“It’s basically the Oscars of fashion,” she said, while picking away at a lobster roll yesterday at a café in the Time Warner Center.

Okay so, had she prepared her speech?

“No, no,” said the diminutive heiress, formerly a redhead, currently a platinum. “And it’s still actually up for debate who will be presenting the award. I’m nervous because I will actually have to ask someone.”

“It’s up for debate. I have to ask someone, so I’m nervous.”

Seriously she’s nervous.

“I’m more nervous about that than anything else.”

She’s considering a couple of people. She doesn’t want to say just yet. Oh, what the hell:

“My ideal would be Stephen Meisel because I owe everything to him. I would be nowhere near where I am today if it weren’t for him. For me it’s a huge honor and it’s unbelievable to me. It’s literally like a dream come true. You know when I began my career, my first photo shoot was with Stephen Meisel and it was the cover of Italian Vogue and to me essentially that was like winning an Oscar. And now this is literally winning the Oscar of fashion, because I get to follow in the footsteps of all of my idols. I’m following after Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer.”

And now … she! But why?

“Uhm, gosh I don’t know.”

She explained that it had been a big year. There was the Nars ad campaign, the Sephora campaign for Christmas, she’s doing the worldwide launch of the new fragrance for Escada, the Roberto Cavalli for H&M campaign, commercial and print, her Puma stuff—she models and designs a line of bags.

“And all my editorials,” she offered. “You know I’ve been very fortunate in my career.”

What’s she going to wear to the Michael Awards?

“I’m hoping for Roberto Cavalli to make something special. That would be my dream.”

She had recently visited his castle in Tuscany with Theodora Richards—while filming for the H&M ad campaign.

“It’s literally like living in a palace,” she said.

But Mr. Cavalli also gave the girls a glimpse inside that giant creative cranium of his.

“He showed us how he does his collections where he either takes pictures of insects or leaves and he actually zooms in really close to the insects and plant life and expands it and that’s where all the fabrics and prints come from. It’s unbelievable to actually watch it happen.”

There is another little secret Ms. Hearst let the Transom in on: Terry Richardson, the edgy fashiony photographer known for taking pictures of his genitals and getting young women to take off their clothes for the camera (and who himself has been pimping Belvedere vodka recently)—turns out the guy’s a total gentleman.

“I’ve heard the reputation and I was nervous but he’s one of the sweetest, funniest, greatest people in the industry,” said Ms. Hearst, who recently did a shoot for Perry Ellis jeans with the man.

“No, I understood—it was sort of like a Calvin Klein Jeans type feel, in a sense but it was for Perry Ellis.”

She provided the Transom with an exclusive image from the shoot. Mr. Richardson, as you can see, has done it again.

Who dares voice complaint to a friend these days? Instead of a sympathetic ear, you’ll just get a gift certificate to a beginner’s class.

All over New York City, hordes of slippery yoga evangelists prescribe the magic tonic of sun salutations for any ailment, any at all. Come on, just take one class, it’s fun! they say. If that doesn’t work, they sell by a crasser tactic: My teacher is cute—oh my God, it’s so adorable when he’s upside down and his shirt rides up!

Whether they intend to be or not, these recruiters are the worker ants of an immensely successful yoga nest. With last week’s opening of the gigantic Jivamukti center in Union Square, heralded with a celebrity- and vegan-filled gala event, the yoga proselytizers have taken over a neighborhood—and they’re coming for you. To help you heal.

“Walk around Broadway anywhere between Union Square and Astor Place, you’ll see a hundred people in the course of an hour—between 5 and 6—carrying a yoga mat,” said Matthew Kenney, the raw-food king behind Pure Food and Wine on Irving Place.

The entreaties made by these mat-toting hordes are almost impossible to refuse. It seems so harmless: 90 minutes with scantily clad and suggestively bendy youngsters! (Well, there is a greater threat: that of 23-year-old post-post-feminist Smith grads reading aloud, in full poetry voice, from the works of Mother Teresa, or worse—being told, while in a squatting position, to “imagine sucking up a grape with your anus,” as one teacher recently commanded her class.)

Don’t bother fearing Scientology or the Kabbalists—brainwashing would be fine, but the yoga hawkers won’t stop until they get you to expose your athlete’s foot, and to shove your flabby body in a unitard. But it’s so hard to say no to Iyengar enthusiasts like Diane von Furstenberg. Yes, she recruits too. “I recommend yoga to everyone,” she e-mailed. “It is the best thing you can do for yourself.”

Outside the new 12,000-square-foot Jivamukti center on the sunny afternoon of May 23, neophytes and adepts came and went. Jillian Fracassi, 28, is an occasional student at Jivamukti who says her friend, a “super yoga freak,” turned her onto the practice. “Definitely there’s the yoginis,” she said. “They are very clique-ish. The people that do yoga are very loyal.”

“Oh yeah, I try to recruit,” said Rachael Levine, 34, who works in the film industry and has been doing yoga for a decade. “You take it out into your life, making the environment better, or your relationship better, or yourself a happier person, the world a better place—if you can be so bold as to claim that,” she said.

Out in L.A., she said, “I even worked on one set—we were on a little shoot—where we did yoga before …. ”

One of us! One of us!

THE WEEK PREVIOUS, ON MAY 18, that Jivamukti mega-center, starship cult central for the Recruit All Complainers campaign, saw a line outside for its grand gala. There they were, twisty ladies in multicolored saris, turbans, tunics of varying lengths and, least importantly, comfortable flat shoes.

Least important because they would soon be discarded in the child-size cubby holes that are furnished in every room of Jivamukti.

“Look at me, I’m 75 and I look great,” said Sting—actually 54—as he finished a round of smiling and hugging for the cameras. “I’m just very good friends with Sharon and David, been a member of Jivamukti since God knows when.”

As celebrities filed into the room for their own place at the Welcome Table, they greeted Jivamukti’s owners, Sharon Gannon and David Life, by bowing their heads and bringing their palms together at chest level.

Russell Simmons, a longtime “big supporter” of Jivamukti, excitedly spoke about his induction in the cult of yoga when Bobby Shriver had taken him to a class. “Years ago, he took me—there were so many hot girls I couldn’t stop going, I got addicted to it. Anyway, that’s how it started out,” he said, counting the rosary beads in his right hand.

Elizabeth Berkley swam into the room, her shimmering bright pink wrap dress accentuating her gold-toned skin. (She had clearly left her inhibitions at the door.) Ms. Berkley began doing yoga around the time of her Showgirls debut as a Las Vegas dancer.

“I think a lot of people see so many people who get so much out of it and how it transforms their lives,” she said of yoga’s recruitment-friendly nature. “And so I think people see that it’s not just a trendy thing: It’s a forever thing.”

A group of musicians took the stage and began chanting “Om,” which progressed into the power mantra “Om nama shivaya.” As the accompanying music became louder and faster, most of the crowd seated themselves on the rubber floor—Russell and Kimora Lee Simmons swayed to the chant. Beastie Boy Mike D., with a diamond-studded left ear, skeptically watched a yogini contort her body.

Uma Thurman, whose brother Dechen is a teacher at the studio, arrived, protected by bodyguards, in a silky white dress ruffled perfectly around her shoulders, wisps of blond hair framing her face.

Royal Ms. Thurman sat with her brother and spent the evening tapping away on her cell phone’s keypad.

DAYS BEFORE THE GRAND OPENING, co-owner Sharon Gannon, a petite brunette with a thin voice, was explaining how the retail area in the new space was set up. Gabby Karan de Felice—Donna Karan’s daughter—had been there the night before to rearrange it all.

A flock of large papier-mâché herons surrounded a wicker chair. “Gabby said that they had these people in Colombia, South America, make these, and then they sold them to raise money for this group of artists in Colombia. So Donna Karan, of course, bought some of them. And these are Donna’s,” she said.

(“They called us with a fashion emergency,” Ms. Karan de Felice recalled. “I was able to get a hold of the DKNY visual team—it’s like that house-makeover show! We’re trying to make it more like a marketplace, more like shopping around the world.”)

On Ms. Gannon’s long-sleeved brown T-shirt was printed a Sanskrit word, Svaha. Ms. Gannon briskly swept her hands to the sky: “It means ‘to offer it up to God.’” Then she pointed out a bamboo wrap sweater and the organic cotton Jivamukti logo T-shirts.

The new space has allowed the Jivamukti gang to develop further what their publicist called the “yoga lifestyle.” At the center of this lifestyle is the concept of “spiritual activation.”

“Gandhi had that beautiful quote: ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world,’” said Ms. Gannon.

At the heart of the new Jivamukti is an airy vegan café with a view of the Strand bookstore. “As you can see, our sandwiches are ‘reality sandwiches,’ our salads are ‘salvation salads.’ That means they help you plug into reality, connect,” said Ms. Gannon, who carries a little of the librarian in her, with her low bun and prim manner, a holdover from a previous career.

“It is a vegan café, so that means we’re not causing the suffering of any animals. And definitely, when you look out for the happiness of somebody else, in return you’re going to be happier yourself—so actually it does work that way,” she said.

Gandhi also said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians.” Of course, there’s nothing wrong with yoga itself. It’s just that evangelists have always been motivated by their own—and never your—rewards.

ERICA JONG'S FIRST YOGA LESSONS were 25 years ago, from a guru who came recommended by a California screenwriter friend.

“His answering machine used to say, ‘I am Majumdar. Please leave a message,’” Ms. Jong said. “He used to say things like ‘What is The New York Times, after all, but an unholy alliance of Temple Emmanuel and Wall Street?’”

Now Ms. Jong takes a private class with three women friends near her country house in Connecticut.

“It’s become entirely too popular and too Americanized …. In our frantic New York way, we’ve made yoga into a competitive New York sport. That’s unfortunate—it’s supposed to be an inward thing, where you do the postures to bring body and soul together,” she said.

“It has been swept into a trend, and I think it’s corrupted yoga and made it something it’s not. It’s all about the equipment: Do you have the right mat, and did you buy your clothes at Nuala?” (Nuala is Christy Turlington’s designer yoga-wear line.)

Clearly, business is booming. “I think its spreading, yes,” said Russell Simmons. “This block alone …. ” A few floors up from the new Jivamukti is a Bikram studio, the heated yoga for sweaty masochists. And within two blocks are two other, smaller studios, the Shala and Om.

“Some places, it’s become a business thing, a way of people making money,” said Durga Devi, an ornately pierced Jivamukti instructor. “But meanwhile, back in the day, people taught for free.”

SO WHEN YOUR OFFICE GAL-PALS incessantly recruit you to yoga class, what exactly are they selling?

“Only God can change your heart—then it will reflect it physically, outside. I think they are trying to find God through that,” said a fellow named Juan. He is 59, and is the security guard for the Integral Yoga Institute. He pointed to the calming reddish-pink façade of its New York headquarters. Forty years ago, when Integral Yoga opened in New York, “few Americans knew about or practiced yoga,” reads their brochure.

“Swami Satchidananda’s mission—to make Yoga accessible to everyone—has been fulfilled, as evidenced by the widespread popularity of Yoga and its acceptance as a vital tool in healing and stress management,” the brochure continues.

Integral is in the West Village, just down 13th Street from Jivamukti.

The building features a bookstore, an organic market and juice bar, and across the street a vitamin shop is housed for overflow. There are two stories of classrooms.

“I’ve had conversations with people who definitely are using it for physical reasons rather than spiritual as well as physical, and then reflecting upon that with other yogis. Optimally, you know, they would be seeing the spiritual and the physical combination of the yoga practice. Ultimately, they are gaining from whatever yoga that they are doing,” said Shannon, 33, a hairdresser who practices almost everyday at a variety of yoga studios, including Integral.

Outside Integral, Chris, 27, a personal assistant to wealthy New Yorkers of the organic stripe, lounged on the bench adjacent to Integral Yoga’s entrance. He tried yoga a few times, he said, but didn’t like it, or the people. “They are looking to fill a void or something,” he said.

He had just returned from purchasing a very green organic beverage from the juice bar.

Then there’s the popular “Fuck Yoga” T-shirt. Barnaby Harris created it, originally as a gag birthday gift for his ex-wife, a frequent yoga-goer.

Is Mr. Harris the vanguard of the Yoga Resistance? Well …. “I am somebody who, quite ironically, does yoga every day. As my body started to deteriorate from boxing, it was the only thing left. It saved my back and knees. But I do not live the yoga lifestyle. I do not do that,” he said.

“They’re totally embracing the corporate side of it, and not, at the same time,” he said. “They’re trying to embrace the singular message of yoga in your life, and at the same time they would open a Jivamukti like Starbucks if they could.”

Even Ms. von Furstenberg’s teacher, Bobby Clennell, sees the black storm cloud created by the hot air of yoga meeting with the cold, materialistic nature of New York City.

“On the one hand, there’s a boom because people are ready for it and people need it. I just hold on to my center and my integrity,” she said. (But does she grasp it like a grape?)

“I’m so philosophical about the boom and the commercialism, it’s hard for me to get upset about it,” she said. “I don’t have to be a part of it—but on the other hand, in this environment, I can earn a living. It’s a double-edged sword.”

“Eventually, if people are persevering, they’ll get to the truth,” Ms. Clennell said. “Yoga is going to survive this. You see yoga and people getting exploited—but I just think yoga is bigger than that, so I’m not worried.”

—with additional reporting by Anna Schneider-Mayerson

Loyalties

Baseball star Carlos Delgado is keeping his mouth shut nowadays. Once an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, since joining the Mets in late 2005 he has mostly maintained, at their request, a public silence on the subject.

At the Perry Ellis party on Thompson Street Monday night, where the first baseman was the guest of honor, Paul Rosengard, the premium-brands group president of Perry Ellis, opined that Mr. Delgado is well paid, so if Mets management wants him to shut up, he should shut up: “He’s an employee.” But an employee 24 hours a day? “And if he played for the Yankees, he’d have to shave off his mustache and beard,” said Mr. Rosengard with conviction. “Those are their rules.”

Pablo de Echevarria, Mr. Rosengard’s senior V.P. of marketing, laughed coquettishly when asked about the limits of his employee loyalty. Would he ever criticize Perry Ellis clothing in private? He looked at Mr. Rosengard. “Did you see the line stretching around the corner today?” Mr. De Echevarria said, referring to Mr. Delgado’s signing at Macy’s earlier. “We completely covered up Claiborne!”

Mr. Rosengard’s views on loyalty were very clear. So was Mr. Delgado sporting Perry Ellis that night? “Absolutely. Check his belt,” he said.

Mr. Delgado, an imposing figure, was standing on the other side of the room with his beautiful new wife, Betzy. He had a different story. “I was wearing it earlier today,” he said, shifting on his feet. “I changed.”

“You’d know if it was Perry Ellis,” announced a curly-haired sales representative for Travel+Leisure, wrinkling her nose in distaste. Mr. Delgado cut in on her attack. “Don’t say anything, don’t say anything—you’re a professional,” Mr. Delgado said. The lady, undeterred, continued to cast aspersions on Perry Ellis clothing: “I mean, I’ve said it to Pablo …. He admits it!”

The brand-bashing came to a halt as Mr. Rosengard approached and pressed his icy glass against The Transom’s upper arm. He quizzed Mr. Delgado on obscure sports statistics and brandished a 1994 baseball card emblazoned with his image. “I played for a week, at camp.” Mr. Delgado was gracious about this short-lived career: “I’ve known people who left the cab running.”

A sandy-haired minion brought Mr. Rosengard a glossy photograph of Mr. Delgado, to be autographed “for my ex-wife, would you believe,” said Mr. Rosengard. The first baseman obliged, but a misunderstanding led to “Amy” being spelt with an extra M. “I thought you said … ,” Mr. Delgado said. “Well, I’m going to call my son and tell him I did my bit,” Mr. Rosengard said, with cheer. “You can tell her it was my fault,” said Mr. Delgado.

Mr. Delgado left the party for “a date with my wife.” Mr. Rosengard undertook efforts to make The Transom his “wife No. 2.” Resisting, The Transom asked Mr. Rosengard for his own views on baseball. He lifted his fists up to his chest, exposing several inches of shirtsleeve and two Boston Red Sox cufflinks.

—Lidija Haas

puerile.

"It's like an empire dress," said Ms. Roi, who'll find out

on June 14 whether she's won the Council of Fashion Designers of America's

Perry Ellis Award for Womenswear (think Best New Artist Grammy). "' Woo-hoo ! I have a body like a stripper,

what should I wear?' … Everybody gets mentally masturbatory, obsessed with

their own aesthetic."

Though they are both nightlife-loving, busty, 25-year-old

Jewish brunettes who grew up in New York City against a background of

privilege, Ms. Roi is in many respects the anti-Shoshanna. Unlike the sleek Ms.

Lonstein, who models her own designs in the pages of Cosmo and around town, the slightly scrappy, freckled Ms. Roi

prefers hanging out in generic track pants, tank tops and flip-flops, as if to

cleanse her palate of the complicated ideas expressed in her collections.

Ms. Lonstein's line is

fundamentally dumb, based on the premise that women need someone to lay out an

outfit for them: matching dress, matching thong, matching handbag. Ms. Roi's

clothes require thought. Her fall line features not the ribbons,cherriesand froufrou

popular with Shoshanna and her compatriots of "pretty" (Cynthia Rowley, Kate

Spade et al.), but prints of wandering deer, 19th-century caricatures by

Daumier and sweat guards.

"It's not just ' I'm

feeling flowers !'" said Ms. Roi. "I wanted to say something a bit more

concerned-morose, even."

The Greene Street boutique Kirna Zabête is almost sold out

of Ms. Roi's designs for spring, which include deeply V-necked tops and buttery

hip-huggers. "Nobody dresses head-to-toe Alice Roi," said Sarah Hailes, a

co-owner. "They all know how to mix it up with Balenciaga or whatever. Ohmigod,

because there's nothing geekier, or less modern, than having a matching purse

in the floral print of your bustier."

Not that there was ever much danger of Ms. Lonstein getting

nominated for a Perry Ellis Award. While the CFDA's Designer of the Year

nominees are predictably mainstream-Calvin Klein, Helmut Lang and Tom Ford for

Gucci ("Women get no props," sighed Ms. Roi)-the newcomer nominees are getting

fringier and fringier. Quite literally so in the case of last year's winner,

Miguel Adrover, he of the deconstructed Burberry trench coat. And among this

year's nominees-and Ms. Roi's competition-is Imitation of Christ, known for

slapping four-figure price tags on dolled-up Salvation Army finds.

Ms. Roi wants to dispense with the gimmicks. "Personally, if

I were a dead designer and I'd put all this work into my line and I knew

someone was going around cutting up my stuff, I'd be furious," she said. "It's

like no respect."

For her part, Ms. Roi is accustomed to respect with a

capital R. Her life reads like an amped-up version of Kay Thompson's Eloise at the Plaza .

She was born Alice Roy

Blumenthal, named for her late paternal grandmother, who savvily binged on

property around town during the Depression ("That was her gig," said Ms. Roi),

and her late paternal uncle Roy, a noted ladies' man who authored a book called

The Practice of Public Relations . Ms.

Roi's father, Jerry Blumenthal, died when she was 12. "My father was a very headstrong

person, not a nice one," she said.

She chose Roy for her professional name and made it Roi , French for "king." Her label

features a small tiara. "Because it's like I'm a king," she said. "I'm a

princess, but I can be king."

The jewel in the Blumenthal

crown is the Inn at Irving Place, a boutique hotel popular with

celebrities-in-hiding, run by Alice's mother, Naomi Blumenthal. Mrs. B., as she

is known to some, is a tall, meticulously dressed woman who says Alice was born

"with a crayon in her hand." She runs the hotel with Alice's 28-year-old

sister, Sarah, who shuttles from an apartment uptown. The powerhouse female

trio constantly monitor each other's whereabouts by cell phone. Male friends

and cousins always seem to be scurrying around the hotel attending to their

needs. Recently, Sarah Blumenthal had the walls of the hotel bar painted

shocking Schiaparelli pink.

Ms. Roi lives in a dollhouse-like, gleefully untidy

one-bedroom apartment downstairs from her mother in another Blumenthal-owned

building a few blocks from the hotel. A recent visit found T-shirts piled in

the TV cabinet, Vuitton and Chanel handbags tumbling out of kitchen cupboards,

and family photographs stuffed in a maxi-pad box. On the kitchen counter was a

bottle of Kaopectate, an open bag of double-chocolate Milanos, a pink container

of birth-control pills and Xanax ("For the plane," she said). Nan Goldin's book

of photographs, The Ballad of Sexual

Dependency , was next to the bed, which was covered by leopard-print sheets.

A drawer was spilling over with bras and panties. "I never wear underpants,

really, but I love underwear," said Ms. Roi, as she fingered something ecru and

lacy.

In early adolescence, young Alice wore ear cuffs, skull

earrings and Doc Marten knock-offs as she trooped off to Point O' Pines

sleepaway camp in Lake George. She was tormented by fellow campers. "They

spread a rumor that I was a devil worshiper," she said. "Meanwhile, they're

wearing Keds without laces and 12 pairs of socks. They were the worst people

ever in the history of people. They hated me. They hated me ."

Back in the city, Ms. Roi went underage to clubs such as

Carmelita's and Octagon and changed outfits 35 times a day. At Friends

Seminary, she designed a senior-yearbook page with herself sniffing a daisy and

quoting Mae West: Too much of a good

thing can be wonderful .

"I used to be the

biggest homegirl you ever met, ever ever ,"

she said. "I had a nose ring; I had so many piercings, my ears split so bad I

had to have them sewn up." She puts models of different races in her show

because, she said, "aesthetically,Ifind black and Hispanic people more

beautiful." She believes her collection has "a hip-hop sensibility."

"I love really, really, really short skirts," she

said."Not,' Ooh , Gwyneth looks so

sexy.' Not Alexandra von Furstenberg or whatever pursing her lips up and going ' Mmmmm ,short

skirts-how delightful, 'butrather,

'C'mon, let's shake whatyourmama gave

you!'"

Duringher sophomore year

at New York University, she had such debilitatingpanicattacks that she

sometimes hired a car to idle outside for her between classes. During part of

her senior year, she roomed with a stripper from Scores.

Like Eloise, Ms. Roi has a dog who looks like a cat (a

Yorkie named Sonia, after designer Sonia Rykiel), a European maid and a

penchant for repeating things thrice. (Plans for her spring 2002 line: "Hippie,

hippie, hippie meets S&M.")

Liv Tyler: 'Creamy'

If Eloise had made it past adolescence, she might well have

been smoking Marlboro Lights, drinking Pilsner beer and belching freely, as Ms.

Roi was on a recent evening as she sat on a couch in her mother's hotel, next

to her boyfriend of four months, Marc Beckman. A dark-haired 31-year-old who

quit a legal career to start an expensive cosmetics line called Défilé, he was

more dressed up than Ms. Roi: a black Hugo Boss suit, a hooded sweater trimmed

with frayed wool and a swirly Vivienne Westwood ring on his right hand. She was

wearing jeans, a gray sweatshirt and a chipping black pedicure wedged into

Donna Karan espadrilles.

"The award is driving me crazy. I'm having nightmares," said

Ms. Roi, referring to the CFDA ceremony on June 14.

"She had a nightmare that I was wearing Imitation of

Christ," said Mr. Beckman. " Shaddup .

You are not having nightmares." He eyed a tray of petit fours.

"With five people, I'm

fine," said Ms. Roi. "More than five people, I start having big problems. With

a lot of people, I freak out. Freak out .

If I win, I'll be really upset. I'll be like, 'I don't deserve this, I'm not

good enough!' And if I don't win, I'll feel like, 'Gimme that award, I need

it!' Either way, it's fucked up."

The subject turned to

business, something Ms. Roi isn't crazy about. She would like to be backed by

someone other than her mother.

"Right now, I'm coasting," she said. "I think I'm coasting

right now, breaking even. In some ways, I like keeping it a precious thing, but

I can't anymore, because what happens today is Janet Jackson sends in how far

her nipples are from each other, because she wants pants and a jacket and this

and that, and then it's like, 'In fact, I'd really like it if you make this for

me in denim.' And then, at the same time, I am trying to design pre-spring. I

start to get buried."

While Ms. Roi acknowledged the importance of celebrity

clients for publicity, she expressed frustration with their whims. She

described a fitting that had taken place with actress Liv Tyler ("boisterous in

the middle") the day before. "There was a cream satin outfit that we showed on

the runway, but Liv wanted it in navy because she felt like the cream satin was

a bit too … she felt too Elvis-y. And also she's very creamy herself, so she thought she'd look washed out. So it's hard,

because I want to design, rather than being a dressmaker. Explore and explore

and explore an idea until I get it to what I consider to be perfection. Then

doodles and doodles and doodles, and sketches and sketches and sketches … I

just want them to keep saying, 'Good collection, good collection, good

collection.' I don't even want it to be 'Great

collection.' I just want good. Because in my life and my relationships, I

appreciate solid people more than the strange characters that come in and

out-like Marc," she said, poking him.

Mr. Beckman felt she was getting off-message, that she

should stick to talking about business. "Alice isn't saying the right thing,"

he said, like a concerned public-relations man.

Ms. Roi is not sure she wants to make the compromises

necessary to expand her company. "I would like my stuff in the store to look

like it does in the show," she said. "I do make a sellable line, but it drives

me nuts. The stores always buy the most mundane and awful … they always buy the

real no-brainers. And then when I see it in the stores, I get upset. And I

think, 'This is what people think of me-that's terrible!' I feel it's not

representing me."

As the conversation drew to a close, Ms. Roi, who has a

"sitting-still problem," jumped up to show her boyfriend the day's purchases: a

bag full of sheer underthings, bras and thongs in black and white, which she

laid over the carpet.

A few days later, Ms. Roi was braless and nervous. It was a

sparkling spring Sunday, yet the fifth floor of Bergdorf Goodman had the

perfume of desperation. Ms. Roi's line, so popular with the downtown girls,

wasn't exactly flying outofBergdorf, which was threatening not to reorder for

fall. So the store had invitedafewhundred of its best clients to meet Ms. Roi

in an in-store appearance. It was a last-ditch attempt to move her

product.Andit didn't seem to be working.

Ms. Roi ducked in front of a mirror and adjusted her breasts

in a $305 Alice Roi black-and-white halter top that she had paired with

skintight Frankie B. jeans. "I was late; I couldn't find any of my own!" she

howled about the jeans. Her tan lines were showing.

A gray-haired woman in sheer black stockings sidled by the

refreshment table and gingerly surveyed the lollipops, taffy, halvah and fruit

drinks Ms. Roi had personally lugged from Economy Candy on Rivington Street.

But she ignored the blue-star-printed orange miniskirts and ragged chiffon

blouses hung nearby. Men in navy blazers, khakis and polo shirts came up the

escalator, blinked at the spectacle and proceeded upward. One crotchety,

red-haired female customer scowled at D.J. Shorty, a friend of the Blumenthals,

who was spinning 1980's pop tunes. "If you don't turn down the music, I'll call

the store manager," she said loudly. "This isn't Macy's."

An hour later, the racks remained fully stocked with Ms.

Roi's clothes. The designer had wandered over to the shoe department, picking

her way in Gucci wraparound sandals that added four inches to her elfin frame.

She said she didn't feel at home up here in Contemporary Clothing, the "hip,"

trendy floor. She wished her clothes were in Modernist Designer Collections,

two floors down, where Chloe, the line designed by Beatle daughter Stella

McCartney, is featured.

"Someone just told me,

'You need to get more pink in there,'" she said, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, how horrible this conversation is," said Mr. Dalal, who will turn 23 in July. He was discussing being named one of People magazine's 50 most beautiful human beings last year. He is 5 feet 8 inches tall, a slight 130 pounds with dark wavy hair that he cut to chin length for the summer. Every few minutes, he brushed it behind his ears. His eyes have been described as "celadon" and "emerald." His arms were covered with notes he had written to himself in Magic Marker. He wore jeans, a blue T-shirt that said "Hugh O'Brian Foundation Youth Leadership Seminar," which he got from his cousin, and Jil Sander shoes that he bought in Hong Kong.

"We declined to do it at first," he said of the People interview. Last year, Mr. Dalal became the youngest designer to be given the Perry Ellis men's wear award. He consults his parents-who with other friends and family represent his entire financial backing-on everything from how to run a business to whom to invite to this year's American Fashion Awards afterparty (which he co-hosted with designer Narciso Rodriguez and model Kate Moss, though she never showed) to what's for dinner and what time he'll be home. He is still living with them near Union Square, where the family moved after his childhood home on Central Park South became the offices of Sandy Dalal Limited in 1997.

"At a certain point in time you are going on such a tangent, you are losing what the fuck you are supposed to be doing. But the reality of it is that the exposure level is ridiculous. It's insane. If my company folds today, if there is one thing I will be known for, it's [being on the People magazine list]," he said, shaking his head. "That is the weird part of it."

Two years ago, four credits shy of a degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Dalal dropped out and started his own design company. His parents were pissed, but they still gave him his senior year tuition for start-up money.

He had spent years fooling around with fabric at his mom's office and traveling with her to mills; she's a freelance fabric scout. During his junior year, he and his parents showed his designs to Loving and Weintraub, a fashion publicity company, which agreed to organize a show for him in July 1997 during the spring 1998 men's wear collections.

"The collection was coming together … We had hired one person and I was mooching off my mom's staff a bit. It was really fun." The show was held across the street from Bryant Park; they wheeled up the clothes on racks.

"I walk out, there are like 700 or 800 people sitting in this steaming little room," recalled Mr. Dalal. "And I thought I walked out on the wrong runway. Everyone is clapping and screaming. You see a huge crowd dotted with friends everywhere, but the rest of it is, like, all of these people I had never seen before, like your Liz Saltzmans and all of these other people, and it is, like, 'Why are you all here? I don't know any of you, you don't know any of me.' It is just weird. Weird that the clothes themselves and the idea of coming to a fashion show attracts so many people."

The collection was made up of clean-cut, splashily patterned clothes. Color! It blended street gear, like T-shirts and sneakers, with sleek suits. His mom is a fabric consultant to the company; his dad, a C.P.A. with his own business, does the books. A friend of his mom, Manjit Johan, 27, is the marketing director. "Everyone pooled their resources together," said Mr. Dalal. "Family, friends, everything."

Barneys, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale's all ordered part of the line and it is now also carried in boutiques across the United States and all over Japan. A T-shirt costs $80, a suit between $900 and $2,000, and a shearling coat, $3,000. He has dressed Beck, Ricky Martin, Wyclef Jean, Ash Sood (Mr. Sarah McLachlan) and members of Tribe Called Quest.

After he won the Perry Ellis award in February 1998, he received a note from Ralph Lauren congratulating him. "It was weird to get a note from Ralph Lauren," Mr. Dalal said. "It was basically, like, my first day as a designer. Now maybe it would be a little different because we all have our heads up our asses a bit."

Now he has a William Morris agent, and it has been estimated that his company will do $1 million in sales in 1999.

A place on Atlantic Avenue agreed to fix up an antiquetubhehad found on MyrtleAvenue-bringing the tab to $700." Ciao , ciao ," said Mr. Dalal on his way out, which is the way he ends most conversations, even with the tub reglazing guy.

Hisparents,MaheshandLoma Agashiwala moved to the Bronx from India in 1970. He was born in 1976. (His name is Sangiv.) He attended the Browning School, an all-boys school on the Upper East Side, starting in the second grade. He and his brother Raj, 16, walked to school. He said he liked Browning, but it made it hard to meet girls. Raj just finished his sophomore year at Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut.

Mr. Dalal remembers playdates with kids who lived in town houses complete with butlers and internal elevators. But his family lived a fairly modest upper-middle-class life in a two-bedroom apartment on Central Park South. His parents were very protective.

"You would not go [to the East Village] or were not supposed to go there … Fourteen and 15 were the hugest years of discovery for me. That is the time I finally somehow ended up in SoHo or ended up in TriBeCa."

Mr. Dalal made B grades at Browning and his extracurricular life consisted of fencing lessons at the New York Athletic Club. "When I got into college, it was like I had gotten lucky," he said. "I should just cut my losses. I should just try to get through school."

His freshman year at Penn, he lost 60 pounds from his "gut, ass and arms" by not eating red meat for a year. "I hated the food at college. I never went to the dining hall," he said.

He majored in Asian studies, took economics classes and followed the Wharton School of Business core curriculum. "Freshman year I kind of had an idea … I wanted to do business and trading and traveling in Southeast Asia. It had nothing to do with clothes."

He worked for his mom during vacations. "I started getting involved in the factory stuff and enjoying it. I started to try to make things seriously and some half-decent stuff came out."

His sophomore year he made a deal with his dad to pay for part of his tuition. "You just don't feel comfortable after a while taking that from your parents." He had invested some money from doing construction work during high school. "I got a little lucky in the stock market," he said.

By his junior year, he had decided he wanted to design clothes.Hestartedusing Dalal, his mother's maiden name, and took extra classes to try to graduate a year early. At the end of the spring semester, he had one A-minus and four incompletes.

"The fashion thing just looked cool," he said. "At the beginning, it was more of a stepping-stone idea. I became gung-ho on it when the first awesome-looking stuff came out. The idea of putting it all together as a presentation, that idea alone was fascinating."

He went to visit the dean of undergraduate students to tell her that he was launching his own men's wear label and was going to put off graduating. "They were really nice about it. The deal is, if I finish the work I have left over … this is the weird thing, the dean walked me into this little office and she was like, unofficially it shouldn't go out of this room, but files at Penn are never closed … Whatever. Through all the shit that I say, Penn gets so much publicity, anyway."

Mr. Dalal attended about half of the six-hour American Fashion Awards ceremony on June 2. At 10 P.M., before the torch was passed to another young men's wear designer, he bolted for Club Ohm in Chelsea, where his afterparty was under way. He had invited an entire crew from Penn; his family; his doormen-"They used to wipe my ass, we moved in there so young!"-and the guy who parks his car at the garage.

He hadn't even voted on the new men's wear designer award-or any others-claiming that he didn't know the clothes of any of the nominees: Matt Nye (the winner), Tony Melillo and Cynthia Rowley. (His business manager filled out the ballot for him.) He even claims to have never laid eyes on Gwyneth Paltrow's Oscar dress.

"I enjoy what I do, but when it becomes trivial, it is a pain in the ass," he said, still driving. "That is why the fashion part of what I do sometimes wigs me out."

Watching Isaac Mizrahi babble about his sources of inspiration in Unzipped "grossed me out," he said. "Well, that is a movie. That is supposed to be funny and ridiculous. He is acting. I have no beef with that. It's when people actually say, 'This collection is inspired by the blue hues of the Caribbean …'" he shook his head.

"But going to a factory and learning all kinds of shit! When I am at the factory"-near Union Square, where his suits are made-"at 5 in the morning, with all of these old guys in jackets and ties, every one is up and cranking, working, spiffily dressed, at 5 in the morning!" He stopped short at a red light.

"It is a different world. It is such a good feeling to wake up in the morning and pick up a coffee and walk around Seventh Avenue a little bit. You just stand in the middle of the street and you can see all the way downtown and you feel like you-actually you're standing in the middle of everything-and you can do anything you want at that point in time."

His afternoons are spent in his studio-the apartment where he was raised, which he has given a sleek renovation. Black cement floors in the bathroom, a gray wash on the ceilings, a mixture of cement and vegetable oil. He and his staff made a cutting table, a couple of benches, the bulletin boards, a desk and shelves. "We buy the wood and cut it, finish it and screw it together."

Mr. Dalal doesn't draw sketches. He takes a piece of fabric, drapes it on a form and snips and folds it until it works. "This morning, we were working on a jacket," he said. "It is long. It has a biker jacket collar. We say it should be this long, look kind of squarish. Then you chop here and there and change the collar so many times it comes out like shit. We were about to scrap a jacket this afternoon. It just looked really bad."

The $700 tub was scheduled to be repaired and delivered to his new apartment in a couple of weeks. He is annoyed with everyone asking him why he is spending so much time on his new apartment. "It is the most important place in my life," he said, "Everything important in my life will happen in that space."

He had crossed the Manhattan Bridge and was cruising Elizabeth Street, eyeing all the new boutiques. His life has been very "businessy" lately, he said; that is why. He is preparing for "intense growth": launching a women's line and opening his own store.

In May, Mr. Dalal went to Salt Cay, an island near the Bahamas, with a friend who is a reporter at Newsweek . She read about it on the Internet.

"We started talking about ambition," said Mr. Dalal about the trip. "Ambition seems to be the driving force behind everything, how much ambition you actually have to do all what you want to do. It just seems that it is such a weird thing. It will make you do crazy, things, like all kinds of stuff. It will make you work hard, it will make you work 24 hours a day.

"This island is full of people who have dropped out of civilization. They don't use money, they don't do anything. You build a wall and they buy you a Budweiser. It is as simple as that. It is just a different culture. And it shows that you don't really need money. It is as bad as you want it. They didn't want it, so they didn't have it."

In February, his female friend is going to South Africa for a year on a Fulbright scholarship. "She is really smart, really fun. She's a good girl."

Her looming departure makes him uneasy. "It's not worth it. I feel … it is weird, my life is in a stage where, um, shit has to last more than … anything has to last more than, like, five minutes, you know? Serious things. You know? She and I are friends."

He drove uptown. On East 29th Street, he bounded out of the car after an old, classic sink in a dumpster. But his slight frame could not budge it.