Little Asia now into catering

Is he faux real?

MANILA, Philippines - Joe Zee is the abominable fur man. Elle magazine creative director and erstwhile reality TV star of MTV’s The City took the Chanel faux fur suit out for a spin in New York City for the magazine’s video channel. “Eat your heart out, ladies, I can have Chanel too,” he sasses. Heads turned Zee’s way when took to the streets, a backpack slung on his back, in the middle of summer. A kind stranger approached Zee on the Central Park lawn where the editor took up a spot next to bikini-clad sun-worshippers and asked if he was melting, noting that it was awfully hot to be garbed in fur. Zee’s reply: “It’s hot in a good way.”—BJL

Oil vey

MIAMI — The model is in black, prone and dirty on jagged rocks, netting draped around her legs like a dead sea creature.

There she is again, lying on her back in a feathered dress, and in close up, her hair and face sleek with oil.

A stirring photo spread in the August issue of Vogue Italia was inspired by the Gulf oil spill, leaving readers wondering if the magazine crossed from evocative to insensitive. Editor in chief Franca Sozzani understands the debate stretching from blogosphere to beaches and said the motivation is straightforward.

“The message is to be careful about nature,” she said by telephone from Milan, Italy. “Just to take care more about nature. ... I understand that it could be shocking to see and to look this way in these images.”

The spread, featuring Kristen McMenamy, is titled “Water & Oil” and was shot in Los Angeles by a leading fashion photographer, Steven Meisel. In another of the photos, the gray-haired McMenamy is covered in oil, spitting up water while clutching her neck.

“They are teasing BP. It doesn’t offend me,” said Lauren Crappel of Houma, La., as she slathered sunscreen on a child while unpacking her car in a Pensacola Beach parking lot.

Virginia Contreras of Navarre, Fla., said the photos were making light of the disaster. “I think they are making light of the oil spill. Everyone isn’t going to the beaches and people have lost their jobs here because of the oil,” she said.

Sozzani said the shoot reflects the magazine’s effort to “find an idea that comes from real life... There is nothing political. There is nothing social. It’s only visual. We gave a message but in a visual way.”

Some bloggers weren’t pleased. Dodai Stewart, deputy editor of Jezebel, called the spread inappropriate.

“I didn’t feel it made a statement,” she said in an interview. “I felt that they used the oil spill as a backdrop. There was one picture that had feathers. ... What makes a stronger statement about oil-slicked birds is an oil-slicked bird.”

Miranda Lash, curator of modern and contemporary art at the New Orleans Museum of Art, said artists should be free to take on any topic.

“When I look at it, I feel pain. It evokes pain and a feeling of loss and sadness because this is going to hurt my region for a very long time,” Lash said.

Beth Batton, curator of the permanent collection at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Miss., said in an e-mail that the spread humanizes the condition of the Gulf coast animals and environment.

“Looking at Steven Meisel’s photographs, you know something is terribly wrong because, as sensual as the images are, the human mind understands the toxicity of the oil that has coated model Kristen McMenamy’s skin, hair, and feathery gloves,” she said. — Lisa Orkin Emmanuel

Retro wave

Two fashion figures made an editorial splash recently. Harpers Bazaar, on a retro kick at the moment, featured Jennifer Aniston on the exclusive subscriber cover pulling a Babs. Channeling Barbra Streisand, Aniston sported the long nails, exaggerated eye makeup and signature moue. Aniston’s editorial drew some seriously catty remarks from plenty of critics who noted that the concept was so far out of the actress’s comfort zone it was laugh-out-loud weird. We feel bad for the actress who’s been labeled boring by most people (over here at YStyle, we’re guilty of the same thing) to get a bum rap for trying something new. We appreciate Aniston’s jab at the unfamiliar. So there, Internet.

Rachel Zoe, meanwhile, is taking a stab at modeling. The stylist and QTV designer, best known for her deadpan delivery on her show The Rachel Zoe Project of euphisms like “I die!” and “That is bananas!” is in a Bazaar editorial dubbed, appropriately enough, “I Die” and features the stylist in various Hitchcockian scenes. Designers like Francisco Costa, Marc Jacobs, Vera Wang and Brian Atwood (with whom Zoe has worked with on a limited-edition shoe collab) can be found attempting to stab, choke and electrocute the pin-thin Zoe. The best shot of the bunch? Zoe, buried underneath a mound of pricey accessories, with that other reality TV star Michael Kors posing nonchalantly next to a shovel. —BJL