Fashion Plate

The verdicts from the "America's Next Top Model" judges are in: I've got style!

Spending Sunday morning at UPN's portion of the TV critics press tour, I stuck around for the "Top Model" panel. Tyra Banks -- who freely admits she's got a huge forehead, so much so she was nicknamed "fivehead" -- was there, along with the show's other judges: Original supermodel Janice Dickinson, fashion photographer Nigel Barker and Eric Nicholson, senior fashion editor of Jane magazine.

After the session, I was talking to a UPN exec when the dark-haired Dickinson -- who's brash enough to call herself the "Rosa Parks of the modeling world," because she broke through what was then an all-blonde, blue-eyed industry -- walked up to us. She quickly told me how much she liked my jacket.

I was wearing a thrift store brown leather jacket I bought with Maria a few years ago in San Francisco. At $40, it was a pretty damn good purchase. All the more because I get more comments on it than any other piece of clothing I own.

When Dickinson heard I bought it at a thrift store, she brought over the Jane magazine fashion guru, who gave a thumb's up as well.

There you have it: Mike Schneider, fashion guru. Maria will be so proud.