Oyster shell dresses and green grass suits raise awareness of the city’s community gardens

Michael Leete, who works at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) in Alphabet City, showed up for last weekend’s “anti-fashion” show dressed as a sparkly orange tree. Leete, 28, and fellow acts were decked out head-to-toe in all recycled and organic material.

“We’re exposing a different side of fashion,” Leete explained of the show’s mission. “We’re showing how it can be used in protest to make the act more interesting.”

While high-end fashion is invading New York City for February Fashion Week, MoRUS and its partner organizations had something a little different, something a little earthier, in mind for their show, which took place at the museum’s C-Squat on Avenue C.

Another volunteer, Barbara Ross, came strapped with dangling oyster shells.

“New York City once had oysters in the Hudson River that were wiped out,” she said of her costume’s purpose. “There’s talk of bringing them back to help with storm surges.” Ross’s oyster shell costume was meant to shed light on the potential environmental benefits of mollusks.

“All these costumes have a green message,” she said. “They show what people can do.”

“Fashion can also be functional,” Leete said, adding that costumes like his, a part of the Earth Celebrations series, were intended to raise awareness of the city’s prolific community gardens and plans to demolish them.

Earth Celebrations is a nonprofit organization directed by activist Felicia Young that aims to preserve these gardens through art and performance.

In addition, the show had a broader mission of bringing attention to how costumes and props can be used to promote positive change in the face of social, environmental and political issues—including the use of puppets to support the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Prior to the show, Young took the stage to talk about the group’s work.

“New York City has the highest concentration of community gardens in America, and Earth Celebrations helped save them,” Young said. “People didn’t even know these gardens existed.”

Young said the gardens grew out of rubble-filled lots of the 1970s, cultivated by individuals who helped transform neighborhoods previously considered slums. Real estate developers then began targeting those very spots.

“These gardens should not be a temporary stopgap on the way to luxurious neighborhoods,” Young said. “These are not vacant lots.”

Over time, since the organization’s founding in 1991, politicians like former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg got involved in helping preserve the gardens by providing grants and helping raise awareness.

Volunteers Isabelle Garcia, 31, and Lauren Mittelman, 24, walked the recycled runway in suits made of grass, which was grown directly onto the costumes by Bill Di Paola, a MoRUS co-founder and staunch activist in the city with the environmental organization Time’s Up!

Mittelman said the suits represented how easy it can be to grow something no matter the context. “If you can grow grass on a suit in a week, you can grow sustainable stuff anywhere,” she said.

Amanda Buckley, a 30-year-old painter in the city who works a variety of odd jobs, was in the audience on Saturday. Buckley heard about the museum’s show on Facebook and decided to check it out.

“I’m interested in how political activism can exist in an artistic context,” Buckley said.

Another audience member, Jerry Trudell, said he used to squat nearby in the 1990s and helped start the transformation of vacant lots into gardens that brought Earth Celebrations into being. He said a garden procession went around every year to support and bring visibility to the garden coalition by uniting garden activists from different areas.

MoRUS’ “anti-fashion” show also included a brassy performance by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, a volunteer-run band, complete with dancers, which regularly shows up at a variety of protest events, rallies and benefits throughout the city. The band first formed to protest the Republican National Convention.

Hanna Kyle Moranz, 31, a dancer who’s been with the band since 2008, said the orchestra, like MoRUS and its partner organizations, “strongly believes in the power of spectacle for positive change.”

Community Board 7 wants Fashion Week to find a new home.

Residents have long complained about the noise, removal of greenery and lack of access to Damrosch Park because of the many concessionaires that occupy the space throughout the year, all issues addressed in the Board’s resolution. And as locals see it, Fashion Week is the biggest culprit.

“These are problems that need to be solved right under the windows of working people at the Amsterdam Houses and heard beyond that immediate area,” said Mark Diller, the chair of Community Board 7. “There’s almost nothing left of what the community can use of Damrosch Park.”

Fashion Week moved from Bryant Park to Damrosch Park, a small corner of Lincoln Center’s campus, in 2010. Residents near Bryant Park once complained about the noise and crowding that Fashion Week brings; today, Damrosch Park locals are crying foul.
“It’s just a shame,” said Claudette Ekberg, who has lived near Lincoln Center for 50 years. “I try to avoid it because of all the hoopla going on.”

Gail Missener, a resident of the nearby Amsterdam Houses, is mostly concerned about the noise emanating from the park.
“Why do they have to be so loud? You’d think they’re playing for the deaf,” Missener said.

Along with Fashion Week, the Big Apple Circus and other concessionaires keep Damrosch Park abuzz 10 months out of the year. The park is operated by the Department of Parks and Recreation; in July 2010, it began a 10-year license agreement with Lincoln Center, which allows the Center to contract with third-party concessionaires to hold private, commercial events in the park. In its resolution, the Board recommended that residents should be able to have year-round access to the park.

Community Board 7 is also concerned that neither the license agreement between the city and Lincoln Center nor the agreements between Lincoln Center and its concessionaires were submitted to the Board for approval.

“A very important part of the public outreach is that they had no say in the seizing of their park, and this resolution speaks to that,” said Geoffrey Croft, president of New York City Parks Advocates. “It remains to be seen, of course, if the administration is going to continue to ignore the wishes and desires of the community.”

Council Member Gale Brewer conditionally approved the twice-yearly event finishing out the five years at the park and has maintained her support for the jobs that Fashion Week provides. However, the noise complaints must be addressed, she said, and residents must be able to get around while Fashion Week is in session.

“There is also an issue of making sure that there is access to the street,” Brewer said, adding that local residents are also inconvenienced by the nearby Fordham University construction. “If these issues are dealt with, I will not object to the five years.”

Brewer sent a letter in April to Mark Page, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, asking about the law regarding revenue generated from staged events at the park and whether there is an exception that allows the money to go to Lincoln Center instead of the city’s general fund. Page’s response noted that the issue is the subject of potential litigation and that he had forwarded Brewer’s concerns to the law department.

Diller said he values the board’s relationship with the Parks Department and the mayor’s office and that the Parks Department has made some efforts to replace the greenery that was removed to accommodate the concessionaires, but he thinks more still needs to be done.
“We hope the resolution will give us a platform to work together,” Diller said. “We understand that there are competing interests for this space. The benefits of that ought to be shared by the whole community.”

By Carson Griffith

Photos by Aram Bedrossian

For maybe the first time in her career, Leandra Medine is showing signs of opening up. The 23-year-old blogger, known to readers of her site as “The Man Repeller,” has followed a strict mantra of “personable over personal” that has made her irresistible, if not entirely accessible, to her fans.

But with a recent engagement and an upcoming wedding at the St. Regis, she’s slowly coming out of her Thakoon cocoon.

Over a latté at The Smile in Noho the Friday before Fashion Week, Medine almost looks like she’s wearing a disguise. Having made her living for over the past two years on the promotion of fashion-forward, often wacky attire, it’s slightly disappointing to find the native New Yorker in an oversized sweater and scarf. But a large, sparkly engagement ring and an “arm party” of bracelets—a term Medine herself coined—make up for the lack of a tufted skirt with multiple layers or high-waisted shorts.

The Upper East Sider has made time for me in her morning between a flurry of meetings, including styling a Lila Horn show for Fashion Week, and working on her popular blog, which garners 2 million hits a month and helped her top Adweek’s “Fashion’s Power 25 list” last September, beating out Lady Gaga, Anna Wintour, Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton.

“I’ve RSVPed to, like, 50 shows,” she admitted when I asked her for her Fashion Week schedule. Among them are Calvin Klein and Derek Lam, both coveted first-year invites for the blogger, but she did not attend the show of one of her favorite young designers, Alexander Wang. Strangely enough for Medine, she missed the hot ticket, which took place Saturday, Feb. 11, to attend her own engagement party.

In a short white Marchesa dress at 583 Park, Medine brought friends and family to celebrate her engagement to her long-term, on-and-off boyfriend, whom she keeps anonymous on her blog and won’t name here. When I asked what he does for a living, she said, “We’re fulfilling all the New York stereotypes, which means…” she trailed off. “Finance,” I said.

But getting back to fashion, the open-faced, long-legged brunette will not be slipping into a dress designed by Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig for her nuptials. While her millions of readers and 60,000 Twitter followers have waited with bated breath to hear who will be designing her wedding dress, it sounds as if she’s narrowed it down to one hot designer, one she also considers a friend: Prabal Gurung.

“We’re actually talking about the prospect of him doing my wedding dress,” she smiled, almost shyly, at the thought of a custom-made gown on a girl’s biggest day by one of fashion’s most popular men. “I think Prabal Gurung is probably going to be the most relevant and important designer in fashion five years from now. His collections are insane.”

As for any woman who has made her career in fashion, it is easy for Medine to tick off a litany of favorite designers. The difference, however, is that a number of them, such as Gurung, are personal friends with the famous blogger. Last fall, Medine walked the catwalk for Rebecca Minkoff’s Fashion Week show, after, Minkoff tells me, she challenged Medine to a walk-off after dinner on a rainy night. Medine concluded her audition runway strut with a funny routine from Saturday Night Live, which she watches regularly. It sealed the deal.

“I love Becky,” Medine said, calling the designer by a pet name when I inquire about the relationship.

The feeling is mutual. “Leandra reminds me of what Katharine Hepburn was to fashion in a time when women only wore skirts and she wore pants. She stood for the modern woman in an era of glamor,” Minkoff enthused. “I appreciate her singular point of view; women love the trends men hate. She’s fearless and empowers other people to be the same.”

Minkoff keeps Medine on her mind in the workplace as well. “We consider her part of the brand’s family. Our barometer. We always ask ourselves, ‘How would the Man Repeller wear this?’”

Danielle Snyder, of the jewelry line Dannijo, which she created with her older sister Jodie, has developed an almost sister-like relationship with Medine since meeting her a year ago at a party for the blogging forum Tumblr. “It was love at first sight,” Snyder said, adding she thinks they’ve spent “364 out of the 365 days” that they’ve known each other together.

“She’s like a fox on oversized clogs,” she said about the blogger’s ability to actually not repel men. “I never tease her because just when I think she’s looking too hot, I realize she hasn’t shaved her legs in way too long.”

“I feel so blessed I’ve become so close with [Danielle and Jodie],” Medine said earnestly, despite Snyder’s joking commentary and despite the fact that she has never in her life owned a pair of clogs. Medine helped host a dinner with the sisters the night before Fashion Week began last season and has another collaboration with Dannijo due out next month, called Mr. Dannijo’s Eye Spies, a takeoff of their original Mr. Dannijo collaboration.

She admits not everyone is singing her praises, though. The “haters,” as she calls them, are still lurking on the Internet, ready to pounce on her every move, due to her quick, though not unwarranted success. Despite receiving lengthy and numerous congratulations upon posting news of her engagement on her website, other sites condemned her for it as if it were a kind of betrayal. “I didn’t mean for the ‘Man Repeller’ to be me [initially],” she said, explaining that the name of the site and online persona was about making a “social comment about fashion.”

This story first appeared in the March issue of AVENUE. For the rest of the story, visit avenueinsider.com

By Sharon Feiereisen

Man about town and CEO/founding partner of StyleCaster Media Group Ari Goldberg has long been immersed in the Downtown fashion and social scene. Now, in partnership with Ford Motor Company and the 92nd Street Y, he is spearheading the inaugural State of Style Summit. We chatted with Goldberg about the much-buzzed-about event and his Downtown Fashion Week standouts.

Can you tell us about some up-and-coming designers we should keep an eye out for this Fashion Week?
Fashion design is one of the most competitive industries, so it’s great to see high-quality talent emerge Downtown. Among the standouts showing their collections Downtown this season are Christian Cota, Yigal Azrouel, Band of Outsiders and Dannijo.

What are the hot editors’ lunch spots around Milk Studios?
I’d expect to see a bunch of the editors hanging out at Soho House, Pastis and Chelsea Market.

Do you have suggestions if you have an hour to kill between shows?
If I’m near Milk Studios and have some time to kill, I’ll just head over to Soho House and knock out a few emails or wander aimlessly through the Meatpacking District and soak up the influence that New York Fashion Week has on the streets and how it’s affecting the style of real people.

One-stop-shop for a fashion emergency?
Uniqlo.

What’s your two-minute spiel on the State of Style Summit? Who should go and why?
The days of the fashion dictatorship should come to an end. It’s great to have teamed up with 92Y to present the counterpoint narrative to Fashion Week. This one-day summit will democratize fashion; anyone who is passionate about style and cares about its future should be there.

During New York Fashion Week, restaurants, clubs and lounges engage in a veritable bullfight as they compete to attract designer presentations, after-parties and various other celebrity-studded promotional events. Here’s a look at where the glitterati will be holding it down during the week’s festivities.

Le Baron
32 Mulberry St. (at Mosco St.), clublebaron.com.
It took two years and a temporary Bowery pop-up, but this Paris import is finally open (albeit unofficially). Already legendary as a fashion favorite in Paris, expect the highly anticipated nightclub to boast a super-tight door (there have been rumors of passwords) and, given that it’s owned by André Saraiva, who was involved in both The Beatrice Inn and Kenmare, the glossiest of the Downtown cool set.

Boom Boom Room at The Standard Hotel
848 Washington St. (betw. Little W. 12th & 13th Sts.), standardhotels.com/new-york-city.
Boom, Top of the Standard—whatever you want to call it, Andre Balazs’ boite may have some newbie competition but it’s undeniably still a hot spot sure to attract some of the week’s most high-profile events. Also worth an honorable mention is Le Bain, the hotel’s second rooftop haunt opened with help from Le Baron’s Saraiva.

Catch
21 9th Ave. (betw. Little W. 12th & 13th Sts.), catchnewyorkcity.com.
While Tenjune may be well past its heyday, EMM Group hasn’t lost its magic. Proof positive of this is Catch, already slated to open in Miami, which not only boasts above-average eats but a consistently star-studded, glass-enclosed lounge.

W.i.P. (Work in Progress)
34 Vandam St. (at Varick St.).
There are countless places in Manhattan worth busting out your iPhone camera for, but few to the extent of this basement club located below Greenhouse. With every square inch, including the concrete staircase, outfitted with an eye-catching array of rotating artwork, it’s the perfect space for outside-the-box-thinking Downtown designers.

The 40/40 Club
6 W. 25th St. (at Broadway), the4040club.com.
It may have been temporarily shut down by the Department of Health just a day after its flashy reopening, but the mere promise of potentially spotting Jay-Z will likely make The 40/40 Club an after-party go-to. Did we mention that the renovation set Mr. Carter back $10 million? Now there’s someone who knows the meaning of “Big Pimpin’.”

1OAK
453 W. 17th St. (betw. 9th & 10th Aves.), 1oaknyc.com.
When it slowly morphed into the stereotypical Meatpacking meat market, the astute folks behind this five-year-old hot spot realized it was time for a change. Now, after briefly shuttering, the space has been completely renovated and re-opened to coincide with the flashy 1OAK debut at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.

Sons of Essex
133 Essex St. (betw. Rivington & Stanton Sts.), sonsofessexles.com.
Courtesy of The Eldridge’s Matt Levine, this recently opened restaurant is likely to edge out nearby competitors like Beauty & Essex with its swank décor, hopping bar scene and cozy leather banquettes. Plus, we all know that, when it comes down to it, no fashionista can really resist a killer grilled cheese and some mac ‘n’ cheese.

The Electric Room at Dream Downtown
355 W. 16th St. (betw. 8th & 9th Aves.), dreamdowntown.com.
Nur Khan is back on top with his new basement hot spot, which developed an immediate reputation for its unbeatable post-1 a.m. scene. Unfortunately, mere plebeians have a near nil chance of getting in. (Insider tip: If you can’t get to Khan, try your luck cozying up to his svelte producing partner, Cristina Civetta.)

Red Egg
202 Centre St. (betw. Hester & Grand Sts.), redeggnyc.com.
We can thank Red Egg’s Simonez Wolf, who is also behind Madame Wong’s, for the city’s current pop-up obsession. With a Chinese-Peruvian menu and dim sum sans carts served throughout the day, this is guaranteed to be the chicest spot for fashion folks to indulge in both chicken feet and martinis.

Physique 57
If there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that fashion industry folks take staying in shape seriously. Unfortunately, come Fashion Week, many aren’t able to find time for their regular workouts. To that end, industry fave Physique 57 now offers two condensed workouts: Physique Express and ARMed & fAB.

The studio has also released a book, The Physique 57 Solution, and its co-author, Tanya Becker, underlined that “all the exercises in the book as well as any of our six workout DVDs can be done at home. Some of our signature exercises include The Pretzel, which targets the entire seat, abductors, hamstrings and obliques (also known as the muffintop area), and Thigh Dancing, which targets the quadriceps and core.”

Staying in shape, however, is as much about exercise as it is about a healthful diet. Becker underlines that it’s imperative to keep alcohol intake to a two-drink maximum and remember to hydrate with water between those drinks, adding, “Try and stick to wine instead of hard liquor (more calories) or beer (causes bloating), and remember to have some crudités or fruit before you go to an event.”

“Snacking before,” she said, “will fill you up so that you don’t overindulge at the events. When you first get to the event, drink seltzer or water. By staying hydrated, you will be less likely to go for carbs.”

For designers, buyers, reporters, photographers and clothes-conscious consumers the world over, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week conjures images of the latest and greatest designs paraded around in a swirl of parties and publicity. For residents of the area surrounding Fashion Week’s Lincoln Center home, however, the event conjures headaches, concerns over safety and anger over limited access to a public park.

“I don’t think Fashion Week belongs in this setting,” said Susan Koeppel, a resident of The Alfred at 161 W. 61st St. The residents there already combat construction from Fordham University and the Third Water Tunnel; many have rallied together to complain to the community board and local officials about the grievances they endure during Fashion Week’s set-up, shows and breakdown period that stretches for four to five weeks twice a year.

“There should be other venues that wouldn’t have to impact the community in this way,” Koeppel said, citing noise as well as overflowing trash and loud parties disrupting the neighborhood. “It’s not an asset for the community. It may be an asset for people who are involved commercially, but for the people who live here and the people who work here, it’s a huge inconvenience.”

Fashion Week, a eight-day event that draws an estimated quarter of a million people and over $230 million in revenue to New York, used to be anchored in Bryant Park. While that area is much more commercial than residential, Dan Biederman, president of Bryant Park Management Corporation, said that its neighbors had some of the same complaints about noise and crowding.

“There were things we didn’t like about having the shows at Bryant Park,” Biederman said. “We had complaints about generators that were necessary for both the shows and the ice rink we run.” Ultimately, he said, the shows were cutting down the time they could have the ice rink open in the winter and crowding out the popular spot for regular parkgoers in the summer.

“A lot of people think I’m out of my mind for giving up $2.5 million in fees,” Biederman said. “We couldn’t run the park the way we wanted.”

Two years ago, the organizers moved to Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center, which offers more space and affords more designers the opportunity to show their collections. IMG, the producers of Fashion Week, have coordinated with City Council Member Gale Brewer’s office as well as with the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District and Community Board 7 to address residents’ concerns, but some say not nearly enough has been done to mitigate the negative impact of the glitzy event.

“They go nonstop, 24 hours a day with construction equipment,” said another Alfred resident, Neil Lawner, describing the banging and beeping of trucks late into the night.

“What’s really being done, to the people in our building specifically and anyone who’s using 62nd Street generally, because it’s a popular thoroughfare, is [they’re] being held hostage, because private enterprise is doing what they want to do,” Lawner said.

“It has evolved. I think the positive is that there is lots of economic opportunity all around, from the restaurants to the ancillary to the catering,” said City Council Member Gale Brewer. “We dealt with noisy generators last time,” she said, noting that Fashion Week has been obliging in modifying their generators to be less loud.

“The real issue for me is the issue of Amsterdam Houses and people who wouldn’t normally have opportunities getting opportunities,” Brewer said. Fashion Week hires a handful of temporary employees from nearby NYCHA housing, but she would like to see their efforts expanded. “I still think we need to do a lot more for the NYCHA residents who are back to back with Fashion Week.”

“Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week takes its role as a community member seriously,” said a spokesperson for IMG in an email. “Since moving to Lincoln Center, we have worked diligently with the surrounding neighborhoods to make our presence as positive and unobtrusive as possible. MBFW and event producer IMG are grateful for the patience and cooperation the community has shown us thus far and remain committed to working with them to address any concerns that may arise in seasons to come.” The company sent out community notices in advance of construction this year, and also maintains a 24-hour hotline to address concerns.

Even more pressing for some is the use of Damrosch Park for private events for much of the year, between the February and September Fashion Weeks and the Big Apple Circus commandeering the spot for much of the time in between. According to the Parks Department, the park is managed by Lincoln Center through a license agreement with the city. Parks spokesperson Phil Abramson wrote in an email that the park “consists of a hard-surfaced seating area and receives low visitorship levels during the winter.”

Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates, takes issue with that characterization and said that it’s because of the private intrusions that people stay away from Damrosch Park.

“It’s certainly an issue that the public does not have access to that park for the majority of the year,” Croft said. “That parks belongs to the public, not to a private corporation.”

He also voiced what has been a frequent critique of the Parks Department, that they allowed 67 trees to be cut down to accommodate the park’s new tenants.

“All these trees were destroyed, all that flora and fauna, the hedges and stuff; they were destroyed. The public looks at tents most of the year now,” Croft said.

Regarding those trees, Abramson wrote, “As restitution for the 67 trees that were removed, we planted 220 trees in the one-mile area around Damrosch Park. In addition, Lincoln Center planted a net increase of 88 trees on its campus and arranged for 11 trees to be transplanted.” Many are not satisfied with that answer.

Cleo Dana, another outspoken resident of The Alfred, testified at Community Board 7’s last full board meeting, questioning whether Lincoln Center is the right home for such a big event.

“Where to put Fashion Week? Not to the Javits Center where it belongs or to an Armory or even Carl Schurz Park, but to Damrosch Park, a New York City park that had the misfortune of being geographically located in Lincoln Center, the cultural heart of New York City’s performing arts,” Dana said.

“Damrosch Park does not belong to Lincoln Center, although it is managed by it. It was deliberately created by Robert Moses as a separate entity from Lincoln Center. It was and is under the jurisdiction of NYC Parks and Recreation and as such must conform to city and state statutes that apply to terms of its use, noise, concessions and sanctity of its trees,” she continued.

Sam Salant, who said that he used to regularly spend time in Damrosch Park and always noticed residents of the nearby Amsterdam Houses doing the same, said that he was pushed out of the park when he inquired about new construction.

“One day I walked in and there was something being constructed where there was formerly a bandshell,” Salant said. “I asked about it and was told to get out of the way. They’re just chasing people out. There was nobody I could call who could answer me and tell me why that happened.”