No, that’s not me (although it kinda looks like me + 25 years or so). That’s Pete Townshend in a preview from “VH1 Honors – The Who” (tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m., VH1) wearing an Imp of the Perverse jacket by my good friend Giovanni Contrada.

Our band, Nous Non Plus, has been wearing Imp for years now and it seems that Pete (together with Sheryl Crow and Elton John, among others) have finally jumped on the bandwagon.

Giovanni’s mother was a Neapolitan shirtmaker and he has worked in the fashion industry for some twenty odd years. When he and his wife Libby moved to Los Angeles a few years back he launched Imp, with its signature skull buttons and motif and dyed Italian fabric jackets (Giovanni created a special line of Imp just for me, “The Jar,” with a marijuana leaf in place of the skull theme — go figure…).

Above: a recent photo of me and one of my dearest Italian friends, Sita Saviolo. I’m wearing my favorite Imp jacket. That night we dined with a large tavolata of old friends at Trattoria Savio, outside Padua, where we ate cured horse meat, horse meat ragù, and pony steaks (look for an upcoming post on Savio later this summer).

Above: fashionista Giovanni Contrada in one of his Los Angeles workshops.

You can purchase Imp of the Perverse at Maxfield in West Hollywood (but it ain’t cheap).

Maxfield
8825 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90069
(310) 274-8800

Words to live by…

If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad.
—Sheryl Crow