Agyness Deyn Is America’s Oldest Top ModelWe can almost hear Nigel Barker, “noted fashion photographer” and America’s Next Top Model’s resident ageist, wincing. Today the Daily Mail revealed that British model/D.J./Lower East Side dweller Agyness Deyn is not, as she has previously claimed, 18 years old. Nor is she, as she has claimed, 21 years old. In fact, it appears that she is actually—brace yourself—24 years old. “Her listing on the Companies House website, under the name Laura Hollins, shows her birthday as February 16, 1983,” the Mail reports. We have no idea what the “Companies House” website is, but it sounds serious. But not as serious as this: In model years, 24 is practically an old coot. What effect will this have on Agyness’s career, we wonder. Will the MisShapes kids not want to hang out with her, considering her advanced years? Will the Fashionista girls turn this into her James Frey moment? Or, is she still in the running toward becoming America’s next top model? We know we’re staying tuned.
Is Model Agyness Deyn — the New Kate Moss — Really Three Years Older Than She Says? [Daily Mail]
Aguness Deyn [Model Page]
intel
MisShapes to World: End Hipster Profiling
Hipster spokesmen the MisShapes want you to stop stereotyping their people. “If you’re wearing black pants and shaggy hair you’re automatically a ‘hipster,’” MisShape member Leigh Lazark complains to Daily Intel. “I think it’s just as offensive as calling somebody ‘bridge and tunnel,’” adds Geordon Nicol. The pair are out and about promoting their eponymous book, which has sold out after just a day on sales racks. “They’re on their second order!” Nicol told us. We kind of love that a gang of people who just released a coffee table book about hipsters doesn’t want you to lump them all together. For what is a hipster, if not counterintuitive? —Maggie Gray
Earlier:We Have the MisShapes Book
intel
RIP Luke & Leroy, Birthplace of MisShapesIronic that just as the MisShapes book publishes, the club where the weekly party took off has gone under. Luke & Leroy’s former co-owner Dino Minelli confirms that there will be no more taco parties, panty parties, or parties of any sort, in what Jarvis Cocker, in his intro to the MisShapes book called “a low-ceilinged, sweaty, black box of a room filled with people of every colour, sexual-orientation, height, weight, dress-sense (or non-sense) imaginable.” Minelli has sold his share of the club and moved to Philly, where he plans to open a new spot in November. He writes us, “My crazy partner Elaine was ruining biz by making foolish decisions. I wanted no part of it anymore… It has been sold to a guy who I introduced to her and he is renovating it and renaming or something.” With neighbor Movida also dead and gone, where will all the cool kids go? Philly? —Daniel Maurer
intel
We Have the MisShapes Book
It arrived on our desk today. We’ve been waiting for this book for quite some time, as with its arrival we hoped to sound the death knell of the fashion-forward hipster. After all, if a coffee-table book has been released about you, you’re even more over than if “Sunday Styles” writes about you. But when we picked it up, we have to say, we just couldn’t get mad at it. It’s pretentious and obnoxious and self-obsessed, sure. But the MisShapes and their editors wisely chose not to include any words in the book, other than those by Pulp’s Jarvis Crocker, Legs McNeil, and Vogue’s Sally Singer which serve as introductions. They let the people and the fashion and the energy of the party speak for itself. In fact, we even learned something from the book. Read what, and view a couple of pages from the book, after the jump.
party lines
Hipsters Celebrate Themselves Celebrating Themselves on YouTubeIf you ever watch MTV, you’re sure to be familiar with their hilariously earnest show, MADE, wherein desperate young people attempt to become something that they are not, like a cheerleader, a prom king, or a football player. This week a gaggle of knowing New Yorkers released a YouTube spoof of the series called MADE: I Want to Be a Hipster. Appropriately, they celebrated themselves last night at the Tribeca Grand. We picked our way through heavy bangs, huge patterns, and thick glasses to get tips from the experts about becoming one of them. “It’s all about the silhouette,” said MisShapes doorman Thomas Onorato. “Skinny jeans, converse sneakers.” Having ventured south of 14th Street at least once in our lives, we pressed on for something we didn’t already know. “We’re going to see hipsters in higher waists and wider silhouettes,” said Fashionista.com editor Faran Krenctil, who had a hand in the film. “But, I don’t think you’ll look like an asshole if you still wear skinny jeans.” Director Shruti Ganguly advised eating baby food to stay skinny and having “a glass of rosé in your hand.” And we thought cocaine was the only thing the hipsters stole from the eighties. —Jocelyn Guest
MADE: I Want to be a Hipster [YouTube]
ethnography
The Misshapen Are Party Kids With Day Jobs
Species: The Misshapen
Etymology: The Misshapen are ardent followers of pin-thin spinners Leigh, Greg, and Geordon, but they have one fatal flaw: day jobs.
Distinguishing characteristics: Misshapens will always sport at least one terribly cool item. (In the sample at left, it’s the overcoat.) But look closely and you’ll notice the perfectly pressed Dockers (a gift from mom, no doubt), and the sweater with a button-up underneath. It’s workwear disguised as party gear, and, come 5 p.m., the shirttails rip right out. Misshapens are chameleons, not masters of the craft, but, gosh darn it, they try. Their greatest asset is their hair. In day hours, it remains carefully combed back; as night falls, it is artfully mussed.
Known locales: Don Hill’s, Ruff Club at Annex, skulking around Leigh’s MySpace page hoping to be added as a friend.
Diet: Vodka, Adderall (gotta stay thin, kids)
How to approach: Unlike their idols, the Misshapens have yet to master a cool, cold façade. In fact, they’re as easy to talk to as a puppy dog. Friendly, smiling, pleasant … damn, it’s all a sham!
Endangerment status: Er, are those fifteen minutes up yet? —Amina Akhtar
gossipmonger
Miss Anna Likes Cat People!Anna Wintour was in on that Romanian “Cat People” Fashion Week stunt from the get-go. Heidi Fleiss is set to sell a tape that supposedly features former client Charlie Sheen gallivanting with a transsexual named Kayla Coxx. Anderson Cooper wants kids. Georgina Chapman would like you to know she was in twelve movies before she landed roles in the Weinstein-produced Factory Girl and Nanny Diaries, thank you very much. Bungalow 8 owner Amy Sacco is a proud size 12.