It’s not just our dashing, thoroughly modern president drawing the world’s attention—it’s our clothes, too. Classic American style has reinvigorated the world of fashion. And it all starts with these essential pieces for you to short-list this spring.
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penn badgley grows up—and grows a pair
For someone who spent just one year enrolled in actual high school, Penn Badgley has managed to make a career of playing angst-ridden students. Which is why he initially turned down the part of 17-year-old Dan Humphrey on TV’s campy Gossip Girl. “All I knew was that I’d already done three WB shows,” Badgley says, “and that it was called Gossip Girl.”
Smartly, he reconsidered. Gossip Girl has delivered for Badgley on all fronts. It endowed him with enough teen cred to do a Midwest college tour this past October in support of Obama, a cause he’d have bled for. Then it hooked him up with a girl—co-star Blake Lively, who has probably been photographed at Starbucks fifteen times since you started reading this. (Of their tabloid-chronicled relationship, he’ll say only that “95 percent of what you read is bullshit.”)
Finally, the show has given the 22-year-old actor a shot at a legit career. Penn Badgley (named after the Penn tennis balls his dad was nervously squeezing during his mom’s first sonogram) has been acting professionally since he was 13, and he knows how fleeting television success can be. (See: Perry, Luke; Priestley, Jason.) Still, while he won’t exactly bite the hand that feeds him, he certainly nibbles on it: “I can do this role with my eyes closed and my arms behind my back. What I’m looking for now is something challenging.” Like? “I always joke with the show’s creators, ‘Anytime you want me to do drugs or contemplate suicide, I’ll do it.’ ”—sarah goldstein
