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The
snowflake suspended
above the junction of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street with
Louis Vuitton (left) and Tiffany & Co. (right). 8:25
PM. Photo: JH.
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Michael’s, now resplendent with its holiday decorations of
swags of evergreen and big red bows decorating the rooms, drew
a big luncheon crowd including LA matrimonial lawyer Peter
Bronstein, New School president, former US
Senator Bob
Kerrey; uber-editor
Alice Mayhew talking shop probably with uber-agent Binky
Urban. A table away, former uber-editor/literary agent Joni
Evans probably
talking some kind of shop with National Television Academy (Emmy
Awards) Peter Price; Columbia University’s
Miller Theatre executive director George Steel with Anita
Jaffe; Beverly Hills
realtor Kay Pick, Jim Reginato with Barbaralee
Diamonstein-Spielvogel; Marc Rosen holding forth at a
table of eight, Broadway producer
Fran Weissler; mag editors, Good Housekeeping’s Ellen
Levine
and Newsweek’s Dorothy Kalins; Lorna Graev,
Mike Strohl, Beverly Camhe; former Paramount exec and
film colony scion John
Goldwyn; Bway producing partners Terry Allen Kramer and Liz
McCann; Manolo Blahnik president George Malkemus with
the Times’ premier
fashion critic Cathy Horyn; Barbara Walters at
the corner table;
Quest’s Chris Meigher with Rubenstein’s Lori
Bodor; Robin Melanie Leacock, Rob Weisbach, and at the
table next to mine, the queen of “Can We Talk?” that
glama-puss herself,
Miss Joan Rivers.
At six-thirty I was in black tie on my way to the 2005 Food Allergy
Ball benefiting the Food Allergy Initiative where they were honoring
umber-chef Mario Batali and Julia and
David Koch. Sharyn Mann started
this charity six years ago because she and her husband Steve have
a daughter with a serious allergy to peanuts. More than once they
came close to losing her to the frequently fatal allergy. Sharyn
got the bright idea of putting epi-pens in every public place imaginable – restaurants,
buses, airplanes, ambulances, schools, etc. Since its inception,
the idea that some thought was not big enough to rate a full fledged
philanthropy, has raised $21 million for the cause.
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The
Mann family
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The business
of food allergy is relatively new to our community. Monday’s
headlines drove the matter home seriously with the report of the
16-year-old girl with an allergy to peanuts, died
after kissing her boyfriend who had just eaten some peanuts!
Last night they raised more than $3 million. David Koch, one of
the honorees, and a frequent contributor to the cause developed
a serious allergy to shellfish when he was in his fifties. Mary
Richardson and Robert Kennedy Jr., who were Benefit Dinner Chairs
along with Patricia and James Cayne, have two children with serious
food allergies. Corporate Dinner Chair, bringing in hefty financial
support was Ron Perelman, chairman and CEO of
MacAndrews & Forbes.
Sharyn Mann and Todd Slotkin were Gala Dinner Chairs. In the crowd:
Ben and Elke Gazzara, restaurateurs Julian
Niccolini, Sirio Maccioni, David Burke, Drew Nieporent, Thomas
Keller, Daniel Boulud, David
Bouley, as well as Cece Cord, Julie Slotkin, Roslyn and Elliot
Jaffe, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Ruth Ann Swenson, Ellen Barkin,
Dean and Rosanne Palin, and Lynette and Howard
Gittis. |
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Greeted
by the entertainment upon
entering the Pierre
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Todd
Slotkin, Sharyn Mann, and Ronald Perelman
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Mario
Batali and Drew Nieporent
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Mary
Richardson Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Julian Niccolini
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Simone
Levinson, Patricia Cayne, Howard Gittis, and Sharyn Mann
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Ilan
and Linda
Kaufthal
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Harvey
Sloane
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David
Koch
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Lord
and Lady Parry
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Elke
and Ben Gazzara
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Sharyn
and Steve Mann
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The
decor and period costumes en route to the cocktail portion
of the evening
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Julian
Niccolini inspects the living statues |
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An
overview of the ballroom and a detail of the table setting
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The
Christmas tree at the Pierre
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Farther
down the avenue, Cartier was hosting a party in their
mansion in honor of the Centennial Anniversary of the National
Audubon Society as well as unveiling their holiday windows and
their famous Christmas bow which neatly wraps the entire façade
of the famous house. More than 225 were in attendance, with the
ladies having their pictures taken sitting on Santa’s lap
wearing one of two Cartier diamond necklaces – one priced
at $650,000 and the other at $1.2 million.
They unveiled their holiday windows and unveiled the famous Cartier
bow. Among
the stellar throng: Mark Gilbertson, Jill Roosevelt, Nancy Sambuco, Heather
Cohane, Chad Ritchie, Jonathan Farkas and Somers, Jennifer Powers, Eric Javits,
Hilary Block, Emma Snowdon, Chris Meigher, Liz and Jonathan Eliott, and Doug
Hannant and Fred Anderson.
Meanwhile Fifth Avenue by eight-thirty in
the evening was teeming with foot traffic, as the raindrops were
threatening (but only) to turn torrential, taking in all the holiday
decorations. JH and the Digital caught the famous
(and newly replaced) shimmering snowflake which is suspended above
the avenue at the junction of Fifth and 57th Street shining down
on Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Van Cleef and Bergdorf’s and Bulgari.
From
there he moved on to some of the fantastic windows in Bergdorf’s
(see below). Linda
Fargo, the display director of the store produces what
are now consistently the most imaginatively chic fashion windows
in New York. I was particularly amused by the Delft window which
is astounding in its play on punk, couture and randomly witty detail,
adding a “Delft-ness” even to the coiffures of the
manniquins. Bergdorf’s changes their windows with amazing
frequency and I doubt these displays will be there through the
holiday season, so hurry on down to get a glimpse of what brilliant
imagination can transform a retailer’s object into a dream
of a million fancies.
Bergdorf’s windows ... |
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