BigStar

about 1 year ago

How to Make It in America Lesson of the Week: Know Lots of Models (The Defamer)

HBO's Horatio Alger tale for the hipster set is full of advice about how to become the big, rich, fabulous New York City success you always dreamed of. This week, discover why networking with models is awesome!

Sure, Ben Sapstein and his friend Cam may live in live in a fictional version of Gotham but that doesn't mean that we can't learn from their misadventures. The key to the action on this week's episode hinges on knowing some well-connected models. Seriously knowing some of the breathing coat hangers that infest the city's finer nightlife establishments is a great thing, not because everyone wants to bone them or because they're especially interesting, but because they are seriously well-connected. Sure, you might have to be able to speak Portuguese or more likely Russian, Ukrainian, or one of those other Slavic languages that have alternatively too many vowels and consonants at the same time and then you'll have to deal with the fact that she has no real money of her own and lives in a house with eight other girls and they all share the same head of lettuce, but once you do, you're golden. After all, these girls are hungry!

But they're not just hungry for food, they are hungry for success and material goods, and if you hang out with them, you can draft off all their ill-gotten gains and the wonderful connections they make. Need to get past that velvet rope? Call a model! Need to meet some Wall Street starched collar and cufflinks type? They're always trying to fuck models! Need someone to score you some free coke at 3am? Hello, model! Need someone to hang out with during the afternoon because you have no job and you just woke up with the worst champagne hangover from some shitty club opening the night before? Unless it's Fashion Week, models don't have anything to do either!

How do Ben and Cam use a model? To meet John Varvatos, of course. They used money from Cam's mobster cousin to buy a bolt of fancy denim that fell off the back of the truck and they're going to make it into jeans and call they're company Crisp. Yes, they will make jeans that are so crisp that if you put a marshmallow in your pocket, your ass will turn into a Rice Crispy Treat. But first, they need a model to introduce them to John Varvatos who will then take a meeting with them only to ditch them and pass them off to some hunky dude with massive guns who is the head of "denim production" at John Varvatos. He spends all his spare time at the West Village Equinox trying to sweat out his sadness because he tried to launch a denim line and failed, even though he had a decade of experience and some rich fuck feeding him tons of cash. That and Thom Brown works out there, and he's trying to tap that.

Anyway, Saddy McGymqueen sets the record straight and tells them to stop wondering around the Bronx looking for a manufacturer because first they need samples and to get samples they need a pattern and to get a pattern they need a pattern maker, and they have none of that. They have something even more valuable though: models. They know models and models know people! Hey, Svetlana? Put down that copy of Vogue that weighs more than you and pick up your Blackberry. It's time to get Crispy!