Gawker: chic happens

Sam Shahid

Gawker — Wed, 16 Apr 2003 19:03:27 EDT

Chic Happens is updating again. (Ben Widdicombe: "leave me alone, I was on vacation.") Fashion ad guru Sam Shahid is being sued by his former 23-year-old straight intern Mladen Djankovich for defamation, sexual harassment and false imprisonment. From the complaint: "Shahid tried to kiss Plaintiff. Plaintiff pushed away. Shahid became frustrated and irritated, saying 'What are you fucking worried for, you know you're gorgeous. I would die for you!'" Also: Shahid, apparently not one for subtlety, "stood directly behind Plaintiff and placed his crotch on the back of Plaintiff's head and moved back and forth in a sexual manner. He caressed the back of Plaintiff's neck and head with his crotch and then put his hands down both the front and back of the inside of Plaintiff's shirt, touching his bare skin."
Intern affairs [Chic Happens]

Calvin Klein: the madness begins

Gawker — Wed, 26 Mar 2003 09:38:32 EST

A reader sends in background information on Calvin Klein's Joan Rivers outburst after Monday's little incident at the Knicks game:

From Chic Happens: Calvin Klein used the dreaded c-word to insult Joan Rivers and her daughter, Melissa, at a star-studded dinner for the AIDS charity AMFAR. Klein was dining with Elton John and his boyfriend David Furnish, Elizabeth Taylor and Bianca Jagger at the Cannes Film Festival when Joan and Melissa came over to pay their respects. Still smarting over a nasty crack Joan made about him many years ago, Klein snapped, "You're nothing but an old cunt, you cunt!" The elder Rivers didn't hear it, but Melissa relayed it to her mom. "Excuse
me," Joan said to Calvin, "but Melissa said you just called me a cunt" Klein replied, "I sure did, and your daughter's an even uglier cunt!" Klein then bolted up from the table to leave, but hooked his ankle on the chair and fell over sideways in front of the whole dining room.

From Page Six: "Calvin was a little tipsy," Rivers confirmed to PAGE SIX. "He fell over and we all picked him up. He apologized, and we kissed and made up. It was a lovefest. It was very showbiz—Elton John helping him up while Elizabeth Taylor watched! It was very funny."

Soho House: the ongoing saga

Gawker — Fri, 21 Mar 2003 15:28:49 EST

How many English cokeheads does it take to keep Soho House solvent? It's hard to say because they're not open yet, but the Chic Happens boys are willing to speculate about the membership roster. First up, "Lord Freddy 'Sniffles' Windsor, the British royal family's best-known cokehead. Sniffles (who once modeled with Kate Moss in a Burberry campaign) has accepted a job in Manhattan with Quintessentially, a London-based 'concierge service.'" Ben Elliot, owner of said service, is also expected to join.
Chic Happens [HintMag]

Raelian fashion

Gawker — Sun, 09 Mar 2003 13:31:11 EST

Ben "Chic Happens" Widdicombe interviews Rael, leader of his very own namesake cult, and examines his fashion sensibilities. In an article that really needs no commentary, Widdicombe writes, "And where a lesser lama would have gone for robes—the classic 'dentist at a Star Wars convention' look, which derails so many fledgling religions—this holiness paired the top with trousers, the boldest move since the Dalai Lama thought, Hmmm . . . saffron." Says Rael, "I think I will one day go to a seminar where I will wear a pink skirt...I think I will; it will be cute. Just to change, to make people think how to be different."
Clothes encounter [NYT]

Lessons learned from Chic Happens

Gawker — Fri, 28 Feb 2003 12:55:43 EST

Lessons Learned from This Week's (REGULARLY UPDATED) Edition of Chic Happens:
1. If you're Christina Aguilera, note that pulling down your top and having your female stylist "suck your tit" may be considered a bit declasse in the London magazine world.
2. When starting your own tacky sandal line, introducing the single half of Chic Happens to any hot boys you know may be good insurance against bitchy comments in his REGULARLY UPDATED HintMag column. (Okay, so it was never explicitly stated that Heidi Klum's personal trainer was hot; I'm just assuming.)
3. When doing a photo shoot for Maxim, do not wear a skirt that says "I Love Cocaine." [Ed. Note—Just out of curiosity, where does one get a skirt that says "I Love Cocaine"? Not that I'm thinking of buying one. And would said hypothetical skirt be available, in, oh, a size 2 or 4?]
Chic Happens [HintMag]

P.Diddy orders a Ken Courtney original

Gawker — Wed, 19 Feb 2003 08:25:17 EST

Ken Courtney, one of our favorite Brooklyn fashionistas, tells Chic "Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, We Updated" Happens that P. Diddy ordered one of his t-shirts after spotting someone with an "I fucked Anna Wintour" shirt at 7th on Sixth. His request? "I fucked J-Lo first." P. Diddy's reps are denying, denying, denying. In other news, French Vogue has sprung a leak and one indiscreet cheese-eating surrender monkey is faxing out inside information.
Chic Happens [HintMag]

Yet another scene from the Gawker launch party: Ben Widdicombe

Gawker — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 11:02:12 EST

Chic Happens co-author, Ben Widdicombe, stating that he was officially boycotting Fashion Week, and that what with them updating regularly now, I'd have to find a new schtick.

Nadine Johnson

Gawker — Mon, 10 Feb 2003 13:51:55 EST

LookOnline outs Michael Gross's blind item from yesterday as being Nadine Johnson, fashion flak and wife (or soon-to-be ex) of Page Six columnist Richard Johnson. Writes LookOnline, "Michael Gross stature as a great writer for him to stoop to the level of say hintmag's gossip monger Horacio Silva is very sad." Incidentally, sitting on my desk is an invite to the Project Alabama show on Friday. The return address reads "Nadine Johnson."

Is Michael really avenging a past slight? Will Horacio and Ben write a snarky item about Look when they update "Chic Happens" next year? Will I kick myself on Friday for not having thought of sewing grandma's quilts onto t-shirts and retailing them for $400 a pop, because they're vintage Alabama, "just like me"? Will Gawker sell out? Stay tuned for the next episode of "Flak vs. Hack."

Update: The Chic Happens boys really are running a Fashion Week ticker tape. They asked Gross what he had against Nadine, and he replied, "I never comment on my blindies..."
Michael Gross column's blind item a new low [LookOnline]

Lizzie Grubman

Gawker — Fri, 07 Feb 2003 15:54:59 EST

All the snow outside of my window must be a byproduct of hell freezing over because it's Friday and the Chic Happens guys actually updated. It's like Christmas came early. And they're promising "hourly" updates from Fashion Week—"that is, in the sense Chic Happens is updated weekly meaning every day, maybe two." This week, they take time out of their busy schedules—antagonizing Ralph Lauren, watching Anderson Cooper on CNN (he is cute), and betting on "which suck-bag designer will approach the Wintour kids as 'muses' or models'"—to direct us to LizzieGrubman.com, a few thousand kilobytes of sheer brilliance. 1755 days of probation left!
Chic Happens [HintMag]
FU white trash [LizzieGrubman.com]

Hint ed robbed by Brazilian

Gawker — Fri, 07 Feb 2003 15:42:31 EST

Hint ed robbed by Brazilian drag queens [Chic Happens]

Lose-lose for Murdoch

Gawker — Tue, 28 Jan 2003 15:08:51 EST

Chic Happens—where the "weekly" bit of "updated weekly" is some nebulous subjective reality meaning "quarterly" or "annually" or "ohhhh, whenever the fuck we feel like it"—reports that Michael Gross's recent interview with the NY Post isn't running. Gross, the author of the NY Daily News' weekly gossip column "The Word," recently authored the not-so-flattering book about Ralph Lauren, Genuine Authentic, which is being published by Harper Collins. Rupert Murdoch owns both the Post and Harper Collins, which means that run-the-interview or don't-run-the-interview, he's shooting himself in the foot. Which is sort of entertaining.
Short attention span [Chic Happens]

To-Do

Gawker — Sun, 19 Jan 2003 09:55:33 EST

Crash a top model's surprise birthday party tonight at Joey's (186 Avenue B). Party intel courtesy of Chic Happens.
Star bar [Chic Happens]

Gisele sues "I fucked Gisele" T-shirt maker

Gawker — Thu, 16 Jan 2003 16:20:25 EST

Speaking of Ken, Chic Happens also mentions an Il Nuovo report that Gisele was suing over Just Another Rich Kid's "I fucked Gisele" T-shirts. Gisele's reps deny it and Ken says he's "extremely disappointed that Gisele has never heard of us."
Chic Happens [Hint Mag]

The perfect t-shirt

Gawker — Sun, 22 Dec 2002 11:48:41 EST

ChicHappens reports that Ken Courtney's Just Another Rich Kid collection includes t-shirts that say "I fucked Paris Hilton." (Or Chloe Sevigny, Casey Spooner, Kelly Osbourne, Gisele, Anna Wintour, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Zac Posen, Yves Saint Laurent, or Christian Dior.) Why, why, why didn't we think of that?
Starfucker [ChicHappens]
JustAnotherRichKid.com

Chic Happens

Gawker — Tue, 15 Oct 2002 14:13:19 EDT

Missed first time round: a profile of the Aussie guys behind Chic Happens, the fashion industry gossip site. These were...

Missed first time round: a profile of the Aussie guys behind Chic Happens, the fashion industry gossip site. These were the guys who posted up a synopsis of Plum Sykes's new novel. Even after Miramax, the publisher, intervened, the text was available on the Google cache, but it's now disappeared.
Interview with Ben Widdicombe [Guardian]
Chic Happens [Hint]