CRITICAL SHOPPER | OSCAR DE LA RENTA

By CINTRA WILSON
Published: November 18, 2008

BOTH the weather without and the weather within were clammy and bleak on the sniveling afternoon I visited the Oscar de La Renta boutique. But Elegance must always win in the cage match against Despair, and therefore one must drag oneself out of the customary fetal position and subway uptown to investigate luxurious clothing, however unaffordable.

Mark M. Gong for The New York Times
My own prejudices gave me a blind spot in regard to Oscar de la Renta. In my mind, he was one of those gilded old luxury designers like Valentino, worn exclusively by women so morbidly wealthy that they can wear white satin on the soles of their shoes since their daily walk involves only the floor mats of bulletproof limousines, Hereke silk carpets and the soft, clean heads of the middle class.

Anyone who ends up as a primary couture source for first ladies (e.g., Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush) arouses vast suspicion in my mind. I get dumb and belligerent about designers at nosebleed heights of price and unobtainability. Keep your septuagenarian prom tutus, I think. I’m a downtown girl. I’ll check out de la Renta the day Dita Von Tease is first lady.

I was forced to abandon this craven and faulty reasoning within about five minutes of stepping inside the boutique. I felt as if I wasn’t in a clothing store so much as a kind of museum-cum-petting zoo, where ordinary people are miraculously allowed to walk straight up to the racks and fondle hugely expensive and beautiful garments without even having to remove their shoes and belt, wait through a security line, surrender electronic devices or endure a 200-kilovolt warning Taser.

Mr. de la Renta, at 76, seems to be at that point in his career when, like Kurosawa or Fellini, he has been a master of his craft for so long that he owns a golden mean that consistently delivers symmetry, proportion and harmony and is therefore at liberty to ditch all constraints and break any rules he doesn’t feel like obeying. His framework is so refined that he can waltz through the vast closet of his long and colorful career and mash up design inspirations from his own vocabulary, to express any whacked-out impulse that shakes loose in his imagination. These are the fruits of a mature artistry; this is also the kind of blissfully relaxed creativity that emanates from a guy who knows he doesn’t have to play ball anymore, because he pretty much owns the ball and could probably buy the ball factory if he felt like it.


From the first rack, I was clutching insanely craft-saturated sleeves and staring into them as if they were kaleidoscopes, wondering, “How many nuns went blind?” Layers upon layers of meticulous, eye-crossing detail, created a mesmerizing depth of texture. There is so much going on: whole landscapes and leitmotifs wrought in black beads; hand-stitched quilting detail suggesting years of indentured servitude to the Tang dynasty; drapes and pin tucks of such alien perfection and accuracy they looked as if they were built by the Pixie Corps of Engineers.

I stared agog at a leather trench coat ($10,450) that was swirling with leather piping coiled in leafy, paisleylike shapes resembling muscle striations, so bewilderingly intricate I had an Aha! moment: Clothing this advanced could guarantee a lady the center of attention in most rooms, even if she lacked charm, looks and substance. It is the haberdashery equivalent of a Maserati. People are likely to be a bit hypnotized, no matter how unspectacular the driver may be.

I was really impressed by a standard piece one sees at charity functions for the square and elderly: a sequined, Republican banquet-wife bolero jacket. I usually find them ghastly, but Oscar de la Renta’s had soul: layered stacks of black and blood-red sequins, fused with cross-hatched black and red stitching into a compellingly rich pattern somewhat dizzying in its artistry. It was entirely counterintuitive, but this Nancy Reagan garment looked downright hardcore: primitive, even a little brutal.

This much-needed boost of savagery on a piece of ladies’ formalwear seemed very open-minded. I thought it would be like showing up with a shrunken head on your tuxedo in lieu of a boutonniere. You know you’ve got at least one conversation starter.

The favorite thing I tried on was an olive sharkskin party dress ($3,290). It fit in a zero-gravity, birthday-princess way you dream of when you are a girl-child of about 8. The skirt flared perfectly around the waist atop a weightless infrastructure of silk petticoats. It was like stepping in and out of a giant peony. Even more beguiling was its versatility — it was a dress you could wear to an illegal drag race, dinner with Henry Kissinger and a gay cruise-ship wedding, all in the same night.

There are light years of difference between serious designer clothing and the stuff we buy in malls, hence the vast differences in affordability. It’s the same gulf that resides between mayonnaisey hotel paintings that chimps could be trained to create with a spatula, and the stuff in the permanent collection at the Met. If you squint really hard, the high-end stuff and low-end stuff can look fairly similar, but the fundamental difference is in the artistic energy invested in the garment or the painting itself. Bad art won’t revive your soul.

I was in a vile mood when I walked into Oscar de la Renta, but hanging out in that little oasis was intoxicating enough to boost my spirit. There is such thought, feeling and desire to create beauty in these garments you can practically taste it.

You don’t have to own monstrously beautiful, prohibitively expensive Oscar de la Renta garments any more than you need to own a genuine Kandinsky. But your life can generally be improved just by knowing such gorgeous stuff exists. That Keats guy said it: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Read More......

Merrily They Dress

By ERIC WILSON
Published: November 19, 2008

CHINS up, people. Hem lengths, too.

Here we are at the outset of what is shaping up to be a six-week season of grinchiness. Holiday festivities, we are told, are being downsized and will amount to little more than a plate of cold cuts with a lump of coal as the centerpiece. This year B.Y.O.B. means bring your own bonus.

So we can choose to dress in a manner appropriately morose for the times and prove the timeworn adage that hems fall with the stock market. Or we can throw caution to the wind, as John Galliano did on Monday night, when he arrived at a party wearing the traditional button-covered costume of a Pearly King (the neighborhood monarch who protected the local street vendors of Victorian London). The mother-of-pearl buttons on his suit formed a pattern of vines, and his top hat was trimmed with rings of fresh daisies. The room was hotter than an orchid house.

“I hope I don’t wilt,” Mr. Galliano said.

The party was given by the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue to alleviate the pain of cash-starved young designers with financial prizes and mentoring. The CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund was created five years ago, something like a Troubled Asset Relief Program for regular folk like Proenza Schouler and Phillip Lim. But seeing as Condé Nast, like many companies, has canceled its customary Christmas events this year, the occasion also served as a de facto holiday party.

The dress code on the invitation said “Dress Up,” but practically no one took that as a reason to wear black. Rather they seemed to take it as a challenge to dress in a spirit that could be described as Up With Fashion. Despite the presence of a few crabby-looking retailers who were not feeling very U.W.F., the party swarmed with famous models wearing the shortest of skirts and socialites clinging to their decadent dresses. All in all, the crowd reflected the upbeat and offhand style that seems to define the look of the season.

At the very least, they showed that hem lengths have not fallen just yet.

“I actually feel very bright and optimistic,” said Dr. Lisa Airan, the Manhattan dermatologist, who was wearing a snow-white silk Lanvin dress with feathered frippery around the bodice, white leather biker gloves from Rodarte and hot pink pumps by Giambattista Valli.

Mr. Valli happened to be standing nearby, wearing a pearl necklace. Which is to say that the mood was far from funereal.

“Now that we have a new president and we’re moving forward,” Dr. Airan said, “I think that maybe we’ve gone through the worst of it.”

As Alexander Wang, the designer who won the CFDA/Vogue prize this year, said in Harper’s Bazaar, the old rules of dressing appropriately for holiday parties no longer apply. No daytime rules or nighttime formality. Shorts can work if they have style.

That may sound like a flippant approach to the subject of party dressing, given the serious troubles facing the nation and the economy at this moment, reflected in the devastating sales numbers coming from retailers since September. But dressing up can still have an emotionally uplifting effect, even if most people are doing their shopping in their own closets.

Erin Fetherston, another designer, had considered wearing black to the party, but changed her mind and wore a floral print dress that was bold enough to have come from Murano. “I’m feeling more polished all of a sudden,” she said.

Last year, as gas prices skyrocketed and home values declined, it was actually short and skin-tight dresses that were selling. As the economy worsened, fashion moved in still stranger and less expected directions, toward bondage references, for example, but also harem pants, jumpsuits, prep school and polish, all at the same time. The result, coming out at night this holiday season, is evening wear that looks like a mash-up of “Mad Men” and “Gossip Girl.”

“Everyone’s so glum right now that it’s really time to bring out the glad rags,” said the designer Sue Stemp. “I love a great-fitting cocktail dress to lift the mood, and now is the perfect time.”

Perhaps that is wishful thinking. Robert Burke, a former fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman who is now a luxury consultant, reported that women are buying “nothing too loud, nothing that screams fashion.” Elie Tahari said that taffeta gowns and extravagant looks are going to be less popular than something that can be worn beyond the season, like skirts and jackets that can be layered and gussied up with a piece of jewelry.

“Women want to dress up and make themselves feel good,” he said, “but they don’t want to spend a lot of money.”

At the same time, it has not gone unnoticed that the Obama family is setting a U.W.F. example for America that is lifting designers’ spirits. Ever since the Obamas appeared on election night as a coordinated fashion tableau, as if they had just stepped out of a holiday greeting card portrait, sales of red dresses have been terrific, said Kay Unger, who makes party frocks.

Customers are being more inventive, she added, by buying short-sleeve jackets that can be worn over a dress or with long gloves, then wearing the same jacket with jeans for an office look.

“The people who are not affected by this economy are the young people who didn’t have an I.R.A. or money invested in the stock market, so they are seeing things in a different way,” Ms. Unger said. “They’re buying things just for going out. And they are mostly buying short dresses, in 99 percent of the cases, because they are really fun and they can go a lot of places.”

Also, you can still see their cute shoes.

For those women who are shopping with value and versatility in mind, the Little Black Dress remains a popular choice, but, Ms. Unger said, there is just as much interest in flashier metallic fabrics like bronze or brushed gold, which have a more limited shelf life. Similarly, Nicole Miller cited gold and silver fabrics as the look of the season, “because it makes everyone look 10 pounds thinner,” she said.

Seriously? “The texture makes things look camouflaged, unlike a really flat fabric,” she said.

And if you’re on a budget, you can always improvise with gift wrap.

Read More......

Frown Fighters

By ELLEN TIEN
Published: November 7, 2008

As the economy crumbles, the Lipstick Index — that frivolous financial barometer that says cosmetics sales rise in direct relation to free-falling finances — has jumped. Sales in the last few months are up 40 percent. Here are 41 of fall’s most popular pick-me-ups, from $1.99 to over $50. What do women want when they aren’t allowed to want too much? Traditional lipsticks in more-sheer neutral shades; the bright reds of days gone by have been replaced by pinky browns and rosy taupes.

Top row, from left to right:

1. Benefit Full-Finish lipstick in Ladies’ Choice, $18 at benefitcosmetics.com.

2. Sisley Hydrating long-lasting lipstick No. L17, $55 at Neiman Marcus stores.

3. Vincent Longo Lipstain SPF lipstick in Americana, $23 at vincentlongo.com.

4. Pur Minerals lipstick in Raspberry Quartz, $15 at Ulta stores.

5. Shiseido Perfecting lipstick in P13, $22.50 at sephora.com.

6. Mark Dew Drenched Moisturlicious lip color in Pretty Posey, $6 at meetmark.com.

7. Jane Iredale PureMoist LipColour in Melisa, $19 at Vert in Los Angeles, (310) 581-6126.

8. Josie Maran lipstick in Rumi Joon, $20 at barneys.com.

9. MAC lipstick in Viva Glam VI, $14 at maccosmetics.com.

10. Clinique Long Last Soft Shine lipstick in Bamboo Pink, $14 at clinique .com.

11. Avon Beyond Color Plumping lip color in Divine Wine, $8 at avon .com.

12. Dior Addict High Shine lipstick in Casual Beige, $25 at Bloomingdale’s stores.

13. Mally Beauty lipstick in Zooey Doll, $15 at henribendel.com.

14. Origins Smileage Plus Organic Liptint in Vintage, $11 at origins.com.

15. Nars lipstick in Dolce Vita, $24 at narscosmetics.com.

16. Sally Hansen Natural Beauty in Plum Shimmer, $9.99 at Duane Reade stores.

17. Shu Uemura Rouge Unlimited Crème Matte lipstick in Red 165M, $23 at shuuemura-usa.com.

18. DuWop Prime Venom nude lip plumping balm and primer, $20 at Sephora.

19. Michael Marcus lipstick in Jenifer, $24 at michaelmarcus.com.

20. N.Y.C. New York Color Ultra Last LipWear in Brandy Sparkle, $1.99 at Wal-Mart stores.

21. Sue Devitt lipstick in Zimbabwe, $20 at Barneys New York.

Bottom row, from left to right:

22. Bobbi Brown lip color in Brown, $22 at bobbibrowncosmetics.com.

23. By Terry Rouge Delectation lipstick in Icy Praline, $41 at Barneys New York stores.

24. Jouer Lip Color in Phoebe, $22 at Henri Bendel in New York, (800) 423-6335.

25. Rimmel Lasting Finish lipstick in Coffee Shimmer, $4.95 at CVS stores.

26. Ramy lipstick in Ramy Red, $17 at ramybeautytherapy.com.

27. Estée Lauder Signature Hudra Lustre lip at bobbibrowncosmetics.com.

28. Chanel Rouge Hydrabase in Enigma $27 at chanel.com.

29. Chanel Rouge Allure in Naïve, $30 at chanel.com.

30. Calvin Klein Delicious Luxury Crème lipstick in Oasis, $18 at sephora.com.

31. Trish McEvoy sheer lipstick in Innocent Sheer, $22 at Saks Fifth Avenue stores.

32. YSL Beauté Rouge Volupté lipstick in Sweet Honey, $29 at Henri Bendel in New York, (800) 423-6335.

33. Smashbox Photo Finish lipstick in Delightful, $22 at Sephora stores.

34. Rilastil Long Lasting Color Fix in Tender Rose, $28 at C. O. Bigelow in New York, (212) 533-2700.

35. Laura Mercier lip color in Pink Champagne, $22 at lauramercier.com.

36. Paul & Joe Lipstick N in No. 17, $20 at thebeautycloset.com.

37. TheBalm Read My Lips lipstick in Letter to the Editor, $16 at C. O. Bigelow in New York (212) 533-2700.

38. Lipstick Queen by Poppy King sheer lip color in Medieval, $20 at Barneys New York stores.

39. Kat Von D Painted Love lipstick in Lolita, $18 at sephora.com.

40. Korres Mango Butter SPF 10 in Nude 33, $18 at sephora.com.

41. BeingTRUE translucent lip color in Protagonist, $22 at truelynatural.com.

Read More......

A NIGHT OUT WITH | JOSEPH ARTHUR

By LIZA GHORBANI
Published: November 7, 2008
JOSEPH ARTHUR, the singer, songwriter and artist, has created his own little artistic paradise in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn. The Museum of Modern Arthur, open to the public every Tuesday through Sunday, serves as Mr. Arthur’s version of Andy Warhol’s Factory: a place he and his friends can get together to exercise their imaginations, which often involves creating art for the gallery, recording music in the studio in the back, silk-screening clothing or just talking.

On a recent blustery evening, Mr. Arthur, wearing the “lucky” hat that he had bought in Nottingham, England, was entertaining a couple of members of his five-piece band, the Lonely Astronauts, and some friends. He was about to embark on a solo European tour as the opening act for Tracy Chapman.

Despite the jittery sounds of the “Psycho” movie soundtrack in the background, the mood in the gallery was peaceful, with the aroma of sage incense filling the air. Sibyl Buck — a bass player and former model (and the stylish Edie to Mr. Arthur’s Warhol) — told everyone of a performance artist who had been smashing car windows in the name of art.

“The new definition of art is when you do something and other people talk about it,” she said.

Mr. Arthur, who at 6 feet 4 inches describes himself as circus tall, said that when it comes to his artistic pursuits, like the band’s new album, “Temporary People,” and his latest exhibition, “Wigs,” at Galerie Pangée in Montreal, he strives to be more contemplative. He added that he avoided spending too much time on “meaningless” diversions like Facebook.

“I just prefer real life, like this,” he said, gesturing to those around him. “This is so nice. Later we’ll see each other again in cyberspace, but it won’t be like this.”

There is a familial unity to Mr. Arthur’s band members, a closeness that can be felt by one outside their inner circle. Appropriately, they have matching tattoos of a perfect circle, a permanent bond they got just one week after they met one another two years ago.

Jen Turner, the lead guitarist, pointed out an identical circle on the sleeve of her Army jacket. “The band regalia,” she said. “We all wore these for a gig.”

Late that night, Mr. Arthur and Ms. Buck strolled the cobblestone streets of Dumbo, with its remnants of streetcar tracks, on their way to Brooklyn Bridge Park. Flanked by the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, the rocky beach is a favorite haunt of Mr. Arthur’s. He goes there a lot, he said.

“I call it Joe’s place,” he said, skipping a stone toward the cityscape across the water. He added, “I think a lot of people call it Joe’s place.”

It was a soothing, if somewhat unusual, way to wind up an evening, bringing to mind a comment that David Letterman made when the Lonely Astronauts made one of their appearances on his show: “I want to go with those people. I would like to be with those people. I think they’re probably doing things I’m not.”

It’s not actually that they’re always doing “fabulous stuff,” Ms. Buck said. “But he knew it was something different than what other people are doing at midnight.”

Read More......

A Goodbye Kiss for Paris

By CATHY HORYN
Published: October 6, 2008
Paris

At 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, the scheduled start of the Louis Vuitton show, 52 models were dressed and waiting in a line backstage. Marc Jacobs, in a three-piece suit with his hair slicked back, was kidding around. Robert Duffy, his business partner, walked along the line, and as he approached Raquel Zimmermann he mentioned that the models had on pretty lingerie. Ms. Zimmermann lifted her short skirt to show black point d’esprit underpants.

“Remember,” Mr. Jacobs said, poking his head between two girls in the line, “this is a city where even the meter readers wear high heels.” The show was slightly delayed for the arrival of Mr. Jacobs’s boss, Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

But in a way, seeing the models in the line told a lot about the intensity of Mr. Jacobs’s affection for Paris, and how expressive he has become as a designer. Make it layered, make it visual, make it personal. The backbone of the collection was the structured flirty jacket — emblematic of Paris fashion. The short skirts were a collage of materials and textures. An Asian influence was marked by metallic obi belts. Ostrich feather skirts, leopard-pattern bags and decoratively beaded shoes evoked Africa.



The spirit of Yves Saint Laurent? Not quite. If anything, Mr. Jacobs’s Vuitton show was a spoof on the elements we think of as quintessentially French, like the chic jacket, the polka-dot pajama and the poodle hairdo. But in spite of the sentiment of the Édith Piaf soundtrack, the modernity of the show ultimately rested on how visual the clothes were.

Miuccia Prada closed the Paris spring shows with a fine Miu Miu collection that also combined textures — burlap and satin — in predominantly slim dresses that had detachable half skirts. She also showed Greco-Roman prints, but the use of paint-splashed burlap was most intriguing.

In his show, Alber Elbaz caught the flavor for the exotic, with lush colors and leopard prints. Africa has been a potent theme of the collections, with Azzedine Alaïa making the most exuberant display in raffia and python.

So one of the strangest Paris seasons ended, made confusing by deepening economic worries, bouts of real creativity and the feeling that, as hard as some designers worked, retailers will have to work even harder next spring to get customers to come into the stores just for a look.

A number of collections should be celebrated. Mr. Elbaz’s best dresses had a nonchalant style of draping; hardly D.I.Y., but if you’re wearing a one-shoulder dress in fireball-orange silk with a puff of fabric grazing your face and arm, the effect should be slightly unserious. Many of the outfits were in taffeta, cloqué and duchess silk, and Mr. Elbaz gave them volume in simple ways — and sometimes with an interior band of grosgrain to hold things in place — and some dresses were in fact a top and a skirt. He cut the tops long so they could also be worn in a different proportion with pants, and he twisted the fabric slightly so the shape wouldn’t look flat and boring.

What looked new were slim pants with tacked-down pleats that gave shape to the waist; there was no actual waistband. Full sleeves, set into the shoulders of jewel-neck cloqué blouses, created a very narrow line — like a twig, which of course you may not be.

But you can play. The collection was, finally, in that spirit — the stilettos joyfully blitzed with tacky beads, a bone silk dress embroidered with stones in an abstract leopard pattern.

Alexander McQueen used computer images of crushed crystals, wood grains, animals, human skeletons and the iron grid of the Eiffel Tower as the basis for dazzling digitalized prints on silk jersey. The palette includes smoky grays, delphinium blues and vibrant parrot colors that look fractured by a prism. All the dress and jacket shapes were within the realm of the imagination, especially the fluttery dresses, and then you had the particular flavor of the engineered prints.

Mr. McQueen said his show was inspired by Darwinism and the Industrial Revolution, among other world-shaping forces. That gave him the historical ground for his romantic tailoring, leather corset belts, and molded showpiece dresses (covered with pounds of crystals and duly translated into more wearable dresses in the showroom). It’s just a good thing that he managed to pull out the prints from all that antiquity.

Backstage, in his fully furnished dressing room, John Galliano said that his vividly colored collection was inspired by James Gillray, an 18th-century caricaturist.

I’m sure my eyes glazed over. “I’ll Google him,” I said.

Here is a passage from the Tate Museum site: “Gillray’s targets range from lecherous men to amateur actors and musicians, and include the passion for art collecting as well as sex and gambling; all are exposed with great wit and graphic invention but also unrelenting cruelty.”

You could have blown me over with a Chanel feather: it sounded just like the fashion world, especially the bit about a “passion for art collecting.” Mr. Galliano indeed captured Gillray’s distinctly satirical palette of sunny yellows, baby and rosy pinks, and aristocratic blues — ideal for making light of pompous things. Under Bo Peep bonnets and sleeping caps made extreme by the milliner Stephen Jones, Mr. Galliano presented clothes that were light and pretty in the best sense.

No need to analyze a draped dress in pink silk jersey with drawstrings at the waist and hem. It fell on the body in a flattering way and looked fresh and new. The same was true of puffy blouses in crisp cotton or silk that spilled off one shoulder, and looked gentle and inviting compared with some of the ugly and overwrought clothes we’ve seen in the last two weeks.

There was probably not a better evening dress anywhere in Paris (well, maybe with the exception of Chanel and Alaïa) than a square-neck gown in cream silk jersey with a lightly draped bodice, soft sleeves and a long sleek skirt. A number of Mr. Galliano’s dresses were quite transparent, requiring a slip and a decent body, but the real measure of this wonderful show was how unfussy and free it was.

Chloé’s new designer, Hannah MacGibbon, made a fair start, offering sundresses with ruffled crisscrossed backs, a sharp-shouldered jumpsuit in khaki cotton, and a cool, one-shoulder dress in nutmeg cotton with side lacing. Sandals were flat (black straps, say, with a Kelly green sole). Scalloping (around hems and dinosaur-style down the sleeves of a bitter-lemon coat) looked cute in small doses. No doubt Ms. MacGibbon, who worked at the house once before under Phoebe Philo, will hear from plenty of critics about her very large trousers, and look back upon them critically herself and feed her eye from smaller plates.

Read More......

Flamboyance Gets a Face-Lift

By RUTH LA FERLA
Published: October 31, 2008
Miami Beach

Barbara P. Fernandez for The New York Times, top; Sam Shere/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
THEN AND NOW The new lobby of the Fontainebleau, top, echoes highlights of the original, bottom, like the bow tie floor pattern and the striated columns.
MARILYN RUBINSON recalls her stays at the Fontainebleau hotel as a series of high-fashion snapshots. There were afternoons at the cabana, “a blue hotel towel wrapped around my head like a turban and wearing high-heeled Lucite shoes,” she said. There were evenings at the Gigi Room, rubbing shoulders with New York’s dashing mayor, John V. Lindsay; and she remembers sweeping down the dramatic lobby staircase in a form-fitting, stone-colored gown. “In those days everyone made an entrance,” Mrs. Rubinson, 84, said. “I made lots of entrances.”

In that heady era the hotel was the diadem of Miami resorts, a 560-foot-long, sickle-shaped showplace dominating the Collins Avenue waterfront, where Miamians like the Rubinsons, who own a chain of clothing stores, and well-to-do snowbirds came in the winter to roost.

“Everyone who was anyone was there,” Mrs. Rubinson said. “People wore black tie and jewelry. Everyone was young.”

And everyone lived large at the flamboyant resort, conceived from its outset to evoke a modern Versailles. “It was the place for entertainment, for glamour — an icon even among the locals,” said Cathy Leff, the director of the Wolfsonian museum of design here. “Even now if one asks, ‘Within the city of Miami Beach, what is the most important landmark in the popular imagination?’ it would be the Fontainebleau.”

Can an icon of the past be restored to its former glory? New owners and architects of the Fontainebleau have invested $1 billion to buy and restore it in the conviction that it can. Its original fusion of Modernist rigor and Hollywood cheek, dreamed up by the maverick architect Morris Lapidus, was derided as Bronx baroque, until the singular style of Miami Beach was rediscovered by the Ian Schrager generation.

“In its day in the ’50s and ’60s, the Fontainebleau was state of the art in glamour,” said Jeffrey Beers, the New York architect responsible for an extensive update of the interior. “We would like to restore that in spirit.”

When the refurbished resort is officially unveiled on Nov. 14 with a series of parties and a taping for television of a Victoria’s Secret fashion show — perfect! — visitors will be able to judge for themselves if the mission succeeded. Even recently, as the hotel was still a construction site, it was clear that the old duchess had flounced out her skirts.

“How many places like this can you go in America that are not in the desert?” said Jeffrey Soffer, executive chairman and majority partner of Fontainebleau Resorts, which is building a Fontainebleau in Las Vegas. Indeed, as he strolled the raised oceanfront walkway that overlooks the property, it was obvious the resort had much in common with over-the-top hotels on the Strip.

Visible from the walkway is a pool complex fanning out across the lawns, and a new 40,000-square-foot glass-walled spa, its steam rooms and reflecting pools worthy of the emperor Hadrian. Crescent-shaped rows of cabanas edge the pools and echo the undulating outlines of the Chateau, the hotel’s original building.

Several towers, two of them new, flank the Chateau, for a combined 1,500 guest rooms, twice the number of the Fontainebleau’s largest competitor, Loews in South Beach. There are also shops, 11 restaurants and lounges, and about 200,000 square feet of meeting and convention space — all sprawling over 22 acres.

The three-year renovation was conceived, in part, to lure back fashionable crowds, which have drifted down to South Beach.



With renovated rooms from $399 and suites from $509, the Fontainebleau is reopening at a challenging time for tourism. Hotel occupancy rates in Miami-Dade County were down by 6 percent in September from a year earlier, and room revenues fell by 4 percent, said John Lancet, a senior executive in Miami for HVS, a national hotel consulting company.

But Mr. Lancet viewed the Fontainebleau development as only mildly risky. “It is my impression that the owners went through adequate planning so that the risk could be mitigated,” he said.

THE hotel has some $30 million in bookings through early next year, said Howard C. Karawan, the chief operating officer of Fontainebleau Resorts, who was brought in by the new owners to oversee renovations and operations for the company.

Rumors are widespread that the $500 million face-lift was made in anticipation that the city would legalize casino gambling. The developers deny this, and gambling has yet to win acceptance with local lawmakers.

At the hub of the resort is the Chateau’s 45,000-square-foot lobby, an elaboration on the original free-form elliptical shape completed by Lapidus in 1954.

Its original curvaceous outlines were accentuated by three enormous chandeliers, striated Greek-style columns, swirling carpets and a mural of a Piranesi print. The lobby’s famous focal point was a “staircase to nowhere,” which actually led from a discreet cloakroom, where ladies could shed their wraps before descending divalike down the white marble steps.

The new lobby, like its predecessor, is a chambered nautilus, all undulating walls and recesses. Mr. Beers stripped away ’70s-era carpeting to expose the original marble floor with its signature bow tie design. He covered the wall at the staircase in gold tile and added a light installation by the artist James Turrell and a lounge with a blue reflective floor. The staircase to nowhere is back, the jewel in a set piece expected to draw crowds who want to see and be seen.
And perhaps to retrace the footsteps of previous guests. Those who stayed at the hotel in Miami Beach’s golden age recall a resort that Lapidus, who died in 2001 at 98, had envisioned as a laboratory. It was a place, he wrote, “where I could enlarge upon all the theories I had been developing about human nature and the emotional hunger that the average man had for visual excitement.”

Fontainebleau Resorts, LLC
A rendering of one of the V.I.P. cabanas.
At bars and supper clubs — the Gigi Room, the Poodle Lounge — “women would sit with their little fur stoles and white gloves on to eat,” recalled Deborah Desilets, a Miami architect and former associate of Lapidus. Sheathed in slinky gowns, “they would stop at the mezzanine, put on their jewelry and wave at their husbands in the lobby below,” she said.

Michelle Oka Doner, an artist and a frequent guest as a girl — her father, Kenneth Oka, was mayor of Miami Beach in the late ’50s and early ’60s — remembers the resort, where she had a prom and her wedding, “as my stage and my launching pad.”

The Fontainebleau was a decadent paradise of “flashy diamonds, illicit sex and overflowing ice cream sodas,” she said. To get to her family’s cabana, “you had to walk through the downstairs shops and past a dance studio where they had all these gorgeous guys giving cha-cha lessons to all these overdressed matrons from Scarsdale.”

“People came for the half-naked girls and the revues,” she said. And, of course, for trysts. “I knew something illicit was going on, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.”

The lobby was a hub for celebrity spotting, the hotel itself a backdrop against which the Rat Pack played poker and James Bond sprang from the high dive in “Goldfinger.”

“The floor was like a mirror, so shiny you could see yourself,” said Levi Forte, a bellman at the Fontainebleau since the ’60s. “Danny Thomas couldn’t keep his eyes off that floor. He’d sit there and comb his hair and ask, ‘Levi, how do I look?’ ”

Mel Dick, who moved to Miami from Brooklyn in the ’60s, visited on his honeymoon. He recalled being drawn to a sign outside the hotel barbershop that beckoned, “Come and have your shoes shined by the former lightweight champion of the world.” It was Sidney Walker, known as Beau Jack, recalled Mr. Dick, a wine company executive. “I sat down in the seat and I gave him five dollars. I told him: ‘I don’t want you to shine my shoes. I just want to look at you.’ ”

Mrs. Rubinson was just as enthralled by her frequent star sightings. “How many times driving up to the Fontainebleau I would see Frank Sinatra walking up the drive with a glass in his hand,” she said.

“We had a more glamorous lifestyle in those days,” she added wistfully. “But then, of course, things changed.”

In succeeding decades the resort lost its sparkle. Like other supersize hotels lining Collins Avenue north of 44th Street, including the neighboring Eden Roc, another shiny Lapidus edifice, it became as dated as Grandma’s minaudière.

Fast forward to the current renovation. “We kept asking ourselves, ‘What would Morris do?’ ” Mr. Karawan said.

John Nichols, a Miami architect responsible for the adjacent Fontainebleau residential towers, the second of which has just been completed, was hired to gut and redesign the hotel. He preserved Lapidus embellishments like the perforated “Swiss cheese” outer walls. “We had to get down into a very high level of detail,” Mr. Nichols said. “You don’t just go in there and take off the eyebrows.”

Ms. Oka Doner admires the renovation, to a point. “The property is kind of post-postmodern,” she said. “Morris Lapidus had real passion,” but in its current incarnation, “irony has trumped passion.”

But Ms. Desilets, the former Lapidus associate, who visited the site last month, was over the moon. “They used incredible engineering to laser trace what was there and rebuilt it with accuracy,” she said. “It’s going to be like a Ravenna mosaic. It’s a wow type of extravagance.”

The exuberant aesthetic of the original has been resurrected in three ballrooms, lavish restaurants and five swimming and reflecting pools.

The pool cabanas have wraparound sofas and flat-panel televisions. Perched on the property’s topmost tier is a V.I.P. pool deck with six additional teak cabanas, a bar and a D.J. booth.

Mr. Forte, the bellman, recently viewed the improvements. “The place is so pretty, the first time I saw it I thought I was in the wrong hotel,” he said. “I said to my wife, ‘Just take a look at what money can do.’ ”

Read More......

A Playful Romp for Chanel

By CATHY HORYN
Published: October 3, 2008
Paris

More than understanding the iconography of Chanel, a house that first opened its doors at 31, rue Cambon in 1921, he knows what the name means in the history of Paris. Unlike many other houses that have disappeared behind corporate facades or disappeared altogether, Chanel still sits like a white-gloved lady on the Rue Cambon. And probably to a great many young tourists who come to take pictures of its famous entrance and the Cassandre-designed logo, the Rue Cambon is Chanel.

Today, after it was reported by Women’s Wear Daily that Alessandra Facchinetti would be replaced at Valentino after just one year (Stefano Sassi, company’s chief executive, has been vague about plans, but indicated that a change was likely and that a lack of confidence in Ms. Facchinetti’s approach was an issue), an executive associated with the Rome-based company said, sadly, “Valentino is like Alitalia to Italy.”

Well, Alitalia has its problems, but certainly Valentino is a name that resonates beyond a chic little suit scattered with seed pearls. Ms. Facchinetti presented a charming, well-received haute couture collection in July. Friday, her ready-to-wear show of casual tunic dresses and soft shorts combinations with gold braid struggled to say something new.

But Ms. Facchinetti’s brief career at Valentino, as much the company’s owners poor handling of it, is proof that you need more than deep pockets to preserve a great name. You also need to recognize what it means in the popular imagination, and then seize it.

Mr. Lagerfeld had the idea to recreate a full-size facade of 31, rue Cambon inside the Grand Palais — and not only the building but also the street, complete with curbs. The models left the maison and hit the street. There was even the suggestion that four models strolling out together in mini knit dresses and fancy net hats might be representing the hooker element. If you’ve lived in Paris, and around fashion, as long as Mr. Lagerfeld has, you wouldn’t judge women that harshly.





He seems to regularly ask himself the question “What is Chanel?” — as if he knows it’s a living thing. This season, tweeds are more graphic; there is the new proportion of a cropped jacket, over a ribbed knit or blouse, and a slim embroidered skirt, shown with two-tone black stockings that modify the actual length of the skirt.

There are plays on transparency and shine. And maybe only Mr. Lagerfeld can show, at one extreme, silvery platforms with pink powder puffs at the heels and, at the other, a gorgeously severe black evening dress with a shadow layer of tulle and a taut, sheer neckline.

“Our house, in the middle of our street,” went the corny, if upbeat soundtrack from the 1980s hit by Madness, and in the models’ hands was one of the most coveted symbols of luxury and pleasure: the Chanel shopping bag, now rendered as a leather sack. The street, one can argue, is Chanel’s real stage.

Stefano Pilati has done a lot to reignite Saint Laurent. His spring collection is a solid continuation of the graphic modernity of last season, with more of an Eastern influence. Wool crepe trousers have a dropped crotch (but are the most flattering of that trendy style). Jackets have a slight kimono look, though Mr. Pilati keeps the volumes from exploding. There are matching bras under sheer, almost iridescent blouses and new, somewhat conceptual versions of the safari jacket — now with a kind of stiff peplum laced to the body of the jacket.

Mr. Pilati offered a lot of appealing clothes — smart, wearable but somehow missing that real Saint Laurent sex appeal and mystery. Maybe he intellectualized the process too much, but you didn’t feel he grasped or took advantage of the big story that Saint Laurent is.

It takes a special woman to wear a Giambattista Valli dress, because in most respects the dress wears her and sometimes it makes her a victim. Mr. Valli has an attentive young clientele, and a press agent’s e-mail message in advance of the show announcing that Natalie Portman would be traveling to Paris to see the collection had the weird archaic import of a 1950s Pathé newsreel.

But then Mr. Valli’s clothes seemed stuck in the glamour of that period. Five decades of women being a good deal more than prized possessions have apparently escaped Mr. Valli’s consciousness, or so it would appear from his crinoline dresses, fussy necklines and tulle outfits with the wooliness of a poodle’s back. Their fingertips extended over their wide skirts, their high heels made more perilous with the addition of a recessed platform, the models seemed instructed to look elegant and unobtainable.

A more accurate word for this tranquilized mood — and the collection in general — would have been Valium.

Read More......

Recharging the City of Light

By ERIC WILSON
Published: October 2, 2008

It was late, almost midnight, inside a plastic tent the size of a used-car dealership set down in the distant gardens of Saint-Cloud. Waiters had brought around plates of ravioli with more truffles than pasta and big sticks of crab leg wrapped in sole and buckets of Perrier-Jouët. When the models finally appeared, they wore poufy berets atop their crimped French-poodle hairdos, a little like Goldie Hawn in “Private Benjamin.” The music was Barry White, and the mood was just as smooth. The show felt as if it was from another time — specifically, the 1970s — when fashion was just for the moment and not so complicated.

It was Ms. Rykiel’s 40th anniversary, and she celebrated with a collection that snapped the life back into a Paris Fashion Week that had felt drained by the dismal economic outlook. If the ship is going down, she must have thought, let’s stick with the band. Her jackets were as sparkly as the nightly light show on the Eiffel Tower. Her pastel dresses were covered with feathered regalia fit for Louis XIV. And her dazzlingly beruffled models danced right off the stage during a show that lasted 40 minutes and ended with 30 looks made by other designers in tribute to Ms. Rykiel. (There were silk pajamas and a “Holy Smoke” T-shirt from Ann Demeulemeester, and a knit dress with needles attached and a ball of yarn trailing it from Jean Paul Gaultier).

But it all seemed like a distant, kind of fuzzy dream by Thursday morning. The reality of French fashion today is that it is, like that of most other countries, a melting pot, home to designers from Britain, the Netherlands, Colombia and the United States. There is no longer a national style to speak of, only collections, some of them exemplary citizens and some in need of deportation.

Stella McCartney’s show was exceptional. If it is possible for her designs to become any more light and ephemeral, as they have season after season, eventually there will be nothing to see besides Sir Paul sitting across the runway. For spring, she showed a nearly transparent jacket and rice-paper-thin sweater the color of unripened apricots over transparent sequined bodysuits, just figments of her imagination, really. This season’s jumpsuits were more tangible, the top half structured as a dinner jacket in one case, and as a trench in another.

What really worked in her favor was that Ms. McCartney, whose clothes are generally and admirably accessible, introduced some fairly conceptual ideas that still seemed wearable — namely, a great silk shantung trench that was enveloped inside a larger version of the same coat.

Viktor & Rolf opted to show online this week instead of the runway, and the effort was largely commendable. There is a palpable sense that the runway system no longer works, but no one can figure out an alternative, so we spend a month every season chasing 400-plus shows while shoppers click through them in 15 minutes at home.


The video that the designers, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, showed was a designer’s ultimate fantasy in that every look was modeled by Shalom Harlow, who totally worked it. But you could actually get a pretty realistic idea of the dresses, dangling like paper lanterns, and how the loudly graphic striped tights and shorts combinations gave off a robotic Balenciaga vibe. Still, this is not a perfect medium for the designers, for back in their showroom, the colors looked different, and sometimes better — a dress that appeared red and yellow online was actually more of a rust and mustard.

Hurricane Hussein (Chalayan, that is) also blew through the city, subjecting his models to extreme conditions in the form of industrial wind machines pointed in their faces and aerobics-style bathing suits that exposed their rear ends, a one-two punch that delighted only the photographers. What Mr. Chalayan was getting at was the danger of speed. The idea was repeated in prints of futuristic-looking cars and zooming-by street scenes on minidresses and, inevitably, a crash scene at the end, a metaphor, he said, for the economy. Mr. Chalayan hammered the point a bit hard when he actually smashed a bar full of wineglasses at the finale.

Several dresses were fascinating, made of latex molded into whipped-cream peaks extending from the back to appear in blurry motion. But the message felt a tad preachy, like a crossing guard wagging his finger at the Treasury. Hey! Look both ways!

Esteban Cortazar’s second season at Emanuel Ungaro suggests that he may be out of his league. There were some cute minidresses with painterly brush-stroke prints from the precocious designer, but not enough to stand up to an important litmus test: Which character on “Ugly Betty” would these clothes suit best? If your collection includes a poncho, you need a makeover, pronto.

Read More......

Paris Fashion Week | Yves Saint Laurent

By JONATHAN S. PAUL

PARIS — The YSL show just concluded at the Grand Palais, and before we had a chance to get the reaction of T Magazine’s editor, Stefano Tonchi, he disappeared backstage to congratulate Stefano Pilati. In the meantime, tide yourself over with Cathy Horyn’s blog post (she seems to like — not love — the collection), our video of the show’s massive finale and some photos after the jump.

Read More......

A Playful Romp for Chanel

By CATHY HORYN
Published: October 3, 2008

As often as Karl Lagerfeld used to be chided by some of his peers for being a mercenary and not owning a house of his own — at least not one as successful as Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino — it’s interesting how well he understands Chanel.

More than understanding the iconography of Chanel, a house that first opened its doors at 31, rue Cambon in 1921, he knows what the name means in the history of Paris. Unlike many other houses that have disappeared behind corporate facades or disappeared altogether, Chanel still sits like a white-gloved lady on the Rue Cambon. And probably to a great many young tourists who come to take pictures of its famous entrance and the Cassandre-designed logo, the Rue Cambon is Chanel.

Today, after it was reported by Women’s Wear Daily that Alessandra Facchinetti would be replaced at Valentino after just one year (Stefano Sassi, company’s chief executive, has been vague about plans, but indicated that a change was likely and that a lack of confidence in Ms. Facchinetti’s approach was an issue), an executive associated with the Rome-based company said, sadly, “Valentino is like Alitalia to Italy.”

Well, Alitalia has its problems, but certainly Valentino is a name that resonates beyond a chic little suit scattered with seed pearls. Ms. Facchinetti presented a charming, well-received haute couture collection in July. Friday, her ready-to-wear show of casual tunic dresses and soft shorts combinations with gold braid struggled to say something new.

But Ms. Facchinetti’s brief career at Valentino, as much the company’s owners poor handling of it, is proof that you need more than deep pockets to preserve a great name. You also need to recognize what it means in the popular imagination, and then seize it.

Mr. Lagerfeld had the idea to recreate a full-size facade of 31, rue Cambon inside the Grand Palais — and not only the building but also the street, complete with curbs. The models left the maison and hit the street. There was even the suggestion that four models strolling out together in mini knit dresses and fancy net hats might be representing the hooker element. If you’ve lived in Paris, and around fashion, as long as Mr. Lagerfeld has, you wouldn’t judge women that harshly.

He seems to regularly ask himself the question “What is Chanel?” — as if he knows it’s a living thing. This season, tweeds are more graphic; there is the new proportion of a cropped jacket, over a ribbed knit or blouse, and a slim embroidered skirt, shown with two-tone black stockings that modify the actual length of the skirt.

There are plays on transparency and shine. And maybe only Mr. Lagerfeld can show, at one extreme, silvery platforms with pink powder puffs at the heels and, at the other, a gorgeously severe black evening dress with a shadow layer of tulle and a taut, sheer neckline.

“Our house, in the middle of our street,” went the corny, if upbeat soundtrack from the 1980s hit by Madness, and in the models’ hands was one of the most coveted symbols of luxury and pleasure: the Chanel shopping bag, now rendered as a leather sack. The street, one can argue, is Chanel’s real stage.

Stefano Pilati has done a lot to reignite Saint Laurent. His spring collection is a solid continuation of the graphic modernity of last season, with more of an Eastern influence. Wool crepe trousers have a dropped crotch (but are the most flattering of that trendy style). Jackets have a slight kimono look, though Mr. Pilati keeps the volumes from exploding. There are matching bras under sheer, almost iridescent blouses and new, somewhat conceptual versions of the safari jacket — now with a kind of stiff peplum laced to the body of the jacket.

Mr. Pilati offered a lot of appealing clothes — smart, wearable but somehow missing that real Saint Laurent sex appeal and mystery. Maybe he intellectualized the process too much, but you didn’t feel he grasped or took advantage of the big story that Saint Laurent is.


It takes a special woman to wear a Giambattista Valli dress, because in most respects the dress wears her and sometimes it makes her a victim. Mr. Valli has an attentive young clientele, and a press agent’s e-mail message in advance of the show announcing that Natalie Portman would be traveling to Paris to see the collection had the weird archaic import of a 1950s Pathé newsreel.

But then Mr. Valli’s clothes seemed stuck in the glamour of that period. Five decades of women being a good deal more than prized possessions have apparently escaped Mr. Valli’s consciousness, or so it would appear from his crinoline dresses, fussy necklines and tulle outfits with the wooliness of a poodle’s back. Their fingertips extended over their wide skirts, their high heels made more perilous with the addition of a recessed platform, the models seemed instructed to look elegant and unobtainable.


A more accurate word for this tranquilized mood — and the collection in general — would have been Valium.

Read More......

Not Just a Job, More Like an Adventure

By C.J. HUGHES
Published: October 31, 2008
JEN PEPPER and Matt Jones, from opposite ends of a lime-colored hall, are furtively dating. Constantine Boym throws 100-guest vodka-fueled parties across from a room with a disco ball, under which sits Michelle DiBona, who sometimes sports a tie-dyed blouse. Gossip swirls about Ted Gottfried, whose nude seaside ukulele strumming is a source of fascination. No one seems to know who stole a sandwich from the common refrigerator a few months back, prompting a minor scandal.


G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times
Welcome to 131 Varick Street, which for better or worse might be New York’s most college-dorm-like office building.

Layout partly explains it. Dozens of small companies occupy 36 cheek-by-jowl offices, which earlier this decade were carved from a warren of storage cubbyholes like those that line the 11-story SoHo building’s lower floors.

The storage cubbies weren’t being rented to people who wanted to store stuff, so the owners thought, let people rent them and put themselves in there instead. Rents now average $55 a square foot; they were as low as $40.

The building’s businesses trend creative, whether their employees are stylists, leather-workers or graphic designers (though one makes fire alarms). Many workers have backgrounds and night gigs that can be called quirky, if not downright crazy.

Indeed, the artistic ethos of the place — where workers sport yellow sneakers and dreadlocks, and internal walls can be made of nylon sheets — seems heir to the legacy of the surrounding neighborhood, where loft living was practically invented.

But the communal open-door policy can sometimes be too much, according to Nina Poon, 33, a photographer’s assistant who was wearing a thin white scarf and safety-orange nail polish as she moved a mouse to Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home.”

“Any of the building gossip is about me,” said Ms. Poon, explaining that five years ago, she underwent a sex change, after which she became a fashion model who now appears on billboards and in magazines.


So, she enters the lunchroom tentatively for her daily cup of tea. “Guys are always like, ‘Hi, how are you?’ and then they wink,” Ms. Poon said. “It gets annoying.”

Others seem to thrive on the sociability — take Arthur Golden, who earned the nickname The Mayor for rallying employees for off-site pub crawls, bowling nights and movie outings. He now works as a real estate broker at a different address, but drops by 131 Varick once a week.

He also tinkered with broken phones in Room 902, where his official duties included making bags for snowboards and skates.

“Our office seemed to be one of the central points of the floor, with people walking in and out any time of day,” said Mr. Golden, adding that he, too, would circumnavigate the floor for input on certain fabric swatches.

Mr. Golden’s previous gigs included stints as a professional Rollerblader and dance club promoter. “I have friends in five offices,” he said.

There is other overlap. Last fall, Gene Kliot, Mr. Golden’s former boss, joined Aixa Sobin, who makes leatherbound journals, stacks of which tower from floor to ceiling in her cramped office, for Thanksgiving dinner.

Meanwhile, Mr. Jones, a software engineer, and Tim Meyers, an employee of a branding firm, bond over a love of Christian religious imagery. Wearing a Jesus T-shirt to work, as Mr. Jones tells it, led Mr. Meyers to share a collection of Virgin Mary figurines.

On the other hand, Mr. Gottfried hasn’t been so lucky getting co-workers to attend his naked ukulele concerts, which take place regularly on beaches on Fire Island, N.Y., and Sandy Hook, N.J., alongside three other unclad musicians. (He also stages 20 clothed shows a year in Manhattan.)

“But people know about it around the office, and they’re very open-minded,” said Mr. Gottfried, who was hunched over a calculator, punctuating the air with a yellow mechanical pencil. “And so is my boss,” he laughed.

THOUGH the offices at 131 Varick can be small and dim, their appeal for a start-up business is fairly obvious. Rents there can be lower than elsewhere per square foot, and the required down payment is three months’ rent; renters can also break their leases after nine months without penalty.
In contrast, a high-end Midtown office building can cost $80 a square foot and require a 10-year lease and a down payment of six months’ rent. Even smaller-scale executive suites, though shorter-term, can cost $150 a square foot, as they include use of conference rooms, telephones and receptionists.

Enlarge This Image

Donna Alberico for The New York Times
Enlarge This Image

Donna Alberico for The New York Times
The building is owned by Edison Properties of Newark. Jason Miller of Edison said he expected the building to maintain 100 percent occupancy for its 73 offices, spread among its three top floors, even if city office rents drop.

“There’s always going to be a need for a product like this for designers and technology companies,” Mr. Miller said. “And people can take other space here as they grow.”

If the last few years in the building have been like a raucous freshman party, there’s a sense that graduation is now looming.

A projected rent increase will likely force out Barry Rosenthal, a photographer who works with his wife, Elyn, in a space that provided Hudson River views until condos recently encroached.

In his office, a shelf of tarnished copper horses, found at flea markets, hangs on one wall; facing them is a row of framed illustrations of Native Americans in headdresses.

As the floor’s original tenant, Mr. Rosenthal said he would miss the place, especially Mr. Boym’s shindigs, which “always feature some kind of interesting vodka.” The post-parties at the Ear Inn, a nearby bar, were also highlights, said Mr. Rosenthal, who was wearing a gray-hooded “Poly Prep” sweatshirt, shorts and sandals. “But not everybody is as friendly as they used to be.”

Other tenants have outgrown their offices, including David Khouri, an architect who’s relocating his firm next month to a much larger West Chelsea space.

But he’s not sad to go, as the collegiate vibe of 131 Varick, which recalled a Columbia dorm, never really appealed to Mr. Khouri anyway.

“It always smelled like microwaved popcorn,” he said, “and nothing ever smells good coming out of a microwave.”

Read More......