A mani and a blowout at Blow in the Meatpacking District.

Amidst the chicest clubs and restaurants of New York City’s Meatpacking District sits the bright pink home of an even bigger trend. Blow, situated at 342 West 14th Street, is just one of the many essential blow-out stops getting penciled into the overflowing schedules of Gotham’s hippest women. Blow-dry bars are taking the wash, cut, color and style hair-salon cycle to a one-stop, celeb-worthy style service.

“In New York City, there is always an occasion for a blowout,” Diana Pratasiewicz, a manager at Blow, says above the roar of blow driers and quaint music. “Whether it’s an important meeting, or you’re not feeling so great and you just want to give yourself an instant makeover, or it’s an event with the girls.” Put simply, there’s never a not good time for a blowout, except possibly when you’ve just had one.

It is a regular Friday afternoon at Blow: the appointment book tightly packed, the swivel chairs lining the length of the salon fully occupied, and the bustle of the street outside rivaling the bustle of customers inside.

Rachel Zoe, co-founder of DreamDry.

“We have women who have standing appointments with us: they come in on Mondays and they come in on Fridays,” says Ms. Pratasiewicz, talking as swiftly as the stylists are working. “We’re seeing more and more women fit that Blow Pro blowout into their schedule.”

The “groomers” meticulously attend to every stray hair while clients peruse magazines, taking a minute to relax or, if they aren’t running to another appointment, taking a few more minutes to get a manicure simultaneously with their blowout—an added service at Blow.

Maria Peterson, her hair sectioned off in clips, and nails being coated with a bright red sheen, blushes as we approach her. “I’ve become very dependent on these services,” she says. Her dependency is closing in on a decade; she has been a client at Blow since 2005. “It’s such a time saver,” she adds. One stylist, drier in his left hand, round brush in his right, is tackling Ms. Peterson’s auburn hair, while a second beauty professional works on her nails.

If two stylists and a 45-minute grim-to-glam transition isn’t quick and accommodating enough, Blow has partnered with Nordstrom department stores to launch outposts in the West Coast and with Macy’s in Herald Square to offer an even more time-saving range of services. The goal is to take efficiency another step forward with dry-style pods—an express blowout that revives style without a wash.

Blow’s competitors aren’t simply “on the map,” they’re all over it. At Drybar, you can get your blowout with a glass of champagne whether you’re in Tribeca, Flatiron, Midtown, the Upper East Side or Murray Hill.

Anna Cooperberg, a student at Columbia’s Journalism School, considers herself a Drybar regular. “Everything is taken care of, it’s very dependable,” she says. “Every detail is attended to.”

From the “Straight Up” classic blowout to the “Mai Tai” (a sexy, beach-hair look) to the “Shirley Temple” (cute curls for the divas ten and under), Drybar has managed to put a modern spin on your grandmother’s beauty salon, and women (sometimes even men) of all ages seem on board with the trend.

“If you have to go somewhere you can just hop in and hop out if you have an appointment,” says Sahar Saleem, a 21-year-old client at Drybar. “A lot of women are devoted to that.”

More blow drying at Blow.

Ms. Saleem also admits that although “$40 isn’t bad to get your hair done,” it wasn’t her top priority when it comes to spending decisions. And in a period when full-service hair salons are losing profits as consumers cut back on cuts and perms, a venture in this industry may seem more risky than opportune.

This didn’t stop DreamDry CEO Robin Moraetes and uber-stylist and DreamDry co-founder Rachel Zoe, from opening their first location in New York’s Flatiron District on Valentine’s Day this year. In fact, Ms. Moraetes informs us that although the passé, regular hair salon industry is suffering difficulties in the market, the “quick-service blow-dry industry has seen a 30 percent increase in the last year.”

Apparently, primetime Saturday appointments at DreamDry have to be booked weeks in advance. Not bad for the barely three-month-old establishment. “Our busiest time is early Monday morning,” says Ms. Moraetes. “The busiest days are Fridays and Saturday mornings, by far.” Luckily, they’re open as early as 6:30 a.m. Monday through Friday.

“We always want to look and feel the best we can,” Ms. Moraetes says, attributing near-magical powers to DreamDry’s services. With a blowout, “you feel like you can pretty much accomplish anything.” DreamDry’s target woman is the mother, the daughter, the CEO, the assistant: actually, DreamDry’s target woman is “everyone.”

ygayduk@observer.com

Poor timing.

It's pretty common for social media managers to embarrass their employers by forgetting to cancel pre-scheduled tweets during national tragedies, and heaven knows targeted online advertising has embarrassed more than one brand. But what about old-fashioned newsprint? Doesn't someone scan the ads for blunders? Apparently not.

Behold, an advertisement squirreled away in the corner of today's Daily News: Macy's is advertising a special 50-percent-off discount on a Casa Essentials pressure cooker.

Pressure cookers have been in the news this week, because that's what the perpetrators used in Monday's Boston Marathon bombing. That's actually one of the few things we do know about the case.

But the Daily News is far from the worst offender. It looks like the ads are running all over the country. Jim Romenesko points out that the Minneapolis Star Tribune stuck it on the same page as a story about the events at the Marathon. But the most appalling placement comes from the Cape Cod Times, where it appeareddown the page from a diagram of the Boston bombs.

Wait until the super sleuths at Reddit get a hold of this.

We've reached out to Macy's for comment and will update if we hear anything back.

(Updated, 2:36 p.m.) A Macy's spokesperson has provided us with a statement:

"We sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by our ad in today's newspaper, it was truly unintentional. As part of our regularly scheduled promotion for the One Day Sale, an image of a pressure cooker was featured along with approximately 20 additional items for the home. Due to the lead time to place national advertising, we were unable to pull the image and apologize for any insensitivity in light of recent events. All possible efforts are being taken to remove the item from future ads."

“Among young models, Maryam stands out,” said Scott Wojcik, a casting director who hired her for DSW’s national advertising campaign. “There are two kinds of models, ‘relatable’ and ‘aspirational.’ Maryam is both. That’s extremely rare.”

Her appeal crosses racial lines as well. Ms. Basir does all sorts of modeling, from Nike television ads to Macy’s runway work, but her main gig is as one of the house models for two lines of swimwear, XOXO and BabyPhat. “XOXO is mostly for Caucasians,” said Juanita Reid, a young Jamaican-American designer. “Baby Phat is for the urban market. Maryam is a rare crossover. She’s proportional, but she has a buttocks. That works for both races. And she knows how to wear a garment and make it look right.” Those garments are long on style and short on fabric. Maryam Basir is the only Muslim bikini model in the business.

A lot of Muslims regard this as a contradiction. The Koran is clear about the need for female modesty. Sura 24:31 admonishes believing women to “lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty.” This requirement applies to everyone except close relatives, male servants “free of sexual needs” and small children.

Still, like all scriptural injunctions, it is subject to interpretation. “The Koran doesn’t specifically state that you must be covered,” said Professor Asma Afsaruddin, an expert on Islamic law at Indiana University. “It talks about modesty. And modesty is a cultural concept. What is considered modest in some Muslim societies is not necessarily what is considered modest in the United States.”

In the debate between traditional Muslims and reformers, the covering of women is a central issue. Middle Eastern theocracies like Saudi Arabia and Iran use the power of the state to impose dress codes. In other Muslim countries, modesty is often enforced by male relatives who regard it as a matter of family honor. In the West, though, the hijab is often regarded as a sign of female oppression or a cultural signifier. “Some young women cover as an identity statement, to tell the world they are Muslims,” said Professor Afsaruddin. “Others don’t feel the need for a statement. Their attitude is, ‘I’m confident of who I am as a Muslim, I don’t need to wear a hijab to announce it.’ Reserving the right to interpret religion is becoming a feature of the Islam of young Muslim Americans.”

Imam Isa Abdul Basir begs to differ. “You can’t just make up your own rules,” he said. “It is un-Islamic for a woman to display her body. That’s not debatable.” Even if the body in question belongs to his daughter.

“Maryam is a kind, loving girl,” he said. “That’s important to me as a father. And I appreciate that she went after what she wanted. But I wish that energy had been devoted to the practice of Islam.”

Imam Basir was born and raised in Pontiac, Mich. His name back then was Spurgeon Graves. He grew up in the projects, a serious-minded boy who excelled in school and on the baseball diamond and sang in the choir at Trinity Baptist Church. In college he got interested in Islam, converted on his 23rd birthday and became Isa Abdul Basir. He wears a flowing robe and a kufi skullcap, in emulation of the Prophet Mohammed, and is the father of five children; Maryam is his second daughter.

Imam Basir and I were sitting in the living room of his modest co-op just west of Lansing, Mich., an hour’s drive from Jackson, where he serves as one of Michigan’s two prison imams. “We Muslims bury the afterbirth of our babies,” he recalled. “In Maryam’s case, her placenta was in the exact shape of a heart.”

“Does that have a meaning?” I asked.

“I don’t know if it does have a meaning,” he said. “But it is something I’ll never forget. Maryam was always a beautiful child.” He spoke with sorrow. He and his daughter have been estranged since she left for New York and embarked on her modeling career.

African-Americans make up about a third of the overall Muslim population in the United States. “We new Muslims didn’t have generations of ancestors to guide us,” he said. “I wanted my children to be pious and knowledgeable. But only one of my daughters still wears the hijab. In the end, you meet Allah and you are judged. No one wants to see his child punished. So yes, it hurts my heart to see what Maryam is doing. I fear for her.”

Maryam Basir grew up “hijabbed,” but she was never cloistered or shy. At Huron High School in Ann Arbor, she was chosen “Most Likely to Be President of the United States.” She graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in communications and moved to New York, where she has family. One day a bank security guard told her that she was pretty enough to be a model. “That sort of put the bug in my head,” she said. “I found an agency on the Internet, went to an open call, got hired, and I’ve been working ever since.”

Ms. Basir’s modeling colleagues don’t see her religion as an issue. Many don’t even know she’s a Muslim. But religion is a matter of deep importance to her. “I’ve met models who were raised in Muslim homes, but say they are no longer Muslims,” she told me. “That’s not who I am. I pray five times a day. I fast on Ramadan and celebrate the holidays. On Fridays I go to the mosque for juma prayers. I give zakat (a required percentage of income to charity). I don’t drink alcohol or use drugs. It was important to me to marry a Muslim. And I definitely plan on making a haj, inshallah.” She admitted that she is in “a godless business,” the influences of which she mitigates with some do-it-yourself rules. “Backstage at fashion shows, models often walk around naked. I cover my body.

“I’m aware that I’m not a perfect Muslim,” she said. “But I believe that Allah is not judgmental.”

Imam Basir has never visited his daughter’s home. “If she invited you, would you go?” I asked him. He paused over the question. “Yes,” he said. “But if it was a dinner invitation, I would certainly want to inspect the meat, to make certain that it was slaughtered correctly.”

When I related this to Ms. Basir, I expected her to be pleased, but I had missed a coded message of parental disapproval. “Of course the food in my house is halal,” she said. “But that’s not his point. There is a hadith that if you enter the house of a Muslim, you shouldn’t check the meat. You assume that it is halal.” She interpreted Imam Basir’s answer as a way of saying that he no longer considered her a Muslim. “If Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, came to my house, he wouldn’t check the meat.”

“Maryam Basir represents a normalizing trend in the American Muslim community,” said Dr. Mucahit Bilici, a sociologist at John Jay College. “There are some prominent male American Muslim athletes and entertainers, not all of them what you would call pious, and there are a few outspoken feminists, like Irshad Manji. But American Muslim supermodels or sex symbols? That’s new. The only ones I know of are Maryam Basir and Rima Fakih,” a former Miss USA who was born in Lebanon.

A few years ago, Ms. Basir received a Facebook message from a woman who identified herself as Hadiza. “We are both sisters in Islam,” Hadiza wrote. “You are sending the wrong message to young Muslim females, as well as the non-Muslims, all over the world. The youthful Muslim women and non-Muslims admire you because of your position ... Why are you lowering yourself, to become famous or selling your body and your soul for worldly gain. Islam is a religion of modesty.”

Ms. Basir replied publicly. “What would you want for me sister, to stop modeling and acting, move back to the small town that I grew up in, get married and have kids, pregnant and barefoot, as long as I am covering my hair and not asking questions? If that’s what you believe to be right, do it for yourself ... I am not one of those people (like so many who I have met) who have abandoned my Islam because of people like you who try to make someone feel as if they are not Muslim enough, or Arab enough...”

She signed the letter, “Maryam Basir (Model Muslim).”

Ms. Basir and her French-born husband, Gee, are expecting their first child, a daughter, in mid-April. Until then, she will be modeling staid maternity clothing for Target, but she is looking forward to getting back to bikinis. First, though, she is planning her akika, the traditional Islamic celebration of a birth, although she will forgo the customary slaughter of a sheep. As usual, she intends to do things her way.

“Maryam upsets conservative Muslims,” said Dr. Bilici. “But things will change, that is inevitable, and she is part of the change. Young Muslim women in America have never had a role model like Maryam Basir before.”

editorial@observer.com

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade kicks off at 77th Street and Central Park West at 9am and concludes in Herald Square.

Kara Laricks with Broadway star Montego Glover at her presentation last week.

As New York shovels up the Fashion Week embers around town after the onslaught, The Observer still has a few loose ends. One thing we wanted to know in all the ruckus was how the new comers had fared.

Kara Laricks, the winner of NBC reality show Fashion Star, is certainly a new face in the crowded sea of designers. Under the tutelage design mentors Jessica Simpson, John Varvatos and Nicole Richie, Ms. Laricks convinced the buyers' judging panel from H&M, Macy's and Saks Fifth Avenue that her creations were worthy of the $6m capsule collection award. The show was a hit: Nielsen TV Ratings Data reported 4.81 million viewers for the finale, and NBC has already renewed Fashion Star for a second season and begun casting. We caught up with Ms. Laricks after her first presentation at Runway@Pier 57 last week to get all the buzz about her début. Were her masculine-feminine-meets-1920s-Japanese matchbox looks a triumph or did she she fall flat?

What did it feel like to finally present your first bona fide fashion week presentation?

I felt vulnerable!  In the past, if my collection was not well received, I was under the protective wing of The Academy of Art University, NBC, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's, H&M ... this time, the pressure was all on me.  However, there was never any question as to whether or not I would continue designing post Fashion Star and I knew "sticking my neck out there" would be worth the risk no matter what the response. Now that my first collection has been shown at New York fashion week and the reviews are rolling in, I feel exhilarated, proud and accomplished. Can't wait for the next!

Any dramas or disasters leading up to the big day?

Of course - wouldn't be fashion without a little bit of drama ... one of my models was stuck at a Calvin Klein fitting until minutes before my presentation - thank goodness for my talented (and speedy) hair and makeup team.

What did you do to keep calm?

I am always amazed when people remark that I appear calm, as I am usually a ball of nerves on the inside. However, I instantly calm down when I pause and take a look around at all of the incredible people who support me.

So now that Fashion Star is over, what has been your biggest struggles?

Putting together my first collection hasn't been a steep learning curve, but a right angle. For the first time, I have had to figure out how to produce an entire line, secure PR, a venue, models and the list goes on. The biggest challenge is keeping my fans and consumers informed of the process. Fans of Fashion Star were used to seeing a garment one evening and buying it the following day.  In the "real" world, it takes six months to develop a collection, show the collection to buyers and take orders—then add on another six months for production and delivery to stores.  It's tough not to get the people what they want when they want it!

Are you still tight with the cast?

Absolutely! Nzimiro, Nikki, Sarah and Edmond were at my presentation, cheering me on. I also received well wishes from the rest of the cast that wasn't able to be there. I had no idea a reality competition would turn into real friends, real support and real dreams come true.

What’s one thing you absolutely hate about fashion week?

The fact that when I am presenting my own collection, I do not have time too see other designers' work—I am still catching up— so grateful for Style.com!

Fireworks on the Hudson (YouTube)

For those of us living in the outer boroughs, navigating Manhattan during the holidays can serve as a great reminder as to why we migrated off the island in the first place.  New Years Eve, St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving...the term "amateur hour" was practically invented to describe the hoards of revelers who descend upon NYC like a plague of locusts to "celebrate" these annual events by getting as drunk as humanly possible and clogging up the sidewalks and public transit systems.

Now, most of the time, this does not pose too much of a problem for Brooklynites and Queens residents, who would just as soon stay in their district anyway, throwing  Skrillex-themed rooftop parties.

But the 4th of July poses an issue for non-Gotham-dwellers: since 2009, the incredible light show thrown by Macy's has been held on the Hudson River, making it almost impossible to view from the top of a Brooklyn Heights townhouse.

In late June,  the discontent of outer-borough residents were voiced  in a public press conference, where Public Advocate Bill de Blasio (D-Brooklyn) and Senator Daniel Squadron (D-Brooklyn Heights) railed against the dearth of explosives on the East River; a supposedly "one-year hiatus on the Hudson (that) has now become the new norm." From 1976 to 2008, the East River held the event, and it was originally  moved to the Hudson to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson in 2009. But the fireworks were never moved back to their original location.

Councilman Stephen Levin and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz also stood behind the decision to bring back the sparklers, standing behind a petition  that has amassed 3,100 names so far.

Message received: Macy's has agreed to a sit down with the Brooklyn  politicos to  discuss potential solutions, according to The New York Daily News.

The department store is being tight-lipped on the subject, with a spokesperson only saying, "Macy’s fireworks will take place in and around all accessible New York City waterways and will not be a permanent fixture at any one location."

Hey, we're not unreasonable people: If New Jersey residents are unhappy to lose the view of the fireworks on the Hudson, we'd be more than happy to outsource the whole Thanksgiving Day parade to Newark.

Or some of us just live in Queens and Brooklyn, and don't want to haul ourselves to the other side of Manhattan to watch fireworks that for all intents and purposes should belong exclusively to New Yorkers but still have to share with New Jersey for some reason. And that seems to be quite a few people, no? Yet: Macy's, year after year, has continued their tradition of exploding colored gunpowder over the Hudson River ever year, instead of the East River.

Until now. Hopefully. Because we have someone advocating for us.

With a website.

Yes, public advocate Bill de Blasio has taken up The People's Cause along with superhero-sounding State Senator Daniel Squadron and Marty Markowitz (who would campaign with Spider Man as his running mate if he could do such a thing, utilitarian that he is) have teamed up to take on the persecution of outer-borough residents from receiving the fireworks we so deserve for having to put up with Macy's and all the irritating tourists who seem to congregate around their stores, which are usually in some of our most trafficked pedestrian areas.

Now, you may be thinking: What a frivolous way for a politician to spend their time! You are probably not from New York, where advocacy for ostensibly frivolous things on behalf of our politicians is pretty standard. For context, this is like the opposite of what Sen. Chuck "Fun Destroyer" Schumer does.

Anyway, they have a petition you can sign. Do it before July 4th or else we will all die of sadness and New Jersey will win again.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

The firm is a Fortune 500 company that specializes in information technology and cloud computing services and is growing according to people familiar with its space needs.

2 Penn Plaza. (Courtesy Property Shark)

EMC will take the additional space on 2 Penn Plaza’s 26th floor for rents in the $50s per square foot a source said. EMC already leases the building’s entire 18th floor and a portion of 17 as well. Floors in 2 Penn Plaza are around 60,000 square feet apiece.

The new space that EMC will take is not contiguous to the floors that it already occupies but offered one of the few openings of that size in the 1.5 million square foot building, which is owned by Vornado Realty Trust and is virtually fully leased.

EMC will now occupy about 107,000 square feet at the property, making the company one of 2 Penn Plaza’s largest tenants. Madison Square Garden, operator of the adjacent arena that, like 2 Penn Plaza, is also perched atop Penn Station, is another sizable tenant in the 31-story building.

Jane Roundell, an executive with the brokerage company CresaPartners, represented EMC in the expansion deal.

Vornado was represented by an in-house brokerage team led by executive Craig Panzirer.

Neither Ms. Roundell nor Mr. Panzirer could be reached by press time. A spokeswoman at EMC also did not return calls by press time.

EMC is the latest in a recent series of expansion deals for Vornado. As The Commercial Observer reported yesterday, The Limited Brands Inc. has just reached an agreement to add nearly 100,000 square feet to its space at 1740 Broadway, another Vornado skyscraper. The company will now occupy about 500,000 square feet in the property, which is roughly 700,000 square feet in size.

Vornado also recently signed a lease to have the large retailer Macy’s grow by about 60,000 square feet at 11 Penn Plaza. In that deal, Macy’s took the entire fifth floor in the 1.1 million square foot building, which is one among a long list of properties that Vornado owns in the direct vicinity of the city’s busiest transit hub, Penn Station. Macy’s now occupies about 600,000 square feet at 11 Penn Plaza.

Dan Geiger, Staff Writer, is reachable at DGeiger@Observer.com

Aside from Walmart, Nordstrom is the store every retail broker in the city dreams of harpooning and reeling into a new home. One prominent broker familiar with the store, the amount of space it needs and the rents it would probably be willing to pay estimates that the commission for handling its lease would be around $10 million.

But like a leviathan lurking beneath the waves, the department store has offered only fleeting glimpses around the city, most notably at several development sites and a few existing assets with the capacity to accommodate its sprawling footprint.

The scuttlebutt nowadays: Nordstrom is contemplating one of two leases, one at the West Side rail yards with the Related Companies or another at the base of Extell Development’s soaring new residential tower now rising at 157 West 57th Street.

Illustration by Zack Nipper

According to brokers familiar with Nordstrom’s search, the options are emblematic of the dilemma that has kept the retailer bouncing around Manhattan for years. The department store is ideally searching for a roughly 250,000-square-foot box, a commodity so rare in the city that the only major department stores that have it—Macy’s and Saks among a short list of others—are ones that have been established in the city for decades and hence had a chance to address their real estate needs before the market became as expensive and supply-starved as it is now.

The solution, of course, has been for Nordstrom to accept a smaller space with a layout that is atypical for a traditional department store.  Many brokers say the template for this configuration is the Bloomingdale’s on Broadway in Soho, where the retailer had to greatly reduce the size of its store and tailor its clothing line and layout to appeal to the type of shoppers in that neighborhood.

A similar reshuffling of the Nordstrom concept would likely be necessary to bring the chain to Extell’s project, brokers told The Commercial Observer. The attractiveness of the rail yards stems from an assumption that the company could design a building from the ground up to meet all of its specifications.

But the rail yards are considered a new frontier in the city with little retail connecting the site to Midtown, making a deal there a gamble if the neighborhood takes longer than expected to develop into a popular destination for shoppers.

Extell’s development, though perhaps ill fitting for Nordstrom, would place it at the center of Midtown and near the Time Warner Center, a successful high-end retail mall in Columbus Circle that has helped designate the neighborhood as a retail hub.

Nordstrom has been linked to that area before. Last year, developer Stephen Ross bought the mortgage on the office building 3 Columbus Circle with the intent to foreclose on the property, raze it and erect a new tower with Nordstrom in the base. The deal fizzled when Joe Moinian, 3 Columbus’s landlord, held onto the property by recapitalizing the building with SL Green.

The trade-off between location and compatibility has been a conflict for the company for more than five years. Nordstrom almost had a deal to move into an office tower that was to be built by Stephen Ross and Harry Macklowe on the former site of the Drake Hotel at 57th Street and Park Avenue.  A person directly involved in those talks said that lease eventually crumbled because Nordstrom pushed the physical limits of the project, insisting on towering ceiling heights and other amenities.

“They wanted 18-foot ceilings,” the person said. “You could literally do two office floors for every floor that they wanted. They placed themselves out of the game by needing too much.”

The office building at 650 Madison Avenue, not far from the Drake site, has also been a location that Nordstrom has considered. According to brokers, the issues plaguing that property centered around the likelihood that nearby department stores like Saks, Bloomingdale’s, Barneys and Bergdorf Goodman would balk at or even bar its vendors from supplying Nordstrom with the brands that they sell, which would essentially prevent Nordstrom from being competitive.

“None of the existing department stores are going to roll over and give into Nordstrom without a fight,” the broker said, adding that he wasn’t “100 percent certain that they have given up on 650 Madison.”

Perhaps out of necessity, the company has poked around downtown, reportedly checking out an anchor tenancy at the World Financial Center office complex as well as the retail being built at the World Trade Center. Here again, brokers said, Nordstrom has expressed a preference to be in Midtown.

dgeiger@observer.com

2. Anna Dello Russo