Richard the Great? Maybe--and for More Than Clothes
Richard Tyler may be a great designer--but he probably scored more points Tuesday night by showing what a great husband he is. After a presentation of his sensuous fall Anne Klein collection at the Four Seasons Hotel, Tyler took his bows on the catwalk, whereupon he was given the traditional bouquet of flowers. To the audible approval of Nordstrom’s best customers, Tyler presented the blooms to his wife, Lisa Trafficante, conveniently seated in the front row.
The event seemed designed to acquaint Nordstrom’s well-heeled but perhaps conservative customers with Tyler’s sophisticated approach to fashion. It was hard to imagine many of those present bouncing around in the collection’s short leather pants. Even the models struggled with sexy, patent leather pumps with four-inch stiletto heels. But afterward, the audience--including Morgan Brittany (in a very un-Tyleresque tomato red suit) and blonder-by-the-minute Linda Gray--swarmed into the ballroom foyer, where racks of clothes and table displays of shoes had been set up. And, as they say, it was a love fest.
Hold the Shave: Some busy--and adventurous--businesswomen are skipping the salon these days and running off to the barbershop for quickie haircuts. They’re trading frills, fuss and gossip for in-and-out precision cuts. At the 57-year-old Gornick’s Druckers barbershop in Beverly Hills--whose clients include Ronald Reagan, assorted city councilmen and piles of Hollywood agents--owner William Gornick reports an increase in the number of women customers in the last six months. “We do half-hour haircuts for ladies who don’t have the time to sit in a beauty shop for three hours,” he says. Gornik charges $25 for a cut, $40 if you add in a blow dry, and trims bangs for free. Writer Mira Advani, who stopped in for a straight blunt-cut bob, was pleased. “I’ve had it with froufrou. This feels good, clean and quick.”
Boys Will Be Boys: RuPaul, the cross-dressing darling of the dance charts, made the switch from “supermodel” to male model Tuesday, strutting the catwalks in New York menswear designer Matthew Batanian’s spring fashion show at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan. Batanian said he had originally planned to have the 6-foot-7 drag queen wear a few pieces from his fledgling women’s line but thought it would be “fresh to put him in the show as a guy” instead. “He’s got long arms, though,” Batanian said. “He made me crazy at the fittings.”
We See London, We See France, We See Heidi’s Underpants: Right there in conservative Old Town Pasadena, alleged Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss mans the counter of her newly opened no-frills lingerie boutique. (On the day we visited, a salesclerk was also on hand, skating in circles around the tiny shop like some sort of claustrophobic gerbil.) Looking tan and rested, Fleiss offered to autograph any piece of Heidi Wear that caught our fancy. Stock is limited to T-shirts, tank tops, boxer shorts, jackets and leggings--none of it more than $30. If the media has staked out your house, leaving you stranded, Heidi understands. Her stuff is available by phone, too, at (800) HEIDI-PJ.
Youth Is Wasted on the Young: Just what’s so wrong with the fashion world’s compulsion to exploit ever younger models? The answer is found in Guy Trebay’s juicy piece in the August Vogue on 16-year-old supermodel-to-be Bridget Hall. Miss Hall, Trebay reports, is on the brink of signing a multimillion-dollar deal with Ralph Lauren. She also never finished eighth grade. Think about that when next you see her gazing out from some old-money setting. What’s eerie is seeing pictures of Hall in fashion magazines just a year ago, posing in improbably sophisticated clothes with crooked teeth and an innocent gaze. These days, the teeth are straight, her bosom heaves, but the gaze is still blank. Now we know why.
