Red's Joe Lazo has been scooped up for the Hugo Boss

I really wanted to take an art break on this post, but sometimes you just have to go where the information is. Right now all the energy on the blue chip fashion scene is swirling around the Milan shows this weekend. At dinner tonight I got the update that all the big players have landed and are marking off their territory. There's a great moment of conflict looming with Prada, Dolce and Hugo Boss, which means drama, screaming, demands and hapless young men from Idaho cornfields wandering the streets of Milan in a daze. Mangers are going to have to choose one over the other....

Red's Joe Lazo has been scooped up for the Hugo Boss

Tom Ford is apparently also in Milan. No runway show alas. Just a "private" presentation for the chosen few. But which boys will he choose to express his high price point aesthetic? TI is a huge Tom Ford fan. And yes we bought the biggest bottle of Tuscan Leather imaginable. Just to see y'know. But there is something about the positioning of the Tom Ford line that feels a little stiff and smug. All that talk about "its a line for my billionaire friends who can't find clothes and can't stand the chilly fitting rooms of Saville Row"...it just made me want to save my consultancy pennies for a visit to Gieves and Hawks next February. Sometimes tradition just cannot be self-consciously manufactured and somehow as a consumer I internalized this message that Tom Ford is not for mass market kids like myself. It sure hurts when one is not a billionaire...
Otherwise TI is praying that Milan or Paris will spawn at least ONE entertaining male model. The last great force of charisma in the men's trade was Brad Kroenig. The first time I met Brad was at a Ford casting for new girls. But there was Brad in the midst of the yearlings. He was already a star so I was puzzled as to why he was go-seeing. Well in the middle of a nice conversation about Miami real estate Mr Kroenig mentioned that he had just gotten his diamonds steamed at Tiffany's. I blinked. I blanched. I went back to MDC and said to Betty Sze, “Betty. That kid Kroenig is going to the new No 1 male model. He lives it” And then Mr Lagerfeld swooped him up like a godfigure-disguised-as- an-eagle and the rest is historic. You might be wondering where the long delayed Lagerfeld/Kroenig lensed coffee table book might be. It is still a shooting and is apparently up to over 700 pages now. That...is..how..you..work it kids!

Red's Joe Lazo has been scooped up for the Hugo Boss