“I Mean…What?!?” – Abe Gurko

In all my thousand years on Earth, I have not felt such a palpable energy about Paris Fashion Week. With Lanvin so breathtaking, Rick Owens beyond cool and Balenciaga so interesting, I am green with envy at the editors sitting front row at the upcoming Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior shows. Relegated to sitting behind my desk like many sad bloggers, I can at least rejoice at the heralded return to the glory days of Paris fashion. There was a time when New York Fashion Week stole a bit of the thunder, when celebrities were not ruining the front… Read More »

Madam Gaga and the Twinzees, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, will be all up in the CFDA Awards this year. Stay tuned to the Best and Worst Dressed like we did last year. We called it the CFDA Not Best Dress List.… Read More »

Merle Ginsberg (Editor-in-Cheif, fashionrules.com) and I continue our cross continental SKYPE dialogue and compare notes on the CFDA Awards. MERLE: Shall we start with worst dressed? ABE: Is there a better place to start? How about the Olsen Twins? MERLE: Dumpster chic. ABE: I saw this fantastic video look book that The Row did on style.com, it featured nothing like those schmattas. They are such fashion icons….why I don’t know…but they are and they never get the red carpet down. MERLE: They are too young and too thin, to hide under all this fabric at a black tie. I also… Read More »

Last year at this time, I MEAN…WHAT?!? launched the Not Best Dressed Awards. It was fitting that the kick-off center around the CFDA Awards, where everyone in the room should just know better. After my initial shock at some the choices, I decided that the ones who were worst dressed had the least friends. OR, they were so feared, that no one dare contradict their choices. This year again, we see shocking taste in a room filled with taste-makers. These people are oxy-morons. Sure, I have been guilty of “Do as I say, not as I do”, but on a… Read More »

Help…I am drowning in a pool schmattas designed by celebrities. Someone throw me a line…and not a line designed by a celebrity. Unless you have been living under a rock, you would have noticed that a slew of celebrities have taken to multitasking, branding, adding layers to their illustrious careers by cultivating their secret childhood fantasies of becoming fashion designers. Literally every week I report on another astonishing member of this new clan of celebrities, who we can lovingly call brand whores. Every entertainment management firm is out there selling their talent to anyone that will pay anything, in an… Read More »

You all know how vomitous I feel about the barrage of designer-nee-celebrities (a.k.a. celebrity-turned-designers) that are flooding the already tenuous fashion market. Click on any of these links for a recap of how annoyed this makes me and how unsettling this is for real-live fashion designers. There are just so many open-to-buy dollars from retailers and if they are compelled to purchase from a celebrity-brand, that effects someone else’s bottom line. One plus one equals two. Till now I have been kind to the Olsen Twins, because their collection, The Row, was being well received, they are true on-the-fashion-scene insiders,… Read More »