What’s Old Looks Good to L.A. Show’s Shoppers
The airplane hangar was crowded with luxury. Shimmering antique jewelry, rare folk art, ancient Chinese artifacts and French Art Deco furnishings transformed the cavernous structure into a labyrinthine gallery. One guest made her way through the masses, squeezing past a rare Edward Hopper and the first lady of California, Sharon Davis, nearly elbowing the $14-million painting. A friend spotted her and shouted: “You break it, you buy it!”
A few steps away, designer Tracey Ross hovered near jeweler Neil Lane’s glass case, eyeing the vintage baubles priced in the hundreds of thousands. “I’ve been wearing this piece for the last hour,” she said, touching her throat and pointing to a stunning necklace encrusted with diamonds.
Ross was among the hordes of rich and famous collectors and their decorators who were lured to the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica on Thursday night for a preview of the L.A. Antiques Show. The three-day event raised nearly $900,000 for women’s health programs at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
On the other side of the hangar, Texas art dealer Joel Cooner congratulated himself on selling $9,000 worth of African artifacts in two hours. “It’s a good day’s work,” he said, chuckling. Furniture dealer Anne Hauck embodied the essence of her Art Deco furnishings as she stood tall with enviable posture, wearing a calf-length black coat, a severe bob haircut and black-framed glasses. “Everybody is looking for this,” she said in a clipped German accent, pointing to an elegant hand-painted armoire. “Everybody.”
A few booths down, another dealer, J. Mark Sublette, showed off his rare Georgia O’Keeffe, priced at just under $1 million. Business for Sublette was slow on Thursday, with promises of a big deal the following day. “Diane Keaton called me to say she’s coming by tomorrow,” he said. (Alas, no sale.)
Keaton is a regular at the antiques show. Ross is credited with bringing in a younger clientele this year, including Duran Duran bassist-turned-actor John Taylor and his wife, fashion designer Gela Nash-Taylor, actress Gina Gershon and singer Robbie Williams, among others. “These people have money they might as well cultivate themselves,” she said. The show, Ross said, “is as New York as it’s going to get for L.A.”
Poses and Patter From Two Yogis
When gurus to the stars Sharon Gannon and David Life visited the Center for Yoga on Larchmont Boulevard last week, about 30 women and 20 men squatted on pink, green and blue mats to hear the word: Jivamukti.
Created by Gannon and Life, the talk-intensive yoga method, which stresses spirituality and ethics as much as physicality, has attracted a number of celebrity students, including Sting, Monica Lewinsky, Donna Karan, Beastie Boy Mike D and Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons. (Simmons, a frequent visitor at Gannon and Life’s yoga center in New York, has long tried to get his friend Rev. Al Sharpton to join, they said--so far, to no avail.)
Wearing gray tights and a black tank top advertising Jivamukti yoga, Life explains the couple’s mission. Rather than build yoga centers around the country, the two have focused on writing and teaching, and they were in L.A. to promote their most recent book, “Jivamukti Yoga.” “Our dream was never to have the Starbucks of yoga,” Life says. They just want to spread the word. And his appearance is full of words, each yoga pose the starting point for an observation.
As the group assumes the “cobbler’s table”--torso like a tabletop, balanced on hands and feet--Life asks: “What is my table set with? If there’s a big pot roast in the middle,” adds the vegetarian, “it’s not good.”The “blossoming lotus” occasions visions of harmony: “Larchmont is going to become the vortex of world peace.”The “night sky,” on the other hand, is a foray into the extraterrestrial. “You all think all this stuff comes from India,” Life says. “It’s from Egypt. It was channeled by the UFOs from outer space.”
A cell phone rings inside a black knapsack. “Every little cell carries cosmic consciousness.”
The bodies in the room, including one in traditional Hasidic dress, take the fish pose. “Fish are very sensitive creatures
Time for meditation.
Inside the cosmic vortex, someone sneezes. Outside, a construction worker revs up his drill. A car starts up. A bird sings. Then, silence.
Life chants:
Om ...
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