Where Men Can Be Men Among Khakis
Some husbands hide out in the bathroom. But when Mr. Inside Out craves “me” time, he heads for his closet.
It’s homey--as closets go, we suppose. Still, that doesn’t entirely explain the rapturous expression that comes over his face as he stands there, surrounded by khakis, white shirts and piles of dirty laundry.
Last night he was humming.
Is it a closet, we began to wonder, or the pleasure dome of some twisted psychopath? Yes and no. “I can make a mess,” he explained, “and no one will tell me to clean it up.”
Oh, so that’s it. The closet-as-clubhouse. A tiny bunker--off-limits to dames--where snowy white crew socks and flannel shirts are safe from the clutches of cross-dressing wives and daughters.
His stupid stuff never looked so tempting.
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Oh, Just Cave and Buy a Hideous Granny Dress Like the Rest of Us: Allure magazine Editor Linda Wells was in Los Angeles this week to size up local exercise and skin-care trends firsthand. Just going from room to room in her suite at the Hotel Bel-Air, she complained, was making her freshly exercised muscles ache. But she had praise for what she’s seen so far: “People are getting away from exercise gimmicks. I noticed that workouts are safer, more down to earth.”
All the energy that once went into gimmicks, she observed, seems to be going into skin care. “I just had a great treatment called ‘Hunter’s Retreat’ at Burke Williams spa (in Santa Monica). First they rub you down with papaya and pineapple. Then they shoot you with jets of water. Then they scrub you with something that looks like a doormat--only softer. It’s really pleasant.”
Wells may have mastered the rhythm of spa life here, but she confessed she’s out of sync with L.A.’s dress code: “I feel like I bring all the wrong things. You have to look easygoing here and that’s not a posture I, as a New Yorker, am good at.”
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Gee, Your Hair Smells Good: Students at Orange High School have discovered that a little cherry-flavored Kool-Aid, diluted slightly, turns blond hair a nice shade of pinkish red.
Sixteen-year-old Jennifer Saunders said she got the green light to go pink only after a hairdresser assured Mom that the color would wash out, like food coloring. Unlike a classmate who applied orange-flavored Kool-Aid to brunette hair (yech), Jennifer’s experiment was a success: “It lasted for three days and it made my hair smell like cherries.” Even better, the whole thing cost 24 cents.
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Shop Like a Parisian: We love Paris in the springtime. (Even though we’ve only really been there in the winter.) So we lingered over a slender but information-packed map book titled “Shopwalks Paris,” by Jane Magidson and Susan Harney, and daydreamed.
Magidson, a former fashion editor, wrote a similar guide nearly 10 years ago and said the city has changed quite a bit in the meantime: “A section called Marais has emerged as the hottest, most interesting area. It’s filled with very cutting-edge but accessible shops.” It’s also the old Jewish section, so if you want a bagel instead of a baguette, she recommends Jo Goldenberg on the Rue des Rosiers.
And where do those fabulously chic Frenchwomen shop? “Oh,” Magidson squealed, “I have to look at my guide!” Try Boutique Corinne Sarrut on Rue du Pre-aux-Clercs, “a little winding back street lined with shops carrying some of the freshest fashion in Paris”; Boutique Lindblad for accessories, and Mouton a 5 Pattes for discounts, “Paris’ answer to Loehmann’s, though on a much smaller scale.”
“Shopwalks” is available at California Map & Travel Center in Santa Monica, Traveler’s Bookcase in L.A., Geographia in Burbank or by sending $6.95 (includes postage and handling) to Shopwalks, P.O. Box 20023-DHCC, New York, N.Y. 10017.
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Orange County Trend Watch, Part 2: Where once those in the know left their sneakers untied, these days youthful hipsters are wearing their sneakers laced upside down. We spotted this irreverent-but-still-neat look on a recent trip to the Magic Kingdom, where trend-watching helps pass the time in Line Land--er, Toon Town.
When done correctly, the bow ends up close to the toes. This is a tedious procedure best left to girls whose time is not yet taken up by boys, household chores or saving the planet. Counts us out.
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Objects of Their Affection: The two most important clients in the history of Cartier were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. In the recently published “Made by Cartier,” authors Franco Cologni and Ettore Mocchette write rather diplomatically that the pair, “more than the sovereigns even, had license to live in luxury, in the almost exclusive cult of beauty, in a sort of elegant idleness suspended like a dream above the harshest reality of the time.”
After the duchess’s death, Cartier bought back several of these pieces at auction--part of the company’s effort to create a collection of Cartier decorative art pieces. The duchess’s lorgnette with a tiger-shaped handle, Cole Porter’s cuff links and Barbara Hutton’s canary diamond tiger brooch are part of the mouth-watering L’Art de Cartier exhibit at the Rodeo Drive store now through May 28. Why can’t we be suspended like a dream above the harsh reality of our time? Uh?
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Stylishly Somber: Speaking of people who transcend social convention, we were fascinated by a recent report on the shopping habits of Kurt Cobain’s widow, singer Courtney Love. The New York Times reports that Love was “stocking up” on frocks at designer Anna Sui’s New York store this past weekend. Appearing at a dinner with Sui and fellow grunge aficionado Marc Jacobs that evening, Love wore a black satin slip dress and a hat Jacobs described to the paper as a “crocheted Dickens bonnet.”
