Thursday Stylin': Alex Kuczynski is displeased

In today's desperately pathetic attempt to fill space and gain advertising revenue, the New York Times takes time out from real journalism to bring us "hard-core color," another first-person tale from Alex Kuczynski, and the unsurprising observation that when the worlds of fashion and celebrities collide, fickleness occurs.

Note: Special thanks go to Nichelle, of the Nichelle Newsletter, who appears to share Cole Slaw Blog's utter disgust and contempt for the Sept. 10 silliness of the Stylin' Section. Nichelle, you rule.

Crayola Colors, but Kept Inside the Lines:

Whoa, colors are like, totally hot. Men are buying brightly colored clothes and "snapping up $200 Etros by the half-dozen." Again with the freakin Etros. Will someone please fill in Cole Slaw Blog as to what the fuck an Etro is? I assume it's an expensive shirt. (Paging Crunk Raconteur ... Crunk Raconteur to the comments section please.) I assume it's also the sort of thing one wears when one wants to impress the people who write for the Stylin' section.

Anyway, the rest of the article continues apace, backing up its topic sentence "Colors are so hot, they're cool, much in the manner of the sorely missed McDLT" with facts. For example, Andre 3,000 wears lots of colors, as do other rappers. Also, brightly colored shirts sell well. And country-club chich is back in, anyway. In conclusion, we can see that colors truly are so hot that they're cool, much in the manner of a delicious McDLT sandwich.

Snark aside, I would be remiss if I didn't highlight this passage.

But this spring, in the eternal game of one-upmanship known as fashion, the look has been taken to a new extreme. Solidly colored pants, sweaters and blazers - in tangerine, lemon, viridian, magenta, royal blue - have raised the stakes, and some men are, to retailers' surprise, taking the bet.

See, this is totally true. Because I met my co-blogger for dinner tonight. He was wearing a navy blue golf shirt, but I was wearing ... a black one. Awwwww snap! I showed him.

Sneakers Try to Live Up to the Nostalgia:

Our favorite pseudo-reporter, Alex Kuczynski has visited the new Adidas store, and found it wanting. In her role as the Stylin' section's "Critical Shopper," Kuczynski's apparent assignment is to visit new and noteworthy retail outlets and make the story all about her, while using quotes only from people whose real names aren't used. (Does anyone else find it odd that she never mentions anyone by name, if at all. Her stories are replete with faceless clerks, waiters and Russian women.)

Anyway, Kuczynski's chief complaint (and one imagines it to be a common one among readers of the Stylin' Section) is that "[t]here is no sense of sumptuous variety and endless choice and so no consequent desire to run through the aisles giddily piling your arms high with tracksuits."

Like the dogged shoe-leather reporter that she is, however, Kuczynski managed to make it through the rest of her visit, dutifully reporting that Stella McCartney's line of designer workout wear can be found there. She also survived a brush with nylon shorts.

Next!: Apparently, the world of high fashion endorsements is a capricious bitch. Cole Slaw Blog is not surprised. Sarah Jessica Parker got fired as the Gap spokeswoman, but not becuase she's 40. In an unrelated development, Gap has hired Joss Stone, an 18 year old who will sing a Ray Charles song in an upcoming ad. Of course, she's probably not long for the ads, either, because the fashion industry is notoriously fickle and all about chasing the next big thing. Um, this doesn't even qualify as news in the Stylin' Section.

I was expecting this article to be trash. With the headline "Enjoy It, Julia, While It Lasts," I was primed for some silly, Stylin' section bullshit about who's the next great conventional beauty whom no one you know actually is attracted to. Instead, however, it was an interesting muse by a professor of art history about why people tend to find actresses with exaggerated features like Julia Roberts' extra-wide mouth or Angelina Jolie's lips so alluring. A mostly light article, yet it isn't trying to be anything more.

That said, I'm going to take the opportunity to point out famouse people I find heart-stoppingly beautiful before returning to the shallow end.

In other Stylin' news: Stephanie Rosenbloom duly informs us all that one can purchase grainy soap that wasn't tested on animals, along with "everyday indulgences" like a Dead Sea mud mask and sorbet gel. Also, she manages to work in a gratuitous reference to Coco Chanel. Thanks, Stephanie Rosenbloom! (I swear, Stylin' Section writers. must get bonuses for any Chanel reference they can slip past the copy desk.)

Some sisters have become fashion designers. If only Mallory Keaton hadn't been held back by the tomboyish Jennifer and her republican brother, Alex. (And that pothead Skippy). This could have been her. Well, that and she's not a real person.

This week's online shopper quests, Ahab-like, for the perfect white T-shirt.

There's also some out-of-place stories this week. One about a dude who's preparing to run an ultramarathon across Death Valley. Another is an uncommonly sweet story about older divorced couples caring for each other in their later years. How this will sell ads, I don't know. I'll consider it an outlier in the Stylin' Section for now. But if they begin to show a heart, I don't know what I'm going to do. Well, there's always Alex Kuczynski.