William “Coach” McComb

Liz Claiborne has been on hard financial times since long before the credit crisis. Company CEO William L. McComb doesn’t indulge in luxurious Town Cars and private jets. The Wall Street Journal puts it rather poetically:

At nearly 3 a.m., William L. McComb stands coatless on a chilly airport sidewalk, waiting to collect a rented Volvo. The chief executive of Liz Claiborne Inc. left his midtown Manhattan office about 13½ hours ago, and must lead an important conference call in three hours.

With a corporate jet, “I would have long ago landed and been at my hotel,” Mr. McComb says wearily. The boyish-looking executive, who turned 46 Monday, flies nearly 200,000 miles a year, all of them on commercial flights, almost always in coach.”

Poor man. We wonder if his staff calls him “Coach Executive Officer” and laughs about it when he’s out in a strange cold breeze waiting for his rental car. At least soon enough some other CEOs might start flying coach with him and they can commiserate. Maybe they can even (gasp) carpool.

Claiborne’s CEO Crams Into Coach to Cut Costs [WSJ]

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Filed Under: ’tis the season to be broke, liz claiborne, william l. mccomb

Behold Daisy Lowe’s spring 2009 Marc by Marc Jacobs ad, shot by Juergen Teller. We were particularly excited about this casting because as you can see, the circumference of Daisy’s limbs leave little confusion as to which are arms and which are legs. We are disappointed, however, that this is decidedly less quirky than Juergen’s other Marc ads, like Posh Spice in a paper bag and male model Cole Mohr in drag. But we admit the demure, accessible feel is probably better for the economic climate. Shoppers don’t want to be flashy or label-y these days. Also, it’s not exactly the best time to dare shoppers to wear your clothes when you can plainly show them that they can.

Daisy Lowe for Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring 2009 – first photo! [Sassybella]

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Filed Under: advertising, campaign trail, daisy lowe, juergen teller, marc by marc jacobs, models, spring 2009

Thakoon Panichgul, one of Michelle Obama’s favorite designers, on his new line, Thakoon Addition: “I didn’t conceive Thakoon Addition as something sales-friendly for the sucky economy. I’ve been thinking about doing this for at least a year. And my runway collections tend to be pretty accessible anyway. Now, maybe I’ll have a chance to experiment more, but at heart I like to make wearable clothes.” [Style.com]

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Filed Under: quotables, thakoon addition, thakoon panichgul

Oh, where on earth do we begin with The City? That it’s simply amazing? Television’s new heroin? We can’t believe we ever cared about Lauren Whatsherface and Heidi Whogivesacrap? The first two episodes exceeded our expectations last night, starting with the theme song “Top of the World” by the Pussycat Dolls, which immediately alerts us we’re in for one slutty series. Whitney struts past leering construction workers in a flimsy, indecently short bright-yellow dress to more sexy slut music MTV never would have played for Lauren Whatsherface. Whitney looks bored as all hell when she arrives at the Diane Von Furstenberg office for her first day of work. Olivia Palermo arrives, and they have one of the most staged reality-TV conversations in history about who Whitney and Olivia know. Because everyone knows New York &#8212 excuse us, The City &#8212 is all about who you know. And don’t you know Whitney? Everyone knows everyone. Throughout this fascinating discourse, Olivia looks at Whitney like she wants to jump out from behind her desk and suck the blood from her neck, while Whitney looks, as usual, oblivious to Olivia’s and her own feelings. Olivia gloats about her busy social schedule and tells Whitney she’s having a dinner party for Fashion Week (which OMG is during Whitney’s first week) and doesn’t invite her. Guess the producers didn’t tell her that was mandatory yet!

Whitney wastes no time going out with Jay the Aussie. We hate him because his face looks like a badly mowed lawn and he needs a shower. Also, he slurs his words. They have another staged-as-all-hell conversation about how he’s going to be her “tour guide” in The City &#8212 exactly the kind of thing a guy like him would say to a girl who just moved here and never follow through on. After dinner, he asks Whitney back to his place. And she says yes. We knew she was just as slutty as those hemlines! You can tell by the conversation she has with her roommate Erin the next morning that she totally did him (gross) and maybe regrets it, but dammit! She’s an independent big-city girl now and can do what she wants.

Cut to backstage at Fashion Week. Whitney makes sure the models’ shoes have knots and not bows. Taxing. Then she hits the staff after-party at the Thomson Hotel &#8212 the very one we were at. Excuse us here a moment, because this part got a little blurry when we saw ourselves on camera. Our head. Onscreen. For, like, a whole three seconds! We can now die happy bloggers. Olivia finally invites Whitney to her dinner party. Whitney invites Jay, but he doesn’t want to go because he doesn’t like Olivia and her friends. Oh the uptown-downtown divide! Which will Whitney choose?! Her neatly pinned side braids say uptown, but her inner slut says downtown. We hope she chooses downtown and does all those things you’re supposed to do when you first move here, like getting falling-down drunk every night, making out with random hotties until you catch a bad virus, and trying cocaine. Anyway, Whitney brings Erin to the party, but then Jay shows up. Olivia looks pissed when he walks in with a bottle of fine bubbly, but then pretends she’s happy to see him. She probably wants to do him, which is so nasty.

So Jay comes off looking like some sort of hero since he declined the dinner-party invite but then showed up with something expensive for the hostess at the last minute. Manipulative prick. He should’ve just said he’d love to go and attend like a nice boy. But, as Whitney learns, there are none of those in New York. (Well, maybe they’re hiding out there somewhere.) And Alex, Whitney’s old male-model flame who ex-boss Kelly Cutrone hooked her up with, is not one of those guys either. Episode two opens when he invites Whitney to lunch, at which he wears the most obnoxious headgear fake hipsters ever discovered: a straw fisherman’s hat. He tells her Jay is hooking up with his roommate’s best friend, whom he used to date. Or something. We were distracted by his heinous hat and couldn’t focus on the nonsense coming out of his mouth.

Whitney returns home upset and tells Erin she’s just going to have to ask Jay about it. Because after all, what if she can’t trust either of them? Cut to Jay playing basketball with a nicely toned shirtless fellow (whom we think was the guy in the opening credits? It doesn’t really matter). Jay wears those opaque neon-orange sunglasses that one really must call “shades.” He tells Shirtless he wants to see other people and Whitney. Well, obviously. That’s how The City works.

Somewhere decidedly uptown, Olivia decides with one of her friends she’s going to bring Whitney into her inner circle so she doesn’t get mixed up in the downtown crowd. She even takes her to Manolo Blahnik’s shoe signing, at which she asks about Jay. Whitney reveals they had a “minor little hump.” Olivia resists drawing blood from Whitney’s eye sockets and adopts an expression of mild concern.

Cut to nighttime, Whitney, Jay, Jay’s roommate Adam, and Erin sit at a table at Tenjune. Alex comes over and confronts Jay about sneaking around behind Whitney’s back. Jay blows up and starts saying things like, “Don’t fucking start talking shit about me,” and threatening, “I will take care of you myself.” Amazing. Alex responds by using the word “fuck” a lot too. Even better. Things get so heated the fight almost turns physical and Adam gets involved. The next morning (presumably), Whitney and Jay are having brunch. He’s happy, she’s glum. We’re guessing they got it on and he got off but she didn’t and feels used. As she should because he’s just that kind of guy.

The hour of awesomeness ends with a visit to Kelly Cutrone. It’s the most genuine conversation of the hour, and Kelly suggest to Whitney neither Jay nor Alex is trustworthy. Yes, thank you, Kelly. Seriously heartwarming. Just to make us all melt into the cracks of our couches further, the episode ends with breathy singing girl music and aerial shots of Manhattan in the sunset. At which point we reached reality-TV orgasm, and things, again, got blurry. This must be what love feels like.

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Filed Under: diane von furstenberg, inner city life, mtv, olivia palermo, reality tv, the city, whitney port