Clash of the Titans
When Aaron Spelling’s new nighttime drama, Titans, was launched this fall, it was easily the most fashionable show on the air. With its high-gloss Dynasty overtones, it played right into the eighties wave that was simultaneously sweeping the runways. It even starred Victoria Principal! But news last week that the show had been canceled shocked those designers whose eighties-inspired collections have yet to hit the racks. Alice Roi, whose spring collection is reminiscent of the froufrou costumes that were piled onto Principal and the rest of the cast, is philosophical about it: “That whole eighties glamour thing just got a little oversaturated,” she says. “And on TV, people want to see someone who has less fashion sense than themselves. They want to see the cast of Friends. They want to go, ‘Ha, ha! These are the mundane people! I’m ironic. I wear eighties.’ They wanted to keep their chic a novelty, not see it in the mainstream.”
A.L.
Boom Town
It started with the Fatboy Slim video for “The Rockafeller Skank.” Then the fashion world picked it up: At Miguel Adrover’s spring 2001 show, the music piping through the speakers stopped and the beat went on via boomboxes perched on the shoulders of the models. Very street, came the approving murmur from the audience. When D.J. Mad Anthony looked for an image to put on the recent invitations to his weekly party, he turned to … the boombox. “The boombox is definitely coming back,” he says with confidence. Boomboxes have been seen and heard blaring New Wave in the East Village and salsa on Christopher Street. “It’s a few brave people who are sporting them,” adds the D.J. “But then, of course, it’s going to be an avalanche.” Of course.
A.L.
Just the Two of Us
We all know how annoying it is to run into someone wearing the same shirt. But if the shirt is an update of the half-of-a-heart friendship necklace you split with your best friend from camp, then it might be the key to finding your doppelgänger. Cheryl Gaskill and Leslie Hoskulds’s tees come in very limited editions – only two of each shirt will ever be made ($58-$68 apiece at Henri Bendel). You choose a word that best describes your unique and trendy self – postal, freelance, redneck – and if they haven’t thought of it already, they’ll stamp it onto a patch. Then you can log on to 2-of-a-Kind.com to find the only other person out there who’s as unique and trendy as you.
WANWISA KAMOLVATHIN
Smart Set
Leslie Chin and Mark Walsh
Vintage clothing has become quite the style badge – there is, it seems, nothing more fabulous than the offhand “Oh, this? I found it at a yard sale.” Mark Walsh and Leslie Chin have been collecting vintage couture for the past 25 years, selling primarily to museums and private collectors, and they approach the subject as true scholars. Through January 5, they’re offering the top of their wearable collection at Linda Dresner, priced from $300 to $6,500, and it’s selling fast: After the first day, they had to send in a resupply (484 Park Avenue; 308-3177). Instead of such standard secondhand fare as pilly Pucci and starchy Sasson, expect sheer gowns, lamé shawls, and brocade opera coats dating from the twenties and thirties. “We’re re-educating the customer,” Walsh explains. “A handmade dress from the thirties is just so much better than something that’s being hawked as vintage from the seventies. You can’t get the fabrics now, and if you do they’re on a John Galliano couture dress that costs $100,000.”
A.L.