FashionEtc.com April 24th, 2024

I kicked off Fashion Week in high style by attending a luncheon in celebration of my friend Kate Betts’s new book about First Lady Michelle Obama’s evolving sartorial splendor, “Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style.”

Kate was kind enough to drag herself and her husband, Chip, to one of my readings at the now-defunct Barnes & Noble Lincoln Center (a moment of silence, please) in the dead of July. The least I could do was come out in support of her brilliant tome, which was celebrated in the far more glamorous environs of Bergdorf Goodman’s Kelly Wearstler–designed aerie/jewel box, BG Restaurant, overlooking Fifth Ave. to the east, and snow-covered Central Park to the north. Thirty-some stylish and substantive women gathered in the olive and gold back room.

The likes of Tory Burch, gloriously beautiful Iman, art powerhouse Thelma Golden, news diva Deborah Roberts, perennially elegant Marina Rust, Jennifer Creel, Veronica Bulgari, and Deeda Blair listened spellbound as hostess Tina Brown pithily described Mrs. Obama as having “the intellect of a Hillary Clinton with Jackie’s pearls on top.”

She then praised Kate as a crafter of perfect sentences. After a dessert of warm apple tart smothered in melting caramel ice cream, Kate, looking Hepburn-esque in a ruffled teal blouse paired with sleek black gabardine pants, joked that Tina obviously hadn’t read her latest Daily Beast article. She effortlessly placed Mrs. Obama in full cultural context, invoking Ebony Fashion Fair founder Eunice Johnson and hailing our current first lady as the woman who gives lie to the notion that style and substance are antithetical.

"I'm so scared right now," said a terrified Bonnie Morrison outside the IFC Cinema.

We had just finished seeing Vanishing on 7th Street, Brad Anderson's new apocalyptic thriller/horror film, hosted by Andrew Saffir's Cinema Society. I had to agree with Bonnie. The movie, about alien forces who remove people's bodies from the earth when they walk away from a light source, was a vintage-clothing lover's dream, as the bodies leave behind all manner of dresses, shoes, suits—you name it. I had to keep distracting myself with this thought so as not to get too spooked.

Shadows, darkness and whispers are a lethal combination as far as I'm concerned. A gold necklace here, a Manolo pump there (was it even Manolo?), strewn about the empty streets of Detroit. I also couldn't help but think of Eminem's Super Bowl ad; this was another giant fist bump for the city.

The after-party was at Beauty & Essex, a combination restaurant/lounge/store/pawn shop with amazing décor: a chandelier made entirely of pearls, a room decorated with framed lockets, an old cash register and fabulous costume jewelry for sale. It is hugely popular and chic right now.

Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter didn’t join her cast mates at the SAG Awards on Sunday—not because of her split from nominee husband Michael C. Hall—but because she’s appearing in a play in New York.

“It was nice, I didn’t have to get dressed up,” Carpenter said with a laugh at Monday’s opening night.

In the play, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Carpenter and co-star Pablo Schreiber spend the entire 80 minutes on stage, changing the sets and props themselves.

All that time without an intermission: Doesn’t nature ever call?

“I never realize I have to go to the bathroom,” Carpenter said. “Maybe when I step off stage after curtain call, I go, Oh, that’s there too! I’ve got to pee.”

Carpenter hasn’t had any mishaps despite all that activity—the two even change costumes between scenes right on the stage—but she gleefully recited her co-star’s faux pas: “Pablo has knocked a chair into the audience, he’s jammed a bed into a wall.”

A bemused Schreiber, who is in the new FX series Lights Out, didn’t deny those klutzy moves.

“Yeah, I knocked a chair into the audience, I knocked the [prop] bucket over onto the bed and spilled it,” he said. “She has not messed up once,” he added.

A slew of famous friends including John Slattery, Zoe Kazan, Victor Garber, and Eric Bogosian turned up at the Second Stage Theatre for opening night. At the packed afterparty at Dopo Teatro, we spotted Liev Schreiber, Pablo’s half-brother, in the crowd.

Jill Kargman is known for writing witty chick-lit. She's gotten quite a following from these books that always have a hidden lesson, a triumph of good over evil, if you can call it that in the rarefied world of New York's Upper East Side.

Her new book, Sometimes I Feel Like a Nut, is a memoir, her first foray into nonfiction. I asked Jill if writing about herself had made her feel more vulnerable.

"YES! Much more vulnerable! It's not a real memoir because it's snippets and lists in essay and chart form, so it's more of a comedy. 'Memoir' somehow implies I'm limbless or was raped as a child," was her typical Jill answer.