Wednesday, June 18th
MORE The Eight-Day Week
Crank the outside temp up to 103 degrees and watch how fast New Yorkers morph from eco-smugness into borderline carbon crack-whoredom, ducking into Duane Reade for free hits of air-conditioning and guzzling bottled water by the truckload, while beer-bellied finance types look up from their CrackBerries and recover Propecia-repressed libidos as the subways fill with post-coital-looking dames (in truth it’s post-$60 Fekkai blowout) in exposed lingerie, perspiring décolletage and neck tattoos. Uptown, the charity shopping events continue unabated, with a bevy of triple-named social gals (Beth Rudin DeWoody, Vogue-ette Marina Rust Connor, Vanity Fair scribe Amy Fine Collins)—not to mention Jonathan Adler and our very own creative genius Simon Doonan—rushing to the aid of starving opera stars at City Opera Thrift Shop’s “DIVAS Shop for Opera” event. “I thought that it was an intellectually interesting project to align myself with,” e-mailed haute stylist Patricia Field, co-chair and the woman responsible for Sarah Jessica Parker’s peerless drag-queen tranny look. “I am happy to see that the City Opera thrift shop project has met with great success and is expanding beautifully as a result of it, now involving many fashion stylists, designers, fashion journalists and other fashionistas.” Added co-chair and vintage shopping enthusiast Elsa Klensch: “With globalization and designer boutiques around the world selling exactly the same items, I find their fashion to be repetitive.” Of course, she added, “I still shop them.” KA-CHING! Ms. Klensch plans to wear one of her “collection of kimonos I bought in the early-morning markets in Tokyo. … It makes me look a size smaller and a lot taller.” And she will be on the prowl: “What I want is a green handbag, preferably in alligator.” Perhaps she’ll bring her fowling piece!
[DIVAS Shop for Opera, Industria Superstudio, 356 West 12th Street, 5 p.m., 212-870-4018]
mbryan@observer.com
