At $10k a head, you'd have hoped that White House interior designer Michael Smith and HBO vice president James Costos had made sure that the lift up to their UES pad wouldn't accidentally trap their guests between floors, but at least the Democratic Fundraiser had a good sense of humor about the incident after being forced to wedge herself out between floors after half an hour.
"Jumping out with the elevator between floors added a bit of excitement I hadn't planned on," Ms. Duff told The New York Observer via email. "But the event and President Obama's remarks were worth the wait."

"There's an abundance of Fracas at this party," noted Grey Gardens producer Rachael Horovitz, referring to the heady tuberose perfume-not to be confused with an abundance of Farkas, two of whom, Jonathan and wife Somers, lingered nearby.

Ms. Ward's dress, by Marchesa, best described as a peaked brocade meringue, made it difficult for well-wishing guests to get close. "This man is in the book!" Ms. Ward exclaimed, standing with Lehman vet Robert Shapiro. "I see a lot of the Lehman guys are here. I'm so touched they came!"

"Well, you know us Lehman guys, we run in packs," Mr. Shapiro said softly, before asking: "So what was it like being with Imus?"

"You know, he wrote me the loveliest note after I went on the show; it said, 'Dear Vicky, your book is amazing and you are gorgeous, what a winning combination!' And it was on beautiful stationery, with beautiful handwriting," Ms. Ward trilled.

Bald billionaire Ronald Perelman, wearing a cashmere sweater vest under his pinstriped blazer, chatted with society grande dame Louise Grunwald. In a ruched amethyst sheath, his ex-wife Patricia Duff steered clear, posing instead with pundit Monica Crowley while Patrick McMullan squatted snapping their photograph, suggesting the two blond women start a TV show together. "We've actually talked about it!" they giggled in unison.

Details editor Dan Peres arrived with his wife, actress Sarah Wynter, and completed a quick tour before heading back down the stairs. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter was also there, with wife Anna.

"I started the book on my flight over from Washington and I can't wait to finish it on my flight to L.A.," said jet-set bloggeress Arianna Huffington.

"Wait, who's on the back of the book?" financier Steve Rattner asked fellow moneybags Jeffrey Leeds, before flipping his copy over and finding out: superstar New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, whose Greed and Glory on Wall Street was the unofficial prequel to Ms. Ward's tell-all!

"I wrote a blurb for the back of the book, so I must like it, right?" Mr. Auletta said. "No, seriously, I really loved the book; she's done an amazing job creating characters you empathize with."

Out in Los Angeles, Steven Spielberg, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, Bradley Whitford, Tom Hanks, Jamie Lee Curtis, Magic Johnson, Robert Zemeckis, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Berry Gordy and director-producer Reginald Hudlin have all pitched in. From New York, we have Cynthia Brill and Patricia Duff, who each gave $25,000. Ms. Duff's ex, Ron Perelman, gave $50,000, as did Def Jam executive Antonio Reid, Laurance  Rockefeller Jr. and his wife, Wendy, Citigroup's Ray McGuire, Sally Minard, Howard Milstein (two family members also donated the maximum amount), and five people with the last name Soros (including, of course, George).

Contributors will receive tickets to the ceremony and, more important, access to official balls and events. Whether the $500 folk will be attending the same parties as the $50,000 crowd is unclear, but it seems, shall we say, unlikely. 

The Daily News's Rush & Molloy, who are moving their gossip column from the daily edition to the Sunday issue, have compiled a roundup of some of their most interesting famous people stories. [R&M]

Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise will be on separate covers of the New York Times' T Magazine this weekend. She told the magazine: "There's a misperception about me that I just became this wallflower, this woman who doesn't have any control of her life." [People]

Gothamist was awarded the dubious honor of meeting the Real World: Brooklyn cast and taking a tour of their Red Hook home. [Gothamist via Curbed]

Ronald Perelman and Patricia Duff have settled their epic custody battle over daughter Caleigh. According to the agreement, all three family members will "continue to see therapists." [P6]

Billionaire Ron Perelman and ex-wife Patricia Duff will return to court next month, this time to discuss the order of protection daughter Caleigh filed against her mother this summer over "emotional abuse." [P6]

A Comme des Garcons for H&M dress is already on eBay (it's a size 8 with a starting bid of $750, in case you didn't make yesterday's opening). [The Cut] 

A characteristically humble Kanye West on his career: "I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice...It's me settling into that position of just really accepting that it's one thing to say you want to do it, and it's another thing to really end up being like Michael Jordan." [AP]

Stylist Rachel Zoe seems to have patched things up with former client Nicole Richie, who made the stylist a household name by referring to her as "raisin face" and "lettuce cup" on her Myspace page. [P6]

Damon Dash, who co-founded Roc-A-Fella Records and Rocawear, is pretty much broke. [NYDN]

Michelle Williams is reportedly officially dating her close friend director Spike Jonze, who was previously married to Sofia Coppola. [Daily Mail]  

Vogue intern and New York Ranger Sean Avery, 28, is dating 51-year-old Kelly Klein, ex-wife of Calvin. [P6] 

In the ongoing custody battle between Ron Perelman and Patricia Duff, their 13-year-old daughter Caleigh is refusing to speak to her mother or go on vacation with her, according to the Manhattan judge handling the case. [NY Daily News]  

Not kosher: Former Real World contestant Kevin Powell, who is running for Congress, told an audience of Hasidic Jews Monday night that he would "bring home the bacon." [P6] 

Alex Rodriguez is working things out privately with wife Cynthia regarding visitation rights and alimony payments in order to avoid having to admit to his extramarital affairs in court. [NY Daily News] 

Katie Holmes has arrived in Manhattan to prepare for Arthur Miller's All My Sons, which will premiere on Broadway September 17. [Us Weekly]

NYC Council member Tony Avella is accused of receiving a bouquet of flowers from Pamela Anderson. Quelle scandale! [Politicker] 

In an interview with an Israeli newspaper, Katie Couric compared herself to Hillary Clinton, claiming that sexism is more tolerated than racism. [NY Daily News]

Lauren Conrad, who just last week bailed on a Humane Society charity event, has reportedly continued her diva behavior in the Hamptons this past weekend. After flying in via chopper to host a party at Lily Pond, Ms. Conrad arrived late and was anti-social. [P6]

Maggie Gyllenhaal brought back the formal jumper for the London premiere of Dark Knight. [NY Daily News]

Betsey Johnson said she doesn't miss living downtown. [WWD via The Cut]

The View's Sherri Shepherd thinks Barbara Walters needs saving. [P6]

The custody battle between Ron Perelman and Patricia Duff continues to escalate as Mr. Perelman reportedly refuses to budge on sole custody and has refused to go into family therapy. [P6]

From big machers on museum boards with millions to spend to relative nobodies with a few grand saved up, anyone who wants a leg up on the competition tries to see the merch first. Competition is so fierce because of a long-overheated art market in which nearly every gallery exhibition sells out and waiting lists are the norm. Since the Armory Show is arguably the most important contemporary art fair in North America, there's a lot of work that collectors might not get a crack at otherwise.

The Armory Show isn't the only fair where collectors cut in line: Larry Gagosian flew Marie-Josee and Henry Kravis to Art Basel Miami Beach last December for a private tour while galleries were still setting up. But the consensus among art dealers is that early entry is especially endemic to the Armory Show. "The Armory does a shockingly horrible, really shoddy job of keeping out collectors during installation," said Chinatown dealer Michele Maccarone. "Stupid and irresponsible gallerists let them in, and it totally makes for this feeding-frenzy atmosphere." Last year, Andrea Bundonis, the head of P.R. at the blue-chip PaceWildenstein gallery, was too busy to speak with the press at the press preview, which precedes the MoMA benefit, because she was making sales to collectors who had finagled their way in.

"There's a regular group, and it's as if they've been transported inside by a Trojan horse," said London dealer Kenny Schachter. "That's when you see the food chain of the art world at work. It's total Darwinism."

One repeat offender cited by several dealers who declined to be mentioned by name is Whitney Museum trustee Beth Rudin DeWoody. "I guess it's not something that should happen, but usually a dealer invites me in so I can see something without all the distractions. This year I'll probably save a lot of money, since I'll be out of town until the last two days of the fair." Other much-mentioned high rollers who are said to practically waltz right in on the arms of dealers include David Teiger, whose name graces a gallery at MoMA, and real-estate magnate Aby Rosen. (Mr. Teiger declined to be interviewed for this story; Mr. Rosen didn't return calls for comment.)

Smaller fish need to resort to crafty tactics. Michael Nachman, a textile manufacturer who started collecting contemporary art four years ago, convinced a journalist "from some magazine, I don't remember the name," to doctor up press credentials for him last year. "Once you see the difference it makes in terms of what you have access to, it's hard to go back to starting your Armory experience at the MoMA preview," he said. Artist Neil Frankel, who buys from such Chelsea powerhouses as the David Zwirner gallery, cops a more casual approach. "Sometimes, when they're setting up, I might help somebody bring something there, or I might have an appointment to meet a dealer," he said. "Then I'm in."

But what most everybody is angling for is a worker's pass. These allow unfettered access to Piers 90 and 92, where the fair is held, until the MoMA benefit begins. Whatever passes the galleries don't need are often bestowed upon favored clients. "Listen, I've lost out over the years because I waited for the public opening," said a venture capitalist who persuaded a rising Chelsea dealer to hand over a worker's pass. ("Don't mention which gallery he got it from," the dealer added. "I don't need a war among my clients.")

One young collector who has an art-world job gets his worker's pass through business connections. "I did it last year, and I'm definitely doing it again this year," he said. "The really good stuff is so good that anyone who sees it knows to buy it straight away."

Last year, workers' passes were reconfigured to incorporate photo ID's. "We've gotten applications where we look at the photograph and are like, 'That woman is on our V.I.P. list!'" said fair director Katelijne De Backer.

Still, Ms. De Backer has resigned herself somewhat to sneaky collectors and the exhibitors who help them-obviously, everyone knows on which side their bread is buttered. So this year, Armory organizers are allowing each gallery to invite a certain number of lucky collectors to the press preview. "Talk about feeding the frenzy!" said Ms. Maccarone, the Chinatown dealer.

Sure enough, Mr. Nachman tried to get invites from three of his regular galleries last week, but each had filled its quota. "I called the Armory Show and said, 'Look, I'm a collector, and I'd like to get a pass to come to the press preview,' and they were very hard-nosed. It's sort of ticking me off. I mean, why should others get the advantage and get the cream of the crop? I want to have pick of the litter, too."

According to Harvey S. Shipley Miller, Mr. Nachman shouldn't despair. And Mr. Miller should know: Having spent the past year putting together a $75 million drawing collection for MoMA, he has countless enviable connections but refuses to sneak in early. "I encourage everybody to go the last day. The Europeans especially don't want to ship anything back, so whatever they have left-well, you do the math."

-Rebecca Cascade

Decadance

The theme for "An Enchanted Evening," the first annual winter gala benefiting the School of American Ballet, was the 1940's. With that glorious era in mind, the co-hosts of the party, the luxury-goods company Hermès, transformed Jazz at Lincoln Center's Allen Room into a "1940's French-style nightclub in the spirit of Jean Cocteau," according to a press release.

The men wore black tie and the women looked glamorous and "evening chic," but in a glitzy mid-80's, big-hair kind of way. A few managed to pull off middle of the last century, like the young lady who told The Transom that she had on a 40's-style bias-cut satin dress with a peep-toe high-heel dorsay.

The Transom tried for the look (gray Brooks Brothers suit, white shirt by the Gap, a blue and white spotty tie, beat-up Timberlands), but no one seemed impressed. During the cocktail hour, Jeanette Walls, the MSNBC.com gossip columnist and author, helped to explain that decade's elusive style.

"The 1940's, in terms of fashion, in my opinion was the best period ever," Ms. Walls said. "Because what it did was combine practicality with sexiness. It was also an era in which people were powerful: They dressed to work and also achieved. Before then, the 30's, it was a matronly look-women were made to look very maternal and had a dowdy look. In the 40's, it was Rosie the Riveter and working gals and these really sexy, smart outfits."

Ms. Walls, wearing a Vera Wang dress, remarked that if there's any benefit to life during wartime, it's that people get more practical about fashions-and, she added, there's fun to be had. "Live life to the fullest, because it might be the last day," she explained, adding that that applied to New York City in 2005 "more than pre-9/11".

She isn't entirely optimistic these days. "I don't think we know what's going to happen. I'm nervous," she said.

How has the war changed her life?

"I've started reading the A-section of The Times."

John Kalymnios, a sculptor, stepped out for a cigarette on Broadway. He said he thought the scene in the adjacent room, Dizzy's Club, was capturing the 40's better that evening. "This party's a bit more theatrical-let's put it that way," he said of the ballet benefit. "There's a lot of glamour up there, everyone's dressed to the nines, but there's no smoke in the room.

"I think there was fashion [in the 1940's], there was excitement," Mr. Kalymnios continued. "There was this intrigue of time and space that doesn't exist today. We've lost it. War is too high-tech now. We're too saturated today with media. I think in our society, we're all trying to reinvent ourselves. It's a conceptual environment."

Socialite Somers Farkas and Town and Country magazine editor-at-large Mike Cannon were on their way to dinner in the Atrium Room, which looked like the set of a Fred Astaire movie. Ms. Farkas said she felt less anxious than she'd been in 2003 and that now we're in a postwar period. "Hopefully this will be a time of peace, most importantly-prosperity, domesticity," she said. "The troops are coming home!"

"Prosperity and pearls," Mr. Cannon cracked.

Seventeen editor Atoosa Rubenstein, in a stunning, extremely cleavage-friendly strapless ball gown, noted that her magazine was launched in 1944, and she's taking it back to the ethos of that time. "It really was a moment when young women were coming into their own," she said. "Leonard Lauder always talks about his 'lipstick formula': that during certain times like wartime, one thing that will go up is lipstick, because women still want to look elegant and show their best face. And I think that's certainly true of the 40's. The women of the 40's projected an image of being very strong and very secure in themselves during a time that was very uncertain, and we're certainly facing those times again."

Did she think the war's almost over?

"For me to make a statement about that would be silly. I do think we have a new status quo."

Hotelier Ian Schrager agreed. "I don't think anybody thinks it's over. I think we're at the beginning of it-in it for the long haul," he said.

Did Al Qaeda get lucky on 9/11?

"I do think that, in terms of the scale and its success. But there will be others ones, I'm sure."

Mr. Schrager said that the 40's (i.e., the big-band style and swing music) had always inspired him. "I think usually, in a bad time, people look for escape by having enjoyment, and I don't see that now," he said, before recalling the golden age of the 70's, when he ran Studio 54.

"It was more mindless," he said. "You know, sometimes you really can't capture that splendor. I think all the forces of the universe came together then, and it was a special time."

How's nightlife doing now?

"In New York? It's nonexistent."

"What's cool about the 40's is high-waisted pants," said actor Liev Schrieber, having a smoke outside. "I'm afraid we're much less involved now than we were then. I don't know if it's the age of numbness-I just have the sense there was a deeper sense of identity in America in the 1940's."

After the suave, ageless Bryan Ferry crooned a few romantic standards (among them, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"), he allowed his conversation with writer Candace Bushnell to be interrupted for some chatter about the 1940's. "A very good period for pop songs," Mr. Ferry said. "A lot of the songs I do from that period were written by refugees from Europe who came to New York and embraced the town's culture. They came here and wrote incredible songs."

What stage were we at now?

"There isn't a war on, is there?" he joked. "I guess living here is different from England. In England, there's always a war going on of one sort or another."

Are happy days here again?

"Not for me, particularly, at the moment."

At 10 p.m., guests for the after-party-predominantly a B-list crowd who'd paid $150 to get in-passed through a "magical portal" with haze flowing around it and into the Allen Room, which looked like the set of a high-school play that was about to collapse. Not a whole lot of glamour in their midst, with the supreme exception of socialite Debbie Bancroft, who was wearing a sable fur over her long, sleeveless beaded gown, and Patricia Duff, in a chic black suit. They were talking about politics and the Women's Campaign Fund event they'd been to earlier.

Ms. Duff said the 40's made her think of Frank Sinatra, Betty Grable, Tokyo Rose and "drop-dead-handsome men in uniform."

If they could time-travel back?

"I'd meet Eleanor Roosevelt," Ms. Bancroft said.

"I'd want to be a partisan working in the underground against the Nazis … some resistance somewhere," Ms. Duff said, adding that it felt to her like 1939 right now. "Storm clouds are approaching," she said, citing Syria and Iran. "I hope we're resolving things in a peaceful manner, but it could be building up to more hostility."

They looked around the room at the kids.

"They're not dancing enough," Ms. Bancroft said.

-George Gurley

À La Mode

"All this anti-French business, that's just about politics," huffed Mireille Guiliano, a Parisian puff of smoke and the author of a best-selling book suggesting we could all be thinner, happier, healthier, sexier-if only we acted a little more like the French. While she said this-after a reading last week at the 92nd Street Y-dozens of Upper East Side women with dark glasses down on their noses and hair tied back tight enough to render Botox unnecessary were clamoring for her autograph. What's this? The Transom wondered as we were muscled out of the way by a woman of oompah-loompah stature but good, old-fashioned American grit. We're trying to be like the French now?

Last time we checked, France was out, out, out: of fashion, of 1441, of the hot-food bar at the Congressional cafeteria. But all that changed, it seems, with French Women Don't Get Fat, Alfred A. Knopf's improbable 2005 offering to chubby women a little too sophisticated for Random House, and an unlikely answer to the Franco-American contretemps. It begins with a disclaimer: "Whatever the state of Franco-American relations-admittedly a bit frayed from time to time-we should not lose sight of the singular achievements of French civilization."

Food, she means. Not any of those other pesky things (diplomacy, labor relations, military et al.).

"You know," Ms. Guiliano flatly told The Transom at a reception after the reading, "we don't like our government, either."

Aha! Forget all the protest marches and hunger strikes, people-the message here is that, with a strict diet of leek soup, long walks, snug skirts and champagne (Ms. Guiliano is also the C.E.O. of Veuve Clicquot and a master of cross-promotion), you can be svelte and subversive at the same time. So rise from the couch, ladies! Discard those old sweatpants and go buy yourself a Hermès scarf! Et voilà: You're 15 pounds lighter-and a socialist!

It went something like that for Mary Louise Engelhardt, a particularly vocal audience member at Ms. Guiliano's reading. Ms. Engelhardt was clad head-to-toe in saffron-colored cable knits-remember, we like the French now-and her brand-new Hermès scarf was tied in a prim little off-center knot against her neck. Ms. Engelhardt bought the scarf a week ago but was still carrying the Hermès bag; it matched the sweater and gave off a certain Frenchness that seemed appropriate for the night, to her mind. "I lost 11 1¼2 pounds, thanks to your book," she blurted during the Q.-and-A.-turned-A.A.-style portion of the evening, to much delicate applause. Afterward, at the champagne reception, she told The Transom that her husband is sending her to France for her birthday, in memory of the 11 1¼2 pounds.

Ms. Engelhardt was waiting in line to have the author-who was wearing the same crinkly green sweater as in her book-jacket photo-sign both a copy of the book and a restaurant guidebook to Paris. "Mostly, though, I just want her to tell me the good places to eat," she said.

Surrounding her in the queue were women equally moved by Ms. Guiliano's book, their husbands scattered uncomfortably around the room, drinking champagne and avoiding eye contact. Among them was Austin Noll, who said he was waiting for a guide to how French men stay so trim.

He's been a Francophile for years, see-he has no problem imitating the French. "It's taboo to some people, I guess, but I happen to admire the French people. I like their lifestyle, their food, their wine, and I love Paris."

Lots of people do, said Ms. Guiliano. "It was funny, because when the book was accepted, it was, you know, the time of Iraq-anti-French everything," she continued. "I thought, 'Wow, I don't know how this happened.' But here we are."

Here we are, indeed-at a curious crossroads of diet and diplomacy. Ms. Guiliano's book, endorsed as it is by such varied luminaries as Emeril Lagasse, Adam Gopnik and Nicole Miller, might just be the gastronomic Yalta of our time. Leave the details to the politicians, she told The Transom at the end of the night; her plan is to solve everything "with a good meal."

-Rebecca Dana

The Transom Also Hears …

As the faculty at Harvard meets twice a week to determine whether to give a vote of "no confidence" to embattled university president Lawrence Summers, Hollywood's golden boy has tentatively jumped to his defense. Matt Damon, who dropped out of Harvard 12 credits short of graduating to pursue his acting career, told The Transom: "I haven't read the transcript, so I'm not too comfortable giving my opinion on it. But I will say that when you're trying to encourage 18-year-old kids to exercise freedom of thought, it can be dangerous to remove [Mr. Summers] for doing just that." The Oscar-winner had stopped by a special screening of Non Ti Muovere (Don't Move) on Sunday, March 6, at the request of the film's star, Penélope Cruz, whom he met on the set of All the Pretty Horses. No word on where some of Harvard's other well-known alumni-among them, Natalie Portman, Norman Mailer, John Updike and Conan O'Brien-stand on the future of Mr. Summers, who has been famously under fire since postulating that women may be less likely to thrive in the fields of math and science due to innate gender disparities.

-Noelle Hancock

"She was glowing and she looked stunning," one guest reported. "The dress fit her to perfection, was absolutely ideal for her, this kind of champagne-colored satin halter cut to the bra line.

"Not like a 25-year-old who would cut it to the tush."

Remember the 25-year-old? She was the center of the story that was told for years about the New York power macher whose late-life crisis brought him a trophy, some screams in the sack, the hatred of his first wife's friends. The usual.

That model, it seems, is now retired.

From Gerald Levin to Jack Welch to Rudy Giuliani, the Judi Nathans of New York have been elbowing the 25-year-olds aside. They're a new breed of fortysomething Superdames who have been around the block-sex bombs who can do a balance sheet and set the dinner table-and they're retiring the old-fashioned Bimbettes from the forefront of New York society.

The old paradigm was "And God Created Woman," in which poor Curt Jürgens fell for Brigitte Bardot. Smitten, smoldering, he burnt to a crisp.

The new one is this: 53-year-old Random House Inc. president and C.E.O. Peter Olson has covered an entire wall of his huge office at Bertelsmann's new publishing enclave with a ceiling-high image of his 51-year-old second wife, ivillage founder and former C.E.O. Candice Carpenter Olson. They were married in 2001 and have seven children between them.

"I happen to be someone who is very much in love with my wife," the ebullient Mr. Olson told The Observer . "I have three views in my office: the park, my bookshelf and Candice. It's a full body shot-very sexy. I have two smaller photos of her in the office as well. People call it the shrine."

A shrine it is. Clearly, men like Mr. Olson are not giving up a marital sex life for old-fashioned "companionship" and an intellectual bond with their wives. They are marrying for better and better and better. When asked whether his desire for his wife in bed was the equal of his workplace tribute to her, Mr. Olson said, "I can only laugh with pleasure at that question."

Wow!

Chalk it up to a new world or a bad economy, to wisdom or pragmatism, to better bodies or worse bank accounts, but a new breed of Superdames is getting the geezers. Back in the '80s the King Kongs of New York went through a sad and predictable pattern: divorce Mommy, marry Bambi. When John Kluge, the billionaire co-owner of Metromedia, married Patricia Rose in 1981, he was 65, she was 32, a former belly dancer in London who had later posed nude in Knave , a British girlie mag that belonged to her first husband. In the 1980's, New York society was swimming with them: Susan Penn, the former stewardess, married former Solomon Brothers C.E.O. John Gutfreund when she was 34, he 51. 33-year-old Gayfryd Steinberg got Saul Steinberg to the altar in 1984. Georgette Paulsin was 36 when she became Mrs. Robert Mosbacher in 1985.

But now, instead of 20 being the new 30, 40 is the new 30. And 40 and 45 and 50 is looking very good to those chomping old lions. "You know, a younger wife isn't all it's cracked up to be," Candice Carpenter Olson said. "For one thing, women are healthier and more fit now."

And if Mr. Giuliani's wooing of Ms. Nathan is emblematic of the new order of things, it's partly because he has done more than marry Ms. Nathan. He has publicly worshipped her. He smiles at her like a makeout king. He bills, coos, makes googly eyes, clutches her hand as if it were the safety-bar on the Cyclone.

When they got to the altar, witnesses said, the new couple just went at it.

"What a lucky man I am to have such a beautiful lady, such a wonderful person," the former Mayor said after the wedding, as he kissed his lovely bombshell for the cameras.

It's not that the age-old scenario of a powerful man seeing a chance to cheat age by wedding a hot young thing has vanished entirely. But the jiggle girl whose heart belongs to Daddy is being replaced by the super-competent, middle-aged sex bomb, professional, educated, toned, solvent, sexy.

When G.E.'s retiring chairman Jack Welch ditched his wife of 13 years, it was not for some baby celery stalk with a big rack, but for Harvard Business Review editor Suzy Wetlaufer, a formidable woman of 43 with four children, one novel and her own midlife crisis-an affair with a 22-year-old editorial assistant-under her belt. Mr. Welch will find himself in good company when he's sent out to Duane Reade to fetch the Astroglide. When former AOL Time Warner C.E.O. Gerald Levin, 64, remade his life, separating from his wife Barbara after 38 years of marriage, he headed not toward a Reese, Buffy or Britney, but into the arms of therapist Dr. Laurie Perlman, 50, a former Creative Artists Agency agent, former wife of C.A.A. co-president Jack Rapke.

The current Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, divorced and well-known for his active pulse, goes out with 48-year-old lanky-babe Diana Taylor. What does she do for a living? State banking superintendent.

How do we account for this spate of middle-aged drinks of water taking over from the retired phalanx of day-old cupcakes?

For one thing, the economy. If, in the 1950's, diamonds were a girl's best friend, in the early 21st century, a second income is a boy's. "You complete me" may not refer as much to the heart these days as the budget. Ever since the crash, a potential spouse's kickass career is as much of a draw as her body. When it comes to a second wife, why take on the cargo of a young, hot extra dependent-most of these old boys already have a lot of dependents in boarding school and college-when you can strap another engine to your jet, in the form of a high-functioning middle-aged babe with her own income? And probably some money saved from her first divorce?

We're not talking about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt here-or even Bill and Hillary Clinton. Picture Teresa Heinz and John Kerry, instead. In the current Elle magazine, Lisa DePaulo describes the Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate and his 64-year-old second wife "nuzzling each other's necks, in rapt whisper, his enormous paw around her shoulders pushing her close." Mr. Kerry is quoted saying that his wife "is very earthy, sexy, European."

But Ms. Heinz's foreign-policy credibility was as much of an aphrodisiac as her stacked body. "How many [other] women did he go out with … who could talk to a parliamentarian from Japan about the global environment?" Ms. Heinz told Elle .

A woman with an aura of authority and influence, said Elle editor Roberta Myers, no longer sends men running toward the nearest Hooters: "They find it sexy and interesting. And they better get used to it because more and more women have it."

In Adaptation , the signal moment of the movie may be Nicolas Cage masturbating to the jacket photo of a well-ripened Meryl Streep as Susan Orlean. These days, it seems, the holder of a contract from The New Yorker can compete quite nicely with the holder of a contract from Elite.

But these women are better-looking, to a ridiculous degree, than Henry Kissinger, whose famous line when he was dating Jill St. John was that power is the greatest aphrodisiac. As Manhattan attorney Ed Hayes put it, "Women keep themselves in much better shape, generally speaking. It takes a long time to become a degenerate."

"I got the ideal woman," Peter Olson said. "When I met her I realized that I'd finally met the ideal in terms of physicality, intelligence, beauty, and just as a partner in every respect. I can't understand why anyone would want a younger and more immature woman."

When British advertising megalith Charles Saatchi, 59, dumped his 49-year-old wife, in no time he had shacked up with Nigella Lawson, the gorgeous 43-year-old widow who has built a cooking empire with the help of her mature, bowl-licking sensuality.

When Today show host Katie Couric guest-hosted The Tonight Show on May 12, her curvy 46-year-old bod was encased in a sausage-tight black dress cut low on top and high on the bottom. "For all of you people from L.A. who have never seen them before, these are actually real," she said, gesturing to her breasts without shyness.

Later in the show, Mike Myers, purring, laid Ms. Couric flat on her back on the host's desk, and later The Tonight Show crew cut away the desk's front so that the audience could watch the newswoman cross and uncross her gams. Ms. Couric, as it happens, has an on-again, off-again relationship with television producer and Boston Red Sox owner Tom Werner, 53, who divorced his wife of 28 years in 2000.

Viacom chief Sumner Redstone just married someone half his age, but since he's 79, it meant he was robbing the cradle with a 40-year-old woman-his new wife, Paula Fortunato.

But don't shed any tears for the trophy wife; she'll never go out of business. Those young and beautiful women who once scored rich, much older husbands eventually got dumped by them, too, although they generally picked up a lot of money by the road. Some of these women have grown up to be just as go-getting professionally as they once were maritally-they learned a thing or two along the way-which makes them, of course, prime candidates to remake themselves as educated, competent, experienced fortysomething second wives rather than the 25-year-old strumpets they started out as.

Political pollster Patricia Duff was 32 in 1986 when she became producer Mike Medavoy's third wife. With Mr. Medavoy, Ms. Duff formed close political ties to the Clintons. In 1993, she left Mr. Medavoy for Ron Perelman, whom she married in 1995. While in that marriage, Ms. Duff rose to the top of the Women's Leadership Forum and was a major fund-raiser for the Clinton-Gore campaign.

Ms. Duff is now 49 years old, a shade older than the new Mrs. Giuliani. She is still gorgeous. She is back on the market. And, as a woman who understands her times, the coquette has been remade as a Superdame.

She ought to do just fine.