Marie-Claude Nechvatal is a fashion consultant! Have there been a bunch of Frenchies in the Look Book lately? Weird! Or maybe not so weird. After all, as Marie-Claude herself says, "French women always have a little something that makes it. They have a touch. The Americans have less the touch; they follow too much what they learn in magazines." After the jump, Intern Alexis gets a "little something" from Joe Mande, Anne Altman, and Brandy Barber.

Joe Mande, comedian

Marie-Claude met her husband at a bullfight in the south of France. Describe said meeting. What was Marie-Claude wearing, etc.
 It was the early Eighties, and Marie-Claude was working on the French bullfighting circuit as a Matadoremoiselle. Her look was a mixture of the traditional (sequined jacket, black felt pom pom hat, red cape) with the popular look at the time (Espirit jean skirt, leg warmers, and hi-top Adidas).

At that point in her life, the only place Marie-Claude could find ideas was not in an Hermes bag, but inside the aortic valve of a freshly slaughtered bull. True, it was messy work, and dangerous, but the ideas were always beautiful and exciting. Anyhow, she was in her dressing room one afternoon, after just slaying a massive bull and removing an idea from its heart (idea: wear bracelets on ankles!), when a man tapped on the door and asked if she was done using her heart. Sensing her confusion, the man explained that he was an American painter who specialized in paintings using the blood from the heart of a freshly slaughtered bull. She giggled and explained to him that this too was the source of her most exciting and beautiful ideas! They then made emphatique, erotique love on the floor. (The painter's love making skills were second only to jazz man Harry Connique Jr., who, Marie-Claude still tells friends, "had a dique that must have been bionique.") She handed the painter the severed bull's heart, but in the process, she had handed her heart to him as well. They've been together ever since. Usually on different continents.

What Lower East Side establishments does Marie-Claude like to frequent?
 After chamomile coloniques with Moby at Teany, Marie-Claude's mornings are usually spent at Daredevil Tattoo, where she is paying top dollar to have her vagina made to look exactly like a Louis Vuitton change purse. Then it's usually Punjabi for lunch. However, Marie-Claude is the first to admit that American punjobs are substandard compared to those in France. "French punjobs always have more the touch," she explains. Then, after work, it's usually a stop at Fat Baby for "Le dansepartie avec sucrerie de nez."

Why did she remove her left glove?
 "Remove" is not the right word. You see, half of her gloves live in New York, half live in Paris; the righties here, the lefties there. Whichever hand is uncovered tells Marie-Claude what side of the Atlantic she's on. It is a helpful little mnemonique device one picks up when one's husband is a painter.


Anne Altman, Two Can Anne

Marie-Claude met her husband at a bullfight in the south of France. Describe said meeting. What was Marie-Claude wearing, etc.
 "I wore my signature coat made from the fur of 101 Dalmatian puppies, a pair of dolphin skin boots, an elephant tusk handbag, and a chic necklace of Kobe beef hot dogs. I was in line for a fois gras smoothie when I spotted my future husband plucking the legs off of a Daddy Long Legs spider with a certain Je ne sais quoi. I found him apathetique to animal mutilation, he found me apathetique to animal mutilation, we started to date, and that is it. Did you know that there are proposals to ban the bullfight worldwide? That is such bull mairde! N'est pas?"

What Lower East Side establishments does Marie-Claude like to frequent?

Anyplace she feels superior making you feel inferior, which is everywhere.

Why did she remove her left glove?

Removing it now makes it easier to bitch slap Three-Stooges-style the unfashionable Americans she passes on the street, which is everyone.

Or, she's simply demonstrating her "Bye, Bye, Bull!' glove:

"I wave my glove at the bull just as the sword is plunged between the clavicles in a final fatal blow, severing its spine and piercing its aorta, rendering it bloody and twitching. C'est magnifique!"

Brandy Barber, writer/comedian/liar

Marie-Claude met her husband at a bullfight in the south of France. Describe said meeting. What was Marie-Claude wearing, etc.

First of all, let us say that there is no better place for a relationship predicated on the French derivative of "sympathy" than at the blood-saturated murder-orgy that IS a bullfight, no? And it was here that the love match between Marie-Claude and unnamed-artiste'-husband was forged. Perchance, he was painting a watercolor out of his own bile when he laid eyes upon a vision in matronly, civil servant-esque suit wear. "My sweet infant of Christ," he may have thought. "Send me that meter maid AT ONCE for me to render on this canvas." And as if she had heard, Marie-Claude scampered over to him (I use the term "scampered" loosely, as her clown shoes seem to me to have been pocketed AFTER she returned the rest of her tuxedo rental to AFTER SIX formals, and may have impeded such movement). She laid her gloved hand upon his swarthy, slightly greasy ex-pat cheek. And in her own personal brand of Bjork-speak, Marie-Claude declared, "The bull's dying is very beautiful. Take off your pants, Uncle Sam." Tres' romantique!

What Lower East Side establishments does Marie-Claire like to frequent?
 Well, she's gone off the East Village ever since that awkward incident where she won the Lucky Cheng's Drag Off for her unintentional rendition of Cruella DeVille. And lately, she simply can't walk through the West Village without some Hoboken frat douche loudly yelling out that she bears an uncanny resemblance to Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka in the most recent Charlie & The Chocolate Factory film remix (especially in this photo, I might add). So most of the time, we can find our girl Marie-Claude showing her commitment to performance artistry and "the scene", as she so condescendingly titles it, by lurking on the Bowery. She can be found holed up in a cardboard box out front of the shabby chic Amato Opera house, clutching her alligator-fetus skin Kelly bag full of Dexedrin and the occasional seasonal bottle of Beaujolais, spewing what she thinks might be controversial statements about the laughably poor quality of Chanel's new lip gloss or sniggering at a chubby Iowa tourist who happens to walk by in an obviously fake $5 Times Square pashmina. Oh, and she's super into Teany- they have a RAD brunch.

Why did she remove her left glove?
 To use it for swatting at unfortunates.

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