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☆ Formerly Classified Documents Get the Fine Art Treatment
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-14 | by ( Guy Trebay | More About Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

This raises the question of how official Army documents come to be in the public domain. I contacted the U.S. Army, the Natick Center, and they gave me no answer at all for six months. Finally, after about a year, the media director replied and said you can file a memorandum with the Army allowing you to ask questions. I filed the memorandum, with 25 key questions and, at last, the media director replied. The response was, “You can ask the questions, but we will not answer you.”That’s it?

Organizations: Army, U.S . Army, Natick Center, Digital Commonwealth Locations: Massachusetts

☆ New York Fleet Week, the Movie
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-29 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“I feel like I’m in a movie right now,” Petty Officer Third Class Ayanna Crawford said last weekend as she navigated the bow tie of Times Square, with its hordes of panhandlers costumed as Elmo, Minnie Mouse and Spider-Man. “I’m in culture shock.”Petty Officer Crawford, 20, who serves on the Wasp-class amphibious assault vessel U.S.S. Bataan, had cruised into town with a fellow crew member, Airman Kobe Brents, 22, and many of the roughly 2,300 sailors, Marines and Coast Guard members who alight in New York each Fleet Week for a weeklong annual celebration of those who serve and protect the United States at sea. Held nearly every year since 1984, Fleet Week often has the unintended effect of reminding even the most jaded of locals that the gritty and complicated place they call home remains a peerless backdrop for what can sometimes seem like a never-ending cinematic reel. It was the film director Milos Forman who was reputed to have termed New York “the only city which in reality looks better than on postcards.”

Persons: ”, Ayanna Crawford, Elmo, Minnie Mouse, “, ” Petty, Crawford, Kobe, Milos Forman Organizations: Times, Kobe Brents, Marines, Coast Guard, Fleet, peerless Locations: Bataan, New York, United States, York

☆ ‘Challengers’: Normcore Clothes on Sweaty Bodies
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( The Styles Desk | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This week “Challengers,” Luca Guadagnino’s film about love, lust and tennis, finally hit theaters after being delayed by the actor’s strike last fall. Starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist as racket prodigies reunited by fate and tournaments, with costumes by Jonathan Anderson (designer of Loewe, his own JW Anderson line and many Uniqlo collabs), it is a romp through competitions and clothes. Vanessa Friedman Aesthetics — clothes, colors, design — have always been important in Luca Guadagnino’s movies, but “Challengers” is the first time he has collaborated with a single fashion designer: Jonathan Anderson. Jessica Testa Well, it’s not often you see a major fashion designer step into a film costume designer role. VF I loved the whole pop-art aesthetic of the movie, but I can’t say any of the clothes screamed “JWA” to me.

Persons: ” Luca Guadagnino’s, Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist, prodigies, Jonathan Anderson, Loewe, Anderson, Vanessa Friedman, Luca Guadagnino’s, ”, Jessica Testa, Guy Trebay JWA, Luca, Givenchy, Blake Edwards

ETImage “Barbie” is up for eight awards but is only the favorite for best original song. So while the Oscars have traditionally celebrated prestige films, Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster was undeniable, scoring eight Oscar nominations. Billie Eilish’s heart-wringing track “What Was I Made For?” won song of the year at the Grammys, and it is the front-runner in its Oscars category. And in 2003, Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” scored 10 nominations but no trophies. The best potential parallel to “Barbie” may be Bradley Cooper’s 2018 remake of “A Star Is Born,” which was nominated for eight Oscars and walked away with only best song.

Persons: Barbie ”, “ Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s, Gerwig, Billie Eilish’s, ”, Ryan Gosling’s, I’m, Ken, It’s, Martin Scorsese’s “, York ”, Barbie, Bradley Cooper’s Organizations: Warner Bros, Mattel, York Locations: ”

☆ Who’s Afraid of the Big Black Suit?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-08 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Winners and losers, orgies of gratitude, generous lashings of false humility — these are the things we expect from the Oscars. Beyond that, there are truly no certainties but one. Durable, serviceable, flexible, the tuxedo is a time-tested form of combat gear for night owls, the epitome of uniform dressing and yet, for some reason, a form of suit that gives people the willies. It’s prom drag, they think. Or that ill-fitting rental sack with a stale Mentos in the pocket.

☆ Wayne LaPierre: Dapper as Charged
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-23 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

You’d think Wayne LaPierre would have read the playbook. After decades in the spotlight, the former chief executive of the National Rifle Association could have been expected to know that, for public figures, conspicuous consumption is always a bad look. This is seldom truer than when sartorial choices come into play. Haven’t we been here before? Wasn’t Sarah Palin rudely schooled on the matter back in 2008, when, even as she campaigned alongside Senator John McCain as a champion of blue-collar workers, it was revealed by Politico that staffers shopping for Ms. Palin spent more than $150,000 on clothes and accessories from high-end retailers like Neiman Marcus — in a single month.

Persons: You’d, Wayne LaPierre, Wasn’t Sarah Palin, John McCain, Palin, Neiman Marcus —, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s Organizations: National Rifle Association, Politico Locations: Beverly Hills

☆ Willy Chavarria: Designer, Activist and Now, Auteur
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-09 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Hideous,” said Willy Chavarria, talking about the fashion business, celebrity entitlement, late-stage capitalism, his current state of mind. “It’s still men’s wear, honey,” he said. Hideous are the demands a best-selling pop star made before agreeing to attend Mr. Chavarria’s show on Friday and a lavish dinner party at Jean’s that will follow. Hideous are the industry trade groups that dole out awards to minority designers while withholding the financing necessary to build a sustainable long-term business. Then the mercurial Mr. Chavarria, 56, experienced a sudden mood shift.

Persons: ”, Willy Chavarria, “ It’s, Chavarria’s, Chavarria, “, Claude Montana Locations: Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Jean’s, America

“Kimberly Akimbo” won last year’s Tony Award for best musical, and “Parade” won the Tony for best musical revival. Only “Kimberly Akimbo” and “Sweeney Todd” are still running on Broadway, and if you want to see them in New York, now’s the time: “Kimberly Akimbo” has announced plans to close on April 28 and “Sweeney Todd” is expected to end its run on May 5. “Kimberly Akimbo” is planning a national tour that is scheduled to start in Denver in September. A “Shucked” tour is to begin in Nashville in November, and a “Parade” tour is to begin in January in Schenectady, N.Y., and then Minneapolis. “Some Like It Hot” had announced an intention to tour starting this fall but has not announced any venues.

Persons: Adrianna Hicks, Christian Borle, Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Jesse Green, ”, J, Harrison, NaTasha Yvette Williams, Scott Wittman, Marc Shaiman, Wittman, Shaiman, “ Kimberly Akimbo, Leo Frank, “, “ Sweeney Todd, Barber, Stephen Sondheim, “ Kimberly Akimbo ”, Tony, “ Sweeney Todd ” Organizations: Shubert Theater, Broadway, New York Times Locations: Georgia, New York, Denver, Nashville, Schenectady, N.Y, Minneapolis

☆ Am I That Guy? A View From the Front Rows in Paris
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Am I that guy? (And truth, Blakely Thornton, Kim Kardashian’s Balenciaga era probably was just high-priced “Power Rangers” cosplay.) Yet it felt important to keep in mind how powerful an economic engine men’s wear remains. By some measures, that growth will increase in the next decade to $988 billion. Another question follows from the first, though, a corollary to whether one is that guy.

Persons: I, Blakely Thornton, Kim Kardashian’s Organizations: Power Rangers, Research Locations: Milan, Paris

☆ Male Vanity as Political Weakness
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If vanity is the soft underbelly of maleness, a vulnerable area between the armor of masculinity and the kill zone, it appears it was Donald J. Trump’s famous self-regard that was the target when Nikki Haley ramped up her attacks on her opponent in New Hampshire this week. Soon after Mr. Trump appeared to confuse Ms. Haley in a speech with the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a Friday night rally in New Hampshire, Ms. Haley pounced. “My parents are up in age, and I love them dearly,’’ said Ms. Haley, conjuring an image of doddering geezers rocking on the porch. “But when you see them hit a certain age, there is a decline. That’s a fact — ask any doctor, there is a decline.’’

Persons: Donald J, Nikki Haley ramped, Trump, Haley, Nancy Pelosi, Haley pounced, “, ’ ’ Organizations: South, United Nations Locations: New Hampshire, South Carolina

☆ A Critical Shopper Hits the Runways of Milan
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Fashion criticism, if you’re privileged enough to do it, is a pretty cool practice. It brings you into constant contact with creativity and beauty. It allows you to think and write about the ways that what humans choose to put on their bodies affect almost everything about how we move through social and cultural space. We look at clothes all the time, and yet seldom do we experience them as intended by their creators. This, then, is not a strict review but a somewhat random list of stuff I bought for my fantasy closet.

Organizations: Milan

☆ Gucci’s Reboot Brings Back Old-School Cool
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-16 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The headline was Gucci. Gucci is, in a way, the Ever Given of the personal luxury goods trade. With more than 500 stores worldwide and an estimated market value in 2022 of $35.3 billion, it is that skyscraper-size tanker, caught sideways. The entire fashion business took a hit during the pandemic and then bounced back, or seemed to, with a surprising resilience. The instincts that helped elevate him from journeyman accessories designer to star were already giving him the itch to move on.

Persons: Gucci, Alessandro Michele, —, Michele Locations: Suez, Florence

☆ Madonna Lived to Tell
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The account, The AIDS Memorial, is an evolving testament, told in photographs, videos and user stories, to lives lost to a devastating and, it can occasionally seem, forgotten epidemic. To date, Mr. Armstrong has posted more than 11,000 of these tales, and if you are aware of them at all, that may owe to one woman: Madonna. The 65-year-old singer was early among the 269,000 followers of The AIDS Memorial. And, if it did not inspire her outright, the Instagram account served as the basis for a showstopping element of her current “Celebration” tour, which comes to Barclays Center in mid-December. By extension, Madonna’s choice to deploy the montage early in each “Celebration” performance as a backdrop for a rendition of the 1986 song “Live to Tell” is as politically trenchant as it is deeply personal.

Persons: Stuart Armstrong, Armstrong, Sarah Schulman —, —, Martin Burgoyne Organizations: Barclays Center, World Health Organization, The Locations: Edinburgh, York, British

☆ The Sudden Death of a Model Magnate
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-02 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Not without reason has modeling been termed the ugly business of being beautiful. Opaque, barely regulated and often cutthroat, it is seldom viewed as an incubator of big-hearted altruists. Instrumental over his 30-year career in finding and then shaping the careers of some of the most stellar names in the business — among them, Gisele Bündchen, Liya Kebede, Carolyn Murphy, Gigi Hadid, Stephanie Seymour, Tyra Banks, Kate Upton and Joan Smalls — he was also an early champion of diversity and inclusion and a canny marketer with a gift for anticipating shifts in the overall cultural mood. When Mr. Bart went to IMG after a previous job heading Ford Models, “people still thought of models as having a use-by date,” said James Scully, a retired casting agent and himself a noted star-maker. “It was, ‘You had your moment, and now there’s a new car in town.’”Mr. Bart, by contrast, took a long view of the talents he helped foster and had a singular ability to recalibrate a model’s trajectory, often more than once over the course of their career.

Persons: Ivan Bart, Fern Mallis, ”, Bart, Gisele Bündchen, Liya Kebede, Carolyn Murphy, Gigi Hadid, Stephanie Seymour, Tyra Banks, Kate Upton, Joan Smalls —, James Scully, ‘, ’, Mr Organizations: IMG, Ford

☆ Tough Times for Men’s Wear? Designers Find a Workaround
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

You’ve maxed out your credit cards, asked your family for loans, begged vendors for favors, cajoled friends into sacrificing salaries to model for a day, and then suddenly it is New York Fashion Week and, with it, New York Men’s Day, the only chance some men’s wear designers will have to be seen. “What else could we do?” said Erin Hawker, the indefatigable publicist who first envisioned New York Men’s Day a decade ago. “We staged a peaceful protest on the sidewalk.”It’s Sinatra 101. What you also require, as it turns out, is Gandhian tactics and nerves of steel. The city backed off for a few hours, and 10 designers were briefly given their chance.

Persons: You’ve, cajoled, you’ve, ”, Erin Hawker, It’s Organizations: New York, It’s Sinatra Locations: New, New York

☆ Don’t Underestimate Jimmy Buffett’s Influence on Style
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-02 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Odds are the world of capital-F fashion never gave a moment’s thought to Jimmy Buffett, the bard of Margaritaville, who died on Friday at 76. Mr. Buffett, a singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and best-selling author, took a form of laid-back dressing instantly recognizable to anyone who ever hung around a boatyard and made it mainstream both at home and abroad. Not for Mr. Buffett the hippie-adjacent suedes and leathers of his musical contemporaries, nor even the standard-issue double-denim get-ups preferred by pop folk idols of his age, people like James Taylor or Jackson Browne. A lifelong waterman, Mr. Buffett spent his early days propping up bars in Key West. Nobody wears uniforms on Key West, unless you think of a uniform as Bermuda shorts in Easter egg colors; low-slung, faded khakis; flip-flops; and short-sleeved shirts with raucous patterns and squared-off tails.

Persons: Jimmy Buffett, Margaritaville, Buffett, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, waterman Locations: Key, Bermuda

☆ Farewell to a Store That Was Gap for Billionaires
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-10 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But my life has been these 10-year cycles, whether in fashion or various creative jobs. In my cycle of creativity — or whatever it is — the only way was to kill this version of the store and take a break. This sounds completely mad, but I’d like to do something either way smaller or way bigger — a more highly curated, more highly edited version or else Tiina the Store on a department-store level. What we created here in retail struck a chord with a certain type of customer, and I’d like to use that knowledge. I heard all the time from my customers that there’s nowhere for them to shop.

Persons: —, it’s

☆ Before There Was Pee-wee, There Was Pinky
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-01 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The comedian Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Though Pinky Lee is an unfamiliar name today, it would not have been to a man of Mr. Reubens’s generation. Pee-wee Herman was born Paul Rubenfeld in 1952 in Peekskill, NY; Mr. Lee was born Pincus Leff in 1907 in Saint Paul, Minn. Rubenfeld, who was a talented child actor, would rename himself Reubens and become an improv comic. His early work with the The Groundlings in Los Angeles, notably in a Pinky parody skit, would eventually form the basis for one of the more indelible characters in show business. Mr. Lee came up through the ranks as a tap dancer on the vaudeville circuit.

Persons: Paul Reubens, Herman, Pinky Lee, Reubens, Paul Rubenfeld, Lee, Pincus Leff, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, palomino, Trigger Organizations: Minn Locations: Peekskill , NY, Saint Paul, Rubenfeld, Los Angeles, Caliente

☆ What’s the Status of Flaunting Your Status?
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-22 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“We are collectively spending more time checking out what the rich and famous are doing and less time on what Barry from H.R. and Sandra from accounting were up to last weekend,” said Nicholas Bloom, the William D. Eberle professor of economics at Stanford. “Wealth porn,” Stellene Volandes, editor in chief of Town & Country, termed such postings. And as with any permutation of adult entertainment, it’s free online: Anyone can watch. Yet their excesses were noted by a relative few.

Persons: “, ”, William Norwich, The New York Post’s, Hermès Birkin, Barry, Sandra, Nicholas Bloom, William D, Eberle, Karlie Kloss, Josh Kushner —, Slack, Kloss, hoi, Kushner, David Geffen’s humongous, Stellene Volandes, predacious, tycoons, Lacroix Organizations: The New, Stanford, Spotify, Town, Reagan, Metropolitan Museum of Art’s, New York Times Locations: The New York, facto, Calabasas, H.R, Grenadines

☆ Jane Birkin: Decades of Effortless Elegance
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-16 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

There were the babydoll dresses that few besides the actress Mia Farrow ever wore with greater élan. “Her style was very different from American style,” Ms. Sui said, and it introduced “something new to our fashion vocabulary.” What exactly was it about that style, the designer was asked? Perhaps, in the end, the Hermès Birkin bag provides the best example. Before its invention, Ms. Birkin was often photographed toting a straw marketbasket crammed with makeup, keys and assorted paraphernalia. “I would love to have been a sort of neat person and wear a Kelly,” Ms. Birkin once explained, referring to a prim, boxy-style handbag created and named for the film star Grace Kelly.

Persons: Mia Farrow, she’d, Ms, Sui, Birkin, Jean, Louis Dumas, Kelly, ” Ms, prim, Grace Kelly, “, Courroies, Sotheby’s, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Jennifer Lopez, Cardi Organizations: YouTube Locations: daises, French, Paris, London

☆ Italian Men’s Wear Does a Power Edit
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Concision — that was the word to come to mind after eight surprising days in this men’s wear capital, and in Florence. Did some unseen force take a blue pencil to all the slack narratives, rehashed inspirations, derivative references that prevailed in recent seasons? Suddenly everything seemed crisp and focused, like early Hemingway after he’d learned how to do Gertrude Stein. You could follow the lead of Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino, showing his first men’s wear collection in three years. Not coincidentally, the significant design gesture was the designer’s decision to emblazon some of the apparel and many accessories with text.

Persons: Concision, Hemingway, he’d, Gertrude Stein, Piccioli, Valentino, Hanya, ”, Yanagihara Organizations: Gabbana, T Locations: Florence

☆ ‘Stealth Wealth’ and Bare Feet: How Power Dresses on ‘Succession’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Sunday, the show reaches its finale and so a final check-in with Michelle Matland, the Emmy-nominated costume designer responsible for crafting a 21st-century version of Machiavellian chic and inadvertently spurring the “stealth wealth” fashion genre, seems in order. Looking back, could you could have predicted where this show would take you? Jesse Armstrong wrote an incredible brilliant story, but I’m not sure he knew where it was going to go. The one constant was the trajectory of each character, and over the seasons, they developed story lines and these inherent qualities you couldn’t have foreseen. And it must have been an unusual challenge for a designer, since the setting is contemporary and the characters’ wardrobes don’t read as costumes.

☆ Do Dress Sneakers Belong in the Oval Office?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Think of it as a rare instance of cross-aisle consensus or else a sartorial trend gone badly wrong. But it did not go unnoticed when, in a photograph from the Oval Office posted to President Joe Biden’s account this week, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, Senator Mitch McConnell and Representative Hakeem Jeffries were all captured wearing some variant of the dreaded footwear hybrid: the sneaker shoe. Weighing in on Twitter, cult men’s wear commentator Derek Guy (@dieworkwear) called out the footgear as a clear lapse in dignity, if not actual protocol. Why pay a visit to a sitting president dressed in shoes designed for power-walking at the mall? “Awful,” Yang-Yi Goh, style director of GQ, pronounced the shoe that has become a style default among Capitol Hill staffers.

☆ ‘Succession’ Style, Episode 7: Snakes and Scorpions
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( The Styles Desk | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

This article contains spoilers for Episode 7 of the final season of “Succession.”It’s election eve in the world of “Succession,” and the Roys are jockeying for position. Kendall and Roman ramp up their efforts to stop the Matsson deal, and Shiv and Tom host the tailgate party with Logan’s preordained guest list. This “AOL era, legacy media, putrid stuffed-mushroom” fest, as Matsson calls it, even has an electoral party game with a kettle corn prize. Matsson stuns in a golden bomber jacket, but Tom may be the quiet style star of the night. GT: Fur confidence or velvet confidence?

☆ Hip-Hop, Still Fly at 50
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Everything is a flashback,” Syreeta Gates said last week. “That’s the way it always is with our culture. It was a dizzying convergence, musically and visually. Decades afterward, the rap scholar Tricia Rose would note in “Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America” how skeptical the mainstream initially was to music most thought was a fad. That is, until the indie producer Sylvia Robinson released the hit song “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979.

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