The New York Observer » Simon Doonan

How Snooki Got Her Gucci: The Dirt on Purses

There is a wicked new marketing strategy currently sending shock waves through the high-stakes competitive world of luxury fashion. It's devious, delightful and deliciously dirty.

Here's the deal: Remember how Snooki, drunk or sober, was never seen without that Coach bag dangling from the crook of her arm? Snooki and her Coach were as synonymous Read More

Couture and Consequences

Sewton's third law of motion goes as follows: To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I can't help but feel it's time to blow away the cobwebs and give Granny Newton a makeover. I propose the following: To every action, there is invariably a totally gnarly and hideously unstylish avalanche of Read More

The $ongs of $ummer

As I careen toward 60, I find myself making increasingly desperate attempts to appear young-at-heart and switched-on. Here's my attitude: If I am doomed to become an alta cacca, then at least let me be a trendy and pop-literate alta cacca. You should hear me screeching and hooting along with "Alejandro" on the car Read More

Me and Mr. Jones: A Skeleton in My Clan’s Closet

I am surprised there were no poofs caught in the net of that Russian spy haul last week. The connection between espionage and the "friends of Dorothy" is well documented. Paging Guy Burgess, Anthony Blount and other tweedy inverts!

It all makes perfect sense: We gays have a much greater familiarity than the Read More

The New Stupidity

You know those bulging, upward-thrusting codpieces that you occasionally encounter in Renaissance portraiture? Well, this was clearly the original source material for Thom Browne's black leather thingy, worn by a model during the fashion show at the AmFar Inspiration Awards at the New York Public Library on Thursday, June 3. Thom's penile missile really Read More

What Makes an Icon? My Simple Formula

I used to think an icon was somebody who, were he/she to be lowered from a helicopter into a shopping mall in the Midwest, would be instantly recognizable to the hordes of shoppers. (Sorry, but I am constitutionally incapable of viewing the world through anything other than a retail perspective.)

As of last week, I Read More

Godspeed, Georgy Girl, Good-Time Guru

Lynn Redgrave changed my life. I don't care how bananas that sounds. It's true. She was my unwitting guru, a patron saint for me and for intrepid, glamour-obsessed optimists everywhere. She died last week, leaving us, her flock of adoring disciples, feeling sad and unmoored. A certain bizarre phrase keeps looping through our brains. ...

"I'm Read More

Study (Mine) Reveals Key to Celebrity: Icy Unavailability

I finally figured out what my problem is. After all these years, I now see what I have been doing wrong. Caution: It’s pretty tragic. Simply put, I am just too folksy and available. Yes: folksy and available!

My epiphany came last week while reading A Time to Be Born, the late Dawn Powell’s searing satire Read More

Why Life Still Sucks for the Second Sex

Being a broad has never been tougher. Small wonder that Chas Bono has decided to become a bloke. In this crazy day and age, it’s easier to live with an artificial, inflatable willy than it is to go on living as a woman.

No, seriously. Has it ever been more mind-numbingly confusing/complicated to be a goil Read More

The Right to Shoes

We bossy Brits are totally unstoppable. We love nothing more than to invade other people’s countries and then attempt to save the inhabitants from themselves and their nasty habits. It’s just what we do.

Last week blokey celeb chef Jamie Oliver flew round the U.S. ranting at people about their ’orrible eating ’abits, while promoting his Read More

It’s Gloom-burg! For Spring, Try a Frown With Your Gown

Grim is in! Gloom is in bloom! The Hurt Locker and Precious are the new light and fluffy. Bleak misfortune is back in vogue, and I for one could not be more delighted.

Call me maudlin, or just plain Maud—the dreadful unpredictability of life has taught me to answer to anything!—but I am convinced that the Read More

The End of Trends

“In fashion, you’re either in or you’re out.” So says Teutonic temptress Heidi Klum at the beginning of every episode of Project Runway, currently unspooling its seventh season on Lifetime.

Achtung! If Heidi were correct, I would be out of a job and so would vast numbers of other fashionably employed New Yorkers. Thankfully, Mrs. Read More

Alexander the Great

Attending an Alexander McQueen fashion show was like taking a stroll through a fashion Fallujah. There was always this magnificent sense of impending catastrophe. Would the gals get electrocuted as they sloshed through all that water? How will the models, in their Blade Runner–inspired, condom-tight dresses, navigate those treacherous glass stairs?

I remember one show Read More

Armories and the Man

I love a good armory, and given the fact that gays are not allowed in the military, I am continually surprised at how much time I spend flaunting myself at various armories. Which armories? Any armories. Ironic, isn’t it? We poofters are not deemed combat-worthy, but we are, for some reason, considered to be armory-worthy.

Hey, New York: Nothin’ Wrong With a Little Name-Dropping

I have never really understood why name-dropping is so frowned upon. If you happen to make a connection with a famous person, no matter how glancing it may be, why keep it to yourself? Why hide your Brangelina under a bushel? It seems downright selfish. Sharing the experience, enthusiastically and vivaciously, is the neighborly thing Read More