Flying in Fashion

Anyone who shed a tear when the Robin Leach Decade ended with the 1980s can take heart from the April issue of Frequent Flyer magazine for business travelers.

In an interview with the magazine, fashion mogul Donna Karan offers tips and a wish list for rich and famous travel.

Karan says it would be “fabulous if there was a manicurist” aboard planes. She also would like relaxation tapes and electric seats that deliver a massage.

Karan describes in-flight food as “an abomination” and says she takes her own mug and water bottle on flights so she can pour herself water without waiting for a flight attendant.

Karan says she also hates lugging baggage to the airport. For one trip to Aspen, she says, she and her husband shipped their wardrobe Federal Express.

Post-Retirement Pay

It’s a leaner year for most Southern California companies, First Interstate Bancorp being no exception.

The Los Angeles bank laid off 3,500 workers last fall. First Interstate’s top two executives, Edward M. Carson and William Siart, are taking sharp pay cuts in the wake of a $288-million loss in 1991.

But there was no cut in former Chief Executive Joseph J. Pinola’s $225,000-a-year consulting agreement with First Interstate. The controversial Pinola, still a bank director, became a First Interstate consultant after retiring in 1990 amid growing unrest among shareholders. They were upset with the bank’s poor earnings and high overhead during his tenure.

Details of the payments show up in a paragraph in the back of the proxy statement First Interstate sent to shareholders for its April 30 annual meeting. The proxy says Pinola is being paid for special assignments.

Executive compensation experts say such hefty consulting agreements to retired executives are not unheard of, but remain rare, especially when a company has been doing as poorly as First Interstate.

In defense of the contract, First Interstate spokesman Ken Preston described Pinola as the bank’s “senior statesman.” He added that the assignments include promoting the bank, meeting customers, meeting with government agencies and using his contacts.

It Really Got His Goatee

Back in January, the trade publication U.S. Banker published a blurb criticizing a conference presentation by Los Angeles management consultant Martin Cohen. “It’s hard to understand how the goateed Cohen could sell anything,” the blurb read.

The article made the hair of Cohen’s partner, Edward G. Brown, stand on end. Brown dashed off a furious letter defending Cohen that appears in the magazine’s current issue.

One thing that especially upset Brown was the goatee reference. Brown notes that Cohen wears a beard but insists it isn’t the goatee the magazine described, a passage Brown said made his partner sound shifty.

“Beards are associated with intellectual people,” Brown said in an interview. “Goatees are connected with clarinet players or be-bop musicians. Goatees sound like someone is vacuous, unreal and hip, rather than intelligent.”

Briefly . . .

Trade you two Capricorns for a Leo: A New York trading card company is publishing baseball cards that include player horoscope signs . . . Rough ride: Federal regulators last week declared insolvent the Theodore Roosevelt National Bank in Washington . . . What about presenters? An ad for an Oscar party tonight at Nicky Blair’s restaurant on Sunset Boulevard says “Nominees and Winners Welcome.”