Jimmy Choo designs for H&M
I think about going to the Jimmy Choo H&M press preview on Friday night, but it is pouring down rain and I’ve never been much of a Choo girl anyway, preferring to run around in Repetto ballet flats rather than nine-inch nail-studded stilettos. Truth is, I was a little surprised to be invited back to a preview at H&M at all, given my behavior a year ago at the Comme des Garçons/H&M preview, where I stuck like glue next to the best items even though press was let in early ostensibly to interview H&M bigwigs, not scarf up merchandise before the huddled masses were admitted half an hour later.
Instead of attending the Choo event, I spend Friday evening with my chum Mr. Mickey of Paper magazine, who invites me to the Terence Koh for Converse 1HUND(RED) Artists Chuck Taylor All Star event at Cooper Union. I don’t don sneakers any more than I favor spike heels (why are all these parties for shoes I don’t wear?), but I am eager to visit Cooper Union’s nutty new glass building on East 7th Street.
I love the Internet! How else would I find out that the artist Terence Koh used to go by the nom de guerre asianpunkboy, and that he once sold his own feces, gold-plated — but still — for $500,000? It turns out this event is not in the new glass building but in the ancient Great Hall, where Lincoln and Karl Marx’s daughter once gave speeches. If it’s good enough for Abe and Eleanor, it’s good enough for me. So up we go to the top floor, where we are met with not only a view of the back of the building’s clock (vague fantasy of swinging from the hands like Harold Lloyd in the 1923 film SAFETY LAST!) but a gaggle of male pulchritude clad in nothing but white underpants, pretending to paint in white on white canvases, the result of which is totally blank pieces of paper. (Maybe I’m an artist too? I can do that.)
Terence Koh for Converse 1HUND(RED) Artists Chuck Taylor All Star event
I am ashamed to admit that I don’t even notice that these guys are also wearing Koh Converses, which are very plain, very white, and actually very nice. (I guess I wasn’t looking at their feet.) And here comes asianpunkboy himself! I grab the opportunity to ask him about the caca (who says I’m not a real reporter?), and he confirms that yes, it was bought by some lucky collector in London. Does he think this type of artwork is recession proof? We laugh and decide that given the rising price of gold, it has probably gone up in value.
As far as I can tell, there isn’t any gold-plated poop at the Pier Show, where I spend the next day coveting the antiques and collectibles 500-odd dealers are displaying in an apparent attempt to entice me to spend all kinds of money I don’t have on things I don’t need. (They succeed.) On the way home, I decide to stop by the H&M flagship on Fifth to check out the Choos after all.
Jimmy Choo designs for H&M
Will there even be anything left? The H&M/Comme stuff was gone in 60 seconds, but there are still plenty of Choos here: humongous leather handbags with little metal plaques that say “Jimmy Choo H&M”; ankle-strapped, leopard-printed, spike-heeled, soul-crushing soles; and — can it be true? — multi-strapped, positively Lynnie-friendly pancake-flat gladiator sandals, all for far less than the broken 1930s doll I purchased an hour before at the Pier.
PHOTO CREDIT: Magnus Magnusson/H&M, John Scarisbrick/H&M, Elizabeth Lippman
