Art Basel Miami

There were so many parties riding on the back of Art Basel Miami Beach, according to the Times, that “anyone without a crib sheet, or the power publicist Nadine Johnson on speed-dial, was lost.” So legion were the corporate-scented art-design-fashion fêtes, in fact, that Manhattan socialite Lee Schifter’s speech pattern was reduced to something akin to gibberish. “Did you Pucci or Choo?” she asked at one point, referring to a pair of concurrent parties—one given by Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon and the other by Emilio Pucci’s daughter, Laudomia.

And those who didn’t Pucci or Choo were able to Swarovski, Audi and Cartier. Oh, and a few lucky people could also Klein, if they so desired, by dining with the 65-year-old designer, Calvin, at his new, art-free, Greece-or-something manse. No lazy affair, the planning for Mr. Klein’s party reportedly took several weeks and included “casting” and “importing” actor-waiters from New York. Art for promotion’s sake? It’s safe to say that Andy Warhol would be quite pleased. [NYT]

Last night, we met up with André Balazs—the hotel magnate behind a cartel of boutique sleeperies, which includes the Mercer in SoHo, L.A.’s Chateau Marmont and the Standards. Looking dapper in a form-fitting gray suit that had a subtle sheen, Mr. Balazs, 50, had just flown back to New York after a weekend at Art Basel Miami and was among the guests at the 12th annual holiday dinner benefiting ACRIA, an AIDS research and education initiative.

We asked Mr. Balazs about this year’s fair. “Every year it’s more and more of a circus and a phenomenon,” he told The Daily Transom while standing in Donna Karan’s Urban Zen boutique on Greenwich Street in the West Village. The store, filled with calming music and some sort of overpowering exotic incense, had been turned into a makeshift entrance, leading guests towards a larger dining space next door. “Everyone in the [art] business tells me they’ve never done better, and yet, at the same time, the whole thing is taking on an air that goes way beyond the art world or anything that has to do with art,” he said. After saying hello to a chic-looking, pink-cheeked couple walking by, Mr. Balazs, who received a joint masters degree in journalism and business from Columbia, added, “I’ve never seen such an influx of people interested in branding and using some marketing opportunity to push culture.”

Despite the recent buzz suggesting that the American-European art bubble can’t continue to inflate at its current rate without bursting, he remains somewhat confident. “I think it can sustain itself for a while,” he said.

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On the evening of Tuesday, Dec.  read more »

The rain / in Spain / falls mainly / on the plain! Master that and you're good to go for things like horseraces circa 1910. But nowadays it takes a lot more to impress people at fashiony parties. And now that everyone is so covered up for winter, the holiday fashion party is the toughest nut to crack. One's mouth has to sound good, not just look pretty and plump! Luckily, T Magazine’s Web site stays abreast with the trendiest lingo so we don’t have to. We’ve included here T's three words, which are sure to tickle the tip of your tongue for months to come. But trying to get by with only three words would be a nightmare! So you’ll also find an important neologism from your friends at The Daily Transom at the end.  read more »

Art Basel Miami Beach—the self-proclaimed “most important art show in the United States”—started off not with a bang, but a thrash: Iggy and the Stooges played a free concert called Art Loves Music. There’s a certain pleasure to be had in imagining a mosh pit of well-heeled collectors subjecting themselves to Iggy’s shirtless ministrations. What better way to celebrate doling out a fortune on a work of art?  read more »

Nothing comes between Calvin Klein and his white walls. The 65-year-old fashion designer, whose clothes epitomize a clean, sleek aesthetic, has a new home in North Miami—and roughhousing is probably not allowed inside. “It’s all white, of course,” Mr. Klein told WWD on Saturday night at P.R. kingpin Paul Wilmot’s dinner party during Art Basel. “And there is no art on the walls, but a few people on Friday night said they were relieved that they didn’t have to look at any more art!” (Yes, what a relief that must have been!) The minted digs, a 1920s-style Spanish Villa that took a year to renovate, apparently have a prime spot from which to peep the bay.

Though Mr. Klein spent much of the weekend visiting various high-minded fairs and fêtes, he likes to collect things that “you wouldn’t hang on the wall.” Instead, he wants to give his home a Mediterranean feel, as if it were “in Greece or something.” But when Greece or something seems too far from the action on South Beach, he can simply crash at his nearby apartment on Collins Ave.

For anyone but Calvin Klein, having two homes in the same Floridian city might indicate a lifelong love for the Sunshine State. Not so, apparently. “I used to have a house in Palm Beach, but I had decided I never wanted to be in Florida again. After five or six New York winters, I changed my mind." The designer added that he would be spending the holidays at his home in Rio de Janeiro.  read more »

As it happens, Paris Hilton’s presence at Art Basel last weekend really did boggle more than a few minds. One guest at a party held on Saturday night at Casa Casuarina, the former Versace Mansion on Miami Beach’s Ocean Drive, told The Daily Transom that she was acting rather strangely at the affair.

“The interesting thing is just how insecure and socially inept she is,” the eyewitness told us after the party. “She walked around the garden most of the night pretending she was speaking to someone on her cell phone.” Apparently, Ms. Hilton, 26, barely put her bejeweled Sidekick down the entire evening, even when she was quasi-mingling with her fellow partygoers. Our source added that the hotel-chain heiress was trailed all evening by “a security guard and some weird guy in a strange Halloween-style hat.”  read more »

Today, Matthew Williamson, the creative director of Pucci, is at Art Basel, where he wrote a bloggy update for The Moment, part of the Times’ new T Magazine Web site. And since he’s the head designer for a label that reminds us of fruit salad, 1960s airline stewardesses and people from Miami, what better place to scribble some thoughts! Having arrived in the tropical climate apparently turned Mr. Williamson’s creative Pucci juices on high. “[I]t’s amazing how inspired I feel in Miami,” he writes. “I really love this place. The people, the shops, the art, the bars and clubs. It’s such any energetic place.”

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