24/7 Hitha Prabhakar

Would you buy this bag if you knew part of the money from the sale went to a political party? Designers Rachelle Copeland and Emily Ironi of Alexis Hudson think you would. They teamed up with Los Angeles artist Greg Miller to create the “Change” bag which embodies the creator’s vision of the future, i.e., having a healthy planet,  economy and society. But what does that even mean anyway? The bag costs $95 with 10% of the proceeds will go to support the Democratic campaign. I’m just curious- are the designers donating to a specific candidate or the DNC?? And the mission of designing bag is to use style and fashion in order to rally a new audience of voters. Last time I checked, 99.9% of the fashion industry and “it” bag carrying girls were already registered Democrats. Not that I’m the expert (when it comes to politics), but if you are going to make a political statement wouldn’t you do it in the form of an overt “statement” tee shirt the Marc Jacobs did it? P.S. designer Nili Lotan sent me a “war theme” scarf with machine guns on it. Does that mean I support our president if I wear it? Just sayin’…

The Marc Jacobs “Hillary” tee shirt

OK before everyone starts to freak about “yet another fashion week in a small city,” here me out.  I am in love with the little city of Cleveland. Last year I went for a weekend and it was fabulous.  The Indians were playing the gross Red Sox, the people were seriously lovely (even though their team lost), the food was great and I was actually a little sad to be coming back to New York.  With that said, I wasn’t really sure what they meant by “fashion week in Cleveland” when I came across this article on cleveland.com.  This piece outlined a talk given by Megan Spagnolo, costume curator at the Western Reserve Historical Society about the history of children’s clothes.  How cute, right?? Did you know the color “pink” was orginally meant for boys because red was seen as a masculine color? Did you also know boys and girls used to wear dresses? Why is Cleveland so damn wholesome?? Ooh I just want to give it a good squeeze!!

I usually love flying American Airlines but today I’ve had it. I won’t go into the long story of why I hit a wall with them today, or how they kept me on the phone for 30 minutes talking nonsense, or how they totally mis- informed me about one of my tickets expiring, or how their annoying customer service doesn’t have a direct line for complains. I will say I know understand why the airline industry is coming a part at the seams. Argh!!

(Perry Ferrel, John Varvatos and Slash)

(Joan Jett- she still looks and sounds AMAZING)

I’m sure you’ve been hearing the buzz. The Bowery, the street once known for the best place to score a $25 hooker and a bag of blow is now home to some of the coolest designer stores on the planet- and peeps aren’t so excited about it.  Just last month John Varvatos hosted an opening party at the old CBGBs- but here’s the thing- that’s actually their space now. For those die hard music fans, that bit of news was hard to swallow. I mean, how can the home of punk music and New York’s underground be a place where $400 cashmere sweaters are being sold?? Varvatos DID do a good job preserving the original facade, so I’m not so offended by it (in fact I love it),  but would love to hear you all think…

Me with Shane Sigler at Harry Josh’s dance party on the top of Gramercy Park Hotel. While some celebs and fashion luminaries were resting up for the Met’s Costume Institute gala on Monday, a lot of them were dancing up a storm at Harry’s bash.

There is nothing better than hanging out with good friends while dancing to Marky Mark. Even if it is a school night…

OK, I took a short term hiatus from the blog because it’s been really, really nuts lately. If you hit the magazine stand often you’ll know what I mean been staffed on some pretty major stories for a totally awesome magazine that I can’t mention on this blog. BUT that doesn’t mean you can’t go to your favorite newsstand and search for my byline! C’mon! I know you want to spend hours of your day looking for my name everywhere!

In addition to the all the writing, the Fox Biz segments and generally trying to get my self together, I’ve been going out. A LOT. I forgot how fun spring is in the city…

OK maybe it’s not something you and I would wear, but the AP is reporting those modest parie skirts, puff sleeve pastel dresses and poofy hair dos we’ve been seeing ALL OVER THE NEWS have roots in the 19th century and also the 1950s. This conformist way of dressing is to ensure these ladies are unattractive to the outside world or other men.  But what happens when this stuff goes mainstream?? I am expecting to see a bunch of hipsters rockin’ this look very soon… in an ironic way of course…

Man, you know the economy is REAL bad when someone like Jeffrey Kalinsky can’t save a retailer like Nordstrom! The other day the retailer reported a fall in same store sales by 9.1% far worse than what analysts expected. Total sales dipped to $750 million from $803 million in 2007.  Jeffrey, who started the extremely well edited and influential Jeffrey boutiques in New York and Atlanta sold a majority interest of his stores to Norstrom and took on a full time gig. Problem is even his keen eye for knowing what’s hot way before it sizzles (I bought my Balenciaga motorcycle bag because I saw it first at Jeffrey six years ago), isn’t really working for Nordstrom right now.  The tourists aren’t buying into it either!

Retail same store sales for April were for the most part on low side. What’s new? What’s shocking are the double digit drop Gap, Abercrombie and Fitch as well as American Eagle experienced!! I’ll be talking about all of this today on Fox Business at around 12:30 pm!!

I’m talking about malls and how they are one of the biggest losers in this recession we are in. But not because all of these other little stores are going out of business, it’s because the larger retailers like JC Penny’s can’t get the traffic in!! AND no one wants to buy anything because gas is so expensive!! Why would I drive to the mall (if I lived in a mall market) when I could be saving that gas to go to work?? Tune in if you are near a TV- I go on at 2:50 pm EST! Also, thank you to everyone that wrote in with their “time management” suggestions- will post those a little later.