Kelly Ripa and hubby Mark Consuelos gettin' frisky!

Given that it was our second evening in a row at Cipriani's – albeit at the midtown franchise on this occasion – our usual penchant for the venue had been dampened somewhat, and the inclement weather certainly wasn’t helping. But the UNICEF Snowflake Ball managed to turn our well plucked frowns upside down in a glittering evening of philanthropic revelry, with celebrities in a multitude of fields pitching in to lend a hand. The sumptuous menu was designed by revered chefs; the entertainment led by a veritable swing legend, and the auction prizes donated by some of America’s hottest talent. It is fair to say that UNICEF, like the bartenders, got the mix just right.

Katy Perry was the evening’s surprise A-List attendee, swishing through the foyer’s revolving doors in a fishtail dress designed by another of the evening’s guests, Naeem Khan. The couturier’s wife, jewelry designer Ranjana Khan, recently ventured into reality TV land with several appearances on The Real Housewives of New York and was quick to dispel her involvement with any of the cattiness the show has become famed for.

“Being on RHONY was fun, but I didn’t get caught up in the drama,” she told The Observer on the red carpet. “My friend Carole [Radziwill] wanted me to be involved with the last season, and she’s returning for the next one, so I know she might want me to do something again.” Did Mrs. Khan just let an inside secret slip, perchance? Ms. Radziwill is yet to officially confirm her involvement with season six, but you heard it here straight from the jeweler’s mouth. The Observer 1, RHONY 0.

Indeed, spilling secrets seemed to be a trend throughout the evening, with Manhattan’s favorite crooner Tony Bennett revealing: “Lady Gaga called me last night from Peru. She wants to do an album together and we’re going to do it, just me and Gaga. It’s going to be a big swinging album with a big hot band.” Well, perhaps it wasn’t quite the juicy nugget we initially imagined, given that Mr. Bennett has been quoted as saying that the "Poker Face" singer called him the previous night from New Zealand with the idea for a collaborative record. That quote happened three months ago.

Given that Mr. Bennett is at the ripe old age of 86 and still put on a glorious show – some of which was without a microphone – we’ll forgive this little slip. But please be more careful next time, Tony, when toying with our Gaga-fueled emotions.

From genuine secrets to recycled ones, there was one couple on the red carpet who weren’t attempting to hide a thing – step forward Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. The fruity pair didn’t miss a beat when volunteering to talk about their ahem, romantic interludes, with Ms. Ripa divulging: “We have an Indonesian holiday themed bedroom, and a bed from Bali. Which may or may not have broken once.” Quick, somebody call Poirot, we’ve got a cryptic case of too much information on our hands.

After the duo’s domino effect of smut polluted The Observer’s innocent mind, we went in search of some good clean fun at our table, where we dined with the chefs who put the menu together. Best-selling author and UNICEF ambassador of 12 years Marcus Samuelsson had drafted in help from fellow restaurateurs Michael Anthony and Marc Murphy, who co-created a meal trumped in deliciousness only by their company. As they wined and dined us with a feast of truffle lobster salad and Wagyu steak, the flavors of the food were perfectly enhanced by the Wynton Marsalis Quintet, whose jazzy tunes rose to the very top of Cipriani’s lofty ceilings.

Just edging out the edibles in terms of success was the auction, which contributed to the event's staggering $2.5m raised for the very deserving charity. A backstage pass with Selena Gomez, who was decked out in a floor length Dolce & Gabbana number for the event, scooped two high bids of $20,000 apiece, contributing to the money raised by other high bidders on lots for Lady Gaga tickets and a day on the Knicks’ court as player Tyson Chandler’s personal guest. The guests were not left wanting when it came to an eclectic mix of goods, and spunky auctioneer Courtney Booth of Sotheby’s coaxed the cash from the crowd’s pockets with ease.

There was just time to honor Harry Belafonte before the evening came to a close, and he undoubtedly made a deserving recipient of the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award for his commitment to the charity over the past quarter of a decade. With the audience on their feet as he took to the stage, the emotion in the room was palpable.

It was clear that UNICEF was close to the hearts of all of the evening’s attendees, including Uma Thurman and Téa Leoni, and as we slunk out of Cipriani’s once more, the prospect of returning didn’t seem quite such an imposition.

717 Fifth.

Lois Weiss at The Post has a sensational real estate scoop for the fashionistas about town:

[Dolce & Gabbana] just leased a massive 18,400-square-foot store at 717 Fifth Ave., taking over the space from Escada, which will move within the same building into smaller digs along 55th Street.

The stores are a portion of a retail condominium owned by deal maestro Jeff Sutton and real-estate investment trust SL Green Realty Corp. Sutton, who orchestrated both deals, previously moved out Hugo Boss and installed Armani/AX in the north portion of the space. No other brokers were involved.

Dolce already has a store on Madison, but this would be its first spot on prime Fifth. The deal, apparently, is worth $300 million, making it easily one of the biggest retail transactions of the year so far.

The tax evasion investigation into Dolce & Gabbana has been finalized, but charges could still be brought against them and other employees of the company. [Vogue UK]

Black Swan, the ballet drama starring Natalie Portman, will feature designs by the Rodarte sisters. [WWD]

Meanwhile, New Yorkers are baffled by Rodarte's $500 hand-crocheted socks trend. [NY Post]

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was denied access to the Pope this month due to her racy modeling past. [Vogue UK]

So why did it take us so long to haul out the shoulder pads? Controversial linchpin of ’80s dressing, they conjure memories of Dynasty and Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation, of teased bangs and pinstriped power suits. In other words, not the era’s brightest moments.

Yet modern runways have begun to resemble surrealist marching band practices, dominated as they are by massive “structured” shoulders accessorized by tassels, fur and—at Maison Martin Margiela in September—blond wigs. 

Shoulders first began swelling about two years ago at avant-garde shows like Gareth Pugh, Vivienne Westwood and Balenciaga. They have since been seen at Louis Vuitton, Balmain, Dolce & Gabbana, Lanvin and Marni, among others, becoming (slightly) more commercial along the way. The moment was calcified when dewy young downtown designer du jour Alexander Wang sent “boyfriend jackets”—thin, shoulder-padded blazers that hang away from the frame—down the runway for fall 2008.

“We’ve seen structure coming back,” said Ann Watson, vice president and fashion director at Henri Bendel. “Customers that are fashion-savvy, they’re aware of it, but it’s going to take a while to trickle down. When you go to the shows, all the editors have certainly adopted it. And it gets out there vis-à-vis the fashion magazines.”

Currently, Bendel is awaiting shipment of two Balmain tuxedo jackets with shoulder pads, “one is über-exaggerated, and one much more tamed-down,” said Ms. Watson. The department store also plans to bring back detachable “lingerie piece” shoulder pads, like the ones Norma Kamali made way back when, as a sensible option for the recession. “We’re looking at a couple right now,” Ms. Watson said, adding that she “didn’t walk out the door without them” in the ’80s.

At the Margiela store on Greenwich Street, meanwhile, the pointy, Jetsons-like shoulders that flooded the designer’s spring 2009 runway were not in evidence one recent afternoon, even among early spring shipments, though a strikingly handsome iteration of Yves Saint Laurent’s black Le Smoking jacket ($1,295) did feature modest shoulder padding.

But then, there it was, encased in glass toward the back of this whitewashed, aggressively bellwether retail emporium: a coat featuring cartoonishly boxy shoulders made of long, blond hair. (On the runway, the coat was worn by a model with what looked to be pantyhose obscuring her face.) The price was $11,795, a sales associate said. “They’re special, one-of-a-kind pieces.”

An equally extreme futuristic-superhero style of shoulder has also been making the rounds of late. “It’s a real fashion-forward look,” said stylist Jennifer Hitzges, who has worked for celebrities like Natalie Portman, Jessica Biel and Anne Hathaway, “and I don’t think you’ll see that in everyday silhouettes, but you do see it on musicians like Beyoncé.”

For Marie Claire’s September issue, Ms. Hitzges styled a shoot featuring “a MaxMara jacket that was sleeveless blazer, basically where the sleeve would be, there’s a rolled, defined shoulder pad, more of a pagoda effect to it, a little ’30s, ’40s in feeling.”

Which serves as a potent reminder that though shoulder pads achieved infamy in the ’80s, ushered to ubiquity by women’s burgeoning workplace ambitions (and then spreading, rather unfortunately, to their weekend sweaters), they actually far predate this regrettable decade.

“If you look at old movies with [stylist] Adrian and Joan Crawford from the ’40s, the ’40s is when they made a tremendous impact,” said George Simonton, a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology and a designer himself.

In that decade, of course, women were armoring themselves for wartime toil. So it made sense that we donned the shoulder pad again 40 years later as our inner Working Girl emerged.

But now that women have infiltrated the highest echelons of most professions, what need have we to approximate linebacker-like shoulders? Could it actually be to highlight our delicacy?

“When a woman puts a little bit of a shoulder pad—and I do it myself—it is so flattering to the body, because it makes everything look very narrow,” enthused Mr. Simonton. “You can’t believe the world of difference it makes for the figure, especially if a woman doesn’t take care of her figure. She’s going to look like an unmade bed if she doesn’t get something more tailored!”

Perhaps shoulder pads are an inevitable component of fall’s much-discussed return to tailoring, then, wherein we shoved off our voluminous baby-doll dresses en masse and begin dressing once again like we actually have day jobs (the irony being that many of us no longer do), in neat suit jacket with pencil skirt.

Or maybe it’s not about gender relations after all, but commerce.  “To make women buy,” Mr. Simonton said, “you’ve got to change the silhouette.”

mbryan@observer.com

Late last week, the city’s beleaguered retail stores were awash in this mottled-honey hue. Designer Shoe Warehouse was selling tortoise ankle boots by Sergio Zelcer for $179.95. The popular boutique Poppy on Mott Street offered Nicole Romano tortoiseshell earrings for $182. Tory Burch had sold out of tortoiseshell clutches at $425. Fashion Web site Style.com was pushing a Sonya Rykiel leather belt with tortoiseshell bow ($217) as a holiday gift. And let’s not forget the $3,000 tortoise sequin jacket J. Crew presciently introduced this spring.

Tortoiseshell eyeglass frames are classic, of course. Angelina Jolie and Sienna Miller were both spotted in the style recently (Ferragamo and Dolce & Gabbana, respectively); and Kanye West broke out tortoiseshell glasses during Fashion Week in September, rapping with Jay-Z at the Marc Jacobs after-party in a tweed suit. “Tortoise has always been a best-selling color for us,” said Robert Marc, who owns eight eponymous eyewear boutiques in Manhattan and currently sells tortoiseshell frames in 63 styles. “This year, we’ve seen even bigger sales in this color because of the popularization of preppy, geek chic, retro frames.”

But the sudden au courant of tortoiseshell goes beyond geek chic.

We are wearing it because it goes with everything. We are wearing it because it’s subtle, and glaring luxury labels are gauche in a recession. We are wearing tortoise because for most of us, hare and its ilk are too expensive and/or humanely unjustifiable. And maybe we wear it because we, like the tortoise of fable, seem not to be in a winning position right now (though remember that the tortoise is all about perseverance—it lives upward of 250 years, after all).

Sellers of the shade point out that it flatters anyone’s skin tone. “It’s an easy color to incorporate into any outfit,” Mr. Marc said. And: “It always refers to something luxurious,” said Sebastian Marzaro, U.S. president of Italian shoemaker Casadei, which sells tortoiseshell pumps and sandals in several Manhattan shoe boutiques. “Even if it’s not the real thing.”

It hasn’t been the real thing since 1973, when the practice of using actual tortoiseshell was banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Mr. Marzaro, whose company has manufactured tortoise styles for about 50 years, said he noticed a steep increase in the prevalence of tortoise products in general after the CITES signing, as synthetics became more widely produced, and another boom in the mid-’80s, roughly coinciding with the release of Out of Africa. “It goes in cycles,” he said. “It goes parallel to all different prints—exotic prints like leopard, cheetah, zebra.”

Indeed, there is currently an uncanny consensus on Fifth Avenue that predatory mammals and reptiles make excellent shoes and handbags. The gentle, seafaring tortoise has the vague exoticism of furs and alligator skins but is much, much cheaper. (Many retailers specify “faux” tortoise, but most don’t bother.)

At Gucci near 57th Street one recent afternoon, the brand-new “Cruise” collection featured an understated $970 brown shirt with a decorative tortoise ring affixed to the chest, and a $645 black pump with tortoise stiletto; in two weeks, the store will begin carrying the Hysteria Medium Hobo for $1,360 (a patent leather bag with tortoise print). A scruffy sales clerk in a black suit said the collection was “beach-inspired.”

Down the street at Versace, saleswoman Carla Verschuren said a tortoise print had been revived for the fall 2008 collection from the archive of the late Gianni Versace, where it had been in hibernation since 1992. The black and yellow “Turtle” print was adorning two dresses: one jersey ($2,090) and one sateen ($2,495), both with a plunging V-neck.

Nearby at Just Cavalli, a $645 canvas blazer had a green-tinged, unmistakably tortoise-ish vibe, but a salesgirl begged to differ. “We call it cheetah,” she said. “It’s our take on cheetah.”

At Michael Kors on Prince Street, meanwhile, where tortoiseshell sunglasses are standard-issue fare (in particular a high-contrast model called the Madison, said a salesgirl named Carly), we also found a tortoise acrylic bracelet watch for $195 (without crystals) or $225 (with crystals). And the brand Lee Angel has debuted tortoise bracelets with crystals for fall ($260) in New York boutiques like Intermix and Montmartre.

“It reminds me very much of France in the ’50s, where people used to use it for hair accessories all the time, before we stopped killing tortoises, thank God,” said Roxanne Assoulin, the bangles’ designer. “People want value now. Tortoise is going to be an important trend because it’s classic, it’s something you see in Hermès, it’s very upscale-looking. And it goes with everything.”

mbryan@observer.com

Jeremy Scott will design a collection of apparel and footwear for Adidas; it will go on sale February 1. [WWD] 

From Milan: Dolce & Gabbana showed brocade jackets with structured shoulders; Matthew Williamson's final collection for Pucci was heavy in yellows and purples, and towering heels which made several models fall down. Meanwhile, the Versace collection was heavy in reptile skins and gold hues. [Vogue UK]

Manolo Blahnik appreciates a woman who can walk in flats. [Vogue UK]  

Despite the financial downturn, Dolce & Gabbana reported a spike in sales. [WWD]   

“It’s very retro. It feels like a costume, or a film. Like Clockwork Orange or a Mad Max kind of thing,” said Lara Greenberg, eyeing the Marni monstrosity. “It’s a statement.” Ms. Greenberg, an interior designer in her thirties with curly blond hair swept back, was wearing a stylish white trench coat and a pair of low black wedges. (Chinatown, $40!)

A woman named Gail, standing nearby, was less circumspect. “Those are insane,” she said.

This “runway wedge” (and really, where is the line that separates a wedge from a stripper shoe?) is hardly alone in a shoe season that seems to be foisting tackiness upon us and calling it couture. Prada, Miu Miu, Dolce & Gabbana, Pierre Hardy, Marc Jacobs, Gucci and others (even Old Navy!) are peddling everything from the ankle-cuff stiletto (dominatrix much?) to the spike-heeled patent leather, lace-up loafer. (We thought booties were for babies.) And don’t forget the inches-high, covertly slutty, Balenciaga-influenced gladiator sandal, a style we do our best to ignore in flats but absolutely reject in a heel.

Such shoe strangeness is everywhere: creeping into fashion spreads in everything from Vogue to Us; decorating shop windows all over Soho; peeking out from under those equally unappealing maxi-dresses. It may be expensive. It might be “wearable art,” as its (few) proponents argue. But it is godawful ugly.

‘A Little Fashion-Victimy’

Perhaps we should have anticipated this turn for the trash. After years of watching women stock their closets with those perfect Louboutin peep-toe pumps, with their tell-tale and perfectly sexy red soles; the classic Manolo ankle-tie in its metallics and pastels; and the Jimmy Choo Mary Jane with its straps across the arch and golden buckle, it seems inevitable that more adventurous designers would stage a revolt, a.k.a. give us something else to buy already.

But turning the actual heel of the shoe into a candlestick or a stem, a move some genius at Prada decided to green-light, is too easy, too silly. Same with slapping a spike, or a cork wedge, on a sneaker. As with men, height in heels does not make for automatic beauty. (And speaking of men, their reaction to these babies, judging from a casual survey of office heterosexuals, ranges from “hideous” to “horrible” to “yeesh.”)

Back at Bergdorf, a customer who won’t give her name because she “works in the industry” was examining a pair of Gucci wedge tennis shoes ($550). “They’re a little fashion-victimy,” she said. A pair of Dolce & Gabbana snakeskin lace-up booties (with black sneaker-style laces no less), selling for $1,195, were even more tragic.

But when it comes to heels, Prada, as is its wont, is definitely the most violent offender this season. Anyone else remember their hollow-soled horrors modeled by Cameron Diaz in Harper’s Bazaar a decade ago? Now it appears as though the house, which is also carrying a line of safe, classy leather stilettos this season, hired Wavy Gravy to dash off a few sketches. With thick candle-snuffer heels and cartoonish patchwork of colored leather, Prada’s “Groove is in the Heart”-esque Mary Janes look like the work of someone on acid, or at least weed. Hydroponic weed.

And how about their boots? These consist of a gold cuff that covers the calf attached to a black-and-gold peep-toe heel (though modest) with a strap over the arch ($970).

“They go too far,” said Chantal Deneef, a Belgian woman in her mid-40’s who was shopping at Bergdorf. She was wearing blue mascara and lots of perfume. “But that’s the problem with fashion at the moment,” Ms. Deneef said. She blamed the proliferation of ugly heels on newly wealthy Russians who want something more extravagant. “We European people won’t wear that,” she kindly explained. “We are very—not so fashionable, but more simple,” preferring “something chic, something that stays.”

Meanwhile, the specious argument that these shoes are actually “sculptural” objets d’art (that depreciate immediately upon wearing, we hasten to add!) was burbling at the Prada store in Soho—once, let’s recall, the downtown outpost of the Guggenheim museum.

“I think maybe there are people who look and say, ‘Oh, that’s horrible,’” said Andrea Bettiol, who was visiting New York from Brazil, gesturing toward a $700 pair of Wavy Gravys. “It’s the same as art. There are a lot of people who see a picture and the paint and say, ‘Oh! This is just white paint, I can’t understand.’ Taste is taste.”

So would she buy them? “Never. It’s too expensive.”

The renowned artist, photographer and self-portraitist Cindy Sherman was also shopping at the store, which she clearly does often, greeted as she was with kisses by the staff. So what did she think of the shoes?

“These crazy heels, and the colors and just all the textures … it’s just so inventive,” Ms. Sharman gushed. “And it just seems really fun.”

Maybe these shoes just need a bona fide intellectual to appreciate them; someone with less quotidian concerns than pleasing men or, you know, walking down the streets of New York looking relatively pulled-together and sane.

“Oh, yeah, oh, yeah,” Ms. Sherman said, when asked if she would actually purchase one of these Prada-trocities. “I don’t have a top choice yet, but probably one of the ones with the crazy heels.”

“They leave shows together; they smoke cigarettes together; they party together; they eat together,” reports Fashionista of the gals. So it’s only natural that ragtrade industry insiders have recognized the sultry sisters’ marketability, “and they’re wielding them like fashion dynamite.”

Ms. Ward and Ms. Donaldson can now be found leaning on one another—all couture-clad Grecian statuary style—for Dolce & Gabana’s springtime magazine-ad campaign. (The two-page, buy-me spread features Jessica Stam—“also blonde, also explosively pretty, and also an IMG model”—on the facing page.)

Next? The twiggish twins grace the cover of i-D magazine’s February issue. Both models have fronted for the style-and-fashion book before, though never together. Instead of cashing in on the models’ homoerotic sex-appeal—they appear on the cover smashed together in barely-there lingerie—the magazine has taken the high-road with this issue, writing: “Best friends Gemma Ward and Lily Donaldson are boobalicious and sexy as hell, we’re logging on, so you can get off!” Uhhh…Mom!

One thing's for sure: if this duo can’t sell magazines, well, there’s always Hollywood.