Employee of the Month AND Stolen Moment

Here we are at the end of another escapade in the city that never sleeps, in the 14th Street subway station to be precise.  What experiences could have left us looking a tad smug, you might ask.

Let's begin at the beginning, shall we? On July 25th, we went to the Citizen's Brigade Theater for a taping of comedienne Catie Lazarus' show "Employee of the Month", in which Catie asks her guests to talk about their work and how they got to where they are.  (Some of the answers are surprising and refreshingly frank.)  For the price of admission, we were treated to four interviews: first with actress and comedienne Janeane Garofalo, then New Yorker writer Emily Nussbaum, followed by Stacy London, host of What Not to Wear, and endig with star of The View, Joy Behar - not to mention an opening monologue by Catie Lazarus and musical interludes by the band (pictured below).

What, you may ask, was the price of admission?  Does $5 each strike you as fair and reasonable?  Yes, $5 each!  How could we resist?  We stood in a long line outside the theater (ahem - Valerie stood in a long line outside the theater, and on one foot, no less) but managed to score front row seats. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as it later turned out), our seats were at the far left of the stage, right next to the door through which all of the guests entered and exited.

Lazarus videotapes these encounters and downloads them to the web. To see a bit of the show we attended, click on this Vimeo link: http://vimeo.com/71660617 If you look really carefully, you can just barely glimpse us (OMG!) in the far left of the frame in several of the shots in this vimeo of the final bows of the the guests.

Except when Catie stood for her hilarious, self-effacing monologue, she mostly sat at her "desk" with her back to us, facing her guests, and simultaneously obscuring them. We had to be grateful at certain points during each interview when Catie sat back in her seat, and we could get an occasional view of the guests.

The first guest was Janeane Garofalo, whom Catie quizzed among other things about growing up in Rochester, New York and about her experience with Botox injections. After getting over the shock of the question, Janeane admitted that the anti-wrinkle injections did work for the furrow between her brows. Unfortunately, because she had to run to another gig, unlike the other three guests, Janeane didn't stick around for the curtain call.

Next up was New Yorker writer Emily Nussbaum, who was asked about her previous gig as a movie reviewer at another publication.

Much to Jean's delight, Lazarus' interviewing style is much like her own conversational style -- interrupting people mid-thought, blurting out what she thinks are bons mots while the speaker is still talking, and helping them finish sentences they are perfectly capable of finishing on their own.  (Valerie, for her part, felt sympathy and empathy for the perplexed but polite guests.)  The best line of the evening was Catie's question asking something about what percentage of New Yorker writers wear tweed with and without irony.

Showing off her newly purchased, presumably expensive handbag to the audience, What Not to Wear star Stacy London admitted, in reviewing her own fashion choices early in the series, that she was not "camera ready". In talking about making the leap from Vogue editorial staffer to on-air personality, Stacy did own up to her own fashion faux pas, admitting that it was a "difficult" transition going from behind the scenes to out in front.

After bemoaning the fact that she had no boyfriend, Catie asked Stacy for a little fashion advice. On cue, Catie's long-suffering assistant entered the stage wearing Catie's mother's fur jacket and skirt and the comedienne's own faux fur animal-eared (animal-headed?) hat. Although Catie vigorously defended the hat, Stacy ventured that perhaps the hat might be one reason for her host's date-less situation.

In a hilarious strip-tease, the assistant peeled away the first layer to display Catie's grandmother's robe, sealing the deal and to Stacy's way of thinking, confirming that such wardrobe choices were a "clue" to solving Catie's dating quandary and would most certainly be a first-date turn off.

Seemingly knowing no shame, like one of those Russian dolls within a doll, the assistant proceeded to further disrobe to reveal Catie's red bikini.

We were definitely positioned for the "money shot" - complete with porn socks! The assistant's barely visible flesh-colored Spanx became the next point of heated discussion with Stacy strongly defending the use of "shape wear" to smooth out any woman's silhouette.

Stacy's new handbag is visible in this shot. Can you name the designer?

Final guest Joy Behar revealed another degree of separation from first guest Janeane Garofalo, saying she had taught high school English in Rochester, but admitting that Janeane was not one of her students. Joy talked about her stint on The View and her future, planning to work rather than retire.

Joy's revelation that she in fact is not Jewish was followed by her comment that she is perceived to be, even winning an award from   Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America.

Our moment in the spotlight took place when Joy interrupted Catie to point right at us and say she was just fascinated by those two stylish "women in the first row wearing hats that look like flying saucers"!! She then made us stand up so the other members of the audience could see us. Valerie gamely did so, despite the fact that she was recovering from her recent foot surgery and was wearing a protective and most unstylish bootie.

During the finale, each of the three guests was individually escorted back to the stage by Catie's assistant, wearing a very fetching black teddy.  Each guest took a final bow and received her very own framed Employee of the Month photo. Members of the audience were invited on stage to briefly chat with Catie and her guests before being chased out of the theater so techs could clear the stage and break down the set to prepare for the next show hosted by another actor.

Just like Creedence Clearwater Revival's Willy and The Poor Boys, we found ourselves "Down on the corner, out in the street" with the band as members of the audience asked to take pictures of us.

When they asked to pose with us for photos, we were able to impose on them to take one with our camera.  Now, FINALLY, after all these years, we can say We're with the band.

The theater was just one block west of FIT and a short walk to amusingly misnomered hotspot Cafeteria, one of our faves in that part of town. We started at an outdoor table to discuss the evening's events, compare notes and make a stab at solving the problems of the world before getting on the subway. Below, we pose for photos just before it started to drizzle and we had to move indoors. Foodie Alert: their crispy battered green beans are terrific as are their salmon BLTs!

But what about the cocktails? Divine! (Long-time fans will recall that we brought the Forest City Fashionista to Cafeteria after one of the vintage shows, and that we celebrated there last year with one of the other senior models after appearing in Marla Wynn's fashion show at the Fab Over Fifty event at the Metropolitan Pavilion.)

We thought we'd scored a real coup finding a great show, AND at such a great price, but we were later disappointed to discover we're really not that cool after all, as this show has been managing quite well without us for a very long time! Employee of the Month has podcasts of previous shows, and quite a list of high profile guests.  To see the list of podcasts and photos of guests previously put under the microscope, click here. (Also, they asked for our email address so they could alert us to monthly Employee shows, but we weren't alerted to the August show. Hmmmmm.....)

In the 14th Street subway station, we ran into quadruple threat Steff Reed: singer, songwriter, producer and music educator. Check him out at http://WhoIsSteffReed.com. Jean and Steff were gang-signing approval of Valerie's bootie.  (Note the Andy Warhol Marilyn print sock and her Warhol soup can shoe!)

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!


Imagine our surprise to see our image on photographer Mindy Tucker's Stolen Moment of the Week series and this incredibly complimentary notation:

Check here soon for the interviews with Emily Nussbaum, Stacy London, Joy Behar, and Janeane Garofalo from this taping of Employee of the Month, hosted by Catie Lazarus. More photos, including one of two audience members who are some of the most stylish New Yorkers I've ever seen at a comedy show, are here.

Click here or go to: http://withreservation.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Employee-of-the-Month-Emily-Nussbaum-Catie-Lazarus-Stacy-London-Joy-Behar-Janeane-Garofalo/G00005Dxd4QfBkgY/I0000MZUFg8IYAx8

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mindy-tucker/stolen-moment-of-the-week_23_b_3665551.html

Who: 
Emily Nussbaum, Catie Lazarus, Stacy London, Joy Behar, Janeane Garofalo
Where: 
Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, 307 W 26th St New York, NY
When: 
July 25, 2013
What:

Employee of the Month - Emily Nussbaum, Catie Lazarus, Stacy London, Joy Behar, Janeane Garofalo

Bonus: To listen to Creedence Clearwater Revival's 1969 Willy and the Poor Boys, from the album of the same name, click here  or go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJAjOlp4Tas

Fine and Dandy

Museum exhibitions like RISD's (see our previous posting if you don't know WHAT we're talking about) take soooo much time to put together. Imagine ferreting out who might have a Fred Astaire suit or a King George IV robe, or a shirt known to have been worn by Oscar Wilde shortly before his death. Imagine the correspondence that has to go back and forth - when it will be lent, how it will travel, what standards must be met, will there be tit for tat - our Harris tweed suit in your next exhibition in return for your painting in our next exhibition, etc. We got to wondering if any notables had to be excluded because clothes could not be tracked down, or not enough was known about the person, or permissions were not granted...

Then we focused on the luminaries we would have wanted to see. So here is our own little e-show of some dandy gents and cross-dressing dames who didn't make it into the RISD exhibition.

Author George Sand (Amantine Dupin, Baroness Dudevant) was known to dress in men's clothes. (We can't find a date for this drawing, so we're not sure if it depicts her accurately.)

Author Colette also wore men's wear.

Author Vita Sackville-West, who was about six feet tall, was said to have worn men's military uniforms and passed as a man while conducting her affair with Violet Trefusis.

Georgia O'Keeffe always dressed in a very tailored, almost austere manner, so it is unsurprising that she also gravitated toward men's wear.

Bianca Jagger wore beautifully crafted suits by renowned men's Savile Row tailor Tommy Nutter. (Full disclosure: We can't be sure whether the two suits below are in fact Nutter suits.)

And isn't that Tatum O'Neal in the black derby?

Marlene Dietrich showed 'em all how it was done. To complete the androgynous look, the beret obscures the length of her hair, and she wears a man's tie.

And of course, no one wore a tuxedo better than Dietrich.  Don't overlook the white tie, pocket hankie, top hat, patent leather flats - and is that a little cufflink peering out from under her jacket sleeve? And for the final touch of masculinity, a cocked eyebrow, a cigarette and a wisp of smoke.  (Remember - women smoking in public was frowned upon back then.)

Frank Sinatra was always well turned out, from his hat to his socks.

Although it's not necessarily fair to include rock stars, since outrageous costumes are often part of their public persona and not necessarily in synch with their private lives, many are peacocks in both of their worlds.  Case in point, Mick Jagger cut quite the figure in his dapper interpretations of street wear.  First, Mick appears in velvet jacket, long scarf and frilled cuffs, looking very '60s Carnaby Street, with then-girlfriend singer Marianne Faithfull on his arm.

Next, again with Faithfull by his side, Jagger poses in an outrageous checked suit -- and white belt -- and somehow makes it all look so cool. Women of a certain age will remember wearing HUGE checks and houndstooths back then.  And we all wore the big thick chunky belts.

The IFs always admire a man who wears a hat with attitude - just because he likes it, and not because he's covering anything up. And ah, yes, the dark jacket with bright contrasting stripes!

The Kinks' Ray Davies was a proper dandy in his heyday.  He shares the same sense of whimsy as many of the RISD selectees.

He too wore hats with a casual aplomb.

David Bowie was just about impossible to separate from his always impeccably or outrageously dressed persona, but we thought it would be fun to include this one of DB eating in the dining care of a train in full gear from the glam rock period.

We just had to reference one of RISD's best known graduates, David Byrne, shown here in his immaculate larger than life Big White Suit.

The test of the dyed-in-the-wool dandy is to see if he gives up his ways when he's no longer a Sweet Young Thing. David passes the test. (Photo from Magnet magazine)

David REALLY passes the test. We found this photo on a blog called Nag on the Lake, who rightly declared that if Byrne can wear a tutu, he must be "very emotionally secure".

* * * * * * * * *
We can't close without mentioning Shail Upadhya, who we are sad to say passed away earlier this year. Here he is in a photograph we took of him last September at Lincoln Center during Fashion Week. Look how the @ symbol on his lapel crosses over perfectly to the body of the suit. THAT's how well tailored his clothes were.

If you'd like to read more about Mr. Upadhya, a native of Nepal who began to wear suits of his own design after retiring from a career with the United Nations, read Indra's Corner, here.

For a stunning slide show of Shail Upadhya suits from Forbes magazine, click here.

And what dandy would you have nominated for the show?  Do tell.


* * * * * * * * * * * * *


First little bonus

More from Ray Davies. Here's a great YouTube by hawkmoon0311195 featuring Dedicated Follower of Fashion (great Kinks hit, and perfect with our dandies theme) and a slide show of dedicated English followers of fashion from previous centuries. (HINT: for both of these, hit the YouTube button in the video's bottom right corner for a better view.)






Second little bonus

Having shown you the creme de la creme of arm-ed and leg-ged dandies, we thought we'd also show you the creme de la creme of wing-ed dandies: the birds of paradise. Did you think there was only one variety? No, there are several, all chillin' in New Guinea, and each one more mind-boggling than the next. The video is five minutes long. There are two guys in jeans and tee shirts. Don't watch them, even though they did all the hard work. Watch the BIRDS!!! This video was produced by the amazing Cornell Ornithology Lab, and sent to us by JODEL.

Artist / Rebel / Dandy The World of Dapper Men's Wear on View at RISD

Road trip! Last Saturday, we headed north to Providence to see Artist/Rebel/Dandy, the exhibition at the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).   RISD is hosting a groundbreaking show celebrating the dandy both as ideal concept and as our living, breathing contemporaries who carry the torch in the name of sartorial splendor.  It's through Sunday, August 18, 2013 at the Chace Center Galleries, so go see it!

Before we tell you about the exhibition, we have to crow just a little about exercising our frugal gene. You may know that Megabus and Bolt bus advertise that if you buy early, it's possible to spend as little as $1 on your one way ticket. So we went on line, and instead of paying as much as $58 for each of our round trip tickets, we wound up paying $22.50 round trip, total, for both of us. (That's $8 each up, $3 each back, and a $.50 booking fee.) This is not to say it was a total score. We had to book six weeks in advance to get that price (so much for going the opening week!) and since there are no seat reservations, we - and everyone else - had to stand on line for about half an hour each time for the seats of our choice.

Remember Valerie had only recently had foot surgery, so standing on the good leg for half an hour should have won her some kind of award for patience. Or stupidity. Happily, it was July and not February. On the other hand, Valerie could not walk to or from the bus stations, so she wound up shelling out for four cabs that day. That whittled down the savings, but the only other option was to give up on the road trip altogether. Call it the cost of doing business. And there's nothing onerous about taking cabs anyway. (Except the price.) We had a great bus ride in both directions. Above is more or less what the interior of our double decker looked like, including the greenery visible from the window.

The wonderfully staged exhibition features images of dandies over the centuries in photographs, illustrations (including marvelous full color 18th century English satires), magazines, books and paintings.  To view the exhibition, click here or go to:http://risdmuseum.org/art_design/exhibitions/artist_rebel_dandy_men_of_fashion

Also on display are articles of actual clothing wore by dandies from the 1700s to present, drawn from the museum's collection, loans from other national and international organizations as well as private individuals, including our friend Joana Avillez (author and illustrator of Life Dressing: The Idiosyncratic Fashionistas, seen in the column to the right).  This wool broadcloth coat, worn by Edward Carrington circa 1820, with a silk velvet collar and gilt black buttons, exemplifies the sleek silhouette and nipped waist of the period.

Some of the imagery showed men resorting to corsetry to achieve the wasp-waisted look in vogue at the time.

RISD Museum traces the variety of ways in which the persona of the dandy has blazed (some might say flamed) for more than two centuries, and investigates his position in society.

Rather than follow strict definitions, RISD highlights the myriad manifestations of the dandy's style and personality, from the discreet sophistication and consummate elegance of such historical figures as Beau Brummell, Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde and George IV to contemporary romantics and revolutionaries like the late Sebastian Horsely, Ouigi Theodore, Waris Ahluwalia, Ike Ude, Thom Brown and Andy Warhol.

The subject of this portrait, Auguste Vestris (1760-1842), was the son of King Louis XVI's dancing master.  Making his ballet debut at the age of 12, he soon usurped his father's reputation as "the god of the dance". Celebrating his slim dancer's form, the portrait details his taste for fashionable dress: close-fitting wool jacket, beaver-fur hat, voluminous cravat, silk waistcoat, golden earring, bamboo walking stick and yellow gloves.

The dandy heralded the cleaner, pared down mode of dress, distinguished from his overly ornate wig-wearing, ribbon-festooned contemporary known as a "fop" or "macaroni". The RISD show seems to draw a line in the sand, differentiating dandies from the overdressed "fops" like Colley Cibber in 1696 as Lord Foppington in John Vanbrugh's The Relapse.  While in certain instances, the lines do get a little blurred, for the most part, the distinction is clear.

Case in point: Baron De Meyer, carefully attired but in his shirtsleeves in this circa 1903 platinum print by Gertrude Kasebier, is definitely a dandy but most definitely not a fop.

George Bryan "Beau" Brummell was an iconic figure in Regency England, the arbiter of men's fashion and friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV. This 1805 caricature by Richard Dighton appears at the entry to the exhibit.

Among the many masculine figures appeared several female examples of the dandy who wore men's clothing.  The first was a double-header.  One of our favorite artworks, Romaine Brooks' legendary 1924 portrait of British sculptor and writer Una Lady Troubridge, was a highlight of the show. We viewed it on display at the Brooklyn Museum a couple of years ago and seeing Una in her monocle and cravat, with her dacshunds, was like greeting an old friend.

Although her image does not appear in the show, portraitist Romaine Brooks was herself quite the dandy as evidenced by her own self portrait.

The stark black and white image of rebel poet, songwriter, singer Patti Smith appears in the show in part because she had an affinity with Rimbaud and affected the androgynous dress of the poet: man's white shirt and black tie.

Yet another on the distaff side is poet, playwright, actress Blanche Oelrichs who was married to actor John Barrymore and who wrote under the nom de plume of Michael Strange.  In her alter ego, she often wore menswear.  Our friend Joana Avillez and her mother donated Joana's great-grandmother's tailor-made suit to the exhibition.

A generation of women coming of age in the 1970s remember Diane Keaton, whose Annie Hall look was all the rage after the movie came out.

Originality and creativity are to be found everywhere at RISD. Here is one of the two entrances to the exhibition, showing a blown up drawing of a gentleman's closet.

We couldn't resist getting into the act and miming the 'tude of the dude in the top hat!

The show also featured one of our favorite dandies, Patrick McDonald, and one of his iconic top hats (a pink number with black gloved hand silhouette by New York milliner Rod Keenan whom we've covered at Gotham events over the years, like the Stephen Burrows exhibit at the Museum of the city of New York:  http://idiosyncraticfashionistas.blogspot.com/2013/03/stephen-burrows-when-fashion-danced.html

Here's Patrick rocking the hat in question as only he can!

And here is a shot of Rod Keenan and Patrick out and about in the Big Apple.  To our knowledge, they've never appeared hatless in public.  Both fit the definition of modern dandy to a "T".  (Also featured in the exhibition are Hamish Bowles and Tom Wolfe.  We've photographed all four of these gents for our readers at one time or another.)

After leaving the museum to get a bite to eat at Cafe Choklad, we spied a tarpaulin running along a chain link fence around a vacant lot that heralded the construction of the new Illustration Studies Building.  The amusing image below was repeated several times, interspersed with information about the site.  Artistic tarpaulins are far too rare, so we thought we should thank RISD for this one (and thank anyone else who puts up artistic tarps). The legend printed up the side of the illustration read the poetry of ideas and images. We can all use a little more of that in our daily lives.

Somehow we managed not to see this great Sol Lewitt-like work till we were about to leave, even though it's right there at the reception desk, but it's the perfect spot for a photo op!  The barely visible chairs are next to snack tables.  GREAT place to have a snack!  Why can't everyone's cafeteria look like this?

Oh, btw, if this whets your appetite and you're nowhere near Rhode Island,

buy the great big book!