After "the otherroom," half the Style Council headed across the street to the gay bar called Roosterfish. Once again I had to wait for the white-haired bartender who takes a year and day to serve you a drink if you happen to have a god-made vagina. Finally after almost 20 minutes of watching him chat with a young cowbody, I ordered a Linda, a cocktail I created, malibu-rum with soda and, this is important, two cherries. For some reason the bartender's eyes light up when I order. I can only guess his mother's name is Linda or something. It seems every 40-something gay man's mom was named Linda. We entertain ourselves while a parade of extremely tall drag queens march around us, including another J.T. Leroy mistaken identity case. Eventually the Lindas caught up with me and I headed for the ladies room. I paused and asked some fellas sitting next to me where it was. "To the right and it's a 'REAL ladies' room!" they said with a little too much enthusiasm. I head over only to find that every five minutes some dude saunters in, I play guard, stopping them and letting them know, "this is a REAL ladies room." Until Rose walked in. How could I deny Miss Rose Acea? "Well," she pauses, "actually I'm Rosa Parkinson. I was Rose Acea but my boyfriend got mad because he HAS rosaeca," she says.

Suddenly the chick in the stall catches Rose's eye. "Oh there's a real girl in there!" she says. The real girl has been sitting on the can with the door ajar for 15 minutes, before finally, and this is a brave move, I peek around the door, to discover she's sitting on the toilet fully clothed!! "Are you ok?" I ask.

"Go get the Asian guy with the white wig," she moans. I know exactly who she means, and bring him in right away. The girl sitting on the toilet is about to confess her sins to the porcelain priest, and the sight of it makes me lose all hope of pissing any time soon. But before I go, I notice the Not J.T. Leroy is drinking a Linda! I think I just might have something here...

Posted by Linda Immediato

You've almost certainly seen Mark 'The Cobra Snake' Hunter before. If you havent, you need to get out more. He's the ubiquitous hairy dude in the tiny Y-fronts and John McEnroe sweatband who shows up at parties around town and takes photos of trashy-chic scenesters for his website The Cobra Snake. Oh, and he has a column in the Weekly.

"Hey Caroline, how come you're the only person in LA who hasn't written about me yet," he asks. Turns out he was recently on cover of the LA Times. On October 25, Steve Lopez devoted his entire column to Mark, dubbing him 'Los Angeles' preeminent hipster'.

"He hangs out with models, DJs, pro skaters, fashion designers, celebrities, rock musicians, the unbearably cool and the painfully fashionable. He wears the most outrageous designer and vintage fashions, which he often gets as gifts. He flies all over the world to attend parties. People, young women especially, recognize him wherever he goes....Hunter has taken photo-blogging to the level of celebrity. His website is where Hunter, paparazzo to the unfamous, holds a mirror up to hipster culture and also helps manufacture it."His mom Iris, pictured next to him, is ever so proud of her boy.

Anyway Mark, forget the LA Times - here you are being featured by the Style Council.  Doesn't get much better than this, baby...

Speaking of babies, meet tiny Vivian, the genetically-blessed offspring of artist Shepard Fairey and his wife and business partner Amanda. Vivian may only be a few months old, but she almost outstrips Cobra Snake on the hipster scale, and is regularly to be found looking cute with her ma and pa at the hottest parties in town.

(BTW: Cobra Snake used to work for Amanda and Shepard at their design  studio in Korea Town. It's just one big happy family...)

Posted by Caroline Ryder

--------

I ran into Martini (yes that's his name) at the Venice hangout "the otherroom" after the LA Weekly art show and party. Martini has written a book called "The Aussie Guide To Dating," which instructs non-Australians in the down under ways of getting it on. When I asked him for some pointers, he told me to buy the book. "Come on, I pleaded. Just one tip." Martini paused and said, "Think like a shark, go on your instinct, and be out for the kill. It's all in the attitude." Then as I was walking away he said, "oh and Koala's can have clymidia." I was sure I heard wrong. "I beg your pardon?" I asked. "It's true, " says Martini. "Koala's are the only animals that can carry an STD." I don't even want to know how THAT happened, but it does make me pretty skeptical about listening to an Aussie for dating advice...

Posted by Linda Immediato

He may look friendly, but behind artist SABER's chirpy demeanour lurks a seething heart of darkness. Which sucks for him, but not for us - we loved his eerie nightscapes on display at the L.A. Weekly's new Biennial Art Show in Santa Monica. Here he is in front of one of his works, helpfully holding my vodka cranberries

SABER, who lives in Echo Park, is the man behind this enormous mural on the LA River Bed. Apparently you can see it from space, it's that huge.

He is featured in a new graffitti documentary called Infamy by urban documentarian Doug Pray (Skratch, Hype!) alongside fellow Angelino and graff legend TOOMER. L.A. Weekly editor Laurie Ochoa informed me that SABER's art is slated to appear on the cover of a forthcoming issue mapping the city's graffiti landscape.

Posted by Caroline Ryder

--------

A recent New York Magazine article claimed to unveil the biggest literary swindle of recent years - namely that enigmatic author JT Leroy, who penned cult classics 'Sarah' and 'The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things', is not actually a cross-dressing former rent boy, but a 39-year-old social worker from Brooklyn called Laura.

Nonetheless the usually shy Leroy, known for donning a bad blonde wig and sunglasses when out in public, was spotted no less than THREE times on the westside of Los Angeles on the night of Friday October 29.

Sighting # 1: at a party celebrating the first L.A. Weekly Biennial art show and party at the Track 16 gallery in Santa Monica's Bergamot Station. The normally reclusive writer was spotted wandering around the gallery gazing at works by the likes of Sarah Cromarty, Glenn Bach and Weekly contributors SABER and Shepard Fairey (who was spinning up a storm behind the decks).

Later, we bump into Leroy again, at Roosterfish, a friendly little gay bar on Abbott Kinney in Venice known for its "hot bartenders, stiff drinks and electronic darts". This time he was wearing a new Asian-inspired disguise. Very clever JT, very clever.

Peturbed at having been recognized a second time, Leroy retreated into the men's room (or was it the ladies?) and emerged a few minutes later, butterfly-like, in his most elaborate disguise of the evening - DRAG.

Here he is with his celebrity BF Asia de Argento.

Nice try JT. You can run but you can't hide...

Posted by Caroline Ryder

--------

I meet 28-year-old fashion designer Desanka Fasiska just seconds after the close of her first independent runway show. She's backstage at Smashbox studios, surrounded by models and camera crews. Actress Mena Suvari is gushing over her feminine, embroidered collection and Desanka is soaking up the love. There were a few minor hiccups - like the model who snuck on a bra because her breasts had ballooned overnight – but otherwise you'd never have guessed Desanka was a first-timer. I catch up with her a week later and find out how it feels to lose your runway show virginity.So how was your first time?It was overwhelming, especially knowing it was all for me. I had done my college show and Gen Art, but they are group shows. It's a lot of pressure when it is just about you.What was the most stressful moment for you?Right at the beginning I tricked myself into believing that the wrong music had been put on. Actually it was all fine but in my mind I was like "oh my god, it screwed up!" It was retarded. I definitely saw a couple of mistakes that got past me. Like one girl had just got her period, so her boobs were really big. She snuck a bra on and you could see it. Even so, I think we did a pretty good job for the first time.How do you know Mena Suvari?She came to my office before the show and got some clothes. She's very sweet. It's funny…I'm sure that in New York, celebrities don't visit younger designers like myself quite so readily.How much did it cost to put on the show?In Los Angeles it is way less expensive to put on a show than it is in New York. I happened to get some sponsors but it was about $15,000 total. It was hard decision to make, but I have been around for three years now and I felt like this was the time to do it. How did you get into the fashion business?I had no idea what I wanted to do when I graduated high school. But I was artistic and a clothes horse, so my mom pushed me into going to FIDM (fashion school) even though I didn't really want to. Then I moved to San Francisco and enrolled in the fashion design program at the Academy of Art. It was the first time in my life that I had ever excelled in school. Afterward I wound up getting a scholarship to study in Paris for a year.What was it like being in Paris?It was lonely time in my life. I didn't know anybody, and I was living in this really remote part of the 13th arrondissement. Not very young or hip. I stayed in a lot and kept myself busy by creating things. I got to really know myself as a designer there. And at school I learned about hand sewing techniques, how to do little tiny stitches, and tracing and pattern-making. Pretty much all of my classmates ended up at Givenchy. Even though I was super lonely there, I was very inspired.So how did you come to start your own line?After Paris I went to New York and looked for jobs for a year. It was right after 9/11 and no-one was hiring. I am terrible at being subordinate anyway, so I thought maybe I should be my own boss, start my own line and have more creative freedom. So I moved back to LA. I had about $50,000 saved up and I went through it really fast – but at the end of it, I had a collection.Why start your line in LA versus New York?There is a thriving fashion industry here and it is a lot easier to break in here too. I have a lot of friends in Los Angeles that started their line with no fashion design experience whatsoever, but who are successful. Seems like LA designers tend to abandon LA Fashion Week after a while and migrate to New York Fashion Week instead.Well, New York is the fashion capital of America, if not the world. I will probably go to New York, although I would like to do both. I would like to stay true to Los Angeles. Desanka grew up in Ladera Heights and currently lives in West Hollywood. Desanka.com

Posted by Caroline Ryder

--------

Yeah, it's strange, but the inspired  pairing of  Mexican wrestling with burlesque definitely gives the audience more bang for the buck. Produced by the Velvet Hammer's Rita D'Albert (aka Ursulina, pictured here with Karis, the most beautiful hula hooping boy in the world), Lucha Va Voom  has become an L.A. institution, selling out two shows this week.  Of course, you couldn't ask for a better venue than the Mayan theater, with its kitschy "stone" carvings, sacrificial altar alcoves, and Thunderdome-esque balconies where a general admission ticket gets you a seat on a hard cement step. Thankfully, after considerable finagling, my friend and I finally got ringside, where I could get some decent pictures with my crappy Konica. In the audience, having a rip roaring good time, were none other than L.A. Times fashion critic Booth Moore, and Rose Apodaca from WWD, which just goes to show how fashionable an event Lucha Va Voom is. The other "big" sighting of the night was the members of the Moody Blues, who arrived by limo. As I was making my way to my seat behind them, I read aloud a sign taped to a chair that said "The Moody Blues," and one of the guys shushed me, as if the crowd was going to bum rush those grizzly geezers. "Nights in White Satin" was a hit when?Adding to the divine weirdness was the show's Halloween theme. The first burlesque act was the always amazing Kitten de Ville, who came out of a coffin with her siamese  sister Ming Dynatease. I believe they were hacked apart by Frankenstein. Hot stuff.  There was also a crazed pogo-sticker, Count Hopula, who stripped, while pogoing, down to a teeny rhinestone g-string, after landing on his head and then getting back on the stick. The Lucha Libre itself was utter mayhem. Scripted, but still insane. The guy in the chinos is the Human Tornado, here facing off against Pollo Loco. At one point, Tornado went sailing out of the ring, across several rows of audience members and landed with a loud crash while the spectators scrambled to get the hell out of the way. He may have planned it, but it still had to hurt. Ultimately he was declared the winner of his match, but the scoring remains a complete mystery to me. Here's Summer Peaches, as a bull who has slain her toreador. The rose is purely accidental. Nice touch, eh?

Leapin' lizards! El Chupacabre won the final bout of the night.

As one of the very funny stand-up comic referees put it, "And those people in the Muslim world think we're a bunch of decadent weirdos..." As if.

Happy Halloween!

posted by Steffie

--------

The fashion-hangover has finally faded. Please enjoy this weekend wrap-up looking as unstylishly comfortable as we do while writing it (in no makeup, old sweats and a ponytail). Ahhh.

Smashbox, trashbox. The real cutting edge designers were ultimately seen everywhere else. Leading the way, P. Ka Bu, an LA style boutique and house of fashion in downtown which showcased a slew of cutting edge designers over the weekend. We saw mohawked models stomp the runway for the raw, graffiti-inspired line Daenamon. See the dude in the third photo? That's the guy who played Hobie (David Hasselhoff's son) on Baywatch.

******************************************************** Buzzed-about shows at P. Ka Bu included Helen O, Maggie Barry and Sharagano. But it was the gorgeously decadent, kaleidoscopic club kid-meets-couture garmets of Jared Gold on Saturday that attracted the space's biggest crowd.******** ******************

***********************************************************************

Gold's opening a store in LA soon (in either Echo Park or Fairfax) and he'll be extending his design style to offer more than just clothing. The shops will also carry home supplies and decor. Talk about a funhouse.***********

******************************************************** Gold's take on this week's shows and events summed it all up better than anything else we've heard the past several days.

"Every designer in LA is either a rockstar or an actor, or a rockstar or an actor's girlfriend or boyfriend." ***********************************************************************************************************************************

All of the above were present across town at The Morphine Generation show at Miauhaus Studio, which rocked its druggie chic screen-printed tees, jackets and skirts for the crude and tattooed set. Morphine designer Eric Hart showed his new punky pieces (which were cute and well-tailored, if not exactly innovative) and played a set with his band Suicide Club, while pals Rancid's Tim Armstrong and Red Hot Chili Pepper Anthony Kiedis looked on. Frock and roll will never die!

Posted by Lina Lecaro

--------

Well, they weren't exactly the Oscars, but the red carpet was rolled out for the first ever LA Fashion Awards Friday night just the same. (And I've just recovered enough from the after-parties to write about it.)

First I'd like to say the Los Angeles Times got fashion week wrong (more on that later), here's what they said about the ceremony:

"At L.A. Fashion Week, which wrapped up Friday with the first L.A. Fashion Awards, the front row isn't filled with masthead queens like Vogue's Anna Wintour, or socialites of the Aerin Lauder breed. Instead, there are reality show stars, stylists, model groupies and Hollywood rich kids."

I sat in the front row (I wonder what category they thought I was in...I secretly hope" Hollywood rich kid" ) personally I think I'm more of masthead princess, but I don't expect a correction.

The ceremony was held at the Orpheum Theater downtown and started over an hour late because, well, because of the open bar. Free margaritas and vodka drinks loosened up the mostly black-clad crowd and they just didn't want to sit down.

As my fellow council member pointed out, before the Awards, I chatted with socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein, who brings new meaning to the term "cat lady," and "plastic surgery." I asked her if she lived in LA now, she replied, "I live where ever I want. Paris, New York, where ever I feel like. I don't know if I could ever live in LA all the time though." She pulled me close to her. "Where do you live?" she asked. "Venice, " I replied. I'm not sure if she knew I meant Venice, California, but her eyes, buried underneath the sculpted cheekbones, lit up. "I'd like to live there!" she said and smiled. I guess it was a smile. It was hard to tell to be honest. We kind of look alike,  and yes, that's slightly disconcerting to me.

The crowd finally took their seats after many flashing of the lights later. 

Sitting behind me was Petro Zillia designer Nony Tochterman's daughter Romie, 8. She was wearing a pink knit shrug, crinoline skirt, rainbow earrings and a smashed teacup ring, from the Alice In Wonderland-themed show the night before, that she was proud to show off. "My mommy's winning an award tonight," she told me. Her father (and Nony's husband/business partner) corrected her, "she's nominated," he said, gently stressing the distinction.

Tochterman (with the pink hair) was nominated for a MAFI (Moss Abrams Fashion Innovator) award. She was up against Louis Verdad. I felt torn.I liked both designers,  but not wanting to crush a little girl's dream, I was rooting for Nony. When Tochterman's name was called, her daughter tapped me on the shoulder and said, "see I told you. My dad doesn't know everything." She was beaming.

Nony, who grew up in Tel Aviv,  got the name Petro Zillia for her clothing line after her husband suggested the Hebrew word for parsley sounded like a person's name. When she accepted her award, she said "We have to remember, I have to remind myself sometimes too, this should be fun. It's only fashion."

Trina Turk received a "Fashion Achievement Award."

And Rosemary Brantley, teacher at Otis Art College received a "Fashion Inspiration Award." I thought it was pretty cool that the fashion industry chose to give props out to a teacher. Maybe if we rewarded all teachers like this the education system in this country would be a helluva lot better... Rosemary was inspiring, telling us in a taped interview that it doesn't matter what you're born into, through hard work and "busting your ass" you can achieve success in the fashion industry.

After the award ceremony, my cohorts and I went next door to the after party, where a few of the male models from the show were hanging out drinking, we joined them. And the rest is for me to know and you to find out..

Posted by Linda Immediato

When we likened Gwen Stefani to a neo-Madonna in the Weekly's music section last week, we didn't know she'd actually end up looking exactly like the material girl (platinum bob and all) at her show this past Friday. Gwen's colorful concert at the Hollywood Bowl was the most fashion-packed spectacle we witnessed all week with costume changes galore: the Alice In Tokyo-land get-up seen below, a Marilyn Monroe 40s bathing beauty outfit, a hip hop track suit and Tupac-bandanna look, and sporty joggiing short and tank ensembles (all encrusted with crystals of course). Her every move on stage was trailed by her super-cute "Harajuku girls" in matching uniforms (many designed by Gwen herself for her L.A.M.B. line and her newest design endeavor inspired by them).

The after-party, which also served as the launch party for the new Harajuku Lovers clothing line, which Gwen created for Jerry Leigh Entertainment, was at the Max Factor Museum on Highland (where Gwen posed for this photo). A giant elevator that fits like 40 people -and a bar!- took us (and revelers including Demi & Ashton, looking so cute and domestic with the kids in tow, Daryl Hannah and Constantine Maroulis from American Idol) up to a dance room decorated whimisically with Japanese accents and more obvious Wonderland touches like tables full of yummy candy and food ( lots of bananas!) with a giant sign that said "eat me." Hmmm.... sound familiar? Well, yeah, just scroll down to see Steffie's shot of our gal pal Ginger snacking on a cookie that reads the exact same thing at the Petro Zillia show the night before. Eat me, drink me, kiss me, sit on my lap ...it seems fashion week is all about giving into temptation for the Style Council.

Photo by Hilary Villa/ text and post by Lina Lecaro

--------