Tara Subkoff Watches Channel Zero




"I don't think I can handle/
She goes channel to channel/Cold lookin' for that hero/
She watch channel zero"
Public Enemy, She Watch Channel Zero

The Corsair might have spoken too soon when, yesterday, he declared that Tara Subkoff was "In."

To be fair, though, I did kind of hint that she was kind of an odd egg. While interviewing the Under Secretary General of the UN, asking about Swedish restaurants and the cut of Koffi Annan's suits are, well, de rigeur (Averted Gaze). In point of fact, Tara Subkoff (air quotes) "watches channel zero," if you know what I mean. Here's what The Old Gray Lady had to say about her universally panned show at the Bryant Park tents yesterday:

"Despite its ambitions, a Kenneth Cole show never seems pretentious. An Imitation of Christ show always does. Tara Subkoff is now designing the label on her own, without her former partner, Matt Damhave, who it now seems may have been the leavening influence.

"Ms. Subkoff opened with a child reciting the Pledge of Allegiance against a backdrop of projected images of Middle Eastern life. A singer who sounded like Jeff Buckley and looked as if he were wearing an Alice Cooper Halloween costume performed various melancholic rants while seated at a piano. T-shirts with images of barbed wire followed. White dresses, smocks and crisscrossed leather sandals inspired by the Hellenic age traveled somberly down the runway, as American flags fluttered from the ceiling.

"What was the connection, you may be thinking, between clothes culled from the wardrobe closet of 'Troy' and Ms. Subkoff's particular notions of American hegemony? Don't be a dope! She was obviously saying something about democracy's trajectory from its foundation in ancient Greece to the United States of the millennial age. She even seated a George Bush impersonator next to Nia Vardalos, star of 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding.'"

Or Geek Wedding, if British Vogue has anything to say about it 'bout it:

"DARLING of the New York scene for so long, Imitation of Christ's Tara Subkoff may have burnt her bridges this season. 'Why do we keep coming to this show?' scoffed Women's Wear Daily, unmoved by a bleak political statement - involving a slideshow of images from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a George W Bush impersonator in the front row and miserable male models who opened the show on a catwalk adorned with political flags - that was fronted by an incongruous, seemingly endless collection for spring/summer 2005 ... Die-hard Imitation of Christ fans will have had their obsession sated, for sure, but this collection clearly didn't make many new friends."

The Boston Herald writes:

"The only highlights in the horribly long presentation yesterday were the sandals Subkoff designed in collaboration with Easy Spirit. Fashionistas will surely scoop them up - even if they are comfortable as a sneaker.

"But back to the show. We've come to expect the unexpected from IOC, but in a fun way. This spring collection was an odd mix of somber and bizarre: muted clothes against a theatrical display of American flags, images of Iraq, a wailing grand pianist, and an audience that included a George W. Bush lookalike and actresses Chloe Sevigny and Gretchen Mol.

"The clothes weren't all bad - there were just too many of them."

But it was the New York Post's Orla Healy who delivered the final nail into the proverbial coffin:

"In an embarrassing case of 'The Emperor Has No Clothes' Tara Subkoff presented her 'Imitation of Christ' Line to guffaws of laughter and � worse � indifference.

"The publicity-hungry Subkoff planted a George Bush lookalike in the front row of a show overwhelmed by anti-war imagery.

"Her yelp for attention was the only low note in the kickoff day of a weeklong carnival featuring more than 80 catwalk shows previewing next season's trendiest looks."