DOUGLAS QUENQUA

One of the biggest myths about dress codes is that they exist to keep out clothes. But more often than not, they’re meant to keep out certain kinds of people. Don’t want day-trippers in your Hamptons club? Put the kibosh on shorts and sandals. Jersey Shore types not your thing? Ban Ed Hardy shirts. Don’t care for black people? Just say no to baggy jeans and “bling!”

Yeah, that last one is pretty racist. That’s why The Continental, a frat bar in the East Village, is in trouble with the NYC Human Rights Commission. But it’s a finer line than you might think. Read all about it: Dress Codes in New York Clubs: Will This Get Me in?

Filed under: New York Times, 2011, style section

I’ve never been much of a fashion magazine guy (does the Victoria Secret catalog count?), but even I remember the whinging over Lucky when it first came out. Stylish young ladies adored it; magazine purists were offended by its total lack of editorial…anything. Just clothes, clothes, clothes. Clothes and stickers.

Ten years later, all fashion magazines have a little bit o’ Lucky in them–and Lucky hasn’t evolved at all, rendering it an also-ran in a category it practically invented. Condé Nast decided not to kill it along with Gourmet and some other underperforming titles last year, but it did fire the founding editor, Kim France, and bring in Brandon Holley, former editor of Jane, ElleGirl and Yahoo Shine.

So how do you revive Lucky without losing what made it special in the first place? Holley–a very patient, affable woman, I might add–shares her plan in my story for today’s Times, Brandon Holley: Dressing for a Revolution.

Filed under: New York Times, 2011, style section