The Asylum (7 page)

There is a kind of reverse chic about crap towns, which is hard to understand unless you were born in one. In biblical terms, it is the opposite of what you might call a Lot situation. Nobody looks back at a crap town and turns into a pillar of salt. Nobody denies those crap roots. There is no shame in hailing from a crap town. Au contraire! It is an immense source of pride. We escapees have enormous affection for our birthplaces. Whether we hail from Fresno or Scranton, Ickenham or Twickenham, we celebrate our gritty roots while simultaneously rejoicing in the fact that we escaped.

Crap-town pride is especially pronounced among fashion folk. The chasm between the bleak naffness of that hopeless, inhospitable, rainy birthplace and the fun and magical artificiality of the fashion world is a source of delight and inspiration. Our unpretentious origins provide a knowing reference point from which to approach the ultrapretentious white-hot furnace of fashion and trendy glamour.

The list of creative slags who have fled their crap towns and dusty villages and found safe harbor in the world of fashion is a long one:

Cristóbal Balenciaga was born in Getaria, a fishing town in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa Getaria.

Joe McKenna is from Kirkintilloch.

Ossie Clarke hailed from gritty Warrington in Cheshire.

Michael Kors is from Merrick, Long Island.

Robert Forrest hails from Carlisle on the English/Scottish border.

Mario Testino? Lima, Peru.

Azzedine Alaïa was born in Tunis.

Edward Enninful was born in Ghana.

Jean Paul Gaultier was
né
in Arcueil, Val-de-Marne. No, I've never heard of it either.

The lovely Pat McGrath was born in Northampton.

Jay McCarroll from
Project Runway
grew up in rural Pennsylvania.

Like the charismatic Jay, Kate and Corinne exude humor and confidence. They have that creative self-assurance which comes from being born on the naff side of the tracks but knowing that your innate sense of style and your outlier creativity were sufficiently major to propel you out of obscurity.

Despite their
jeunesse
and total lack of experience, Kate and Corinne had—at the time of this first encounter—just accomplished something huge. They had changed the face of fashion forever. Their collaboration created . . . another drumroll! . . . the waif.

Let's digress a moment to chat about
The
Waif
.

The waif was major. The waif was the biggest thing to happen to fashion since punk. But in order to fully understand the waif, we need to digress again and explain the glamazon, the tarty virago who preceded the waif.

The glamazon came along in the late eighties. Her look could best be described as “high drag.” Open any magazine back then and you were bound to encounter a cavalcade of maquillaged glamazons. The glamazon look was a postmodern mash-up of midcentury high-fashion dominatrix cuntiness. Helmut Newton and Herb Ritts and Steven Meisel all celebrated the power and stature of glamazons.

Just as with drag queens, every glamazon model's makeup and hair was designed to pastiche the styling of a midcentury model or movie star: Linda Evangelista was Jean Patchett or Dovima or Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida. Christy Turlington, in Versace with a blond skyscraper beehive and more lip liner than Lady Bunny, was Barbarella or Ursula Andress. Naomi was Josephine Baker or Mahogany. Tatiana was Romy Schneider. It was a cinematic postmodern explosion of hyperfemininity.

Then Corinne and Kate created the waif, and David slayed Goliath.

The waif was the polar opposite of the glamazon. The glamazon shrieked with laughter. The waif barely smiled. The glamazon wore thick foundation. The waif didn't even wear foundation garments. The glamazon was a defiant optimist. The waif was a beautiful pessimist. The glamazon was a look-at-me supervixen. Everything was externalized. The waif represented the opposite. Everything was melancholy and internal and slightly damp. The waif was the supercool working-class slag from a crap town. Corinne and Kate had stripped away the artifice of the tired old glamazon and channeled themselves. Together they obliterated the tarty glamazon and created a whole new poetic, introspective concept of style—the perfect accompaniment to the grunge movement in music—which still reverberates today.

•   •   •

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER.

Kate is now a household name. She has become the most famous model in the world. She has dated Johnny Depp. She has produced a kid with Jefferson Hack. She has extricated herself from Pete Doherty. She has weathered various scandals and always emerged triumphant. She is still the cool girl, the chick every gal wants to emulate.

What about me? I have reached my half century, two decades of which have been spent working at the same store. I am, in some ways, the Susan Lucci of Barneys. (I refer to the longevity of my role rather than to a lack of awards. At this point I have a shelf groaning with Lucite obelisks, cut-glass rose bowls and brutalist granite blocks, all bearing my name.)

The last three months of my life have been consumed with preparations for the arrival of Kate Moss and her Topshop clothing collection, which will make its U.S. debut at Barneys. The hip and affordable UK high-street retail phenomenon is set to conquer Manhattan with a collection designed by none other than Kate herself. Will there be any missy separates? Undoubtedly. There will be a bit of everything. Fashion after all these years has become an all-inclusive goulash of trends and styles that seem to exist concurrently: bohemian, faux-hemian, sexy secretary,
manga
, goth, dykey assassin, glamazon, and, yes, waif are all available for your delectation.

Along with designing the Kate Moss Topshop boutique and the opening windows, I am also charged with chatting to the press.

The
New York Post
calls.

In a sincere attempt to put the sheer majesty of Topshop into some kind of broader sociological context, I tell the reporter that Kate's ineffable sense of style comes from the fact that she is “a working-class slag from a crap town, just like me.”

I go on to explain that fashion would not be fashion without the contribution made by us slags. We enliven the landscape with our refreshing lack of preconceived ideas. We neutralize the corrosive bourgeois preoccupation with luxury that can so often threaten the creativity which drives real fashion. Slag power rules!

The point I was trying to make was: All the energy and creativity in fashion comes from the crap towns like Reading and Croydon. The Sebastians and Arabellas—the toffs from Knightsbridge and Mayfair—make zero cultural contribution. It's the lads and lasses who have fought their way out of the rough end of town who provide the creative foundations for La Mode. I cite John Galliano (a plumber's son) and Alexander McQueen (a taxi driver's son) as good examples. Blah! Blah! Blah! I get all fired up and morph into a ranting fashion-world Camille Paglia.

The media and the blogosphere eat up my comments, or rather, I should say, a severely edited version of my comments.

The fact that my words were intended not to insult the working-class slags of the world but rather to generate a bit of crap-town solidarity was largely overlooked. Taken out of context, as they subsequently were by a billion tabloids and websites, my words sound almost menacing.

Barneys creative director disses Kate, calling her “a working-class slag from a crap town.”

They forgot the “just like me” part.

The repercussions are swift and bowel-curdling: UK pals e-mail me suggesting I get my bile ducts removed. Apparently the word “slag” is no longer flung around with quite the un-p.c. abandon that it was back in my John Lewis days. Not having lived in the UK since the seventies, I am, so it would appear, working with an out-of-date lexicon.

Next an admonishing call from Topshop owner Sir Philip Green. Why-did-you-call-Kate-a-slag is the gist.

This call was followed by one similar from Kate's agent. Worse was yet to come.

My sixteen-year-old niece Tanya, a scrappy South Londoner, sent me a note declaring her love for Kate and calling me not just “a working-class slag” but also “an idiot.”

Then Croydon got involved.

Croydon officials used their local paper to publicly denounce my comments as “inappropriate on many levels” and reassure the world that Croydon was “a vibrant place to live with great shopping.” (This desperate attempt to rebrand their town as a red-hot tourist destination had, in my opinion, the effect of making Croydon seem, if anything, even more poignant.)

Some enterprising Brits, un-p.c. slags with great senses of humor, saw commercial opportunity in the whole debacle. They commemorated the brouhaha with a line of
WORKING-CLASS SLAG
T-shirts and sold them for fourteen quid each on a site called duplikate.net. The T-shirts came in a bewildering variety of colors, or “colorways,” as fashion people inexplicably insist on calling them, and were accompanied by a spirited defense of yours truly.

In my own defense I would like to bring the attention of all concerned to the fact that there exists a book called
Crap Towns: The 50 Worst
Places to Live in the UK,
which extensively highlights both my hometown and Kate's. According to
Crap Towns
, making eye contact in either Reading or Croydon is always a bad idea: if you make the mistake of staring at anyone in either town, “Whatchoo lookin' at, you fuckin' cunt?” will be the last thing you hear before you're poked in the eye with a half-snouted cigarette.

When Kate arrived for the opening, she was wearing a wicked little Topshop frock printed with barbed wire. Was this a portent? Hopefully not. I braced myself for a half-snouted cigarette. Instead, I am happy to report that she gave me a big hug.

Two nights later I run into Miss Moss at the Costume Institute Gala. This is fashion's most szhooshy occasion. No missy separates allowed.

The mesmerizingly beautiful Kate looks particularly un-Croydon. Having accessorized one of her own designs—a simple black chiffon number—with a bazillion dollars' worth of borrowed Graff diamonds, she was easily the coolest chick in the room.

“Love the frock,” I say.

“A hundred and fifty quid,” says Kate in her best South London drawl, adding, “It's part of me collection.”

She and her pal Irina then dive “into the lav for a quick fag.”

•   •   •

ABOUT EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO.

“You don't mind sitting with the interns do you?”

The hostess of this particular fashion magazine–sponsored dinner has taken the liberty of seating me at the C table. I am not offended. In fact, I am relieved. Hanging out with the newbie slags always guarantees more fun. I am delighted at the opportunity to break bread with a fresh batch of eccentric hopefuls. They are the oddballs and misfits who have, from an early age, been mesmerized by the notion of style. These are my people. Through a combo of chutzpah and creativity they have found a way in. It's a symbiotic relationship. We brave fashion warriors bring our creative impulses and our passion for transformation. In return we get a safe space to express ourselves.

So, as instructed, I take a seat and begin to chat with the gals around me. Funny, they don't really seem like fashion daredevils at all. In fact, they seem rather conventional. I am used to new arrivals being a little rough around the edges. These interns are so well-spoken. With their carefully ironed hair and their perfectly applied maquillage, they seem much more like fashion consumers than fashion rebels.

In order to ascertain their names, I peek at their place cards. Those surnames sound hauntingly familiar. They are boldface last names, the names of movie stars and Fortune 500 megamoguls.

“Are you by any chance related to X?” I ask one young lass who is wearing a four-thousand-dollar Alexander McQueen outfit.

“Yes. He's my dad.”

“And are you the daughter of Y?” I ask another gal.

“Yes. But please don't ask me to get you an autograph.”

As I survey these lucky-sperm-club members, my heart sinks.

If the kids of the famous start nabbing all the plumb creative jobs, then what about all the marginalized freaks? What about all the outsiders, the kids of the unfamous, the working-class slags from bumfuck? What are they supposed to do? Who will offer them shelter? And, most important of all, what will be the effect on fashion?

Simply put, if the idiosyncratic freaksters from the backwoods are elbowed out of the way by the kids of the famous from Knightsbridge and Brentwood, then fashion will shrivel and die.

Dear Fashion Industry,

Beware of privileging the privileged. Keep the door open to the self-invented superfreaks from the crap towns. This is the only way to keep fashion vital and creative. Thanks awfully.

Love,

SD

•   •   •

postscript:
In 2010, the beautiful, influential and courageous Corinne Day passed away from brain cancer at the age of forty-eight, leaving a husband and two kids.

RIP, you creative genius.

INSTEAD OF A PRINTED INVITATION,
everyone receives a coffee-stained paper napkin. It is inscribed with the words
MIGUEL ADROVER SPRING 2001 MEETEAST
and arrives shoved inside a nondescript, Scotch-taped office envelope. Not very gleeful. Almost sinister. In retrospect, given what went down on that melancholy winter's evening, the invite could have been seen as a dreadful portent or an 'orrible omen.

The location is the old Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side. As the crowds of show attendees gather, rumors are swirling. The show is complicated. Delays are expected. Miguel is using live animals. There is no way it will start on time. Anna Wintour is alerted. Anna Wintour leaves.

It's freezing cold, and the wait proves to be interminable. Somehow I cannot bring myself to throw in the towel. After all, Miguel Adrover is fashion's new enigma. He's the bloke whose commitment to recycling is so extreme that he famously made a jacket out of Quentin Crisp's pee-stained mattress.

Quentin Crisp, author, raconteur, wearer of trailing chiffon scarves and sporter of long, dingy fingernails, was the ne plus ultra of squalid bohemia. Though he frequently referred to himself as one of the “Stately Homos of England,” he spent the last years of his life in the East Village. When he croaked at the age of ninety-one, his unclaimed belongings were tossed on the street. Adrover salvaged his mattress and refashioned the fabric into a nifty striped jacket.

Chopping up frocks to make new frocks is not new. Andy Warhol did it. Martin Margiela did it. Imitation of Christ did it. But nobody had ever thought to do it with a pee-stained mattress. When Miguel's intriguingly provenanced garment was shown in 2000, it made Adrover famous. Before long he had backers and a cult following.

Fall 2001. Back to that chilly night on the Lower East Side. Finally the lights go down.

A wailing muezzin breaks the silence and jump-starts the proceedings. There is soft drumming, followed by increasingly frantic drumming. Out comes a bunch of floaty natural-linen djellabas. A Middle Eastern theme is apparent. Miguel has recently traveled to Egypt. It shows. The drumming gets louder. Slowly but surely, we are transported to the dusty backstreets of Cairo and the frenzy of the souk.

The casting is very bold. Fashion models are outnumbered by “real people.” An endless stream of mysterious characters—twins, potentates, librarians, policewomen, high priestesses, mystics and concubines—are all attired in Adrover's new Middle Eastern–ish designs. As American fashion shows go, this one is very original and extremely creative. It's like watching a Pasolini movie. Soon it would morph into a Jacques Tati movie. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The Adrover clothing is as diverse as the casting, a something-for-everyone parade of men's tailored jackets, stained and torn kaftans, high-necked ruffled Pollyanna dresses, Foreign Legion uniforms, blousons and majestic robes made out of muddied sateen or recycled quilted packing blankets. Turbans and veils abound.

Though Miguel is a beginner, this show, with its bold, cinematic celebration of filth and grandeur, is genuinely impressive. It has gravitas . . .

. . . and then it doesn't.

Suddenly, without warning, slapstick invades the casbah.

A sturdy lady in a hijab and a nicely cut suit appears on the runway. She is not alone. Accompanying her is a large hairy black goat. There is a whiff of Edward Gorey about this sinister animal. It has horns. It has cloven feet. It has long coarse silky hair. It is the devil.

This beast may well have been more than cooperative in rehearsal. I am sure he trotted alongside his minder with nary a sideways glance. Now Mr. Devil Goat is faced with a seething souk of unknown faces, and it's a whole other story.

This animal takes one look at the crowd of fashion luminaries and slams on the brakes. This is one huge goat. The instant deceleration causes the veiled lady to stumble and screech to an inelegant halt. She glares at Satan. Satan refuses to budge.

Instant traffic jam.

The show comes to a complete standstill. Everything stops except the paparazzi. For some reason, they appear to be taking more pictures than usual. Flash! Flash! Flash!

The lady becomes very agitated. She knows that if she and her cloven companion don't start moving again, the show cannot continue. Models are already accumulating behind her like so many ketchup bottles on a factory conveyor belt. She has to act NOW.

Abandoning all pretense of fashion elegance, she turns around and, assuming a skirt-splitting tug-of-war stance, the plucky model attempts to haul the stubborn beast down the runway, à la tow truck. Tug. Tug. Resist. Resist. Flash! Flash! Flash! This standoff continues for an excruciating minute or so.

In the face of this determination, the satanic goat takes the only course open to him: suicide.

To shrieks of horror from the assembled crowd, the massive hairy black beast pitches itself, legs revolving uppermost, off the back of the runway and disappears from view.

A collective gasp removes most of the oxygen from the vast auditorium.

If it were not for her strength and her low center of gravity, Satan's date would have followed him into the abyss. This courageous lady is still standing on the runway, clutching the end of Satan's tether and staring down into the black hole at the back of the runway.

Suddenly the beast reappears, or rather its mocking head does. Plonk.

At this point in the proceedings I am reminded of the old story of the tubby opera singer who, at the denouement of
Tosca
, flings herself, on cue, from the ramparts of the Castel Sant'Angelo only to land on the thoughtfully placed mattresses and then bounce back into full view of the audience.

The goat rests his skull on the ledge of the runway and stares at the fashion flock with a glassy gaze. It eyes the audience with a cheeky defiance, the same cheeky defiance which I have seen in the eyes of other supermodels, Linda Evangelista being a good example.

As I mentioned, Satan's companion is still clutching the leash. Her tenacity is impressive. She is clearly unwilling to admit defeat. She will not proceed without her accessory. Boldly and optimistically, she attempts to pull the animal back up onto the runway. Satan probably weighs about three hundred pounds.

Would she have been better advised to let go of the tether and keep walking, thereby allowing the show to continue? Quite possibly. But she didn't. Instead she
persevered.

She is not the only one who is determined to force this rogue four-legged model to fulfill his obligations. An executive from Mr. Adrover's parent company, a distinguished middle-aged man in a pinstripe bespoke suit, leaps onto the runway and attempts to wrangle the beast himself.

“We booked you for this show, and you're gonna model or else!”

Flash! Flash! Flash!

The tussle continues. There is no way to describe the explosive delight of the banks of paparazzi. Never in the history of fashion has there been such an uncooperative mannequin.

Eventually, the wranglers admit defeat and the animal slides under the runway never to be seen again.

The show eventually concludes without further incident. It was beautiful and memorable, and was punctuated by one of the best comic vignettes ever to have played out on a fashion runway.

As I wandered home, I lamented the absence of Mr. Crisp, the man who unwittingly played such a key role in Mr. Adrover's success. If it had not been for Quentin and his mattress, the goat fiasco would never have taken place. I pictured the ghost of Quentin, sitting in the front row, smiling discreetly and coquettishly.

I always had a soft spot for Quent. We were connected in all kinds of strange ways. Back in seventies London, we often rode the same #22 bus to Chelsea. I would contrive to sit next to him in order to extract some piece of drollery. Despite his barbed wit, I always felt very comfortable around the stately homo. This may well have been because he bore such an uncanny resemblance to my own mother, especially when he played Elizabeth I in Tilda Swinton's breakout movie
Orlando
.

“
It's Mum!
” screeched my sister into my answering machine, after she had seen the movie. “Rush out
now
and see it! You won't believe the resemblance!”

Like his doppelgänger, Betty Doonan, Quentin was also highly quotable, a little Oscar Wilde and a little Erma Bombeck.

“Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.”

“There was no need to do any housework at all. After four years, the dirt doesn't get any worse.”

As the glamorous anarchy of the Adrover show sank in, several more Quentin-style bon mots floated back into my consciousness.

“It's no good running a pig farm badly for thirty years while saying, ‘Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By then, pigs will be your style.”

“Exhibitionism is like a drug. Hooked in adolescence, I was now taking doses so massive they would have killed a novice.”

“Sometimes I wore a fringe so deep it obscured the way ahead. This hardly mattered. There were always others to look where I was going.”

And speaking of fringe . . .

Frantic postshow inquiries revealed that the long-haired goat slept through the rest of the show, after which he was fed and then conveyed back to the farm, his fashion career in tatters.