W articles from February 2002

W archives from February 2002

W Personal Shopper: Need answers to your where-to-buy, what-to-wear or where-to-go in February questions? (W Reader Service).
February 1, 2002... Valentine's Day -- that sentimental day filled with love, romance and sweet nothings...all those things that once a year can make you swoon more than a new Gucci bag! Primp and pamper W-style with the fashions, fragrances and fancy finds found...

Jewelry Box: New Italian Art. (W Reader Service).
February 1, 2002... Open my heart with this exciting ring of love from New Italian Art. You'll be moved by the unique hinged heart that flips to reveal a totally different side of you! From elegant diamonds to racy pink sapphires, this exceptional ring is bold,...

Joan & David. (W Reader Service).
February 1, 2002... Introducing Joan & David's newest footwear for Spring. This handcrafted moccasion, 'Chris" is the must-have casual shoe of the season. The shoe is a blend of the finest Italian linen and supple leather. Look for our full collection of Spring...

Covering its assets. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Prada Group is working fast to lighten up its billion-dollar debt load. Forced to put an initial public offering on hold due to the tricky market, Prada plans to issue a bond through Deutsche Bank AG for $624 million and has just sold its...

The royal treatment. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Men generally wear morning suits and top hats to accept the honor of Commander of the British Empire during ceremonies before Queen Elizabeth II. When his turn came, John Galliano fulfilled the dress code in his own, inimitable way: He wore a...

Rose-Colored glasses. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Marc Jacobs' plans to open a freestanding accessories store in Manhattan last summer hit a snag with unexpected construction delays at 385 Bleecker Street, where supermodel Amber Valletta is his landlord. But every cloud has a silver lining,...

Ando's peak. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Tadao Ando may be fashion's favorite new architect. Having built a sizable reputation with the construction of Giorgio Armani's new theater space in Milan, plus projects for Karl Lagerfeld and Benetton, Ando has attracted the attention of...

Harold's bloom. (W News).
February 1, 2002... With the return of Harold Koda to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in December, there's been a lot of curious discussion as to what the new curator has up his tailored sleeves. Not surprisingly, Koda's debut touched on a...

Americans online. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Michael Dell has it easy, especially compared to his wife. While "Steve," the fresh-faced Dell Computers pitchman, has become a television sensation over the past year, Dell's wife, Susan, is promoting her two-year-old ready-to-wear collection...

First, The bad news. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Fashion is a much leaner industry these days, and that's just a nice euphemism for the thousands of jobs lost in recent weeks as companies big and small have retrenched during a time of economic uncertainty. One particularly hard-hit segment...

Now for the good news. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Eric Wilson Even at a time when the forecast for luxury conglomerates looks cloudy at best, there remains rabid interest in developing more of them. The latest, Equinox Luxury Holdings, was recently formed as an offshoot of a London-based...

Ice Capades. (W News).
February 1, 2002... This month's Winter Olympics are bound to draw widespread international attention as a means to unite a fragile world, so performance-apparel companies are making certain that athletes are well suited for northern exposure. Roots, the...

Disco isn't dead. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Designer jeans have come hack strong as a staple of a fashionable wardrobe over the past decade, so much so that several of the hottest denim names of the Seventies (Gloria Vanderbilt, Jordache and the like) are back in stores. While those...

Dior's Homme coming. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Dior Homme is lining up its retail plans. Building on the buzz around Hedi Slimane's razor-sharp collections, Dior's first men's shop was set to open on Via Montenapo1eone in Milan in January followed by a flagship in Paris at 25 Rue Royale...

A chip off the old block. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Not long after the bombshell exit of high-profile chairman and chief executive officer Linda Wachner from the bankrupt Warnaco Group last November, the company is evidently looking to free up some cash through the auction of some of its art and...

Cereal drama. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Cynthia Rowley and her best friend, Ilene Rosenzweig, a writer for the New York Times, have landed a production deal with ABC to shoot a pilot episode for a television series based on their 1999 best-seller, Swell. While the book is sort of a...

Nothing personal. (W News).
February 1, 2002... When it comes to romance, there's no point in being vague about what you're looking for, so New York designer Anait Bian is making it a little easier for those of certain tastes to wear their hearts on their sleeves. This spring she'll launch...

Throne for a curve. (W News).
February 1, 2002... The La-Z-Boy recliner--that living-room behemoth of Super Bowls past--is getting a long-overdue style makeover at the hands of some of fashion's top names. Bailey House, a nonprofit agency that provides housing for people with AIDS, enlisted...

Fashion 101. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Being a fashion designer means keeping an eye not only on hemlines, but on bottom lines. That's what would-be fashionistas heard from Betsey Johnson during a recent career day at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. "In a job, your...

Packing them in. (W news).
February 1, 2002... New York's meatpacking district is widely perceived as one of the city's most promising luxury retail destinations. Following a handful of clubs and restaurants that have moved into the neighborhood, two of Gucci Group's recent...

Succession plan. (W News).
February 1, 2002... The house of Balmain has finally confirmed that Laurent Mercier will take over as designer of its women's ready-to-wear collection, replacing Gilles Dufour, who left last March. Oscar de la Renta, who has designed Balmain's couture since 1992,...

L.A's brand-new bag. (W News).
February 1, 2002... Los Angeles has always been a big handbag town. Ladies on the Left Coast might wear a lot of jeans and yoga pants, but they've always got to have brand-new bags. And the possibilities have just increased with the opening of Furla's first West...

The golden fleece gets flocked. (W News).
February 1, 2002... With close to two centuries of history under its preppy belt, Brooks Brothers has anew owner and a new lease on life. After being put on the block by Marks & Spencer last March and enduring a bidding process that attracted more than 25 suitors,...

Star crossed. (W Flashback).
February 1, 2002... Was it really only 11 years ago? It seems like eons have passed since the Academy Awards ceremony in 1991, when Madonna and Michael Jackson decided to link fame and fortune, if only for the night. "Sitting in the front row, the couple looked...

School daze. (W Letter from the Editor).
February 1, 2002... February It's been said that New York society, with its rigid cliques and fierce power struggles, resembles nothing so much as an upper-echelon high school. And indeed, in certain elite Manhattan circles, status is measured primarily by...

Readers react. (W Letters).
February 1, 2002... Just the Facts This week I saw the article, "The Mouth That Roared" (December), about my ex-wife, Arianna Huffington. To my utter disbelief I read the following quote: "I did not know my husband was bisexual when I married him." ...

Star man. (Uncensored).
February 1, 2002... How do you keep them down on La Ferme after they've seen Paree? French chef Marc Veyrat already has six Michelin stars to his name for La Ferme de Mon Pere and L'Auberge de l'Eridan, his restaurants near the Swiss border. Now, apparently he's...

Behind the seams. (Uncensored).
February 1, 2002... "Where there's smoke, there's fire" is the usual rule, but fashion insiders may be disappointed by the banned Yves Saint Laurent documentary Celebration. Last year, when Pierre Berge successfully blocked distribution of Olivier Meyrou's film,...

Making good. (Uncensored).
February 1, 2002... Apparently the YBAs-British tabloid lingo for the Young British Artists who caused a sensation in the Nineties-aren't quite so Y anymore. Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Rachel Whiteread have exchanged their shock-art tactics and rowdy carousing...

Flesh trade. (Uncensored).
February 1, 2002... These days, visitors to L.A.'s hipster haunt the Standard Hotel are being treated to the sight of socialite/model Juliet Hartford--daughter of A&P heir Huntington Hartford and cohort of Paris and Nicky Hilton--in all of her (nearly) naked...

Big river. (Uncensored).
February 1, 2002... The next star of the British art world may be an American. James Turrell--whose masterpiece in progress is a celestial observatory built into an Arizona volcano--is bringing his supersize imagination to London: creating a massive, modulating...

Wachner watch. (Uncensored).
February 1, 2002... Survivor that she is, Linda Wachner insists she's been doing great since the Warnaco board dismissed her as chief executive officer in mid-November. And why not? She still has her Rolodex. "I don't have a noncompete clause," crows Wachner,...

The Skinny on Linney: She doesn't drink, use drugs or sleep around. Laura Linney saves all her acting out for the screen. (W Eye).
February 1, 2002... Most people think I'm from Iowa," muses Laura Linney, who has spent 37 of her almost 38 years on earth as an urbane New Yorker. "Maybe that's because I've always been kind of square. I'm not exactly what you'd call a hellion." Not by a...

Black to business. (W Eye).
February 1, 2002... "Acting is a terror," Sean Penn said at the premiere of I Am Sam. Dressing for the red carpet can be a terror, too, which may explain why night after night the biggest stars in Hollywood peddled their holiday blockbusters in sober black...

Out of the box: Sculptor Toland Grinnell has cracked the art world with his luxurious, if quirky suitcases and trunks. (W Eye).
February 1, 2002... For Toland Grinnell, a crowning achievement in his career as an artist came one day last fall when he was having his newly completed installation piece Pied-a-terre (An Apartment for Two in 35 Trunks) photographed. As the title suggests, the...

Critical Eye: A shocking memoir...jazz's newest old soul...and making love, Dogme-style. (W Reviews).
February 1, 2002... BOOKS I Mental-illness memoirs have grown so numerous, it may finally be time to create a subhierarchy of the genre and group them by diagnosis. For every entry in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, there seems to be a corresponding...

Music. (W Reviews).
February 1, 2002... The 22-year-old singer-songwriter-pianist Norah Jones can sound silky and unadorned, bright and bittersweet, all within the space of a single lyric. But mostly she sounds knowing, like a woman who's made a few laps around the block. In other...

Film. (W Reviews).
February 1, 2002... If flimmaker/provocateur Lars Von Trier directed an episode of "The Love Boat," it might look a bit like ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS, the first romantic comedy to bear the Dogme 95 seal for its adherence to Von Trier's austere cinematic vow of...

Beauty and the blizzard: When winter threatens to take its toll on face and body call on these foul-weather friends. (W Beauty Flash).
February 1, 2002... A drop in the temperature certainly has its benefits--fun on the slopes, cozy gatherings around the fire--but winter's brisk winds and low humidity levels, not to mention indoor heating and hot baths, can do a number on the body, from head to...

Force of nature: Love is in the air. Everybody knows about the birds and the bees, even jewelers.
February 1, 2002... Romance is in full bloom in fashion. And in fine jewelry, whimsical flowers, butterflies and other earthly creatures are having a strong resurgence--especially for Valentine's Day These themes can be traced back to patterns in Chinese porcelain...

Vera's wedding belles: In the super bowl of sample sales, what wouldn't a bride do for a dress by Vera Wang? (W Fashion Flash).
February 1, 2002... There's cutting the cake, tossing the bouquet, the first dance. And then there's the Vera Wang. For brides-to-be the name is a mantra, an invocation of bona fide elegance and fairy-tale weddings. But while Wang's luxe Madison Avenue boutique...

The shell game: Maria Silvia Fendi, the creator of the baguette and the croissant, is launching a hip new bag. (W Accessories Flash).
February 1, 2002... Maria Silvia Venturini Fendi has a style all her own, and she expresses it in the distinctive accessories she creates for Fendi. She names her pieces after food and says, "My bags are like a plate of spaghetti and tomato. They are appealing,...

Safari so good: Wild thing, you make my here using fashion is tuning into the wooly side of safari this season. (W Accessories Flash).
February 1, 2002... Designers are taking an exotic trip into the jungle this spring, and the result is a slew of sexy accessories from shoes to jewelry that look just right for the opening of a show of Peter Beard's photos--or even a glammed up African safari. ...

World of wonders. (W February).
February 1, 2002... Sometimes an extravagant gesture seems to be called for, so in Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately fashion shoot decree. Welcome to our pleasure dome, "Hollywood Babylon," a Shanghai express of elaborately embroidered brocades in Far Eastern--style...

Hollywood Babylon.
February 1, 2002... Shazam! Ala-kazam! Go for drama and glamour with looks that mix The Tale of Genji and The Arabian Nights, shown at Dawnridge, Tony Duquette's Beverly Hills mansion and his Malibu ranch, Sortilegium. Giorgio Armani's silk chiffon dress with...

Upbeat: Celebrate spring with fashion that rejoices in color, lightness, layers and even distressing. (W Profile).
February 1, 2002... Yohji Yamamoto's acetate satin jacket and silk pants, at Yohji Yamamoto, New York; Lawrence Covell, Denver; Amaree's, Newport Beach, California. Ayay hairpieces; Berry cuff; Yohji Yamamoto sneakers. Roberto Cavalli's silk chiffon minidress,...

Easy rider: After three high-profile roles (as a Jedi knight, a singing poet and a U.S. ranger), the voluble Ewan McGregor has made peace with Hollywood. These days, it's those British Hugh Grant romances that drive him nuts. (W Profile).
February 1, 2002... The Ambra deli in northwest London, with its fluorescent lights, humming refrigerators, and shelves crammed with panettone and tomato sauce, isn't a likely backdrop for a power breakfast, but it suits Ewan McGregor just fine. On this damp...

Social studies: For the children of the ruling class, New York private schools offers a first-rate primer on life's key skills: reading, writing and social climbing. Designer handbag not included. (W Feature).
February 1, 2002... At eight o'clock on a warm December night, a fleet of polished town cars deposits eight ninth-grade girls at a birthday party at Serafina, a restaurant on East 61st Street in Manhattan. As the girls takes their seats--stowing blue Tiffany...

Unbalanced. There's plenty to be said for a little eccentricity--and that can mean bold dots, big accessories or unexpected bareness.
February 1, 2002... Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche's black-and-white silk caftan, by Tom Ford, at Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, New York, Young & Devine shoes. Donna Karan's black silk dress with crystals, at Donna Karan, New York. Buffalo Chips hat; Demask...

Easton's eden: The decorator who brought Old World authenticity to new billionaies is overhauling his image, with his own furniture and textile lines, a downtown apartment and a determined grasp on the future.
February 1, 2002... It's Easton," the decorator likes to say into the telephone in a voice that never rises above a conspiratorial half-whisper. It's an economical introduction--more in line with the pared-down David Easton, newly installed in lower Manhattan,...

Horoscope. (W Astrology).
February 1, 2002... Aquarius January 20-February 17 It's been said that for everything that goes, something new and better comes along to replace it. Remember this during the chaotic period during which Mercury is retrograde, until the 8th, raising unsettling...

Raffi. (W Reader Service).
February 1, 2002... You'll be cool blue in icy fresh knitwear from Raffi linea uomo, available at leading department and specialty stores nationwide. Incorporating elegant styling and rich fiber blends, the sophisticated collection has something for every man and...

Lancome. (W Reader Service).
February 1, 2002... Pucker-up this Valentine's Day with Lancome's Sweet Hearts LipGloss Palette - a set of three luscious lip glosses in vibrant shades of pink, named affectionately Hug Me, Kiss Me, Love Me. Show your sweetheart how much you love them with a...

Jewelry Box: Stefan Hafner. (W Reader Service).
February 1, 2002... Award winning designer Stefan Hafner is renown for his creative designs. This 18 karat white gold flexible criss-cross bracelet features diamond pave and a white South Sea pearl. For information or retailer by location, call Bernard Grosz at...

Reem Acra. (W Reader Service).
February 1, 2002... The elegant, sophisticated and trend-setting style of designer Reem Acra has made her one of the few "name designers" in the luxury bridal market. From her delicate beadwork of tiny Swarovski crystals and seed pearls, to the intricate gold...

Arianne Lingerie. (W Reader Service).
February 1, 2002... All the Right Curves...Arianne Lingerie is redefining the thong by introducing the Thongboy, offering figure flattering coverage while exposing all the right curves. From the Samitha collection, an intricate floral lace pattern that plays with...