Simon Doonan

Turn on. Tune in. Drop … off your dry cleaning and head to a demonstration!

No, seriously, I am having such a totally tumultuous ’60s moment! My life has gone from light and fluffy to totally heavy, man. Everything’s coming up protests and peace signs. It’s a freaky scene. When I’m not on some crazy demo, I’m slapping counterculture slogans on Barneys’ windows and cramming them with Woodstock-abilia. Don’t get me wrong: I’m hardly Hanoi Jane. Call me Weatherman-lite. I am really more like Streisand in The Way We Were, only without that diabolical frizz.

What’s brought on the Barbra moment? Oh, just the quest for my civil rights, that’s all.  read more »

Karl Lagerfeld and Christian Louboutin! J’accuse!

And you, too, Philippe Starck! You are gorgeous, super-talented Euro geniuses. J’adore you all, but you have been très, très naughty and you need to be spanked. Heads up: You will each be receiving an invoice from me for the time I spent listening to your long and winding words. I refer to the imprisoning and protracted acceptance speeches y’all recently delivered at the star-studded endurance test that was the Fashion Group International Awards, held at Cipriani Wall Street on Thursday, Oct. 23. The monies I receive will be sent to Prince, or the charity of his choice, as a reward for having had the decency to remain mute while presenting to Donatella Versace.  read more »

What’s the new accessory du jour? What’s the must-have frippery of the moment? Brace yourselves! The new It bag is not a handbag at all.

It’s a person. The latest trendy consumer trophy is … drumroll … a CREATIVE DIRECTOR.

Not content with employing personal stylists, trainers, publicists, party planners and shamans, the spoiled socialites and grandes horizontales of the world have now added “creative director” to their roster of minions-I-can’t-function-without. (Sort of like Elle’s Joe Zee. But different.)

For an example of this I-know-I-look-like-a-stripper-but-I’m-really-a-lifestyle-brand phenomenon, search no further than Bravo’s new show, The Real Housewives of Atlanta. This gorgeous piece of telly has not only eclipsed its sister shows—The Real Housewives of Orange County and New York City respectively—it’s become the mainstay of Manhattan dinner party chatter.  read more »

Along with every other person in New York, I have been afflicted with a persistent and depressing cold. How depressing? Oh, about as depressing as a hockey mom’s oversize, dropped-waist denim dress.

Gosh darn, I badly needed cheering up! On Thursday night I popped a zinc lozenge and tuned in to watch the vice presidential debate. I was hoping for a few unintentional chuckles. None were forthcoming. By the end of the telecast I was forced to confront the horrible truth: Sarah Palin and I are opposites. We have nothing in common. Simply put: I believe in the power of style; she is a veritable anti-fashion crusader.  read more »

“I want to wrap him in a napkin and stomp on him.”

These words were spoken by Jonathan Adler to the startled officiant at our big fat gay Jewish wedding. Yes, on Thursday, Sept. 18, as reported in The New York Times the following Sunday, Mr. Adler and I tied the knot in San Francisco. It wasn’t really big and wasn’t what you would call fat, but it was definitely a perfect day: We laughed. We cried. We ate some cake. We threatened to stomp on each other—as opposed to stomping on a nice piece of stemware à la the Jewish tradition—all in good jest, of course.  read more »

On Thursday, Sept. 4, before hitting the Bryant Park shows, I made a beeline for my neighborhood optician to check up on business. I had expected to see hordes of women snapping up those smart-lady Tina Fey glasses, the very same ones that had endowed Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president of the United States, with such an air of faux gravitas the night before. Thirty-seven million people of varying political persuasions watched the bespectacled Alaskan overachiever deliver her acceptance speech! Eyewear, and the unwitting marketing thereof, has never loomed larger on the American landscape. If this political stuff does not work out, Ms.  read more »

Do you ever get this weird feeling that you contributed in some way to the death of a particular celebrity? For example: There I was, mincing around the Four Seasons in L.A. last April, when I ran smack dab into Bernie Mac, and now he’s dead.

The fabulous and talented Mr. Mac was wearing a groovy beige slubbed-silk leisure ensemble, accessorized with a black bowler hat and a nifty lizard man-purse complete with wrist strap. He tipped his hat, leading me to believe that he may have mistaken me for a woman, which is understandable given the fact that I was wearing a toweling bathrobe.  read more »

I’m a changed person. Up until today, I was always up for a good colostomy bag joke. You know what I’m talking about: Is your colostomy bag full, or are you just happy to see me? Ba-da-bum! Or the old shoes-to-match standby, as in “My auntie’s got a colostomy bag … and shoes to match.” Ba-da-bum!

So great was my vulgar enthusiasm for this unfortunate accessory that I once—way back in the punky late ’70s—decorated an entire fashion window display with “dead-stock” colostomy bags from an old medical supply warehouse. THAT’S how thigh-slappingly funny I thought they were … until, that is, I remembered that Madonna was about to turn 50, on Saturday, Aug.  read more »

Let’s dial back. All of us think we have gorgeous feet, especially when we are young. I always thought mine were kind of fabulous: sturdy little Celtic hooves, perfectly in proportion with my gnomelike physique. My high insteps recall, at least to my eyes, the famous Avedon pics of Rudolf Nureyev’s appendages.

Suddenly last spring, that all changed.  read more »

There I was, skipping along the beach in Florida when I suddenly noticed that my right big toenail looked radically different. It bore a blotch the color of scrambled egg.

Women’s bodies are revolting! I don’t mean that the way it sounds. The girls of the world have simply had enough. They are mad as hell and they are not going to take it anymore. Anarchy and change are in the air.

But what exactly is going on? Is the super-skinny trend coming to an end? Are real women—remember back when being naturally curvaceous was good thing?—about to make a giant comeback? Are Michelle Obama’s arms too thick or too thin? Will Angelina Jolie’s womb continue to burst with babies? Is the anorexic-but-busty trend—that ho look against which I inveighed in my most recent book, Eccentric Glamour (Simon and Schuster, $24), finally beating a retreat? So many questions!  read more »

Let’s start with the ho trend.

Break out the vegan, fair-trade, lesbian, sustainable tofu dogs, because on Friday, June 20, yours truly officially became a US citizen.

I am doing my best to whip myself into a patriotic frenzy in time for the Fourth of July, but I must admit it’s taking a great deal of effort. I guess I am a trifle worn down from the stops and starts of my application process, made more complex by my wicked past. Among the sticking points were my arrest record—God, that sounds so much more glamorous than it was!—and my frequent sojourns in the U.K. The Citizenship and Immigration Services officials had a hard time believing that my relentless trips across the pond in recent years were undertaken in order to hang out in an old people’s home with my fab dad.  read more »

I felt like such a turd on the night of Monday, June 2. “Turd’” is a very underused word. At some point soon I will dedicate my life to restoring it to popular usage. In the meantime permit me to elaborate on the circumstances that occasioned this unpleasant feeling.  read more »

Figuring out what to wear to your college reunion is tough at the best of times. Figuring out what to wear when the college reunion in question is not actually your college reunion, but the reunion of your significantly younger significant other—with you, as a result, running the risk of being mistaken for a sinister aging relative—is infinitely more challenging. Add the fact that the college reunion is at Brown University, only slightly less scarily trendy than Wesleyan (Barack, bonjour!) and you have the recipe for one humdinger of a Memorial Day weekend.  read more »

Does one’s level of stylishness increase as one goes off one’s trolley?

John Waters, film director and my own personal Erma Bombeck, has always philosophized that breaking the law can make people more beautiful. The more crimes a person commits, so goes the Waters hypothesis, the more beautiful that person becomes. I’m starting to wonder if there might not be a similar relationship between madness and fashion. Don’t recoil in horror: We’ve all had the experience of spotting a disheveled homeless person staggering toward us on West Broadway only to realize, on closer inspection, that the individual in question is our old artist/gallery owner pal who is attired, as per usual, in Comme Des Garçons.  read more »

Stop it! Stop asking me about Hillary’s pantsuits, or any other aspect of her personal style! If you persist, I swear to God I will stuff Mrs. Clinton into a Balenciaga bubble dress with matching gladiator spike-heeled boots, and then you’ll be sorry.

Every 20 minutes I get a jangling call from an earnest hack looking for quips about the fashion choices of the presidential candidates. These content generators are hell-bent on viewing the current political jousting match through the lens of la mode: What do I think of Hillary’s pink blouses?  read more »

Being a professional celebrity look-alike is not nearly as tawdry and pathetic as it sounds. (That would not be possible.) I know whereof I speak. Having imperson­ated Queen Elizabeth II on numerous occasions over the last 30 years—and been undercompensated to do so—I consider myself something of an expert on this subject.

As I look back at my slightly spotty but otherwise long and happy celeb look-alike career, I am filled with a warm glow. A montage of images, mostly featuring me opening nightclubs and hosting events wearing a tiara and a sash, flits through my brain. Ah, the pay may have been lousy, but I would not trade in those squishy memories for anything! And I certainly would not trade in being a look-alike for being the real thing. Why? Because to be the impersonator of a particular celebrity is much, much, much more fun than actually being that particular celebrity.  read more »

Last week I wore a pair of six-inch Lanvin sling-back stilettos while hosting a fashion show in Dallas. They looked great with my new Band of Outsiders jacket. I told the assembled crowd of socialites that it was the only way I could see over the lectern, which was true-ish. It was all fairly transparent. Anyone could see that I invented this excuse in order to walk the runway wearing those insane shoes and have my Linda Evangelista moment.

I’m a big believer in excuses. The more baroque, the better. I see them as a form of politeness.  read more »

Juicy Plum, Orange Blossom, Tiger Lily! No, these are not the names of Eliot Spitzer’s favorite tarts. Au contraire, they are the top notes of Fabulosity, the new fragrance—arriving on shelves this week!—from Kimora Lee Simmons.

Glamour-obsessed, entrepreneurial and hilarious, Kimora, the star of the Style Network reality show Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane and creative director queen of Baby Phat clothing, just might be the most insanely unpretentious person in fashion. Last week I called her on the West Coast and we examined some of the burning issues of the day.  read more »

Best Supporting Actress winner Tilda Swinton nuked the fashion competition at the recent Oscars. With her 70’s Bowie hair—remember the cover of Low, the brilliant 1977 album?—and her black velvet Lanvin one-sleeved toga, La Swinton made all those other gals in their fussy bustier glamour gowns look like a bunch of Republican drears on their way to a constipated night out at the local country club.

Finally, courtesy of La Swinton, we got to see a bit of real individual style at the Oscars.  read more »

Here’s my prediction for this coming Superfrock Sunday: Valentino! Valentino! Valentino!

I’m betting that the retiring couturier will dominate the Oscar red carpet (red is, after all, Val’s signature color!) with creations from his archives and from his final couture and ready-to-wear collections. Sunday, Feb. 24, will be Val’s day. There, I’ve said it.

Now let’s talk about this so-called “retirement.”  read more »

When I was young and wild and kooky, I always imagined that I would grow old gracefully. I saw myself sitting contentedly in a rattan peacock chair—looking like a cross between Quentin Crisp and Golda Meier—dispensing bon mots to a group of rosy-cheeked acolytes clustered at my feet. Attired in naff sweats and polar fleece, I would reminisce about my long-lost fashion heyday.  read more »

I just flew in from Las Vegas. I was there for the caucuses. With my citizenship interview looming, I felt it was high time I got a firmer grip on the American political system.

O.K., I admit it. That was a lie. I have no time for the American political process at this particular moment. I’m much too preoccupied with the upcoming battle between Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle to follow the race to the White House.  read more »

Karma’s a biatch. Delighting in other people’s misfortunes is terribly naughty and will always end in tears. I once laughed unsympathetically when my mother’s best friend broke her thumb putting on her girdle, and now, lo many years later, God has seen fit to punish me. I’m laughing on the other side of my face, for I too have incurred a FASHION INJURY!  read more »

What will 2008 bring? Tumult? Mayhem? Who can predict? Having no clue myself, I decided to enlist the help of somebody vital, dynamic and young, someone who, in addition, just happened to be the most compelling new celeb of ’07.

Who was the year’s brightest star? Which young Tennessee whippersnapperette shot out of obscurity and changed the way we think about fame, life and double-snapping?  read more »

Eco Windows on Madison.  read more »

Not complaining—they can be quite charming! But it doesn’t seem quite fair that offspring of the rich and famous are sucking up all the glam media jobs.  read more »

Yes, I know there's a glut of awards—so I'm presenting my own.  read more »

Al Gore, I implore you: avoid plastic surgery, or risk being mistaken for a member of the ‘Muffia.’ Not that there’s anything wrong with that....  read more »

How I adored this scarf-swathed, crystal-clinking New Age doyenne, petite purveyor of luxury objects to Jaggers and Vanderbilts.  read more »

Give up, get out there and buy yourself a pair of tights (and heck, a handbag too).  read more »

Fashion Week's clothes too gauzy—give me grubby Britney  read more »

You can get a chai latte on every corner, but it’s increasingly hard to find butt plugs, Ben Wa balls and black latex in New York, even as Fall 2007 fashion bristles with sadomasochistic references.  read more »

Whatever happened to the Members Only jackets, clown suits and low-rise pleather loafers that so clearly marked molesters of yore?  read more »

Snorting piles of cocaine, driving at 90 m.p.h. and running pell-mell into the surf is exactly what famous people should be doing! It beats standing blank-faced on a red carpet promoting something.  read more »

You may remember that famous chest-waxing scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin—Yee-ouch! And yet the hetero fellows of New York are taking it one step further.  read more »

A manly Mr. Fix-It who would tear up at Maria Callas, Terence Sydney Doonan was the ultimate anti-bourgeois parent.  read more »

As the model got ready to install her clothing collection at Barneys, yours truly tried to get himself out of a journalistic jam.  read more »

I have absolutely no desire to mentor the latest generation of up-and-comers.  read more »