“Je ris de me voire si belle” – Jewel Song: Gounod’s Faust

Last week, Christie’s Auction House in Rockefeller Plaza, my personal favorite because the doorman is so nice, threw an opening cocktail party for their April auctions: Jewelry and Russian Art. Because I’m enchanted by the famous gems of history, I went especially to see Catherine II of Russia’s astonishing brooch, long considered one of the great jewels of the world.

The Christie’s installation, a combination of painting and applied arts, including many Fabergé pieces and dazzling Tiffany and Cartier examples, as well, was simply beautiful. So, were many of the attendees, including Natalie Kossof, Dierdre Bialo-Kadin, Stephen Lash, Yana Balan, Jemima Jones, Marion Von Burchard, Fernando Bustillo, Mei Gian, Andrew Gadlin and Marisa Tuchinsky.

The food, caviar blinis, wild mushroom timbales, lobster en croute, champagne and Ultimat Vodka, was sybaritically suitable as well.

Still, the emerald stole ... Read More

I don’t know Carla Bruni.
I've just shaken her hand.

But before ever having seen her, I, like everyone, knew her reputation: A fascinating, dangerous, talented and beautiful woman; a modern femme fatale with her own free morality who had captivated the heart of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and, by extension, the hearts of a nation of Frenchmen and the headlines of countless tabloids around the world.

Her artful nude photos are all over the internet and also the sensitive songs she has sung and composed.

Curiosity was inevitable. And so, when I was invited to meet the first couple at the inauguration of the Sky Room at the Alliance Française and despite very short notice, I instantly said, “Yes!”

A privileged twenty or so of us waited over half an hour, wilting gradually from anticipation and consoled by expectant conversation, for the glamorous duo to appear.

Finally, a flurry of security ... Read More

Last Wednesday my friend, the internationally famous architect Raimund Abraham, died. The car he was driving collided in downtown Los Angeles with a Metropolitan Transportation Authority Bus. He was 76.

I met Raimund in July 2008 at a 75th birthday dinner given for him by Diane Lewis his friend, colleague and favorite student. The party was in the garden of the East Village townhouse where Diane lives. At Raimund’s request, he was the only invited male.

Nineteen women and Raimund gathered in the summer twilight around a large table surrounded by ivy covered walls. A singer from the Beijing Opera came to serenade him. There was candlelight, caviar, vitello tonatto and toasts with champagne. “Every day is a birthday.” Was Raimund’s speech.

I complimented him on his hat and we were instant friends. To Raimund this meant I could be telephoned at whim any time night or ... Read More

With her unique mix of ebullience, sincerity and style, ninety-three-year old Zelda Kaplan, has been known to observe, "It takes courage to be who you are."

Kaplan has, for some years now- as her profiles in New York Magazine, The Times and the HBO documentary, "Her Name is Zelda", attest -captured the hearts and imaginations of her fellow New Yorkers. A popular peripatetic in the nightlife of the city that doesn't sleep, she’s Manhattan’s cool club matriarch. She is always (even if it's a private party night) welcomed at Bungalow 8, Double Seven and the other exclusively trendy Manhattan hot spots where, because of her insomnia, she prefers to sip champagne and dance a slow fox trot 'till dawn. Says one nightclub owner: “Zelda’s got juice.”

During Fashion Week, when she is not striding down the cat walk ("She has the soul of a ... Read More

Greg Lauren’s new sight specific installation, “Counter Couture” opened at the French Institute’s Art Gallery at 22 East 60 Street in Manhattan on February 4, just in time for Fashion Week. And a suitably smart crowd including but not limited to: Elizabeth Berkley, the artist’s film star wife, Chiu-Ti Jansen, Dori Cooperman, Dylan Lauren, screen writer Jenny Lumet, Mary Randolf, Agnes Banks, Bonnie Pfeifer-Evans, Estella Cohan, Beth Lauren, Elizabeth Hayes, Tristan de Terves, Tal Shapsa, Jerry Spyer, Marie Monique Steckel, and Ralph and Jerry and Brad Lauren -was there.

Dominating the show: a video sculpture ‘Suit Screen’ in which a row of ten impeccable, life size, white suits, hand stitched by the artist in stiffened Japanese packing paper acts as the screen on which the Hitchcock classic “To Catch a Thief” is projected and re projected in an infinitely occurring loop. It’s an ode to the ... Read More