Fern Mallis and Simon Doonan’s Tips on TippingAttention shoppers! It’s that time of year. Yes, the Tipping Time, wherein you must give of your bounty unto all those little people who make your world go round (even if it makes you a little morally queasy). But what to give, and to whom? Well! We ran into Barneys creative director Simon Doonan and Fashion Week overlord Fern Mallis several weeks back at the launch for our New York Look fashion magazine (which, we might add, yet again, is pretty fucking fantastic), and asked them how they treat the help when the holidays come around. What we discovered was a highly detailed system of reward, based on equal parts anger, fear, and compassion, which we’ve made into a handy list, below.
1. If you subscribe to fashion magazines, be generous to your postal carriers.
As every girl or gay knows, September fashion magazines are heavy enough to be used as doorstops or murder weapons. You’ve seen your coffee table buckle under the weight. Now imagine the spinal discs of your poor postal carrier, forced to lug a 5,000-page Vogue to every apartment in your building. And then there’s Bazaar. And W. Oh, God, that W. Feel guilty yet? Doonan does. “Every postal worker who has ever delivered to my building has gone on sick leave with hernia from lifting magazines. It’s a really disastrous situation,” he says. His tipping solution: at least $25. “But I do raises, so [my postal carrier] is making a fortune now.”
party lines
At Gen Art Fashion Show, New Stars Are Born (and Old Stars Confess What They Wear at Home)
Long before there was Project Runway there was Gen Art, which has been scouting and showcasing new talent in art and fashion for nearly fifteen years. Gen Art’s ninth annual International Design Awards and Runway Show was at Hammerstein Ballroom last night, and it featured young talent you’ll likely see at the Bryant Park tents in a year or two. (Gen Art has nurtured famous stitchers like Zac Posen, Rebecca Taylor, and Vena Cava.) The names to watch out for from last night’s show? We have no idea, but Kim Friday, the nice WWD editor we were sitting next to, suggests these: ardistia, T-County, Julianna Bass, and especially the design collective Form, which everyone was buzzing about. We, meanwhile, hunted down the more familiar names.
