For The Moment | John Jay

January 28th, 2008 12:49 PM
By JOHN JAY

This week’s guest blogger is John Jay, the Executive Creative Director and Partner of the Wieden + Kennedy advertising agency which includes Nike among its clients. Now based in Portland, Ore., Jay works in Asia once a month. In addition to helping to open W+K’s Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing and New Delhi offices, he also founded W+K Tokyo Lab (an independent DVD music label) and Studio J, a private creative consultancy in Portland’s Chinatown. Jay writes a blog for Honeyee.com in Tokyo and is a contributor to magazines in Tokyo and the U.S. on creativity and pop culture, including Tokion Japan, Giant Robot, Theme and Spread magazine. This week, Jay will be posting from Tokyo on the commodification of Japanese youth culture.

Tokyo is in global demand. The city’s pop culture continues to stimulate the outside world, its influence played out in everything from urban hipster wear to the suburban sprawling of Cosplay, and this has led to a previously unthinkable reversal of roles: the West is now in the role of copier.

While undeniable, this cultural transfer raises some interesting questions. Why does Tokyo, and by extension Japan, have such a hold on our imagination? Will the Tokyo creative bubble mimic the economic downturn of the early 1990s and burst? Has the insatiable appetite for what’s next sapped the best ideas out of Tokyo’s creative class?

The Internet has certainly diminished the time lag between subcultures and their global massification into consumable bite-sized trends. Surely, even Tokyo can’t keep it up forever.

Or can it? From 1998, this was my home for six exciting years. Now I return to Asia and Tokyo almost every month and as I watch the amazing transformation, I am reminded just how unique Tokyo is. It’s also impossible not to notice the effects of globalization: the new Admiral Perry has arrived in Tokyo Bay, but this time the resistance will be more formidable.

In the coming week, I will be sharing my thoughts fresh from the streets of Tokyo, as well as the ideas of some of the city’s new sources of creativity. I hope that you will find these musings to be of interest and that you will leave comments with your opinions. In the meantime, however, a little background:

As I mentioned earlier, I lived in Tokyo for six years, having opened the Wieden + Kennedy Tokyo office in 1998. (I worked on many clients but I guess I am most associated with Nike.) But my love affair with this city began in my previous career as Creative Director at Bloomingdale’s in the mid-80s, the time of Japan’s intellectual fashion conquering of Paris and then the world. It was a different retail climate and Bloomingdale’s, under the direction of Marvin S. Traub, was a post-graduate school for cultural authenticity, routinely sending its buyers and marketers around the world to bring back inspiration from other societies. For instance, one of my most rewarding assignments was to mount an exhibition of contemporary Tokyo design and creativity in the Manhattan store.

Ridley Scott’s still-relevant “Blade Runner” captured the techno-beat and look of ancient modernism and Tokyo was permanently etched in our minds. We naively believed that the bubble of exuberance and money was going to be eternal. How wrong we were.

But the implosion of the economy that followed cleared the way for a new generation of influencers who shunned the business card uniformity of Japan Inc. and instead proudly wore the badge of independence. As true outsiders successful on their own terms, they did what was considered previously impossible.

Now, the world is ready for the next injection of freshness and again looking to Tokyo as the anti-body for a viral malaise born of 24/7 marketing and hype. Our world cities have been affected by the consolidation caused by mergers and acquisitions under the guise of efficiency. We are in need for a haven from such productivity and just maybe the island mentality of Japan is where we need to go.

So this is the third chapter in my relationship with Tokyo. As an observer and hopefully contributor to the city’s business and culture, I return each time in awe. Wieden + Kennedy’s 25-year relationship with Nike has offered me a vital creative life here (the Nike Tokyo lab we created is an unrivaled incubator of new ideas). I have been encouraged to overlook the runways of the elite for inspiration, and was instead given the gift of global youth. My responsibilities continue to be a sociologist’s dream, a constant challenge to keep up with the rapid changes created by a youth culture empowered by the reach of technology, the bravado of hip hop and the angst of punk.

I LAND AT TOKYO’S NARITA AIRPORT from Portland on Saturday and check into the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Japan’s newest consumer temple, Tokyo Midtown, a tower of shops and restaurants that also houses the Suntory Museum, and the 21-21 Museum by creative greats Tadao Ando, Issey Miyake and Naoto Fukasawa. I am here this time specifically to do final research for an upcoming creative immersion trip for a client.

I spend the first night in Tokyo’s latest creative refuge, Le Baron, a club and private karaoke speakeasy beneath a dark alley of Aoyama with interiors by Marc Newson, a celebrated member of design aristocracy who began his career in Tokyo after leaving his native shores of Australia.

One of the guest DJ’s for the evening, Fraser Cooke, had been sitting on my office sofa in Portland less than 24 hours earlier. Cooke is a multi-tasking talent from London who is now working in Nike’s Tokyo Design Studio in the emerging neighborhood of Nakameguro. His knowledge of music is inspirational and his long-standing contributions to the London club scene have earned him a unique place as a creator, merchandiser and opinion leader of street style.

The night at Le Baron was one for reunions. Editors, stylists, producers and designers who are a part of a global creative clan, old and new, friends gathered around our tables. All through the evening, the conversation danced around creativity and what was influencing us. It was the start of yet another week in what I would still describe as the world’s most influential city. Being in this cultural vortex is a privilege some would call a job. But or me, work, play and learning is all wrapped up in a constant search for inspiration, which I can share with my friends and clients who in truth are more like creative partners — and, this week, with you.

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The High Low | Lee Angel Earrings, $135

January 28th, 2008 11:12 AM
By KARLA M. MARTINEZ

You don’t need a degree from Central St. Martins to know that good style mixes high-ticket items with brilliant affordable gets. In this column, T’s fashion team roll up their Balenciaga sleeves to rummage for the cheap and the chic.

What: Lee Angel sterling silver and cubic zirconia drop earrings, $135. At Bergdorf Goodman, (212) 753-7300.
How Much: $135
Who: Karla M. Martinez, T Magazine’s women’s fashion market director.

If you don’t want to spend a fortune, it can be so hard to find pretty jewelry to wear to formal events. Most of the time, costume jewelry looks exaggerated and cheap. There’s vintage costume pieces but they can be expensive too, unless you go to a flea market, but I don’t have time for that. I found these costume earrings from Lee Angel at Bergdorf Goodman and I love them because they are so elegant and practical. Since they don’t have real diamonds I’m comfortable bringing them abroad. When I wore them to Lauren Davis’s wedding in Colombia a couple of weeks ago, four people asked me if they were from Fred Leighton or vintage. I had on a perfect high-low combination: I wore them with a champagne-color Prada resort dress, Jimmy Choo diamante encrusted strappy sandals and two Chanel costume bracelets. These earrings give just enough shine but don’t look ostentatious or fake. They’re well proportioned and the “diamonds” are so discreet they look real. I would only wear them with something formal but Lee Angel also sells some costume diamond studs (they’re $135) and I’d wear those everyday.

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Prince Charles will not attend games: Tibet rights group

by Prashant Rao
21 minutes ago

LONDON (AFP) - Prince Charles will not be attending the opening ceremony of this year's Olympic Games in Beijing, he told a group that campaigns against human rights abuses in Tibet in a letter disclosed Monday.

A spokeswoman for the prince at Clarence House declined to comment, saying only: "We would not be able discuss any private correspondence."

According to the Free Tibet campaign group, it wrote to Charles, the heir to the throne, calling on him not to attend this summer's games hosted by the Chinese capital.

In response, the prince's deputy private secretary Clive Alderton wrote: "As you know, His Royal Highness has long taken a close interest in Tibet and indeed has been pleased to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama on several occasions."

"You asked if the Prince of Wales would be attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. His Royal Highness will not be attending the ceremony."

It was not clear whether the prince, whose sister Princess Anne is a member of the International Olympic Committee, had been invited to the ceremony, and whether his refusal to attend had any relation to alleged human rights abuses in Tibet.

The prince is a well-known supporter of the Tibetan cause, and hosted a reception at St. James's Palace in May 2004 for Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing regards as a separatist.

In a diary entry made public in 2006, Charles wrote on the occasion of Hong Kong's handover to China in 1997 that China's leaders resembled a "group of appalling old waxworks" and also lamented the "awful Soviet-style display" of Chinese troops "goose-stepping" at the event.

A Free Tibet spokesman said: "We welcome the fact that the Prince of Wales will not be endorsing China's ongoing human rights' abuses in Tibet by attending the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games and we are calling on other high-profile public figures and politicians to follow suit.

"Human rights abuses in Tibet have worsened since China was awarded the games in 2001. These games will come to be known as the Games of Shame."

The news may dent British government hopes to strengthen relations with China -- Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Beijing and Shanghai on a diplomatic visit earlier this month.

While there, he and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said they had set a target to raise two-way trade between China and Britain to 60 billion dollars by 2010, roughly 50 percent higher than the present level, and Brown described the relationship as "a dynamic, comprehensive and strategic partnership."

The issue of Tibet has sparked tensions between China and other countries recently as well -- the Chinese and German foreign ministers said only last week that ties between their countries had normalised after months of tensions over Berlin receiving the Dalai Lama in September.

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New Miss America once battled anorexia

By RYAN NAKASHIMA, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 44 minutes ago

LAS VEGAS - Just three years ago, newly crowned Miss America Kirsten Haglund was eating tiny portions of food and became so thin her concerned parents "dragged me to the doctor."

Haglund was diagnosed with anorexia, and the lack of nutrition caused her collar bones to stick out, her heart rate to drop and her relationships to suffer.

"I would feel fatigued walking up six stairs," the 19-year-old Haglund said Sunday, a day after being crowned Miss America 2008. "I was a completely different person. It's not a pretty sight."

Haglund plans to spend her yearlong reign, trying to raise awareness of eating disorders, promoting the pagaent and helping the Children's Miracle Network while maintaining a healthy lifestyle and exercise.

To win her crown, the Farmington Hills, Mich., native sang "Over the Rainbow" and walked a crowd-pleasing strut in a black and gold bikini to clinch the title.

"You have to have curves," she said proudly. "You can't look like a stick-thin model."

The aspiring Broadway star even ate the silver medallion chocolates left on her pillow in her suite at the host site, the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.

"Yes, oh my gosh, yes," she said. "I love chocolate. Chocolates are a girl's best friend."

The 5-foot 8-inch blonde said she doesn't disclose her weight to avoid setting standards for youths obsessed with getting lighter.

She said she stopped pursuing her dream to become a professional ballerina to escape an environment in which she was rewarded for being slim and an industry that Haglund said sweeps concerns about eating disorders under the rug.

The National Eating Disorders Association estimates eating disorders affect 10 million girls and women and about 1 million boys and men in the United States.

Haglund's job begins right away, and on Sunday she caught a plane to New York for a Monday interview on "Live With Regis and Kelly."

While the teen said she wasn't about to "let myself go," she didn't plan to skip any meals over her crowning year.

"I'm going to enjoy my food," she said.

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Marlon Brando's troubled son dies

Christian Brando had a few minor film roles
Sunday, 27 January 2008, 00:53 GMT


Christian Brando, eldest son of the late actor Marlon Brando, has died in Los Angeles, aged 49.
He had reportedly been in a coma and on a ventilator, and died of complications arising from pneumonia.

"His body was totally compromised," said his former wife, Deborah. "He'd lived so hard."

After a few minor acting roles, he hit the headlines in 1990, when he shot dead his half-sister's boyfriend, for which he served five years in jail.

In 2005, he pleaded guilty to abusing his then-wife Deborah and was placed on probation, and ordered to undergo drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

Christian Brando also figured in the murder trial of Hollywood actor Robert Blake, whose wife was shot to death in 2001.

He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on the stand when a lawyer for Blake, who was eventually acquitted, suggested that Brando had been the killer.


Marlon Brando died in 2004
Christian Brando had a small number of film roles, including an appearance in I Love You, Alice B Toklas! at the age of 10.

But he will be best remembered for the 1990 death of Dag Drollet, boyfriend of his half-sister Cheyenne, at the Brando family's estate.

He said in court that he had accidentally shot Mr Drollet as they struggled for a gun during an argument over whether the boyfriend had beaten his pregnant girlfriend.

Pleading guilty to manslaughter, he spent five years in prison.

Cheyenne committed suicide in 1995 at the age of 25.

Marlon Brando, star of On The Waterfront and The Godfather, died in 2004 at the age of 80.

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Miss Michigan crowned Miss America

By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 32 minutes ago
LAS VEGAS - Miss Michigan Kirsten Haglund, a 19-year-old aspiring Broadway star, was crowned Miss America 2008 on Saturday in a live show billed as the unveiling of the 87-year-old pageant's new, hipper look.

Haglund, of Farmington Hills, Mich., sang "Over the Rainbow" and walked a crowd-pleasing strut in a black and gold bikini to clinch the title. She beat Miss Indiana Nicole Elizabeth Rash, the first runner up, and Miss Washington Elyse Umemoto, the second runner up for the $50,000 scholarship and year of travel that comes with the crown.

Haglund, who studies music at the University of Cincinnati, grew up in a pageant family. Her mother is an active volunteer, and her grandmother Iora Hunt, competed for the crown as Miss Michigan 1944. Hunt joined Haglund at a news conference.

.

"The only words that come to my mind is that this is a dream come true, not just for me but for my family as well," Haglund said. "I'm not just standing up here alone."

Haglund, a cheery, classic blond, wore a revealing silver sequined dress and black bikini during the evening gown and swimsuit portions of the pageant. As her platform issue, she promised to advocate for awareness of eating disorders, an illness from which she has recovered.

The crowning at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip was aired for the first time on TLC. It capped a four-week reality series, "Miss America: Reality Check," which followed the contestants as they were pushed to shed the dated look of Miss Americas past and adopt a more updated style.

The show was the latest in a series of attempts to find an audience with a younger demographic after more than a decade of declining ratings.

The 52 newly made-over aspiring beauty queens who sought the top tiara sported updated hairdos, sassy attitudes and red carpet-worthy fashion throughout the competition.

Usually tame by modern TV standards, the swimwear competition kicked it up a notch. Most contestants wore black bikinis, and some struck provocative poses and twirled as the audience howled. Contestants also wore blue jeans and added a bit of humor to the traditional opening number, the parade of states.

Haglund's moves won howls from the audience. "I think for the audience, the swimwear and evening wear was much more entertaining, am I right?" Haglund said when asked about the show's new look.

The changes included a chance for "Reality Check" viewers to text message votes for their favorite contestant. Miss Utah, Jill Stevens, an Army medic who served in Afghanistan, was named "America's Choice."

Stevens did not make to the final 10, but she took the disappointment with pluck. She dropped and gave the audience push ups before joining the other losers on a riser on the side.

Producers added a twist to the interview portion, as well. They asked people on the street to pose questions, and the results were edgier than usual. Contestents were asked about binge drinking, HIV and Britney Spears' pregnant younger sister, Jamie Lynn.

"No I don't think she should be fired," Miss Indiana Nicole Elizabeth Rash said. "They're still people, they're still human beings. We all deserve second chances."

The long-struggling pageant had promised a new look for this year's beauty battle. "Entertainment Tonight" reporter Mark Steines was the master of ceremonies of the show. Clinton Kelly of TLC's hit "What Not to Wear" also helped with the hosting duties. Kelly had instructed the girls on how to update their looks during the reality show.

The pageant sounded different, too. A deejay spun dance music from turntables set up on stage. Contestants danced and waved to the audience during commercials breaks. The losers were seated on risers on one side of the stage, while the parents of the finalists, in black tie, were seated on the other.

The show was the latest in a series of attempts to find a new audience after more than a decade of declining ratings. The fading institution was dropped from network television in 2004. It spent a two-year stint on Country Music Television before being picked up last summer by TLC, a cable channel reaching 93 million homes in the U.S.

TLC added the pageant to its reality-TV stable, and announced plans to reinvent the look of the show and find an "It girl" ready for modern celebrity.

In addition to the $50,000 scholarship, Haglund will embark on a year of promoting the pageant, her platform issue and the Children's Miracle Network, a pageant partner

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The Old Man Returns

By JONATHAN MILES
Published: January 27, 2008

HARVEY Wallbanger is alive and well, and living in Brooklyn.


That ’70s drink, so redolent of leisure suits, “Love Boat” and giant wide lapels, was thought to have gone extinct decades ago — or at least mostly extinct (you can occasionally spot one on the mummified menus of roadside diners).

It had experienced a meteoric rise. One of its three components, the unctuous, vanilla-scented Galliano (the others being vodka and orange juice), was the top-selling imported liqueur in the 1970s and Harvey Wallbangers were de rigueur everywhere from discos to country clubs to suburban swinger parties, dwarfing even the Cosmopolitan craze of the ’90s.

But it suffered a sweeping and ignoble demise, consigned in popular imagination to the same place where pet rocks go to die. Despite vodka’s continuing stomp across the alcoholic landscape, a generation of bartenders has never once fielded an order for a Harvey Wallbanger.

If remembered at all, it is usually with a groan. “The world is not a lesser place,” the spirits writer Wayne Curtis noted in 2006, “because nobody remembers how to make a Harvey Wallbanger.”

Stephanie Schneider, 37, remembers. Or rather, she looked up how to make one.

Ms. Schneider, along with Andrew Boggs, 31, is an owner of Huckleberry Bar, which opened in October on Grand Street in Williamsburg — one of a sudden burst of cocktaileries in beer-proud Brooklyn.

It’s a high-minded joint, serving the kinds of Chartreuse-laden original cocktails and purist classics found in downtown Manhattan. Serious drinks: Sazeracs, Negronis, even a Sherry Flip. All of which cozy up on the menu beside Harvey Wallbanger himself.

“There aren’t many classic vodka cocktails,” Ms. Schneider said, “and we wanted to feature a vodka drink.”

The Harvey Wallbanger, she decided, was ripe for exhuming. Maybe not a classic, in the snobbish sense, but “an old man drink” with its own kind of pedigree.

The drink has become a surprise hit, perhaps because Williamsburg, where Pabst Blue Ribbon was transformed into a campy statement, is not averse to kitschy drinking, or perhaps because Harvey Wallbangers go down awfully easy.

Huckleberry Bar’s rendition is a tad more nuanced.

Ms. Schneider substituted freshly squeezed orange juice for the concentrate form that predominated back then, and infuses the vodka with lemons, lime and grapefruit to add a citric grace note to the drink. But it’s groovy essence remains.


HARVEY WALLBANGER Adapted from Huckleberry Bar

2 ounces citrus-infused vodka *

4 ounces freshly squeezed orange juice

1/4 ounce Galliano

1 orange slice, for garnish.

Fill a highball glass with ice. Pour in the vodka, orange juice and Galliano. Garnish with the orange slice.

Yield: 1 serving

* To infuse the vodka: Add 3 lemons, ½ orange and 1/4 grapefruit, sliced, to a 750-milliliter bottle of vodka. Steep two to three days. You can also use infused vodkas like Absolut Citron.

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Laura Brown and Brian Vogt

By VIKKI VALENTINE
Published: January 27, 2008

IN Laura Anne Brown’s experience, few men are brave enough to call a date a date. Guys would invite her to a movie, for coffee or to dinner, but rarely would they identify it by that word, loaded as it is with potential for joy or pain.

This presented a problem for Ms. Brown, a 36-year-old lawyer for Quality Trust for Individuals With Disabilities, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, who has some pretty strong ideas about spirituality, service to society and about marriage.

“That is a very intimidating thing for most men, because in my experience they’re wishy-washy, they skirt around things,” said Ms. Brown, an Arlington, Va., native.

Then she met one who wasn’t afraid. That man, Brian Christian Vogt, a senior program officer for Asia at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, was a recent transplant to Washington from Princeton University, where he had received a master’s in public and international affairs.

Mr. Vogt, who was raised primarily in Covington, Ky., where his parents ran a premarital counseling program for Catholic couples, had joined St. Aloysius, a historic Roman Catholic church in an area of Washington that only recently began its recovery from riots in 1968. He and Ms. Brown, a Sunday school teacher at St. Aloysius, both attended Mass in the church’s basement, a plain room with industrial carpeting and a piano for the choir.

Mutual friends from the church introduced them, but each didn’t really know much about the other until a three-day church-sponsored backpacking trip in 2005. And then, a few days after that hike, it happened. Mr. Vogt sent her a simple e-mail message, containing the word: date.

“It was so refreshing,” she recalled thinking, “Here is a man I can work with.”

Humble, but direct. It was an irresistible combination for Ms. Brown. She was also charmed by his penchant for political activism, which started at age 8, when Mr. Vogt began a door-to-door campaign asking neighbors to sign a petition to change his housing development’s rules on pets so he could have a dog. She soon discovered Mr. Vogt’s deeply analytical side.

“He is very reluctant to make any decision at all until he has considered all the angles,” said Shane Dickey, a boyhood pal. “But when it comes to a marriage, how can you cover all the angles?” He added, “He needed to find a partner who would be certain to share his values."

About a year and a half into their relationship, Ms. Brown could sense Mr. Vogt was hesitant about the next step, so one quiet evening at his apartment, she took out a handwritten list of topics that she had developed. It consisted of eight discussion points, including family, spirituality and sexuality.

“I thought, ‘If I eliminate some of his uncertainty, maybe he’ll be more willing to take this risk,’ ” Ms. Brown said.

She considered asking him to marry her. Instead, over a period of several months, she brought out the list, engaging him in a discussion on one of the topics following an evening out or on a weekend afternoon.

After just a handful of discussions, Mr. Vogt, 34, recalled thinking, “Of course, this is right.” He added, “It’s really the most important decision of your life, this is much more permanent than any other decision.”

He then asked her out on their most ambitious date yet: the Maryland Challenge, a 41-mile day hike on a segment of the Appalachian Trail. When she readily accepted, Mr. Vogt recalled thinking, “ ‘If she is someone who is willing at the drop of the hat to do something crazy like that, that’s one indicator. On a deeper level, she is a person who is adaptable and very comfortable in all sorts of situations and someone who seeks purpose in their life; those are the sort of things that I really admire about her.’ ”

He scouted out one of the longest days of the year, and on June 9, 2007, the couple set out before dawn.

“The whole time I’m nervous, of course,” Mr. Vogt said of his proposal plan. “I can’t do it in the morning; what happens if one of us gets injured or if we just can’t make it?”

But at mile 29, with blistered feet, a dozen miles to go and nightfall not far off, Mr. Vogt started fumbling in his knapsack for the ring. Once he had it in hand, he said to Ms. Brown, “This might not be the best time, but. ...”

Bliss carried them through the final miles, and just before midnight, they stumbled up one last hill to a historic inn in Harpers Ferry, W.Va.

On Jan. 12, Ms. Brown and Mr. Vogt were married before 185 guests by the Rev. Si Hendry, a Roman Catholic priest, in St. Aloysius’ austere basement sanctuary. No one except the bride’s closest friends noticed the last traces of a cold she had caught while spending a week in the snowy farmland of Iowa canvassing with Mr. Vogt for the Democratic presidential contender Senator Barack Obama.

Taking to the campaign trail might seem an unnecessarily stressful diversion, coming as it did just two weeks before their wedding. But her willingness to push her limits is exactly what he loves about her, the bridegroom said.

At the couple’s reception, at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Va., the bridegroom’s father, Jim Vogt, said the campaign swing seemed a fitting move.

“It says they got their priorities straight,” he said.

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A Final Curtain Call for Valentino

By CATHY HORYN
Published: January 27, 2008
Paris

AS happens with most final acts, Valentino Garavani’s career was over before it could be fully absorbed. On Wednesday night, at the Rodin Museum, he closed the spring 2008 haute couture collections and at the same time ended 45 years in fashion. The models wore identical red dresses for the finale, so that the room seemed bathed in his favorite color. The audience stood, the applause started, and Valentino walked briskly to the end of the runway, dry-eyed and tanned from a ski holiday in Gstaad.

One of the locomotives of Valentino’s career, and that as well of his partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, was that he allowed the media — and, by extension, the public — to see how lavishly he lived, whether in Rome, London or Gstaad. Although he regarded himself as a serious-minded designer, trained in Paris, few of his contemporaries seemed to derive as much pleasure from their lives. It showed in the clothes he made.

As the milliner Philip Treacy, who did the hats for the final show, said, “He’s the only designer who lived the life that people think designers should live.”

Yet many of the television and wire-service reporters gathered behind ropes outside the Rodin, or jamming into the backstage area afterward, were not there for the story. They were there for the sound bite. Stopping Mr. Giammetti backstage, a television reporter said, her voice rising for effect: “Tonight’s the final show for you and Mr. Valentino. How do you think it went?”

The smile on his face could not be read positively. “Very well,” Mr. Giammetti replied, looking in the direction of Valentino and the mob of photographers around him. “Very good.”

A temptation to say only the obvious and the necessary was precisely what the final bow of Valentino elicited, and to that extent it felt scripted. Last July, in Rome, Valentino and Mr. Giammetti celebrated the company’s 45th anniversary with an incredible weekend-long party. In a way, Marie-Chantal of Greece said, that was the real send-off. She was with her husband, Pavlos, and her in-laws, the former monarchs of Greece. “I think Rome was the big finale, and I’m seeing tonight as a little get-together,” she said.

Many clients and old friends were in the front row, as well as a handful of super models. The designers who attended were Alber Elbaz of Lanvin, Miuccia Prada and Emanuel Ungaro. News reports said Carla Bruni, the former model who is dating the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had been invited but declined. Gwyneth Paltrow was supposed to have attended, according to a Valentino representative, but she was not feeling well.

As for the collection, it was “true Valentino,” as the designer himself characterized the breezy shapes and sorbet colors the night before the show. The matching day suits were light, in wool crepe or double-faced wool, and one mandarin-colored jacket had a bias drape across the back.

The couture effects were subtle and fascinating. A Mikado-style suit was made of vertical strips of black silk satin; at the hem of the belled skirt, each strip was folded back to reveal white satin and then pressed into place. The same pleating technique was repeated on the sleeves of the jacket. There were flower embroideries, but the exemplary looks were cooler — like a long slim dress in pistachio duchess satin with a low back and swags of sky blue satin starting at the bust and spreading around the green into an overskirt.

Asked if his career, at the end, seemed to have gone by quickly, Valentino thought for a moment and said: “Yes, fast in a certain sense, if I think that my collection at the Metropolitan Museum was in 1982. To me, that was like yesterday. I did a lot.”

The spring couture shows were generally strong, with a huge palette and fantastical details taken from nature. At Givenchy, though, Riccardo Tisci got tangled in some tough 1980s tailoring. He seemed eager to project modern attitude, with snug black jackets and flaring wool miniskirts lined in white over black stockings and strappy stilettos. But despite some fresh-looking evening dresses with ruff collars, this ground was already broken by Azzedine Alaïa and Claude Montana.

Before Valentino’s show, Jean Paul Gaultier reminded everyone that couture goes on. Inspired by the sea, his collection was full of surprise and imagination. He opened with his chic pantsuits, now in marine blue and gray with sharp shoulders or wide, pleated sleeves. There were a few obvious show numbers, like an all-over gold sequined pants outfit that was drenched with water from a sponge the model carried.

But many of the dresses were as wearable as they were ingenious, especially a loose mini slip dress of panels of sea green embroidery interspersed with tiny loops of gold beads. The model Coco Rocha closed the show as a mermaid bride. After hobbling out on crutches, she dropped her sticks and released her latex fish gown by a zipper at the hem, and then set off toward the photographers, a pair of spiraling gold shells on her breasts.

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Oscar Snubs: There Are Plenty of Oversights to Go Around

By GARY STRAUSS, USA TODAY
Jan. 25, 2008

Snubs and surprises underscore virtually all Hollywood awards races, and Tuesday's Oscar nominations proved no exception. Among the notable oversights: "Into the Wild" and "Atonement," each considered acting and directing showcases.

Kiera Knightly missed out on an Oscar nom for her starring role in "Atonement."



In the best-picture category, full of high-profile films, one that was thought to be a shoo-in apparently wasn't.

Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" was thought to be an Oscar shoo-in.

"The snubs were tremendous for 'Into the Wild,' says blogger Scott Feinberg of andthewinneris.blog.com. "At one time, this was considered a favorite."

Director Sean Penn and star Emile Hirsch also were not nominated.

"The academy had shown a penchant for nominating actors as directors," says Andy Scott of Everythingoscar.com. "And ('Into the Wild') was one movie everyone assumed would get in. That was the biggest surprise of the day."

One of the two nominations for the picture went to supporting actor Hal Holbrook, who called Hirsch's absence a "terrible disappointment."
Hal Holbrook lamented the abscene of Emile Hirsch, his "Into the Wild" co-star, among the nominees.



"The role he had demanded so much more of an actor than just about any other role I can think of," Holbrook says. "He did such a gorgeous job. He's a natural. Not to be recognized is very hard for me to understand. Not to mention the film itself. It's a daring and beautiful film."

"Atonement" picked up seven Oscar nominations, including best picture. Yet director Joe Wright and lead actors James McAvoy and Keira Knightley were overlooked.

The academy didn't recognize James McAvoy for his part in "Atonement."
"A Mighty Heart's" Angelina Jolie also was considered a contender in the actress category.

Despite going outside her usual scope of films to portray widow Marianne Pearl in "A Mighty Heart," Angelina Jolie didn't get an Oscar nomination.



The surprises who ousted them:

Jason Reitman's recognition for "Juno's" direction. A "shock," says David Poland of Movie City News.

Tommy Lee Jones' actor nomination for "In the Valley of Elah." "I'm totally confused about (Jones') nomination, but it's an interesting one nonetheless," Scott says. "Did anybody see it coming?"

Laura Linney, who was nominated in the actress category for her role in "The Savages." She "was completely off the radar," Scott says.

The dynamic in the actress category overall is intriguing, Feinberg says. "We knew Angelina was a fringe contender, and Keira wasn't nominated last year for a bigger role in "Pride & Prejudice." And now with "Juno's" Ellen Page, Cate Blanchett and Julie Christie contending, "this category is going to be the most fascinating."

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Scent Notes | Paestum Rose by l’Eau d’Italie

January 24th, 2008 11:19 AM
By CHANDLER BURR

One of the problems with classical beauty is, quite simply, that we know it too well. The eye can pass over a Caravaggio painting and not really see it, finding the image too familiar. It is much easier to attract with novelty and flash, but that burns off quickly and leaves a void. The real trick is to combine the two. If an artist can create new beauty with a classic form, he has done something marvelous because his creation is doubly fueled, by the exhilarating thrill of the new and by the visceral power of the old.

For classical beauty in perfume there is ultimately only one scent: rose. Yet the perfume industry (and its marketers) know that rose, like a slightly faded movie star, is a problematic sell to the public. We can smell rose yet, registering it as a known commodity, not really smell it.

The niche Italian house of Eau d’Italie has taken rose and made of it a revelation. Paestum Rose was creative directed by Marina Sersale and Sebastien Alvarez Murena, Eau d’Italie’s founders, and built by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour. Duchaufour is an expert in shadows (see his Dzongka, done for l’Artisan Parfumeur). He paints olfactory charcoals and grays and deep purples with the smells of smoke and worn wood, a living Old Master of scent, and Paestum Rose is not just perfectly calibrated on a technical level. It is better than that. It is a work of art.

The perfume unfolds with a scented crepuscular darkness, a twilight that is an exact balance of disappearing sunlight and incipient evening. Its rose aspect is ancient, blended with the smell of old stone — Paestum was a classical Roman city known for its roses — yet it also somehow (here’s the trick) smells utterly contemporary. There is no “green stem scent” detail here for a facile thrill, no smell of fresh flower — Duchaufour eschews such easy clichés. Nor is this a “floral” perfume in any obvious way, though it smells, in a sense, like the flower. One October in her apartment in Rome, Sersale showed me a large photograph of a Caravaggio she particularly loves, and I understood. Paestum Rose is a perfume that’s rich and filled with meaning like the intimate opalescent blacks Caravaggio painted, instantly known and strangely unfamiliar. In this perfume we smell ancient beauty made thrillingly new.

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A Chanel as Big as the Ritz

By CATHY HORYN
Published: January 24, 2008
Paris

FASHION designers excel at monument-building: witness the rise of towers in cities like Tokyo and Shanghai. These multistory shops sell clothes and sunglasses, but they also serve to remind people of the power of a brand in a noisy consumerist world.

Coco Chanel died before she had to worry about that. Besides, she left a real monument to modern dressing: the cardigan jacket. How many other designers have created a style that is a uniform as much as a symbol, its iconic value on par with the Coca-Cola bottle? It’s relatively easy to build a tower of glass.

Undeniably, the 75-foot model of the Chanel jacket that Karl Lagerfeld erected in the Grand Palais for the spring haute couture show on Tuesday smacks of kitsch. It would be a huckster’s dream dome. There are days when you think the world is almost at that point where you could picture such a monstrosity in place of the Arc de Triomphe or the pyramids in Egypt — and nobody would mind. Great! SHOP!

Mr. Lagerfeld’s motives, if not entirely innocent, were simple. Although the jacket is probably the best-known object that Chanel created, after Chanel No. 5, she made many other styles and often dominated a decade with her influence.

So the idea was to use the jacket as the symbolic hub from which other styles emerged and inevitably returned to. The model, made of wood and painted to resemble concrete, sat on an revolving platform, and the models entered the runway through a flap in the jacket.

The clothes had wit, too. Seashells were the inspiration, Mr. Lagerfeld said the night before, in the Chanel studio. In the hands of another designer, this might sound banal, but as Mr. Lagerfeld opened a book on his desk called “Coquillages,” featuring shells from the collection of Jacques and Rita Senders, it was amazing to see the variety of hues and textures: the spirals, ridges, folds, spurs and feathery edges.

All those natural shapes Mr. Lagerfeld represented in couture silks. There were black wool day jackets with a curving line shown with draped miniskirts, one shaped in spiraling circles. Some of the suits had blouses with Elizabethan collars, a style that Chanel liked in the 1930s. Among the prettiest evening looks was a strapless beige tunic with ridges of pleated tulle and chiffon that ended in a rounded hem. It was shown with sheer, embroidered French culottes.

The pinks were the pinks of shells. The tiny marabou feathers and silver beads embedded in a pleated chiffon and tulle dress with a crisscross back and flaring skirt were pure Paris.

High fashion at this level is largely impervious to economic recessions. That’s because the demand for $100,000 beaded dresses equals the supply. Last year, Dior had its largest annual sales gain in couture in its 60-year history, said Catherine Rivière, the couture director, adding that the biggest spenders come from Russia and the Persian Gulf states. One client, she said, spent about $500,000 for several garments.

So far as couture educates people about beauty and specialized hand crafts, a greater threat to its existence is the loss of know-how. Tonight, Valentino retires.

That John Galliano creates his Dior collections from historical references like the scandal-making Sargent portrait of “Madame X” or the story of Salome tends to confound the literal-minded. They expect to see these references, and when they get instead a ballooning sack dress in livid fuchsia silk mobbed with sequins, a pair of peacock-blue feather eyelashes and a gold lampshade hat, they complain that it’s visually confusing.

Much that is modern does precisely that, and some other sensory power is needed to understand it. The only thing that really impaired this subtle and dazzling show on Monday was the clunky footwear, which defied the inexperienced models to walk and throw a pose at the same time. None of the balance created by the volumes and rather strict lines would have been lost if he had ditched the platforms.

Two thoughts came to mind with these clothes. One was the new composition of the colors (often hand-painted on silk) and the embroideries, which were at once intense and abstract. The other thought was the relative simplicity of the shapes. As far as the body goes, they suggested control — and not. Pursuing that thought, it’s not unimaginable that Mr. Galliano was in the middle of a conversation between Balenciaga and Dior.

At 7:30 p.m., on Monday, Giorgio Armani had his couture show — a Privé sign put on the steps of the Palais de Chaillot to notify onlookers, the velvet ropes set out for celebrity and paparazzi alike.

Mr. Armani is a master at creating a scene. Inside, 10 men in crow’s-nests trained stage lights on the runway. Sophia Loren, dressed in a dark coat and trousers, sat in the front row. There was no need to smile because Sophia Loren had smiled so many times before. Mr. Armani’s niece, Roberta, sat next to Hilary Swank, who had on a black beaded cocktail dress. Ms. Armani never seemed to stop smiling.

The burlesque star Dita Von Teese, who had changed from a Dior in the afternoon to an Armani, its portrait neckline now framing her bosom, sat very still, her hands folded on her lap, the picture of a lady in drag.

The models performed their roles, too. Not the top girls, they struck poses and occasionally found a spot in the middle distance to fix a hard, blank gaze. The first outfits were in a fine gray bias-cut pinstripe, the jackets or bodices cut close to the body and the full skirts turned in sharply at the hem, like the edge of a paper lantern. Another motif of the collection was horizontal pleating, sometimes with a ladder of black plastic pieces inset into a tight bodice.

There was nothing lurid or in bad taste about Mr. Armani’s clothes, but neither was there anything subtle or particularly surprising about them. Ruffled organdy dresses in citrus and gray tones looked light and feminine, and some tops and dresses were scattered with overlapping disks.

Everything looked impeccable. But despite his incredible design range over the years, irony and self-reference are not within his imagination, so there will never be a jewel of a dress coming out from a huge beige hub of an Armani jacket. The great thing about watching a Lagerfeld couture show, and to an extent a Galliano, is that each dress and jacket is not only unique but also conveys with wit the history of the house. You get that much less with Mr. Armani.

By contrast, Christian Lacroix made every choice count. His show on Tuesday was sensational. From the first outfits, like a deep blue coat dress with whirls of black embroidery, he commanded your attention. This was a rare Lacroix show. For one thing, the shapes were light and contemporary. For another, the collage effects made sense.

Among the prettiest looks was a quartet of draped chiffon dresses in colors like ruby and emerald. A black embroidered jacket appeared over a white lace T-shirt and wide creamy trousers. And there were surprises everywhere, like an embroidered sheer-white apron tied to the front of a silk-print dress, and a short-sleeve jacket with hand-knitted gold and burnt-red arm warmers. The collection seemed to exalt the eccentric modern dresser.

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Bending, Posing and Teaching Beyond the Mat

By KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: January 24, 2008
BOSTON

LIVING in a spartan cottage for eight days during a boot camp for aspiring yoga teachers in Hawaii, Sue Jones practiced from 7 a.m. to midnight, silently watched the rhythms of the Pacific Ocean from a bluff and, she said, gained the confidence to return to Boston and mend her marriage.

But Ms. Jones made another discovery that gnawed at her.

“Everyone had enough money to pay $4,000 to get to Hawaii,” she said, “and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, there are 100 people here and thousands of trainings every year, and I don’t hear anyone talking about teaching yoga to people who can’t afford it.’ ”

After returning to Boston, Ms. Jones started teaching yoga at a substance-abuse treatment center. She asked fellow teachers to help and received a flood of responses.

In May 2006, Ms. Jones started YogaHope, an organization that teaches yoga at eight Boston-area women’s homeless shelters, substance-abuse treatment programs and domestic-violence safe houses, as well as two programs in Seattle. The focus is on teaching restorative yoga, and though many teachers have completed at least 200 hours of training, it is not a requirement.

Driven by a sometimes missionary zeal and a sense that yoga has become an exclusive pursuit, a small but growing number of yoga practitioners are forming organizations that teach yoga in prisons and juvenile detention centers in Oakland, Calif.; Los Angeles, Seattle and Indianapolis. They are working with the addicted and the homeless in Portland, Ore., and with public-school students in New York City.

Though concern about the cost of yoga is an issue (studio classes can cost $20 for a drop-in session, though some offer free or low-cost classes taught by less experienced teachers), most of the practitioners are motived by a desire to introduce yoga to those who might need it most, but wouldn’t think to do it on their own.

Ms. Jones of YogaHope said she saw a change in the first women she taught after only one class: they held their heads higher, amazed at what their bodies could do. At that moment, she decided to spread yoga to other women. “We’re like Christian missionaries,” said Ms. Jones, a petite blonde whose green eyes flash with emotion as she speaks. “We really want to offer it to people who don’t know better or can’t access it.”

Those who teach or do research on yoga say these programs have increased in recent years as more yoga devotees decide to spread its gospel.

“You can’t do all those prostrations without it doing something to you,” said James Wvinner, the founder and director of yoga, tribe and culture films for Acacia Lifestyle, a distributor of mind, body and spirit DVDs.

Mr. Wvinner, who taught yoga at a federal prison and fondly recalls the sociopath who never missed a class, said more yogis are working in prisons and social-service centers.

Others believe bringing yoga to such places harkens to the ancient practice of karma yoga, or the yoga of action and selfless service. “What it speaks to,” said Kaitlin Quistgaard, the editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal, “is that social activism is becoming more and more a part of mainstream American yoga. People are realizing it’s almost a requirement to give back.”

Research in the United States on yoga’s effectiveness in helping treat drug addiction or mental illness is limited. Most studies have been done on a small scale in India, and the findings aren’t universally accepted.

But yoga’s function as a stress reliever is not in dispute. “Yoga and meditation do several things, and perhaps one of the most important is that they allow individuals to cope with stress better,” said Sat Bir Khalsa, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who studies the medical effects of yoga. “At the core of a lot of addiction is a search for that kind of relief from the stressful world.”

Patricia Gerbarg, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College, in Valhalla, N.Y., taught yogic breathing to survivors of the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, and found that tests scores that measure post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression dropped dramatically.

One recent night at the Volunteers of America Hello House, a residential substance-abuse treatment center for women in Boston, about 15 women lunged on their mats, which were squeezed into a common area.

“Tap into your breath to deal with the unknown,” said Amanda Richter, a YogaHope teacher. As they moved into the downward dog position, deep breathing filled the room. “Whatever hurts, whatever bad energy you have in your life, you can let it go here,” she said.

The women said yoga enabled them to do something that was frightening at first: focus inward. “The teacher always says how you’re a good person and to love yourself,” said Katey Sullivan, 39. “That makes you feel good about yourself, and you want to stay clean.”

That lesson was initially hard for Nikki Meyers. She dabbled with yoga in the 1970s, but soon “men and drugs and sex took priority,” she said. In the early 1990s, she got off drugs with the help of a 12-step program and yoga, which she started teaching to children in Boston.

Ms. Meyers moved to Indianapolis and opened Cityoga, a studio and health center. Certified under a 500-hour teacher-training program, she also teaches at the Hamilton County Juvenile Services Center outside Indianapolis. “I tell them that they did movement, breath, and a little sitting still for an hour,” she said, “and went from irritated and angry to calm and relaxed without taking a drug, without taking a drink, without having alienated your family.”

Bidyut Bose, who grew up in India and learned yoga from his father, started teaching it to seniors in 1998 at the Downtown Berkeley Y.M.C.A. in California. As he saw the students gaining in strength and self-esteem, he started to wonder about others who could benefit. Mr. Bose began contacting treatment centers, hospitals and homeless shelters. “If millions of Americans are doing yoga, then there are millions who are not getting it, not coming to a studio, not able to afford classes,” he said.

Mr. Bose later founded Niroga, an organization in Oakland, Calif., that teaches yoga to people in drug rehabilitation programs and juvenile detention centers, formerly homeless veterans and victims of domestic abuse. He is also training black youths to become yoga teachers throughout Oakland.

Alex Briscoe, assistant director at the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, which pays for the yoga classes taught by Niroga and another agency, said that yoga for children has allowed psychiatrists to better treat them.

One hurdle in teaching yoga, especially to teenagers, is debunking ideas that it is a wacky, new-age practice. “There’s resistance, shyness, embarrassment,” said Anne Desmond, who taught yoga at New York City schools and formed Bent on Learning in 2001. The organization, which offers yoga instruction to students and youth centers, teaches at nine schools.

“There’s such a transformation,” she said, “from this not knowing about yoga and resisting it to really loving it.”

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Loud and Dumb Never Looked Better

By MIKE ALBO
Published: January 24, 2008
IN the summer of 1989, I finally had a fake ID and went out at least five nights a week. (My name was Robert Bruce Macartey, and my birthday was June 4, 1965.) For my new club life, I shelved my floppy teenage knock-arounds and bought mock turtlenecks, striped vests and black rayon tapered-leg trousers from stores like the Le Château, Merry-Go-Round and Oak Tree. I wore these clothes while fake-smoking menthols, throwing attitude and dancing to Ofra Haza and Soul II Soul.

As dumb as I probably looked, this was a necessary but widely unacknowledged phase that occurs in most every guy’s life: those awkward first attempts to look dressy, usually experienced while going out to big, loud, stupid and smoky clubs with people you will later despise.

The new Marc Ecko Cut & Sew store in Chelsea, stuffed to the gills with trendy garments, brought me back to those days and the half-classy mass-market mall stores of my past. Here, it seems, is where today’s young and clubby guy can find relatively inexpensive fancy clothes that will make him feel upscale while he barfs in a bathroom stall after 10 White Russians.

We need more stores like this one: a safe space where a dude who dresses like Turtle from “Entourage” can try on some clothes that step up his style without going too far and freaking him out.

Being clubby-spiffy these days looks far different from the Technotronic monochrome of my youth. It involves a lot of prints and imagery. Most every garment here is embroidered or silk-screened with leafy brocades and swirling filigree — the same aesthetic that pervades animated interstitials on MTV. A green thermal is printed with a design reminiscent of Victorian endpaper; a corduroy blazer is covered with a pattern of vines. A short-sleeve guayabera-style shirt is stitched with floral patterns ($44). A blue button-front, with embroidered flowers on one breast and the shirttail has a lovable “Night Out in Fort Lee, N.J.” look to it ($64). A black track jacket with a purple chevron stripe across the chest seemed shockingly plain until I noticed that it had a faint curlicue design embossed on the surface ($68).

The store is large, the music is emo, the headless mannequins wear blazers over their hoodies; and as you would expect, there is a pubescent fixation with the ladies. The door handle is in the shape of a topless woman, as is the frame around a mirror by the dressing area. A painting of a nude woman-creature with textured skin hangs between the dressing rooms. Huge photo books by David LaChapelle and others are opened on tables. One was opened to a posing, pouty Pink while another displayed a photograph of Hillary Clinton, a presence in a red pantsuit, who single-handedly kept the door handle, painting and mirror frame from seeming misogynistic.

The Cut & Sew line was introduced in 2004, and the Chelsea store opened its doors in September, making it one of the newest additions to the gargantuan urban fashion empire of Marc Ecko Enterprises, which also includes G-Unit, a joint venture with the rapper 50 Cent; Zoo York, a line of action sports-inspired clothing; Complex magazine; and Red, a line for women.

In the mid-’80s, Marc Ecko airbrushed T-shirts and sold them in his parents’ garage in New Jersey; he introduced his first men’s line in 1993. Now he is so preposterously successful, he has become a kind of hip-hop Willy Wonka. Like the mythical chocolatier, he makes grand, generous, sometimes nutty gestures. He raises money for the International Rhino Federation, backed a 2006 lawsuit against antigraffiti legislation in New York City and created Sweat Equity Enterprises, “a nonprofit creative learning program” for underserved high school teenagers.

He is also obsessed with “Star Wars” and somehow wrangled a licensing deal with the franchise. A white T-shirt has a storm trooper head rendered beautifully in little appliquéd crystals, while a likeness of Yoda in green dots on a brown T-shirt looks warty and nauseating. Mr. Ecko lovingly explains his fetish in a long paragraph printed on the back inside collar: “It’s no secret I am a fan of all things Star Wars,” it reads. “Just when I am getting pop culture fatigue, I watch Star Wars.”

As far away as I am from the desired demographic for this store, I found some interesting clothes. One standout, a lined M65 military jacket in a simple, embellishment-free herringbone, was only $115.

A lot of prices are reasonable, in fact. I found an army coat with a shearling hood for $175 and a velvet blazer that was almost on par with one I have from Kenneth Cole, for $135. A lamb’s wool hoodie with polyester lining ($88) felt squishy and synthetic, but it looked good enough to be a gift for your nephew or younger brother.

It may strike the passer-by as odd that an “urban fashion” store has set up shop here, in the middle of one of the gayest blocks in Chelsea, next door to Food Bar and other establishments with rainbow flag decals in their windows. But Chelsea is evolving from being an exclusive “gayberhood” into more of a cultural and sexual mixing bowl, which could give this store some interesting vibrancy.

Unfortunately, the two times I visited the store, no one was there. It is surprising to me that the Ecko empire, which seems so enmeshed in the hip-hop, graffiti and skateboard scenes, has a store lacking youthful bustle. But maybe that is part of maturity: to try on clothes in a lame, decaffeinated environment.

On the N train, coming home from the store, I saw a group of teenage guys with their girlfriends and skateboards, just a couple years away from their own awkward dressy phases. They slumped in their seats, sharing iPod earphones, wearing grubby camouflage hoodies and bedraggled jeans. They did look comfortable, though.

Marc Ecko Cut & Sew | The Merch

147 Eighth Avenue (between 17th and 18th Streets); (212) 206-8351

THE THREADS Snappy hip-hop flavored duds — printed tees, decorated jackets and emblazoned blazers — for trendy guys a few years above or below 20 who are just starting to step up their style.

THE SPACE The store is long and deep with product. Emo music wails out of speakers, and workers, sweetly aloof because of their youth, quietly fold garments and give each other relationship advice.

THE NABE Cut & Sew’s new digs exemplify the changing face of Chelsea from predominantly gay to urban shopping mall. With its lady-shaped door handle, printed hoodies and rap star swagger, the store is bringing a little ’hood to the gayberhood.

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Tattooed for a Day, Wild for a Night

By RUTH LA FERLA
Published: January 24, 2008
LAURA EASTWOOD dropped by Linda Mason’s makeup boutique in SoHo last week, looking to add a bit of sizzle to her look. For a night on the town, she was wearing a strapless Gucci cocktail dress, a relic of the Tom Ford era. She planned to turn up its glamour by having her shoulders stamped with a constellation of press-on tattoos.

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Times Topics: Tattoos

Filip Kwiatkowski for The New York Times
INVISIBLE-TO-BE Danielle Fonseca applies a fanciful flower to Nicole Laliberte.
To her mind, the fakes are a fashion accessory no more unsettling than hair extensions or her favorite Dior snakeskin pumps. A temporary tattoo is “a way, for one night at least, of not looking like everybody else,” Ms. Eastwood said. She was on her way to dinner at a restaurant with her daughter, Graylen, 13, whose grandfather is Clint Eastwood.

But she became apprehensive as Ms. Mason applied a fretwork of snakes, thorns and Celtic knots to Graylen’s arms and legs, a more fearsome combination than her own exotic script and star bursts. “I don’t know how they’re going to feel about all those tattoos at school,” Ms. Eastwood said. “I’ll get a phone call for sure.”

In some quarters, the needled look, or even its approximation, the temporary press-on tattoo, still sends a subversive message, doubtless part of its appeal. For the young, or sometimes the not so young, a new proliferation of decal-like ink transfer designs offer a groovier-than-thou form of self-customization — and a chance to walk on the wild side, if only for a night.

Treading brashly in the steps of heavily tattooed pop idols like Gwen Stefani, Amy Winehouse or Jeremy Shockey of the New York Giants, plenty of people flaunt the mock variety. These are not the demure flowers painted on children’s cheeks at street fairs. On parade are snakes and daggers, skulls and vines, sprawling menacingly across the shoulders or climbing from ankle to thigh, an echo of the all-over tattoo look that aficionados have embraced.

“Temporary tattoos are back,” said Michael Benjamin, the president of Temptu, a New York supplier of mock tattoos and body paints. In more than a decade as Temptu’s chief executive, Mr. Benjamin has seen their status wax and wane. He said that in the last year or two, his business has doubled. And these days, he has an armful of competitors, companies like Funtoos, Tattoo Shock and Body Graphics.

The cost varies, from about $10 for a packet of do-it-yourself ink transfers, to several thousand dollars for a custom design applied by a pro.

Mock tattoos, like the authentic designs that inspire them, are fast becoming a pop culture staple, cropping up in films and on the playing field, in advertising campaigns and on the pages of fashion magazines.

Simulated ink designs animate the December issue of Italian Vogue, which arrived on American newsstands earlier this month. On the magazine’s cover and inside, too, ink-transfer flowers cover models’ arms, legs, necks and faces. The designs were conceived by the makeup artist Ralph Siciliano to complement their floral-pattern frocks.

In a current print advertisement for a fragrance from Juicy Couture, press-ons snake along a model’s torso. And last week in the Super Bowl playoffs, real tattoos and fakes alike took the field as players in Green Bay, Wis., ignoring subzero temperatures, went sleeveless to show off the artwork on their necks and arms.

The new temporary tats can be louche, as shown by the guests who flaunted them at Marc Jacobs’s Arabian Nights-theme Christmas party at the Rainbow Room in Manhattan. Or they can be as sweetly conventional as the heart and scrollwork transfers that Kiehl’s, the cosmetics brand, will distribute to customers as part of a Valentine’s Day promotion.

Danielle Fonseca, who applied ink-transfer tattoos to a gaggle of models at Mr. Jacobs’s party, views them as a faintly kinky adjunct to traditional makeup. “They offer a kind of branding,” she said, “a way people have of defining themselves.”

The appetite for mock tattoos is fed by the real ones shown in magazines like Inked, which examines the culture of body art, and by popular television shows like “Miami Ink” and its companion show, “L.A. Ink,” on the TLC cable network.

Despite its mainstreaming, the needled look remains for some a symbol of transgression. Linda Mason, who applies temporary tattoos in her shop on Grand Street, argued that in an increasingly conservative fashion climate, tattoos real or fake, are “a new frontier — one of the few ways left for a client or makeup artist to be provocative.”

Unlike the genuine versions, which may mark the wearer as a misfit for all time, the water-based paints of mock tattoos can be washed off at will.

The temps include ink transfer designs pressed onto the skin, sold at national chains like Ricky’s and Claire’s. Other versions are painted on by hand or applied with a stencil and airbrush. Treated with care they stay put for an evening or several days. Most can be removed with a cotton ball dipped in rubbing alcohol.
More sophisticated and authentically weathered looking than the stick-on designs that used to come inside bubble gum wrappers, the new grown-up varieties lend themselves to experimentation. As Ms. Fonseca put it, “They are an amazing way to test-drive a design.”

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Carl Saytor
A guest at Marc Jacobs’s Arabian Nights party in December.
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Times Topics: Tattoos
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A Juicy Couture ad.
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Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Pages from December’s Italian Vogue.
Stephen Remington, a video and performance artist in New York, spent part of last summer applying, and reapplying, a string of bold Chinese characters just under his chin, like a necklace.

“That tag, when I wore it, made me feel a little more rough I guess,” Mr. Remington recalled.

His friends were amused. His mother? “She was about to slit my throat,” he said.

Adverse reactions, maternal and otherwise, are rarely a deterrent to champions of the fakes. Some reason that if you can customize your cellphone or computer, why not a stretch of virgin flesh?

“Tattoos add personality and character,” said Donald Simrock, a makeup artist who has fashioned a variety of fakes for fashion shows and advertising campaigns. “Like that vintage car you buy, they can be an extension of your personality.”

Wearers attest that mock tats do wonders for one’s self-image, teasing out the biker, rapper or gridiron star that lurks inside the suit. Suzie Johnson, a personal trainer in Los Angeles, recently requested a pair.

“I don’t look like a lot of the typical girls you see rolling around on a mat,” she said. “I wanted to look like I had some tough chic going on.”

Her friend Mr. Simrock catered to that fantasy, applying a colorful twisty trellis design to her arm. “It defined my triceps area,” Ms. Johnson recalled, “and it gave me a lot of self-confidence.”

Even Mr. Benjamin of Temptu, who is usually tattoo-free himself, occasionally gives in to the allure of the needled look.

At his office last week, he bared a forearm to show off a skeleton dressed in a top hat and tuxedo. “It brings joy to my life,” he said. “I get to be a nice Jewish boy who looks tough.”

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So This Is It: Valentino

January 23, 2008, 6:11 pm
By CATHY HORYN

The finale at the last Valentino show. (Jean-Luce Huré for The New York Times)
The ovation was still going as I moved toward the backstage, slowly and then at a brisk walk. I passed Marisa Berenson and Marie-Chantal of Greece, who was with her husband Pavlos and her in-laws, Queen Ann-Marie and King Constantine. I saw Uma ahead of me. I caught up with Uma in the backstage and asked her what she thought of the show, half embarrassed that I bothered. “I have no comment to make at this time,” she said, as if she had said it a million times before. Okay. Wouldn’t “beautiful” have worked just as well? I turned away, toward the mob of photographers and models, all of them in identical red dresses, gathering with intensity around Valentino. Natalia V. had tears welling in her eyes. I saw Carlos Souza, who has done the press for Valentino for years, and I asked him if the girls were going to keep their red dresses. They’d all came out in red for the finale. “For sure!” he said, watching Valentino and the mob. Later, I asked one of the models about it and the look she gave me said, “Are you kidding?”

Giancarlo Giammetti, who is Valentino’s business partner, was in the middle of the room. He looked calm, amused, overwhelmed. Television reporters were sticking microphones in his face. “Tonight is the final show for you and Mr. Valentino,” a TV lady began, “How do you feel?”



Valentino greets Uma Thurman backstage after his final show. (Jean-Luce Huré for The New York Times)
“Very well,” he replied, smiling. “Very good.”

Valentino had moved into the room, to give himself and his guests more space. The photographers were pushing closer and the press handlers were pushing some of them back. Claudia Schiffer had arrived.

Giammetti looked up. “I think we’re going to get killed,” he said.


One of the looks from Valentino’s last show. (Jean-Luce Huré for The New York Times)
I left the backstage and returned to the front of the Musee Rodin. So that was it. The end always comes very fast, and it’s never, ever what you expect. Of course, the clothes were beautiful. The Rome collection, in July, was much more spectacular and moving. But these clothes were very fine. They were flawless with a hint of melancholy. Pistachio and pale blue are summer colors but they are also homesick colors. That’s what I think, anyway.


Coco Rocha as a mermaid bride in Jean Paul Gaultier’s show. (Jean-Luce Huré for The New York Times)
Earlier in the day, I saw Jean Paul Gaultier’s show. Gaultier always starts slow, and sometimes he has a good finish and sometimes he doesn’t. Today, his clothes were terrific—very witty and imaginative. Like Lagerfeld, he had an ocean theme. He used lovely marine blue and grays for his chic pantsuits, and then started including embroidery and more exotic colors to represent the texture of coral reefs, kelp and shells. He had a very sexy mini halter dress made of panels of pale green beads interspersed with channels of gold beads. Coco Rocha came out as a mermaid bride. At first she hobbled on crutches, then she stopped and released her tight, shimmery dress by a zipper at the hem. She walked on, two gold shells pointing like missiles from her breasts.

Givenchy was a little disappointing. Riccardo Tisci had some good tailoring, especially the first jacket (worn by Maria Carla, with a flaring black mini skirt lined in white silk), and the ruff-collar evening dresses were interesting. But he couldn’t seem to find a project, and some of the clothes, which made me think of things from Alaia and Montana, just looked overworked.


Riccardo Tisci’s creations presented at the Givenchy show. (Jean-Luce Huré for The New York Times)
Marko, I don’t think those HC sales numbers are wrong. But I think they can be misleading. I doubt the pool of customers has increased for haute couture in the past five years. And I don’t think they optimistically suggest any kind of revival. (You can’t expect a revival when the chief practitioners of savoir faire are retiring or getting on in years, and there is nobody really available to succeed them.) The fact is there are some big spenders from Russia and the Arabian Gulf countries, and some of them are buying three or four pieces a season. Couture is always counted by the piece, rather the outfit. And, of course, the prices are higher than ever. My guess is the number of new clients is roughly equal to the number of old-time clients, who just aren’t interested in playing the game anymore.

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Selma Blair is NBC's choice for "Kath & Kim"

By Nellie Andreeva

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Following a lengthy search, NBC has zeroed in on Selma Blair to star opposite Molly Shannon in the high-profile comedy pilot "Kath and Kim."


Based on the hit Australian series "Kath & Kim," the NBC comedy focuses on the dysfunctional relationship between Kath (Shannon) and her daughter Kim (Blair).

Casting the title characters has been considered crucial to the success of the show. When the project was first picked up to pilot by NBC in January 2007, it was pushed to summer because of difficulties casting the leads.

Following her breakthrough roles on the WB Network comedy series "Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane" and in the feature "Cruel Intentions," Blair went on to co-star in such movies as "The Sweetest Thing" and "Legally Blonde."

She next reprises her role as Liz Sherman in "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," and will appear opposite Antonio Banderas in "My Mom's New Boyfriend."

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Roger Waters to play southern California festival

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former Pink Floyd mastermind Roger Waters will bring the curtain down on the annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in southern California on April 27, organizers said on Monday,

The other headliners during the three-day event in the desert town of Indio, 130 miles east of Los Angeles, are singer/songwriter Jack Johnson on Friday, April 25, and reunited British electronica combo Portishead on Saturday April 26. Waters will perform his band's opus "Dark Side of the Moon" in its entirety.

Friday's lineup also includes such acts as The Verve, Raconteurs, The Breeders, Fatboy Slim, Tegan and Sara, and Madness.

Saturday's offerings will also feature Kraftwerk, Death Cab for Cutie, Cafe Tacuba, Sasha & Digweed, Rilo Kiley, Dwight Yoakam.

Preceding Waters on Sunday will be the likes of Love & Rockets, My Morning Jacket, and Spiritualized.

Tickets go on sale Friday, priced at $269 for all three days, or $90 for a single day. Service fees apply.

Coachella, now in its ninth year, has become one of the premier festivals in the United States, where such events are not as common as they are in Europe.

Coachella promoter Goldenvoice said it would launch a three-day festival near New York City on August 8-10 at Liberty State Park in New Jersey. The lineup for the All Points West Music & Arts Festival will be announced in the coming weeks.

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More SAG Awards presenters announced

LOS ANGELES - Russell Crowe, Kate Beckinsale and John Travolta will be among the stars set to present trophies at this weekend's Screen Actors Guild Awards, officials said Monday.

Crowe, Beckinsale and Travolta will be joined at Sunday's awards ceremony by Debra Messing, Tommy Lee Jones, Terrence Howard, Nikki Blonsky and Holly Hunter, SAG officials said.

Previously announced presenters include Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Emile Hirsch and Burt Reynolds at the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The show will be broadcast live on TNT and TBS from the Shrine Auditorium.

The ongoing writers strike is not expected to affect the SAG Awards because the Writers Guild of America has signed agreements allowing its members to work the ceremony.

The Golden Globe Awards' televised banquet was scrapped earlier this month and replaced with a news conference to announce winners. With the guild planning pickets outside and declining to let writers work on the show, no one showed up to accept awards in person.

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Oscar nod 'more likely' for drama

Julie Christie is expected to be nominated for best actress this year
Monday, 21 January 2008, 10:38 GMT


Performers who appear in a drama rather than a comedy are nine times more likely to be nominated for an Oscar, a study suggests.
And women were twice as likely to be nominated as men, it found.

The joint study by the University of California Los Angeles and Harvard University examined thousands of Internet Movie Database records.

Meanwhile, the show's producer says this year's event is "not going to be cancelled" despite the writers' strike.

The odds of being nominated for an Academy Award are so much greater for performers who appear in dramas that it really pays to be a drama queen
Co-author Gabriel Rossman
The authors of the study used the online database's records to look at every Oscar-eligible film made between the first year of the awards, in 1927, and 2005.

They examined records of 171,539 performances by 39,518 actors in 19,351 films.

Study co-author Gabriel Rossman said: "The odds of being nominated for an Academy Award are so much greater for performers who appear in dramas that - at least this time of year - it really pays to be a drama queen."

Fellow author Nicole Esparza said the "underrepresentation" of women in films worked in their favour when it came to nominations.

"Because there are fewer female than male performers in films, and both are eligible for the same number of awards, actresses stand a better chance of being nominated than actors," she added.

"It's a simple matter of arithmetic."

Picket lines

Other factors that made nominations more likely included previous Oscar nominations, having a high spot in the pecking order in earlier movie credits and working on a film with a major distributor.

Meanwhile, Oscars producer Gil Cates has told the Los Angeles Times this year's Oscars would take place with or without the actors.

There are fears that, if the ongoing Hollywood writers' strike is not resolved before the Oscars - due to be held on 24 February - the usual ceremony will be called off or scaled down like last week's Golden Globes.

I don't want to say 'read my lips' but it's not going to be cancelled
Oscars producer Gil Cates
Ahead of the Golden Globes, actors had said they would not cross picket lines in support of writers.

But Mr Cates said: "There are enough clips in 80 years of Oscar history to make up a very entertaining show.

"We'd have a lot of people on stage. Much as this is shocking to people, there are a lot of people who don't act.

"I just hope the actors are there. I pray that the actors are there. I'm planning that the actors are there."

He added: "I don't want to say 'read my lips' but it's not going to be cancelled."

Sets for the show at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood are already being built and nominations will be announced on Tuesday.

According to trade newspaper Hollywood Report, writers are to meet later this week to discuss holding informal talks with studio bosses.

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