Crossing Delancey

Labels mine the Lower East Side for their fall campaigns

October 2, 2006—For their fall campaigns, several labels apparently didn't want to go to the trouble of taking pale, undernourished models and styling them to resemble sleep-deprived downtown types. Instead, they went directly to the source—New York's Lower East Side—and tapped real, live scenesters to star in their ads. The new face of Adriano Goldschmied jeans? That's eccentric photographer and Ludlow Street fixture Dash Snow (above). The scruffy star of the DKNY ads? Matt Creed, an artist, DJ, and sometime actor. And the current John Varvatos for Converse campaign stars musician Lizzy McChesney. "To the masses, Lizzy's just a cool girl in a cool ad," explains Clare Rhodes, who cast the Varvatos ads. "But if I personally saw Lizzy in something, I'd be curious to check it out, and I think that a lot of cool and groovy people, the kind who hang out on the Lower East Side, would say that, too." Fair enough, but is there a line between lending out your cred for a little corporate cash and being a complete sellout? If so, trust the MisShapes to fearlessly cross it: Their faces recently started appearing in ads for Wal-Mart-friendly backpack brand Eastsport.