Models of Success
The super-models may have absented the runways, but they can’t seem to pull away completely. Elle MacPherson, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell are preparing for the opening here Friday night of their Fashion Cafe, while Amber Valetta is working the shows backstage as a television commentator.
But the strangest super-model sighting this week was via monster video screens that loomed over the dance floor Tuesday night at a party honoring hot makeup artist Francois Nars.
“Those are my home movies,” said Nars, in the “super VIP” alcove. On screen were a heavily tanned and made-up Linda Evangelista (who made her debut as a brunette at Monday night’s Marc Jacobs show) and a less tan but just as cosmetically assisted Christy Turlington. The two beauties posed and mugged, smoked and hammed it up and pretty much reminded us of why they were so super.
That’s not to say the new crew--Chrystele, Stella, Debbie--aren’t pretty. And they certainly aren’t quite so full of themselves. All the better to see the clothes.
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I’ll Have the Capricorn Concealer, Please: The dark, hip and smoke-filled Bowery Bar was the setting for the launch this week of a product one might expect to have originated in California: astrologically correct makeup. Linda Mason divides her new Heaven and Earth cosmetics into either Heaven (cool colors) and Earth (warmer shades) and packages them in CD cases.
“I’m the Heaven girl,” said Ishbell, a stunning blonde former model. “My father is a minister and probably thought I’d never get to Heaven.” Full of self-confessed makeup junkies--of both sexes--the crowd drooled over piles of the $34 kits (available by calling (800) 238-2922). “A beauty editor from Elle called and asked for Heaven and Hell, “ said Mason, who--so far--has no plans for a Hades palette.
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New York State of Mind: Designer Han Feng’s show Tuesday was fraught with disaster. Brown shoes were ordered, but white ones arrived. A rainstorm sent water onto the floor of the dressing room at Bryant Park, where the fall collections are being held. An important model canceled at the ninth hour. Then, after the show, just when it seemed the animated young designer could relax, five outfits were stolen from a delivery truck.
“We’re making more today,” said an unfazed Feng on Wednesday morning over breakfast at the fashionable Royalton hotel. Garment thefts, said the Chinese American designer, happen every day. Her show had won glowing reviews. And that doesn’t happen every day. Asked if she is conscious of her cultural heritage as a designer, Feng, who came to the United States 10 years ago knowing nothing about fashion and unable to speak English, thought for a moment. “I just think of myself as a New Yorker.”
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Invasion of the Body Builders: Menswear has snuck its brutish little head into the proceedings here and, we gotta say, it looks great. . . . Or is it the male models we like so much? At any rate, a sort of nerdy insouciance keeps cropping up, on and off the runway. Monday, at the Basco show (a men’s and women’s line produced by Barneys New York), guys wore goofy plaid suits with pocket protectors, porkpie hats, too-short trousers and Wallabies.
Around town, groovesters are sporting the too-short tie look, achieved by taking a wide vintage tie and tucking the long part inside your shirt. “Remember Jean-Paul Belmondo in ‘Breathless’? You remind me of him,” we told just such a guy Monday night at a party thrown by designer Wolfgang Joop to show off his new penthouse apartment. The short-tie guy said he was flattered, but we suspected he hadn’t a clue about Belmondo.
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And the Winner Is. . . .: Best soundtrack award goes to Todd Carol for the hauntingly familiar voice of Barbara Parkins rattling on from “Valley of the Dolls.” Best-makeup award goes to Nars’ sexy black eyebrows on the models at the Todd Oldham show. Best-dressed audience member award, hands down, to party gal Suzanne Bartsch in cinched-waist leather jacket, fishnet stockings and thigh-high boots--and nothing else.
