Style guru and Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn had jaws dropping all over America this week after revealing on daytime television he hasn’t had sex in 29 years. So it seems his “Gunn” isn’t loaded, after all. The ever dapper 58-year-old fashion expert told panelists on The Revolution talk show he gave up on sex almost three decades ago after a bad breakup, but isn’t bothered about the lack of “intimacy” in his life. “I’m a perfectly happy, fulfilled individual,” he said. No word yet on whether celibacy will become the hottest trend for spring, but the question on everyone’s lips now is: can Gunn still “make IT work”?
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If there ever was a celebrity less suited to launching a commercial fashion line it’s rapper Nicki Minaj, who perpetually dresses like she’s rolled around inside a kindergarten’s craft box on Halloween. But the ‘Super Bass’ rapper, who already has her own shade of lipstick for makeup line MAC and a range of nail colours in the works for OPI, has announced she’s shopping for a fashion house to take her on in 2012. If her new video ‘Stupid Hoe’, which dropped on YouTube this week, is any reflection of her look book, parents of tween girls everywhere are in for some real trouble. In the explicit video, which can be accurately described as the audio equivalent of a home invasion, Minaj freaks about in drag queen makeup, leopard skin bodypaint and accessories inspired by Barbie and Bratz dolls. The one trend fashion watchers are actually calling from the video? 1980s inspired pastels, which look set for a real comeback this year.
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Speaking of celebrity fashion lines - it seems every week another has-been is announcing yet another range of handbags, but now it seems the trend is so endemic even celebrities that have been dead for 500 years are getting in on the act. Not content with being one of the greatest artists of all time, Leonardo Da Vinci has designed a limited edition range of lavish embroidered calfskin handbags that will go on sale in March. OK, so he actually designed the bag in 1497 – details, details. Italian handbag company Gherardini is recreating the elaborately decorated purse from a sketch Da Vinci made, which was buried in volumes of notes, theorems and drawings he is believed to have amassed between 1478 and 1519. Given Gherardini is only making 99 of the things, the bag’s name – ‘La Pretiosa’, Italian for “precious” – is quite apt. No word on the price yet, but it’s safe to assume it’ll cost about the same as those personal flying machines the Renaissance Man was always sketching.
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Proving that Fashion TV is just a few nip slips away from completing its transformation into the Playboy Network is this latest thrilling video from the cable channel, which is either the cheapest dance music clip ever made, an outtake from ‘Girls Gone Wild Volume 17’, or a home movie of the weirdest party ever thrown. ‘Beach Bikini Party with FTV’ begins with a bunch of stony-faced models in swimsuits on a boat somewhere in Thailand, pouring endless amounts of FTV branded grog into plastic glasses and checking Facebook on their phones, possibly updating their statuses with “Am in the most boring FTV video ever filmed, c u l8r”. Things get even wilder when they finally get to the party and find themselves standing in a line-up next to some bewildered tourists (seriously 1.39, what the hell is going on here?), and pretending that the fat and sweaty CEO of Fashion TV is charming and attractive in order to hang on to their paychecks (evidenced at 3.04). Meanwhile, kudos to the bloke at 2.15 who obviously found the island’s only source of mushrooms. Weird, weird, weird.
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I have to say I’m pretty much O.V.A.H those “sh*t [insert plural noun here] say” videos that seem to have eaten the internet lately – let’s face it, “Sh*t Girls Say” was hilarious, everything else has been the comedic equivalent of styrofoam packing peanuts. But then I saw “Sh*t Fashion Girls Say” and, to quote the beardy, bewigged male star of the piece: “HASHTAG - TOTES AMAZE!”. Part two in the series hit YouTube this week and I hope there’s more on the way. In the meantime, I’m off to perfect my photo pose: “Little teapot, chin down, eyes up!”