What she'd really like is for me to have a good, income-producing husband. Who has nice grandparents.

I am well aware that it all started in the shtetl , and it's not likely to stop any time soon. But every time my phone rings and some unfamiliar man-voice says, "Uh, I got your number from my grandmother. I think she plays bridge [or tennis or mahjong] with your grandmother," I still gasp. It's very clearly the voice of a boy psyched about the prospect of a blind date arranged by two senior citizens.

Sitting in a Shakespeare class in college, a boy named Jon-who would, in a single exception to the rule, become a good friend-revealed to me that he had arrived freshman year with my name written on a napkin and folded into his wallet. Seems he had come across my Aunt Selma and Uncle Ezra in Bethesda, Md., that August and left a solid, Nice Boy impression.

It used to happen to my mom, too. And so she consoles me: Despite mandatory attendance at parties held by a Jewish dentistry fraternity, numerous introductions to the boy with braces discovered at a book sale and some permanently tanned guy (or maybe I just imagined him that way) named either Milton or Martin who was continually foisted upon her, she managed to meet my dad-a great catch-all by herself.

When my grandmother goes so far as to say that my not returning Nice Boy X's phone calls is going to cost her a 40-year friendship, I genuinely lose sleep from guilt. Although she lives-with the rest of my mother's family-in Washington, the grandson (or nephew or adorable neighbor) of every lady she knows seems to have wound up in New York, where he's pursuing a law degree, M.B.A. or investment banking career. And he is, presumably, looking for love. Or, at the very least, a Nice Girl to ride shotgun in the brand-new luxury sedan he's driving down I-95-toward Washington, of course-in my Grandmother's dreams.

To me it's a nightmare, and it goes like this: tall, pale, acne-scarred boys with short, side-parted hair and those wire-rim glasses covered in that strange and oily faux-tortoise snap-on plastic. Boys who wear casual Friday wear: pressed jeans and starchy button-downs. Shiny belts. The occasional piece of leftover fraternity paraphernalia that references their love for beer and getting crazy. Dorky shoes. Boys who live in postwar junior one-bedrooms, like to play golf, listen to Hootie and the Blowfish, and still use party as a verb. Boys who call girls their grandmother finds!

Generally, I don't return the calls. And it's surprising how much they call. Wouldn't any normal boy be thrilled to find his call unreturned? "Sorry, Grandma, I called but I never heard back!" Off the hook! But no such luck. They call at work, they call at home. They call late at night and on weekend mornings. And when I don't call back, they call some more! I hit delete without even writing down the numbers.

When I unfortunately answer, I do this cold-girl thing that I imagine will give the impression that dinner with me would be a pretty odious experience. But then I see an image of my grandmother totally spurned from luncheons and bridge games and so on. I picture my grandmother with nowhere to wear the lovely, neutral-colored suits and Chanel pumps we shop for on the top floor of the Saks in Boca. All because of her snotty granddaughter.

Once these boys get you on the phone, they insist on whipping out their Palm Pilots and making plans. So I often wind up agreeing to whatever-although I have been known, more often than not, to cancel these types of dates for reasons like, "Ummmm, it's raining ." Or even, "But that's laundry night!"

In our conversations, I generally don't even recognize my own voice. Lots of one-word answers and forced laughing. And I say things like, "How interesting!" And I can't help but feel like these boys-or at least their life styles-are in their late 70's, too. They talk about how much money they make. Sample topics: how they're looking at (blecch!) apartments in Trump Tower, how they're hiring (sick! ) dwarves to answer the door at their bonus celebration party.

I'm reminded that there are all these people running around this city, going on blind date after blind date like the very campus corporate recruitment interviews that landed them here. After about 13 months of this, they'll take their quest elsewhere: "It's too hard to meet somebody in New York," they'll explain to concerned relatives dying for progeny, before heading to Atlanta or Chicago. "And, besides," they'll say, "I miss my car!"

I always wind up talking about my grandmother, and asking about his, because, let's face it, when it comes to things in common, we have absolutely zilch. It's like I'm inflicting some kind of poetic justice, reducing the conversation to this level. We have been fixed up by our grandmothers; the odds that we'd have anything else to talk about are very low.

Once, I decided to pretend the boys were spies, to make it more interesting. Spies in a dangerous, K.G.B. sort of way. But then I realized they are spies. Grandmother spies, who will tell on me if I drink too much, use bad words or behave otherwise badly.

That's what's really weird about these boys: their complicity. They are wholehearted participants in the arranged-marriage-ness of it all. They delight in the efficiency of inspecting preapproved goods. I recently found myself in a bar with one of these boys feeling sort of like Darva Conger. I was being interviewed on a series of life style choices. Would I be comfortable raising children in the city? And if so, what is my opinion of boarding school? Do I prefer beach or ski vacations?

In the aftermath, the grandmothers run around like a couple of junior high schoolers exchanging information. Which, so far as I can tell, the boys have happily supplied. When my grandmother calls to ask how it went, I generally answer something along these lines: "I love you so much and you are otherwise flawless, but please, please, please never do that to me again." But these boys, these lunatic, wife-shopping boys, give their grandmothers blow-by-blows ! They wait for my grandma to give their grandma the go-ahead. It's like passing notes: He likes you and wants to know if you'll go to the roller-skating party with him.

One grandmother took Alma aside at a luncheon recently and asked her point blank: So he wants to know. Should he call again?

Note to boy: very sexy .

More than the court designer to a certain set of Park Avenue ladies, Bill Blass was the token gentleman of the gang: Nina Griscom, Anne Bass, Nan Kempner, Judy Peabody, Carolyne Roehm. He was the maker of the perfect $4,000 I-have-a-lunch suit, and a healthy diet of timeless evening gowns for incessant benefit-going. He was never cutting edge. He was all American. He was the name sewn into Nancy Reagan's neckline.

"Bill's just marvelous," said Anne Slater, a longtime customer and friend. "God really did a dance around him! He's a major delight! He's a blissful Blass!"

That must explain why Mr. Blass' hand-picked replacement, a 40-year-old from Detroit named Steven Slowik, has the tenuously eager air of a man who might at any moment burst into tears-despite the fact that he smiles a lot. In December, Mr. Slowik was hired to assume another man's name and seduce away all of his ladies. With everyone watching!

Mr. Slowik's first rendezvous was on Feb. 16, at a dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria honoring Mr. Blass for his work for the Lighthouse Foundation, a charity serving the blind. In a ballroom, the ex-designer introduced his successor to his harem. But the chemistry was lacking, what with the other man right in the same room plying everyone with meatloaf and oatmeal cookies from his own recipes.

" Judy Peabody !" said Mr. Slowik a few weeks later. "I've admired her for so long. It was amazing to meet everyone."

"He seemed like a most attractive young man," said Ms. Peabody. "And I was very pleased to meet him. But I can't believe that Mr. Blass isn't going to have a finger in the pie. His presence is so powerful, his personality, I mean. But I'm sure Mr. Slovak will bring his own talent and creativity."

The name's Slowik.

"I certainly don't know who Steven Floric is," said long-time Blass buddy Peter Duchin. "I've never heard his name in my life. What is he, of Polish descent? Now that's a great idea: a Polish designer! … What is it again?"

Slowik.

"Having the name Bill Blass remain makes it very hard," said Nina Griscom.

"Tough act to follow!" said Nan Kempner.

"Big shoes to fill!" said Aileen Mehle.

Somewhat sympathetically-somewhat sadistically-Mr. Blass has been otherwise out of the picture for several months, relaxing in Litchfield County, Conn. "I love not working!" he said.

When he sold his company for an estimated $50 million in October to his largest licensee and his chief financial officer, it was understood that he would find an appropriate match for the faithful women he dresses. Mr. Blass did his homework. For the past several seasons, Michael Kors has been behaving like a new Bill Blass for the junior society set-the Lauders, Millers and Boardmans-much to the dismay of many critics who find his look recycled. So what was in order was not a next-generation Bill Blass, it was more of what women love most about Blass-that they can wear the gowns again and not feel dated and that though the clothes are not particularly ambitious from a design perspective, they will certainly flatter.

Randolph Duke was recently out of a job at Halston, and quickly became a front-runner. But Mr. Slowik had a quieter thing happening, which Mr. Blass admired, though the two had never met. "I kind of like the idea that he's not generally known," said Mr. Blass. "It gives him a sleeper quality when he does arrive."

Mr. Slowik, like Madonna, grew up in Detroit, where, as a boy, he would read fashion magazines, get decked out in hip-huggers and platform shoes and dream of meeting the likes of the Great Mister Blass. "He was amazing!"

It was a cold March afternoon and Mr. Slowik, boyish, tall and sort of strapping, with fluffy highlighted hair, bushy eyebrows and deep laugh lines, was standing in the Seventh Avenue office where Mr. Blass designed his line for 40 years. "Mr. Blass left all of his books for me," he said. He was wearing pressed black pants and a white oxford shirt unbuttoned enough to reveal a white V-neck T-shirt underneath. He surveyed the shelves of bound Vogue s and Harper's Bazaar s. "Wasn't that nice?"

A loud remix from a fashion shoot in the next room bounced around his office. Mr. Slowik said he likes opera and club music. "The clubs in New York?" he said. "Forget it. London is so much fun."

Mr. Slowik first came to New York in the 80's to learn his trade at Parsons School of Design. There were stints as an assistant at Albert Nippon, and then at Calvin Klein. He interviewed once to work at Blass Sport, but he didn't get the job. "I sat in here," he said, "on the other side of the desk, and I couldn't believe I was actually meeting him."

In 1986, he was lured to Europe as head designer at Ferragamo, maker of horsy clothes and scarves for bleached Italian matrons. His designs there were consistently solid, if not ground-breaking. Conservative, classic, well constructed, certainly adhering to the Blass ethos that traveled right through the whole deconstructionist trend without batting an eyelash.

Mr. Slowik chose to live in Paris, rather than in Milan, and it was from there that he launched his own, private label. It was small, and financing came in the form of pockets emptied on the kitchen table. He made suits and mix-and-match separates. "I had a lot of support emotionally," he said. In New York, Barneys, Saks, Henri Bendel and Bergdorf Goodman carried the collection, and his customers tended to be "more professional women": doctors and lawyers.

Mr. Blass admired Mr. Slowik's connections in Europe, where Bill Blass is almost unknown. Expanding in Europe certainly seems on the agenda, since Mr. Slowik is keeping his place in Paris as well as closing a deal on an apartment in the West Village. Before his new office furniture had arrived, he was already packing for the European fabric shows where he would select materials for the spring collection, to be shown in Bryant Park in September.

Relax. Mr. Slowik does not plan any drastic changes. "I mean, some people do crazy, out-there things, and, well, I'm so glad they're doing it, but that's not me," he said. "Mr. Blass always did beautiful, wearable clothes and I don't want to change that." Then his face became serious. "I have a very good sense of color."

"I'm pretty intuitive as a rule," Mr. Blass said. "I felt strongly he'd be a good guy for the job. A person who's clever and can adjust to the situation he's put in."

As for his luck with the ladies?

"My ladies?" said Mr. Slowik. "Are my friends, I guess."

wagon. Investigated by the U.S. Justice Department for a commission-fixing conspiracy, Christie's has turned state's

evidence, The top management at Sotheby's has resigned. And the owner of Phillips, the third-largest house, is

sniffing around Sotheby's. Is there no reserve on trouble for the big three?

Christie's

Founded in 1766 in London by James Christie. Opened shop in New York in 1977; now in more than 41 countries. Has

never shaken its rep as the stuffiest of the auction houses, or as a finishing school for the offspring of the

Manhattan and London elite. Entry level is still dominated by young women, dubbed "Christie's girls," and most

auctions are still strictly black-tie affairs. In 1996, for the first time in 43 years, Christie's sales numbers

beat its only rival, Sotheby's, and have continued to do so.

Take: Worldwide sales for 1988 were $1.96 billion; 1999 sales estimated at over $2 billion, a record.

New Owner: François Pinault, 63. Fattest cat in France; net worth $6.6 billion. Self-made, buzz-cut high

school dropout. Got his start in timber. In early 1990's, started buying chain stores. Recently reincarnated as a

luxury-goods tycoon. Apparent shyness toward the spotlight conflicts with his growing appetite for high-profile

companies, but he did have French President Jacques Chirac at his son's wedding. In 1998, he paid $1.2 billion for

Christie's. Later snapped up owner of Yves Saint Laurent and Oscar de la Renta. Saved Gucci from the mitts of

countryman and longtime nemesis Bernard Arnault, a couture titan and up-and-coming auctioneer. Gucci contretemps

brought the two to dueling libel suits, which were later dropped. Also in his portfolio: in France, the Printemps

department store chain; FNAC, France's version of the Virgin megastore; and the discount mail-order catalogue La

Redoute. In the United States, interests in Vail and Beaver Creek ski resorts, Converse sneakers, Samsonite and

Chi-Chi's, a chain of Mexican restaurants. Mr. Pinault has sparked worries that he will try to expand Christie's

identity as a brand–Christie's clothing, perfumes, dry goods, etc. He has mulled erecting a hotel in the London

headquarters.

Headquarters: The 315,000-square-foot Rockefeller Center headquarters opened last spring, with 21,000

square feet of auction room space and a 30-foot-high Sol LeWitt mural in the lobby, a show of support for

contemporary art, the newest and most competitive area for the auction houses.

Role in Current Scandal : "They're the rats." Effectively hung Sotheby's out to dry when they reportedly

forked over documents and other materials related to the U.S. Department of Justice investigation, in exchange for

"conditional amnesty." Under U.S. law, only the first party to cooperate is entitled to amnesty.

On the Way Out: Christopher Davidge, the 54-year-old former chairman known as the "Golden Hamster" for his

puffy blond locks. Resigned from the auction house last Christmas Eve after 34 years. Depending on whom you ask, he

left after giving the Feds documents relating to the collusion charges. Or he was ousted because of the

investigation, or because he had feuded with the board and Mr. Pinault over the direction of the company–or both. Or

you could believe London's Mail on Sunday , which alleged that Mr. Davidge was pink-slipped because of a

torrid relationship with a 29-year-old Asian artifacts expert at Christie's. Landed a multimillion-dollar,

golden-parachute gag order before jumping ship, and was said to be on holiday in Argentina when the two Sotheby's

executives stepped down on Feb. 21.

Up-and-Comers: "Ed." 40-year-old rugby-playing chief executive and managing director Edward Dolman.

Started as a porter in 1984. Moved to New York to oversee North and South American operations and was installed to

replace outgoing chairman Christopher Davidge in January. May return to London, from where Mr. Davidge ran things.

Also: Christopher Burge, the city's most famous auctioneer. Played himself in The First Wives Club . Finally,

there's young Prince William, who punched in for a brief work stint at Christie's London last year.

Other Players: On the board: Hubert de Givenchy, the Earl of Halifax, John Lumley and other foreign

royals.

High Points: Two months before she died in 1998, Princess Diana sold 79 of her dresses at Christie's, one

for $223,000. Marilyn Monroe's "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" dress fetched $1.15 million. Fans paid $1,500 for a

Barbra Streisand tea set and $2,300 for her hair dryer. A pair of Wizard of Oz ruby-red slippers pulled in

$165,000 in 1988, the same year Christie's auctioned off part of the estate of cult-film actor-actress Divine. Sale

in 1990 of Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet landed $82.5 million, still the largest sum paid for a

single work of art at auction. Sale in 1997 of Victor and Sally Ganz's art collection for $206.5 million, a record

for a single-estate sale, including a $48 million sale of Picasso's Le Rêve . Other records: $8.4 million in

1996 for a Korean dragon jar (a record for an Asian work of art); $35.2 million paid in 1989 for Pontormo's

Portrait of Duke Cosimo I de Medici (a record for an Old Master painting); $640,500 for a Honus Wagner T-206

baseball card (auction record for sports memorabilia) and $146,000 for John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever

suit, presumably a record for a suit once owned by Gene Siskel.

Low Points: One of several houses duped by John Drewe, the masterful London con who manipulated fake

histories for his fraudulent classics. Took some grief for co-sponsoring the elephant dung, et al., at the Brooklyn

Museum of Art's Sensation show. Deprioritized plans for an interactive auction Web site, deciding to hold out

reportedly because a Web partnership could dilute brand identity and increase potential for sales of fakes and-or

damaged goods. Everything moved in-house. We're waiting!

On the Docket: In March, a subscriber's set of James Audubon's Birds of America series, expected to

pull in between $3 million and $4 million. Later this spring, an entertainment collectibles auction to include

another set of Judy Garland's ruby-red slippers; might fetch over $1 million.

Mood Around the Water Cooler: An increasingly competitive and aggressive atmosphere. Hours have been

stretched and working weekends is pretty standard. Trust-fund kids who show up looking for an easy post-Ivy gig

leave shellshocked after a few months.

Forecast: The feeling in the art world is that the only thing slimier than Christie's alleged collusion

was its willingness to sell its partner in crime up the river. Said one New York art dealer: "It couldn't happen to

a nicer bunch of people." To wit, cooperation is viewed as an admission of guilt and has brought on a class-action

lawsuit, currently being organized by former clients wanting commissions refunded. Even if things get sorted out

stateside, European and Australian investigators are only now looking into similar allegations.

–Jason Gay

Sotheby's

Started as a bookseller. First official auction was in 1744. John Sotheby inherited the business in 1778. In

1917, they began peddling fine art. Now in over 38 countries, with over 100 offices. Splits 95 percent of the

world's auction market with its only rival, Christie's. Leads the way in the People -magazining of auction

houses, which peaked around the time of the Jackie O. estate sale. Still packed with Vassar girls and well-heeled

gents. In 1977, it went public. In November 1999, it entered a strategic partnership with Amazon.com Inc. that

resulted in the joint auction Web site Sothebys.amazon.com.

Take: $1.87 billion for 1998.

New Owner: The big question. The house is up for sale and has been before. A. Alfred Taubman, 75, the

largest shareholder (who, with a group of investors, paid $139 million in 1983 for a significant share–Mr. Taubman

now holds 22.5 percent), stepped down as chairman on Feb. 21. A shopping-mall king from Detroit, known for his

hands-off approach mostly because he didn't know a thing about auctions when he bought in. Net worth estimated at

$860 million by Forbes . Still effectively the owner, but likely to be asked by the board to sell his majority

stake, either to cooperate with the Feds or to satisfy public opinion. Reportedly had offers from Web partner

Amazon.com, EBay.com and French acquisitionist Bernard Arnault, who already owns the third-largest auction house in

the world ( see Phillips).

Headquarters: Currently creating a 10-story art mall atop their offices on York Avenue near East 70th

Street. Can you say food court? Idea is to make the out-of-the-way place a destination. Its tony "international"

real estate company and its collectibles department will move in, and so will a heap of dusty art in off-site

storage. Maybe even some dealers.

Role in the Scandal: The target. Although Christie's employees reportedly received a series of subpoenas

last year, the same was not true of Sotheby's, which kept quiet while Christie's turned state's evidence. Raising

the question: Did they draw the wrong straw, or are they more guilty? Unlike Christie's, which has gotten a new

chairman and a new owner within the last two years, Sotheby's leadership has been in control during the entire

course of the Justice Department investigation. The implications: A sale is inevitable to convince public opinion

that it has reformed.

On the Way Out: Dede Brooks, 49, Sotheby's president and chief executive since 1994. Went down with Mr.

Taubman after a 21-year career there. She was the auction house, running it day to day, acting as spokesman

and auctioneer and house mother. Brooks loyalists are shocked by the notion that she would have been involved in

collusion with Christie's and wonder if the illegal activity took place at some level beneath her. Others say,

considering her style, how could she not have know everything? Also: Tiffany Dubin, Mr. Taubman's stepdaughter, left

for the Action Channel last year. Ms. Dubin led the house in its plunge toward contemporary memorabilia sales, her

specialty being vintage clothing–i.e. shift dresses and bell-bottoms. She got out just in time.

Up-and-Comers: A new chairman will come with a new owner. Internal candidates are hard to identify right

away, considering the dominance of Ms. Brooks.

Other Players: Two figureheads have arisen, but neither is likely to be permanent. Michael Sovern,

68–former president of Columbia University, personal friend of Sotheby's board member Henry Kravis and trustee of

President Bill Clinton's legal defense fund–was named chairman. He's Mr. Damage Control. William Ruprecht, formerly

senior vice president, replaced Ms. Brooks as president and chief executive. He joined the company in 1980. Became

managing director of Sotheby's North and South American division in 1994. His favorite line to staff is, "I don't

work for the Department of Justice." Other high-profile board members: Sharon Percy Rockefeller, the president of

WETA, the Washington D.C. public broadcasting company, and Conrad Black, the Canadian media mogul.

High Points: "Jackie's junque," as someone dubbed the sale of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis'

estate, which took in $34.5 million. The estate of Pamela Harriman, the U.S. Ambassador to France, got $8.7 million.

Also: a preserved slice of wedding cake from the nuptials of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor for $29,000 in 1998 and

a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton for $8.4 million in 1997. Way back in 1811, Sotheby's sold the library of Napoleon.

Most expensive single item it ever sold: Pierre Renoir's Au Moulin de la Galette for $78.1 million in 1990.

Other notable items: Vincent van Gogh's Irises for $53 million.

Low Points: Right this minute. With the one-woman show in the figure of Ms. Brooks off the premises,

Sotheby's is a vacuum.

On the Docket: Unlike last spring, when Sotheby's auctioned off the estate of Mr. and Mrs. John Jay

Whitney for $170 million, there is no major estate sale coming up this spring. In fact, other than the annual

Impressionists sale set for May, there's nothing notable on the schedule, which may have to do with a crisis of

confidence among consumers based on all the bad press.

Mood Around the Water Cooler: One Sotheby's staff member said managers are begging people not to quit over

the mess. And Mr. Ruprecht has tried to buttress confidence by holding staff meetings to discuss the upcoming spring

auction season, an important aspect of Sotheby's fiscal year. Several other employees said there had been no

discussion about the antitrust investigation at all.

Forecast: There's been no comment on a sale. All planning now is short-term. Analysts say that if Mr.

Kravis took over, it's likely he would take the company private, restructure things and then make a killing on a new

I.P.O. Then again, if Mr. Kravis wanted Sotheby's, he's been in a good position to buy it–and at a much better

price–for years and hasn't. He has also had a former KKR guy, Kevin Bousquette, inside Sotheby's as chief operating

officer, so he knows the company's entrails. Mr. Arnault would likely merge Sotheby's with Phillips to create one

huge concern to compete with Christie's. The thought of EBay or Amazon taking it over does not bode well for the

city's fine art market.

–Kate Kelly

Phillips

Started as a bookseller. First official auction was in 1744. John Sotheby inherited the business in 1778. In

1917, they began peddling fine art. Now in over 38 countries, with over 100 offices. Splits 95 percent of the

world's auction market with its only rival, Christie's. Leads the way in the People -magazining of auction

houses, which peaked around the time of the Jackie O. estate sale. Still packed with Vassar girls and well-heeled

gents. In 1977, it went public. In November 1999, it entered a strategic partnership with Amazon.com Inc. that

resulted in the joint auction Web site Sothebys.amazon.com.

Take: $1.87 billion for 1998.

New Owner: The big question. The house is up for sale and has been before. A. Alfred Taubman, 75, the

largest shareholder (who, with a group of investors, paid $139 million in 1983 for a significant share–Mr. Taubman

now holds 22.5 percent), stepped down as chairman on Feb. 21. A shopping-mall king from Detroit, known for his

hands-off approach mostly because he didn't know a thing about auctions when he bought in. Net worth estimated at

$860 million by Forbes . Still effectively the owner, but likely to be asked by the board to sell his majority

stake, either to cooperate with the Feds or to satisfy public opinion. Reportedly had offers from Web partner

Amazon.com, EBay.com and French acquisitionist Bernard Arnault, who already owns the third-largest auction house in

the world ( see Phillips).

Headquarters: Currently creating a 10-story art mall atop their offices on York Avenue near East 70th

Street. Can you say food court? Idea is to make the out-of-the-way place a destination. Its tony "international"

real estate company and its collectibles department will move in, and so will a heap of dusty art in off-site

storage. Maybe even some dealers.

Role in the Scandal: The target. Although Christie's employees reportedly received a series of subpoenas

last year, the same was not true of Sotheby's, which kept quiet while Christie's turned state's evidence. Raising

the question: Did they draw the wrong straw, or are they more guilty? Unlike Christie's, which has gotten a new

chairman and a new owner within the last two years, Sotheby's leadership has been in control during the entire

course of the Justice Department investigation. The implications: A sale is inevitable to convince public opinion

that it has reformed.

On the Way Out: Dede Brooks, 49, Sotheby's president and chief executive since 1994. Went down with Mr.

Taubman after a 21-year career there. She was the auction house, running it day to day, acting as spokesman

and auctioneer and house mother. Brooks loyalists are shocked by the notion that she would have been involved in

collusion with Christie's and wonder if the illegal activity took place at some level beneath her. Others say,

considering her style, how could she not have know everything? Also: Tiffany Dubin, Mr. Taubman's stepdaughter, left

for the Action Channel last year. Ms. Dubin led the house in its plunge toward contemporary memorabilia sales, her

specialty being vintage clothing–i.e. shift dresses and bell-bottoms. She got out just in time.

Up-and-Comers : A new chairman will come with a new owner. Internal

candidates are hard to identify right away, considering the dominance of Ms. Brooks.

Other Players: Two figureheads have arisen, but neither is likely to be

permanent. Michael Sovern, 68–former president of Columbia University, personal friend of Sotheby's board member

Henry Kravis and trustee of President Bill Clinton's legal defense fund–was named chairman. He's Mr. Damage Control.

William Ruprecht, formerly senior vice president, replaced Ms. Brooks as president and chief executive. He joined

the company in 1980. Became managing director of Sotheby's North and South American division in 1994. His favorite

line to staff is, "I don't work for the Department of Justice." Other high-profile board members: Sharon Percy

Rockefeller, the president of WETA, the Washington D.C. public broadcasting company, and Conrad Black, the Canadian

media mogul.

High Points: "Jackie's junque," as someone dubbed the sale of First Lady

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' estate, which took in $34.5 million. The estate of Pamela Harriman, the U.S. Ambassador

to France, got $8.7 million. Also: a preserved slice of wedding cake from the nuptials of the Duke and Duchess of

Windsor for $29,000 in 1998 and a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton for $8.4 million in 1997. Way back in 1811, Sotheby's

sold the library of Napoleon. Most expensive single item it ever sold: Pierre Renoir's Au Moulin de la

Galette for $78.1 million in 1990. Other notable items: Vincent van Gogh's Irises for $53 million.

Low Points: Right this minute. With the one-woman show in the figure of Ms. Brooks off the premises,

Sotheby's is a vacuum.

On the Docket: Unlike last spring, when Sotheby's auctioned off the estate of Mr. and Mrs. John Jay

Whitney for $170 million, there is no major estate sale coming up this spring. In fact, other than the annual

Impressionists sale set for May, there's nothing notable on the schedule, which may have to do with a crisis of

confidence among consumers based on all the bad press.

Mood Around the Water Cooler: One Sotheby's staff member said managers are begging people not to quit over

the mess. And Mr. Ruprecht has tried to buttress confidence by holding staff meetings to discuss the upcoming spring

auction season, an important aspect of Sotheby's fiscal year. Several other employees said there had been no

discussion about the antitrust investigation at all.

Forecast: There's been no comment on a sale. All planning now is short-term. Analysts say that if Mr.

Kravis took over, it's likely he would take the company private, restructure things and then make a killing on a new

I.P.O. Then again, if Mr. Kravis wanted Sotheby's, he's been in a good position to buy it–and at a much better

price–for years and hasn't. He has also had a former KKR guy, Kevin Bousquette, inside Sotheby's as chief operating

officer, so he knows the company's entrails. Mr. Arnault would likely merge Sotheby's with Phillips to create one

huge concern to compete with Christie's. The thought of EBay or Amazon taking it over does not bode well for the

city's fine art market.

–Kate Kelly

Right in the middle of New York's fall 2000 fashion shows, at around 8 P.M. on Feb. 6, as fashion editors put in appearances around the pool of Diane Von Furstenberg's West Village carriage house, this year's show-to-be-at had been decided.

"Are you going to Miguel?" asked a French fashion editor, nervously checking her watch and casting an eye toward the door.

At 9 P.M., Miguel Adrover, 34, had arranged to show his second collection ever at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center at 107 Suffolk Street. No invitations had been sent out. It wasn't on any schedule. Assistants of those who wanted to attend had to be dispatched to the 57th Street offices of publicist Marion Greenberg to beg for passes: a dollar bill with the address stamped on it.

Inside the theater, in a low-ceilinged room with a T-shaped catwalk and loud, classical piano music playing, the room grew overcrowded. Designer Nicole Miller; Vogue creative director Grace Coddington; New York Times Magazine stylist Anne Christensen; and Harper's Bazaar editor at large Brana Wolf, filed into the front row next to Vogue editor Anna Wintour. There was no run-of-show program with which to follow along, and the lights were dimmed so that they just illuminated the runway.

The show delivered a quiet rebellion against the rich-bitch look being shown by older, established designers. Volunteer models wore Burberry's trench coats, an Hermès belt or a swatch cut from a piece of Louis Vuitton luggage sewn onto it-trademark labels, twisted out of context for emphasis. A Burberry coat was turned inside out and worn backwards and rebelted, with the label front and center. A parody of the gray flannel suit featured one pair of pants cut open at the crotch, pulled over the head, with the arms in the legs, worn as a jacket, cinched by an Hermès logo belt. Even Yankees caps had been sewn into the shoulders of a plain navy sweatshirt.

"Other shows are like catalogues," Mr. Adrover said after the event. "My show is an adventure … I tried to represent the streets of New York. Like a rich, chic lady from uptown and a hip, chick lady from downtown. Mix it together and represent the street. Rich class, poor class, and at the end of the day, all walking on the same street … The street doesn't have class."

Then there was the Victorian-style suit, complete with a knee-length jacket, which Mr. Adrover claimed he made from a mattress that belonged to the writer and actor Quentin Crisp. "When he died, they put all his stuff on the street," said Mr. Adrover, who was a neighbor of Crisp's. "And I was trying to show a little bit about how hard it can be living on the street. And I just took it home and pulled it apart and created a nice, tailored suit. The stains? It doesn't matter. Life is hard, I will say."

He added: "I hate label whores."

But the label whores just adore Mr. Adrover. The day after the show, under the tents in Bryant Park, he was news: He's got so much humor! He's really pushing the envelope! I've been watching him for a while.

Women's Wear Daily put the Burberry's dress on its Feb. 7 cover and called Mr. Adrover "New York's New Star." And Cathy Horyn, in The New York Times , raved until she was reduced to a one-word sentence: "Wonderful." Vogue.com called him "one of the most creative new talents on the fashion scene." Burberry's, now on a tireless mission to become hip, was initially less than pleased, and considered legal action. By Feb. 18, the company had cooled off.

"After the show, my head was like a balloon," said the designer, who seemed to be hiding out at the offices of Ms. Greenberg, who is his pro bono publicist-at least for now. "I've got so many messages and everything. I am overwhelmed.… But if you think I've got a minute to relax? It's not like that. You have a whole other show to do."

He was munching on leftover Valentine's Day candy. "Valentine's is for losers," he said.

"All my editors tell me he's the next big thing," Ms. Wintour told Women's Wear Daily .

Mr. Adrover's story has become an urban fashion legend, and "it's a long story, baby!" he said. He was born on the Spanish island Majorca, in a town of 200; his parents are almond farmers. He dropped out of school at age 12 and, a few years later, headed off to London where, while working as a janitor in hotels, he started to become a regular at nightclubs.

"It was punk," he said. "The New Romantics." It was also in London that he first got interested in fashion and met Alexander McQueen, who is now the designer for Givenchy. "I fell into fashion accidentally," said Mr. Adrover. "It just comes up, you know? I have a passion for clothes. Alexander is a good friend of mine, and I collaborated with him for several years, for about five or six seasons. It was not a job, it was helping a good friend."

He moved to New York in 1991 and began to design T-shirts under the label DOGG. They sold at Patricia Field, a store on East Eighth Street, and overseas in Japan. Four years ago, he opened his own store, called Horn, on East Ninth Street. It's filled with his own quirky, one-of-a-kind clothes and sometimes those of friends. Rarely, there's an Alexander McQueen showpiece hanging on the rack.

Despite the store, his studio and a wealth of connections, a big part of the legend is that this guy is destitute. In the chairs at Bryant Park, it was repeated over and over again. He's only got $13! He lives in a 300-square-foot basement! How poor, how untrained, how raw.

"He's famously impoverished," said Glenn Belverio, who interviewed Mr. Adrover for the fashion magazine Dutch . "He obviously doesn't come from wealth. And I think often people who come from poor backgrounds are keyed into esthetic things. Like style. I think there's something more genuine about their interest and the way they express it."

"It was a brilliant sendup of the whole Burberry plaid thing," said Mr. Belverio. "It was uncanny how he was able to focus on that and subvert it. I mean, this is someone who can't afford trend reports !"

Mr. Adrover's condition encouraged stylists, models and publicists to work for free. "He doesn't have any money at all," said Eric Daman, a stylist who worked 12- and 13-hour days for a month preparing for the show. "We'd all bring food to eat, we'd all share food. That kind of thing. It's like a big paradox, that he can't buy a bagel at the deli, but has the cover of Women's Wear Daily saying he's a big star. He still can't afford to buy cigarettes."

"I live in a small apartment," Mr. Adrover said. "So it just shows that creativity can come from anywhere. It has nothing to do with money. It's not a lucky thing. I worked day and night for many months. Sacrificing eating to buy fabric."

Last September, Mr. Adrover presented his first collection at the spring shows-a lesser version of this year's event. He described it as the story of a Brazilian woman who was kicked out of her rain forest home by loggers. She migrates to Mexico, where she joins the Zapatista rebels, and then to New York, where she winds up homeless, wearing a resewn American flag.

"Even though it wasn't a great retail success," said Linda Dresner, owner of the eponymous Park Avenue boutique and the only retailer who regularly carries Mr. Adrover's clothes, "I still very much admired his point of view."

But an event in November kept Mr. Adrover's reputation alive. Vogue asked to photograph some pieces for an upcoming issue. According to Mr. Adrover, every single item was stolen from a closet in the magazine's offices. Vogue confirmed the story. "It was upsetting, but in a way it was kind of flattering," he said. "I mean, when I realized someone was really behind it, I was like, 'Wow!' Because there were a lot of things from other designers there, things that were much more expensive. And they didn't take the things from the other designers. They took my stuff ."

Barneys New York ordered a number of pieces from the new collection the week of Feb. 14. And, Mr. Adrover claimed, he's hearing offers from various backers.

"Maybe I'll sign with a big house," he said. "It depends on the house. I've got to hear offers, and I'm getting some offers. But with the press I've been getting, you know, cover of Women's Wear Daily , New York's new star, well, the investors look at that. You're going to get a backer."

And then-but for ironic incarnations by designers like Dolce & Gabbana and Jean-Paul Gaultier-they were gone. Renounced as tools of oppression, the idea absorbed into manic rituals of ripping your abs and adopting protein-only diets. Fashion veered toward the defensive, the practical: Zippers, sneakers, hoods and pockets were attached to designs for hipless girls and skinny boys.

But there it was, the end of the millennium, and everyone was watching Any Given Sunday . Big, sweating American men in their armor: mammoth shoulders, bulging torsos, tiny waists. V-shaped men. Jamie Foxx! And then, in the female equivalent of shoulder pads and chest protectors, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett were running around Italy in angora beanies with perfect postures, their waists cinched in, their hips flat under circle skirts, their shoulders back, their busts insulated and protected, then covered by cashmere sweaters and Revillon furs in The Talented Mr. Ripley .

All those gorgeous clothes- that fabulous white opera gown !-and what did Ms. Blanchett like wearing best? The girdle. It just made you want to go out and buy one to wear with your new side-parted hairdo and tube of straight-up, matte red lipstick. To dress up, packed tight as a firecracker.

Well, maybe you should.

The new spring collections in stores are calling out for a little old-fashioned tummy support: a modern girdle. Prada knee-length skirts and tucked-in blouses, classic Chanel suits with short-waisted jackets, Calvin Klein pencil skirts. And the Tuleh fall 2000 line, to be shown next month, has form-fitting pieces with boning. "It's completely about real, classic New York style. Park Avenue style," said Tuleh designer Josh Patner. "Those are really built clothes, and foundation garments are a really big part of those looks."

Fortunately, the new girdle has a new design, too. Explained Gwen Widell, a vice president at Warnaco, "It's for the size 4 who doesn't think she's slim enough or shaped right."

Forget the elastic trap your grandmother wore. The girdle has reached the level of high-tech lingerie. There are thong girdles. Crotchless girdles. There are high-end options from Wolford, Fogal and La Perla ($45 to $200). A little less pricy and less frilly are the Calvin Klein and Donna Karan models ($20 to $60). Some are shaped like little biker shorts, others are like extremely tight miniskirts, others like hip huggers. Then there's the I Can't Believe It's a Girdle ($16 to $35). They are smooth and plain, or lacy and extravagant. And they're not for hiding fat. They take carbohydrate-deprived, Tae Boed figures and reconfigure them -cinching waists, smoothing thighs, lifting bottoms.

"In the last two to three years, there's been a real resurgence," said Francine Klein of Bloomingdale's intimate apparel division. "The growth is really coming from the newer customer who is younger.… These are women you might not think of wearing a control garment, just because they're thin. But they do! That's who's buying the product."

Like overexercised actress Sarah Jessica Parker, who's wearing a Tuleh corset to the Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 23. "It gives you a certain feeling of stature when you wear those things," said Mr. Patner, about the revival of the girdle.

Valerie Steele, who is currently curating an exhibit at the Fashion Institute of Technology, on Seventh Avenue at 27th Street called The Corset: Fashioning the Body , first bought a girdle out of simple love of Prada. "I had my eye on this beautiful Prada blouse and skirt," she said. "It's really, really pretty, and I was just thinking, I wonder what the best foundations to wear with that will be? A bra, of course, but then wouldn't it be nice to have sort of a little waist cincher?"

Though the contraptions have not really gotten more comfortable, Tiffany Dubin, the petite vice president of marketing at the Auction Channel, said women wearing girdles again means "it's O.K. to have a more feminine body, it's O.K. to gain a few pounds. Those neurotic 80's women are totally looked down on."

"It feels good to be held in," said Ms. Dubin, who eats a lot less when she's out in the corset she bought on Orchard Street. "A girdle's just classic. It's chicer to wear one. It always looks right."

The girdle craze is rooted in a fashion backlash. "It's a total sea change," said Mr. Patner. "It's a return to a classic wardrobe, it's the death of uniforms of convenience. This has not been seen for 25 years, especially in young women. Hats, gloves, a real sense of precision, of being appropriate."

"Minimalism sort of hit a wall," said Hal Rubenstein, fashion features director of In Style magazine. "Everybody thought that you'd enter the millennium wearing a stretch jean-o-tard. Here we finally get to the millennium and it's about high heels and velvet. It's the exact opposite of what everyone expected."

Explained Ann Roth, who designed the girdle-dependent costumes for Ripley : "If one is sitting on a subway, you would have to say it's a primmer look because the knees are pretty much together," she said. "The back is straighter, the tummy's flatter. It's less take me as I am ."

"I think that there seems to be an air of sophistication that has surfaced. There seems to be a return to luxury," said designer Yeohlee Teng from her studio where she had just finished a Lycra corset for the F.I.T. exhibition. "Women will look more sensual and more like women … I think form is going to be very important, whereas before it was function. There's a move away from the high-tech and practical issues, like, 'Yeah! How many pockets do I have? And I can convert my skirt into a pant? ' Instead, I'm feeling that people are wanting to look glamorous and sophisticated and important."

And the new girdle is all those things. "There's nothing wrong with a little assistance here and there," said Mr. Rubenstein. "What you will see is somebody who is fit already, putting on one of these things to maybe enhance a little more."

That's good news for Lisa Gabor, a fashion writer. "Unfortunately," she said, "I haven't been in the mood to work out for a year now."

But it's not for everyone. Some women might be resistant, not just because they think their sex has come too far to go back to girdles. "It has a lot to do with the name of the thing," said Ms. Gabor. "It's all about, can you ever see yourself wearing a girdle? Oh, my God! I would probably never get out of bed. But … but … a little control panel? Now we're talking!"

A middle-aged man who maintains a girdle fetish Web site called Zona: The Girdle Zone and identifies himself only as Virginian insists that girdles can be about freedom. "Now that women aren't faced with societal pressure that says they have to wear a girdle all the time," he explained, "a woman can make a decision to wear one with a particular special outfit without feeling that she has somehow condemned herself to a lifetime of daily constriction." Postings to his Web site are filled with all sorts of girdle-love tales. Like the 28-year-old newlywed who gushed, "It was strange to see myself fitting so well into a dress!"

"Maybe it's going to be fun to be a girl again," said Ms. Teng. "I think that women are being enhanced rather than obliterated."

Take her speech at the 1998 VH1- Vogue Fashion Awards where Donatella Versace and Sting presented her with the Gianni Versace Personal Style Award. She was dressed in a sari and was barefoot. "Gianni Versace was a great man and a great talent, and it's an honor to receive this award in his name. Especially from two people I'm so very fond of."

She was hyper-enunciating. Until she came to the end. Then it almost sounded translated–like she said " vahhry fohnd ."

"If I hadn't known that she started out as an American, I would've said she was an English person who wanted to sound like an American and made it part of the way," said George Jochnowitz, a professor of linguistics at City University's College of Staten Island, when asked to explain the Material Girl's dialect.

Some have taken to calling it mid-Atlantic English, by which they don't mean the language of Pennsylvania. "It's like you've spent so much time on the Concorde you're all caught up in the middle," explained Hannah Lawrence, director of public relations at Helmut Lang who really is from London. Picture Gwyneth Paltrow over international waters–with Emma , Sliding Doors, Shakespeare in Love and countless cover photo shoots behind her–not exactly sure how to pronounce the word "really."

As far as anyone can tell, the Concorde accent was picked up on the faah-shion show circuit and brought to America. It has quickly spread through the mastheads of the fashion books–where in the lower ranks they're trying to make you think they went straight from Vassar to Vogue via a year abroad in Venice–and beyond. Very Institut Le Rosey.

It says, "I'm interesting–or at least you're not sure that I'm not." And it's fun. With her Audrey Hepburn affectation–part leftovers from being cast British, part proof that she's a serious actress–Ms. Paltrow never shows up out of character. With Madonna's dialect from nowhere–part imitating the Italians who dress her, part " I can act !"–she gets some kind of mysterious-woman-without-a-language mystique.

It's Grace Kelly or Katharine Hepburn cross-pollinated with double-cheek-kissing Ingrid Bergman. It's ending sentences with an innocent little Italian " no? " Or using words like " shall " and " quite " and giving them a rhythm.

"It's probably because of the way I was brought up," lilted freelance fashion consultant Polly Mellen–who is always being told she sounds somewhat British. "Probably because I always went to private school and had a really, sort of, very, how can I say it, priv-i-leged education and life. I was really sort of packed in cotton."

Candy Pratts Price, creative director of the 1999 VH1- Vogue Fashion Awards, said her biggest offense is saying " taahsel " instead of "tassel." "I didn't go to public school, you know," she said.

Some claim it's an accident. "Every now and then I'll catch myself," admitted Lee Carter, editor of Hint , an on-line fashion magazine. "Like one time I said ' claahhs ,' when I meant to say 'class.' And I was like, 'Oh no!' It just happened. It was definitely not conscious. I was like, that's so fake and phony, I've got to stop doing this! I think it has to do with wanting to sound professional."

But it always sounds affected. "It's certainly not the case that most people beyond teenage automatically shift their English very fast if they go to another area," said Bill Stewart, a professor of linguistics at City University. "They would have to make a conscious effort to do so. And they would often not get it right."

"You can tell when it's put on because people think it's chi-chi," said Ms. Mellon. "I mean, there's a woman in a very, very big, big job, and she never used to talk like that . That's easy to spot, and that's usually younger people who are learning."

Sam Chwat, director of New York Speech Improvement Services, usually works with actors preparing for a role. But nowadays, he said, some of his clients are just preparing for their roles in life. "There's snob appeal … Since this whole Madonna thing started, we've had a few more clients looking for British accents. We try and warn people if they're American and adopting British accents, it's going to sound phony. And they're going to be found out."

Nonetheless, the clients know what they want. "I had a client who was a man in his 50's, a c.e.o. in the fashion industry," said Mr. Chwat, "and he had a very, very strong New York accent which he felt was an industry joke, that here he was, Armani-clad and otherwise elegant and powerful, and his speech was belying his image: He had an Italian-based, Tony Danza-type accent. Now if you met this guy, you would swear that he was vaguely continental. That he did not go to school in this country."

In other words, he just sounds sort of expensively confused. It's the occasional–but not uniform–" cahn't " instead of " can't ," or " rilly " instead of " really ." But it's there. It's a softening of vowels, it's keeping T's as pinpointed little T's instead of allowing them to morph into thudding D's. "One of the most consistent differences between British and American speech is what you do with a T in between two vowels," said Mr. Jochnowitz. "Like 'nom-i-na-ted.' Most Americans use a sound that's closer to 'D.'"

According to Mr. Jochnowitz, Americans trying to sound British tend to first soften their A sounds into "ah" sounds, and then drop their R's. "People in fashion have to speak about their product all the time," he said, as he watched a tape of Vogue editor at large André Leon Talley commentating on last summer's couture collections in Paris. Mr. Talley was speaking loudly and clearly. Each word was distinct. He rarely pronounced the letter R, "again" was "a-gain." " Sweat-ah ," " trouse-ah ." And his voice rose up and down like a song or a chant.

"He starts with an R-less dialect," the professor explained. "Which sounds like part of a native Southern accent. [Mr. Talley is, in fact, from the South.] The fact that he's R-less but doesn't sound like a Southerner is what gives the suggestion that he's British. He also speaks very precisely, which is, I guess, a professional thing, but has a British association, whereas we think of Southerners as being somewhat relaxed. But fashion people are always describing, making a point. You have the necessity to be clear in order to make your point. And that might explain why you would make sure you have all your differences in pitch, and why you keep all your consonants."

In the travel-heavy fashion industry, it's easily explained away time and again: "After traveling different places, especially when you go to London and you're in that environment and you're around fashion in that area, you definitely pick up words and things like that," said April Hughes, an editor at Elle . "And living in New York, you pick up a little from everything. It's an influence from old-school fashionistas like Diana Vreeland, it's what designers are saying this season–like Michael Kors is saying 'Palm Bitch,' so suddenly you're into that. And it's an influence that's definitely European. Mostly British."

Once the accent and rhythms are down, the fashion lexicon becomes very important. "At one time, certainly, French words had cachet," said Old Navy spokesman Carrie Donovan, whose voice warbles up high like a schoolteacher. Provided that school is Brearley and the year is 1949. "Like something having chien meant something." Ms. Donovan's voice turned wistful. (F.Y.I.: It means it was chic.) "But I think that phase is sort of gone."

Right now, it's pretty much unanimous that–unless you're ordering coffee or being sort of ironic –foreign phrases are out. But "genius" and "brilliant" don't seem to be budging in popularity. The royal 'we' is an important part of the dialect. "It's, you know, 'We're loving pink this year.' I think it's gracious. You don't come back as a reporter and say, 'I saw pink.' It means Vogue says stilettos, not Missy so-and-so says stilettos. Vogue did, and that's a bible," said Ms. Price.

Also important is the nearly constant use of the present progressive tense. " It's working ," " I'm loving it ." "It's a dance," said Ms. Price, "and it's not finished until you're finished saying it."

"It shows that it's more immediate," explained Mr. Jochnowitz. "Not simply that it works all the time, but it works at this very minute."

Elizabeth Saltzman, the fashion director of Vanity Fair , favors word shortening. " Gorge " instead of "gorgeous," "faboo " for "fabulous." She also likes " flawless ." The collection? " Flawless ." Michael Kors? " Flawless ." Tom Ford? "Looks–and is –flawless." Which leads to another of Ms. Saltzman's favorites–" Full Gooch ," which means head-to-toe Gucci.

Ms. Mellen worries about precision, about the most efficacious way to use words in such a visual profession, which is, Mr. Jochnowitz explained, one likely explanation for a tendency toward a more European accent. "[In fashion people] you have more marked variations in pitch. Americans have a tendency to skip consonants, jump right over them, hardly pronounce them. Maybe people in fashion have to speak about their product all the time, and you have the necessity to be clear in order to make your point. Which would explain differences in pitch."

"I think that when I was younger I used too many adjectives," said Ms. Mellen, who is told she's not shy about the word " divine ." "I saw Annie Leibovitz today, for instance, and I wanted to express to her what I felt about her book [ Women ], and I didn't use flowery language. I tried to use words that she would understand and might mean something to her, as she's a very intelligent and visual person."

"Maybe that has a lot to do with being creative," offered Ms. Lawrence, who happens to think Madonna just sounds American. "That's why we're in the fashion industry: because we're creative. And maybe the creative qualities that one has might mean a tendency toward a more musical ear. Especially in somebody like Madonna. She's so talented creatively and musically. And probably her ear is very, very sensitive to sounds and pitches."

And the fashion industry–with its British editors such as Anna Wintour; Grace Coddington; the Sykes sisters, Plum and Lucy; Liz Tilberis; Gabé Doppelt and too many publicists to name–has always had a little accent fetish. "I always think it sounds really nice," said Mr. Carter, "but I also know that a lot of British people are hired because of their accents, and that's the first thing I think of. I'm always like, 'I wonder if this person knows what she's doing or she was just hired because of her accent.' Because I've heard that from so many people. Especially in p.r. Because it just sounds better. Like they can get their way more often."

Fade to H&M's 65 young designers-all Swedish and wearing tight black pants and sneakers with very big soles-sketching away at their blond wood drafting tables. They were working together . With each other. With the fabric buyers. No egos. No competition. Not a break-out-on-my-own instinct among them. It was like some Scandinavian dream of enforced social compact brought to Manhattan.

As they listened, earnestly, the throngs of giddy young applicants who had responded to a New York Times help-wanted ad were also studying the "Hello, my name is" stickers of the clipboard-wielding H&M employees among them. ( Hello, Gunnar! Hello, Melker! ). They also gazed at the enormous H&M ads adorning the walls, featuring Johnny Depp looking moody and stubble-faced.

The tape wrapped up with views of pretty, bright factories where Bangladeshi workers were happily stitching away, and shots of enormous freighters shipping carton after carton of nylon cargo pants all over the world. The applicants were ushered inside the offices where each was assigned one European and one American H&M employee to chat with. Very foreign.

"People say, you are so different," said Per Darj, the lanky, turtleneck-wearing Swede sent by H&M to spread the seed in New York. "We look for personality. We have a different style. We are more interested in the person. It's about your qualities. It's about you.

"An American would ask, 'What have you produced?'" he said, raising his thick brow at the innocence of such a question. "We don't, because to us you are part of a system, part of a team. How will you fit into our well-being?"

And, most important, how will you convince Americans that they need to shop every single day ? "People say the Americans are less fashionable," said Mr. Darj. "And that can be, perhaps, outside of the city. But they know quality for a price."

Mr. Darj thinks he knows the way New Yorkers shop: They spend their money on basics at places like Barneys and go to chain stores for trendy, basically disposable items. Remember hoodie sweaters? That flash in the pan that spread from Marc Jacobs to the Gap in a week. You've hardly even paid off the Visa bill, but they're gone. Buy your trendy things here cheap , H&M begs.

"You see something, then, after six months, it's-" Mr. Darj made a whisking noise. Gone ! "It works our way, 'cause we are so quick."

The chain claims to get new merchandise every day and plans to allow its managers to independently mark things down at will-whatever it takes to sell their merchandise to Americans.

The first load of tall, blond Swedes who have taken up residence at H&M's United States headquarters at 640 Fifth Avenue, to strategize their infiltration of the city with dozens of outposts, think New York has never seen anything like them or their clothes.

"People will look and say, 'That is not the price,'" said Mr. Darj. "But it is!"

Some of the prices can be reminiscent of Kmart or Target-or at least Old Navy. The styles compare more to Club Monaco's Girl Friday trousers and skirts or Zara's snug Capri pants and pony-skin coats. But unlike their rivals, H&M carries everything from larger sizes to maternity wear to baby clothes and cosmetics. And it guarantees that every store-600 so far, worldwide-gets new shipments every day.

"If you want to get the latest fashion," said Mr. Darj, "well, you come in."

In March, H&M will open the 35,000-square-foot store at 640 Fifth Avenue in Rockefeller Center and two others in New Jersey malls in Paramus and the Palisades. The chain has also spoken for space on the high-profile site of the former Alexander's department store, one block south from Bloomingdale's on Lexington Avenue and 59th Street, where it plans to open another store in 2001.

"It's part of our global strategy," said Mr. Darj, who is originally from Stockholm, but fresh from five years situating H&M in Austria. "We're classy. We are always in the best location." Ultimately, H&M plans to have as many New York stores as the Gap, and it is investigating-naturally-the most environmentally conscientious way to get its ponchos to America-and fast .

In Rockefeller Center, H&M will be right next door to Banana Republic, where Richard Rappaport, a 25-year-old from Queens who has been hired as a manager, used to work. He's also worked at Brooks Brothers and Saks Fifth Avenue. But he has never been to Sweden. On Nov. 19, Mr. Rappaport was bouncing around H&M's Fifth Avenue headquarters thinking about the trip-during which he'll shadow a native store manager-and how ready he is to become a little bit, well, Swedish .

"But I knew a lot of things," said the smooth-faced Mr. Rappaport. "A lot of friends over at Banana had, like, sisters out there and stuff. So they said it was a fun city. It was dark. I was, like, 'Dark?' Well, O.K., what kind of food do they have out there? Meatballs! That's what I thought, Ikea and Swedish meatballs, but now doing research and stuff like that, talking to people from Europe, I'm really excited. It's a whole philosophy. It's a new way of thinking. In Europe, they take retail seriously!"

"It's the philosophy of how they do business," Mr. Rappaport was starting to sound like a new cult member. "It's a promote-from-within philosophy. There's no rules or standards that we live by here. We don't have rules! We live day by day over here. We allow creativity. We're not a cookie-cutter place, which is a big deal, you know? The idea of being able to impact your markdowns, you know? If it's not working out, you can mark it down, you know? You have a lot of control over things."

And he's getting dental insurance! Hello, socialism!

Mr. Rappaport opened a door onto a room packed full of clothes. "We're not allowed to buy these clothes yet," he said. He was trying to keep himself from drooling on a beige ribbed zipper cardigan. "But when we get to Sweden, we're gonna totally get outfitted."

As with most chain stores, the clothing is described in relation to the designers it imitates: He held up a gray parka covered with zippers and little bits of orange grosgrain ribbon. "Just like what's in the Prada window," he grinned, jerking his thumb northward, toward the Prada boutique, where, yes, in fact, zippery gray things with red grosgrain ribbon were on display. "And it's like 40 bucks."

On another shelf were stacks of long, nylon drawstring skirts in a wraparound paisley pattern that looked, if you blurred your eyes a bit, exactly like a skirt made by the Parisian label Paul & Joe that was on the racks at Barneys and Calypso last summer. But the H&M version goes for $20.

Almost every trend of the past few seasons was in evidence: Capris, gauzy, open collared Indian-style shirts and knee-length, button-up twill raincoats, cut quite like those in Chaiken & Capone's fall collection. But everything was a little brighter than you'd find at Zara or Club Monaco. It looked like it could quite easily go with one of those colorful backpacks or track suits you could expect to see on, say, a Swedish tourist. Or your au pair. (H&M once got in trouble, by the way, in London for running naughty underwear ads with teenage girls and the tag line: "What the au pair will be wearing.")

In the back were some pastel sweaters with sort of Target-like overtones, which Mr. Rappaport brushed right by. "For kids, sort of a Diesel thing going on," he said as he laid out $10 metal-gray T-shirts in tiny sizes. "For the kids who don't want just the flowery thingy," said Mr. Darj.

None of it felt very Prada, though: It was all a bit … itchier .

Being cheap without being cheap , has been the story of H&M. Founded as Hennes in Stockholm in 1947 by Erling Persson, a salesman, it was first just a women's store. In 1968, it merged with Mauritz, a hunting and gun store, and the merchandise went co-ed. But it had sort of bargain-basement reputation.

"If you said H&M, people just-" said Mr. Darj, wrinkling up his nose.

Gradually, the company focused on quality control and set out to make trendy clothes. Now they work with 1,600 suppliers and have 15 production offices: seven in Europe and eight in Asia. As the promotional video promises, executives visit the factories all the time, checking on labor conditions. ("If we find that a worker is under 15," says a soothing voice on the video, "we will do our best to investigate, to make sure that child goes to school.")

H&M has been quite successful financially. It's still family owned (the chairman of the board is the son of the founder, and he's got 70 percent voting rights), and its annual sales for the past several years have hovered above $2 billion. In June, right around the time it was sealing the deal on Lexington Avenue, it announced a 51 percent rise in profits for the first two quarters of 1999.

The chain hired American actors like Mr. Depp and Geena Davis to star in its European ads and catalogues. "We like personality," said Mr. Darj, flipping through old ads. "Look! It's your niche character. We had him last spring. It's him!" Is it Gary Oldman? "Gary Oldman. It is! Yes, it is Gary Oldman. Here we like characters. Isabella Rossellini, she's Polish. And," Mr. Darj's face lit up, "she's Swedish ."

They've yet to hit any stumbling blocks during their expansion into 12 countries in Europe. "We were a bit afraid of the arrogant Frenchman," conceded Mr. Darj of their 1998 venture onto the Rue de Rivoli in Paris.

What if someone asked, What do the Swedes know about fashion? "I mean, why should Swedish fashion be good? Why should it?" he said, stating their argument for them. His reply: "We are European ."

And the French? "They love us!" Already, the chain has six stores in France.

Still, every one of the company's 65 designers are Swedish and based in Stockholm. "But they roam around the world," Mr. Darj argued. "They check for ideas and trends. They are not in their high towers very far away. We enable them to have bigger ears than others, perhaps."

And Mr. Darj talks up Stockholm. "The people in Stockholm know that you can't just sit around waiting for things," he explained. And, he said, "Levi's tested Dockers there. Stockholm was the very first market for Dockers."

H&M's very first American market will be New York, where the stores are trying all sorts of things to distinguish themselves. Banana Republic, for example, has added cell phone chargers and Palm Pilot loading stations to its stock at the Fifth Avenue store, next door to H&M's debut space. "There are a number of ways in which we're trying to differentiate our stores, from one store to the next," said Banana Republic spokesman Cindy Capobianco, "and from the other brands out there."

H&M will impress with its "range," said Mr. Darj. "If you are more like the classy style, then we have that. If you are the young lady who likes the latest fashion, we have that. Five, six lines for women, three or four for men. There's nothing that operates like it," he said. And, H&M's executives, said they'll be able to keep prices as low here as they are in Europe, where pretty much anything can be had for under $75. But so can a lot of the merchandise at Club Monaco, Zara and the Gap.

"Now, more than ever, the consumer is really king," said Teri Agins, author of The End of Fashion . "People have enough options. The challenge is bringing something new to the party. [H&M] is going to have to take market share from somebody else. It's not like this market is getting any bigger … There's just too much product in the pipeline. Everyone's doing it, and everyone's doing it pretty well."

Tell that to store manager Richard Rappaport, practically transmogrifying into a Volvo as he decides what to pack to meet his adopted countrymen.

"We're totally gonna bond," he said. "But I hear it'll be really dark there."

Thomas Meehan wrote the book for the musical Annie and won a Tony for it. Since 1977, Annie has earned him around $200,000 a year. Now, at 68, he and his friend Mel Brooks are finishing up a musical version of the latter's classic movie, The Producers .

"I think I've been lucky, because I never set out to have the career I had," Mr. Meehan said. He was having a cheeseburger and a Heineken at the White Horse Tavern, a few blocks from his apartment. He was wearing a brown tweed jacket over a lumberjack shirt.

Mr. Meehan grew up sub-middle class in Suffern, N.Y. His father died when he was 13, and his mother supported four kids by working as a nurse. In the eighth grade, the young Mr. Meehan starred in a musical written by himself. On scholarship at Hamilton College, he pulled off the same feat.

"I wrote stories that were serious, very somber, trying to be in the style of William Faulkner," he said. "They were very dark and mystical and strange. They weren't very good. But then I used to write class essays and often make them funny, and if I did that, I got better marks on them. My career has always been that every time I try something really serious, it's no good, but if I try to be funny, then it works."

Mr. Meehan moved to New York at age 24. He got a $26-a-month Alphabet City apartment, where it smelled like urine, and he started trying to be a serious novelist. Going by a friend's tip, he landed a $120-a-week job at The New Yorker 's Talk of the Town section. It was 1958.

He stayed at the magazine for 10 years. One evening, he was in a bar in the Village and bumped into a friend who'd just been to a party attended by actresses Ina Claire and Uta Hagen. When they were introduced ("Ina, Uta"), everyone laughed. "That is funny," Mr. Meehan said. Five years later, he awoke in the middle of the night and said, "Wait a second! What if there's a party where everybody has names of three letters with that rhythm?"

So he wrote a "casual" involving a party for Peruvian singer Yma Sumac. Ava, Abba, Oona, Ida, Aga, Ira, etc. all show up and have to be introduced to one other. The piece made his name at The New Yorker , put him on the comedy map. Someone wrote a song about it. Comedians ripped it off. David Letterman even revived it at the 1995 Oscars, with his much-maligned "Uma, Oprah" routine.

"I think of my career, quote career, it's just one thing after another," Mr. Meehan said. "Just bumbling along like you don't know what's around the next turn, which is what I always wanted. I became a writer, really, so I could sleep late in the morning and wouldn't have to show up in an office. After I left The New Yorker , I never worked in an office again."

In 1967, he took a job writing comedy for the TV show That Was the Week That Was , which paid $5,000 a week. In 1968, he moved his family to southern France and got to work on a serious novel, The Man Who Wanted to Be Humphrey Bogart . It's in a blue folder now, unfinished.

In1972,aproducerfriend,Martin Charnin, suggested he write the book for a musical based on Little Orphan Annie . Mr. Meehan told him it was the worst idea he'd ever heard, but was soon transforming the old comic strip into a Dickensian romp. It was shelved until 1976, when it got produced in Connecticut. By then, Mr. Meehan was in his mid-40's and broke. His marriage fell apart; he had two children to support. Then, Mike Nichols went to see Annie and decided to produce it. It made it to Broadway, was a bonanza. The latest version of Annie , which aired Nov. 8 on ABC, was a ratings hit, drawing 40 million viewers.

"Oddly enough, the success of Annie almost sort of handcuffs you a little bit," he said. "It's been years that I've worked on various things, but it's only now that I'm working on The Producers that I'm thinking, 'Well, this can be just as successful and maybe even better.'"

Mr. Meehan said The Producers should reach Broadway in 2000, with luck. The famous "Springtime for Hitler" number will kick off Act 2. David Geffen is the producer.

I asked Mr. Meehan about his days working for William Shawn.

"He was so soft-spoken and seemingly nice, but he actually was a tyrannical man. He was a total control person and he expected utter dedication to The New Yorker , and I think when I left it was good because I felt at some level this was like living in a totalitarian state where everything is the magazine with a capital M. You were supposed to put that first before yourself and I felt, 'I want to write for television, I want to write for Broadway, I want to write for movies, I want to go to Europe and write my novel.' I loved the magazine and I loved the people, I admired William Shawn. I never saw such a good editor, pencil editor–his comments and his editing was brilliant. And he was a good man, but he was so single-minded about the magazine. And I saw a lot of people whose careers were destroyed by that, people who stayed there and wrote these endless long back pieces, which half the time never got published."

"What are you reading right now?"

" Vanity Fair , the magazine, not the novel. I've got Ulysses , which I haven't read since college. I just read the first 30 pages and said, Oh my God, it is so great! Major, major. What I like is a place where I can go and read a book all day long without interruptions. That's Nantucket. And we have a place in Connecticut where we can get away a little bit. I have all these places only because of Annie ."

"That's every writer's dream."

"I know a lot of guys that I started out with, and most of them were probably more talented than I was, or equally talented, but that little turn in the road didn't happen."

–George Gurley

Horst of Fifth Avenue

A Town Car with the license plate AMBIENC5 was chugging away outside the Aveda store on Spring Street. Inside was Horst Rechelbacher, the companies founder. He sold Aveda to Estée Lauder two years ago, but he still oversees everything.

Mr. Rechelbacher was wearing a black suit with an orange scarf. His shoes were shiny braided leather. Entirely unscuffed. On each hand he wore a ring. Blue (cool) stone on the left, red (hot) on the right.

"My mother was an Austrian herbalist, so she worked in an apothecary. So I used to be in the kitchen with her. The kitchen was not just making food. It was also a little lab."

Young Horst left the mountain and went to New York. "So much money!" he said. Then he got in a car wreck in Minneapolis, and had to stick around to pay his hospital bills.

"I was making products with a label called Horst. And some prominent hairdressers started to come. They looked at what we were doing, but they didn't want to sell a product called Horst. They said, We're in New York and no offense to you, but we are the big stars. So I changed the name. I was studying at the time Ayurvedic medicine, and all of the scriptures of Ayurvedic medicine are written in Sanskrit. But no one could pronounce Ayurveda! But A means All. Which is holistic. Everything. Veda means knowledge. So Aveda means all knowledge."

He has written a book called Rituals (Henry Holt). He's a big fan of rituals. For one, he likes to wake up in the middle of the night and meditate. "Good businessmen are really balanced," he said in his Austrian accent. "They find somehow to balance out."

A yogi once schooled Mr. Rechelbacher in Intuitive Diagnostics, the practice of reading vibrations. "I simply relax and pay attention. It's good vibes. I don't want to work with people who are very-high-frequency, because they're not real. They're not stable. It's really fear, you see. Fear drives up the frequency, and fear is stress. Fear of what? Fear of eat or be eaten. I have a tiny little penthouse in No. 1 Fifth Avenue. I live on the 27th floor, and I go outside in the evening. I see the Hudson River, and I see a little bit of the East River. The bridges. And I look at the two trade center buildings. I listen to the vibrations of New York and it's …" Suddenly Mr. Rechelbacher threw his hands up in the air and made a horror movie face. He was being electrocuted.

Mr. Rechelbacher sighed and looked out on Spring Street. "Stress," he said, with that German "r." "Stress. No stress is practical. It's not a good vibration. You see all the people running around? There's so much fear."

–Amy Larocca

Terror struck.

So Foxy Brown teetered over to West 55th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues and just around the corner from the Manolo Blahnik boutique at 31 West 54th Street, to the shop of Carlos Mesquita.

In a city of shoe passion, Mr. Mesquita, a 49-year-old Portuguese-born Frenchman who can reinvigorate any pair of Manolo Blahniks is–well, he is a man . In fact, he is something more than a man. There isn't a plastic surgeon, a personal trainer, a Frédéric Fekkai in New York with more women who swear by him. For Mr. Mesquita is the man who can save Manolo Blahniks.

Manolo Blahniks are the latest incarnation of the shoe; their structure has the grandeur of a new urban architecture, indicating power, culture and femininity. And what a cargo they carry!

They are so phenomenally uncomfortable and expensive that they suggest the wearer doesn't necessarily have to walk anywhere. But when the wearer actually hoists herself up and totters, her legs are suddenly longer and sleeker and more decisive, and it is clear to the world that she is a woman in command.

Oh, and they show toe cleavage.

Take Elaine Showalter, English professor at Princeton and former director of the Modern Language Association. She knows she'll be hobbled. ("It's kind of a geisha situation," she explained. "It's even hard to stand.") Nonetheless, she really loves her shoes. "Princeton is a practical shoe place," she said wistfully. But it didn't come between her and a pair of Manolo Blahniks. "My trophy shoes! They're so beautiful, I could exhibit them. It's true! I could. They are works of art."

Mr. Mesquita is the only cobbler in New York Manolo Blahnik himself recommends. And so he has the women of New York–who, if they are passionate about anything, worship shoes–on their knees.

For instance, when Foxy Brown, who probably doesn't have to wait on line in many shops, got to Mr. Mesquita's store–which has the delightfully proletarian name of Shoe Service Plus–he made her cool her pinched toes and wait on line. He also assessed Ms. Brown's general style. "I can't say she was sexy," he said. "She just, you know, the belly!" Mr. Mesquita dismissed the whole midriff thing with a wave of his hand.

"Sometimes, a limousine will park outside, and they'll come right in, and I make them wait," Mr. Mesquita said. "I tell them to shut up. The rich one, the poor one. The nice little cute black one. The Chinese one. Everybody in line! And shut up !"

On one recent afternoon, the store was packed. Six-foot Danish models–Manolo sent them–in suede and mink ponchos zipped up each other's boots. At the front of the line was a girl in a pair of Gucci alligator pumps. She clutched a Manolo knee-high ponyskin boot. "I've only worn it three times!" she said, then she looked at him with the pathos of a 6-year-old bringing her beloved pet Pekinese to the vet. "Can you fix them?" The heel had come completely unglued.

Mr. Mesquita looked at her over the rims of his glasses. He said … nothing. Mr. Mesquita shook his head, he filled out a ticket. He waved her out the door. She looked back over her shoulder as Mr. Mesquita wiggled the broken heel around. Shaking, shaking, shaking his head.

His next customer was a British girl with bleachy hair and a corduroy skirt. "The bright blue shoes, remember?"

Mr. Mesquita looked at her. "They're not done."

The girl left the store. Mr. Mesquita wandered to the stacks of shoes that fill the space behind the counter. He found the bright blue shoe: a glittery Dolce & Gabbana pump with a metallic heel. The British girl had left a neon pink kitten heel as the replacement.

"She's crazy," Mr. Mesquita said, holding the heel to the shoe. "I don't even start it."

Mr. Mesquita knows that shoes are a woman's most coveted object, and a fascinating obsession for affluent women in a postfeminist society.

"You're dealing with people who are under really conflicting demands," said Catherine MacKinnon, the law professor and feminist scholar. "The demands are to succeed like a man, but to be a lady. The idea is that you've got to find some kind of way to be feminine. And wearing these shoes is one. They define it as sexy for a woman to be uncomfortable, thrown off-balance, physically contorted, in a posture in which she may fall over. And she can't run away. This is a very specific setup for the subordination of women through sex in a constant, everyday physical presentation. A lot of women claim that a lot of things that are subordinating women make them feel powerful. And maybe they do. It doesn't make them be powerful. It doesn't mean that it gives them power."

"What stilettos do is they present one's rear end accessibly," said Ms. MacKinnon. "That's what they're for. They also make it hard to stand up straight, and to walk and to run. They make one tippy, that is to say, easy to push over. They present one's rear end pushed out in the back, and one's breasts pushed out in the front for easy sexual access."

Shoes in general have always been pleasing to women. They handle them; they model them; they are seen–and noticed–in them; they gaze at them; they pamper them. And, of course, they suffer for them. And when they do, Mr. Mesquita awaits.

"I see in the movies, the ladies remove the dress, and they're in the skimpy little underwear, and their shoes!" explained Mr. Mesquita from the perch of a shoeshine chair in his shop. "You know, they sit on the bed, they cross the legs, and you see the shoes!"

Manolo Blahniks are about the sexiest shoe a woman can wear. They're high, they're sleek, they're about $500 a pair. They have four-inch heels. And in our girlish, skin-flashing fashion culture, these crippling shoes, in some circuitous way, have come to mean power to certain women who are gleefully rejecting that whole Prada Sport sneaker-sole thing. They are a high-decibel declaration of femininity and, as anyone who's ever even heard of pornography knows, sexuality.

"I have some of my mom's Charles Jourdans from the 70's," said Melissa de la Cruz, who's writing a book about a fashion victim. "Gold heel sandals with a gold cord that snakes around my ankle. Whenever I wear them, men offer to lick my feet."

She confesses that her boyfriend has had, on occasion, to carry her home. "I think he kind of likes it," she said.

"A lot of men throughout my life have said they'd like to put my shoes on their mantle and worship them," said advertising designer Ronnie Newhouse, who once bought 14 pairs of Manolo Blahniks in one visit. "And I've always said No, I don't want to give up my good shoes!"

But high heels in general have long been the stuff of feminine debate. Some claim they embody empowerment. "They are the ultimate dangerous-babe shoes!" said Ms. de la Cruz. "The epitome of femininity but with a hard, cruel edge! Most people tell me I could probably kill a man with my shoes. Especially these ones from Prada '97 or so." Others cry macho oppression. Of course, men are stronger: They're wearing sensible soles and arch supports.

"Women think they're communicating something about themselves in their shoes. It's their sex appeal, their sexual availability," explained Holly Brubach, the former style editor of The New York Times and author of A Dedicated Follower of Fashion who has definitely been carried–if not helped along –from cab to door before. "If it's a spike heel, men see sex. Other than that, I don't think they get the subtlety."

At the Manolo Blahnik boutique on 54th Street, they do a brisk business in gift certificates. "The men come in all alone, and they look around, and they say, how much for my wife to buy these?" said store manager Abby Bennet. "They love to see their wives in high heels, not in these clunky, thick heavy-looking shoes that some people think are in fashion. I have 70-year-old men who try and force their wives to buy high heels."

So Mr. Mesquita has his own territory of power. His customers come to him–some fly in from other countries just to prop their feet on his counter. He deigns to repair.

For Foxy Brown, he came up with a little alteration that made her shoes walkable, if barely. "She told me, Carlos, from now on I come back to you," he said. "But what you did for my shoes? Don't do it for anyone else. I want to be the only one with that style." Did Mr. Mesquita keep his promise to Foxy Brown?

"I did it for a lady in Montreal. And a lady from Venezuela. And a lady from Puerto Rico.

"They don't want to lose me," Mr. Mesquita said. "And they know I turn down 40 percent of the business that comes in. I raised my prices, they don't mind. They say, Carlos, can I pay you double and you do it faster, and I say, wait on line. Have some respect !"

"I understand his philosophy, I think," said Robin Wunsh, the shoe editor at Mademoiselle . "And so I only ask for things I know he can get done."

Mr. Blahnik discovered him in June 1983, when Mr. Mesquita worked at Top Service, a shoe repair shop on Seventh Avenue. But Mr. Mesquita has since taken matters into his own hands. His trademark is a thin rubber film with which he covers paper-thin soles. It makes the shoes last longer, but, according to some–including Mr. Blahnik–it also destroys the pitch of the shoe. "Manolo says, 'Carlos! Don't do that to the shoes!' I say, 'Don't tell me what's good for the shoes.' And then I get in a fight with Abby [the manager of the 54th Street boutique]. I tell her, you don't know nothing about that. Nothing! And besides. It sells like pancakes."

Or take Ms. Newhouse, who lives in London and New York. She said she "had read somewhere that Jeeves in London had the best shoe repair. And they're very expensive, so I brought in seven pairs of brand-new Manolo Blahniks, and I brought them one with Carlos' rubber film on it, and I said, 'Can you do this?' 'Yes, yes, yes. However, it will take two weeks.' So, two weeks and twice the price, I got my seven pairs back and they were all ruined! Some were silk and they rubbed glue all over my silk! They made platform shoes out of most of them. You can't even stand because they totally ruined the pitch. It was a very expensive lesson."

Now, when Ms. Newhouse comes to New York, she carries a little bag full of shoes and heads to 55th Street.

Mr. Mesquita's prices are low, especially considering the price of the shoes he handles: $18 for the legendary rubber film, $15 to fix a snapped stiletto; $30 to resole; $70 to mold a pair of boots to your leg; $10 to stretch a pair out; $12 to steam-clean; $16 to tighten stretched-out slingbacks.

Mr. Mesquita has a waiting list for the boot molding. "Normally, people can buy very expensive things, but they don't have the legs to wear it!" He laughed and waved some boots–Gucci, green, suede, stiletto: "All the little ladies, they're too small, or too roundy!"

Mr. Mesquita shook his head at a Gucci boot, which belongs to an Allure editor. It didn't even fit over her calf. "I tell her, 'Why you buy that shoe?'" he said. "'Are you stupid or what?' I have to be clear. And she says, 'How come you tell me that?' And I say, 'Because it's the truth! You have to know the truth. If I don't tell you, nobody will!'"

"When we get off the wobbly cobblestone streets of Paris and Milan, deskinned heels get miraculously reskinned. Slingbacks get tightened," said Vanity Fair fashion director Elizabeth Saltzman, who always phones in her shoe repair requests, and then sends an armful of shoes down with a messenger. "Sometimes I'm too shy to ask for things, though, so I just go and buy a new pair," Ms. Saltzman laughed. "Because I'm sure Manolo wouldn't exist without me!"

Mr. Mesquita sees breakdowns fairly often. "Some people come in and say, 'Oh, I'm rushed, I'm rushed', and I say, 'So come back tomorrow! You have some shoes to wear.' Well, the lady came in and blah, blah, blah, she started crying, because I told her the truth. I said, 'Look, don't come to me nervous. Because you come to me nervous, you make me nervous.' Too many nervous customers a day gonna drive me crazy. Then she starts crying like I was a little rude to her. She cried, cried. 'Oh, Carlos, my shoes! My shoes! I can't walk, help me!'

"And I told her, 'It's normal for me to put you in your place, 'cause if not, you're gonna drive me crazy!'"

With deference and gratitude, the lady vowed to come back.

Frères & Company to help him consider the sale of his company, Bernard

Arnault, the man deemed the most likely buyer, was in Manhattan to conduct a

little business of his own.

Mr. Arnault, the chairman of luxury giant LVMH-Moët Hennessy

Louis Vuitton, was here to celebrate the Oct. 13 opening of the  Sephora flagship store at Rockefeller

Center, yet another beachhead in his invasion of New York.

Flanked by three beefy bodyguards, his wife, Helene Mercier

Arnault, and his pet designer, John Galliano, he stood inside the store near a

display rack of CKOne, the Calvin Klein fragrance, and greeted his guests.

There were a lot of them, and as they squeezed past, a few couldn't help but

bump the stand of CKOne. Bottle after bottle fell to the floor. The bottles

broke, and the soapy androgynous smell of Mr. Klein's mass fragrance filled the

air. Mr. Arnault didn't even wince.

But he pursed his lips when asked whether he might like to buy

Calvin Klein. "It's a great brand," he said. Had he met Mr. Klein? "No," he

said. "Not yet."

Not yet. But Mr. Arnault will certainly be among the first to get

a look at the Calvin Klein book that Lazard will distribute to potential

bidders. (Mr. Arnault goes back a ways with Lazard. His earliest backer was

Antoine Bernheim, a senior managing partner.) The LVMH chairman comes to mind

first, not only because of his aggressively acquisitive style and his deep war

chest, but because he has recently been snapping up American companies to

complement his vast European holdings in fashion and luxury retail. In the last

seven months, this wiry, calculating conglomerateur

from France has been infiltrating the closets, Palm Pilots and conversation of

Manhattan's fashion cliques as a succession of small but well-regarded American

brand names have been absorbed by the LVMH juggernaut. Now suddenly, Monsieur Bernard,

he is everywhere, but people don't quite know what to make of him.

On Dec. 8, Mr. Arnault will unveil his new New York base of

operations: a new 23-story, $40 million-plus glass-and-steel building on 57th

Street and Madison Avenue. It will house a Louis Vuitton flagship, a Christian

Dior boutique, a new Bliss Spa and headquarters for LVMH's executives in the

United States. "It's a very important retail space," said Faith Hope Consolo of

store leasing specialists Garrick-Aug Worldwide. "It's a presence almost equal

to Tiffany's or Bergdorf's."

At the top of the building, designed by Pritzker Prize winner

Christian de Portzamparc, is a large glass-enclosed room, the nerve center for

Mr. Arnault's Manhattan campaign. "The Magic Room!" Mr. Arnault said proudly.

"The Magic Room!" echoed Mr. Portzamparc. On Dec. 8, before le tout New York, Mr. Arnault will host

a Municipal Art Society gala in the Magic Room. All Galliano's ladies (Nan

Kempner and friends) will be there, as will all of Michael Kors' and Marc

Jacobs' (Miller sisters, Vogue

editors, and plenty of girls who, for whatever reason, aspire to be like them).

As they drink the company champagne, and look through the windows across 57th

Street and down Madison Avenue, toward the streets of SoHo, they will come to

realize that-abracadabra!-they are Arnault's ladies now, gazing out at

Arnault's world.

Mr. Arnault's American fetish began three years ago when he

started hiring American designers to revitalize LVMH's European fashion

houses-Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton, Michael Kors at Celine, and Narciso

Rodriguez at Loewe-overlooking French talents like Eric Bergère and Jean-Paul Gaultier.

He was bringing New York to Paris.

But then in April, when Mr. Arnault bought Bliss, the impossibly

popular SoHo spa, for an estimated $30 million, Paris came to New York. It was

the equivalent of an invading army's seizing control of a nation's communications

centers. Bliss had the right kind of customers: Nolita girls and young

socialites with clean faces, rather than Milanese matrons with bonded teeth,

streaked hair and yards of Hermès scarves. By starting out with Bliss, Mr.

Arnault was sending a dual signal: I am here, and I understand what you like.

In July 1998, Sephora, the cosmetics and beauty-supply retail

chain owned by LVMH, opened its first store in America, in SoHo. Then, on Oct.

13, he officially moved the chain's flagship from the Champs-Élysées to Fifth

Avenue, when he opened the Rockefeller Center store. In the intervening months,

he had bought little American companies like Hard Candy and BeneFit Cosmetics,

as well as stakes in some larger European fashion labels: British shirtmaker

Thomas Pink, Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer and Italian baguette-bag maker Fendi

(in a $900 million joint venture with Prada). With every move, he dug deeper

into the consciousness of fashion-savvy New Yorkers.

This is actually Mr. Arnault's second attempt to make it in New

York. For three years during the early 80's, he lived in upstate New Rochelle,

at a time when many French businessmen left France in the wake of the election

of its Socialist president, François Mitterrand. Back then, Mr. Arnault was a

real estate developer attempting to expand his family's real estate business

into the United States. But, in 1984, he sold the family business (without

telling his father until after he'd done so), sold his house to neighbor John

Kluge (who tore it down) and returned to France to buy Broussac, a bankrupt

textiles company that owned Christian Dior. (Lazard Frères helped him finance

the purchase.) He sold off the parts, held onto Dior and used it as a launching

pad for his dreams of creating a giant luxury conglomerate.In 1988, again with

Lazard's backing, he went after LVMH After a two year battle, he had sole

control of the company-and a reputation in France for overly aggressive

business tactics that seemed, well, American.

Now, after a decade of buying, the empire includes Louis Vuitton,

Loewe, Celine, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Kenzo, Fendi, Thomas Pink and Regina

Rubens; the luxury liquor companies Dom Pérignon, Moët & Chandon, Veuve

Clicquot, Krug and Pommery Champagnes, Hennessy and Hine cognacs, Château

d'Yquem wines. In beauty and cosmetics, LVMH owns Guerlain perfumes, Sephora

(which functions as something of a company store these days), Bliss, Benefit

and Hard Candy (as well as the cosmetics and perfume divisions of LVMH's

fashion labels.) LVMH also controls Duty Free (wrangled from Robert Miller in

1996, in another bruising battle), which gives the company a convenient

distribution channel for its products.

Mr. Arnault recently started a $516 million Internet investment

group called Europweb, which has made investments in on-line fashion retailer

Boo.com and on-line pharmacy Rx.com (sure to carry LVMH cosmetics). Mr. Arnault

has also announced an interest in beefing up his luxury watch and jewelry

department. Hence his recent purchase of Tag Heuer and Fred, a Parisian

jeweler.

Almost as notable are a few of the companies Mr. Arnault does not

own. In his long, bloody, and ultimately unsuccessful bid for control of Gucci,

he was cast as the marauding villain, enemy to high fashion. When François

Pinault, the head of rival French luxury conglomerate

Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, came in as a white knight and acquired control of

Gucci, Mr. Arnault suffered his first major defeat. But it has not deterred him

from continuing his shopping spree.

When it comes to smaller companies, the way Mr. Arnault tends to

operate is this: he identifies a

cheap target with a hot name brand (Bliss Spa, Hard Candy, Thomas Pink), buys a

majority stake, then sets out to help them grow, without tinkering with them

creatively. "We're good at the silly stuff," said Bene-Fit co-founder Jean

Danielson. (Bene-Fit's self-tanner is named Aruba in a Tuba.) "They'll help us

expand internationally. Like Japan."

In theory, at least, LVMH provides the money and reach. Take the

example of Bliss. Founder Marcia Kilgore will retain creative control-she'll

write the copy for the punchy Bliss Out catalogue,

for example-and LVMH will concern itself with turning Bliss into a profitable

national business. "It's not like she's driving a hundred Lexuses now,"

explained Bliss spokesman Mara Stern. "It's more like, instead of 20 hours a

day, we're working a lazy 16. And all of these projects we've been wanting to

do, we can do them now." These projects include a second spa (inside the new

LVMH building) and pitstop style manicure salons as common as Starbucks. Expect

the first in time for Christmas.

With people whose very names are the commodity, he's made an

interesting tradeoff. Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors and John Galliano each took

over a major house (Vuitton, Celine and Dior respectively), and in exchange Mr.

Arnault finances their own labels. Marc Jacobs was desperately in need of a

backer when he took over at Vuitton. And Michael Kors, with Mr. Arnault's help,

will open a mammoth store on high-rent upper Madison, right in the neighborhood

of his "preppy glamour" customers. Only Alexander McQueen, who is at the helm

at Givenchy, does not take money for his own, eponymous label.

 "As a young designer,

[working for LVMH] seems absolutely to be the way to go," said Bill Blass, the

New York designer. "It gives you an exposure that just being an American

designer doesn't."

"I like American designers," Mr. Arnault said. "They are very

creative, but they also like to sell. They are very close to the consumer, and

they are not only interested in creating new products, but also in their

capacity to make them sell well. So you see for us it's a very attractive

proposition."

In fact, the only LVMH-owned house that is losing money is also

the only one with a Frenchman at the helm: Christian Lacroix.

With the older fashion labels, Mr. Arnault's formula was a bit

different. When Hubert de Givenchy retired, Mr. Givenchy tried to name his

successor: a man who'd trained for years in the atelier beside him. Mr.

Arnault, however, overruled the decision and installed Alexander McQueen-who

exhibited little respect for both Audrey Hepburn and the petites mains -at the head of the house. 

"[Designing for a conglomerate] is like going public," Mr. Blass

said. "And it will ultimately affect design. You have to provide the dollars,

and that always affects the product. It's quite a different situation from

owning your own company."

Regardless, the approach has been effective. Instead of sitting

in the front row at Michael Kors' "Palm Bitch" ready-to-wear show in New York last September, Mr. Arnault was home in Paris

announcing plump profits: a 59 percent increase in net income for the six

months ending June 30. Operating income for the fashion and leather goods

division of the company was up 15 percent over the same period last year.

The designers affiliated with LVMH issue pat statements about how

grand their lives are. Michael Kors described his working relationship with Mr.

Arnault in a word: "terrific." And John Galliano, decked out at the Sephora

party in acid-washed jeans, like an avant-garde pirate, gushed as well. "I'm

very proud," he said. "It's such a symbol of French luxury. It's like standing

on the Eiffel Tower!"

The ground floor of the 57th Street Dior boutique space is

boarded up. On a recent afternoon, a man with long sideburns stood outside to

smoke with a European "Can you even believe I can't smoke inside?" look on his

face. The building is green, and it's enormous. "Not unlike a seashell," the

press kit had promised. But it is quite unlike a seashell.

Mr. de Portzamparc, the architect, faced a curious dilemma when

drawing up his plans. Originally, the building's volume was to be the same as

that of Chanel, the staid, granite Frenchman next door. "We would have the same

dimension, so we would be like two French twins," Mr. Portzamparc said.

"Bernard Arnault was aware that the building would be the same as Chanel, and

then it would not be a flagship store." So more space was acquired. The little

Wally Findlay Gallery next door was knocked right over. Bam! LVMH won't match

Chanel anymore. It'll be bigger.

Another problem arose. "I.B.M. is right across the street," Mr.

Portzamparc said, "and we would just be a reflection of I.B.M." So, on Mr.

Arnault's orders, he procured some very expensive nonreflective glass. Now, in

addition to dwarfing Chanel, the building outshines the American behemoth

across the street. It is barely possible-in any light-to see I.B.M.'s

foreboding facade reflected in the glass