TREND I-SPY

Derek Lam S2010 This post is for those of you who think that directional runway trends don't make it on to the street. Here in New York City we were barely into the warmer weeks of Spring when the streets started to swarm with young women who had seemingly forgotten to wear pants. Of course, followers-of-fashion and trend-know-it-alls knew what was up as this no-pants look has been shown on many runways over the past few seasons. Dolce & Gabbana S2010 Chanel S2010 Last November, Carine Roitfeld's son, Vladimir Restoin Roitfield, presented artist Nicolas Pol's exhibition, The Martus Maw . Not to be upstaged, even by her own flesh and blood, the French Vogue doyenne went to the opening sans culotte. If Vladimir was mortified at the sight of his mother showing up in something resembling Spanx under see-through black lace I guess we'll never know. Carine Roitfeld in Dolce & Gabbana, Nov 09 And then of course there's GaGa, who never misses an opport

Bathroom, Central State Hospital, Milledgeville, GA. (taken of photo at Clic with my i-Phone) Last Thursday night, my intrepid gallery-hopping gang of five and I left the opening of the must-see exhibit at hous projects, The Naked Truth in search of pizza and literally stumbled across another reception just winding down at Clic bookstore on Centre Street. Recently I have been rather obsessed with the beauty to be found in decayed and dilapidated matter, both natural and man-made. It feels timely, as part of the agri-tecture trend that I've been noticing recently. I fell instantly in love with the images on the walls at Clic of abandoned mental health hospitals. They're taken from a book of photographs by Christopher Payne called, Asylum, Inside the Closed World of Mental Hospitals. I shot the one above of a bathroom with my i-Phone. I love the vines crawling down the walls inside. Norwich State Hospital , Preston, Conn. Yankton State Hospital, Yankton, S.D. Sprin

...Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. Readers of my blog will remember my Queen Elizabeth 1 obsession from last fall. Now it's the turn of her father, King Henry VIII. The eternally fascinating story of arguably Britain's most famous male monarch and the fate of his six wives continues on Showtime with the third series of The Tudors . The site has a random selection of merchandise from tee shirts and candles to swords and cloaks. Walking past Martin Albert Interiors on W19th Street the other day, I saw these striking chairs in the window, upholstered in linen embellished with the images of Henry and his wives, dripping with dayglo color and crystals. I tracked them down online to the Metropolitan Showtime House at Elledecor.com Sylvie Guieysee’s portrait pillows of the king and his six wives whimsically dot the garden terrace by Piero Lissoni and Nicoletta Canesi. Verily, home decor to lose your head over!

Elizabeth Arden ad, 1927 I've been meaning to write about a wonderfully inspiring exhibition of photography I saw at the Robert Miller Gallery which has unfortunately now ended. Anyway, better late than never and the works of the photographer in question, Baron Adolph de Meyer , (1868-1946) can also be found in The Metropolitan Museum and MOMA here in New York, The V&A and The National Portrait Gallery in London, The Getty Center in L.A. and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. de Meyer, famous for his early twentieth-century portraits of renowned beauties and celebrities is widely recognized as being the founder of modern fashion photography.  He was hired in 1913 by Condé Nast (the person, not the publishing empire he founded!) to be the very first staff photographer of both Vogue and Vanity Fair. The following is from the Robert Miller Gallery press release, "His masterful backlighting, subtle toning, extravagant props, and nuanced backgrounds of diap

Working in the digital space I spend a lot of time imagining a brave new world of avatars and all other things immaterial. On Monday I was brought back to earth with a bump when I went to MOMA to see the Yugoslavian performance artist Marina Abramović. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present MOMA 2010 There are two parts to the exhibit, in one space is Marina herself. She sits motionlessly at a table from before MOMA opens each day until it closes. Members of the public are invited to sit across from her for as long as they wish. They can speak but she will not respond. She is silent. This performance began in March and will continue to the end of May.  In another part of the museum is a major retrospective of her work spanning four decades and including fifty works. Much of this is video of the artist, sometimes alone and sometimes with her erstwhile partner Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen).  The sheer physicality of their performances, which are often done in the nude suddenly brings the b