Most websites put up completely nondescript 404 error pages. But most websites aren’t Vogue.com, where if you have the audacity to request a page that does not exist, you will be rewarded with a photo of Sasha Pivovarova looking at you like you just told her she has no business wearing that lipstick. Deev.

But Vogue.com isn’t alone in its Internet attitude. Click a bad link on VanityFair.com and a Graydon Carter bobble head will try to get you not to assign the blame for your missing page to Conde’s wayward IT guys, and BonAppetit.com will just accuse you of burning the toast. Take a look at a the company’s creative error pages after the jump.

“There are lots of little cracks. And if you’re a nice little weed, you’ll grow through the cracks. And you’ll become a tree.”
- Diane von Furstenberg

They had done every Internet search they could think of trying to link their address to something that might explain it, like the Postal Service or Macy’s, but they had come up with nothing.

He did not know why; he did not know how. He just knew that they were sitting on hundreds of letters to Santa and that the ones he had opened had moved him so much, he had to do something about it.

Watch:

Miracle on 22nd Street [The New York Times]
Did He Leave a Forwarding Address? Yes, the North Pole [The New York Times]

I’ve been, like, a really good boy this year and all. So … can I get one of these Kelly Reemtsen oil paintings? Pretty please?

Love,
Justin

New Gallery For Kelly Reemsten [Indies Art]

But that, of course, was before it started getting super, extra cold here in New York, and before I frequently found myself outside, tweeting and looking up subway instructions on my BlackBerry. To do these things and to keep my fingers from turning into icicles and cracking off, I was pulling my hands out of and rapidly pushing them back into my stodgy old brown wannabe suede Thinsulate gloves, which are, I must admit, overdue for replacement.

But maybe there’s a compromise somewhere in here. Urban Outfitters sells a pair of, uh, hand coverings that go from mittens to fingerless gloves in no time flat. They’re perfect for iPhone users who want to get in a quick game of Tetris before their fingers get too cold for their touch screens to recognize them as appendages connected to a warm-blooded being. They’re also perfect for people like me, who don’t want people to know that they own fingerless gloves.

“We only like people because of their failings.”
- Coco Chanel

I know that’s blasphemous, because everyone is supposed to be able to pick their favorite something or other, especially if they’re passionate about that something. Favorite song, favorite movie, favorite food. That idea is so trite to me, but it becomes even more pedestrian when it comes to fashion.

The industry — and not just the clothes it produces, but the entire industry — changes far too quickly for anyone to be able to honestly say, “Oh, yes. This person is just the bees knees and always will be under every single circumstance.” Stop it. Most fashion, the stuff that really drives this business and keeps people’s houses staffed with servants and whatnot, is here today and gone tomorrow. Even if you liked Marc Jacobs‘ grungy sensibility at the beginning of his career, today, at his peak, that grunge has been replaced by chinoiserie. And honestly? Still don’t know how I feel about that.

Same thing goes for the people. When was the last time you heard anything out of Alexandre Plokhov, the designer behind Cloak? When, for that matter, was the last time you heard about Cloak? This side of four years ago the fledgling label was all anyone in menswear (and even Anna Wintour!) could talk about. Today it’s a lot like Prussia. Which is to say, it’s not there anymore. Ozwald Boateng‘s company seems to still be extant, but you don’t see his work blown up the way it used to be. (Show of hands: who misses his show on Sundance?) And so many brands that start out strong end up flaccid and bankrupt (or worse) in no time flat.

Maybe that’s the reason that I’m so conservative about lauding any one person as my absolute favesies: because they’re all one bad collection away from being blown into smithereens. Even Chanel had to wait three seasons after her post-World-War-II comeback collection until she had the same kind of success she enjoyed before the war.

On top of that, does anyone really wear one designer or brand exclusively? I love a good Lanvin blazer as much as the next guy, but I don’t think I could wear nothing but Lanvin all the time — and not just because I couldn’t afford it. So much of the fun of fashion is mixing it up, and because of that it pains me to see people wearing an outfit pulled straight from the runway or a look book.

I think the best any of us can say is that we really like what a particular somebody is doing at the moment (Michael Bastian, lower your prices and we’ll talk), or that we really like the way one brand makes certain garments. (I, for one, will never like any oxford cloth shirt more than the ones I get for $20 at Uniqlo.) But is there really any one entity of fashion that can satisfy all of our ravenous sartorial desires in one fell swoop?

“Fashion is not for sissies.”
- Michael Kors

Kidding. I’m probably going to go get one anyway.