Tony Ward

All images from here

Ok, I'm not one to get celebrity crushes- well, Adrian Brody and Dan Bejar excluded- but can we please talk about how hot Tony Ward is? (yeesh, look at that trifecta and it's clear I'm a sucker for schnozzes)

I never thought the day would come that I'd be jealous of Madonna- who made Ward her boy toy in the early '90's- but I'd vogue with this guy any day. More important than his Lotharian bone structure is the fact that he seems to have a fairly adventurous spirit and a good sense of humor (and, in all fairness, a rather typical preoccupation with sex).

His website lists, among his many talents of acting, designing clothes, and photography, "antimodel".  Is that what you call it when you take extreme close-ups of your own d*ck?  But I'll leave the pretense aside so you can ogle away.  I'm particularly fond of this shoot for FHM Collections (below)- he's hardly androgynous, and I think that's why the theatricality of it works so well.  Plus, I'm a sucker for meaty brohs in chainmail and lipstick!

My first job

Image from here

I love this post from Garance Dore about all the dead-end summer jobs she had before becoming a professional photographer/illustrator.  Certainly it's reassuring to know that even someone that famous started off as a waitress.

My first job was working the Christmas season at the Gap.  Initially, I really enjoyed folding all the holiday-themed sparkly shirts and wearing my red fleece scarf they'd given me as a hiring gift.  I quickly mastered exclaiming "Wow, that striped sweater really compliments your eyes!" with the proper spontaneity, and worked off my lunchtime creme-filled cookie sandwiches by bopping around the store singing to the two-hour tape loop of Christmas tunes.  But after three months of malltopia- right around when people began returning all of their unwanted Gap socks- I began to think I might detonate a mannequin if I had to hang up one more satin shirt that had slinked its way to the floor.

I've worked in a pet store cleaning poodle pee and answering profoundly technical questions regarding chew toys, in a bicycle shop selling specialty helmets to sweaty cyclists while averting my gaze from all the lycra-wrapped butts, at an anarchist book store (also quite sweaty), in a video rental store - complete with x-rated back room, at a million different restaurants (the majority of which have been, inexplicably, Asian-themed).  I've Moshi-Moshi'ed my way through two years a Japanese salon receptionist, and poured two more years worth of beer and sympathy as bartender at a Dutch youth hostel. I'm sure at some point I will be able to save someone's life with my expansive knowledge of the dog kibble industry, how to perfectly tap a "biertje" with exactly two fingers' worth of foam on top, or how to change a rear bike tire within five minutes.  I certainly dream of the time I will have to write my expose about sexual harassment in the New York restaurant industry during my leisurely retirement years.  But for now, I'm looking forward to a real job!

My dad's first job was in a potato chip factory, and my mom's was "flipping burgers at Burger King." Thus are my culinary preoccupations explained.  What were your first jobs?

McCarren Park

Sharing laughs and carbs with Kyle, McCarren Park, Brooklyn

I sure do love McCarren Park in New York: nestled between the loving arms of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, it's such a nexus of activity and energy for young artists, fashionables, winos, volleyballsters, budding baseball stars, and sticky-fingered children.  On any given afternoon, the asphalt path is equal parts catwalk and racetrack.  So why is it so dirty and run-down?  As my friend Kyle and I were ruining our waistlines there last night, we couldn't help but think that such a pivotal location with such high traffic could stand to be significantly cleaner and more botanically diverse.

Spread across 35 acres and four blocks, the park has 7 tennis courts, 5 baseball fields, 12 handball courts, a pristine running track encircling a verdant soccer field (my personal outdoor gym), and, along the majority of the largest center block, a vast expanse of dirt that seems to be growing only cigarette butts.

Surely a park located in an area famous for its artist population could be more aesthetically diverse? Where is the environmental art, the sculpture garden?  Most importantly, perhaps, where are the plants? I tend to think of parks as having multiple purposes: recreational, athletic, social, environmental, and educational.  While the athletic resources are well-kept, in the last two respects, McCarren is quite lacking; the only garden in the park is a tiny, uninviting corner surrounded by a gate, and the only botanical education the rest of the park has to offer is to confirm the failure of styrofoam cups to biodegrade.

Kyle and I are mulling over proposing a beautification project for the park, especially since the olympic-size pool on the north end, closed since 1984, is set to re-open summer 2011.  By this time next year, the pool will be packed with young up-and-comings working on their tattooed tans, so wouldn't it be wonderful to unveil a brighter, greener garden surrounding it as well?

Tina Kalivas

Australian designer Tina Kalivas is amazing! Nothing gets me pumped more than to see another designer re-contextualizing traditional/ethnic garb into something sexy and intelligent.  Her designs are well-traveled, well-researched, and well-cut. Traditionalism and futurism do battle in the most delightful and filmic way in each piece.

 I'm also particularly fond of Kalivas' transparency: her website includes video clips, record covers, or posters that inspired the individual collections. It makes a lot of sense that she once worked on Alexander McQueen's design team.  Though I'm inclined to be most drawn to her African-inspired garb, her costume design for the Japanese Robin Hood film Goemon, thrilled me the most. Dig it!

 *Ping:* added to Netflix queue!

On Sustainability

The question of 'sustainable fashion'- beyond a Whole Food's eco-aesthetic, that is- rumbles through my thoughts quite often, and today I read this on Luxirare, regarding her recent experiences at a Barney's sale:

There is nothing that excites me more than the Alaia rack at Barneys (Actually there is but I said that for effect). He is just in a league of his own, he makes the best clothes, or at least I think so. The designs are detailed but minimal, nothing litters his designs without reason. They are just so incredibly well crafted and his technique cannot be copied easily, I think his clothes are worth buying because they are sustainable. They transcend trends and the quality is so high that you would never want to throw it away. I really can’t say that for many of the clothes I see (in terms of them being “worth it”, I get sick of everything so easily) but I can definitely say I’d never get sick of owning one of his designs.

What is the shape of fashion in the 21st century? How do circumstances such as climate change, food shortages, overpopulation, and media saturation affect people's choices in garb, and designer's choices regarding what to create? I actually wake up some mornings with questions burning my mind such as "How does Facebook effect what I'll wear today?" and "What might Barack Obama have to do with the length of women's skirts?" This stems from an actual conversation I overheard in my childhood between my grandfather and my mother regarding the economics of skirt length. They were trying to establish a correlative theory as we all sat by the pool getting sunburned. Yes, skirt lengths became significantly shorter during the Roaring 20's, a time of economic uncertainty but general excitement regarding stock markets, but they also became shorter during WWII due to material rationing.  Meanwhile, long skirts were the status quo during the 1930's, when the economy could hardly be described as flourishing, and again in 60's hippie movement, simultaneous with the invention of micro-minis! There seemed to be no hard and fast rule.

Though it is impossible to establish those lovely GUTs (Grand Unified Theories) regarding something as basic as how many of your friends are on unemployment versus how much leg a lady is willing to show, one can certainly perceive the effects of the economy on people's choices in clothing purchases. Many an article has gurgled to the surface of newsprint regarding "Recessionistas"; "The Sudden Resurgence of Black On The Runways This Season"; "How to Buy Basics- with Style!" etc. A few months ago, Bill Cunningham's crackled voice waxed poetic on the New York Times' website over a photo montage of women on the streets of New York wearing their favorite classics, salvaged from the depths of their closets.

Certainly, for me as a designer it is a question of extreme pertinence to predict what demands consumers will have on their clothing. One of the most basic requirements involved in a human's quotidien existence can be as minimal and utilitarian as it can be frivolous and unaffordable. This relationship between form and function, durability and cost, style/"trendiness" and investment, is one of the challenges I find most exciting in designing clothes.

And with that, I leave you with a photo of melted ice cream in Central Park, discovered the weekend of July 4:

meat locker

Trump Towers basement, photo by Steve Macfarlane