“I Mean…What?!?” – Abe Gurko

The Paris shows are where we loook for the answers to: What is fashion? What will we be wearing next season? What length will skirts be? Color palette? It’s really way to much pressure to put on one city. Especially when so much of what is shown is borderline nonsense. I wonder no more why so much of the editorial in Vogue centers around the main French houses, well, that because they are the ones worth featuring. I saw Jane Campion’s Bright Star last night and sobbed through the sheer beauty and majesty of her direction and costumes. The bright… Read More »

Who doesn’t look forward to the Paris shows? Oh…I see. Well then, let’s focus on the people like me who are very interested in what the great French houses are doing for the season. As the Paris shows wind down World Fashion Week (my new favorite term), I look forward to that large mug of coffee while perusing Women’s Wear Daily, style.com and Cathy Horyn’s review in The New York Times. I love that WWD glides over hot messes and style.com’s willingness to sift out the nugget of gold from the muck…except in the case of Maison Martin Margiela…yikes. But… Read More »

The competition is fierce between New York, Paris, London and Milan for “most important fashion week”. It is an ever evolving process as to which city owns the top spot. Surely Paris has to be the most influential due to it’s rich history and deep fashion roots. That plus the perception that if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. Yes, New York thinks that phrase only pertains to a New York state of mind. But I am here to tell you, that ain’t true…especially in reference to fashion. New York has been trying to hold on… Read More »

It started in New York Fashion Week…continued at London Fashion Week and this trend was also prevalent in Milan. Shoes were no longer just shoes…they were a statement…the focus of the catwalks. At Phi, all the girls wore heavy shoes…even with little mini dresses. Anna Sui also showed heavy shoes with mini skirts. In London, Matthew Williamson covered the foot with fabric and bows which drew attention away from the clothes, if you ask me. So, what does this trend tell us? That the shoe makes the outfit? Or was it trying to dissuade the consumer from considering such a… Read More »

World Wide Fashion Week. That’s what we are in right now. Soon the fashion editors will feel like they are in that movie from the 60’s. “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium”. The poor dears. Gallivanting to and fro…London, Paris, Milan, New York. Oh, their aching feet. After a seemingly interesting and mild New York Fashion Week, the next stop is London, currently celebrating 25 years of quirky nonsense…sprinkled with a few good designers. In 1984, George Orwell’s dystopia, as predicted, was under way. Today we increasingly experience shades of this nightmare world. The thing is, London has a… Read More »

A few weeks ago I did a piece on the “End-of-Summer Stomach Ache” and now…sadly…summer is really over. Today’s headlines in Women’s Wear Daily speak to the stomach ache designers are feeling while they approach the worst economic market since the Great Depression. How is that for an Imodium Moment? While reading through the article, something stuck in my craw that I wanted to talk about. In addition to the many elements that made our economy crumble, I firmly believe that the fashion designers who made those Target, K-Mart and other down-market deals, did not do themselves or their peers… Read More »

Dear lovely readers, fellow bloggers, fashionistas, people who get here by accident while googling something and wondering what the hell is this, and the fashion insiders who I adore that regularly visit I Mean..What?!?, As I embark on the developing the next phase of my website, I wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart…and yes…I have a really big one…and heart, too, for supporting us. We are adding fashion reportage over the next several international fashion weeks…by popular demand.  We will surely have the usual daily dose of IMW (you know that acronym speaks volumes) regarding… Read More »

No, I have not yet seen The September Issue yet…film or magazine. I’m going to do the ritual this weekend, see the movie then flip through Vogue. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, I think Anna Wintour is fierce. Anyone from Lauren Wiesberger to Maureen Dowd can say what they want about Anna, but they are simply riding her Oscar de la Renta coattails. Having worked for years in Hollywood, inside the inner sanctum of celebrity, you learn really quickly that “those” people are not what they seem. When I moved to Los Angeles, my goal was to… Read More »

There is a great article about the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in The New York Times today. It is a sweet love letter to a time gone by… and it made me cry. I was yay close to going to Woodstock, though only 13 years old at the time, because my family summered in the Catskills, nearby Bethel. We were en route that particular weekend, but the news reports kept us sequestered in New Jersey. I watched the news with yearning sadness all weekend, knowing that my spirit was with the Woodstock Nation. It was that defining moment when… Read More »

Ahhh, The Sunday New York Times Style section. My secured ticket to an I Mean…What?!? And it rarely disappoints these days. No matter how lame some of the articles in The Times Style (remember, this an oxymoron) can be, I will never stop reading it because the Sunday Times is everyone who’s anyone’s ritual. And now with these commentaries, it’s my new, improved ritual.… Read More »