You may be wondering what's up with this picture. If I surfed on in I sure as hell would be. It's from Women's Wear Daily and it's a shot from a film made for Anna Sui's Fashion Week show. And that's me all the way on the right, the really short one, my head's ducked down, looks like I was dancing. That must have been the point where they were playing Iggy, I'm not sure.
What am I even doing at this little shindig? I've always prided myself on being emphatically anti-fashion . Ok, maybe not always, but definitely since those middle-school days when I would be shamelessly taunted for not being able to afford Guess jeans or whatever other ugly piece of crap was the rage with the 12 year old Arizona label patrol. Yet now I was finding myself a participant in Fashion Week 2001,along with two other members of Mz.PakMan even if only in the capacity of bit players. I'd been hooked up with this by Shaolin, who'd been hired to scout out "kids in local bands who look good", as was explained by Sui's assistant Thomas. After an "audition" of sorts (taking a polaroid an answering a few questions) I was called back Saturday morning with the address of the soundstage and instuctions to wear something black and formal. The idea was to make it appear like an "Andy Warhol Factory party", though somehow I doubt a Silver Factory party ever occured in a two by six foot area marked off with masking tape!
At first I was pleasantly surprised with how nice people were. Anna herself waas on hand and surprisingly more cordial and down to earth than I'd ever imagined a fashion designer to be. I was sent to a backroom area where a plethora of helpful assistants outfitted us with accessories,hairstyles, and anything else we may need. I became attached to a feather boa with a sort of velvet "cat-o-nine tails" affixed to each end and trotted out to help myself to free wine and dance to a mix of 70's glam rock and punk.
Outside Lisssa was stressing over one of the male models, convinced he was someone she had known growing up in Hollywood, but when Abby went to talk to him he told us he was from London and his name was "Olivaaah". Lisssa still remains unconvinced. Abby was excited because James Iha was part of the crowd, which might have fascinated me more if I had actually been a fan of Smashing Pumpkins at any point. But Melora Creager from Rasputina was there also, along with some guy who was apparently a famous concert pianist, who asked me about my pentagram. As for the models, I kind of got the vibe that most of them merely tolerated us street urchins coming in on their fashion shoot, except for one guy named Nicholai who seemed really friendly. As we took a 15 minute break and pecked at the cheese and vegetable hors d'ouvres provided us, he confided to me that he was really craving Wendy's more than anything. Apparantly a cardinal sin in that industry. I decided that models weren't necessarily prettier than other people in the face, just taller and thinner. I mean, don't get me wrong, they were all pretty, but so were the other musicians there. I mainly wound up hanging out with Tommy and Ian from the Star Spangles though, and Shaolin.
We all got invited to the show at fashion week a month later. The film rolled on huge screens behind the catwalk with an entirely different soundtrack played over it ("nicotine, valium, vicadin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol"--can anyone give me the name of this band?) as the models rotated their way down and behind the walk in the new spring fashions. All in all the whole thing took 15 minutes. Afterwards a TV news cameraman stopped me, Abby, and Sarah Schwartz to interview us about fashion week.
You've got an interesting look going on, where do you get your clothes?" he asked.
"Mostly at thrift stores, then I put 'em together my own way." I answered. I don't know if that clip got used.
But all said and done, I'm doing some T-shirt designs for Anna now. May the daughters of some of those label snots from middle school force Mummy and Daddy to work overtime to keep their little darlings in fashionable rock-n-roll attire designed by me. Heh heh heh... WITCH BABY DEVIL DOLL HOME