THE FUTURE LOOKS BRIGHT: GQ has revealed the finalists for its fourth annual Best New Menswear Designers in America competition, with the talent pool this year including Patrik Ervell, Alexander Wang for his T by Alexander Wang line, Michael Bastian for his Gant collection, Rick Klotz of Warriors of Radness, Kirk Miller of Miller’s Oath, and Joe Sadler, Derek Buse and Greg Ullery of Riviera Club.
The competition has a new sponsor this year in Dockers, for which all six finalists will create a designer khaki pants-and-top look, which will be sold as a limited edition collection at key Bloomingdale’s stores in the fall. Previously, Levi’s was the sponsor.
The winner, who will receive a $50,000 cash prize, will be chosen by a judging panel that includes GQ editor in chief Jim Nelson, GQ creative director Jim Moore, Tommy Hilfiger, CFDA executive director Steven Kolb, Dockers senior vice president of global design Doug Conklyn and Bloomingdale’s vice president of fashion direction Kevin Harter. All of the finalists receive mentoring from teams at GQ, the CFDA and Bloomingdale’s.
Related Galleries
The magazine will host an event showcasing each designer’s fall collections at the Ace Hotel in New York on Feb. 10.
— David Lipke
KELLER’S NEW GIG: Starting in early March, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller will have a regular column in the Sunday Times Magazine. It is expected to run about 30 times a year.
Keller’s column will appear in the front of the book of a redesigned and relaunched Sunday Magazine under new editor Hugo Lindgren. Keller said it was Lindgren’s idea to get him writing in the magazine.
“I was talking with some of my colleagues, and we were like, ‘How do we make this a destination page in the magazine — something people will feel like they have to read?’” said Lindgren. “And, ‘Who’s a writer that can occupy this space for more than half the time, so it sort of feels like someone is there most of the time?’ And someone said, ‘Bill Keller,’ and I was like, ‘Ha ha ha. He could never do it.’ ”
Lindgren asked Keller, and, to his surprise, his boss didn’t immediately shoot it down. After a few conversations, they came to an agreement. The column will be the front essay that will start The Way We Live Now section. Lindgren said it will run about 1,500 words. The idea is to have Keller write two times every three weeks or so. The writer or two that will write on Keller’s off weeks still needs to be locked down.
“It’s too early to say what I’ll write about, but it won’t be a media column (at least mostly not), and it won’t be an op-ed column (no unfettered opinion),” e-mailed Keller.
This week, Keller has an 8,000-word cover story for the magazine on the paper’s relationship with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. (The story is an excerpt from the opening essay of an e-book the Times is releasing titled “Open Secrets.”) Lindgren said Keller’s column will likely match the tone and the subject of his cover story this week (i.e., Big Buzzy Topics), albeit with less gossip about the inner workings at the Times.
In the last year, Keller has been aggressive in finding new work for his editors, moving more than half a dozen department heads into new jobs at the paper. Keller said his new assignment with the magazine — which will be done, obviously, in conjunction with his daily duties of running the paper — should be “a little rejuvenating.”
And it’s not his first stint at the magazine, either. When Keller was passed up for the executive editor’s job in favor of Howell Raines in 2001, he soon after became a senior writer at the magazine under then editor Adam Moss.
— John Koblin