Taking Her Show to Broadway, Where Else?
Refusing to let the scheduling vagaries of Fashion Week rain on her parade again, Nigerian-born designer Lola Faturoti staged a guerrilla fashion show on the street here Wednesday, in front of people streaming out of Ralph Lauren’s must-see show.
Thirteen monastic-looking models stood in a line on West Broadway and ripped off their muslin cloaks, one by one, to reveal outfits based on a story Faturoti made up about a 15th century African princess who is obsessed by a Da Vinci painting. Medieval chanting emanated from a loud speaker.
Faturoti told the crowd that last season her runway show was scheduled at 9 a.m., just before Lauren’s show, and fashion editors stayed away en masse. This time, she said, she was determined to bring the show to them.
Way to capture an audience!
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Forget Kelly bags and Manolo Blahnik high heels; the real status symbol here is a car and driver. After Marc Jacobs’ show at the Armory on Monday, a fleet of black Lincoln Town cars awaited celebs Sarah Jessica Parker and Sean “Puffy” Combs, magazine editors Anna Wintour and Kate Betts, and such socialites as the Lauder sisters, Aerin and Jane.
The rest of the throng fanned out on the streets to catch cabs to Jacobs’ after-party at the hot SoHo restaurant Canteen. After several unsuccessful attempts in the bitter cold, I headed for the subway. Others had the same idea, including Francis Ford Coppola, his daughter Sofia, and her friend Ione Skye. No one on the platform seemed to recognize the “Godfather” father, who was dressed in a black beret, until a photog started snapping pics. Coppola and his companions cheerfully posed--even in the subway car, where other passengers seemed indifferent to what was going on around them.
The after-party was preceded by an exhibit of drawings by Tim Burton, featuring one of his peculiar characters, Stain Boy. Stain Boy is basically a splotch, a blob with legs, an ink stain that one might see on a Rorschach test.
In a poem accompanying the drawings, Burton writes that Stain Boy is the “strangest” superhero by far. “He doesn’t have any special powers, or a fancy car . . . his only ability is to leave a nasty stain.”
I was puzzled by the gallery stop. Why did all these fashionistas care about the artistic dabbling of a Hollywood director?
Turns out, Marc Jacobs is a fan of the little fellow, and created a limited-edition Stain Boy T-shirt for sale at the event. Partygoers went ga-ga, waving American Express cards and $100 bills in a scene reminiscent of the Barneys hangar sales at Santa Monica Airport.
Without any text on them to explain the splotch, the shirts looked, well, stained. What did it matter? I’d feel cool wearing a Stain Boy shirt even around those who might think I needed to do my laundry.
So, shielding my purse and champagne flute from bony elbows, I pushed my way to the counter only to discover that a long-sleeved T-shirt cost $190, and a short-sleeved version was $150. All proceeds were earmarked for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. But still . . . I didn’t have a car and driver and I certainly wasn’t going to have a $190 T-shirt.
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While I’m on the subject of the convergence of the art and fashion worlds, avant-garde quarterly Visionaire threw a party at the Rainbow Room the other night to celebrate its latest edition, a line of $150 jackets with a box of small posters sewn inside.
“Visionaire is a fashion and art publication that started nine years ago as a forum for artists to play with their ideas,” said Cecilia Dean, one of the founders.
The new edition, Visionaire 31 Blue, is a box of fashiony/artsy posters by Nan Golden, Steve Hyatt, Mario Testino and others that is sewn into a jean jacket designed by Wolfgang Tillmans. To get to the box, one has to pull a thread out of the jacket. (The jacket can still be worn afterward, though.)
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It’s nice to know that bus drivers who shuttle tired and cranky fashion writers and buyers to off-site locations for shows have a sense of humor.
While the bus was loading Bottega Veneta show-goers the other night, the driver said: “Please be careful loading the bus. No kicking, no biting, no scratching.”
Booth Moore can be reached at booth.moore@latimes.com.
