Let's talk more about the big September issue of Elle. As with this month's Vogue, the focus is on the dark, somber tone of the clothes for fall and the exaggerated, oversize silhouettes. Here's the difference I've seen so far. Vogue alludes to things such as the way the whole world is at war and how the somber international mood has resulted in an aggressive, blackened state of doom on the runways. Elle, however, just wants to let you know that the oversize trend will not make you look fat. Well, that's good to know. I was worried for a second that people might be thinking fashion is more than just expensive frippery. Who cares about politics and death. Let's buy awesome new outfits that make our butts look cute.
I'll complain more about this later. But first, three things that aren't ridiculous in this month's Elle:
1. The letter to the editor complaining about all of fashion advertising seeming “so sordidly narcissistic” and where are the feel-good We Are the World–ish Benetton ads of yesteryear? Good question, I say— even though I'm totally entertained by the sordidly narcissistic ads. They seem more honest to me.
2. The gigantic doctor's bag purses they're pushing. Wouldn't it be great if they came with stethoscopes designed by whoever made the purse? Your heart beats to the rhythm of Olivier Theyskens.
3. Creation A.H.R. because their concept is “monsters invade a dress.” There should be more dresses in the world that are monster-themed, if you ask me. And you're reading this recap, so you kind of did ask me.
On to the show:
Morning has broken over Atlas New York. With no warning we're introduced to a big fleshy close-up of Kayne The Flaming Lisp's armpits and nipples as he stretches for the camera. Kayne's armpits are modest, really, most likely topiary-trimmed into a perfectly gay oval shapes. And Kayne's nipples, on my TV at least, are the size of silver-dollar pancakes. Big and round and red, the non-lactating man-ducts of a formerly “everyday” guy shrunken down and beaten into submission. And the pointy bits? Not yet turned into the distended thumb-size extra limbs favored by so many 60-year-old leather men who forgot that there are moments in life when it's OK to take off the suction cups and clamps. I give Kayne's nipples an 8 out of 10. He says, regarding the loss of his BFF, Robert Gay Arms. “…I'm sad. But, you know, I am excited that I'm here, not to be selfish.” That's right. Friends, schmiends.
Corky's [Vincent's] chest is also on display, though not as much as Kayne's. At least he's wearing a shirt. He's so happy that he won the last challenge. That makes one of us. Cut to Laura Glamour Mom and Uli, Heidi's German Pet, my new favorite comedy team. Laura crouches down to comb her hair in front of a mirror that sits on their dresser.
Uli: Now I can tell you are pregnant
Laura: So you don't think I'm just making it up to get attention?
Uli: Yeah, I thought at first, but now I can see.
Can these two have their own show, please? It'll be Uli moving from Miami to Manhattan and becoming nanny to Laura's half-dozen kids. She'll chaperone them, hungover, to play dates and wherever, teaching them to swear auf Deutsch, leaving them behind to fend for themselves on the streets while she goes off with her newest girlfriend, Ivanka Trump, to party and then to sleep it off and then to lunch and then to shop for more fabulous clothes.
Cut to Jeffrey Christ complaining about Angela, Headmistress of Jubilee Jumbles, wanting to come to the guys' room to smoke a cigarette. I'm not sure I get this. Is the guys' place the only one with a balcony? No one's making this clear, so I don't care about the blah blah blah complaints. But then Corky says something logical: “So you just tell her.” And Jeffrey responds with a hurt-feelings/the-world-is-out-to-get-me/doesn't-anyone-understand-me face. Easy does it, Friend of Bill.
Oh, wait! Here's more! He complains about Angela trying to get him eliminated last week. Uh, dude, you did plenty of footwork toward that goal all by yourself. Then Angela complains about Jeffrey being an ass. And he was. But so was she. Look, you're both pretty irritating. It's a draw. Can you live with a tie?
The final seven sit by the runway and Heidi pops out, sporting sheepdog bangs and a top by Tits-On-Parade, looking rad as always, keeping the brand tight. The models come out. There are nine of them and seven designers. That means two models have got to go. “Vincent,” says Heidi, “You were the winner of the last challenge [they're inside a studio, so we're not privy to the thunderstorm of blood, frogs, and locusts happening on the Manhattan streets as the result of this turn of events], so you get the first pick.”
Model selection. Yawn. It comes down to Kayne, who ditches two other young women in order to stick with Yappy-Yap-Yapping Amanda. Amanda, for her part, is extraordinarily pleased with this turn of events. She is, in fact, the only model who seems to give a flying fuck about any of it. As she enters the waiting room, she's happy to the point of nonsense. Three of the other models give the best “get a load of her” faces ever.
Cut to Lindsay. Yes, Lindsay. Why don't you know that name? Because Lindsay is one of the other models. She's here to talk shit about Amanda. She claims that Amanda is “consumed with this competition,” a competition that is almost entirely out of the models' hands. They know this. The audience knows this. The producers have to know it. It reeks of someone taking Amanda aside and saying, “Look, obnoxious equals airtime, dig?”
Heidi explains the challenge. “You will be designing an outfit for a hip, international jet-setter.” Jeffrey thinks it's him (“Just kidding,” he lies), but Kayne, bless his tacky heart, thinks it's Tara Reid. “She's the only jet-setter that I can think of that was hip. She had that show, Taradis. She always took off her tops and showed her boobies.” Just when I think I have nothing in common in Kayne, he comes out with this, an ode to my favorite member of young Hollywood, Tara Reid. I watched in agony the other day on TMZ.com, as paparazzi footage of Tara being denied entry into hip nightclub Hyde rolled on for the whole Internet to witness. Then the evil Paris Hilton waltzed right in and Tara's crushing humiliation was complete. But did Tara skulk off? No, she bravely stood her ground and waited until someone noticed that it wasn't just anyone they were shutting out; she, Tara Reid, was being treating this way. When will our government get involved to put a stop to the Tara Reid crisis? Send her body armor. Something.
OK, wait, where was I? Oh yeah, Heidi continues, “There are benefits to winning that will be revealed in a future challenge.” Huh?
The designers meet Tim Gunn in the workroom. Tim tells them that they will be designing the outfits for… themselves. But, OK, besides Uli, who counts as both hip and international? Cut to Uli, who announces straightaway that she is an “international trendy jet-setter, so I'm really happy about it.” Tim continues on to tell them that they are all going to model their own clothes. Angela is beside herself, jumping up and down and hollering, of all things, “Yay!” She has the enthusiasm of the woefully underprepared. And finally, someone will want to wear her clothes.
Off to Mood they go. Obviously they've all seen the fall collections by now. The shows were this spring. They all know that this fall is about how “international” now means “concerned” and “pessimistic,” and how that's translating into clothes that look like battle gear and/or giant swaths of material shaped into cocoon-like fear-pods. So naturally, instead of going straight to the section where they keep the Teflon-coated bolts of black wool, Kayne selects a wacky print that, I believe, is called Mariah Carey's Headache. He's going to layer it over another shirt. “Gor-geous!!” he trills, in the folksinging style of his people, the inverts who wear glittery International Male blouses out on a Saturday night to the gay bars in midsize American cities from coast to coast. I know these blouses because I was there myself, weekend after weekend, for years. I've seen 'em all, the puffy sleeves and fringe and bedazzlement and packs of Mores making miniature rectangular lumps in breast pockets. I've smelled the vodka & cranberry fumes they all sweat onto the dance floor. They were all the gays who looked at me and my poseur-like, ostentatious, punk rock T-shirts, faces contorted into "I smell something and it's you" scowls, asking “What's a Mekon?” Thank goodness I escaped your provincial dumbness, my homosexual brothers. Have fun this Saturday night.
Jeffrey calls Kayne's taste in fabrics “tacky” and says it will be like Liberace when he's done. Tim passes Angela in Mood and gives her advice in his best pay-attention-to-what-I'm-saying warning tone, “Remember, hip. Hip. International.” She gets wide-eyed and says, “Absolutely.”
Translation, Tim: “I see the Jubilee Jumbles in your eyes, and I want to shake them all out of you like a piggy bank. Good God, woman, look at these colors!”
Translation, Angela: “I'm right! I know where I'm going!”
Back at the workroom…
Here's a question I have for Laura. Honey, when did you become a viewer, hurling commentary at the show before it even airs? Because she says, of Uli's mad print mixing, in perfect Uli-inflected Englisch, “It's an OOO-lee ex-PLO-shun!”
Cut to Uli, talking about how she does, in fact, like to jet off to places and always carries her "pahh-tee" dresses "vit" her. They're great to half “even if you get vasted. So I pick cray-see cuhh-lahs.” And here is the secret of her designs, I just figured it out. She creates garments that camouflage vomit. Get Tara Reid on the phone.
Cut to Angela, feeling adrift in the land of international jet-setters, “In terms of… the luxurious lifestyle in Europe, to me that's just really foreign.” That's why it's in Europe, Angela. It's the same reason Uli's mom has a “European air” about her. Because it's Europe.
Cut to Corky in his drawers. He's got his own pants on the work table, designing around them. And he's walking around in his boxer shorts and flip-flops. Why, oh why, must we close-up on his feet in those nasty flip-flops? Who's operating the camera? Knock that shit off. He goes on to say that he'd go to work in his boxers every day if he could. “I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't become a trend.” I wouldn't be surprised either, you double-negative doofus. But again, here's where his smarmy, baby boomer–ish, '70s swinger–'80s cocaine-binge aesthetic comes into play. He's Austin Powers. And I've spent all season wondering when he would begin saying, “Do I make you horny, baby?” Any second now.
Jeffrey can't resist taunting Angela with comments about sending the worst dress he's ever made down the runway—the one he made for her mom—and still not being kicked off. She says, “Enough is enough already, dude.”
But it's not enough. It will never be enough. Ferris Bueller says so.
Laura, in interview: “Jeffrey can't seem to let go of the issues that ensued with Angela's mother. But Jeffrey's often being an asshole, so I'm not surprised to hear it.”
Back to Jeffrey and Angela fighting…
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