Couture for the Canine That Answers to Wolf Whistles

A Key Biscayne, Fla., clothing firm recently unleashed its 27-item line at a Bal Harbour fashion show. The company, The Haut Dog, specializes in custom-fit clothes for canines. “These are gifts for the dog and his owner who have everything,” said Jane Robles, one of the firm’s founders. “Our market is Bal Harbour people, 5th Avenue people, Rodeo Drive people. Many of them are real dog lovers.” Eight models on leashes displayed garments priced from $15 for a cotton maternity T-shirt to $300 for an ivory silk wedding dress with antique lace and a four-foot train--from the “Till Death Do Us Bark” line. Tiffany, a white schnauzer, modeled a rose silk bra with eight cups, a matching garter belt and ruffled lace cape ($250). A black male schnauzer sported a green velvet smoking jacket (for the “bone vivant”). One little dog had a ruffled maid’s costume with a tray of plastic sushi attached to her back. The line included a “London Dog” khaki trench coat, a silver lame graduation cap and gown (for “flea scholars”) and a rabbit fur cape over a pink jeweled sweater ($160). “It’s fantastic,” said DeeDe Stroud of Miami Beach, who considered buying a jeweled ensemble trimmed in boa feathers for her Yorkie. “Blue is her favorite color,” she said.

--Gina Lollobrigida turned 60 on Saturday. “Gina nazionale ,” or “our national Gina,” as she is called in Italy, took the cinema world by storm in the 1950s with roles in such films as “Trapeze,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Solomon and Sheba.” In recent years, she has become a much-praised photographer, publishing several books of her work. And she is still a stunning beauty. “The important thing is to stay alive, spiritually and intellectually, and to have many interests,” she told one newspaper. “I am like good wine, which improves with age.”

--A ceremony went awry in New York last week. Helen Hayes put her signature and size 5 1/2 footprint into a 30-pound block of concrete outside the Broadway theater that bears her name. She was assisted by Mark Hamill and Robert Joy, who are starring in “The Nerd” at the Helen Hayes Theater. She flung her shoes into the crowd and signed them before going in to catch the matinee. But by the time theater workers came back out to move the cement block, it was gone. “What Hercules was loose in the theater district?” Hayes said. “I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not going there to do it again.” One of two cement blocks used in a rehearsal will be placed in the sidewalk.