Not caring very much about what other people think has been the formula for being cool since cool became a "thing". Designers have been a prime example of this for as long as fashion has existed. Anyone who has ever become a sensation was never really like everyone else. You can't lead the crowd if you are "of" the crowd. And that's all there is to it. We were thinking about this when we read that Scott Sternberg, who runs Band of Outsiders and Boyy, has scraped his Spring 09 presentation/show in favor of a video saying, “I don’t make runway clothes. These are clothes you wear on the street, so I’m just super-uncomfortable with it. It puts it in totally the wrong context — I want to do something closer to where the clothes are, and let people actually touch and feel them as opposed to seeing them on a 14-year-old anorexic model.” Aside from the fact that this might have something to do with the recession, he's totally and completely right and everyone knows it. The only reason we go to these shows, which are more or less completely irrelevant because there is no 'spectacle'--just blazers as usual, is because it gives everyone a break from the insane stuff during fashion week. It's really, ahem, low-key, and really, ahem, unpretentious and as much as we realize it's kind of unnecessary, we've always appreciated the break in insanity. So, Sternberg, in addition to this, has shot his look book with a celebrity friend on polaroid. This, we think, takes the cake. It is very cool of both of them to be behaving this way because it takes the power of The Industry and of The Tabloids and puts it right back in their own hands. Like, "Oh, you're going to try to have me schedule myself in the same time slot as DKNY? Oh, you're going to try to make me some common Starbucks slurping celebrity?--"No, that is not how we're going to do this.". These are the instances that remind you just why you know this person's name in the first place.

Boyy, not to be confused with Boy (by Band Of Outsiders), is a handbag line that sticks to classic shapes and color combinations. Borne in 2006, designer's Jesse Dorsey and Wannasiri Kongman, have braved the harsh reality of starting a leather handbag line in light of a recession (leather is expensive) and the growing popularity of eco-friendly non-leather bags. The pair seem to have just the spirit for the job, where their Spring/Summer 2008 collection is themed with a complex (and quarky) set of theories surrounding the number eight, the year 2008, eight's divisibility by two, the fact that they are two designers, and so on (literally, and so on, part of this theme has something to do with the concept of infinity). This aside, we think these bags are a contemporary price point classic, most notably, the Patent Trim Summer Serge Weekender. Toss this sucker into the passenger seat of a convertible headed for the Hamptons (or Mexico City, we swing both ways) and you're in pretty good standing with the gods of fashion.