Wednesday, January 30, 2008

New Polyvores...And Studio 54


Those are literaly the clothes and accesories I have in my closet

And that would be a pretty accurate representation of what people wore in the heyday of 54, before Rubell went to the big house and then went on to open the other NYC institution that was The Palladium...
Here is an article from the NY Times about Rubell and when he died. Mike Myers did KICK ASS job playing him in "54"...

July 25, 1990
About New York;
Nights of Glitz, A Velvet Rope And Memories
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
LEAD: Today is the first anniversary of the death of 45-year-old Steve Rubell, that loquacious scamp who made his mark by being in the right place at the right time in a town where that is often all that matters.

Today is the first anniversary of the death of 45-year-old Steve Rubell, that loquacious scamp who made his mark by being in the right place at the right time in a town where that is often all that matters.

Nobody has felt the loss more than Ian Schrager, Mr. Rubell's best friend and business partner. ''The only time I didn't see Steve was when I was sleeping,'' Mr. Schrager said of 25 years of his 44-year-old life. ''Steve and I were the greatest love story since Cleopatra.''

The two Brooklyn natives founded Studio 54, that cocaine-dusted epicenter of Manhattan glitz. They went to jail in 1980 for 13 months when their innovative accounting - ''cash-in, cash-out and skim'' in Mr. Rubell's memorable phrase - was discovered. They emerged unable to secure a checking account, much less a credit card, and proceeded to climb to the heights of the hotel business - opening the trendy Morgan and new Royalton hotels.

Now, Mr. Schrager is finishing one of their final collaborations, the Paramount hotel at 235 West 46th Street, scheduled to open in three weeks. ''I feel a little naked,'' he said.

But not so naked that he isn't using all manner of ploys to focus attention on the Paramount - including mailing 25,000 toothbrushes to travel agents. It occurred to Mr. Schrager that a newspaper columnist might listen to his recollections of the man who barred the King of Cyprus from Studio 54 ''because he looked like somebody from Queens.''

He said so many people have died along with Mr. Rubell - Andy Warhol, Halston, Roy Cohn are on the list - that a genre is now extinct. ''There's zero night life in New York now,'' the surviving pasha of disco mourned. ''We're trying to jump-start it at this hotel.''

The interview was conducted in a Paramount room furnished in a quirky, surrealistic manner. (A Cyclops eye in the television cabinet emits light, giving the eerie illusion that the TV watches you.) This agile entrepreneur veered between the personal and the promotional. He spoke of a private ceremony planned for the next day, last Friday, at a Long Island cemetery to unveil Mr. Rubell's simple black-granite tombstone with the inscription ''the quintessential New Yorker.'' His family had recoiled at Mr. Schrager's idea that a squirt of public-relations pizazz - something resembling the funeral with Bianca, Calvin, etc. - might hit the spot.

''I would have liked to have had a little bit of show, like I think Steve would have wanted,'' Mr. Schrager said. This is a switch, at least in the public eye. Mr. Schrager was Mr. Inside, the backstage idea maven who never once danced at Studio 54. Mr. Rubell, by contrast, stood behind a velvet rope and separated couples, even mothers and daughters, as he tried to concoct the spiciest human stew.

''I quite frankly was embarrassed by some of that selection process,'' acknowledged Mr. Schrager. ''It smelled like elitism.''

But Mr. Schrager grasped the magic of Mr. Rubell's practiced sociability soon after they met as students at Syracuse University. Mr. Rubell had maneuvered into the coveted role of student-seating czar at the football-crazy school. In the same vein, Mr. Schrager hailed him as ''mayor of the jail'' when they were later in an Alabama penitentiary together.

But Mr. Schrager has been a one-man show for a year, though he still says ''Steve and me.'' It has been his lot to convince partners, bankers, customers and now the middle-class clientele he seeks at the sprawling Paramount that he is a winner all by himself.

The full verdict isn't in, though hotel profits last year rose and his partners have agreed to raise their stakes, he says. Tourism here is dropping. ''I thrive on the challenge,'' he said.

But he admits that it isn't as much fun. Mr. Schrager remembered the exhilaration with which the two would attack a project. ''We were like Spanky and Alfalfa.''

There was an incredible closeness. ''We were like husband and wife,'' he said.

Now there is that last conversation with his dying buddy bouncing around his mind. ''I don't need a pep talk,'' Mr. Rubell said wearily. Mr. Schrager watched an electronic monitor as vital signs ebbed to nothing.

Though hepatitis was the official cause, there have been suggestions that Mr. Rubell died of AIDS complications. Mr. Schrager says he has thought about that. He is convinced his best friend would have told him.

The last year, Mr. Schrager says, has been a maze. One thing that has helped him through it are colorful, though sometimes bittersweet memories. He laughs heartily when recalling how Steve Rubell had answered an important Federal prosecutor (important to them, in particular) asking if he was the kind of person who would be let past the velvet rope.

''Not a chance,'' Mr. Rubell said.


I wanted to called this one "Valentine's Day Massacre", because of the little bullet necklace and gun earrings and "Love kills slowly" belt. The message is that a lot of hearts get broken and dead on Valentine's day. Hope goes up, hope goes down, feelings get hurt, people get jaded and get a sense of humour...

This set shows clothes and accesories made by famous alumn of my dream school Central St. Martins in London. Represented on it are Stella McCartney, Giles Deacon, Henry Holland, Phoebe Philo( for Chloe), Alexander McQueen, Paul Smith, Luella Bartley, Gareth Pugh, Zac Posen, John Galliano and Sophia Kokosalaki. See why I belong there?

This one is about the life, work and influence of one of my favourite designers, Stephen Sprouse. Sprouse was Blondie's roomate in New York back in the day. He apprenticed with Halston. He could never get his own label of the ground despite more talent and skills and connections than anyone like ever. He hung out at the previously mentionned Palladium, and that is where he hooked up with Andy Warhol and his posse. He was really close to Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Harring who both were victims of the early (*Reagan*) days of the AIDS epidemic in NYC. My heart broke when I saw their names on the AIDS quilt.
Sprouse then went on to do capsule lines for Barney's and Bergdorf's and around 9/11,for Target.
He also went on to do a MEGA famous collaboration with Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton were the super-waitlisted graffiti bags sold like pancakes.
I think that Marc Jacobs is the current designer that shows the most Sprouse influence. I see glimpses of Stephen Sprouse in Marc Jacob's work very often, particularly in the Marc by Marc Jacobs line.

This one is about the medical profession and field and how most women in medicine and science look like frumpy spinsters or like s&M porn movie governesses/executives (before they discard their clothes. Seldom ever are they that attractive. for some reason science seems to attract people with low self-esteem) at best or like filthy hippies or snorting nerds at worst.
I have to actually "uglify" myself when around other women in science or medicine, so they don't turn on me like the hyenas on baby Simba.
But this goes to show that you can be a doc or scientist and hip, hot, plus size, cool and don't have to take yourself too seriously. Shit, you are constantly dealing with death and disease, for fuck's sake...

This one is a tribute to the work and influence of another of my favourite designers, Dame Vivienne Westwood. It shows stuff from her Sex Pistols period, her love for tartan and everything Scottish, her impeccable tailoring and draping virtuosity, and her influence on other designers such as Philip Treacy, Thomas Wylde and Alexander McQueen.
I hope you love these. Each and every outfit can be worn brilliantly by women of any size and a lot of them are actually plus-size items.
Fashionably yours,
Milla aka Dr. Fashion