Brand Noise

Undone Feels Good Right Now, says Posen

Closing day seven of New York fashion week on Thursday, Feb. 7, Zac Posen's Fall 2008 tour de force featured sources of fetish and fantasy for both men and women, from schoolgirl uniforms to fairytale ball gowns.

"It's all of a woman’s fetishes," said Posen post-show. "That's the direction we're going to keep pushing [the collections]."

“Graphic, iconic outfits” and “Olive Oyl mixed with Helmut Newton" was how Posen described the collection. “She's a girl who can snap at any moment, a girl that men and women go crazy for."

"Undone-done feels really good right now," he quipped.

Read more. (Photo: Too high heels topple a model during the Posen show. Hey, they don't call them Knock Me Down shoes for nothing...)

Vampira's Authenticity Pulled from the Culture

Maila Nurmi, whose "Vampira" TV persona pioneered the spooky-yet-sexy Goth aesthetic, has died. She was 85. Friends plan to transport Nurmi's casket in the same hearse she rode in when she served as grand marshal in a procession of hearses sponsored by Los Angeles' Petersen Automotive Museum -- a vintage 1951 vehicle that appeared in a scene of "Ed Wood." (Read more from CNN.)

Vampira played with her pet tarantula, gave gruesome recipes for vampire cocktails and bathed in a boiling cauldron. With a knack for the double-entendre and the requisite blood-chilling scream, Vampira was a hit.

The character won Nurmi short-lived fame and a dedicated cult following. Nurmi claimed Vampira was also the uncredited inspiration for later ghoulish yet glamorous female characters in film and television, including Elvira.

The unconventional came calling in 1953, after Nurmi attended a Hollywood masquerade ball dressed as the ghoul of Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoons. In creating Vampira, Nurmi said she went beyond the Addams cartoon, developing an alter ego influenced by beatnik culture and her experiences as a child of the Depression.

"The times . . . were so conservative and so constrained," Nurmi said in a video interview that was posted on her website. "There was so much repression, and people needed to identify with something explosive, something outlandish and truthful."

Read more from the LA Times.

HyperLink My World, Please

The Green Holiday catalog from Barney's arrived in the mail yesterday filled with everything from Lanvin shopper bags to organic Levi's. But no sign of what color that fabulous lipstick is on the cover...
In my perfect little world even the Barney's billboard at Mulry Square would have a teeny Semapedia tag that would give me all the info I need--provided all colors were perfectly matched.

Woman Attempts to Reunite Long-Lost Pairs (of gloves)

Jennifer Gooch, who is pursuing her master of fine arts degree at Carnegie Mellon University, started onecoldhand.com in an effort to reunite dropped gloves with their mates -- and in the process spread some goodwill.

One of her first ones was a moist, lambskin glove that someone had propped up on a ledge on campus. In its place, she left a small rectangular sticker. A drawing of a black glove is scrawled on it and says, "Missing a glove? onecoldhand.com."

Gooch, originally from Dallas, photographs each glove and puts the picture and information on her Web site, where people can report found gloves and request stickers.

She's working with two women in New York to start a similar effort there, and is talking with local businesses about creating glove dropboxes where people can leave their fabric finds.

Branded Hybrid Vehicles, Local Beacons of Sustainability

NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg joined Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) executives to announce that the company is undertaking energy saving measures here in New York, including introducing the first five hybrid-electric delivery trucks, which will operate out of the company's distribution center in the Bronx.

"Sustainable business practices will save businesses and government money in the long run,” said Mayor Bloomberg. "Although clearly a major international brand, there are important local implications resulting from this decision."

In June, Mayor Bloomberg joined officials from Hertz Rental Cars to announce that they would convert a major portion of their New York based fleet to hybrid.

In May, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the City's yellow-taxi fleet would be required to meet stringent emission standards that currently are only reachable by converting to hybrid taxis.

At Macy's NYC, Only Santa is Real

We made the annual trek to Macy's Herald Square to see Santa with much insistence from my 60-something mother. It's the only place where Macy's is like it used to be, claims she who has had a Macy's credit card since 1956. Or is it? She paraded herself proudly at each sales counter waving the 20% Macy's discount card recently mailed to her--Only to be dismayed that the card was not accepted at any of the favored spots that make Macy's feel like the "old days." It's been policy for as long as I can remember that certain discounts are not extended to these leased departments. Yet the prolification of today's leased departments have deconstructed Macy's Herald Square into essentially a mall. So the Macy's my mom thinks is a nod to yesteryear is simply on lease. That makes it impossible for the essence of what was Macy's to ever extend beyond the...(er)...flagship.

But at least we know that the Santa at Macy's is real. According to my five-year-old, he never has to ask her name and he knows that she's grown a lot. That gives Macy's about another five years to grab hold of their brand before this kid hits tweenhood and steps up her retail expectations. As for now, she thinks Macy's is magical--that one brief visit each year holds her imagination for 365 days.   

chashama performance windows

chashama is an NYC arts organization whose mission is to support artists of all genres. chashama adopts vacant properties that are donated by their owners and converts them into theaters, galleries, studios, and window performance sites; chashama then regrants this space for free or at heavily subsidized rates. Since 1995, chashama has transformed more than 40 vacant properties and has given more than 6,500 artists access to space. "

New York is a Passion City

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled the city’s first global advertising campaign yesterday in Times Square. The campaign, which carries the theme “This is New York City,” includes a television ad that will be the first to promote the city to potential visitors who live overseas.

Historically, NYC & Company received most of its funds from hotel operators and other companies in the travel and tourism industries. The agency organized promotions but had never created a comprehensive campaign on a par with New York State’s long-running “I Love New York” ads.

I guess I fall in line with the typical New Yorker. When I hear “I Love New York,” I think C-I-T-Y. But that’s me.  Yeah, yeah, back then the campaign showed all the images from Upstate to Long Island…

“This is New York” doesn’t do it. Authentic New Yorkers (those without their foot out the door to the suburbs) aren’t compelled to explain the city they live in. Either you get it or you don’t. That’s the essence of New York. New York is a passion city. You either love it or you hate it. Accept it.

Daniel Doctoroff, the deputy mayor for economic development, recounted the difficulty that the writer E. B. White had in defining the city in his 1949 essay “Here is New York.” I like that.

Read the story on the campaign in the NY Times.

Black Culture Breeds a Contemporary Hybrid Nerd

As explained by our friends at Desedo, the black nerd is coming into his own as a confident consumer. Their concern is that the market is not there yet to meet them. The black nerd rising is a witty, empowered person. A thinking person, not one desperately trying to fit in. Not the feminized Lamar character [in Revenge of the Nerds]…nor Steve Urkel.

On a late weekend night, two days before the release of the much-anticipated Microsoft video game Halo 3, a group of 8-to-10 black nerds in their late teens walks down the Bowery, their conversation animated. The leader of the pack, his Ben Wallace afro in full bloom, turns to the others, “Master Chief is… the Jack Bauer of… the Halo universe!”

While the rise of counter-cultures to the mainstream is all too common, their rise within black culture, already a marginal culture with its own mores, has created unexpected hybrids…a more nuanced and (bing!) less gangster voice of young black America to emerge, untempered by market concerns and sensationalism.

Read the whole story.

Medieval Fest Demonstrates Layers of Passion

A Medieval Festival has been held in Fort Tryon Park every year since 1983. We decided to go this year. Lest ye think those that attend medieval festivals are all of like mind, think again. Lots of themes cross the drawbridge from pure authentic re-enactment like third generation falconers. To name a few:

1. green, responsibility and sustainability leads to recrafters
2. fantasy and escapism leads to explosive sexuality
3. internationalism, after all the middle ages didn't all take place in King Arthur's court
4. spiritualism, from Greek Orthodox lectures to Wiccan and horned beasts
5. girl power, girls were Pages, swashbuckling swordsmen and pirates

Were there pirates in the Middle Ages? No matter, the subject is open for discussion by the SCA. Anyhow, we still have plenty of real pirates today. Except they're sporting iPhones rather than eyepatches.

(Photo: Medieval Monsignor and reborn devil baby.)