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Vice Blog

GIMME T-SHIRT

Photo by Ryan Saylor

I already know what you're going to say when you hear that I went to see Iggy Pop sign $58 t-shirts featuring his likeness (as photographed by Mick Rock in the 70s and designed by Archive 1887, Sony Music's new-ish high-end merch line) at a Barneys New York Co-Op private party last night. "WTF? Iggy Pop's shilling shirts to poseur fashionistas now? What kind of self-respecting punk icon is he?" In just under 90 minutes, I found out.

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"It's never been about self-denial," says Simon Doonan, Barneys' creative director. Ever the contrarian himself, he is wearing one of Archive 1887's David Bowie shirts rather than an Iggy one. "Rock music's always been about adorning yourself and looking fabulous."

Sure enough, there is Iggy, sitting in the back of the store looking fabulous in a Don Johnson kind of way—he's wearing a white Dolce & Gabbana suit—chilling out after some light press. Someone hands him a plate of finger foods: mini-cheeseburgers, mini-lobster rolls. His girlfriend Nina, a sultry babe in a Kim Kardashian-style white bandage dress, stands a few feet away and grips a wallet-sized Louis Vuitton clutch with her French manicured acrylic tips.

A few minutes later, Iggy's entourage is up and out for a photo op in front of a banner that reads "We Love Iggy" and a long bare wooden table that probably had jeans on it earlier. I'm reminded of how much I hated folding clothes when I worked at the Gap. Iggy doesn't sing any songs, but he's definitely performing for the cameras and the crowd. What a ham! He mouths the words to Blondie's "Heart of Glass," or maybe he is just doing some kind of sexy pout thing? He loses the jacket—and finally we get a glimpse of that bare chest we've all been waiting for, from underneath a black, Aladdin-style silk vest. His skin's the color of peanut butter. He does a sexy pose with a t-shirt thrown over his back, he hops up on the table like a pinup model and then drapes himself upside down over the table, his skin stretched taut and his bleached hair hanging limp above the ground like a straw broom.

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The photographers go insane. "You fuckin' pushing me? You fuckin' asshole," screams one guy in mock-disbelief.

"The Passenger" comes on and I expect everyone to let out whoops and screams and at the very least, send a mannequin crowdsurfing, but only one or two people are politely bopping their heads. I'm relieved when I see a couple of legit fans approach Iggy's table, where he's now signing t-shirts with silver Sharpies. One guy, Bruce, has a couple of Stooges records he wants signed, and I half expect Barneys people to scold him—a struggle with authority!—because he hasn't purchased a t-shirt, but no one does.

Everything about this event is so low-key that I start to feel underwhelmed. There's very little energy in the room, aside from a couple of high-strung publicists moving things along. So when I make eye contact with Iggy and he smiles and mock hits his head like he's over it all, too—at last, I'm engaged. He's looking at me! I make a break for the table and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

Photo by Ryan Saylor

As I get close I can see all the bulging, wormy veins bringing rock and roll blood to his sinewy biceps. He looks remarkably healthy and at the same time, very doom-y. I ask what he ate today.

As though he's been waiting for this important question all night, he rattles off his list: "A cheeseburger, a bag of M&M's, a handful of Goobers, three cappuccinos, two glasses of red wine, and a slice of tomato. That was a bad day," he laughed. "But I eat good food, too!"

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While I duck into a corner full of Diane von Furstenberg dresses to collect myself, I overhear a girl in a short skirt breathlessly asking her friend: "Did you flirt with him?"
"Uh, yeah."
"He's flirty! He's a flirty old man!"

Around the corner, I spot Jimmy Webb, infamous sales guy from Trash & Vaudeville and friend of Iggy Pop, dancing energetically to "I Get Around" by the Beach Boys. Webb didn't really need to buy a t-shirt: like some kind of yakuza foot soldier, his body has already been consecrated to the cause of Iggy Pop, with massive tattoos reading "GIMME DANGER," "I WANT MORE," "BESIDE YOU." Webb's really happy. "He's a gentleman, he's a nice guy," he crows, "But when he's out there, giving it to the people, he's the whole truth."

So why is he at Barneys?
"We happened to have all of Iggy's rights," Matt Vlasic, a merchandising executive from Sony, told me.
Iggy broke it down to me with a Cheshire-cat grin: "A boy's gotta eat."

Wink!

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