I was walking the dog down my once-bohemian, now-chichi block the other night, and I saw a good-looking young guy and a fine-looking young gal, arm in arm, strolling toward my favorite ristorante. He was dressed in black, wearing a bowler hat, a slim black coat, and slim black pants, and was carrying an umbrella. Rain was possible. I thought he looked really smart. Usually you only see a bowler or a derby on TV, on something like Deadwood or McCabe and Mrs. Miller or A Clockwork Orange. I can’t think of anyone rocking a bowler significantly since Mr. Steed on The Avengers. Somehow it didn’t look theatrical, but right. Hmm.

Well then I was looking through the men’s runway shows and what do you know? Bowlers! And other Chaplin-like accoutrements, as you’ll note if you look at men.style.com’s top ten looks. Gaultier, Yohji, and Junya Watanabe all featured those crisp, black, short brims. Now, I’m not about to rush out and get myself a bowler. With my big face I’d probably look like Lou Costello. But somehow it does seem strangely right now. Dressed-up looks—eccentric, perhaps, but dressed-up—are back big time. I think we’re seeing a new kind of dandyism, a dressed-up bohemianism.

The Gaultier show was a knockout. The best dandified looks we’ve seen in a long time. Not just bowlers with skinny trousers, but really sharp tailoring, taking Savile Row to the races. I think doing Hermès has rubbed off on the maestro, and the looks were urbane and elegant and snazzy.

Jean-Paul Gaultier’s fall collection is modern dandyism done to perfection. And that’s what dandyism is all about: perfection. This is exuberant, challenging, rakish, and luxurious. It’s about impeccable tailoring with attitude. Gaultier flouts the rules of traditional kit while flaunting its workmanship, quality, and attention to detail. The collection is eccentric and cool, but really wearable. I could get away with most of this stuff, and the bold-striped blazer and pants are things I’d give up pasta to get into.

Every season the men’s shows have some interesting new directions and some well-calculated outrages, and this one was no different. It’s getting so men’s runway is as arty and nutty as the women’s. I don’t know if it’s Barack Obama’s Kennedy vibe coming on, but I’m feeling all sixties again. And there was a lot of stuff on the runway that would have captured the fancy of Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix. Alexander McQueen showed a sort of uber-minidress that looked like it was made of burgundy shag carpeting. A kind of a fab, over-the-top solution for freezing days. I remember once reviewing the new designer clothes with Fred Pressman of Barneys. The always elegant Fred was about seventy then. He was dressed in a gray flannel Kiton suit and his trademark black knit tie, and he was eying an almost theatrical Gaultier overcoat. He said, “If I were twenty years younger and three inches taller, I’d wear this.” That’s how I feel about McQueen.

The brilliant Stefano Pilati has brought an exciting men’s style to Yves St. Laurent—cool suits with extraordinary personality. Flaring trousers, shapely jackets, and subtly out-there colors. Why not wear a green suit or a plum suit? I remember when YSL first changed menswear—I had a fantastic blue velvet blazer he made, and it went with all sorts of odd trousers. Pilati’s blazers evoke that same verve, and his odd trousers are spectacular. Check out the whole show on men.style.com. Tim Blanks writes that the collection reflects the Warhol Factory. He’s right. We dressed like this. Although our pants weren’t quite this good, and I think I like these 4-on-6 blazers even more than the old ones. There’s nothing freaky about YSL. This is classic cool at its very best—luxurious but a bit louche. Miles Davis and Dexter Gordon would have been all over this stuff.

Ann Demeulemeester showed a rich hippie look. The problem with hippies was that they weren’t rich enough. Maybe the new new age will change all that. I think the imagination and variety of style of that time has been forgotten. There is a fantastic passage in Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night where he describes the hippie horde that assembled to march on the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War. Mailer sees Arab sheiks, Park Avenue doorman greatcoats, Daniel Boone in buckskin, wild Indians with feathers, Charlie Chaplin, Foreign Legionaires, Turkish shepherds and Roman senators, gurus, and samurai in dirty smocks. “They were close to being assembled from all the intersections between history and the comic books, between legend and television, the Biblical archetypes and the movies.”

Mailer saw this phenomenon as LSD tearing away the veil between past and present. Today we see the same thing happening around us, as our culture has become an identity grab bag. There is no convention or authenticity, so we choose our images from a vast repertoire of historical roles, sometimes collaging disparate looks to create something new. Demeuelemeester showed a fusion of disparate influences—olive, drab, fringed Victorian shawls, felt hats from the attic, fur and feathers, and flower prints. A little from Grandma and a little from Grandpa are combined to create a slick and perfected version of a venerable rock-and-roll outsider look.

At Alexander McQueen there were tartan poncho-and-kilt suits with rasta-size fedoras and blanket-wrapped heads. It was a sort of Inca/Highlander fusion. Imagine a civilization halfway between Braveheart and Apocalypto. The new McQueen is right-on, should we go psychedelic and try to restage a….well, not a Summer of Love, I guess a Fall of Love. Would I wear these things? I wish I could. I couldn’t handle the schemata. I’d look like a muppet. But I would wear this hat (above). I think it might be thinning.

The always exciting showman John Galliano, whose every collection looks like a movie, from swashbuckling pirate sagas to post-apocalyptic meltdowns, has gone sort of Tudor highwayman on us this time. His troops marched out in big fat Henry VIII berets and leather and fur with touches of brocade, ribbon, and velvet, studs, and chain mail kits, layered the way they did back in the day when one wore a considerable amount of one’s wardrobe at all times. The look is gnarly, tough—over-the-top yet roguishly poncy. Will we all be wearing executioners masks next fall? Maybe not, but if we do decide to march on the Pentagon once more, I’m wearing Galliano.

One of the nice things about downtown Manhattan is that you can occasionally sort of blur your eyes and imagine that you're back in a somewhat less horrifying era. Of course, if you were back there you might find it more horrifying than you could imagine. I mean, the fifties had Senator McCarthy, and the roaring twenties didn't have a reliable cure for the clap, and the gay nineties probably weren't all that gay if you were gay. So maybe the simulation is better, in a way.

If you're at the Bowery Hotel you can imagine it's 100 years ago, but the A/C works. At the atmospheric and quirky restaurant Freeman's, on Freeman's Alley off Rivington Street, you can imagine you are at a speakeasy, which the joint once was apparently, but it's unlikely that the place will get raided and you'll be hauled off the slammer. It's the best of a couple of worlds. And I guess the same applies to their delightfully ragged Freeman's Sporting Club, the men's tailor and barber shop affiliated with the restaurant, at the corner of the alley and Rivington.

The atmosphere is great, with lots of quirky flotsam and jetsam and knick-knacks and thingamabobs to intrigue the eye, and a very nice selection of slightly quirky and rather excellent products on display. I wandered in yesterday and came out with two unstructured jackets, one linen and one jersey-dyed with Japanese indigo. The latter has stretch to it and fits like a glove, in a good way. Each jacket was under three Franklins, and the quality is aces.

Freeman's also offers a very handsome line of suits, off-the-rack or made-to-measure, at $2,000 and $3,000, respectively. The suits come in three fits: slim, standard, and full. They have a modern cut, are made from superb vintage fabrics, and are hand-sewn with full canvas construction in the heart of Brooklyn. The store also offers T-shirts, some very nice footwear, mostly moccasins and boots, some ties of fine fabric and perfect width, razors, natural bristle shaving brushes, leather bicycle seats, and more.

Somebody there likes Miller High Life:

Maybe some day I'll drop in and try the barbershop—such as when my guy is in Sicily for the month of August—but I thoroughly enjoyed the boutique. They were playing good music, too, and the sound system seems a perfect metaphor for the place, an iPod playing through an old tube amp.

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How would you describe how you dress? I think I'd have to say that I dress in a classical bohemian manner, but I guess you could also describe my style as baroque preppy or aberrant traditional. I enjoy getting dressed every day. I dress for my mood. But sometimes you just feel like changing, and you shave or cut your hair, or you go out and buy something new. The great thing about clothes is their ability to transform us.

Last night I was watching Turner Classic Movies… William Powell in one of his Philo Vance films… basically he's playing himself, or Nick Charles, the Thin Man, as a bachelor… and I was admiring his style. Then I caught a very strange The Shadow, with Alec Baldwin playing Lamont Cranston, aka The Shadow, the noir hero of the 1930s radio drama of the same name. Alec does some pretty flamboyant costume turns in this weird film, and it started giving me ideas.

What if I suddenly changed my style? What if I suddenly started wearing nothing but John Galliano? I mean, I am not into fashion victim clothes. I don't like things that will look like last season next season. Most forward design leaves me cold; but to me John Galliano transcends the idea of fashion victim and takes extravagance into the territory of genius.

I have long considered the swashbuckling, amusing Mr. Galliano an extraordinary genius when it comes to women's clothes, and I invite you to visit style.com to see the fantastic voyage he put on for Christian Dior, but now I am a convert to his berserk vision of maleness.

The savvy, measured Tim Blanks wrote of Galliano's fall collection: "…confronted by fashion tribalism this savage, the only sensible option was to suspend all critical faculties and savor the ride." And what a ride! Ninja punk shamans, Chinese operatic road warriors, cubist camouflage stormtroopers, Rauschenberg cargo cult witch doctors, leather pirates, intergalactic headhunters…it was a mardi gras for the imagination, a true tour de force extravaganza that made you think differently about what clothes are. Galliano connects with the magic. He approaches garments the way a naked savage from the Amazon might approach Maxfield or Barneys. He puts things together in a way that is entirely dramatic and original. There are so many ideas here—including Rick Moranis's Dark Helmet from Mel Brooks's Spaceballs—that you don't know where to begin.

I want these clothes because I want to walk down the street and amaze people. My only fear is that once I got some I wouldn't be able to go back. I wonder if Galliano would give me a full scholarship. Would I wear this? You bet I would! Well, maybe not the nylon stocking on my head with the smeared lipstick, but I'm ready for the codpiece and the Attila the Hun pants right now. Bravo!

If all men dressed like this there would be no war in Iraq. (Maybe just some ritual rumbling in the neighborhood.)

Sometimes I find Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" going through my head (the Johnny Hartman-John Coltrane version). Particularly that line, "a week in Paris could ease the bite of it…" And so this year, to ease the bite of aging, I decided to spend my birthday, and a few more days, in Paris. Almost a week. It turned out to be fashion week so that made it a little extra crazy—crowded hotels and booked restaurants and it was even harder to get a taxi than usual as the witching hour approached. One night we hiked all the way from the Palais Royal to L'Etoile in the rain, as a taxi was "impossible" (imagine the French pronunciation.)

Still, it was a fantastic time. Paris was in the fifties, Fahrenheit-wise, and although the flowers weren't out yet, the models were, and lots of other beautiful people, making this most beautiful city very lively indeed. I can't think of anywhere on earth where the sport of people watching is more fun. Everyone seems stylish (or at least people of all ages and from all walks of life), and you see lots of beauties of both genders, often in the act of kissing. For a reason that science may eventually be able to explain, much of this outdoor osculation occurs by the Seine. So I was glad to be in Paris with my wife (pictured here).

I'm usually there on business, solo, and the kissing can be tough to watch. Anyway, I found that many of the most interesting style cases I observed were what we tend to call senior citizens. I loved it. A lifetime of experience and shopping should make style something that gets better and better, but we don't observe a lot of that kind of progression this side of the Atlantic. On Sunday I saw a man whom I assumed to be in his late eighties sitting in a café wearing a gray flannel blazer, a shirt with a silver torso and a tartan collar, and a black tie with a large red abstract shape on it. He looked as bohemian and rarefied as Ezra Pound. He was so spectacular and dignified that I didn't have the nerve to ask if I could take his picture. Besides, I was deliberately not working.

I did have a bit of what they call a busman's holiday, however, taking in a few fashion shows. I went to the Yves Saint Laurent show on top of Le Centre Pompidou, aka the Beaubourg, and that was about as good an entertainment as one can find in this city. It had beauty, inspiring design, and, being that it was the second show of the new YSL designer, who had the difficult task of following Tom Ford and the great maestro, there was lots of drama, too. And it was a triumph, as the show brought back much of what made YSL great in the first place, but with a totally contemporary spirit. No retro, no ghosts, just pure Parisian chic. It was utterly classical, but with a sort of futuristic optimism.

The other show that moved me was that of Antonio Berardi—another Italian who shows in Paris and reflects its zeitgeist more than that of Milan. Unlike most designers today—except the master of sexy, Azzedine Alaïa, whose influence was felt here—Berardi's designs flatter the curvy body and are always suggestive, but never vulgar. Check out this number.

The seams are sewed in such away that bare flesh shows through in all the right places. A wine writer would probably put it this way: notes of Giacometti, Bridget Riley, Ridley Scott, and George Lucas. The most ambitious clothes had elaborately cut layers with notes of Mayan architecture and intergalactic storm troopers. There were high levels of both fashion and show in this fashion show, but the ultimate test is, would you want the girl on your arm to wear this? And the answer was basically, yeah, yeah, yeah…

I went backstage afterwards to congratulate Antonio, whom I've spent a little time with in New York, and I was most amused to see this sign at the spot where the models stepped from backstage to the runway. It's the kind of thing that designers and show producers tell the models and often put down in black and white. Or in this case, black and red.

STRONG
LANGUID
CONFIDENT
DIGNIFIED
ELEGANT
AIR OF SUPERIORITY
UNTOUCHABLE
AT YOUR OWN PACE NO HANDS ON HIPS
NO SMILING
NO CHEESY SEXY
MODERN!!!!!

I think I might put a sign like this inside the door of my apartment so I always hit the street in stride.

More from Paris tomorrow.

That's sort of like saying the cutest drag queen at the Super Bowl, I guess—I mean, I don't usually think of the fashion world as being terribly literate. But I suppose it's more literate than the literary world is fashionable. Anyway, lots of the fashion people I know read, and they're all now reading or have recently completed The Beautiful Fall, by Alicia Drake (Little, Brown and Company, 2006). Adding to interest in the book is the fact that Karl Lagerfeld has taken the author to court in France for invasion of privacy ("atteinte à la vie privée"). The idea that anyone who dresses like Lagerfeld, has had a reality show, or has published an eponymous diet book could have his privacy invaded is tres droll, no?

Anyway, I'm getting up early to get in reading time, because the book is very entertaining. Alicia Drake, a Brit who lives in Paris and has written for the Herald Tribune and British Vogue, writes stylishly and has clearly done her homework, if not that of the whole class.

The Beautiful Fall is subtitled Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris. It really starts in 1954, with Yves Saint-Laurent, 18, and Karl Lagerfeld, 21, receiving the International Wool Secretariat fashion awards.

I just got my copy and I'm only up to the beginning of the seventies, where the action really starts and my old friends and associates, like Andy Warhol, Fred Hughes, Joan Buck, Antonio Lopez, Corey Tippin, and Donna Jordan start showing up, but already this is my most fun read of 2007.

Norway isn't Sweden. It's not as groovy, but wonderful in its own way. It's very old fashioned. Our first morning in Oslo we hit the Grand Hotel café too late for breakfast, at 10 A.M., but they gave us coffee and tea as we sat at the Henrik Ibsen table. He had lunch here every day. I noticed that there were several ladies in the café dressed like it was the 18th or 19th century out. They looked very nice, with heavily embroidered skirts, blouses, halters, and aprons, and fancy silver and gold jewelry. I wondered if there was a special event going on. Then I noticed more similarly dressed women on the street.

With a little investigation I found that these ladies were dressed in regional costumes called "bunads." Bunads are similar to what one would call a national costume, except that here they are regional costumes and every town seems to have its own. Some are based on old folk costumes, but actually many are rather recent in their design. They represent a kind of cultural nationalism movement. I found it very charming, like seeing ladies dressed in kimonos in Tokyo.

And most of the women I saw in bunads were actually young and pretty. I think they appealed to some kinky side of me that likes conservative female dress. You know the scene in the movie where the secretary in the bun and glasses and the long tweed skirt takes down her hair and takes off her glasses, and the guy says, "Why, Miss Jones, without your glasses you're beautiful." I couldn't help imagining a striptease involving lots of layers of clothes coming off until you got to some very starched linen, the final frontier.

After some searching I found a Bunad store, thinking of surprising the Mrs. with a bunad of her own, but then I discovered that they are mostly bespoke and actually quite expensive. Maybe next trip. But I did pick up some wonderful boiled-wool slippers with suede deerskin soles for the whole family. There are male bunads too, and I checked these out. I just couldn't bring myself to try one one, although there was a white wool frock coat with red buttonholes that did appeal to me. It was almost Comme des Garçons.

I think Norwegian fashion deserves further study. It's really interesting, because some of the people involved in the bunad movement are very creative and progressive about it while others are diehard traditionalists. They criticized Crown Princess Mette-Marit when she wore a bunad with sunglasses. This faction is sometimes referred to as "the bunad police" and may be the closest thing to the fashion police outside countries ruled by Shariah.

Here are my new slippers. Really comfy.

I'm not jaded. I still have goals. To have a bestselling novel in the post-novelistic age, to break 80 for 18, to have grandchildren, and to be in Fantastic Man magazine. Because when you're in Fantastic Man, there is little doubt remaining that you are, indeed, a fantastic man.

Fantastic Man is the creation of Jop van Bennekom, a graphic designer and the creator of such revolutionary magazines as Butt and Re, and Gert Jonkers, a journalist, fashion editor, and co-creator of Butt. In some ways, Fantastic Man is the opposite of Butt. Both have a distinctly male flavor, but where the flavor of Butt is, say, wieners, buns, and relish, the flavor of Fantastic Man is of a more gourmet variety—it's a Bananas Foster of a periodical. Everything about it is subtle and elegant, from the design by Mr. van Bennekom to the really intelligent and tasteful fashion under the direction of Mr. Simon Foxton. After flipping through issue #4, fall/winter '06-'07, I developed a sudden yen for a velvet jacket from Filippa K and a pair of J.Lindeberg pleated wool trousers. These gents have an eye.

The articles are also quite informative and amusing. I loved seeing my friend Olivier Zahm, the editor and publisher of Purple Fashion, modeling briefs while smoking a cigar, and I was thoroughly amused by the charming profile that suggests that he is our Serge Gainsbourg. Amen to that! There are also interesting pieces on the suave auctioneer Simon DePury, the charmingly peculiar Mark E Smith of The Fall, and the cover man, Helmut Lang, shot by Bruce Weber, holding a cock, one of the barnyard residents of his grand spread in Montauk.

Fantastic Man gets more fantastic with each issue. I think it's really the most modern magazine. An editor I admire, Aaron Hicklin, formerly of Black Book, recently took over Out magazine and I suggested to him, only half facetiously, that perhaps his first order of business should be to rename the book "In." Times have changed, and there is much to be said for the virtues of subtlety, discernment, suggestion, discretion, understatement, wit, and je ne sais quoi. Not that Olivier in a banana hammock is subtle, but the whole approach of Fantastic Man is utterly fantastic—that is, born of fantasy. Mr. Zahm is a playboy who specializes in philosophy and womanizing. Mr. Lang is a country gentleman who lives with another country gentleman. Their fantasies are quite different, yet they are all fantastic, attractive, fascinating men. Like me. Fantasy is the technique we use to make our lives more interesting, and Fantastic Man captures its myriad manifestations in grand style.

The men in Fantastic Man are interesting. They may be gay, or they may be straight, or all or none of the above. This journal is above category. It's not what you say, as a TV game show once said, but what you don't say. And Fantastic Man has elevated that slogan to an art. It's a magazine that really makes you want to be fantastic.

If you live in New York, chances are you've heard of Uniqlo. Because for months that name has been all over the streets. This Japanese company that's superficially comparable to The Gap made sure that their name was everywhere—billboards, buses, subway entrances, phone kiosks. The fact that Uniqlo was coming was pretty much unavoidable. And they racheted up excitement a few days before they opened their big store on Broadway (between Spring and Broome) by opening up a mini store—in two shipping containers, parked at the curb in front of the place. They were doing a brisk business in Uniqlo's signature items, like their colorful cashmere sweaters.

The store is located, I believe, in the old space occupied by Canal Jeans, which was pretty big, but this store is huge—at three floors, running from Broadway to Crosby Street, it's airplane-hangar-like. It's chock full of stuff. Floor-to-ceiling merch. And they have high ceilings. I noticed that at the highest spot there are displays of sweaters 34 levels high. If you want one, they're not running out.

Count the shelves:

I was actually hired to write a little piece for the magazine they do (Uniqlo Paper No. 1), which is a pretty nice advertorial production (no doubt because I'm big in Japan), and a couple of my friends, Kim Gordon and Terry Richardson, were among the "real people" who modeled for them. But I don't think anybody knew what to expect until the place opened. My wife stopped in two days ago and came back with a bunch of stuff, including a new black wool watch cap for me (so I won't borrow hers anymore and stretch it out). I thought the quality was great and it was really cheap.

So today I strolled over and had a look and I was pretty impressed. The men's cashmere sweaters are $69.95 and they feel great and come in a lot of very strong colors. The women's version is on sale this month for $49.95. I know people love multi-ply cashmeres, but I think you could just buy three of these in different colors and wear them in layers. They also do the full spectrum in T-shirts, socks, and other basics. I think this place might actually change the way people wear color in New York. And I don't think any store has changed the way people dressed since The Gap hit with their pocket-tees years ago.

I was also impressed by the arty Japanese T-shirts. We all love cool, exclusive shops, but they had some really good designs here. There was some Godzilla-oriented stuff I might even wear. I'm going to ease into this place, but I did return with some goods. I bought a pair of really nice thin white cotton socks, the kind that are really hard to find, a similar pair in a shade of green that perfectly matches one of my Charvet shirts, a pair of charcoal gray cotton briefs, and a crew-neck tee in a nice light shade of pink. And I spent $14. Let's see how this stuff wears and washes, but I came away semi-amazed.

I kept thinking, "I wonder what Chairman Mao would think of this?" Not just because a lot of the merch is made in China, such as everything I bought but the white socks. (I also saw things made in Vietnam, and the cashmeres come from Mongolia.) But because there is something kind of revolutionary about this place. Uniqlo to me is the phase after logos. It's stuff that's made to work as separates in your own individual way and not as some pre-fab designer vision of status and hype. These are people's clothes, and they are good. I think Mao would approve, at least when he was in his twenties and something of a looker.

I wanted to take a picture of one of the salesmen because he had great style, wearing an almost fluorescent lime green polo as a top over a white shirt and a huge tie, tied very loosely. I'm going to go back next week and find the guy. I think he's part of the color revolution. I'm seriously considering going to multiple-color sweater layers this season. I can afford it now.

Anyway, I think there's something about what comes after Communism that is embodied in this place, with all its cheap cool and weird cds and groovy artists' t-shirts. Forget the masses all wearing blue and gray. In the future the assembled masses will not be generic and anonymous, but will be highly individualized and en masse will resemble the visible spectrum itself—except possibly the artists, who will be wearing cashmeres in the ultraviolet and infrared range.

I caught a bit of House of Boateng on the Sundance Channel. That Oswald is good. A cool customer. He's handsome, smooth, super-dapper. He could probably be a good actor. But his reality TV show is pretty hardcore fashionista, and doesn't have much in it to interest anyone except people who want to be a fashion designer or act like one when they grow up. But that doesn't mean that Oswald isn't good at what he does. He makes good clothes and that's ultimately the important thing. But Oswald also knows that sometimes good design isn't enough and that hype can put you over the top, so…here goes! It's risky though. I thought it was very bad for his nice-guy image when Tommy Hilfiger tried to bust a Donald Trump "You're fired" move. Suddenly the smiling Tommy was excoriating poor wannabe designers and before you knew it he was trying to smack Axl Rose.

Anyway, Oswald knows men's clothes. He's good. I'm not the ideal Boateng customer because he cuts for thinner guys and his color palette isn't always right for the Irish complexion. But when it comes to ties he has made some of my absolute favorites. I wore this one today. A combination of orange and purple, it's 3 1/4 inches wide, and since it's a few years old that means Boateng is either a classicist or prescient or both.

I like the surprise of the different-colored small end. The small end is a big deal now as it's becoming the fashion to let it hang below the big, front end of the tie. This is a look I first noticed on Harold Evans when he was running Random House. It's an interesting statement—I wear a tie but I don't give a shit. Now men are being advised to wear their ties this way. I guess it's the natural successor to the shirttail out. What's after that? Have you seen the new Martin Margiela lace-ups with no laces?

Here's my Boateng tie. Shirt by J.Press, jacket by A.P.C.

I saw Stoned (billed as uncut, 2005) on pay-per-view the other night. The story of Brian Jones of the Stones and his untimely death. It's trash, but the kind you can't stop watching. I wanted to stop watching because I didn't want Brian to get murdered by his handyman at the end, but I knew how it ended and I liked watching the clothes and the naked girls so much I just kept going. Leo Gregory does a pretty good job as Jones, and Paddy Considine, a fine actor, is nice and creepy as the loser who does in the great rock star. The other Stones don't make a big impression—they are smaller than life—but casting them would be a bit of a challenge, wouldn't it? But the real stars are the clothes and the hair. London of the mid-sixties was such a fantastic time and such an amazing scene that seeing it reconstructed with some care is inspiring. It makes you want to start another revolution. Not with guns, but hair and shirts and guitars and cars. Brian was my favorite Stone and I never loved them quite as much after he was gone. He had a magical presence and there's not much of him on film. He has a magical walk-on in Monterey Pop. They certainly became more powerful but the music was less interesting. One wonders what he might have done musically had he lived.

I've also been reading bits of The Ossie Clark Diaries (Bloomsbury, 1998), which also make me nostalgic for days when it seemed like anything was possible. Clark was the greatest designer of the Swinging London period, and one of the great fashion innovators of the twentieth century. He dressed the Stones, Marianne Faithfull, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Twiggy, Faye Dunaway, Patti Boyd, George H., John and Yoko, Pink Floyd, and hundreds more names.

It's a transcript of a crazy diary the designer kept, half drawn in colors in his kooky hand. You can just pick it up and read a page and it's like a thirty second trip. 1969: "Cheyne Walk—Chrissie Gibbs and Marianne. Cocaine on the George mantle piece in Jagger's house, first time… Shave off my beard in Harrods barber shop."

1974: "19 April: Up all night. Very tired today. I love Celia—she understand more, more. Mr. Lamb extended by Credit. Bit heavy. Spoke with Paul McCartney. Nikki Waymouth off to New York. Divine sunglasses from Mick. Love future plans—confidence."

Could you ask more of a poem?

29 April: "Chicago—Hot Day. To the airport. 5.45. TWA Ambassador Service. AM I REALLY FLYING HIGH OVER AMERICA? 'Cool it on these joints, honey, the captain's on his way down here and he'll bus you once we reach Chicago—Pat, the air hostess. Suddenly 6.30 Chicago time and I'm six nouns beyond reality already. No more little white powder—in fact, someone hold me."

It gets better until it gets worse. Ossie Clark was an artist but not a businessman. He went bankrupt in 1983 and was murdered in 1996. He was 54. But the diary and his spirits are fantastic 'til the end. Shortly before his death he is invited to a Stones concert at Wembley. "Mick wears blue and black stripes. Before the concert he gave me a big hug and I asked him for 15 grand."

Thinking about the prospect of Johnny Depp playing in the film version of J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man, under the direction of Laurence Dunmore, who directed him in The Libertine, I rented the latter film yesterday and enjoyed it immensely as I lay on my bed sipping a nice bottle of "Na Vota" Ruche di Castagnole Monferrato, 2004, same year as the film. I think this could be Johnny Depp's greatest role, which is saying quite a lot. Dunmore's directorial debut is stunning, and John Malkovich is utterly delicious as King Charles II of England. If you missed this film the first time around, I strongly advice you get with it.

This riotous yet moody tragicomedy tells a somewhat varnished version of the true story of the second Earl of Rochester, John Wilmot (1647-1680). A libertine indeed, Wilmot debauched himself to an early grave, yet managed to create an artistic and social sensation during the Restoration. A favorite of the king, whose father had been executed in the Civil War by Cromwell, Wilmot entertained the court with his wit and satirical poetry, which was widely circulated. Wilmot couldn't stay out of trouble. He was thrown in the Tower of London for the forcible abduction of Elizabeth Malet, an heiress he married two years later. He was later banished for lampooning the king in his "History of the Insipids" and in widely circulated broadsides and for mounting scandalous plays such as "Sodom, or the Quintessence of Debauchery."

For all his antics, Wilmot's admirers included Daniel Defoe, Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Hazlitt, Goethe, and the incomparable Voltaire. His twentieth-century biographer was Graham Greene—although the book was censored when first written. I don't want to spoil the story, so just go rent it, but I will say that the film makes the period seem most fascinating, and it also makes me long for the fashions of 1967. I think we were on to something. The Earl of Rochester Depp is splendidly turned out in looks that would have been the envy of Marc Bolan or Syd Barrett. Since I saw this film last night I've been thinking seriously about getting a wig, which was of course how Wilmot and his cronies, "The Merry Gang," maintained such luxuriant locks.

Went out my door last night and there were about 100 kids camped out on the sidewalk on Lafayette Street in the rain.  I've seen this scene before.  It happens here in front of Recon, the hipster fashion store owned by my old amigo Lenny McGurr, aka Futura 2000, one of the most illustrious of graffiti artists, and his friend Stash.

When I went out the door this morning there were about 200 kids lined up outside the store, those closest to the door being packed like sardines.  About half were Japanese.  This same scene happens occasionally down the street at Supreme when a new collection arrives.  The cause of the excitement was the release of a new limited edition sneaker by Nike, the "Kiss of Death" that costs $200 and has what looks like red alligator-hide swooshes on the sides.

Last night I related the story of the kids camping in the rain on the sidewalk to buy sneakers to some friends over an amazing dinner at Lupa, cooked personally by Mario Batali.  While we sipped extraordinary wines from the Bastianich vineyard, I explained this regular urban camping out phenomenon, which results in much litter and general annoyance to the neighbors.  Of course I can't call the cops because Futura is a friend, but I wonder out loud if this is, technically, loitering or some other misdemeanor.

Loitering was defined, in a law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1999, as "to remain in any one place with no apparent purpose." Of course, although these kids appeared to be loitering, in that they were standing about idly in the rain, they in fact had serious purpose.  One of my dinner companions told of a friend who bought a pair of limited edition Nikes in Berlin, then sold them on eBay for $6,000.

I have heard that many of the kids who line up at Recon and Supreme do in fact resell these trendy items at a tremendous profit margin.  It just goes to show you, kids might look like they're loafing or getting in trouble, but actually they're getting ahead.  There are several pairs listed on eBay right now, hovering around $500 with many hours left.  I'm a little more respectful of these skateboard kids now that I know most of them may not be desperate fashion victims after all, but wily entrepreneurs selling to desperate fashion victims overseas.

Here's a photo of me and Futura back at the height of our softball careers when he captained "The Escadrille" and I captained "The No Sox."