Looking at the Look Book
This week's Look Book is all about Lisa Mayock, a fashion designer who makes up one half of the Vena Cava label. You don't have to stare into her supercilious eyes for too long to realize she has already dumped you and moved on with someone wittier and better dressed. She is unimpressed with your McSweeney's and n+1 subscriptions, and anyone could wear that slimming thrift store suit over a homemade silk-screened Banksy tee. SNOOZE. Remember the part in Say Anything when Lili Taylor's character writes 65 songs about Joe? Well if that were real life, and Lili Taylor were a guy, then Joe would be Lisa Mayock.
After the jump, Intern Alexis rounds up the sly, knowing, recently dumped opinions of Emily Gould, Todd Goldstein, and David Cho, who lash out because they can't admit just how much they hurt.
Emily Gould, writer and editor
Lisa's "favorite thing in the world is when people can pull off really nerdy looks." What is her least favorite thing in the world?
Lisa's least favorite thing in the world, if she's anything like her fellow New School University alumni (Eugene Lang REPRESENT! Actually, Eugene Lang DECONSTRUCT is probably more like it...) is the Parsons/New School ads they show during Project Runway. Nothing makes you feel like your diploma might as well be printed on toilet paper like an ad on national television about 'learning at the speed of life.' My alma mater has put millions of $$ into rebranding itself while continuing to send me emails about how "students like you, that love the art of Creative Writing, should atend our MFA open hose." I'm sure Lisa is positively incensed about this. That, and the fact that she hasn't yet been tapped to be a Celebrity Judge. Can't Tim Gunn pull some strings?
Do you think she is able to pull off the little-old-lady orthopedics?
Hm. I'm all for comfort — fuck the drag queen platforms on all the runways — but I feel like the granny shoes might be a little too Viceily contrarian. At that Black Dice/Oneida show last weekend, every chick was wearing enormous vintage dork glasses from Fabulous Fanny's, and some of them didn't even have lenses in the frames. This has to stop somewhere. I feel like if I don't condemn Lisa's orthopedic sneaks now, I run the risk of tripping over some tool's ironic walker on Bedford in a month.
Oh fuck it, we can't be mean about Lisa; we think her look is great and we love Vena Cava. How much do you love Lisa?
I tried to fight it, but you're right, I do love Lisa. I tried her on, and now I have to buy her.
Todd Goldstein, musician/writer
Lisa's "favorite thing in the world is when people can pull off really nerdy looks." What is her least favorite thing in the world?
As much as Lisa loves people pulling off that studied nerdiness that the kids like so much these days, she equally hates animals who attempt the same. I mean, who are they trying to fool? When Lisa sees a pot-bellied pig waddling down Ludlow in a cardigan sweater and chunky glasses, a copy of "Ham on Rye" tucked behind his fetlock, she throws up a little in her pouty little mouth.
Do you think she is able to pull off the little-old-lady orthopedics?
Yes, there's no question. What I think she wears even better, though, is the creeping sense of her own mortality — how she's outlived all her friends, how her kids have moved away, and how she now spends her days filling in crossword puzzles with her dead husband's name, over and over. Looking good, Lisa!
Oh fuck it, we can't be mean about Lisa; we think her look is great and we love Vena Cava. How much do you love Lisa?
Wait a second — who's "we"? I can't stand this girl. And what's Vena Cava? Some kind of operation? Regardless of what I think of Lisa and her weird medical procedures, she's totally cute, and I am a big fan of her bag, which, if you squint, kind of looks like Wario.
David Cho, fan of ocelots
Lisa's "favorite thing in the world is when people can pull off really nerdy looks." What is her least favorite thing in the world?
Seeing how Lisa is a perfect angel descended from heaven, her least favorite things are probably: famine, the impending extinction of elephants in Africa, and anything/everything bad in the world. Realistically, she probably also hates people who wear jock-ish t-shirts that proclaim that they were on the Abercrombie 1982 co-ed wrestling team, but who doesn't?
Do you think she is able to pull off the little-old-lady orthopedics?
Of course she can(!), she also pulls off standing in fifth position and gazing wistfully into the camera for New York Mag better than any little old lady ever could.
Oh fuck it, we can't be mean about Lisa; we think her look is great and we love Vena Cava. How much do you love Lisa?
How much do I love Lisa? Enough to look past the fact that she looks like she's one botched pirouette from cutting herself to "feel again," so I mean yeah, that's a lot.