different article, same story
Subkoff Says
Pearls from The New Yorker's Generation X lecture
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
The New Yorker's Judith Thurman, Behnaz Sarafpour, Alice Roi and Tara Subkoff
© www.startracksphoto.com
(NEW YORK) What happens when you get three female designers that are as diverse as they are talented into one small auditorium and host a discussion with no pre-determined subject? An anything goes chat fest that at times tested certain guests’ verbal pain threshold.
At
The New Yorker’s lecture entitled “Generation X” this past Saturday, fashion writer
Judith Thurman monitored a panel that included
Alice Roi,
Behnaz Sarafpour and IOC's
Tara Subkoff. Right off the bat, Subkoff, dressed demurely in a floral printed dress, jacket and sweet heels, immediately corrected Thurman on the proper pronunciation of her last name. “SUB-koff, not sUB-koff,” she noted dryly. Among the other points Subkoff made throughout the conversations:
“
Vogue is the dominating factor in the US. It’s all political and nowadays it’s all about advertising dollars.”
Subkoff on how she chose what she wore to the lecture: “I just tried to find what’s clean.”
To Thurman: “There should be a couple of prominent gay men. I find it odd that there are no men here. I mean, where are the queens?” (For the record, two were scheduled to participate but dropped out last minute.)
Subkoff: “Women are extremely unsupportive of each other,” she said. “And
Anna Wintour has always supported young, gay men—not women at all.”
Thurman to Sarafpour: “But Anna supported you right?”
Subkoff: “Maybe Benhaz’s approach is more masculine.”

Tara Subkoff's IOC dress
©
www.startracksphoto.com
After Thurman noted that Subkoff was the creative director at Lalique, the designer corrected her by saying, “I was supposed to be the creative director but because it was printed in the press before it was supposed to, the chance was lost.”
When asked why she chose a red suede dress with hood as the outfit she wanted to discuss and present to the audience, she replied, “I didn’t choose this one, my press office did. If I had chosen it, I wouldn’t have picked this one. This is one of the reasons why I fired my publicist.” Referencing the dress, she said, “I think it’s really good for a modern day Muslim.”
“I was a rag-picker back when I worked at
Isaac Mizrahi and
Donna Karan,” she said. What is a rag-picker? “We would scour for vintage fabrics and then they would be sent down the runway after the pattern makers were done with them unaltered.”
Sarafpour: “I don’t employ any rag-pickers.”
Subkoff: “Behnaz, out of all the dresses, yours is the most Fifties
Audrey Hepburn retro.”
When asked by an audience member what she thought of her clothes being a political protest, she said, “I think I must not be very intelligent,” which garnered a round of sarcastic applause. “Thanks for the love and warmth,” she replied.
Another audience member asked if the panelists would advise their children to go into fashion. “I’m not having children ever, so I don’t know how to answer that,” she said.
JIM SHI