Current mood:	brotherly
Current music:	Gossip Girl DVD
Entry tags:	balenciaga, decadence, domestic, exsomeone, gucci, just me, marriage, the courts, the dj, the doctor, the stockbroker, war games, wardrobe

indian pink and scuba monogram.
Astrology November 24, 2008 - Newsletter

Break Free ...Don't let the past hold you back!

This is a very noteworthy week as Pluto re-enters ambitious Capricorn on November 26 changing your (and everyone's) focus for the next 16 years. The maverick planet Uranus finally turns direct on November 27 ending its retrograde period that began last June 26. Also on the 27th, the new Moon in to-the-point Sagittarius further assists everyone in their aim. Change is in the air. You will feel very restless if your life circumstances are not a good fit for the person you are today.

now, one would think that my mind would wander to something besides an $805 bracelet from louis vuitton in hot pink neoprene, but it's that silly little object that some how struck a chord with me and my inner aesthetics that's made me keenly aware of the idea of the cross-polination of ideas and the trend-setting power of just one campaign. now, i know hot pink's been around for sometime as it's permanently plastered in my memory from the jem and the hologram days (and when i went to bond street in new york last summer for sara's birthday), however, i've noticed it popping up more recently with the hermes campaign from spring and the vuitton campaign from resort and even in a marc jacobs shirt i stumbled upon on yoox.com. it started when i located my burberry breast cancer awareness lambswool muffler with the hot pink detailing and decided to pair it with the hot salmon burberry i bought on whim some time back and then with the hot pink express buttondown i bought on another whim and then i saw the ad for the vuitton resort collection and started researching online only to find the miami pink version of the neoprene bracelet and i got far enough to find a store that had it -- union square in san francisco -- but i could not lay out that much money no matter how much status it would afford. could you imagine the perfectly tailored black button down with the ironic pair of black well-cut trouser and the ever imitated pointy boot with this quiet shock of color peeking out every now and again from beneath the cuff? no, this doesn't take away from the ysl loafer, which one might think would fall in price given the supposed lack of money dawdling around our economy, but still sits in the stores at the $595 price point. and why have i dwelt this long on what should serve as nothing more than a passing fascination? because i find it somewhat troubling that some have relegated the fight for equality to something of a similar trifle: yes, i tend to understand why people derive such passion from the idea that we should focus our policy directives in these days and times on the betterment of us all and defending the most vulnerable among us, but i feel that just like my little neoprene hot pink bracelet, the marriage equality fight has the transformative ability to not just spruce up my wrist, but completely change the way people look at eveyrthing else being worn at the time. the marriage equality fight isn't just about equality although at its core, it is. in the end, it's about legitimization from within and without. while i understand that nothing erodes a bedrock like hatred except time and education, i firmly believe that assimilation and normalization go such a long way in taking away the justifications for hatred. as long as someone's able to label someone else the "other," they have rational costumes to dress up their biases. and i'm sure it'll have to be the courts. and it'll take a while to percolate in the states. because schwarzenegger robbed the people of california from having the first legislature-passed marriage equality act. and connecticut reinforced the conservative talking point that judges keep pushing this issue on the people. and florida and arizona proved that even when the issue gets decided, it's not over. arizona just put it on the ballot again -- something that might happen again in california -- and florida has rebirthed the issue under the auspices of adoption (more on that later since in this way, it's even more clear how crazily unequal this country remains). however, i'm given hope by new york because it's a state that has the politic and the legislature to do something. a court that left it up to them. and a populace that could sustain it. and iowa. and then we just need obama and the congress not to do anything radical, just repeal doma or parts of doma or appoint judges that'll do it for us. some say that in a time of crisis like this it's imprudent to push something as tangential as mariage equality as wall street melts down and the world erupts into terror, but i feel like it's the opportune moment because there's no better time for everyone in the world to feel equal and focused and to make people who fight against that equality feel small and discordant with the world. and let's not say the american people aren't ready because we thought they hadn't moved beyond race either and it's true that in crisis people really do set aside difference.

now, nothing's happened much in my life: in fact, i've coasted for the past week. not only have i found myself barely going to work let alone concentrating and at pier one, i have mishandled the closing procedures so much that i feel my job's in jeopardy right before i need it the most. what else? the exsomeone went out of town to ohio for the week. the stockbroker got back into town last weekend and we have a date next monday. my sister's in town and we saw "quantum of solace" again. thanksgiving stood as an uneventful holiday where for three nights in a row i should've gone out and have not opting rather to sit in and obsess about new years' parties, outfits, and financing. what else? i didn't make budget by far. my former desk mate did. i felt fat since i'm gorging on quizno's cinnamon sugar cookies on the regular. but then my new favorite coworker told me that i'm withering away. oh yeah, the dj e-mailed me this week. before thanksgiving. and the doctor called on thanksgiving. the stockbroker did not. time to pop the beaujoulais.

post-script: during my beaujoulais-fueled Gossip Girl marathon with the sis', the exsomeone called and we're meeting up tomorrow night for the biannual drive to nowhere florida.

In Just Minutes, Mumbai Was Under Siege
Young Gunmen Exploited Coastline Vulnerabilities to Slip Into City and Methodically Spread Terror

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 1, 2008; A01

MUMBAI, Nov. 30 -- It was just after dinner, about 9 p.m., when the fishermen noticed four strangers come ashore on an inflatable raft. Moments later, another four pulled up to the boat launch in a speedboat. Only two got out of the boat. They were young, muscular men, with backpacks and bulky duffel bags slung across their shoulders.

At least one of the fishermen was instantly suspicious and asked the strangers what they were doing. "One of them turned around and said in heavily accented Hindi: 'Don't hassle me. I'm in a terrible mood.' We got nervous and just left them alone," said a 25-year-old fisherman who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The strangers flagged down two taxis and sped off toward the Oberoi Trident hotel in Nariman Point. It would be among the first stops in a trail of death and destruction spanning 10 sites and three days that left 174 people dead and 239 wounded.

The mayhem struck at the very heart of Mumbai, a roiling soup of mansions, high-rises, faded Victorian government buildings and vast, heaving shantytowns. It is a sprawling metropolis of more than 14 million, home to the country's stock market and the Bollywood film industry, as well as a destination for vast numbers of migrant workers searching for better lives.

Retracing the steps of the Mumbai attackers offers clues as to how a posse of just 10 gunmen brought India's largest city to its knees in a matter of minutes Wednesday night and kept it terrorized until the last shot was fired Saturday afternoon.

It started at the fishing colony near Badhwar Park -- about a mile from the beachside Oberoi Trident -- where about 10,000 people in ramshackle huts eke out a living in a murky inlet of the Arabian Sea.

"It's a slum area. We didn't think to protect it," said L. Sankla, one of the police officers who, since the attacks, has been assigned to watch over the boat launch. A second team of gunmen is thought to have come ashore Wednesday night at another landing site, near the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel.

The lax security along Mumbai's coastline gave the heavily armed assailants the perfect opportunity to quietly slip into the heart of the city, security experts said.

"It could have been done only through the sea route," said an Indian intelligence officer familiar with terrorist groups in Pakistan and bombing investigations in India. "For an attack this big, if they had chosen the land route, they would have had to involve a large number of Indian people for logistics. And when you use too many Indians, the chance of exposure is more. This is a precision operation, known only to a small number of people -- the planners, the operators and the executors."

After landing, the gunmen fanned out across the city, most likely in groups of two or three. Within half an hour, they had hit about five sites: the city's main rail station, a Jewish center at the Nariman House, the Leopold Cafe, and the Oberoi and Taj hotels.

About 9:35 p.m., they shot their way past the security guards in front of the Oberoi. Once inside, they started firing into the air, eyewitnesses said.

Around the same time, two gunmen farther south opened fire outside the Leopold Cafe, a hangout popular with backpackers and other tourists. The attackers fired from the sidewalk for more than a minute, killing seven people, including three foreigners, said Farhang Jehani, an eyewitness and the owner of the 137-year-old cafe.

"It seemed like they were in a hurry," he said. "It was as if they wanted to shoot as many people as they could even though this was not their main target. Their motive might have been to divert the police, who have a station across the street, to keep them occupied as they headed to the Taj hotel."

The back entrance to the Taj, where the attackers went next, is about a three-minute walk from the Leopold through a narrow alley bounded by rug shops, street-food vendors and a pharmacy.

Bharat Waghela and his older brother were in their family's pharmacy when they heard shots being fired from the road. Their oldest brother, Subash, came running from across the street to pull down the store's metal shutters when the gunmen appeared in the alley and began firing indiscriminately into some of the shops. Subash was hit in the abdomen and left hand.

"My brother fell down and was lying in a pool of his blood," Bharat Waghela said. "When the two gunmen left toward the Taj, we took him to a clinic and then to a hospital."

Subash died later that day.

Most of the Taj's security guards, some of whom were armed, are concentrated at the hotel's front entrance. The two attackers who passed the Waghela pharmacy joined two gunmen who had come down another alley, according to police. Together they entered the Taj through the back, rushing past the hotel's elegant swimming pool before entering its main lobby.

About two miles from the Leopold Cafe and the Taj is Mumbai's main rail station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, or CST, where two young men in black T-shirts, backpacks slung across their chests and backs, started firing their assault rifles indiscriminately and lobbing grenades onto the train platforms, killing 48 people and wounding many more.

In the station's main waiting area is the Re-Fresh restaurant. During the attack, its plate-glass windows were riddled with more than a dozen bullet holes, leaving huge, spidery cracks near a pastry case.

"I was sitting in our upstairs cafe when I thought the electricity had cut out," said Irshad Khan, 26, one of the restaurant's managers. "There was a lot of gunfire. I looked outside and saw people running helter-skelter. It was total chaos. At least 12 people died right on the spot."

Sebastian D'Souza, a photographer for the Mumbai Mirror newspaper, took several photos of the attackers as they rampaged through the station.

"There were armed policemen hiding all around the station, but none of them did anything," D'Souza told reporters afterward. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them! They're sitting ducks,' but they just didn't shoot back."

According to several eyewitnesses, the assailants were in the station for up to 20 minutes before leaving through a side entrance. Back on a main street, they opened fire on several nearby targets, most of them within view of the side entrance, including the Times of India and the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai buildings.

The two gunmen then commandeered a police vehicle, killing three officers and wounding a fourth. The officers had been responding to a call from Cama Hospital about shots fired, said the lone survivor, police constable Arun Jadhav, who was in the vehicle but played dead.

Cama Hospital, a charity for women that is less than 10 minutes by car from the CST, had been attacked about 10:15 p.m., most likely by a separate group of gunmen. At least three hospital workers and two police officers were killed.

In the police vehicle, the gunmen sped west toward the Metro movie theater, a 70-year-old landmark about half a mile from the rail station.

The art deco theater overlooks a major traffic intersection, where the gunmen opened fire on bystanders, injuring several. From that intersection, it is a fairly straight drive south along Mahatma Gandhi Road, past the Bombay Stock Exchange, to the Taj. But the two gunmen in the vehicle were intercepted at Chowpatty, a beach on Mumbai's far west side.

Police killed one of the gunmen. The other, a 21-year-old Pakistani national named Azam Amir Kasab, was arrested. Mumbai police confirmed that Kasab was one of the shooters at the rail station.

Police said that after hours of interrogation, Kasab admitted that the operation had been launched from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, from where the attackers initially set out by boat. They reportedly hijacked a fishing trawler along the way. Police later found the trawler, along with the captain's body -- his throat cut and his hands bound with rope. The gunmen had killed the trawler's four other crew members and dumped the bodies overboard.

By the time Kasab was arrested, the sieges of the Jewish center and the Oberoi and Taj hotels were well underway. The nightmare would not end until Saturday afternoon, when police said the last of Kasab's nine comrades was killed.

"How could so few young guys take a city down?" asked Rangoli Garg, 18, nursing a leg wound suffered as she fled the Taj amid a hail of bullets. "Somehow these men owned us. They took over our city."

Correspondent Rama Lakshmi in New Delhi and special correspondent Ria Sen in Mumbai contributed to this report.

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For Gays in India, Fear Rules
Blackmailers Thrive Using Law That Makes Homosexuality a Crime

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 15, 2008; A13

BANGALORE, India -- Even with the white horse rented, his gold-speckled turban fitted and the wedding hall lined up, Mahesh did not feel ready to get married, at least not to a woman.

The shy computer engineer is gay.

But Mahesh went ahead with the elaborate ceremony in May because someone he had befriended online blackmailed him -- threatening to tell his parents unless he paid $5,500.

Severely depressed and suffering from insomnia, Mahesh recently swallowed a dozen painkillers. He survived. But his blackmailer heard he was in the hospital and demanded more cash to keep his secret.

Three months later, Mahesh says he is broke and taking several antidepressants. He is still married.

"I really don't want to die. But I also don't want to keep lying," said the 24-year-old, who spoke from a counseling center and asked to be called by his first name. "I feel so trapped. According to the law, my blackmailer can report me and have me arrested."

That's because homosexuality is illegal in the world's biggest democracy. The Indian penal code describes the act as "against the order of nature" and declares it punishable by 10 years to life in prison, longer than most rape or murder sentences.

But several human rights groups are now mounting a historic challenge to the law, imposed by the British in 1860, in the New Delhi High Court. The effort to repeal the law is seen as a test case of India's commitment to secular democracy, with some legal experts saying that moral or religious arguments cannot trump constitutional rights in a democratic society. A verdict is expected before the end of the year.

The challenge comes during a time of sweeping social changes for India's younger generation. Three-quarters of the country's 1.1 billion people are younger than 35, and more and more of them are living away from home and working for multinational companies, which often have policies that protect employees from discrimination based on their sexual preferences. Many young gay men and lesbians say they find slightly more acceptance working in the international call-center and information technology industries. They also take heart from the broader trend among young Indians of favoring so-called love marriages over arranged partnerships.

"There's real hope that the growing freedom in love and in career mobility for new India's young generation can start to dissolve boundaries for gay and lesbian Indians, too," said Arvind Narrain, 33, an attorney with the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore, which is pressing for the repeal of the law. "But there are still a lot of problems, especially with blackmail and harassment, which is made possible by the law. We have a long fight ahead."

Being gay is increasingly accepted in India's artistic and literary communities. Nobel economics laureate Amartya Sen and writer Vikram Seth have backed the push to decriminalize homosexual acts, launching an effort among filmmakers and fashion designers to speak out in behalf of gay rights.

A new Bollywood movie called "Dostana," or "Friendship," has its worldwide release this weekend and breaks new ground with two gay characters. Still, the Hindi heroes pretend to be gay to save money on rent and seduce their alluring roommate -- more "Three's Company" than "Brokeback Mountain."

In reality, gay and lesbian Indians say, they have few places to meet openly, and studies show that they often lead dangerous, closeted lives, with high rates of suicide and mental illness. Lesbians have reported being fired from their jobs and raped for not being feminine enough. Most gay Indians are married, often with children, and have covert relationships with lovers, activists said.

That's part of the reason blackmail has become a thriving mini-industry here, illustrating just how powerful the law is in daily life.

"In India, blackmail is the perfect crime," said Vikram Doctor, a gay activist and writer. "It's possible because there are so many closeted victims in India, where being gay is a crime. They can't fight back or follow through on a complaint. There's little refuge in the law unless it is amended."

Even in cosmopolitan cities such as Bangalore, the gay community is seen as a secret club where a special pass is needed to attend gay nights at an underground bar.

Throughout India's history, homosexuality has been largely taboo. Nonetheless, the transgender community enjoyed some social acceptance in the cultural traditions of Hinduism and Islam in India, and some tribal groups see lesbians as having mystical powers. But European missionaries and British rule further demonized homosexuality, and the country's pulpits are to this day bastions of anti-gay rhetoric.

India remains a largely conservative nation. Not only is marriage a societal duty, it also drives economic activity, activists said. As India's middle and upper classes expand, so do the enormous dowries given to grooms and their parents by brides' families. The dowries, though technically illegal, almost always include a car for the new couple, along with an apartment and often large amounts of wedding gold.

"Being gay is hard all over the world. But try it in India, where being blackmailed is every boy's fear," said Khaleel Syed, 21, a somber-looking computer technician in Bangalore who is open about his sexuality with his friends but not with his family. "I'm taking a risk. Because in India there is just unbelievable pressure to get married. Those working in blackmail know this. So we can never really be ourselves, be free."

Blackmail rackets have taken hold recently in India's cities, largely because of the Internet, Doctor said. Blackmailers cruise chat rooms, flirt and set up dates. They then extort money from their victims.

Bhavna Paliwal, a "wedding detective" who is hired to ferret out the truth about prospective mates, said she often discovers grooms who are gay and being blackmailed.

"Their lives are so stressful," she said, adding that many cry when they are caught and beg not to be exposed. "Being gay is one of the most well-guarded and shockingly common secrets in marriages. The blackmailers can rob them blind."

Gay Bombay, a support group in Mumbai, recently posted a warning on its Web site about a gang of criminals targeting young gay men.

This summer, Mumbai police even apprehended one of their own, Sub-inspector Ashok Temkar, who was arrested along with four associates for repeatedly extorting money from gay men.

The gay men would meet Temkar on a social networking Web site and arrange a face-to-face date. Then several men dressed in police uniforms would demand money and take the men's cellphones and wallets, saying that being gay was illegal. The extortionists were caught because they were doing this so frequently, amassing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, phones and jewelry.

"It was Thursday night, June 4. I found a gay room in yahoo messenger. I started looking. I was invited by a guy of 21 years old," a young man wrote in an online warning on Gay Bombay's Web site. "When we reached, there were three guys not one. They demanded we go to a police station. They wanted 10,000 rupees. I had 3,000. He said he would call my wife. I said I would have to get a loan from my work. In fact, I had to seek that. Please everyone beware that this blackmail is spreading through our community."

Many young gay activists say the time is right to challenge the prejudices that feed blackmail and start a wider discussion here on what being gay really means.

"Gay rights is growing by leaps and bounds in India," said Ponni Arasu, 24, a lesbian who is working to change the law. "But if this is the new India, we should leave the old law behind. It's too dangerous a law to live with."

© 2008 The Washington Post Company

###

Printed from THE TIMES OF INDIA

Judiciary cannot legalise gay sex: Centre
2 Dec 2008, 1915 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: The Centre has questioned the power of the judiciary for legalising gay sex in the country and said that courts should refrain from doing so as it might amount to encroaching legislative functions.

"The court is not the authority to decide what should be the law or what should not be the law. These are the functions of the Parliament and the will of the Parliament is represented by its members. They know the will of their people, the difficulties of their people," Additional Solicitor General P P Malhotra said.

"It may not be proper for the court to assume the role and will of the people or to act as a Parliament to change the law," he said in his 100-page written submission filed in the Delhi High Court.

Centre's response came on a PIL filed by gay rights activists seeking court's direction for legalising gay sex among consenting adults in private.

Gay sex at present, is an offence in the country and Section 377 of Indian Penal Code provides a punishment upto life imprisonment for indulging in such acts.

"What are the laws and what could be the law should be left to the wisdom of the Parliament. Neither the Courts are equipped nor is it the function of the Court to decide what the law should be. The Courts have only to interpret the law as it is," the ASG said.

The government said that homosexual traits are reflection of perverse mind which could adversly impact Indian culture if it is decriminalised.

Copyright © 2008 Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reserved. For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service

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Power struggle complicates NY bid for gay marriage
By Edith Honan Edith Honan
Wed Nov 26, 11:47 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York is close to becoming the first U.S. state to pass legislation making gay marriage legal but, like many political issues in the state capital Albany, it has fallen victim to a power struggle.

Democrats won a majority in the upper house Senate for the first time in more than 40 years in the November 4 election, but three Democratic senators refuse to back fellow Democratic Sen. Malcolm Smith as majority leader without concessions.

The Republicans could regain their power in the Senate if the three Democratic senators, who include longtime gay marriage opponent Sen. Ruben Diaz, opt to vote with them.

"I will not give my vote to a leader that will bring gay marriage to the state," Diaz, a Pentecostal minister, said in an interview. "Have a voter referendum. Let the people decide."

Connecticut and Massachusetts are the only U.S. states that allow same-sex marriage as a result of court rulings. No state legislature has instituted gay marriage into law.

After Californian voters passed Prop 8 on November 4 reversing the state's Supreme Court decision in May to allow same-sex marriage, the next battleground state for gay marriage is expected to be New York. The New York Assembly passed a marriage bill in June 2007 but the Senate has yet to act.

The Senate power struggle has delayed appointment of a majority leader until January and upset gay rights activists who believed gay marriage would be legalized once Democrats took control of the Senate.

Albany has a reputation for bickering and power struggles, which critics say was demonstrated when the legislature last week rejected Democratic Gov. David Paterson's emergency budget cuts for many reasons, including the Senate leadership battle.

Gay marriage has broad support in the Democratic-controlled lower house, the State Assembly, where it passed in a vote of 85 to 61 last year. It was never put to a vote in the upper house when the Republicans controlled the Senate.

Paterson, who in May ordered all state agencies to recognize out-of-state gay marriages, has said he would sign such a bill into law.

"It's going to happen. It's not an if, it's a when," said Sen. Tom Duane, a same-sex marriage campaigner.

Gay rights groups say they are still hopeful New York and New Jersey legislatures will pass gay marriage bills as soon as 2009 and are unfazed by the New York State Senate leadership struggle.

"When the dust settles, and we do consider it dust, there will be a Democratic majority leader who will put forth a marriage equality bill," said Marty Rouse, national field director for Human Rights Campaign, a major U.S. gay rights group.

Alan Van Capelle, executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda, said the gay marriage issue had not proven to be toxic as none of the Republican assembly members who voted for same-sex marriage in 2007 were voted out of office.

But Duane Motley, executive director of the Christian lobby group New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, said that even if Smith is named majority leader, passage of gay marriage is by no means assured.

"It's not a done deal," he said. "The rank and file people of New York State are not in favor of homosexual marriages."

Smith has not said publicly how he will handle the gay marriage issue if he is made majority leader at the next legislative session in January.

"Rebuilding New York's economy comes first," Smith said in a statement. "Beyond that, I will govern by the consensus of my conference and allow legislation from either party to be openly debated on the Senate floor."

(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Anthony Boadle)

Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

###

November 25, 2008
Editorial
California’s Legal Tangle
The approval of Proposition 8 in California, a constitutional change designed to prohibit marriage between couples of the same sex, was not just a defeat for fairness. It raised serious legal questions about the validity of using the Election Day initiative process to obliterate an existing right for a targeted minority.

These deeper questions were largely lost during the expensive campaign by proponents of Proposition 8. Essentially, in their rush to enshrine bigotry in the State Constitution, they circumvented the procedure specified in that same document for making such a serious change. Now, the state’s top court, which has agreed to hear the legal challenge to Proposition 8, has the unpleasant duty of tossing out a voter-approved ballot measure.

The case turns on whether Proposition 8 is a constitutional amendment, requiring only approval by a bare majority of voters, or a more far-reaching constitutional revision, requiring a two-step process: either a constitutional convention or a two-thirds vote of the State Legislature followed by voter ratification. The court, which has struck down several measures before, should not lightly overturn the will of the people. But it has not confronted a revision this far-reaching in terms of upsetting basic rights and the state’s constitutional structure.

The court has correctly determined that the equal protection clause prohibits governmental discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, which extends the right of marriage to same-sex couples. But the issue goes well beyond gay rights. Allowing Proposition 8 to stand would greatly limit the court’s ability to uphold the basic rights of all Californians and preclude the Legislature from performing its constitutional duty to weigh such monumental changes before they go to voters.

Treating Proposition 8 as a mere amendment would set a precedent that could allow the rights of any minority group to be diminished by a small majority. The measure passed 52 percent to 48 percent.

In California, sitting judges are subject to elections, and some supporters of Proposition 8 raise the threat of trying to oust justices who do not go along with trouncing on people’s rights and proper constitutional procedure. We trust the court will not be intimidated. The justices’ job is to protect minority rights and the State Constitution — even when, for the moment at least, it may not be the popular thing to do.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-iowa27-2008nov27,0,4677334.story?track=rss

From the Los Angeles Times
Iowa's gay marriage ban goes before high court
The state Supreme Court will hear arguments next month about whether the Defense of Marriage Act - briefly struck down last year - is unconstitutional.
By P.J. Huffstutter

November 27, 2008

Reporting from Fort Wayne, Ind. — The national fight over same-sex marriage is coming to a peak in Iowa, where the state's highest court will hear arguments next month over whether the state's ban on gay unions is unconstitutional.

The debate over the future of Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act, a decade-old law that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, comes after a ruling by a lower court judge last year.

Iowa District Court for Polk County Judge Robert Hanson ruled in August 2007 that the act violated the state constitutional rights of equal protection and due process. The ruling stood for less than 24 hours before a Polk County attorney filed an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.

But in the nearly nine business hours that same-sex marriage was legal in the Hawkeye State, dozens of couples applied for licenses. Only one couple -- a pair of Iowa State University undergraduates -- was able to move fast enough to obtain a license and rush through a ceremony before the stay was enacted.

Now, both national advocates and opponents of same-sex marriage say they will closely monitor the Dec. 9 hearing in Des Moines. Both sides say they wonder whether the recent passage of Proposition 8 in California, which banned gay marriage, will influence the outcome in Iowa, and whether the issue of same-sex unions will return to the forefront as state legislatures return to session early next year.

More than half of the country's states have a law that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman, according to research by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

And after the Connecticut Supreme Court invalidated that state's ban on same-sex marriages last month, there are now two states -- including Massachusetts -- where marriage licenses can be legally issued to gay couples.

California used to be in that category. In May, the state Supreme Court overturned the state's gay marriage ban. But after California voters passed Proposition 8 this month, same-sex marriage was banned once again and the fate of thousands of same-sex unions was thrown into doubt.

Last week, California's highest court agreed to review legal challenges to the proposition.

Given that two state Supreme Courts are likely to weigh in on the subject next year, and that many state legislatures were in recess during California's fight over the matter, "I think it's highly likely that lawmakers across the country will be looking to get something on the ballot in 2009," said Christine Nelson, a policy analyst who focuses on same-sex marriage and family law for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Camilla Taylor, lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the case appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, said it was not about issues of faith.

"All we're talking about is government-issued marriage licenses," said Taylor, who works for Lambda Legal. The national gay rights organization filed a lawsuit in 2005 on behalf of six same-sex Iowa couples; it was later amended to include three children whose parents are plaintiffs.

"There comes a point when you can't tell people to hold off on getting married any longer," Taylor said. "We felt the time was right, and that Iowans would give us a fair hearing."

But Bryan English, a spokesman for the Iowa Family Policy Center, which opposes same-sex marriage, said: "Iowa marriage law is settled, simple and overwhelmingly supported by the people of Iowa. We're just hopeful the Supreme Court will uphold the law."

In Iowa, officials with the Polk County attorney's office declined to comment on the impending Supreme Court debate.

Until a final ruling is issued, Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan won't know how long their marriage will remain legally recognized in Iowa.

On the morning of Aug. 31, 2007, the two college students filled out the paperwork for a marriage license in Polk County, paid $5 to waive the normal three-day waiting period and found a judge to sign the waiver form.

A pastor at the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines agreed to hold a quickly organized wedding on his front lawn, where it was witnessed by family and more than a dozen reporters.

Less than an hour after the couple received their marriage license, Hanson placed a hold on his ruling, pending the appeal.

That sort of rushed nuptial didn't appeal to either Jen BarbouRoske, 38, or her partner of more than 18 years, Dawn BarbouRoske. The couple -- plaintiffs in the case going before the Iowa Supreme Court -- has long wanted to get married in their hometown of Iowa City, for themselves and their two daughters.

" 'Marriage' describes the relationship Dawn and I have," said Jen, a nursing supervisor. Besides, she added, "it seems like a silly thing to have to explain to your kids: 'Oh, these are the rights we don't have.' "

Huffstutter is a Times staff writer.

p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com

###

LOCAL | washingtonblade.com

Black activists urge caution on D.C. marriage bill
Dec. 11 forum to address timing of measure

By LOU CHIBBARO JR
Nov. 28, 2008

Black gay activists in Washington have expressed concern that advocates for legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in the city have not developed a strategy for winning support from black residents, who make up 56.5 percent of the D.C. population.

Following a closed-door meeting last week at the D.C. gay community center, activists representing several local gay groups agreed to call a community-wide forum Dec. 11 to debate whether the City Council should take up a same-sex marriage bill in January.

Gay D.C. Councilmember David Catania (I-At-Large) said he and several of his Council colleagues are considering introducing a same-sex marriage rights bill in the Council’s first legislative session in 2009.

All but one of the Council’s 13 members have said they support legalizing same-sex marriage, but most have said they weren’t sure of the best time to move ahead with such legislation.

“There needs to be a discussion within the community with a diverse group of people to make sure there’s a consensus to move ahead with this,” said Darrin Glymph, vice president of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest gay political group.

“Then, if you decide to go forward, you need to reach out to the entire D.C. community, including the faith community and the African-American community.”

Glymph and other black gay activists pointed to the approval by voters in California of Proposition 8 as an example of a failed strategy for reaching out to minority voters. The proposition, which passed by a margin of 52 to 48 percent, amended California’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

A CNN exit poll showed that 69 percent of black voters in California supported Proposition 8; subsequent reports have suggested the number might be closer to 57 percent. U.S. Census Bureau figures show that blacks make up 6.7 percent of the population in California.

With blacks making up nearly 57 percent of the population in D.C., black gay activists said gay marriage supporters must redouble their efforts to reach out to blacks and other minorities in the District.

“I don’t know if we can obtain the allies to help us defeat a referendum in the District,” said Carlene Cheatam, one of the founding members of the D.C. Coalition of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Men & Women.

“I’m not worried about our elected city government,” Cheatam said. “They are all supportive because they equate marriage rights with civil rights. It’s the general population that I’m concerned about.”

Cheatam and Glymph said coalitions and alliances would have to be built between gays and black community institutions, including historic black churches, to educate the community on why the right to marry is a civil right.

But the two said they weren’t sure such coalitions and alliances could be put together in time for a gay marriage bill in January.

Autonomy first?

Black gay activist Brad Lewis, a former Stein Club president who lives in Ward 8, said not all activists believe gay marriage should be at the top of the list of priorities for gays in early 2009.

Lewis said it would be better for gays, and all D.C. residents, if a unified coalition of activists devote their energies in 2009 to persuading Congress to grant the city full budgetary and legislative autonomy.

Lewis said the enlarged Dem-ocratic majority in Congress and the election of Barack Obama as president give the city its best shot at gaining full control of its budget and lawmaking processes.
Longtime D.C. resident Donna Brazile, a veteran Democratic Party strategist and CNN commentator, said she, too, believes congressional voting rights and legislative autonomy for D.C. should be the top priority for the city in 2009.

“I’m a fierce supporter of marriage equality,” Brazile said. “But that’s not the point here. The point is if we had legislative autonomy, legislative and budget autonomy, we wouldn’t have to worry about Congress.”

Even if Congress were to grant the city budget and legislative autonomy, some in the black gay community believe other issues impacting gays should be given a higher priority than marriage.
Glymph said many in the community feel issues such as HIV/AIDS and homeless youth are more pressing than marriage.

Brian Watson is the current president of the D.C. Coalition of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Men & Women and program director for Transgender Health Empowerment, a local organization that provides services to the transgender community.

In a Nov. 13 e-mail sent to local activists, Watson criticized the mainstream gay rights movement for its “current frenzy over same-sex marriage.” He noted that developments on the marriage front overshadowed news that Duanna Johnson, a black transgender woman in Memphis, Tenn., had been shot and killed on a street not long after being beaten by police officers in a Memphis jail.

“I find it deeply ironic, and equally tragic, that the topic of ‘gay marriage’ (in the form of the recent controversy over the passage of California’s Prop. 8) once again threatens to monopolize the national queer agenda, while incidents such as Johnson’s death go under the radar,” he said in his e-mail message.

“I continue to believe that the excessive time, money, and political energy that the mainstream queer movement has poured into its push for ‘same-sex marriage’ comes at the expense of public discussions about people like Duanna — people that do not adhere to the upwardly mobile, masculinist narrative that ‘gay marriage’ pundits so often subscribe to,” Watson wrote.

The Blade reported on Duanna’s death and the death of another transgender woman in an article published Nov. 21.

Watson told the Blade this week that he and other black gays he talks to regularly have mixed feelings over whether the City Council should move forward with a same-sex marriage bill in January.

“I think there are other priorities in the African-American GLBT community,” he said. “And I think the evidence was apparent when I looked at the march here [against Proposition 8] a week or two ago. I could count on one hand the number of African Americans that I knew from D.C. that were there.

“And there really weren’t that many African Americans, period, who were there.”

‘The worst thing that could happen’

One local activist who attended the Nov. 19 closed D.C. Center meeting on the timing of a gay marriage bill in the District said sentiment similar to that expressed by Watson could be harmful to efforts to pass a marriage bill.

“The worst thing that could happen for the marriage movement in D.C. would be for a bill to be introduced in the Council and a group of ministers and a group from the gay community says this isn’t the right time,” the activist said.

According to the activist, representatives of local gay groups organized the Center meeting as a means for giving people a chance to present their views on Catania’s plan to introduce a D.C. same-sex marriage bill outside the glare of the media. The activist said no decisions were made on behalf of the community at that meeting and that organizers intended all along to call an open, community-wide forum to help make decisions on the timing of a marriage bill.

Michael Crawford, co-founder of the local gay group D.C. for Marriage and one of the facilitators of the D.C. Center meeting, declined to comment on the meeting.

He said organizers of the Dec. 11 community forum on marriage hope to build unity within the gay community on the marriage issue. He noted the best way to do that is to build a broad consensus within the community over a strategy for moving forward on gay marriage in the city.

Crawford called the upcoming forum a “fantastic opportunity for members of the community to talk about their thoughts on how we move forward on marriage and whether or not a bill introduced in January will be the best thing for our community.”

He said most activists are pleased that members of the City Council are pushing to make same-sex marriage a reality in the city. But he noted that many activists, himself included, have doubts about whether the gay community and its allies have the resources and grassroots organization to fight an anti-gay referendum to ban same-sex marriage in the District.

“Getting it through the City Council and signing it into law by Mayor Fenty is only step one,” Crawford said. “We also need to be able to defend against a repeal effort at the ballot as well as deal with the potential fallout from members of Congress.”

Rick Rosendall, vice president of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance, has said an issue as volatile as gay marriage in the nation’s capital is likely to draw opposition from moderate and conservative-leaning Democrats as well as Republicans in Congress. Under the city’s current home rule charter, Congress has authority to block or overturn any D.C. law.

“When you pick a fight, you have to be ready to wage it,” Rosendall said. “We have had conversations with a number of community leaders. None of them think we’re ready to do this.”

The Blade attempted to contact ministers at several of the city’s most prominent black churches to determine where they and their congregations stand on a D.C. gay marriage bill. None had responded at deadline.

Among those called were Rev. Walter Fauntroy, the city’s former congressional delegate and founding pastor of the 19th Street Baptist Church. In 2004, Fauntroy joined conservative religious leaders in supporting a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

Other ministers contacted, and who did not return calls, were Rev. Willie Wilson, pastor of the influential Union Temple Baptist Church in Anacostia, and Archbishop George Stallings, pastor of Imani Temple African American Catholic Congregation on Capitol Hill. Both are considered part of the city’s politically influential black clergy.

Terry Lynch, director of the city’s Downtown Cluster of Congregations, said he has not received word from any of the prominent black churches over whether they would follow the example of California, where many prominent black clergy backed Proposition 8 to overturn same-sex marriage rights.

Rev. Dyan Abena McCray, pastor of Unity Fellowship Church, which has a mostly black gay congregation, and Rev. Charlie Arehart, pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of D.C., which also has a largely gay congregation, said they would support a same-sex marriage bill.

Both said they believe members of their church would also support such a bill.

“I think we could get it passed,” McCray said. “There are unbelievable amounts of people in our community who want to get married and have those rights,” she said. “I think they would do the work to make it happen.”

Arehart said he would do all he could to help pass a gay marriage bill in the District. But he noted that he is new to D.C. and that he would turn to his assistant pastor, Rev. Mark Byrd, and the MCC music ministry director, Shirley Hughes, who have ties to D.C. area black churches for advice on how to best advocate for a same-sex marriage bill. Byrd and Hughes did not return calls by deadline.

The Dec. 11 community forum on a D.C. same-sex marriage bill is scheduled to be held at 7 p.m. at the Human Rights Campaign’s Equality Center at 1649 Rhode Island Ave., N.W.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2008 The Washington Blade | A Window Media Publication

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November 29, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Gay Marriage and a Moral Minority
By CHARLES M. BLOW

We now know that blacks probably didn’t tip the balance for Proposition 8. Myth busted. However, the fact remains that a strikingly high percentage of blacks said they voted to ban same-sex marriage in California. Why?

There was one very telling (and virtually ignored) statistic in CNN’s exit poll data that may shed some light: There were far more black women than black men, and a higher percentage of them said that they voted for the measure than the men. How wide was the gap? According to the exit poll, 70 percent of all blacks said that they voted for the proposition. But 75 percent of black women did. There weren’t enough black men in the survey to provide a reliable percentage for them. However, one can mathematically deduce that of the raw number of survey respondents, nearly twice as many black women said that they voted for it than black men.

Why? Here are my theories:

(1) Blacks are much more likely than whites to attend church, according to a Gallup report, and black women are much more likely to attend church than black men. Anyone who has ever been to a black church can attest to the disparity in the pews. And black women’s church attendance may be increasing.

According to a report issued this spring by Child Trends, a nonprofit research center, weekly church attendance among black 12th graders rose 26 percent from 1993 to 2006, while weekly church attendance for white 12th graders remained virtually flat. In 2006, those black teenagers were nearly 50 percent more likely to attend church once a week than their white counterparts. And it is probably safe to assume that many of them were going to church with their mothers since Child Trends reported that around the time that they were born, nearly 70 percent of all black children were born to single mothers.

(2) This high rate of church attendance by blacks informs a very conservative moral view. While blacks vote overwhelmingly Democratic, an analysis of three years of national data from Gallup polls reveals that their views on moral issues are virtually indistinguishable from those of Republicans. Let’s just call them Afropublicrats.

(3) Marriage can be a sore subject for black women in general. According to 2007 Census Bureau data, black women are the least likely of all women to be married and the most likely to be divorced. Women who can’t find a man to marry might not be thrilled about the idea of men marrying each other.

Proponents of gay marriage would do well to focus on these women if they want to win black votes. A major reason is that black women vote at a higher rate than black men. In the CNN national exit poll, there were 40 percent more black women than black men, and in California there were 50 percent more. But gay marriage advocates need to hone their strategy to reach them.

First, comparing the struggles of legalizing interracial marriage with those to legalize gay marriage is a bad idea. Many black women do not seem to be big fans of interracial marriage either. They’re the least likely of all groups to intermarry, and many don’t look kindly on the black men who intermarry at nearly three times the rate that they do, according to a 2005 study of black intermarriage rates in the Wisconsin Law Review. Wrong reference. Don’t even go there.

Second, don’t debate the Bible. You can’t win. Religious faith is not defined by logic, it defies it. Instead, decouple the legal right from the religious rite, and emphasize the idea of acceptance without endorsement.

Then, make it part of a broader discussion about the perils of rigidly applying yesterday’s sexual morality to today’s sexual mores. Show black women that it backfires. The stigma doesn’t erase the behavior, it pushes it into the shadows where, devoid of information and acceptance, it become more risky.

For instance, most blacks find premarital sex unacceptable, according to the Gallup data. But, according to data from a study by the Guttmacher Institute, blacks are 26 percent more likely than any other race to have had premarital sex by age 18, and the pregnancy rate for black teens is twice that of white teens. They still have premarital sex, but they do so uninformed and unprotected.

That leads to a bigger problem. According to a 2004 report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black women have an abortion rate that is three times that of white women.

More specifically, blacks overwhelmingly say that homosexuality isn’t morally acceptable. So many black men hide their sexual orientations and engage in risky behavior. This has resulted in large part in black women’s becoming the fastest-growing group of people with H.I.V. In a 2003 study of H.I.V.-infected people, 34 percent of infected black men said they had sex with both men and women, while only 6 percent of infected black women thought their partners were bisexual. Tragic. (In contrast, only 13 percent of the white men in the study said they had sex with both men and women, while 14 percent of the white women said that they knew their partners were bisexual.)

So pitch it as a health issue. The more open blacks are to the idea of homosexuality, the more likely black men would be to discuss their sexual orientations and sexual histories. The more open they are, the less likely black women would be to put themselves at risk unwittingly. And, the more open blacks are to homosexuality over all, the more open they are likely to be to gay marriage. This way, everyone wins.

E-mail chblow@nytimes.com

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

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Balenciaga

PARIS, October 5, 2002
By Sarah Mower

Nicolas Ghesquière's distillation of sport influences put Balenciaga far out in front of everyone else. Instead of scoring easy points by throwing in the inevitable track pant or tank, the designer used technical wizardry and intense research to transform surfing, diving and baseball references into streamlined city dressing.

Everything in his spring collection was body defining—cut short, sculpted to the torso and calculated to outline every curve—without losing sight of what the Balenciaga brand is all about: fantastic pants and jackets and distinctive decoration. Tiny dresses, seamed like scuba suits, had patched-in zones of bright Hawaiian surfer prints on the front or shoulder—a slick advance in Ghesquière's exploration of collaged fabric. Other dresses were bound about with drapery that was stitched flat to the body. The crucial Balenciaga pant, which Ghesquière cut with a high waist for the past season, was this time done in stretch fabrics, shaped with complex seaming.

The standout look, certain to send copy artists into overdrive, was worn by Gisele Bündchen; the striped T-shirt with padded shoulders and ribbed skintight pants was about as un-literal a reference to baseball as you can imagine. When it comes to absorbing and recasting influences, Ghesquière is fashion's champion left fielder, and that's what puts him in a different league.



Gucci
June 23, 2008

Gucci’s press notes invoked "the new way in which youth and luxury can seamlessly coexist." The notion that there might be a new generation hungry for her wares has been Frida Giannini’s career impetus. "We don’t care about the old folks talkin’ ‘bout the old style," indeed. Except it wasn’t that "old" catwalk classic that soundtracked her show. Instead, Giannini enlisted MGMT’s "Time to Pretend" ("this is our decision to live fast and die young") to help put her own thumbprint on the heritage of the house.

The Brooklyn duo’s florid style dictated the shape as well as the sound of the collection. The lean tailoring and the neat little leathers that Giannini loves were sneakily overtaken by a creeping jungle of tropical flora and fauna, embroidered, appliquéd, or airbrushed to spectacular effect. Even the shoes weren’t safe. Never mind the embroidered hibiscuses, they also had brightly colored heels of crocodile. Those same flowers were also embroidered on a python jacket, beaded on a biker jacket, and printed trailing up the legs of white jeans. They were so exuberantly, almost vulgarly, lush as to raise a smile. (Giannini did, after all, say that her definition of the collection was "happiness.")

She offered her Tropicana club kids jeans in dégradé shades of sunset or printed with palm fronds; shirts decorated with toucans and parrots; perforated-leather safari shorts…The guy in the parka and striped jeans, fresh off his Vespa, looked almost out of place. He was from Giannini’s old world. Now she has geographically relocated to a fantasyland of rich hippie/gypsy chic. Although the relative restraint of black-and-white jacquard tuxes with their tone-on-tone embroidery harked back to earlier collections when Frida was finding her way, the huge amethyst-and-malachite belt buckles she showed them with were definitely picking up signals from Planet MGMT.

— Tim Blanks



Inside The Plaza’s New Cocktail Den
http://www.raredaily.com/nightlife/the_rose_club_at_the_plaza/

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Well-crafted cocktails. Louis XV-style furniture. Nightlife by Danny A.

You know what you want after the sun sets.

Let Manhattan’s grandest hotel give it to you… introducing The Rose Club at The Plaza. Inhabiting the hallowed walls of the famed Persian Room, The Rose Club offers a unique, no, full-blown royal experience not soon to be forgotten. Ascend the marble staircase to an oasis of soft pink lighting and mahogany-paneled walls, then settle into French-accented furniture with a relaxed, super-exclusive lounge atmosphere. Tonight’s entertainment arrives from Chef Didier Virot (formerly of FR.OG) and a solid cocktail list.

Indulge yourself in the club’s signature drink, the Park Side Smash: a decadent mix of Hennessey VS Cognac, pressed lemon wedges and organic mint leaves.

Soak up a couple.

Just make sure you stay off the balcony.

The Rose Club
Fifth Avenue at Central Park South
Tel: (212) 546-5311, reservations only after 10 p.m.
fairmont.com



Hermès

PARIS, October 6, 2007
By Nicole Phelps

A quick nip into the Hermès boutique on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré on a fall Saturday and what's remarkable, beyond all the euros flying across the counter, is how international the customers are. Jean Paul Gaultier gave a nod to Hermès' increasingly multicultural clientele with a grand tour of India for Spring. It was something of a wink, too, because in signature J.P.G. form, he came close to camp in pursuit of his theme. There was the Hermès-orange backdrop that slowly turned cinnamon as spices drifted down it, and, of course, there was the headgear: turbans done up in colorful silk or crocodile, or the models' own hair twisted and pinned into a curvy topknot.

Gaultier started with white Nehru jackets worn over jodhpurs, proceeded to suede tunics with burnished brass embroidery and safari suits in navy or army green, and followed these with many variations on a colonialist's costume of knit vest over crisp, white button-down and pants tucked into riding boots. He also indulged in a bit of silk-scarf dressing. Evening presented two options: first, reinterpreted ribbon-edged saris swung up over one shoulder, or tunics—these both worn with matching knee pants or leggings—and second, billowy silk gowns with trailing capes in lush jewel tones. Lose the over-the-top props, and these clothes are superluxe and unmistakably Hermès. (Where else can you get a pair of white-croc riding boots?) And that is precisely what all those shoppers are angling for.



Louis Vuitton

NEW YORK, June 19, 2008
By Laird Borrelli-Persson

Marc Jacobs sailed Louis Vuitton smoothly into Resort with a collection of mostly pared-down and shipshape looks. There were trim, belted coat-dresses, and sharp skirts cut from a painterly striped print commissioned from London-based illustrator Tanya Ling. Among the nip-waisted suits was one in a classic Jackie O. silhouette, cleverly freshened up in white leather with black satin bows and worn with teetering wedges. Adding some spice to the safe, ladylike lineup were sexy embellished bathing suits and colorful Grecian draped jersey looks for evening. "[They have] a Miami feeling, which is a bit of a cruise cliché," explained women's studio director Peter Copping. "But why not?"



Arts Partners
Louis Vuitton to toast Stephen Sprouse collection on January 8, partnering with Free Arts NYC
12/19/2008 10:53:00 PM

(NEW YORK) Louis Vuitton's latest Homage to Stephen Sprouse deserves its celebration all its own, and come January 8, the brand's artistic director Marc Jacobs will host a bash in New York to formally unveil the latest Stephen Sprouse-Louis Vuitton collection, which hits stores the following day. The event coincides with the Stephen Sprouse exhibit Rock on Mars, which will be shown at Deitch Projects from January 8-February 28, 2009. For this initiative, Louis Vuitton has partnered with the non-profit organization Free Arts NYC.

"Free Arts is honored to be chosen to be part of this event and partern with Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs," said Liz Hopfan, executive director of Free Arts NYC. "As an arts mentoring organization, Stephen Sprouse's work is an inspiration far beyond the fashion community."

The Stephen Sprouse-Louis Vuitton tale is as long and fascinating as one might expect. It began in the late 1990s, when Marc Jacobs was the newly-installed artistic director of Louis Vuitton and he spotted a painted-over LV trunk while apartment-hunting on rue du Bac. The apartment in question belonged to none other than Charlotte Gainsbourg, and the trunk had been the property of her father Serge Gainsbourg. Jacobs then called Sprouse, an artist he admired for Sprouse's graffiti signature on clothing and art, and months later, models trotted down the Spring 2001 runway carrying graffiti-ed Monogram Speedy and Keepall bags. Almost instantly, they became collector's items. After Sprouse passed away in 2004, Jacobs unveiled a leopard print in his Fall 2007 collection created during their earlier collaboration. A scarf is reproduced each season, and the brand made a sizable donation to New York's National Academy of Design - Stephen Sprouse Scholarship Fund.

The 2009 collection is a reinterpretation of the original collaboration, and it will introduce two new limited-edition leather goods lines, Mongoram Roses and Monogram Graffiti. The rose motif will appear on another Louis Vuitton bag, the Alma, which will be launched in bright new colors of Monogram Vernis. "I did my best, in a very first degree way, to do what I think Stephen would have done, or has done, in terms of fashion," Jacobs said in a statement. Jacobs also created a capsule collection of ready-to-wear in honor of the artist.
ASHLEY BAKER

© 2002-2007 Fashion Week Daily


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