Italian luxury fashion brand Fendi will toss way more than 3 coins at The Trevi Fountain when it underwrites a much-need $3.5million restoration of the baroque masterpiece.
The restoration of the fountain, completed in 1762, is due to take 20 months. Rome’s fountains “are there to glorify water, which is the most important thing in life,” Fendi’s creative director Karl Lagerfeld told a press conference.
The Trevi Fountain is the backdrop for one of the sexiest scenes in cinema from
The Fountain was last restored in 1989. Last summer parts of the stonework from the fountain’s façade started to crumble after being affected by winter weather.
Now the tax-challenged Italian duo is hoping to make liras off the butts of pampered babes with a $45 luxury scent marketed for infants. It’s an offensive and cynical idea and an anti-intuitive one, as who could possibly think splashing designer (or any) perfume on the sensitive skin of a baby makes sense? Please, fellas. Maybe design a leopard-pattern diaper bag lined in fuschia, instead.
Via RT:
“How can babies smell even sweeter than they already do?” According to the Dolce & Gabbana-produced magazine Swide, the “familiar smell associated with babies that melts our hearts will only be accentuated” by the new fragrance.
It is due to contain the scent of citrus, melon and honey, and won’t contain alcohol to irritate a babies’ skin.
However, some parents say they still “can’t imagine any mother doing that to a child”, concerned over the use of chemicals absorbed into the babies skin, prompting allergies.
The perfume will be unisex, “to cuddle and pamper every little boy and girl.” It’s expected to go on sale later this year, priced at about $45 for a 50ml bottle.“–Via RT
Karl Lagerfeld whose signature 18th century “dandy” do empowers guys who shouldn’t wear ponytails to do so, doesn’t love Michelle O’s fringey new haircut,
Beyonce
The Gibson Girls
Louise Brooks, The Flapper “Bob”
Veronica Lake
Jackie Onassis Bouffant
Farrah Fawcett
Jennifer Aniston, The Rachel
In the new Vanity Fair , “the ponytailed designer revealed, “I don’t understand the change of hair . . . Frankly, the fringe was a bad idea. It’s not good.” He also noted that Mrs. Obama now resembles “une speakerine de LCI,” or an anchor on the French news network LCI. Although Lagerfeld has made unpopular statements about beloved pop-culture figures in the past, the Michelle Obama–bang harangue is especially surprising considering that the designer has identified himself as “a big fan of Mrs. Obama” in the past. Particularly, he specified, a fan of her face. “I think, [it] is magical,” he toldMetro World News last February. “[Barack Obama] would not be there without her.” Remarkably, the statement was not the first time Lagerfeld had marveled at the First Lady’s visage. In 2011, he told USA Today, “I like her face, the cleverness of her face. Her face is stronger than the clothes.”–Vanity Fair
Before the Barbie-doll , big-haired, “don’t try this look without extensions and a weave” Beyonce look took over, there were classic looks that still look pretty in our pumped up world of plumped lips and fake boobs. Here, a look back at a century of American beauties and iconic hair styles from The Gibson Girls to the ultimately tragic blonde bombshells Farrah and Veronica Lake.
Mike Bloomberg has his own version of a doomsday clock, designed to give added urgency to the waning days, hours and minutes of his last year as mayor of New York. High on his bucket list for the city is a major rezoning plan for midtown east that would replace historically significant NYC structures with taller, flashier Dubai-style towers. Preservationists are not happy and yesterday released a list of 33 buildings worth saving from Zoning Commish Amanda Burden’s and His Honor’s wrecking ball.
“Historic Districts Council has further refined the list to 33 buildings worthy of New York City Individual Landmark designation, and has prepared official Requests for Evaluation to be submitted to the Landmarks Preservation Commission for each of these 33 buildings.
The buildings represent the area’s rich range of architecture: remaining 19th and early 20th century buildings that recall the residential, pre-Grand Central days of the area, hotels and office buildings that rose around Grand Central soon after its completion in 1913, and post-World War II modernist office buildings that helped solidify the district’s status as one of the world’s premier business addresses. “Together they tell the story of a transformative period in New York City history,” according to Françoise Bollack, a New York City architect and President of the Historic Districts Council.
Additional Buildings of Concern: The original survey HDC conducts resulted in a list of 78 buildings, from that list it was refined down to 46, and then again to the final 33. Although they did not make the final list there are still 13 building that HDC deserves recognition as being under threat from the proposed zoning.”–Historic Districts Council
292 Madison Avenue – Johns-Manville Building, Ludlow & Peabody, 1923
Yes, Gomer Pyle got married at 82. And yes, he can sing. Celebrating Jim Nabors’ love story and same sex marriage, no longer an impossible dream:
The Associated Press HONOLULU — “The actor best known for playing the TV character Gomer Pyle in the 1960s has married his male partner of 38 years.
Hawaii News Now (http://bit.ly/14tFM3U) reports Jim Nabors and his partner, Stan Cadwallader, traveled from their Honolulu home to Seattle to be married Jan. 15.
Gay marriage became legal in Washington state last month.
The 82-year-old Nabors says you’ve got to solidify something when you’ve been together as long as they have.
They couple met in 1975 when Cadwallader was a Honolulu firefighter. Cadwallader is 64.
Nabors says he’s been open about his homosexuality to co-workers and friends but never acknowledged it to the media before.
Nabors played Gomer Pyle in “The Andy Griffith Show” and “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” television shows ”
Put this on your spice rack: dried caviar buttons packaged in their own mill by Petrossian, the people who first brought caviar to Paris in 1920 after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Petrossian Restaurant, New York
At $88 for 30 grams, powdered caviar (Fleur De Caviar), ain’t cheap, but it’s still less expensive than the real thing and has a longer shelf life. Fresh-grind it over the usual caviar partners for a briney, pricey punch of flavor with eggs, pasta, potatoes, scallops, etc.
Petrossian Cafe and Boutique, New York
For those in the under $50 gift club, there is also Petrossian’s Caviarcream. At $42, it’s a small but impressive hostess gift or a guilty pleasure for yourself. The billionaire brunch bunch like it on omelettes, blini or brioche. 25% caviar, 2 oz. Both, exclusively at Petrossian.
Mary Lincoln photographed by James Brady in a Elizabeth Keckley Gown
She shopped and shopped and hid as much of her over-spending as she could from Abe. After his death, creditors who had been reluctant to dun the president’s wife, now wanted to be paid. Traveling with her dressmaker and b.f.f.,Elizabeth Keckley, a former slave and later society modiste to real life Civil War Housewives Mrs. A. Lincoln, Mrs. Jefferson Davis and Mrs. U. S. Grant, Lincoln secretly visited New York hoping to discretely resell her stuff. The press found out and “the old clothes incident” became yet another embarassment for Mrs. Lincoln:
Varina Davis and Jefferson Davis, Elizabeth Keckley GownGrant
Julia Grant and U.S. Grant Before His Tomb Days, Gown by Keckley
From P.B.S.com:
Mary’s sister: “Her chief enjoyment consists in purchasing and storing.”
Source: PBS.org, Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided“The horrors of the Civil War, domestic bereavement, and the fact that she was not accepted socially in Washington, then largely a city of Southerners, made Mrs. Lincoln’s White House years unhappy. She vented her frustrations in an orgy of spending — buying handsome clothes and beautiful accessories for herself and elegant furnishings for the White House.”
Source: Smithsonian. First Ladies Hall. no page #.
Abe Lincoln on learning of Mary’s over spending while redecorating the White House: “It never can have my approval … It would stink in the nostrils of the American people to have it said that the President of the United States had approved a bill overrunning an appropriation of $20,000 for flub-dubs for this damned old house when the soldiers cannot have blankets … The house was furnished well enough, better than any one we ever lived in … Well, I suppose Mrs. Lincoln must bear the blame, let her bear it, I swear I won’t!”
Source: PBS.org, Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided
After Willy’s death, Mary retreated more into herself showing signs of instability and imbalance. Along with believing that Willy and Eddy visited her at night, Mary went on irrational shopping sprees.
“Mary continued to try to find comfort in possessions. She bought new dresses, hats … it was said that in three months, she purchased 300 pairs of gloves. Many of her purchases were never even unpacked.”
Source: PBS.org, Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided”
With all due respect to Daniel Day Lewis, Louis C. K. will always be ‘Lincoln’ to me and I will use any cheap excuse to post video of L.C.K. in top hat and Lincoln suit on SNL:
For centuries, women have lived with the pain of waist-whittling corsets (or the modern ugly sausage casings known as Spanx) . While mile-high heels and back-breaking, budget busting bags have sent some of us to an orthopedic specialist or for rehab, spring/summer 2013
Alexander Wang
Gucci
The Row
The Row
Chanel
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton
collections signal shoulder and wrist strain may be on the wane with the return of the backpack. (Even Jane Birkin admits to wrist woes from her Birkin).
Hermes
Max Mara 101801 Country Club Classic Wool/Cashmere Reefer/Polo Coat, $2200
Add the debutante slouch of Max Mara’s essential 10180 camel polo coat and a pair of flat, smoking slippers and you have classic comfort chic for busy lives and punishing concrete sidewals. Yes, prices still hurt and the Hermes backpack (or rucksack as the books and everything else carriers are known in the U.K) is as expected the best of breed.
After the dignity and grace of Downton Abbey, Lena’s Brooklyn Bunch at 10 pm on HBO seems particularly vulgar and sad. Have so many seasons of reality TV desensitized us to the point where both clothes and privacy seem so last century? We’ve seen marriages come apart, lives unravel and a pregnant Bethenny Frankel use a bucket at the Four Seasons for a bathroom prior to her trip down the aisle.
And now we have Lena Dunham in all her naked glory. Yes, self-acceptance is empowering for woman and a positive body image is healthy. But was almost 30 minutes of Hannah in a see-through mesh top, boobs and tats on full display, necessary to the story line or character arc? Not to me, who is thankful for my Luddite tendencies and the fact that I don’t view Girls on a large-screen TV. Too much Lena is too much Lena, even on my small screen, and I would feel this way if she had the perfect proportions of Angelina Jolie. Mystery and romance are sexy. Desperate and depressing sex in dismal surroundings is not. Of course, there is likely all sorts of cultural and feminist significance to Girls which I’m missing and that universities will study. But I prefer to take a retro look back to the no-nudity days of the Eisenhower era and the anti-Lena Dunham–Loretta Young. Remembering that elegant, 1950’s entrancer-making fashion twirl:
It’s an age-old dilemma: What to wear when gravity has had its way with you and you don’t want to dress old or too young. There are the usual boring suspect rules like donating your Hillary power pantsuits to Goodwill and ditching the Mom jeans for something skinnier. But most of the “wear by expiration date advice” is not news you can use. Here, the two essential elements of style every woman past her “mid-century” birthday needs to know:
“The problem of aging is the problem of living. There is no simple solution.
[On Christian Dior] I adore you, but you dress women like armchairs.
[On Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’] Look how ridiculous these women are, wearing clothes by a man who doesn’t know women, never had one, and dreams of being one.
[On Yves Saint-Laurent] Saint-Laurent has excellent taste. The more he copies me, the better taste he displays.
Fashion is always of the time in which you live. It is not something standing alone. But the grand problem, the most important problem, is to rejuvenate women. To make women look young. Then their outlook changes. They feel more joyous.”–Coco Chanel
“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” Oscar Wilde
“What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today when human contacts go so fast. Fashion is instant language.” Miuccia Prada
Italian luxury fashion brand Fendi will toss way more than 3 coins at The Trevi Fountain when it underwrites a much-need $3.5million restoration of the baroque masterpiece.
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