Carmen Miranda of Meatpacking

Fruit is out of season -- pompoms are in!  The turban, all knitted and bulked up, with a pompom on top!  Turban meets stocking cap = love.  One would think I'd have seen this in Minnesota, but one would be wrong.

Correction: Yulia in the subway

The previous post was written late at night, which is to say 8:22 p.m. when most of the day shift had gone home. 

During the night, someone kicked me in the miniscule and little-used part of the brain responsible for facts and I sat up in bed and shouted, Yulia!  Surprising no one.  See, I don't remember any hard  J sound rattling her front teeth when I asked her name.  I'm sure she enunciated the lilting and mellifluous Yulia, and the Mankato filter in my brain changed it to the correct pronunciation -- Joooleeuh.  

While we're at corrections,  I did not blurt out anything about her delicate icy beauty.  Goodness, I'm a very good liar professional.  I think I said, "I like your tweed. Coat."

Everything else is true and accurate. Pretty much.

Julia in the subway

 At first, I guessed Julia was one of about a million tall, birch-like, exquisitely boned Russian models in NYC for Fashion Week.  Wrong.  She is a tall, birch-like, exquisitely boned Russian freelance stylist in NYC for Fashion Week.  Here's how ignorant and provincial I am: When she said she was staying for an extended period, I wondered, didn't she find NYC expensive?  Well no, she explained patiently and bilingually,  Moscow is actually more expensive than NYC.  Fresh off of a $10 Corona and a tablespoon of guac for dinner, my mind was blown for sure, and an image of Perkin's $3.99 Wake Up With Lard breakfast special served piping hot on a rocket launchpad sprang to mind.  But it faded because I was more in awe of Julia's tundra fairy perfection...

I'm pretty sure I've never seen such delicate coloring, such incredible bone structure, such porcelain skin in all my days of getting up in strangers' business.  I'm pretty sure I will get sent to the gulag Minnesota for saying that in print.

It also made me feel the tiniest bit less provincial that we headed in opposite directions... and moments later, crossed paths again, like Laurel and Hardy, having both gone the wrong way out of the subterranean world.

lacey!

Six kinds of lace and texture caused me to lurch forward and inflict myself on this woman who I think has an important role in the Apparel Design program at the U.  She may or may not be the Queen of the Department -- too many glasses of wine moons have passed since I took the photo to report with any sort of journalistic accuracy.  Be that as it may,  I can still say with absolute authority that j'adore the sexy blouse + Wolford tights + sharp alligator print shoes.  Isn't it just the truth that you appreciate in others what you could never on god's earth pull off yourself?

how to wear a statement necklace with a t-shirt

See? It's easy.  We were crushed up against some candy bins by the combined 4 million psi of effort fashionable people at Cynthia Rowley's House of CuRiousities and Free Sparkling Wine, so I got a real close look at the amazing candy-like chunks of turquoise strung on a Brooklyn-sized chain.  Then wearing this minerals-by-the-pound piece with an artsy t-shirt and prairie-style denim shirt? Well,  some things, like 8-foot-tall models in black light lipstick, are there for the purpose of photographing.  Just like the wine was there to be drunk.  You'd be remiss if you didn't click n drink.  But this woman's look was the sort of quiet treasure I hope to find hiding in plain sight at these events.  Also, we'd had so much bodily contact, I felt like I should either buy her dinner or take her photo.  It was great for me -- how was it for you?

this is Cynthia Rowley

 

I think Cynthia was talking to Cher.  Are designer store openings like the end of a football game where the team dumps a cooler of water on the triumphant coach?  Because Coach Rowley is ready to partayyy in her rubber ravewear -- let the fluids fly where they may. 

 In keeping with the stoned  Magical theme, the second floor of the shop is sure to get the saliva flowing -- it's a CuRious (see, the C and R are capitolized thus Cynthia Rowley -- you're welcome) candy store.  I was hoping for more naughty bits in jelly form, and I did eyeball some eyeball lollipops, but mostly just refined sugar and red dye #2 in its usual permutations.  Which makes me wonder about the business thinking behind this allocation of half of the very spendy retail space for products that have been banned from public schools and roundly (ha) vilified by doctors, dentists and Upper East Side moms.  Maybe Ms. Rowley senses a backlash by artificial color-denied children raised on organic freshly juiced wheatgrass and quinoa chaff for dessert.

Like bees to an open can of Mountain Dew,  Rowley's bash drew fashion's buzzmakers, people whose hair needs no introduction,  Lynn oh-you-doll Jaeger and bleached boy-banged Kate Lanphear.

oh, there were clothes too

 I was a little verklempt and awestruck by the whole haute-mosphere: Now let's go back and look at sternums clothes.  Loving the modern insert tab A into notch B blouse above and the fairy dust memory of a fall pants, but do not understand the gangsta chain. Were we talking about zoot suits? No, we were not.

 Again with the tiny bubbles or fairy dust or skin disease. I'm beginning to feel like I'm tripping traveling through a Magic Forest, noticing exquisite detail like xylem and phloem and iridescence of the kind normally associated with college.

 The tie-dyed and quilted coats and jewel colors -- I smell patchouli.

 

Shiny. I reach out to touch the amazing basketweave quilted leather but found the guy with the tray of champagne instead.  Pretty soon I had an out of store experience. 

Cynthia Rowley opens an Upper East Side shop

 And I had Obsessive Photo Disorder, as did the other 6,923 gawkers weirdly snapping photos through a French door. In the fashion biz, that's called Magical Realism. Or BS.  Luckily, I've been to Trader Joe's on a Saturday so you'll notice how adroitly I got to the front of this bunch of pantywaists.

 Look at the hair on the back of this guy's hand!  I'm kidding. Look for the dude with the tray of free champagne!

 They put some black-lite lipstick on this model and told her the Russian chick with the fake boobs got the Marc Jacobs contract.

 Heart.

 The creative director for Cynthia Rowley solved the French door problem by having the models mingle.  As much as I'm absolutely knocked back by this stunning woman's stare like a butterfly on a board, I'm also crazy for the girl scrunching by on the left in her technicolor leggings.  Interactive fashion at its best.

It's like you fell on your knees in a dream. Also what the holy f*** is going on in the background? Are someone's glasses being abused?