NEW FASHION EVERYTIME AND EVERYWHERE: 02/02/08

Tostadas to a Salsa Beat

By TATIANA BONCOMPAGNI
Published: February 3, 2008
ON a cold and wet evening, Ingrid Hoffmann, the Colombian-born star of “Simply Delicioso,” a Latin-themed cooking show on the Food Network, bounded into La Esquina, a Mexican restaurant in NoLIta.

With her curls and mood no worse for the weather, she settled into a rustic wooden table with her sister, Annelies Da Costa Gomez, and two friends. Ms. Hoffmann, 42, wore dark jeans and a purple silk top with a plunging neckline that revealed a little of what, in addition to her modern approach to traditional Latin cooking, might have helped her earn a second season of her show.

While working their way through their first bottle of a Spanish red wine, a 2004 Ribera del Duero, the women gushed over Ms. Hoffmann’s new cookbook, also titled “Simply Delicioso,” and her recent decision to make a campaign appearance with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I have to cook for that girl because I hear she’s eating really bad,” Ms. Hoffmann said.

A platter of chicken and octopus tostadas and two ceviches arrived at the table, and the women reminisced about homemade potato chips and arepas from Colombia and Curaçao, the Caribbean island Ms. Hoffmann’s parents moved to when she was 2 years old. After another platter of tostadas, the rest of the food — grilled corn on the cob, whole grilled branzino, a chile relleno, mango and jicama salad, plantains and black beans — was brought out and passed around the table.

In the middle of the main course, Ms. Hoffmann’s mouth suddenly dropped open. A tall, thin woman in a backless dress had caught her attention. “Did you see her figure?” Ms. Hoffmann asked.

“Wow,” said Renata Marcus, a marketing director who grew up with Ms. Hoffmann in Curaçao.

It was time for dessert, and lip gloss. Almost in unison, the women reached into their purses and applied a fresh coat as they perused the menu, eventually settling on the panna cotta, bread pudding and a warm chocolate cake.

“I feel stuffed like a tamale,” Ms. Hoffmann said as the plates were finally cleared. Next the women embarked to Taj, a restaurant and lounge in Chelsea, which is host to salsa nights on Monday.

Once inside, the group took refuge in a plush booth, where they ordered a round of pink shots made of vodka, pomegranate and pineapple juice.

“To all the chicas,” said Ms. Hoffmann, raising her shot glass for a toast.

“May we not be chunky chicas,” Ms. Da Costa Gomez added, laughing.

Watching a couple at the bar salsa awkwardly — the girl was tall, blonde and skinny — Nancy Kipnis, a Tampa-based publicist and event planner and one of Ms. Hoffmann’s friends, shook her head and quietly chided them. “Sloppy chica salsa,” she said.

Ms. Hoffmann added, “I think when you are really skinny, you just can’t move as well.”

Soon, the women rose from the table. Accepting the hand of a dancer, Ms. Hoffmann took a turn on the floor, her hips swiveling skillfully to the music.

After 11 p.m., she bid her friends goodbye and got into a taxi.

“I always say, sweat the cucarachas out,” she said. “You know, the cucarachas in your head.”

Detox for the Camera. Doctor’s Order!

By KARA JESELLA
Published: February 3, 2008
ON the first episode of the VH1 reality series “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew,” Jeff Conaway arrives for in-patient treatment at the Pasadena Recovery Center in California slumped over in the passenger seat of a car, caressing an open bottle of Dom Pérignon. The actor, who starred in the television show “Taxi” and the movie “Grease,” describes himself as “loaded,” for which he blames people who, the night before, accused him of being an addict.

“How dare they,” Dr. Drew Pinsky says in a deadpan bit of gallows humor meant to lighten the mood.

An easy rapport with television cameras and celebrity also-rans is not part of the job description for the typical doctor. But with his soap-opera looks and cool-dad aura, Dr. Pinsky, 49, has been famous in his own right for 25 years, all while navigating a precarious balance of professionalism and salaciousness.

“I have a pretty keen ethical compass,” Dr. Pinsky said by telephone from Pasadena, Calif., where he has a general medicine practice and is the medical director of the department of chemical cependency services at Las Encinas Hospital. “That’s why I can walk this line.”

Some fans and fellow professionals say that with “Celebrity Rehab” he has careened over it. The show features low-wattage personalities, including the actress Brigitte Nielsen, an alumna of “The Surreal Life,” and Jessica Sierra, a former “American Idol” contestant, undergoing detoxification treatments and group therapy under Dr. Pinsky’s supervision. They can be seen throwing up, crying and having seizures on camera — images that are much grimmer than your average public-service announcement.

Since the debut of “Celebrity Rehab” last month, Dr. Pinsky has been criticized by bloggers, recovering addicts, the news media and addiction specialists among others, who question his motivation for doing the show and challenge his confessional treatment methods, which seem to play to the television cameras.

“I’m not confident that people who are patients, if you want to call them that, are in the best position to make decisions for themselves relative to such theatrics,” said William C. Moyers, the executive director of the Center for Public Advocacy at Hazelden, a nonprofit rehabilitation and recovery center.

The VH1 series, Mr. Moyers said, was “yet another example of the dumbing down and trivialization of a very serious chronic illness that robs people of their dignity and respect.”

From the time Dr. Pinsky emerged as a radio personality in 1982, he has mostly managed to stay above the fray. About that time, while still in medical school, acquaintances at the Los Angeles station KROQ persuaded him to join a late-night call-in radio show that was eventually titled “Loveline.”

On “Loveline,” he advised callers on sex and relationships and also engaged in off-color banter with celebrities and such co-hosts as Adam Carolla, whose raunchy comedy made Dr. Pinsky, with his studied paternalism, seem that more professional.

By the time “Loveline” became a television show on MTV in 1996, Dr. Pinsky had become the Gen-X answer to Dr. Ruth Westheimer, with an AIDS-era, pro-safe-sex message.

“You had Dr. Ruth encouraging people to have more sex,” Dr. Pinsky said. “That was going to kill people.”

His work on “Loveline” led to other opportunities, including appearances in the movie “Wild Hogs” and on the television show “Dawson’s Creek.” He remains a frequent magazine talking-head and talk-show guest, turning up recently on news and entertainment programs to speculate about the cause of Heath Ledger’s death and the state of Britney Spears’s mental health.

“My goal was always to be part of pop culture and relevant to young people, to interact with the people they hold in high esteem,” Dr. Pinsky said. “I have no social life except for the time I spend on the air with these people.”

But as the public has become fed up with the sad shenanigans of messed-up celebrities, so too have they wearied of the famous doctors they perceive to be trying to increase their own star power by association.

Last month, Dr. Phil McGraw, the talk-show psychologist and one-man self-help franchise, visited Britney Spears after she was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Later, Dr. McGraw issued a statement about her mental health and announced plans for a show about the troubled star, leading to accusations that he was breaking medical codes of ethics in an attempt to increase his ratings.

“I’m getting some of that backlash,” Dr. Pinsky said.

An advocacy group for recovering addicts, Faces and Voices of Recovery, began a letter-writing campaign to VH1, criticizing “Celebrity Rehab.” The entertainment Web site Hollywood.com chided Dr. Pinsky for being the best television doctor with ulterior motives.

“People call it exploitative; I’m confused by that,” said Dr. Pinsky. The celebrities on the show “know exactly what they’re getting into and have allowed to resolve the problem, to help others,” he added.

Dr. Pinsky’s longtime colleagues are quick to note that, unlike many media pundits who have just Ph.D.s, or have let their medical licenses lapse, Dr. Pinsky is a board-certified physician.
“I was with the guy for 11 years,” said Mr. Carolla, his former “Loveline” sidekick. “He would make the rounds at the hospital every day. I felt sorry for him, because he would get lumped in with the Dr. Lauras and the Dr. Phils.”

Some fans worry that Dr. Pinsky is now taking advantage of celebrities on a channel known for turning bad behavior into hit programs, posting their concern on message boards on the VH1 Web site. “I have lost all respect for Dr. Drew,” one fan wrote. “Dr. Drew should be ashamed to be part of this ‘Survivor With Cigarettes’ show,” wrote another.

Dr. Pinsky said he had concerns when a producer approached him with the idea for the show. “I thought it couldn’t be done ethically, clinically,” he said. He said he changed his mind when a colleague complained that there were no portrayals of rehab in the media he thought were authentic.

Dr. Pinsky initially wanted to feature noncelebrities, then decided against it. “During the interview process, the regular people had no idea what they were getting into,” he said. “ They couldn’t render consent. Celebrities understood. They got it.”

On the first episode of “Celebrity Rehab,” Seth Binzer of the band Crazy Town, eagerly produced a crack pipe for the camera and then proceeded to smoke.

“I’ve had cameras on me the last 10 years of my life,” Mr. Binzer said in a telephone interview, adding that he has stayed sober since the show was filmed in August. “I’m comfortable around cameras.”

Dr. Pinsky declined to comment on the sobriety of his “Celebrity Rehab” patients while the show is still airing. “Some of that is part of the drama,” Dr. Pinsky said. But he added that Mr. Binzer was not an anomaly.

“All of them are significantly improved or actively engaged in recovery,” Dr. Pinsky said. “I feel it was a transformative experience with them.”

Like many addicts, some of the “Celebrity Rehab” subjects have fallen off the wagon, including Ms. Sierra, the “American Idol” contestant, who was arrested for disorderly intoxication and obstruction of an officer.

At the behest of Dr. Pinsky, a circuit judge in Tampa, Fla., agreed to send Ms. Sierra to a private rehabilitation clinic, rather than to jail. But the judge also chastised both doctor and patient saying, “I don’t want this to be some sort of stepping stone for her to have some sort of a career as a recovering addict.”

Mr. Binzer had no criticism for Dr. Pinsky, whom he cited as the reason he agreed to do the show.

“I had done ‘Loveline’ a couple of times,” Mr. Binzer said. “I already knew I loved Drew and thought he was a good guy, lighthearted. For such a conservative doctor guy, he’s still very hip. I’ve been in a lot of treatment centers, and this is the one that worked for me.”

Small and Sexy

By KARA JESELLA
Published: February 3, 2008
WALKING along Adelphi Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, you could almost miss The Hideout, and not just because the former parking garage doesn’t have a sign. No Jimmy Choo-shilling boutiques or coolly antiseptic hotels indicate to scene-seekers that behind those black curtains and nondescript doors is a sexy little lounge offering $14 cocktails — not to mention bottle service.

Not that anyone has partaken of it yet. Nor does the bouncer seem to be turning anyone away. (Who would you reject in a neighborhood that oozes multicultural cool?) Still, point taken.

“It’s a little like a member’s bar in London,” said Nikki Trow, a pretty blond Briton who had come from dinner in Carroll Gardens with friends, many of whom were now sipping on tiny, painstakingly prepared drinks.

Greg Williams, the executive editor of Details, was pleased with his Snow Mosquito, a concoction of vodka, blueberries, lime and mint, which he described as a “cordial with a kick.” “The only downside is that they take too long to make,” he said.

Smaller than some studio apartments, with a low tin ceiling, flickering candles and ornate wallpaper, The Hideout is convivial without being loud, intimate without being claustrophobic. It’s the kind of place where the neighborhood’s aggressively coupled recent transplants can forget about astronomical housing prices and in vitro fertilization for a few hours while nibbling on chocolates from Dean & DeLuca or watching a mixologist squeeze fresh juice for a Blackberry Caipirinha. The sole beer is Grimbergen, served in a snifter. On this night, a student with a messenger bag peeked inside, then promptly left.

“I want to attract an international crowd,” said Asio Highsmith, a model and one of the owners, adding, “This bar could be anywhere.”

But it’s in Fort Greene, a laid-back neighborhood whose main attractions include proximity to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, more French restaurants than some neighborhoods in Paris, and a farmer’s market. Is it ready for a bar with $300 bottles of Krug?

Brandon Snow, a Cobble Hill resident relaxing with a vodka tonic at the bar, seemed to think so. “We need more places with this vibe in Brooklyn,” he said emphatically.

The Hideout

266 Adelphi Street at DeKalb, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, (718) 855-3010.

DRESS CODE A dress or jeans with a no-name top for women. A dressed-down suit or dressed-up jeans for men. Fedoras, yes; knit caps, no.

GETTING IN Look good, bring a girl, and don’t try too hard.

SIGNATURE DRINK The Poisoned Rose (Hendrick’s gin, Lillet Rouge, apple juice, simple syrup, bitters and fresh lemon, shaken and served with a garnish of rose petals and gold flecks, in a martini glass; $14).

Bang the Drums Softly

By DAVID COLMAN
Published: February 3, 2008
MODELS do not as a rule make a lot of noise, being paid to suggest secret realms of sensuality without making a sound. As for making a joyful (or other) sound unto the heavens, well, isn’t that what all those rock-star husbands are for?

The supermannequin Shalom Harlow got into the noiseless-poise racket early — via ballet lessons. But fate, in the form of vertically persistent DNA, doomed her dreams of joining the tutu corps.

“I was always getting kicked out of ballet class anyway,” said Ms. Harlow, the prettiest face (and one of the more sincere voices) at the Earth Pledge show of sustainable-yet-avant-garde fashion last week. “You know, for whispering to a friend or having a giggle fit. In the face of authority, my rebellious nature always comes out.”

So imagine her fiendish delight upon discovering there was a special kind of shoe designed to raise a ruckus. “When I first saw tap dancing,” she said, her blue eyes gleaming, “I immediately got it: the righteousness of being able to make so much noise with your feet!”

But though dancing and music consumed her teenage energies, it was not long before holding still (i.e., modeling) would beckon. And she got her musical kicks, or tried to, by picking up the guitar in her early 20s.

“Who doesn’t try learning the guitar when you’re that age?” she asked. “So I was schlepping this thing halfway around the world to shoots — and at the time I lived in a sixth-floor walk-up in Paris — and all I knew how to play was Deep Purple and ‘Smoke on the Water.’ ”

More than 10 years after giving the guitar the heave-ho, Ms. Harlow finally picked up another instrument: a pair of drumsticks. And almost instantly, the eureka moment she had had with tap shoes struck again.

“I love the percussion,” she said of the sticks and shoes. And like dancing, drumming feels more like an intensely physical exercise in coordination than does the guitar or piano. “It’s a right brain, left brain thing,” she said. “There are different beats, but cooperating together. It’s your whole body doing it, you’re doing the snare drum and the high top with your hands and the bass drum with your foot. You’re this whole motion machine.”

The result is mesmerizing yet energizing at the same time. “It puts you in this really interesting space,” she said. “It’s really meditative, and you get to make a truckload of noise.”

It’s a nice change from old-fashioned meditation, which she has tried, and respects, but ... “This isn’t so complacent that it gets boring. You can sit in lotus and wait for divine enlightenment for years.”

Zen Buddhists might even take comfort in the drumming practice Ms. Harlow has engineered, something like a koan made flesh. She is shopping for a drum kit of her own, but there’s no hurry. She prefers something portable enough to travel to shoots with and does not want to annoy her neighbors in Brooklyn Heights.

So Ms. Harlow owns, and plays with, a pair of hickory Good Wood drumsticks. No drums. Instead, she arranges bed or throw pillows in drum-kit style, pops in one of her learn-to-drum DVDs, and goes to town like her drum-solo hero, John Bonham from Led Zeppelin — minus the noise.

“Maybe it’s not as gratifying,” she said, “but I love it for the sake of the practice.”

And for the absurdity of it all. She gets to engage, and disengage, all at the same time.

“Having fun is the most basic elements of life, and this is totally fun being all silly. It’s ridiculous — I’m playing the drums on pillows.”

And as you will be reminded in the new ads for Tiffany & Company, Ms. Harlow can always hold still quite nicely later.

Will 6 Be a Lucky Number for Halston?

By CATHY HORYN

Published: February 3, 2008

NEVER have so many people gone to a mountain. Tomorrow, at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, Marco Zanini will present his first collection for Halston. Mr. Zanini, 35, is the sixth designer to put his name behind Halston, which has had at least eight owners in the 25 years since Roy Halston Frowick sold his own name to Norton Simon. That’s a lot of believers.

THE WAY IT WAS Randolph Duke at the Halston showroom with Marlo Thomas in 1998.
Presumably the previous owners, which include Beatrice, Revlon and Borghese, were well intentioned; presumably the other designers, beginning with John David Ridge and running through Randolph Duke and Bradley Bayou, were in some way talented.

But millions and millions of dollars went down the drain anyway. Offices were rented and refurbished. Publicists called editors, and editors wrote articles and dug out photos of Halston in his white-raincoat-and-black-turtleneck phase, the photos serving as talismans or warnings — oh, what did it matter? Sooner or later someone decided that Halston the label was too much trouble, and another set of lawyers and accountants was called to undo everything.

In 1993, just three years after Halston’s death, in California, Amy Spindler of The New York Times conveyed the hope and cynicism in seeing the label revived. She said it was “the fashion equivalent of reuniting the Beatles.”

Halston has new owners, the Weinstein Company and Hilco Consumer Capital, a private-equity fund, which paid most of the estimated $22 million purchase price. Tamara Mellon is also an owner. It was Ms. Mellon, the founder of Jimmy Choo, who thought that Halston could be revived, and with care eventually make people money. She shared her ideas with the stylist Rachel Zoe and Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer. Mr. Weinstein, the most visible if unlikely figure in the group, got involved in part because he had exposure to the fashion world through his wife, Georgina Chapman, a designer of Marchesa.

In any case, these individuals may be the most motivated owners that Halston has had. Ms. Mellon can draw on her Jimmy Choo success. Mr. Weinstein can span the worlds of entertainment and fashion; he wants to make a Halston documentary. And Ms. Zoe, a member of the Halston advisory board, can use her Hollywood contacts to get the clothes worn and photographed.

Not bad; but what about the goods?

Is Marco Zanini — not to be confused with Marco Zanini, the furniture designer — finally the one? Maybe.

Though many designers have dipped into Halston’s well — few more effectively than Tom Ford in 1996 at Gucci — none of Halston’s appointed heirs have been able to create a look that resonates with contemporary audiences. It’s one of the great fashion paradoxes. Everybody knows the Look — the supersimple blouse and skirt, the flow of a one-seam evening dress, the chic of a shirtdress — but nobody can actually do it under the trademark. To some extent, the blame rests on poor management. But it also may be true that some of the previous designers at Halston didn’t know what they were doing.

Mr. Zanini comes from Versace, where he spent eight years as Donatella Versace’s chief assistant. Before that, he worked for Dolce & Gabbana and Lawrence Steele. Ms. Mellon first learned of Mr. Zanini last spring from Hamish Bowles, a Vogue editor, during a cocktail party, and she got in touch with him. After showing Ms. Mellon and Bonnie Takhar, the company’s new chief executive, sketches of his ideas for Halston, accompanied by an old Lou Reed song, Mr. Zanini got the job. There were no close seconds, Ms. Takhar said.

Last week, Mr. Zanini, wearing jeans and a rumpled white shirt with many leather bands on his wrist, was in the Halston offices on Spring Street, preparing the 30 looks he will show. The clothes are made in Italy, of Italian wools, cashmeres and jersey, as well as French silk, and Mr. Zanini has been commuting back and forth since September. A native of Milan, he comes across as mature and direct, with a light laugh and studious features exaggerated by dark-frame glasses and cutlet sideburns.

Mr. Zanini is as versed as the next designer in the style of Halston. And maybe for that reason he knows the facile tricks of postmodernism, like leaving the edges of a dress raw, and avoids them. “With this collection, I’ve tried not to over-design,” he said, adding that he wanted simple, well-made clothes that connect with Halston’s approach in the early 1970s, when a lot of his things were made on the bias and with relatively few cuts.

“I like his effect of stripping down and stripping down a garment of anything that isn’t necessary without it becoming boring,” Mr. Zanini said.

He didn’t look at the designs of his Halston predecessors. “I remember a couple of things but, no,” he said. “Altogether it was a bad cocktail.” And though he looked at some Halston dresses in a museum collection, he says he absorbed enough over the years from photographs. “Another thing I learned at Versace is the risk of looking at archives,” Mr. Zanini said. “It’s a treasure for a company, but to a designer, it’s kind of your enemy.”
Considering the personalities involved in Halston, some interference might be inevitable. But Mr. Zanini said he was told at the outset he would have complete creative control. Aside from Ms. Mellon, who lives in London, Ms. Takhar is the only executive who has seen the collection. Mr. Zanini said he had seen Mr. Weinstein twice in the last six months, though they’ve exchanged some text messages. Ms. Zoe has kept her distance, too.

Bradley Bayou showing the 2005 spring collection.
Two thirds of the collection is day wear. There is not a drop of embroidery anywhere, and Mr. Zanini has limited fur to a long Russian sable vest and an extra-long muffler. He uses the palette as much as the high-quality fabrics, including satin crepe and cashmere blended with chinchilla, to make a coherent statement. There is burnt orange, petrol blue, mauve, cream and gray with a hint of purple. They all work together.

Silk crepe blouses come in wrap and tailored styles, and each will be sold with a matching crepe bra, so you can look unbuttoned. Cashmere coats are unlined and draping, some with a sausage drawstring belt.

“I’ve never liked to conceptualize too much about fashion, like it was art or science, which it is not,” Mr. Zanini said, looking at the smoothly finished seams of a cashmere coat. “But it’s nice when there’s a clear idea behind a collection.”

He has at least done that. The clothes are simple and sophisticated, a daring combination these days. This is a designer who doesn’t merely know Halston, but he also knows the tricks — and isn’t playing. The question is whether he has created a look as ineffably cool as Halston in its prime.

AS a business, Halston also seems stripped down, a reversal of many luxury brand start-ups, which tend to be stuck in the old grand ways. In a farsighted move, Halston will be the first high-end label to have clothes available immediately to consumers after the show. Net-a-porter, the online retailer, will offer two runway styles on Tuesday, with same-day delivery available in New York and London.

Ms. Takhar said the plan was to increase sales slowly, with the line in 50 retail outlets around the world this year, and to wait on advertising. (Here, Mr. Weinstein’s and Ms. Zoe’s contacts in Hollywood will create publicity.) Prices are in the range of Yves Saint Laurent and Lanvin, with day dresses around $1,500 and average prices for evening dresses at $4,000. There will be 30 shoe styles, and 20 handbag styles.

No one likes to believe in Halston more than a retailer does. Jim Gold, the chief executive of Bergdorf Goodman, has not seen the clothes yet, but he has been impressed with the people involved. He doubts that consumers have lost interest in an American design name. As he said: “All of the activity that has been post-Halston is irrelevant to my mind. This is a fairly clean slate.”