My grandmother, Alma, of Washington, D.C., and Boca Raton, Fla., believes that it is choice that has prevented me from becoming a supermodel. Ditto neurosurgeon. Ditto musical prodigy, prima ballerina, best-selling author. And it's really important to her that I have everything: good haircuts, good shoes, enough calcium in my diet.
What she'd really like is Read MoreIf 10021 were an autonomous nation, then the retirement of the 78-year-old designer Bill Blass last year would be nothing short of a state of emergency.
More than the court designer to a certain set of Park Avenue ladies, Bill Blass was the token gentleman of the gang: Nina Griscom, Anne Bass, Nan Kempner, Judy Peabody, Read MoreIt can happen any season. Somebody-then everybody-decides there's a young star designer out there. A single fashion show becomes the Show. It's held downtown, somewhere gritty and inconvenient. And, odds are, half of the people in the seats have never heard of the prodigy before. They're there because of who else is there.
Right in the Read MoreGirdles, back when women wore them at breakfast, to the market, to bridge, were suits of armor. Imposing, certainly, and demanding. Pour yourself in and cinch it. A promise not to jiggle or shake. A promise to aspire to feminine shapes, to adjust the ratio of your belly to your hip, to believe in one Read More
Most people think it all started with Madonna. It was subtle: She'd take the stage at an awards show, and before the clapping even died down you could hear it: "Thank kyeew . Thank kyeeew ." Suddenly she wasn't some naughty Catholic girl from the Motor City. She sounded sort of … continental. All proper, Read More
On the fourth floor of an office building on Fifth Avenue, 50 New Yorkers were preparing to depart for a three-month boot camp in Stockholm, Sweden-land of Ikea, Nokia and Volvo. The traveling troops-the newest employees of Hennes and Mauritz, Sweden's version of the sprawling, low-priced, high-style chain stores-were watching a training video. On it, Read More
Foxy Brown, the fashionable, tart-tongued rap diva, couldn't walk. She'd bought a pair of $750 snakeskin Manolo Blahnik stilettos with straps that slithered all the way up her calves, making her look like a marriage between a Roman philosopher and Linda Lovelace. "The sexiest, fiercest thing around," she said. But her heels were wobbling and Read More
A week after Calvin Klein announced that he had hired Lazard
Frères & Company to help him consider the sale of his company, Bernard Arnault, the man deemed the most likely buyer, was in Manhattan to conduct a little business of his own. Mr. Arnault, the chairman of luxury giant LVMH-Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, was here Read MoreJosh had not bought any clothes since, we think, high
school. There was a blitz back in 1991 when we were shipping my older brother off to college-during which he accumulated lots of flannel shirts, Levis and woolly sweaters-but that was like completing a checklist for summer camp. It wasn't what I would call shopping. After Read MoreFashion week was just getting started, but the models in Diane Von Furstenberg's West 12th Street carriage house on Sunday, Sept. 12, were already whimpering about being tired. "Isn't this fun?" gushed the 52-year-old designer as she darted around in a filmy white sundress with an ivy pattern. Models were splayed all over the floor Read More
The two-story-high, graffitoed images of giant model couple Esther Canadas and Mark Vanderloo on the corner of Madison Avenue and 60th Street were dismantled the weekend of Aug. 6, their big pouty lips stripped away to expose something even more astonishing. Underneath was a big, shiny glass box, mysteriously soaped up, but promising–in lower-case neon Read More
"He was not a practical joker nor was he a fool but he was determinedly original and had a vague and modest idea of himself as a legendary figure."
–John Cheever, The Swimmer It may well occur to Bill Clinton that–on a hot and lush summer afternoon–it is entirely conceivable that he might golf his way Read MoreFor years, Anthony Weiner lived and breathed Chuck Schumer. He went to work in Representative Schumer's office in 1985, when he was a hungry pup straight out of the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. Even back then, Mr. Weiner had something in mind beyond just serving his boss. "I remember him saying, 'Chuck! Read More
Don Robbie, Mall Voyeur
Once upon a time, Don Robbie lived next to Brigitte Bardot and her sister right off the lovely Boulevard Raspail in Paris. At night he danced with glamorous drag queens who carried Yorkies. And he summered in Portofino, Italy, or in Greece, eating peaches and stopping traffic. Mr. Robbie was a well-known Read MoreOn one of the last nights he would spend wondering whether his political plans and ambitions would be put on hold, Daniel O'Donnell made his way from his law office in the Ansonia building to a meeting of the Broadway Democratic Club in Morningside Heights. He has been president of the club for a year Read More
