Yup, that’s the Theory flagship in the background.

Should you happen to venture into the meatpacking district today and think to yourself, “Hey, I don’t think that shingled beach cottage was in the middle of the street the last time I was stumbling around here at 4 a.m.,” then you would be right! Tommy Hilfiger put it there, and it’s a pop-up shop called Prep World. The designer had a launch party for it last night, and today he’s flying to London to celebrate another Prep World that he’s plopped down in the middle of an intersection over there, too. All the Prep Worlds are collapsible for portability purposes; the one in meatpacking will be folded up on Sunday and toted cross-country on a truck to L.A.

Hilfiger says that the cottages, which are outfitted with a front lawn, a doghouse, and other beachy accoutrements, were inspired by “Nantucket. New England beach houses.” So, definitely not Hamptons beach houses? “Real preppy is really New England. The Hamptons are more a mix of everything. We want to be as authentic as possible so we say that the roots are really East Coast, New England,” he explained. Although he grew up in upstate New York — which is technically not New England — he got a lot of exposure to authentic preppy folks because a lot of them attended Cornell, which is near his hometown, Elmira. When asked about his favorite New England memory, Hilfiger described his first store in Elmira (again, not really New England, but we’ll let it slide): “It was a boutique selling incense and candles and bell-bottoms … We painted it black and played rock music.” Would he sell incense again? “Yeah! The right incense, I would sell. I love scent. We usually get our scent now from fragrance, but incense is fun, there’s something different about incense. We should bring it back.”

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Filed Under: pop-ups, tommy hilfiger

As Katie Holmes exited Barneys on Madison Avenue yesterday afternoon, young designer Joseph Altuzarra walked in, ready to do some early sales of his fall 2011 collection at his trunk show. The fall 2011 grunge- and thirties-inspired show, complete with fur-lined parkas and fur-accented glitter shoes, was fantastically received in New York. “There’s a moment right after the show, right after it ends, where you’re just like, ‘Wow, that was intense. And it lasted seven minutes,’” he told us mere hours before he was nominated a second year in a row for a CFDA award. We also talked about where he finds inspiration on the streets of New York; if he believes the market for parkas costing upwards of $7,000 is still kicking; and the John Galliano scandal.

So: fur parkas! They were a big hit on the runway.
The collection really started with the idea, ultimately, of wearability. I was drawing this during a really cold winter, this past one, in New York. It was brutal, it was awful.

Do you get seasonal depression in the winter?
Not really. I get sick after my show, but especially now when we’re doing pre-collection and starting that before the show even happens, there’s kind of a locomotive that keeps you going and you don’t really have time to get depressed.

You designed it all in New York. Did you see stuff on the streets here that inspired you?
I was seeing all the parkas and outerwear, and I kind of wished I had one. I wouldn’t say the collection stems from what I wanted, but I felt a need for things that were warm, and people were saying I needed things that were warmer! So.

So what were you thinking about while designing?
I was thinking about anoraks and parkas and how you can be insulated. These are insulated on the inside and have rabbit. There’s rabbit, there’s fox, that’s silver fox. The shorter one is coyote. It was kind of taking the tailoring we usually do and making it slightly roomier so you can wear a lot of layers underneath.

Why all the animals?
I think there’s a certain richness about having a fur hood or coyote hood, which makes it not like any other parka. It’s a challenge when you’re doing something as utilitarian as a parka to make it feel like a better cut or to feel more expensive. And everything we do is a little sexy, so there’s a lot of see-through in the knits, things fraying or being destroyed (it doesn’t actually fray), and then very, very light dresses. The light dresses have prints that are original, this print was woven, it was an actual fabric woven in and then photographed and pleated and then we kind of messed it up even more in Photoshop and then we digitally printed it on chiffon.

You should send Courtney Love this frayed dress.
Yeah! I’m sure she’d love it. I think she’s great. I love her music, actually.

Who are your other grungy icons?
I think the Johnny Depp-Kate Moss couple, at the time, although they were slightly post-grunge but they were definitely very cool.

One of the more basic spring dresses by you is $1,260, a fur-lined parka is $7,400 — how is your line in these dour economic times?
I think it’s doing very well. I think the market for very high-end was never really that depressed. There are different modes of buying things now. There are a lot more online sales now. And I think clothes are functioning differently. People are probably buying more daywear, less cocktail. But there’s definitely still that customer, and she’s still shopping.

What’s your take on John Galliano losing his job at Dior?
It’s very sad. I think it’s very convoluted as well. I think it’s difficult to get an idea of exactly what happened and why and the aftermath. It’s just difficult to understand right now.

Will we see any videos of you drunk on the Internet?
No! I don’t really drink. Or I hold my liquor if I do.

Designer profile: Altuzarra
Also, see a slideshow of Altzarra’s fall 2011 collection.

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Filed Under: q&a, barneys, designers, fall 2011, joseph altuzarra

In the spirit of Kanye West’s generally ballerness, $5,000 in cash was dropped from the ceiling at last night’s V Man party inside the (still unfinished) Mondrian Soho Hotel while Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” remixed by A-Trak, played on the dance floor. Naturally, bloggers quickly fell to their hands and knees, stuffing their pockets with bills, while cover boyKanye hardly seemed to notice. If he had looked a little more closely, he would have seen that another $5,000 in fake bills had his face on them. V Man also put money in the party invitations and in some of the magazines strewn about the room.

See all the pictures from the V Man party

“The theme of the issue is No Risk No Reward, and we take a great risk with every issue we continue to publish,” said editor Elliott David. “Putting actual dollar bills in the issue is a reminder of the importance of print: the innovations and experimentations that can only exist in a physical object.”

Julia Restoin-Roitfeld kept cool around the falling cash. “I’m 30 years old,” she explained, when we asked if she’s still modeling. “I had a good time. But it doesn’t last forever, you know? As long as I’m demanded, I’ll do it, but it’s not my only job. I love being a creative director, and it’s not about money. It’s just what I like to do.”

Asked about the Kanye Kash, David said: “We couldn’t shower people with solely fake money. That’s just a cruel anticlimax.” He noted that guests were encouraged to drop some of the cash into heart-shaped donation boxes at the door, to benefit the charity God’s Love We Deliver.

“We’re not shameless hedonists,” he said.

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Filed Under: kanye west, elliott david, julia estoin-roitfeld

Tamara when she got her OBE in October.

Tamara Mellon sat down with Derek Blasberg at a townhouse on 68th Street yesterday at lunchtime to discuss Jimmy Choo’s latest project, a fragrance, slated to hit Saks early next year. Blasberg asked Mellon questions like they were on Dateline, about why the scent? Why now? “We felt like the timing was right, because we’ve transformed from a shoe brand, which is our core, to a lifestyle luxury brand,” she explained to her friend. “Fragrance gives a woman identity. When a woman comes into the room, you might recognize her by smell. Or if she leaves her scarf behind and you pick it up, you smell her.” Mellon told us her favorite scent is Opium: “That still reminds me of my teenage years.” That’s Opium as in the YSL fragrance, not the drug you smoke. “Oh, God, no! I wasn’t smoking opium [as a teen]. I wasn’t smoking anything. But I love that scent,” she told us after the talk.

Anyway, Mellon, who stars in the fragrance’s ad campaign, said she has a keen sense of smell, but that making the perfume was a learning process: “[My sense of smell is] good! But I had to do a lot of smelling. Oh my God, a lot. You’re thrown into a world you’re not skilled at and you just have to go with what you like and you hope everyone else likes it.” The Jimmy Choo fragrance, we can report, is very girly and does not smell like shoes. “It’s sitting on the right side of sexy, because I think that’s a very fine line,” Mellon explained. So how do you know if you’ve crossed it, then? “It’s a fine line,” she admitted. “It’s a taste level.” Blasberg also asked Mellon about her recent OBE award. “It means order of the British Empire. There are different ranks, the highest being the Dame, and a Sir, like Sir Elton John,” she explained. “I got an OBE, which is like second to that. When a British person has kind of excelled or achieved they get OBE.” Mellon’s fellow OBEs include none other than Anna Wintour.

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Filed Under: smellin’ mellon, beauty, derek blasberg, fragrance, jimmy choo, tamara mellon

Figure-skating star Johnny Weir looked a little out of place in the front row of the Dennis Basso show yesterday, cooling himself with an elaborate Asian fan even though the room’s temperature was quite comfortable. But the middle-aged socialites around him probably wished they could have had their own fans to cover their faces when, during the middle of the show, one of the lithe models had a wardrobe malfunction with her strapless tan dress. She was halfway down the runway when her top slipped down to her waist, exposing her breasts and eliciting audible groans from the audience. Unfazed, the model walked the rest of the runway topless. When she emerged for her second turn on the runway, she received a huge round of applause for her stoicism — including cheers from the sauciest Real Housewives of New York City, Ramona Singer and Sonja Morgan.

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Filed Under: spring 2011, dennis basso, fashion week, new york fashion week, sonja morgan