Homeless Chic? It Still Costs Thousands of Dollars
Here is an outfit on a mannequin at Bergdorf Goodman's men's store in New York City. How much do you think these frayed shorts, long underwear and grungy sweater cost? I will tell you!
Here are the long underwear.
For $525, yes.
And that (actually quite adorable) sweater? $770.
The shorts, which, let's be crude, arrive with highly suspicious stains already on them?
$470.
So let's see! That's $1765 already, not counting the two shirts and the boots, for what basically look like exquisitely-made clothes you found in a dumpster. Also don't forget what are surely a $140 pair of socks. (Do the kids wear socks these days?) So this is basically a $3000 outfit.
The designer is Michael Bastian. And I like him! He was hailed by the Times this summer for his "magic formula" that gives men "slimmed-down, spiffed-up versions of the all-American clothes they have long loved," and whose "melancholy fall 2009 show imagined a pack of trust-fund Jack Kerouacs hitchhiking their way west." His spring line is a very odd combination of garbage casual wear and gorgeous suits. But these fall clothes, all homeless-style—well, you know, it turns out to maybe not have been a great time to do this?
That looks like Bobby Draper's Halloween costume.
If those shorts were more like knickers, that shit would be a Tin Tin Halloween costume.
It's a pity these aren't the American sizes.
They aren't, right?
it's all made by Chinese workers in Italy
Homeless is so cutting edge.
Oh not even, John Galliano did it in 2000. Find some new offensive ideas, designers!
and marc jacobs did it in, what? '94?
For $750 more you can take it home in an adorable bindle.
Do you think any Top Chef contestants have gone back to their restaurants after the season and put vending-machine-challenge dishes on the menu?
But all the monies go to a homeless charity right? RIGHT?
My interview suit!
Well, at least it's not a dowdy Middle American entity in its big old shorts and flip-flops.
Oh, so that's your whole shtick, I get it now.
Middle Americans need to let it out… like they do their waistlines!
What they really let out is one side of the shirt with the other tucked, like above. Does Bergdorf realize that's about how every 22 year old guy I see wears every dress shirt?
If you closed your eyes and chose randomly from an Old Navy clearance rack you couldn't do any worse.
What does Michael Bastian have against the Prime Minister of Malaysia?
JINX!
(Also, yours was much funnier.)
BARAGHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Awesome. She's just like you or me but she's homeless. La da dee la dee da. BUT. Important question: Do we like collared shirt under a collared shirt? I think maybe I do and I KNOW it's crazy and perhaps uncomfortable but I enjoy this. Thoughts?
The henley has a collar? Now I've seen everything.
I've only seen this in two contexts:
–Layered jaunty plaid contrasty distressed dress shirts on punks, and it looks kinda 80s/hot, and
–Layered pastelly RL dress shirts on yuppies and poseurs, and it looks douchetastic.
I've never done it, but I think it works on the mannequin above. I've seen it very much not work on other occasions.
Do you pop both collars? Because if you do, that's a no, dearie. Just a no.
Maybe he's just a really huge Zoolander fan?
I love you, Sugar Kane.
I want the rug.
Now see: if you really like this Michael Bastian character–and why not? that slimmed-down Jack Kerouac allusion sounded vaguely sexy–then you can let the obscenely rich/profoundly stupid pay full price, while you put together a clone outfit with your unmistakeable imprimatur on it for like, 18$ from GoodWill.
What he's showing for Spring '10:
http://www.gq.com/fashion-shows/brief/S2010MEN-MBMEN
This is for the married guy who wants the other ladies in Park Slope to know he's still figuratively 'fuckable', even in the winter. He can't draw them in by rocking his work-out clothes to Whole Foods anymore, but he CAN rock his $2,000 wood-chopping outfit, to much the same result.
What could "figuratively fuckable" possibly mean?
I think it means, to many, "being" fuckable and actually fucking are interchangeable in value.
Like, he's not available, so he's absolutely not fuckable, literally, but YOU WOULD fuck him, so figuratively, he is fuckable.
DILF
If anyone is still reading, I think that none of these proposed definitions are really figurative or different from just regular "fuckable".
What were you doing at Bergdorf's? Shoplifting? Or is the Awl doing way, WAY better than you're letting on?
Silly, Choire works for Macy's as a comparison shopper. Didn't you ever see that Robert Mitchum film?
I'm seeing a lot of Nissan Cubes on the road these days.
That's gotta be worth something.
Need more change bowls.
It occurs to me that there's one thing from the Boer War that hasn't yet made it into mainstream fashion, and that is puttees.
Now that's a catalog back-story I would actually read.
$470 shorts with stains on them = lucrative jobs in the staining industry. HINT TO BERGDORF GOODMAN'S: I AM AVAILABLE FOR THIS IMPORTANT TASK.
I can stain shit in my sleep, and frequently do.
I'm not seeing the homeless here. Semiotics major mayhap.
As a friend once said: Poverty is not ironic.
but what about Poverty-Poverty?
But it is cynical.
I had to look at this 3 times to notice that the long underwear is UNDER the cutoff (literally Cut Off) shorts, and not hidden under the 15 other shirts. Note to boys: If you are rockin this look, be wary of buying the long undewear in a color that almost identically replicates that beautiful skin tone of "NY Winter Calf." At least get yourself the long underwear that will look like tan flesh and not sickly flesh!
Why can't the Observer put the old George Gurley interview with UES "designer" Alexandra Lind online? The one where she talks unironically about being inspired by the line of some homeless woman's outfit?
Wait a few months and shorts like this will be on sale at Target, at prices even the homeless can afford.
Is this what you would call an "ensemble?"
More like a "dissemble."
I love Michael Bastian but even he can't afford his clothes as mentioned in his Times article. His frayed shorts are his signature look. If you're going to get one thing from him it's a pair of his $400+ shorts. I believe they're frayed by hand somewhere in Italy. Unlike chopping your own chinos and having that frayed look yourself, Bastian's frayed stays literally the same while the do-it-yourself ones will continue to fray upwards as time passes. He probably the only designer that does menswear right now that's wearable and yet not boring.
I'm assuming, from the half a Union Jack there , that this is some of that bone-dry wit that the British pride themselves on.
(The secret to stop your cut-off chinos from excessive fraying: Febreze)
You'd think Bergdorfs would put down a decent carpet. Piece o' junk.