When Mr. Ries was setting the choreography for Oakland, he worked closely with the dancers to capture the mood of the 1920's and the manner of the chic men and women they were to portray.
There's also a new facet to tomboy chic: men's staples adapted for women – like New York sportswear label Filles et Papa and men's shirts by brands like E Tautz, Thomas Pink and Mr Start.
That's the refined aesthetic of cool European magazines, like Fantastic Man in Amsterdam and Purple Fashion in Paris, with elegant serif typefaces (the old-fashioned sort with squiggles at the ends of the letters) floating gracefully in lots of white space, like a graphic take on Apple's iPod or Prada's chic men's cardigans.
But perhaps the only thing more played out than another lumberjack-chic man with a candy-colored ax was this word, trotted out to label the retro-trend.
Its first issues had a print run of 1,000, distributed by hand to stores like St. Mark's Bookshop in the East Village and the Freemans Sporting Club on Bleecker Street, a hunter-chic men's boutique, where it's sold alongside $330 vintage-style umbrellas.
With the theater already booked for early February, Mr. Khan turned to Crossroads's former house manager, Susan Settles, the wife of Mississippi Charles Bevel, who starred with Chic Street Man in the one-show performance of "Passing the Blues Along" last year, to see if they could turn the act into a full production.
Sets by Marjorie Bradley Kellogg; costumes by Alvin B. Perry; lighting by Jane Cox; original music composed by Chic Street Man; sound by Don Tindall; production stage manager, Francys Olivia Burch; director of development, Kathryn M. Lipuma; general manager, Karalee Dawn; production manager, Bill Kneissl; director of marketing, Rick Berube; literary manager, Beth Whitaker.
Saint Laurent stated that he loved Les Smokings because "They look equally chic on men and women".
DRESS CODE -- For women, casual chic; for men, the requisite button-down striped shirt.
No less an authority than the Gucci design chief, Tom Ford, pronounced him "the chic-est man on the planet today".
