Ponzi schemes and stock market gyrations inspire a yearning for something a little rustic. All hail the urban peasant.

Belted caftan by Bernhard Willhelm, $550.00 @ Seven  

*New and notable additions to the menswear shows include Hugo, Hugo Boss (design by Bruno Pieters and previously shown in Berlin), Rick Owens, Gareth Pugh, and Kim Jones‘ debut for for Dunhill!

I’ll be of course looking forward to the newcomers (especially Dunhill) but will also have my eyes set on the Juun J, Dries Van Noten, Raf Simons, Lanvin, and Romain Kremer catwalks. This wait is infinitely more exciting than the advent countdown to x-mas. I’ll take glimpses of impossible boys in impeccable fashions over mediocre presents and an emptied bank account anytime.

Eschew function in favor of form this holiday season and introduce a little whimsy into the home. 

Chest of drawers by Tejo Remy, Price Available upon Request @ Droog Design 

Al Gore’s earth-project Current.com is like CNN for generation 2.0 (sans the fancy holograms and helmet hair). Users contribute video content for VC2 that is then curated Current editors and broadcast on Current TV (check local cable stations). Both engaging and socially progressive, current stories (or pods) offer insight into the lives of 20 something on everything from the declining Tokyo population (think robots), to women’s rights groups in India, to LA’s burgeoning art scene. Current is recommended reading/watching for anyone interested in environmental preservation and insightful  international perspectives.   

We just got around to reading the Out 100. It’s disappointing how few men and women of color get represented in MSG (main stream gay) culture. Queer culture is still widely dominated by urban, white men — and this isn’t a complaint, as much as a call to action. Our chagrin turned into slobbering drool when we turned the page to Cuban-American photog Anthony Goicolea who is known for photos of “preadolescent boys in school uniforms.” WTF! And he lives in Brooklyn?

Who is this hottie and how do we get in bed with him? Somebody messenger us one of those Tide-stick things, our French designer jeans will never be the same again.

Sexy pictures, semi-intelligent conversation, and omni-sexuality — that’s the formula for BastardLife.com, and perhaps the number one reason to check out their site this week. Their motto is simple “Straight, bi, or gay, we’re here for you.” Show ‘em love.

The creme de la creme, the king of the hill, the debutante of denim, the zenith of zipflys, the Lanvin and Acne Jeans collaboration is about to hit stores next week. The line which was shown on the Lanvin Homme spring 2009 catwalk holds a full range of bottoms, tops, and outerwear all fabricated in the best Japanese and Italian indigo dyed twill. The full collection will be available at Barney’s and the Acne store on greene st. But don’t expect these choice items to come cheap as both Lanvin’s and Acne’s prices are notoriously some of the most expensive in their tier. It’s perplexing that high end couture denim seems like the right product to be sending out into this tough and ever rougher retail environment. Yet, with Lucas’ and Alber’s magic touch I’m sure these jeans will have no problem getting off the racks and onto the the legs of the fashion devoted. I on the other hand will be rummaging up my own version with a good hem and overdye job on some old Eddie Bauer pleated denim trousers I found in the thrift.

www.lanvin.com

www.acnestudios.com

Midwest ‘Mo Mecca - For those of us who were back in the heartland for the olympic gastronomic event that is Thanksgiving, Wall Street’s 14th annual Heaven and Hell party offered a much-needed escape from family. Check out the angelic fairies and devilish daddies in attendance…

Bright flash of hot neon, architectural athleticism, and a post apocalyptic flair that strangely reminds you of the hodgepodge tumultuous periods of infancy and early childhood… all jumbled together in a mix that uncomfortably arouses an erotic fervor bordering on a pedophilic youth culture obsession. Essentially: raver soccer tricks from the cyberpunk fantasy of a William Gibson novel. This is the spring 2009 collection from Romain Kremer and it is a force. Without timidity or concern for the consolation of the sensible man (fashionable or not) he has distilled an undaunted proposal on what a man can and should be.

Kremer’s look is unquestionably gay with references ranging from Ray Petri’s Buffalo Boy, James Bidgood’s Pink Narcissus, and the back listings for twinky call boys in a Euro porn promo mag. It is erotic, it is ridiculous, it is extreme; it holds no resemblance to what we have come to know as good taste, good style, or anything good at all. Yet it is representative of a growing aesthetic for the utter disembowelment of the mundane. It is the unfettered embracement of the new. And its hyper sexuality further enforces the notion that absolutely no apologies will be made. The main difficulty in understanding Kremer’s designs is realizing them on your own figure. To imagine these molded shorts, neon body suits, strange appliqués adorning our own bodies is certainly not the easiest styling trick to figure out. But to imagine what it would be like if you could?! To think if these clothes could work and if you had somewhere to wear them to? It is not as much about the accessibility as it is about the challenge.

I think to embrace clothes like Kremer’s, in it’s full glory or even just a piece here or there, requires the fullest extent of what the word machismo can mean. Therein lies its power and appeal. It’s this kind of understanding that will lead the way in menswear.

all pictures from romainkremer.free.fr

“Are you her dad?” the perhaps six-year-old boy with a mohawk asked me. “No.” I replied, “I’m her uncle.” He then told me that my two-year-old niece and goddaughter, who we all know to be the family bully, had stolen his tokens. We were at Chuck E. Cheese’s two days after Thanksgiving. She merely stared at the boy defiantly, while I wrested the cup of tarnished gold coins from her hands and apologized to the boy. Without any signs of remorse from her or gratitude from him they separated and continued to run wildly around the strip mall amusement center, content to ride mechanical animals, waste tokens on games of chance, or focus their energy on winning enough tickets to trade them in for toys and candy a fraction of the cost to play. The very pursuits I loved more than anything when I was a kid.

In the tiny mall that was closest to where I grew up there was an arcade called The Machine. I don’t recall how many tickets I eventually won from The Machine but I have a feeling it was in the 1000’s because I was saving up for something really good. As a kid I was very in tune with the rewards of saving because I also sent in for any prize that only required UPC labels from the cereal boxes, and brought countless soup labels to my school to raise money as well. Perhaps it was because time seemed to move more slowly then, or the prizes seemed to be more valuable, but I often wish I could exercise the same kind of patience and commitment today.

The thought of saving money in New York is almost laughable. Unless your social life consists primarily of DVR and homemade meals, there is little opportunity to sock a lot of money away. We may forgo simple luxuries while prepping for the holidays or making a major purchase, but usually we go month-to-month, paycheck-to-paycheck, just barely scraping by. We make impulsive purchases and go out on weeknights when we swore we wouldn’t, and just watch our credit card debt slowly climb through our 20’s, meanwhile picking dates or mates that won’t put a strain on our finances. It’s nearly impossible to believe that my siblings were all married and somewhat fiscally responsible by my age, and now mostly with children.

Of course we all know the embarrassment of being asked if the boy we’re with is our boyfriend, whether it’s a friend or first date, but when I was 10 my oldest sister took me horseback riding, and our guide mistook her for my mother and called her mom to me several times without my sister noticing. I never bothered to correct her, probably because I thought it was funny, or I might have thought it was kind of fun to have such a young mom. I never thought how appalled or amused at the time my sister would have been if she’d known that had happened. I felt juxtaposition of emotions when I volunteered last spring at a Family Equality event and one of the middle-aged gay fathers asked me if I had any children. I sputtered, blushed, and tried to politely say that I wasn’t old enough, which he brushed off by saying, “Sure you are.” Not knowing an appropriate response, I simply handed him his silent auction win.

It’s funny how our attitude about time and goals change as we grow older. When we’re young, dozens of trips to the arcade, and countless quarters spent, justifies a 20-dollar toy. As we mature, though we’re broke, it seems we’d still rather spend our money than our time on any particular pursuit. So we streamline dating with website subscriptions, fine tuning our requirements and expectations of a potential mate, and then set up an efficient block of dates to screen potential applicants in one full swoop. If we were told that we’d have to chat for months or go on dozens of dates before committing, we’d probably never get started in the first place.

Our expectations for ourselves also change. When I was 20 I was worried that since I was single I’d never be in a relationship like my siblings’. I’ve come to realize that it may just take me a bit more time. I used to worry that I’d never want, much less be able to have kids of my own, which seems to become more commonplace every day, and now I don’t really worry about any of that. Perhaps because I haven’t reached a ‘crisis age,’ but I have become content to allow my tickets to pile up each day until I am ready to cash them in.

I suppose I’m not too young to be a father, at least in the biological sense, nor would it have been impossible to believe that my sister was my mother, or that I was my niece’s father. We sometimes worry about being labeled as single, player, or whore, but sometimes it’s the other titles that are truly frightening: boyfriend, husband, and father. Nevertheless, it’s nice to think that even if only in the eyes of children or strangers, that may just be what we appear to be. After years of games, minor wins, and major losses; it’s nice to think about the eventual rewards.