feel-good, the inclusive and the kumbaya, my Lord.

Fashion is about selling the esoteric, the fantastical and the wickedly fabulous.

Every once in a while, dame fashion will have one of those guilt spasms and go through the motions of pretending she's strawberry shortcake. And then, just when you're getting comfy, she'll do a total volte-face. She will slam her town-car door shut, drive off peeling rubber and become more fabulously freaky, more unhealthy and more gloriously demented than ever.

Where does that leave the plus-sizer?

I sympathize with the bouncy broads of the world. I feel the pain of the chunky chicks. You gals are tantalized and mesmerized by the mirage of fashion, but if you dare to go shopping with the intention of purchasing nice-ies and ice-ies for yourself, you face certain disappointment and rejection. (As a dinky male, I have faced the same marginalization.) The world of designer fashion is unwelcoming to you. My stylish-but-zaftig girlfriends voice their complaints to me all the time.

“Plus-size stores are a waistless land, a ghetto of boxy clothes in horrid prints and cheap fabrics.”

“You come out of the fitting room looking like you're wearing a pup tent.”

“Last week some shop assistant in Zara asked me if I was the star of the movie
Precious
.”

Starved of designer fashion, my pals satiate their fashion cravings with oversexed stilettos, jeweled Pashminas, huge tribal necklaces and outré purses and bags.

It's a measure of the stupidity-bordering-on-retardation of many people who are working in the fashion industry that they remain oblivious to the opportunity represented by the growing, and I do mean growing, number of fashion-starved broads who are size twelve and rising. This situation represents a massive opportunity. To paraphrase Samantha Foxx: Bigger broads need designer clothes too.

So fashion, listen up! I'm talking to you.

You can stay in your twisted, sick, codified, freaky zone of creativity. We need you to stay there in order to generate insane and provocative new ideas. And you can use all the skinny skeletons you want. Just do me one favor: Please make designer drag in bigger sizes. (And smaller sizes for men!) That's all I ask.

RECENT
LY A FRIEND OF MINE,
a successful luxury retail exec, was bitching about his demanding and highly strung clientele.

“These are my people, but they are such a bunch of annoying JAPs.”

I asked him about his WASP clients: “Aren't they just as quixotic and high maintenance?”

“I wouldn't know. I never had any.”

Though clearly indulging in a little playful exaggeration, he was nonetheless making a point. Jews are synonymous with fashion. Jews are the glamorous gasoline which has powered the fashion industry through the last century. Whether flogging
schmattas
or buying them, they are integral to the vitality and well-being of La Mode.

I thought about my Jews a lot during the whole Galliano debacle.

John Galliano, for those of you who just flew in from Mars, was the fashion designer—nay, the brilliant magician—at the illustrious house of Christian Dior, convicted of making anti-Semitic comments during a drunken rant in a Paris bar.

It was a horrible implosion, like something out of a Zola novel. The mighty creative impresario, the bloke who would take his deserved curtain calls with such stylish and often hilarious panache, reduced to a ranting mess in the corner of a bar. Watching the video, I was reminded of Gervaise, the booze-addicted, downward-spiraling heroine of
L'Assommoir
,
and also of some of my Irish relatives, namely my uncle Dave and, yes, my Belfast grandpa.

Of all the oaths and notions that could have popped out of Mr. Galliano's mouth when he was out of his skull, it struck me as strange and illogical that it should have been that Jew stuff. Why not rant about the unfairness of the British class system or the snooty superiority of the French? Or the annoying, eavesdropping concierge in his Paris apartment building? Why the Jews?

Did John believe the stuff he was saying? I am sure he did not. It was the drink talking. Nonetheless, in the aftermath of
l'affaire Galliano
I found myself thinking a lot about how much I love my Jews. Yes, I married a lovely and talented one too, but there's more to it than that. Much more.

Jews have been good to me. Jews helped me find refuge in the fashion asylum. Jews paid me to do stuff when I was barely qualified to do
anything
. Jews have always put a roof over my head. They helped me back when I was young, feral, unwashed and ridiculous. I am what you might call a major, lifelong mitzvah recipient. There is not enough space here to kvell about all the fabulous Jews who recklessly and generously enabled my shenanigans over the years, but here are some edited highlights.

In the mid-seventies I dressed windows for a glamorous Jewish couple called Shelley and Tony who had a chain of fashion shops dotted about the London area. These kicky, affordable stores were named—wait for it!—Sheltone Fashions. I would travel from store to store, changing the merch in the windows and szhooshing up the store interiors.

Being young and stupid, I decided one fine day to give myself a raise. Without telling either Shelley or Tony, I increased my hourly rate and without further ado sent in my weekly invoice.

Instead of stapling my scrotum to the nearest telegraph pole, Mr. Tony called me and very sweetly explained that any raises would need to be negotiated and that they were not something which one could simply award oneself.

While working for Shelley and Tony, I picked up extra clams moonlighting at a Jewish-owned office-lady fashion boutique in the City of London named City Girl Jennifer
.
I never met Jennifer. But I did meet a cast of hilarious Jewish salesladies who taught me the meaning of many strange words, including “yenta,” “mieskeit,” “verputz,” “shonda,” “sheitel,” “shykel” and “meshuga.” These high-street jobs gave me an extensive knowledge of Yiddish and a wealth of display experience.

In the late seventies I was plucked from this chiaro-obscurity by a brilliant, creative, eccentric Jew named Tommy Perse, who sponsored my green card and gave me a job at his store, Maxfield, an iconic temple of chic in West Hollywood.

To say he took a leap of faith is no exaggeration. Back then I was wilder, younger and even more disaster prone. I relied heavily on my Jewish safety net, and Tommy always came through. When the engine fell out of my '65 Dodge push-button station wagon, Tommy good-naturedly coughed up the dough for repairs. When I got busted for drunk driving while wearing a plaid bondage punk outfit, Tommy helped me find a lawyer.

I would still be working at Maxfield if the equally creative and brilliant Gene Pressman had not given me my job at Barneys, where I have schlepped happily for more than twenty-five years.

My transition into a writing career has also been Jew-inspired. In 1998, Peter Kaplan, now at Fairchild and formerly of
The New York Observer
, read my first book, a book I assumed would be a one-off writing venture, and bravely offered me the opportunity to write a regular column. Ten years later, courtesy of Jacob Weisberg, I skipped onto Slate.com. The book you are holding in your hands would not exist without the vision and chutzpah of publishing-wor
ld Jew David Rosenthal and demi-Jewess Sarah Hochman. Mazel tov to moi!

Why did my Jews feel compelled to extend a helping hand to this flailing
feygele
? Maybe it is because they too are members of a marginalized and oft-reviled group. The difference between a pink triangle and a yellow star is, after all, only a color switch and three more points. Which very much brings us back to the fragile, talented Mr. Galliano.

I suspect that John Galliano could tell a very similar story to mine. How many untold numbers of Jews have supported him over the years? How much of his success does he owe to the kindness and support of Jewish mitzvahs,
machers
,
schmatta
kings, fashionistas and, most important, customers. News flash: WASPs don't shop! Without the passionate and genuine support of style-obsessed Jewesses, Galliano would probably have ended up stitching frocks for City Girl Jennifer
.

I earnestly hope for a positive outcome for John and feel very optimistic about his impending reinvention. In my experience, Jews are magnanimous by nature and will give him the thumbs-up.

Regarding Jewish magnanimity: Back in the nineties I attended the infamous Jean Paul Gaultier fall/winter Jew-inspired runway show. Incorporating bejeweled yarmulkes; oversize, fur-trimmed Hasid hats; and prayer shawls, Jean Paul put his cheeky postmodern spin on every stylish flourish of Orthodox Jewry. Christy Turlington rocked the runway sporting silky payos, and rabbi chic was born. One strapping young model wore a fun-fur Hasid outfit, accessorized with a matching fur-covered ghetto blaster which played “Hava Nagila.” This JPG pastiche was strangely beautiful but unquestionably outrageous.

As Jean Paul took his curtain calls, there were a few audible tut-tuts of disapproval.

“I'm offended by that,” said the Jew on my left.

“No, you're not,” laughed the Jew on my right.

“Okay. You're right. It was great,” guffawed the first Jew.

At the time of writing, fashion luminaries are speculating about the status of John's career. According to Cathy Horyn of
The New York Times
, “Some in the fashion industry are wondering if it isn't time to forgive the self-described drug addict and ‘lost soul' and offer him a second chance to return to the fashion fold.”

Does John need the forgiveness, or otherwise, of the fashion world? In my opinion, he needs something much more beautiful: he needs sobriety. Rumor has it that he has achieved it. With sobriety will come clarity and a new creative chapter.

Call me crazy, but I see him attending a nice synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiday of atonement, and explaining in his own words how he fell into the abyss. Jews need to hear it from the man himself. They need to hear that the things he said were part and parcel of an addiction, a madness, an illness from which he has now fully recovered. I think they will listen to him. John is a poet, an artist, a bloke with a sweeping vision, and Jews like that.

“SHE IS A LITTLE TOO FAT,
but she has a beautiful face and a divine voice.” Thus spake Karl Lagerfeld when some journalist or other asked him for his opinion of Adele.

Karl's now legendary quote set the blogosphere afire. The response was explosive and immediate. How dare he? Why is he hating on her? Why is he drinking haterade? Just how full of bile is his daily glass of Châteauneuf-du-Hate?

Karl-gate-hate was major. That relatively innocuous
comment, enrobed in praise for Adele's beauty and her voice, was treated as high treason. If he had pulled out a revolver and shot her, he would have received a less outraged response.

I cannot help feeling that the Adele brouhaha would never have gotten any momentum if those young bloggy folks had been more familiar with Karl's gloriously bitchy history. Compared to the other things Karl has said about people over the years, this comment about Adele was so straightforward and so wildly vanilla as to be almost albino. In many ways, Adele got off very lightly.

Karl Lagerfeld is an enduring genius and a true fashion icon. He is also a tart-tongued Teutonic legend of long standing, a guy who is so bitchy that he can be bitchy in six languages, no less. He is the sultan of sarcasm.

When the legendary Pierre Cardin banned the press from his shows later in his career, Karl said, “That's like a woman without lovers asking for the Pill.”

When the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced its Jackie Kennedy exhibit, circa 2001, Karl said, “It's perfect. They can call it the Necropolitan Museum.” (Karl had hoped that they would mount a Chanel exhibit instead.)

On defeating the deposed president of Chanel: “The good news is that Kitty D'Alessio has been made director of special projects. The bad news is, there are no special projects.” (For the record: The glamorous Kitty is a fashion legend—with a serious jet-black side-flip coiffure—who I admire greatly. Her many accomplishments include having masterminded those famous midcentury Maidenform pointy brassiere ads: “I dreamed I went on safari in my Maidenform bra.” In
Mad Men
terms, she was the original Peggy.)

On being succeeded at Chloé by Stella McCartney, Karl said, “I think they should have taken a big name. They did—but in music, not fashion.”

According to Karl, Miuccia Prada makes “flea-market clothes.” And Michael Kors? Lagerfeld told CNN that he had nothing against the American designer, but that was only because he barely knew who he was.

Regarding the adulation surrounding Alaïa: “If you want to see a retrospective of Azzedine Alaïa, just take a look at what he's doing now.”

It is important to note that Karl's fabulously reckless bitchiness is often directed toward himself: “I respect nothing, no one, including myself. Respect is not a very creative thing.”

And before anyone can make fun of him, he often makes fun of himself.

“When I was four, I asked my mother for a valet for my birthday.”

His favorite names? “Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI.”

Who are the Lagerfelds of today? Do they exist? Has this glorious genre of sarcasm gone out of fashion?

I am rather afraid it has. Karl is something of a unicorn. There is a dearth of barbed bon mots. There are no Oscar Wildes or Dorothy Parkers of the runway. Fashion editorials and reviews are always positive. Witty Lagerfeldian denunciations are rare. If you want to enjoy some modish bitchery, you have to trawl back through history in search of these hard-to-find nuggets. Here's a typical example of what I'm talking about: Years ago a pal of mine named Adrian Cartmell launched a collection he dubbed “throw-away chic.” The temptation to riff on this concept was too great for one journalist, who opined that “some of it was chic, but most of it should be thrown away.”

Forty years later such gems are virtually unheard of.

But please don't despair. There is hope. There exists one brave individual, other than Karl, who is doing all he can to keep it alive.

Not long ago at a fashion cocktail party . . .

An old pal was bending my ear with descriptions of some new low-brow reality-show obsession. (Is there anything more boring than somebody banging on in endless detail about a TV show which one has yet to see?) One particular character had caught his attention. When he described her as “a blousy, braying, tackily dressed plastic surgery victim,” I simply could not resist. “For you that must be like looking into a mirror,” I said, with a concerned look.

The TV enthusiast winced visibly and strode off. He was later heard telling pals that I was behaving “like a menopausal maniac.” When I heard this, I felt a chill wind. Clearly, sarcasm, one of the greatest achievements of mankind, or “unkind” as I prefer to call it, is no longer à la mode
.

Sarcasm—the word is from the Greek
sarkazein
, meaning “to rend the flesh”—is one of the building blocks of civilization. The ability to express an unwelcome observation in a wickedly passive-aggressive manner is, at the very least, a great alternative to old-fashioned fisticuffs or rape 'n' pillage. When I think about those ancient Greeks and the carte blanche they enjoyed to say horrid things to each other, I get quite jealous. For example: If you were strolling through downtown Thebes and you ran into a pal who was looking particularly soiled and unkempt, you might say, “Going somewhere special?” to which the other Greek might good-naturedly reply, “Oh, you and your flesh-rending ironic observations!” It's sad to think that such a remark would, in our squishy and oversensitive age, be met with accusations of “hating.”

If sarcasm is no longer understood and accepted, then what, pray, will become of the little children of today. Sardonic irony is as critical to healthy child development as vitamins and checking for ticks. Raising your brats on an exclusive diet of sincerity is a recipe for disaster. The current mania for relentless positivity and self-esteem building leaves me convinced that we are in real danger of turning out an entire generation of inspirational speakers. Tony Robbins, watch your back.

Not long ago at another cocktail party . . .

There I was, swanning about at the mingle fest which precedes the Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards at the New York Public Library. This event is not as raucous and freewheeling as you might imagine. When Fashion, with a capital F, celebrates herself, she can get a little serious. The attendees in gowns and tuxes were a tad tight-assed. Adding to the solemnity was the sad fact that Yves Saint Laurent had died the day before. Yves was the quintessence of bohemian, faux-hemian, caftan-wearing Euro-fabulosity. I have a pair of tasseled YSL couture thigh boots which I keep on my mantelpiece as a reminder of this fact.

I was scheduled to present an award to Dries van Noten. Feeling it incumbent on myself to wear Dries, I had ransacked the city for something apropos and found a nifty black kimono thingy. I convinced myself that this jacket, worn with a ruffled white shirt and a narrow tie, fell under that category of “creative black-tie.” It screamed jujitsu. I had justified it to myself as “something David Beckham might wear.” When I arrived, a pal commented on my ensemble
.

“You look as if you bolted out of the salon chair prematurely in that black tent they make you wear. I half expected to see chunks of foil in your hair.”

So far, so good.

Then I ran into Dries van Noten himself and drew his attention to my purchase. He seemed to have no recollection of ever designing it. “You look very
Kill Bill
,” he said.

Glowing from all this positive attention, I went to grab a drink. The barman seemed happy to see me.

“How is the show going? Do you think you will get another season?”

“Which of my blockbuster media appearances are you referring to?”

“You're on
Will & Grace
, right? Aren't you Beverley Leslie?”

Before I had time to decide if this constituted an insult, a gonging sound drowned out further conversation, indicating that we should take our places for the awards ceremony.

Hostess Fran Lebowitz was
très
drôle
. Nonetheless, even she was having a hard time injecting the mood with levity. The crowd felt stiff and self-conscious. An enema was required. At the very least, a laxative. Somebody needed to loosen everyone up. Would Yves have wanted us to be glum all evening?
Pas du tout!
Somebody should really take it upon him or herself to inject these proceedings with a little raucous informality.

Then it occurred to me: Maybe that someone should be
moi
!

I headed for the podium to present Monsieur van Noten, the most talented designer present, with his “International” award. Overcome with feelings of altruism and responsibility, I vowed to use my brief stage appearance to perk up the crowd. A little British debunkery. That's all that is ever needed.

Fran introduces me. I stride manfully onstage and embark on what I feel sure is my side-splittingly amusing, Belgian-themed speechlet. I announce to the crowd that Dries will be producing a new TV show titled
The Real Housewives of Antwerp
. Instead of the usual plastic Barbie dolls, the housewives will be very mopey, artsy, poetic and pale. When disagreements erupt, they will settle arguments by pelting each other with Belgian chocolates.

Funny, right? Apparently not.

The silence in the Celeste Bartos Forum is deafening. You could hear the crickets all the way to Staten Island. If the gowned attendees were chuckling, they were doing it behind their clutch purses.

In a desperate attempt to wring a few laughs out of the assembled fashionrati, I decide to extemporize.

Directly in my field of vision sits a stately, glamorous legend. Mr. André Leon Talley. He is wearing a loosely tied neoclassical turban. It looks like the headgear from a Rembrandt or Ingres painting. The turban in question is classic Talley: seemingly effortless yet over-the-top glamorous. Adorning the turban is a jeweled pin.

HE LOOKS UTTERLY GORGEOUS.

It's worth reflecting on the majesty of Mr. Talley. André Leon Talley is one of the pillars of the fashion community. His knowledge of the nuances of style and his ability to communicate his passions to others is unmatched. He is outrageous and generous and eccentric and extraordinary.

I worship that fabulous, glamorous bitch!

Of all the attendees at this particular awards show, he has displayed the most unbridled panache. And isn't that what fashion is all about?

So why not give him a shout-out?

Moving closer to the mike, I spontaneously suggest that André Leon Talley should “hock the fabulous diamond pin on that turban which you rented to come here tonight,” and use the resulting moolah to fund Dries's Antwerp
Housewives
show.

To say that it simply did not work would be accurate.

André is not amused by my en passant reference to his headgear. The phrase “visibly affronted” would best describe his reaction. Ditto his date, Naomi Campbell, who lets out a protective hiss.

My bowels lurch and a vomitaceous feeling engulfs me. Of all the people in that room he—André, the Ab-fabulous, the brilliant, the most life enhancing—was the last person on earth I wished to offend. My intention in singling out this remarkable accessory is to express solidarity with the wearer, the majestically adorned Mr. Talley. Here is an oasis of flamboyance in a sea of formality. I hoped, through the lens of humor, to spotlight ALT and pay homage. My goal—please believe me, André dahling!—was to
j'adore
the shit out of you.

As I staggered back to my seat in a state of dry-mouthed panic, I began to trawl the deep recesses of my consciousness. From whence had sprung this horrid notion of rented accessories? How did I conceive of such a Dada idea?

Then I remembered: Dame Edna, aka Australian comedian and writer Barry Humphries.

In the mid-seventies I wandered into a Knightsbridge bookstore and found Dame Edna Everage, Barry Humphries's alter ego, in housewife drag, autographing a stack of her latest lifestyle tome for a small crowd of admirers. A fan of long standing, I immediately grabbed a book and joined the line.

The lady who preceded me was an aging Sloane Ranger with an entitled air. She seemed to have no idea that she was dealing with a seven-foot Australian bloke in drag and proceeded to ask the author a lot of turgid, probing questions about housewifery, the Australian dried-fruit industry, the climate Down Under and such. When the Sloane declined to purchase a book, the Dame responded by thanking her profusely “for renting that little mink collar to come here and see me today.”

Funny and memorable, right?

Back to the turban debacle.

As you can well imagine, I felt ghastly. Sarcasm is no fun unless the audience, victims included, is chuckling right along with you. As a result of my failed attempt, I spent the rest of the evening staring into the middle distance like Whistler's mother. I felt like I should toss my green card out of the window and go back to the Are You Being Served? department store where my fashion journey had begun three decades earlier.

Barely had the sun risen the next morning when peonies were dispatched to Mr. Talley, accompanied by an effusive apology note.

His assistant called mine to say that André would prefer orchids. The hauteur of this response felt like the sharp, stinging smack of an Hermès riding crop, or what I imagine that would feel like were I into sadomasochism. I shivered with humiliation. Before you could say “Inès de la Fressange” or “Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis,” the substitution was made.

Time is a great healer. In the intervening years, André has seen fit to forgive and forget.

Since André forgave me, I had no choice but to forgive myself. And why not? After all, it was not my fault. The truth of the matter is that I have always had a forked tongue. And I am not to blame. I was raised that way.