Under Their Influence
by Maureen Callahan
from the NY Post
February 3, 2005 -- IN addition to working as the creative director for the Soho and Tribeca Grand hotels and being a self-described "tastemaker," 36-year-old Tommy Saleh advertises for Prada, Chanel, APC, Paul Smith and Jeremy Scott - secretly.
"Chanel did a pair of gold sneakers for me, and a skull-and-bones brooch," he says. "APC gives me so much stuff - like small-collar white shirts. A small-collar white shirt means a lot to me."
Saleh also owns over 100 pair of shoes worth about $500 each, and a rack of suits by Prada and Paul Smith - a wardrobe worth well over $100,000, all given to him for free.
Which begs two questions: Why and how?
"A lot of people want to put their clothes on me, because of all the fabulous things I do," says Saleh, with no trace of irony.
Some of the fabulous things Saleh has on his schedule: attending fashion weeks in N.Y.C., Paris and London; going to the Miami Winter Music Conference, then the Coachella Music Festival in California; curating his "very strict guest list" for live music nights at the Tribeca Grand and club-hopping with members of Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
"My friends are tastemakers," Saleh says. "I get asked maybe 10 to 20 times a day what I'm wearing."
Saleh is part of a new kind of advertising phenomenon - one that goes beyond more established methods like street-teaming (campaigns orchestrated to look as though they're "up from the street," through graffiti or sidewalk chalk scrawls, for example) or stealth marketing (in which corporations hire young, attractive, charismatic people to go into bars and clubs and be "overheard" raving about a brand of alcohol or cigarettes).
"If the right person is wearing the right thing, people want it," says Kelly Cutrone, founder of the fashion branding firm People's Revolution. Cutrone gives thousands of dollars worth of free clothes to Saleh and other New Yorkers who aren't rich or famous, but who run in desirable circles and wield a lot of social influence.
"We call it 'mainlining,'" she says. "That means we take it out of the industry and put it on people on the street, so that they're seen."
Cutrone says the civilians on her gift list "don't have to be knockouts - they just have to have great style. And it helps if they're really skinny."
Like Natalie Joos - who may not be a boldface name, but who is exclusively casting the models in Marc Jacobs' shows this season.
"She looks really great in clothes, she's skinny, and people look to her because of the circle she runs in - they ask what she's wearing," says Cutrone.
Also on Cutrone's list: Bjork's best friend (but not the Icelandic singer herself, as "she's already sorted"); the kids who work at Patricia Field's (they got stuff from Boy George's new line), and, formerly, bartenders and waiters at places like 44, the Soho Grand, and Indochine - "where the beautiful kids are."
And this kind of secret advertising, in which your best friend, or their super-cool acquaintance - or your waiter - may be selling you something without you ever suspecting, is hardly limited to the realm of high fashion.
Ashley Gillespie, a 29-year-old marketing associate at Knopf, was working on publicity for author Haruki Murakami's next novel when she noticed that her friend Chriss Slevin was reading one of Murakami's books.
"Ashley was surprised," recalls 30-year-old Slevin, who works for the New York Foundation for the Arts, "because not that many people had heard of him."
As it turned out, Gillespie had recently compiled a mailing list of non-media contacts who were highly influential in their social spheres.
"Ashley gave me an advance copy and a link to the Web site," says Slevin. "She knows that I read a lot and talk about the books I'm reading to my friends."
Gillespie says she came up with the idea to send free books to select non-media types because she personally responds to recommendations from friends rather than traditional advertising or publicity.
"If I read a good review for a movie, I might not be immediately inclined to go buy a ticket - but if a friend of mine who went to a free screening was talking about it, I'd probably go."
Gillespie keeps her list small (about 100 people), and has strict criteria: "It has to be people who love to read, have time to read, but who also go to parties and are social. I don't want anyone who works 16 hours a day."
She has no problem turning down anyone who doesn't meet her standards, because "my goal is not to push books - it's to put books in the hands of people who will connect with them and talk about them."
Ken Weinstein, who runs the music p.r. firm Big Hassle, has a similar philosophy: "I don't have a list, but I'll send free CDs to friends who I love, and who will talk to their friends," he says.
The friends he actively courts "have discerning taste," he says. "They dress well, and their homes are well appointed."
And, more importantly, their own friends will copy that taste.
"I know if my friend Gary Meister tells his friend Jen about a record, then Jen will go buy that record," says Weinstein.
Meister agrees.
"I think I have a higher taste level," says Meister. "I like things that are edgy and weird and compelling. Then I get obsessive and berate people and make them listen to it and tell them they have to buy it."
Leigh Lezark, a DJ and promoter who throws the weekly downtown dance party Misshapes, is arguably one of the most influential New Yorkers in the music industry, though few outside her circle know who she is.
"I get a whole bunch of free stuff - free CDs, clothing, makeup," says Lezark, who is in her early 20s. "People will say, 'I see you around; everywhere you go people are looking at you and your style.'"
Since co-founding Misshapes - which has become the Saturday night destination for downtown scenesters and art-school kids - a year ago, Lezark has been given about $15,000 in free goods and services.
"Lacoste wants to give us free clothing; they heard about us through Misshapes," she says. "I get into sold-out shows all the time, like Interpol at Roseland - I don't even know how much it would cost to go see Interpol at Roseland. Fashion Week is not a problem - last year I was on line for the Marc Jacobs party and someone just pulled me out of the line and let me in. I can't remember the last time I paid for a drink."
But Lezark's true influence is felt in the music industry.
"At a place like Misshapes, they play a song, and all the cool kids will be like, 'Who is that?'" says Carmelita Morales, a publicist at addVICE Marketing.
Morales, who gives Lezark CDs to test out at her party, points to the recent mainstream success of the Killers (who played on "Saturday Night Live" a few weeks ago) as proof.
"It was important to give the Killers street cred - because if it comes from the radio, all the club kids and tastemakers would never go for it. You want them to hear it in the clubs first."
To that end, addVICE threw the band's record release party at Misshapes about a year ago. "This was right after they had played to a half-empty crowd at Bowery Ballroom," says Morales. "But tapping into that e-mail list to get those kids into the Killers was really the main thing. Misshapes is a part of their lifestyle."
"And," Morales adds, "if you get 10 Leighs in a city to support something, it'll be successful."
by Maureen Callahan
from the NY Post
February 3, 2005 -- IN addition to working as the creative director for the Soho and Tribeca Grand hotels and being a self-described "tastemaker," 36-year-old Tommy Saleh advertises for Prada, Chanel, APC, Paul Smith and Jeremy Scott - secretly.
"Chanel did a pair of gold sneakers for me, and a skull-and-bones brooch," he says. "APC gives me so much stuff - like small-collar white shirts. A small-collar white shirt means a lot to me."
Saleh also owns over 100 pair of shoes worth about $500 each, and a rack of suits by Prada and Paul Smith - a wardrobe worth well over $100,000, all given to him for free.
Which begs two questions: Why and how?
"A lot of people want to put their clothes on me, because of all the fabulous things I do," says Saleh, with no trace of irony.
Some of the fabulous things Saleh has on his schedule: attending fashion weeks in N.Y.C., Paris and London; going to the Miami Winter Music Conference, then the Coachella Music Festival in California; curating his "very strict guest list" for live music nights at the Tribeca Grand and club-hopping with members of Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
"My friends are tastemakers," Saleh says. "I get asked maybe 10 to 20 times a day what I'm wearing."
Saleh is part of a new kind of advertising phenomenon - one that goes beyond more established methods like street-teaming (campaigns orchestrated to look as though they're "up from the street," through graffiti or sidewalk chalk scrawls, for example) or stealth marketing (in which corporations hire young, attractive, charismatic people to go into bars and clubs and be "overheard" raving about a brand of alcohol or cigarettes).
"If the right person is wearing the right thing, people want it," says Kelly Cutrone, founder of the fashion branding firm People's Revolution. Cutrone gives thousands of dollars worth of free clothes to Saleh and other New Yorkers who aren't rich or famous, but who run in desirable circles and wield a lot of social influence.
"We call it 'mainlining,'" she says. "That means we take it out of the industry and put it on people on the street, so that they're seen."
Cutrone says the civilians on her gift list "don't have to be knockouts - they just have to have great style. And it helps if they're really skinny."
Like Natalie Joos - who may not be a boldface name, but who is exclusively casting the models in Marc Jacobs' shows this season.
"She looks really great in clothes, she's skinny, and people look to her because of the circle she runs in - they ask what she's wearing," says Cutrone.
Also on Cutrone's list: Bjork's best friend (but not the Icelandic singer herself, as "she's already sorted"); the kids who work at Patricia Field's (they got stuff from Boy George's new line), and, formerly, bartenders and waiters at places like 44, the Soho Grand, and Indochine - "where the beautiful kids are."
And this kind of secret advertising, in which your best friend, or their super-cool acquaintance - or your waiter - may be selling you something without you ever suspecting, is hardly limited to the realm of high fashion.
Ashley Gillespie, a 29-year-old marketing associate at Knopf, was working on publicity for author Haruki Murakami's next novel when she noticed that her friend Chriss Slevin was reading one of Murakami's books.
"Ashley was surprised," recalls 30-year-old Slevin, who works for the New York Foundation for the Arts, "because not that many people had heard of him."
As it turned out, Gillespie had recently compiled a mailing list of non-media contacts who were highly influential in their social spheres.
"Ashley gave me an advance copy and a link to the Web site," says Slevin. "She knows that I read a lot and talk about the books I'm reading to my friends."
Gillespie says she came up with the idea to send free books to select non-media types because she personally responds to recommendations from friends rather than traditional advertising or publicity.
"If I read a good review for a movie, I might not be immediately inclined to go buy a ticket - but if a friend of mine who went to a free screening was talking about it, I'd probably go."
Gillespie keeps her list small (about 100 people), and has strict criteria: "It has to be people who love to read, have time to read, but who also go to parties and are social. I don't want anyone who works 16 hours a day."
She has no problem turning down anyone who doesn't meet her standards, because "my goal is not to push books - it's to put books in the hands of people who will connect with them and talk about them."
Ken Weinstein, who runs the music p.r. firm Big Hassle, has a similar philosophy: "I don't have a list, but I'll send free CDs to friends who I love, and who will talk to their friends," he says.
The friends he actively courts "have discerning taste," he says. "They dress well, and their homes are well appointed."
And, more importantly, their own friends will copy that taste.
"I know if my friend Gary Meister tells his friend Jen about a record, then Jen will go buy that record," says Weinstein.
Meister agrees.
"I think I have a higher taste level," says Meister. "I like things that are edgy and weird and compelling. Then I get obsessive and berate people and make them listen to it and tell them they have to buy it."
Leigh Lezark, a DJ and promoter who throws the weekly downtown dance party Misshapes, is arguably one of the most influential New Yorkers in the music industry, though few outside her circle know who she is.
"I get a whole bunch of free stuff - free CDs, clothing, makeup," says Lezark, who is in her early 20s. "People will say, 'I see you around; everywhere you go people are looking at you and your style.'"
Since co-founding Misshapes - which has become the Saturday night destination for downtown scenesters and art-school kids - a year ago, Lezark has been given about $15,000 in free goods and services.
"Lacoste wants to give us free clothing; they heard about us through Misshapes," she says. "I get into sold-out shows all the time, like Interpol at Roseland - I don't even know how much it would cost to go see Interpol at Roseland. Fashion Week is not a problem - last year I was on line for the Marc Jacobs party and someone just pulled me out of the line and let me in. I can't remember the last time I paid for a drink."
But Lezark's true influence is felt in the music industry.
"At a place like Misshapes, they play a song, and all the cool kids will be like, 'Who is that?'" says Carmelita Morales, a publicist at addVICE Marketing.
Morales, who gives Lezark CDs to test out at her party, points to the recent mainstream success of the Killers (who played on "Saturday Night Live" a few weeks ago) as proof.
"It was important to give the Killers street cred - because if it comes from the radio, all the club kids and tastemakers would never go for it. You want them to hear it in the clubs first."
To that end, addVICE threw the band's record release party at Misshapes about a year ago. "This was right after they had played to a half-empty crowd at Bowery Ballroom," says Morales. "But tapping into that e-mail list to get those kids into the Killers was really the main thing. Misshapes is a part of their lifestyle."
"And," Morales adds, "if you get 10 Leighs in a city to support something, it'll be successful."
