They’re Really Going to Want Their MTV Now

What comes after Generation X? Generation $$$. And showing the youthful consumers the way is Cindy Crawford. This week the style goddess signed an exclusive deal to be the spokesmodel for shopping programming on MTV, VH-1 and NICK at NITE. “Hopefully, this will be a cool thing to watch,” she told the Wall Street Journal.

We know one pre-pubescent princess who will be there. As it is now, our 11-year-old--on the brink of MTV’s 12-to-34-year-old audience--drools over teeth-brightener infomercials. She’s a master of the eye-rolling, mouth-pouting, what-have-you-bought-for-me-lately look, and hardly needs Crawford’s goading to feel deprived. MTV Networks’ six-month test of shopping programming is scheduled to begin later this summer. Lock up your daughters.

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Catching a Few Zs: It was a high-class cruise fest this week at the Paris winter haute couture shows. How else to explain front-row appearances of the Artist Formerly Known As Prince, actors Hugh Grant and Sylvester (“It’s not my baby”) Stallone and singer Bryan Adams? Sure, they might have had a craving for a $15,000, one-of-a-kind gown. The urge strikes us now and again. But lest we appear too hard on these hunks consider that AFKAP nodded off, not once, but twice, reports Women’s Wear Daily, in the middle of the Gianni Versace show.

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Deconstruction Squared: Early in the summer, blood-splattered models frolicked with guns for a controversial fashion pictorial in England’s trendy magazine the Face. Now, the next step in violence wear has arrived: bullet-ridden clothing. New Hampshire artist Frank Allgeyer’s Drive-By Fashions. He shoots holes into clothing to his customers’ specifications. They can choose handgun holes, rifle holes or machine gun holes. The price: $35 for trousers and jackets, $15 for T-shirts, certificates of authenticity included. “This is in no way meant to promote violence, the gang lifestyle or macho militarism,” Allgeyer told the Associated Press. “It’s just a fashion statement. If you try to read anything into it, you’re just dead wrong.”

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Hot Links: “Cuff links are like women’s clothes--gaudy in good times, Spartan in bad.” Eugene Klompus should know. He owns the world’s largest collection of cuff links--27,000 pairs, not to mention the singles. The founder and president of the National Cuff Link Society, which convenes in Chicago on Aug. 20-21, has been a link-ophile since childhood. “It’s like ‘get a life,’ huh? But people who wear cuff links are very discriminating.”

Collectors narrow their prey to specific sub-genres. Take the fellow who buys links made only in Newark, N.J. Other favorites are cameos, fleur-de-lis, antique or those with a sporting theme. Of course, the cuff-link-wearing man requires plenty of French-cuffed shirts. Klompus recommends the menswear department at Nordstrom. The society’s members communicate through a newsletter called--what else?--the Link. For information, call (708) 632-0561.

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Brighter, Cooler Laundry: An Orange County publication that debuted this week calls itself “style-driven.” We have our doubts. Sure, it’s got “stimulating photography, untamed fiction and off-the-wall humor” (an alternative magazine perequisite). But we’re afraid the brains behind Java have a lot to learn about the geography of style. Included in their distribution points are “nightclubs, bars, coffeehouses, art galleries, hair salons and hip laundromats.” Yeah, there’s nothing hipper than reading Habermas in the flickering glare of fluorescent lights while your dirty underwear churns round and round.

Feast From the East: Antique fabrics meet modern design at Sunday’s Japanese Festival Fashion Show and benefit luncheon at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. The show, which is part of Nisei Week, will spotlight clothing from Issey Miyake’s Plantation line, Kanojo and Tadashi. Five designers whose work event chairman Shigeko Kajiya described as “very modern” have come from Okinawa for the show. Miyake, however, will remain at home in Paris. “He’s very, very famous,” Kajiya said. “I would have had to charge too much for the tickets.” (Tickets are $45 and may be ordered by calling (213) 972-5508.)

* Inside Out is published Thursdays.