Meredith Bryan | The New York Observer

Couture-teria Indochine, Celebrating 25th, to Get 15 More

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:43:08 -0500

At Indochine’s retro-Shanghai-themed 25th anniversary party on Friday, Nov. 20, near-naked women in pasties shook their rear ends while hotelier André Balazs, in a khaki suit, danced with a tall blonde in a downstairs nightclub called the “Undochine” (which hasn’t been open since the ’80s).

Upstairs, designer Narciso Rodriguez, taking refuge in an air bubble near the front of the room, said he couldn’t remember when he’d first visited the place, long popular with...

It's Madtown!

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:38:34 -0500

Gherardo Guarducci and Dimitri Pauli, the two handsome Italian owners of Sant Ambroeus in the West Village, were sitting recently on a spacious leather banquette in the dining room of their latest venture, Casa Lever, under the watchful Technicolor gaze of 10 original Warhol portraits (Bob Colacello, Robert Mapplethorpe, Giorgio Armani) on the opposite wall.

They were recounting the restaurant’s opening party on Oct. 10, during which Madonna stopped by to sing “Happy Birthday”...

The Pickle Posse

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:00:42 -0500

"There’s something in the air that makes people want to make pickles,” said Joya Carlton, 28, one of three partners in Brooklyn Brine, a local pickle start-up, sitting in a booth at the Greenpoint Coffee House with her two partners, Shamus Jones, 29, and Josh Egnew, 34, both covered in tattoos.

“We’re getting requests from Philly, Atlanta, California … a Japanese magazine wants to do something on us,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s like, ‘Whooaaa!”

...

Sweet Fancy Moses: Manhattan Pastry Potentates

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:18:24 -0500

Last week, as the scrubbed and smirking mugs of Tom Colicchio and Padma Lakshmi continued to advertise Top Chef’s sixth season in Vegas all over town, Bravo announced an open casting call for the series’ latest iteration, Top Chef: Just Desserts, on Sunday, Nov. 8, at Craftsteak.

“It’s about time!” exclaimed Zak Miller, pastry chef at Kefi, Gus & Gabriel and Anthos (where his specialties include a concoction involving beet yogurt and tahini). “I...

Spotted Piglet Hiccups: Boozy Breslin Clashes With Mosque

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:00:26 -0400

The much-hyped, soon-to-open Breslin restaurant, situated in the 12-story Ace Hotel on Broadway and 29th, is giving members of the Masjid Ar-Rahman mosque across the street some agita. “Five times a day, there’s a hundred cabs on the street—the good news is you can always get a cab,” co-owner Ken Friedman told the Transom the other evening. He said some mosque visitors “object to seeing people drink alcohol.”

After the recent FergusStock, a...

The Eight-Day Week: June 3 — 10

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:20:06 -0400

Wednesday, June 3

Cranky Panky: New Yorkers, still recovering from the orgiastic thrill of last weekend’s surprise First Couple “date night” (why yes, our local-seasonal-biodynamic cuisine is delicious, Mr. President! Now how did you ever manage to sneak that big honking polluting vehicle of yours into Times Square …), now will be treated to a puppet show about Walt Whitman’s gayness. “I’m actually sitting here gluing my puppet theater back together,” said puppeteer...

Here Come the Braids!

Tue, 26 May 2009 18:43:55 -0400

"I've been sporting braids for years now,” said Allison Pottasch, 20, who—stopped in Union Square on Monday, May 25—was wearing a loose-fitting purple shirt, jean shorts and a silver nose ring, her thick brown hair parted down the center and arranged neatly into two of spring 2009’s ubiquitous Heidi-esque braids (the Swiss orphan, not the Hills dingbat). “I like it because I can braid it when my hair’s wet, and then when I undo...

The Eight-Day Week: May 27 — June 3

Tue, 26 May 2009 13:29:55 -0400

Wednesday, May 27

It’s summer, mugwumps! So perk up, all you “involuntary” vacationers! Just as we were trying to forget about our nation’s offshore terrorist prisons and focus on getting a little color during our lunch break, here comes that wretched Internet pelting us with news of Meghan “Melons” McCain vs. Dick “Chop-Shop” Cheney! Can’t we just stick to Michael Kors and Isaac Mizrahi and all the other fabulous New York gays who...

The Eight-Day Week: May 20 — 27

Tue, 19 May 2009 15:37:24 -0400

Wednesday, May 20

Everybody’s talking about bailing out desperate homeowners and disgraced hedge funders—but for God’s sake, who will save the skinny trouser manufacturers? Fashion news Web site Refinery 29 begins a monthlong sale called “Save Fashion”—with a special focus this week on men, those horny, hairy beasts. “We didn’t actually come up with the name ‘Save Fashion’ as any sort of rescue mission,” said Christene Barberich, the site’s editor. “It was about...

Consignment Shops Clean Up

Tue, 12 May 2009 18:50:00 -0400

Recently, as the retail world was being rocked by the news that the venerable Fifth Avenue department store Henri Bendel will cease selling, oh, clothes, Myrna Skoller was on the phone from Boca Raton, where she spends most of her time nowadays, discussing the contrasting fortunes of her 19-year-old Upper East Side consignment shop, Designer Resale.

“I’m really excited to say I’m getting that final piece of space I always wanted, that store right...

The Eight-Day Week: May 13-20

Tue, 12 May 2009 14:01:41 -0400

Wednesday, May 13

Another year, another Met Gala at which Gisele is much skinnier than us. Say, is it summer vacation yet? The indefatigable dames who lunch and attend store openings with the help of a full-time staff of six will not stop until Memorial Day, thank you, when the ones who weren’t invested with Mr. Madoff fly their helicopters east to start the circus all over again! Is anyone else’s blowout...

The Eight-Day Week: May 6-13

Tue, 05 May 2009 15:30:49 -0400

Wednesday, May 6

Spring? What spring? Sadistic weather gods oscillate between moist and moister—perhaps punishment for Madoff? Kelly Bensimon? Condé Nast Portfolio?—thus forcing even composty Brooklynites to crank up their air conditioners in shame (speaking of shame: to walk by any park these days is to admit that you, too, once bared your plump, drunk, pasty 22-year old kisser on the weekends, before acquiring dignity and a nice Norma Kamali one-piece, hell-oooo!) The...

Models Mob the Met!

Tue, 05 May 2009 14:48:24 -0400

The theme of this year’s Met Costume Institute Gala—i.e., the Oscars of the East—was “the Model as Muse,” and the weedlike mannequins floating up the red carpet in weapons-grade shoes and teensy get-ups appeared only moderately more human than the “superheroes” that inspired last year’s ball.

Molly Sims called her elaborate gold Dolce & Gabbana minidress “fashion-forward, taking a chance, shorter than short, short, short.” She was also wearing a necklace by jeweler-of-the-moment Tom...

The Eight-Day Week: April 29 — May 6

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:16:58 -0400

Wednesday, April 29

Pinch my ASME: Portfolio, ’twas good to know ya. … And speaking of the ailing print media: The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) holds their annual meeting at the Princeton Club—tiger sis-boom-bah!—with Times and Fortune scribes on a panel titled “The Economy and Your Magazine.” Sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon. … Later, get seduced and betrayed by New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm as she...

The Eight-Day Week: April 22 — 29

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:56:38 -0400

Wednesday, April 22

Who needs Wellbutrin when you have schadenfreude? Maybe it’s the timid blossoms on the trees or maybe it’s those photos of Ruth Madoff leaving jail with a sad baggie of dollar bills, but we’re feeling positively giddy this week! Uptown, the galas continue to tax everyone’s pocketbooks and conversational skills before they follow the money out east for the summer. (What’s left of it, anyway!) Actor and fashion designer...

Post-Post-Emo at New Museum; Young Artist Declares 'Being Ironic is a Way to Be Genuine'

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:07:00 -0400

Chinese artist Chu Yun’s sleeping beauties may be the most buzzed-about piece in the New Museum much-hyped “Younger Than Jesus” triennial, but Daniel Keller and Nik Kosmas’s OMG Obelisk is the hottest. It features a tall, nondescript black column exclaiming OMG in blue lights, to almost deadpan effect. On either side of the column, steel pipes comprise torches of sorts, with small flames burning at the top, filling the room with a pleasant, campfirey...

Meet the Beales! Stars Align for Upteenth Tribute to Hamptons Manse Grey Gardens

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:00:00 -0400

“I do not own it, Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn own it, yes, yes, we must be very clear about that!” exclaimed Frances Hayward, the silver-haired animal-rights activist and philanthropist who has rented the famous Grey Gardens mansion in East Hampton for twelve years now.

Ms. Hayward was arriving at the Ziegfeld premiere of HBO’s new Grey Gardens film, starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange as eccentric Kennedy cousins Big Edie...

The Eight-Day Week: April 15 — 22

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:40:10 -0400

Wednesday, April 15

Allow a few billion dollars’ plunge in collective net worth thwart a perfectly good social season?! Not the plucky dames of Park Avenue! (Who have already settled for low-cost plumpings instead of the pricey scalpel this year, in order to keep Suki and Kingsley at Horace Mann.) And so the spring socialite derby begins as usual (ready, set, pose!) at the New Yorkers for Children’s spring dinner dance, “A Fool’s...

My Fair Mommy

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:14:52 -0400

Melissa Errico, founder of the wildly popular downtown mommy group Bowery Babes, was drinking tea at the Noho Star the other day, reflecting on her somewhat lapsed career as a singer and Broadway star, which has included cabaret performances at the Café Carlyle and starring roles in My Fair Lady, Cole Porter’s High Society, Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George and Michel Legrand’s Amour, for which she received a Tony nomination in 2003.

The Eight-Day Week: April 8 — 15

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:57:39 -0400

Wednesday, April 8

Topshop pops in! For a spot of tea and taxis full of New York crumpets! Or is that strumpets? Get me rewrite! Get me makeup! POOF! The British den of shmatte finally opened, fanning the flickering flame of female consumerism from the Upper East Side to Williamsburg (but boy does it feel good to buy stuff, huh, sister girlfriends?) and heightening our fear of the spring minidresses due to be dangling...

The Eight-Day Week: April 1 — April 8

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:58:47 -0400

Wednesday, April 1

The price for the privilege of lodging yourself into the armpit of a pimpled hipster with bad breath for 20 minutes every morning has gone up! The M.T.A.—evidently mistaking the L train for—ho-ho-ho!—a reliable mode of transportation—will be soaking commuters for ever more precious pocket change: $2.50! At this rate our commute will cost as much as our daily artisanal macchiato! But there are still reasons to suffer this...

Will You Drop for Topshop?

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:01:00 -0400

Late last week, the comely blond British socialite and model Poppy Delevigne, 22, called from her Nolita apartment—several blocks from the new four-story, 40,000-square-foot Topshop behemoth lurking behind covered windows at Broadway and Broome—and described some of her favorite items from the British retail chain, like an “amazing” emerald-green, one-shouldered dress designed by the model Kate Moss. >

“They did it in red and I missed it in my size and I literally cried...

The Eight-Day Week: March 25 — April 1

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:36:28 -0400

Wednesday, March 25

Sheesh, the weather gods are as hormonal as we are these days! One day we’re half-naked at a Williamsburg sidewalk cafe pretending we’re in Paris, like our real estate editor, whom we like to call “Cassandra” … the next we’re huddled on our couch in a ski parka before the TV (alas, we fell asleep before our dapper prez’s appearance on Leno …). Well, since the socialites aren’t quite...

The Eight-Day Week: MARCH 18 — 25

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:43:33 -0400

Wednesday, March 18

Phew! We survived St. Patrick’s Day without being run over by a beer-swilling, laid-off trader from Hoboken! (We went there once in our early 20s to celebrate this “holiday” and weren’t quite right for years …) Who would guess that St. Patrick was actually an upstanding Christian missionary and not the inventor of onion rings? Not that guests at Film Forum’s premiere of Valentino: The Last Emperor are really the...

Trayf Chic! Pig-Derived ‘Evolence’ Freshens City Faces

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:00:00 -0400

Over the past few years, age-conscious Manhattanites have filled their faces with all kinds of crazy stuff, from Botox to hyaluronic acids to fat from their own saddlebags. But recently, Jennifer, a slender 50-year-old who works on Wall Street, decided to plump up her cheeks with a new collagen called Evolence, made from pig tendons, that she had seen advertised on television. “They mentioned that Demi Moore supposedly used it for laugh lines,” she...

The Eight-Day Week: March 11 — 18

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:56:53 -0400

Wednesday, March 11

Who wants a drink? Unemployment hits a 25 year high, The Times releases its prissy evaluation of our dashing prez’s graying hair, cute-yet-hollow Jimmy Fallon hits late-night TV with a ker-punk (not that we can afford DVR anymore!) and the first warm days of the year leave us fighting for sidewalk space with pasty, somnolent hordes in arty scarves and skinny jeans (still?). Burp! Uptown ladies ditch their drivers and...

The Eight-Day Week: March 4 — 11

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:37:36 -0500

Wednesday, March 4

It’s March, mugwumps! And you know what that means: only four months till we can cast off these face-swallowing scarves and sweater blankets and start walking around practically naked—us ladies, that is!—while the mensfolk start to sweat through the back of their work shirts. (By then, we predict they’ll do anything in their work shirts!) In the meantime, let’s wallow some more? Three nice lady fiction writers...

The Eight-Day Week: February 25—March 4

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:06:00 -0500

Wednesday, February 25

Fashion Week sputters to a neon-hued end (suggesting designers were as cracked-out on those McCafés as we were!), leaving us to ponder why every outfit for fall included leather pants and a fur the size of our parents’ Labrador. (And to think we’d been holding out for sensible recession clogs!) Rising in its stead: Wales Week! (Foreign tourism boards obviously having gotten wind of our government-funded banker...

Ladies, Grab Your Mouses: Online Shopping Now a Competitive Sport

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:07:09 -0500

Recently, Redbook editor in chief Stacy Morrison was searching for the perfect shearling coat. “I did a quick lap of some of the stores here, but if I’m going to spend that much money on a coat, I want the coat to blow my mind,” she said the other day by phone. “So for maybe two or four nights in a row I did exhaustive Internet research—it all sounds so silly, but I wanted...

Michelle Obama Clothier Thakoon Reflects On The Fashion Week That Was

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 01:10:41 -0500

On Friday, February 20, the last day of Fashion Week, designer Thakoon Panichgul of the label Thakoon collapsed into an egg-shaped chair at Bergdorf Goodman's white-tableclothed seventh-floor restaurant for tea with the Daily Transom. The fashion industry cafeteria of sorts had been offering an elaborate afternoon tea service all week courtesy London's Berkeley Hotel (it was called it Pret-A-Portea, not to be confused with midtown sandwich chain Pret-a-Manger).

Fashion Week had been a long...

But What Is Anna Wintour's Job at Fashion Week?

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:50:02 -0500

At this afternoon’s Isaac Mizrahi show at the New York Public Library, the Daily Transom’s seat several rows behind Anna Wintour allowed us to observe a now-familiar pattern: Ms. Wintour arrived within minutes of the designated start time—as she always does, despite the fact that the show would’ve held for her indefinitely—and made her way to a front-row seat, where she endured a blinding wall of flashbulbs, as she always does. Then she waited...

In Tents! Amy Astley Contemplates an Unlikely Fashion-Week Land-Grab at Philip Lim's Non-80's Rock-and-Roll Show

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:00:04 -0500

At yesterday’s Phillip Lim show at the Tents, a new runway trend was in evidence: live concerts! (Perhaps the instigator of this was, as is the case with many trends, Marc Jacobs, who famously enlisted Sonic Youth to play his fall 2008 show). Mr. Lim had hired rocker Lissie Trullie, a shaggy-haired redhead who looks like the frontman of a British boy band but is in fact a young woman from Washington, D.C. (according...

Neiman Marcus' on-the-Town Buyer Is Loving the '80s All Over Again

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:24:40 -0500

Yesterday, before the packed Phillip Lim show at the Tents, we caught up with Ken Downing, dapper man-about-town and senior VP and women’s fashion director at Neiman Marcus, to discuss the neon-hued '80s nostalgia which has seized designers like Alexander Wang, Michael Kors, Rodarte and Marc Jacobs this fashion week.

“You know, London always has punk, New York always has the '80s,” Mr. Downing said. “And there’s always a little bit of the '80s in...

Baba Helps Fashion-Week Friend Avoid Wawa After Oscar de la Renta Show

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:21:44 -0500

Yesterday’s Oscar de la Renta show, at a Christian Science Church on Park Avenue*, took place in a grand, two-story room anchored with White House–esque columns at the front. Mr. de la Renta employed a diverse cast of models, among them a handful of the most prominent African-American up-and-comers (his spring 2009 runway was also less pale than many designers’), and his collection featured belted, first-lady-appropriate day dresses and gowns in lively, contrasting colors....

Elijah Wood Gets Spurred at Rodarte! It's 'Artistic'

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:15:07 -0500

Rodarte is the fashion equivalent of a Basquiat: people in the know really love it, but to everyone else it’s inscrutable or a little bit ugly. So it was no surprise that the couture-like label, designed by sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, managed to attract to its Tuesday runway show an insider-ish crowd including Anna Wintour, French Vogue’s Carine Roitfeld, famed photographer Mario Testino, Barney’s buyer Julie Gilhart, Paper’s Kim Hastreiter, CFDA chief Diane...

Diesel Serves Dinner to Richie Rich and Kenny Kenny ... In Its New Store Window!

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:44:26 -0500

Italian denim brand Diesel—perhaps sensing that this is hardly the time for a celeb-infested store opening party with sponsored cocktails and a surprise performance by Kanye West or M.I.A.—is celebrating its massive new Diesel Planet flagship (all 20,000 square feet of it!) at 54th and 5th with a series of dinners in the store window. The first, on Monday, Feb. 16, featured just four guests: "club kids" Richie Rich, Kenny Kenny, and Patrick McDonald,...

Wednesday, February 25

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:24:36 -0500

Proof that some things are getting back to normal arrives in the form of a kickoff party to honor the Benefit Committee of a Gala Preview! Specifically, the Benefit Committee of the East Side House Settlement Gala Preview of the 2009 New York International Auto Show (whew!). Wouldn’t seem to be the best time for auto makers to be aligning themselves with the social set (private jets didn’t go over too well at those...

Tuesday, February 24

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:23:14 -0500

As this newspaper has previously reported, gays love themselves a recession (heck, they love the boom years, too!) and tonight the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus—those happy, melodic ambassadors of queerdom—stage their annual benefit gala, “Laugh Out Loud,” hosted by the fashionably bald stylist and reality star (who isn’t?) Robert Verdi.

[NYC Gay Men’s Chorus Benefit Gala, Westside Loft, 336 West 37th Street, 6:30 p.m., www.nycgmc.org]

Monday, February 23

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:21:46 -0500

‘I think of it as a new hall, though technically speaking, it is a renovation of Alice Tully Hall, which as you know was quite beloved by New York as well,” said Jane Moss, VP of programming at Lincoln Center, who was on the phone to discuss the new edifice rising after an 18-month face-lift. “Before, it felt slightly bunkerlike, and now it is a very visible, dynamic presence on 65th Street and Broadway...

Sunday, February 22

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:19:58 -0500

Obama-inspired theater— which followed a rich period of Hillary Clinton–inspired theater—gives way to Ted Haggard: The Musical, oops, This Beautiful City, opening at the Vineyard Theatre. The show probes the psyches of some evangelical Christians in Colorado Springs, Colo., site of the mega-church the aforementioned Mr. Haggard helmed before he was outed as a gay meth-head! “It was pretty insane,” said Jim Lewis, co-writer of the play, who happened to be in Colorado Springs...

Saturday, February 21

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:17:27 -0500

Speaking of dear ole Dad! Over at Film Forum, the pessimistic “Breadlines & Champagne” film festival is still mucking around in Depression-era celluloid; Scarface screens for drunk, out-of-work investment-banking analysts wandering around Soho mumbling, “Say hello to mah little frien,” oblivious to the fact that the 1932 original didn’t star Al Pacino. … (His name was Paul Muni, and Howard Hawks directed the picture.)

[Scarface at Film Forum, 209 West Houston ...

Friday, February 20

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:13:55 -0500

While we’re home convalescing with a cold compress after LL Cool J (been a while since we were breathing that hard …), dear ole Dad’s favorite finely aged country crooner, Emmylou Harris, plays at the Beacon Theatre, singing of being screwed over by her lovers and the patina of sadness covering everything. (Cat Power for grandparents!) And just as we’d finally become inured to its constant presence, Fashion Week’s last takeover of Bryant Park...

Thursday, February 19

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:11:54 -0500

Brittle 30-something Caucasian women swoon as LL Cool J—’90s rapper who penned the definitive soundtrack to suburban middle-school dances’ awkward mating rituals (bonus dirty excerpt: It’s our first time together and I’m feeling kinda horny; conventional methods of makin’ love kinda bore me!) hits the Nokia Theatre to perform music from his 13th album (while the crowd waits impatiently to hear Doin’ It). Incidentally, Mr. Cool J has evolved from hip-hop artist to clothing...

Wednesday, February 18

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:10:16 -0500

Does anyone else feel slightly bad for that adorably bald Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs (if not his banker cohorts, who look like middle-aged versions of the lacrosse players we lusted after in college …), who has to trudge down to Washington every other week on a downsized corporate jet (whoosh … put-put-put …) to face the showboating wrath of senators who don’t know how to open an Excel spreadsheet? (We’d be scared if...

Baby, Let's Dance All Night! Chris Benz Channels '70s Club Life in His Latest Collection

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:24:48 -0500

Twenty-six-year-old Chris Benz is among the designers who scaled back to a "presentation" this Fashion Week (after staging his first runway show in September 2008). But restraint was not otherwise in evidence Monday evening at the West Chelsea industrial space where 36 models in colorful cashmere, silk chiffon ruffles, sheared mink, and, in one instance, electric red foiled leather, slouched on black platforms throughout the room.

"I like the party atmosphere," said Mr....

Wednesday, February 18

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:44:23 -0500

Thumb your nose at unemployment with thousand-dollar tunics! Up today, Michael Kors, ebullient reality-TV star and designer of frocks for the shrinking jet set; Oscar de la Renta, clothier of every first lady in recent history except Michelle Obama; furrier J. Mendel (rrrowl) and hot young boy designers Proenza Schouler, who, not to be cynical or anything, have been hot young boy designers for about five years now, if we’re not mistaken—move over, bacon!...

Tuesday, February 17

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:43:06 -0500

BAM! BAM! BAM! Jonathan Lethem alert at Defcon 4! Sam Mendes, endearingly shlubby director and hubby to the mysteriously much-reviled Kate Winslet, is celebrating his fancy Shakespeare play, The Winter’s Tale, at a Brooklyn Academy of Music benefit with an offbeat cadre of acting geniuses like Steve Buscemi, Patricia Clarkson, Willem Dafoe, Jeremy Irons and Kevin Spacey; also media power couple Mike Nichols and Diane Sawyer, and Ethan Hawke, who stars in the play....

Monday, February 16

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:41:28 -0500

Fashion Week to New York: Notice us! Strutting down the runway today are models wearing the handiwork of ageless grande dame Carolina Herrera, the aforementioned Zen-drenched Donna Karan, floral-prints prodigy Thakoon (another lucky Michelle Obama clothier; she knows how to spread the love), Justin Timberlake’s inexplicably ongoing fashion line William Rast and, most importantly, the oft-naked Marc Jacobs, who has warned—oh noes!—that his guest list will be snipped in half this year. Which silly...

Sunday, February 15

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:39:52 -0500

New Yorkers eschew morning sex, stumble out en masse past their snoring, pallid partners for triple espressos. … If you’re feeling plucky, put on a snood and head to the Film Forum, where they’re screening the 1933 classic Baby Face with Barbara Stanwyck, which The Times describes as “one of the most stunningly sordid films ever made, a standout even among the wave of risqué entertainments that filled American screens in the early years...

Saturday, February 14

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:38:15 -0500

Now that consumerism is dead, must we still celebrate the idiot Hallmark holidays it wrought? Let’s take a clinical approach to Valentine’s Day and check in with the restaurant industry: Chef Gabriel Kreuther of the Modern told us he is planning “a nice tasting menu” for $185, excluding booze, but including museum admission. “We’re gonna start off with three nice canapés, and then the next course is butternut squash panna cotta with pomegranate and...