WHAT’S HOT IN N.Y.? . . . CALIFORNIA : Imperious Manhattan is embracing state’s fashion, food and art.
Could it be that Manhattan, the self-important hub of American cultural sophistication, is beginning to admire and perhaps even emulate California?
To judge by California-style restaurants, stores, fashion collections and art galleries springing up in and around Manhattan Island, it would seem that New Yorkers’ attitudes have evolved since Woody Allen dismissed Los Angeles as “a city where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn on a red light.”
Manhattan, of course, is still Manhattan, and newsstands, tall buildings and briefcases still predominate. Haberdasheries selling conservative business attire still vastly outnumber the handful of boutiques selling neon-colored Lycra bathing suits.
But to gauge the emergence of California influence in Gotham, consider a three-square-block area in midtown Manhattan around Lexington Avenue and 59th Street. On Lexington between 59th and 60th is the California Clothing Co., purveying sportswear, athletic shoes and lightweight apparel, much of it imported from California.
Around the corner, on Third Avenue, the Mulholland Drive Cafe, partly owned by actor Patrick Swayze, offers the authentic feel of an airy L.A. bistro to New York diners. It draws a fair number of celebrities, and it’s big, open space, typical of Los Angeles-style restaurants, enables patrons to see each other or be seen. For New Yorkers eager to escape the litter on the streets, the honking and fumes of traffic, the restaurant offers, in the form of a mural that extends from the front door to the very back of the restaurant, the soothing vista of L.A. lights as seen from Mulholland Drive.
And back at Lexington and 59th, Bloomingdale’s flagship store offers the most glaring sign of all that things Californian have arrived in New York: A mammoth promotion of California wares is in full swing.
Arthur Mortimer, a California muralist, has painted the eastern facade of the building with a work titled “The 12 Californias.” In a big corner display window, sand sculptor Todd Vander Pluym has built representations of California fun spots, including Disneyland and Universal Studios.
Almost every window, set off by sand and baby cacti, is featuring California merchandise. The store is brimming with California-designed bathing suits, dresses, tableware, whole-grain breads, cooked breast of free-range duck, as well as perfumes bearing the names of Jaclyn Smith and Joan Collins.
For six weeks, Bloomingdale’s has been transformed into a California cornucopia in virtually every department at each of its 17 stores with the theme “California: The new international style.”
It is the first time that Bloomingdale’s, which has regularly put on promotions of wares from countries such as China and France, has chosen instead to focus on an American state.
‘Life Style People Dream of’
Why? “Bloomingdale’s feels that there’s a lot of energy and imagination in California and a fresh, casual, wonderful life style out there that a lot of people want to emulate,” said Miraed Smith, a Bloomingdale’s spokeswoman. She said the idea for the promotion arose because the store’s buyers increasingly felt that trends in clothing fashion and “home fashion”--linen, tableware, decorative pottery--were being set in California. In what may be a heretical view for a New Yorker, Smith said, “Maybe New York is becoming the Grand Dame and California is becoming the Bright Young Thing.”
Harried New Yorkers yearning for what they imagine is a more relaxed, sun-filled, easy-going style of living is one big reason for the growing market for California items in New York. Marjorie S. Deane, owner and publisher of the Tobe Report, a weekly New York publication on fashion merchandising, said the California influence in New York, although still limited, is real and growing. “It’s the kind of life style, real or fake, that most people dream of having.”
As a result, she says, more New York retail stores are sending buyers to California in search of special discoveries, although she sees no danger yet that California is about to overthrow the New York fashion establishment.
Bob Mackie, a California-born fashion designer whose “Spanish mission-inspired” chiffon evening dresses adorn one window at Bloomingdale’s, agrees that “New Yorkers have always thought that they were the best anywhere and at anything,” and probably will continue to do so. But he says the allure of California is growing, and New York is more accepting of ideas from the West Coast. He said stores such as Bloomingdale’s are now more apt to recognize that California clothing “isn’t corny leisure-wear; it’s fashion.”
Indeed, the openness to outside ideas--what Deane sees as a trend toward recognizing that other parts of the country have something to contribute--seems to account for a growing California influence. Some attribute it to a perceptible decline in the quality of life in New York--decaying city services, legions of homeless, general degradation--that lately has prompted comparisons in the press of New York with Calcutta, India.
Among signs of accepting influences from outside is the small but distinct increase in the number of Manhattan art galleries presenting the works of California artists.
Pamela Auchincloss, the proprietor of a gallery on Broadway, moved to New York from Santa Barbara in late 1987. Her gallery features artists from Santa Barbara and the San Francisco Bay Area. She says that in New York, “there is a growing acceptance of what is going on in California.”
Auchincloss said she doesn’t see demand for California art per se, but simply a perceptible decline in New York chauvinism. “Before, New York had maybe a bit of an attitude about its art over what’s happening in the rest of the world.”
Attractive Presentation
A growing acceptance in New York of contemporary art from outside also has influenced a Venice gallery, L.A. Louvre, to plan a New York branch, due to open in September. It will feature California artists, as well as European painters and sculptors. Peter Goulds, the gallery owner, said: “New York galleries and museums no longer confine themselves to looking into the city itself.”
In the realm of food, California’s influence on New York cuisine has been notable for some time. It washed across Manhattan in a trend that Armando Russo, the owner of Cafe LA in Scarsdale, N.Y., called the “Spago-ization” of New York, and then receded, leaving behind permanent changes in New York cuisine. It includes an emphasis on salads and fresh vegetables, very light dishes and above all attractive presentation.
The Zagat New York City Restaurant Survey has a special heading for notable Manhattan restaurants specializing in California cuisine and reviews nine.
The continuing allure of authentic California ingredients and cuisine is still apparent in the success of restaurants such as Melrose in Greenwich Village, where chef Richard Krause, formerly employed at Ma Maison and Spago in Los Angeles, continues to offer dishes such as black bean soup with creme fraiche, avocado, cilantro and chilies. Lee Friedman, a co-owner with Krause of the restaurant, says much of its clientele comes because of the reputation in New York of Ma Maison and Spago. “Everybody who comes here knows where Richard’s been,” he said.
Now the influence of California on New York is spreading beyond the food to the design of the restaurant itself, says Michael Rotondi, one of the principals at the Los Angeles architectural firm Morphosis, which designed Kate Mantilini and a number of other Los Angeles-area restaurants.
Rotondi said the principal current influence of Los Angeles style on New York restaurants is that, as in Los Angeles, increasing numbers of architects rather than interior designers are being called on to design the restaurants. “People have realized that in restaurant design, the quality of the architecture can reflect the quality of the food and the quality of the service, so that the entire experience is conceived of as one entity,” he said. “It’s not divisible anymore.”
Rotondi notes that it has become common in Los Angeles, where space is more plentiful, to have architects rather than decorators design the interiors of restaurants. This trend, he says, is influencing New York. Among examples of this influence in New York he cited Le Cygne, an expensive restaurant on East 54th Street.
California also is credited with sparking the popularity of Mexican food in New York. There is a growing number of Mexican restaurants, or restaurants with Mexican-style offerings. Prudence Baird, a Los Angeles publicist, said she was astonished on a recent visit to Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “I got a perfectly decent margarita,” she said.
And even on the down-scale end of the market, Taco Bell, which started in Downey and is now owned by Pepsico, is opening outlets in the New York area. Elliot Bloom, a Taco Bell spokesman, said that thanks to California’s influence, “Mexican food has become a rage throughout the country.”
