Sadove and Davis.

Evelyn Y. Davis, the octogenarian corporate gadfly, is best known for yelling at Lloyd Blankfein, the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs. Last week, she showed a softer side at the shareholders’ meeting for Saks Incorporated.

“We get along fine,” she said of Saks Inc. “It’s not as controversial as Goldman Sachs.”

As is her habit in what she calls “my season” (it’s a circuit she travels all spring, crisscrossing the nation and heckling C.E.O.’s), Ms. Davis arrived one hour early to the marble halls of the University Club and quickly ordered an employee to sound check her hearing assistance device.

“One-two-three-four,” said the employee into the microphone.

“Not that,” she snapped. “Say something else. You have to be imaginative!”

She turned to her notes. Among other things, she wanted to complain that Saks had stopped carrying the L.A.M.B. purses she likes, and to ask why Saks doesn’t stock more shoes with round or square toes (as opposed to pointy) and medium-size heels (as supposed to stilettos).

As she does every year, she also carefully chose her outfit to quiz Steve Sadove, the C.E.O. Mr. Sadove aced his exam: Akris Punto jacket and skirt, black-and-white Ferragamo shoes (square toes, medium heels) and a canvas Prada handbag. Ms. Davis was delighted.

“He guessed it!” she crowed, “He guessed it right away!”

“I’m right most of the time,” said Mr. Sadove sheepishly.

“He’s much better than his predecessor,” said Ms. Davis. “I didn’t even have to give him a hint.”

She settled herself back in her chair, taking out her notes once again. “Fashion on sale is a hobby of mine, like stocks,” she said happily. “I’m a rich woman, but I like bargains.”

ewitt@observer.com

It’s as if Ms. Kunz, 31, whose exotic features closely resemble those of her brother and business partner, Christopher Kunz, 32, parachuted into their garment-district headquarters from another time. Transplants from Arizona, the brother/sister duo—she’s a former tennis competitor on the national circuit, he’s a scientist and a model—came to New York to stake out their family-owned business, founded in 2003. (Another brother, Alex, 34, helps out too.) They work diligently day and night in preparation for each season in their studio, which doubles as their two-bedroom apartment, shared with an enthusiastic brown boxer named Jake. White walls stretch high, and steel industrial shelves climb to the tin ceiling; cardboard boxes overflow with fabric, while racks and racks of clothes obscure the true size of the loft.

While New York’s edgy independent fashion is typically associated with Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, the Kunz duo set up shop in Manhattan’s formerly bustling fashion sanctuary both because it was more affordable, and because the blocks bounded by Fifth and Sixth avenues and 26th and 30th streets provide a rare multicultural and economically diverse setting for a designer’s inspiration. For now, at least.

“I feel like this area is going to become gentrified; there’s all these high rises going up over there,” Ms. Kunz said as she pointed west toward Chelsea, lamenting the disappearance of the district’s unique flea markets. “All these businesses are getting condemned; there’s always the F.B.I. downstairs because of illegal counterfeit handbags.”

The company—which offers clothes for men and for women—is appropriately named for Ms. Kunz’s tomboy moniker, Nicholas. Perfect for travel, her styles are appealingly rumpled and somewhat androgynous—lots of loose pants and tops that, when paired, pull off a look of unstudied, casual elegance. Ms. Kunz is comfortable designing for both sexes, and credits her brothers for a greater understanding of the details required for men’s wear. She sees herself as bridging the gender gap, with individual pieces existing on a spectrum, perhaps, rather than divided by masculine and feminine. She noted, however, that the men’s line is less colorful than the women’s.

In Nicholas K clothes, giving, breathable fabrics come in wasabi green and natural, earthy hues of orange and brown. The pieces are adaptable and interchangeable. A green sweatshirt loses its sleeves and hood to become a lightweight pullover; a beige cotton shirt unbuttons to change into a cardigan; a deep brown spring jacket sheds its inner layers to be even cooler. Nicholas K’s clientele, Ms. Kunz said, is looking for something that seems “timeless, looks chic, and is effortless.”

The easy pieces are nicely paired with Nicholas K travel bags—perfect for negotiating airport security, something brother and sister must do often. “It just slides in there,” Mr. Kunz said as he demonstrated how a laptop snuggly fits into a heavily pocketed leather shoulder bag. “There’s nothing more annoying than having to pile your stuff out of your bag.” Indeed!

The Kunz kids were raised in Tucson, Ariz., at the foot of a mountain they often explored and which they credit as having inspired their avid and adventurous travels. Since the beginning of the year, Ms. Kunz has been to Switzerland twice (her boyfriend is currently there, working for his father’s food-and-wine distribution company) and flew into the remote Canadian mountains by water plane, and she is currently planning a fishing trip in Wyoming and, later, surfing somewhere in South America. Mr. Kunz spends four months out of the year traveling, too.

Before starting her own line, Ms. Kunz was classically trained at the corporate houses of DKNY, Coach, Nautica and Calvin Klein after graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology. “For me, it was so important, because I wanted to know more about the construction and the technical details,” she remarked concerning her 10 years in the corporate world. “I think that’s one of the biggest problems with designers that don’t have that training: They don’t know the workflow process, the scheduling …. ”

“It’s efficiency; it’s cost,” chimed in her brother, who at times serves as her fit model. (A visit to the Nicholas K Web site reveals the strong-jawed Christopher sporting their men’s wear.) “If you don’t have a background in it, you can make a lot of mistakes …. ”

“You have to learn through all of your mistakes, and financially, that could be huge—that could cost you your company,” said Ms. Kunz, perfectly completing Mr. Kunz’s thought.

While Ms. Kunz was earning her fashion chops, Mr. Kunz was busy studying—and not design. He graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and began a master’s in the same field. Yet, put off by the research aspect of the work, he decided not to finish. He modeled in New York for a year before heading back to Arizona to complete an M.B.A. in preparation to launch the company. At his graduation, his sister wasn’t quite ready to set up a shop of their own, so the striking Mr. Kunz did a two-year stint in New Mexico as a technology commercialization officer at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Waiting for the right time was worth it. “As long as we’re growing and maintaining our loyal customers, we’re happy,” Ms. Kunz said. And they are delighted, actually: Business has doubled every year since they started, with this past year showing a sales increase of 30 percent with the recently added men’s line. The women’s collection can be found at Saks Fifth Avenue, Atrium and the Jumelle boutique in Williamsburg, while the men’s line holds court at Bloomingdale’s.

Yet even as the company grows and their personal travels get more exotic, the Kunz siblings have managed to stay grounded. “You get in your own little bubble, you know, in the design world, and [working for the big houses,] I didn’t feel like my life was really balanced—I was too absorbed into the whole fashion thing,” Ms. Kunz told The Observer. “As much as I love fashion, I don’t think it should be your entire life.”

The “H” stands for Helena. Ms. Fredriksson, a Swedish fine artist turned fashion designer, is in many ways as far from H&M, the hugely popular Swedish mass-market chain and disposable-fashion purveyor, as one can get. She uses vintage and organic fabrics whenever she can, including knitted wool from a mill in White Plains, contracting work not to underage fingers in Singapore but to a tailor over the river in—gasp!—Brooklyn. Her clothes, which retail from $265 to $595 per piece, are intended to last not a season or less, but a lifetime.

“What we need is a bigger understanding and awareness of what’s going on environmentally,” Ms. Fredriksson said, sitting ladylike in her loft apartment on North Fifth Street in Williamsburg the other day, pulling her long blond ponytail in front of her nose as if it were a shield. “Like, if we still want to live on this planet, we need to start figuring out how to take care of it.” Meaning, perhaps, radically enough, the end of the trend: “This sort of obsession over certain specific things over a very short period of time, rather than the long-term thinking.”

Since 2004, Ms. Fredriksson’s pieces have done a brisk business in her neighborhood’s boutiques, as well as on the Lower East Side. Now, for the first time, pieces from H Fredriksson’s spring collection are on pre-sale on the Neiman Marcus Web site. “You can just see the detail and how well it’s made,” said Stacy Adams, a Neiman buyer who came across H Fredriksson accidentally while viewing another collection at the designer’s showroom.

“It changes where I’m at and how people look at me, which is really good, because when you’re only in boutiques, you are not taken that seriously from press and buyers,” Ms. Fredriksson said. It was the day before her 30th birthday, and she was reminiscing about how she began sewing at age 10, as all young Swedes do, in school. The daughter of a building engineer and a kindergarten teacher, “I couldn’t buy clothes that I wanted, so I made them, or I found vintage finds for a dollar apiece,” she said, surrounded by four racks of clothes waiting to be fitted onto typically tardy models. Later, “I’d cut them apart and fix them and do something else out of them, tailoring it to the way I wanted it. It’s something that felt natural. I always did it, and then people liked it. I made some more, and they sold, and I was like, ‘O.K., it sold—I’ll make some more,’ and they sold too.”

After arriving in New York in 1997 to attend the Art Students League, specializing in painting and printmaking, Ms. Fredriksson met Mike Skinner, 32, a music producer and drummer for indie rockers Kevin Devine & the Goddamn Band. They married in 2000, and she got a job as an assistant store manager for Camper, the Spanish company that makes those funny shoes, after meeting a guy who worked there while traveling on a bus in Mexico. She scrimped and saved and started her own line.

During Fashion Week in fall 2005, Andy Salzer, owner of the eponymous boutique on Broadway in Williamsburg and creative director of its men’s line, Yoko Devereaux, was asking around for designers to include in a show he was putting together called To the Bitter End, and he got word of Ms. Fredriksson. His own line shares something of the H Fredriksson aesthetic: small, personal, anti-corporate, even though it is sold at Saks. “The marketing agenda for most of these larger houses is feeding off of your neurosis,” Mr. Salzer said, standing among the stacked boxes of his spring designs waiting to be shipped. “Especially for women. Basically it’s like, ‘Your life sucks, but if you come and you buy this, your life will be fantastic,’ and suddenly you are just buying this. It’s more like the Prada and the Gucci and all that—it’s that little logo thing, it’s just crap. It’s not any better or any worse than anything I design, but yet they are ripping you off blindly by charging you so much money to have this little teeny piece of this lifestyle that literally 1 percent of the world lives up to.”

Ms. Fredriksson is decidedly not about logos (her label is a discreet black tag with “H Fredriksson” in white lettering), but rather a kind of synesthesia. Music and art play a role in everything she makes. Her patterns come from her own photography: twisting images of trees and leaves in black patterns over silk. She frequently gets inspiration from her husband, who has taught her about music production and layers of sound. “Just like this one subtle thing happening in the layers underneath the layers, and I’ll be like, ‘I love that,’” she said. “I’ll be like, ‘Oh, I want to do something that feels like that.’”

And what was Ms. Fredriksson wearing on this day? Straight-leg jeans that bunched at the ankle—“I made the pants, actually,” she said—above black-velvet slipper shoes complemented by black and silver chunky necklaces, over an off-white skirt shirt that flowed from her bust to her thigh.

“Do you know where it’s from? I almost don’t want to tell you,” she said. “It’s from H&M. It has spills all over it.”

I am anxious and jumpy. "I was leaning towards this Reem Acra dress," I say to anyone who will listen, "but you know what? I'm not sure I'm an embellishment kind of bride. Maybe I should focus on lace? What about ivory vs. white? Saks only had this one dress in a soft white. What exactly is soft white?"

I have always been a "grass is greener" person. I have buyer's remorse. Recently I've been waking up in the early morning and sneaking off to the computer for just one more peek at a fabulous Ines Di Santo gown that I had loved the day before. Nah, I think, that's not the one.

I have been to Saks, Bergdorf, Mark Ingram and this weekend I will hit the Mecca of the bridal world - Kleinfeld's.

"You will just know," people say about the perfect gown. "You will know it is the one." I am the person who squeezes every last melon at Gristedes. I have not yet met "the one" and I'm not sure I would know it if I saw it.

It’s a far cry from the boom-boom and ankle boots under the tents at Bryant Park just two blocks north. Lord & Taylor, one of the country’s oldest department stores and formely one of the finest, is today a curious mix of Otis escalators and Anna Sui clothes, a stalwart bastion of the civilized, trusty department store—neither entirely the past or the future, but some dreamy place in between.

In June, Federated Department Stores, owner of the 48-store string of Lord & Taylors since Federated’s merger with the May Department Stores Company in 2005, announced the chain’s sale for $1.2 billion in cash to a real-estate-oriented partnership, NRDC Equity Partners, consisting of National Realty and Development Corp. (NRDC) and Apollo Real Estate Advisors. Apollo is a principal backer of the multi-complex Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle, and so one couldn’t help but speculate: Would the 600,000-square-foot Fifth Avenue flagship become a carnival of entertainment topped by a tower of condos?

“Yes, we could build on top. But we have made no decision what to do with the existing building,” said NRDC principal Richard A. Baker, who led the investor team and will become chairman of the brand when the deal is closed in a few weeks, on the phone from his headquarters in Purchase, N.Y. “We hope to run a successful store out of that location for a long time to come.”

In 2000, Jane Elfers, who joined Lord & Taylor as a buyer in 1989 and has moved steadily up the ranks there, was made the chief executive and president at age 39—the second woman in the store’s history, after the legendary Dorothy Shaver, to hold the position. “We are pleased with Jane Elfers’ revitalization of the brand,” Mr. Baker said, adding that he has been a Lord & Taylor loyalist since his childhood in Greenwich, Conn. “My family, everyone shopped there—my mother, my aunts, my sister,” he said. “I’m getting a lot of e-mails: ‘Don’t mess with Lord & Taylor!’”

Ms. Elfers was on vacation and couldn’t be reached for an interview.

As for the other 47 stores in the Northwest and Illinois and Michigan, Mr. Baker said the team is “doing a lot of thoughtful analysis” and reviewing the individual stores’ portfolios. “Lord & Taylor will continue with its name and identity,” he said. “Sales are performing very well.” He declined to give specific figures.

‘Normal Clothes for Normal People’

Can Lord & Taylor be relevant today? It began to lose prestige during the 1980’s, when the store tried to bring in more kinds of customers with less-expensive merchandise. In 2003, the May Company closed 32 poorly performing stores in 15 states. But the flagship persists, in some kind of purgatory floating state between Bloomingdale’s, which gamely opened a hip young Soho branch in 2004, and B. Altman (R.I.P.).

Founded in 1826, Lord & Taylor was originally retailer to New York’s upper class. It was the first department store to have “fixed prices,” meaning no discounts. And in the early part of the 20th century, it was nose to nose in elegance with Saks Fifth Avenue and Bonwit Teller.

The name alone implies a lordliness and a tailored look, though it comes from the two men who started with bolts of fabric in a basement on Catherine Street,what is now the Brooklyn Bridge, where the fabrics came in: Samuel Lord, the youngest of nine orphans, and his wife’s cousin, George Washington Taylor, according to the store’s official publication, The History of Lord & Taylor, 1826-2001.

Moving up the escalator in the grand 10-story 1914 Italian Renaissance structure by StarRett and Van Vleck (also the architects of Saks Fifth Avenue), noting the sparkle of the mirrored columns below and the opaque white-glass hanging fixtures, one can’t help reaching for a handkerchief (and Lord & Taylor still sells them!) thinking of the millennial retail revolution, in which the classic department store is no longer the absolute be-all and end-all for shoppers.

Beginning after World War II, people who moved to the suburbs started going to malls, not just for the two department stores that usually flanked a mall but for all the choices between those two stores. Today, those fleeing back to the city want not one store but the chain stores of their suburban youth, or boutiques of specialness—and then, of course, there are the stores on the Internet, as many as stars in the universe.

Arriving on the second floor of Lord & Taylor, where hundreds of shoes are in circular, suburban-Nordstrom-like displays, a black shoe stepping on the toe of a brown one, with the music playing (“I think we can make it, one morrrrre time…”), a new customer demographic could be seen: a woman with very short cut-offs and rubber flip-flops, her husband in a T-shirt with small type reading “Life is good.”

Where is the woman who leafed through a Town & Country magazine in 1953 and came to shop “for the first cool days of autumn … Rodier wool tweed … by Charles James … the dramatic winged neckline, the Empire belt in velvet …, ” or though Vogue in 1948 for the “high-waisted coat over a simple lilac wool jersey dress by Trigère?” Where is the snap of the handbag and a chicken salad at lunch instead of all those people who roll around in front of giant televisions looking for something to put in their mouths?

The woman with the handbag wasn’t there, but one Wednesday evening Lorna Stevens, 62, with short white hair and comfortable black suede shoes, who has worked for the last 20 years in humanitarian relief and lives in Peter Cooper Village, was staring at the store directory looking for “Intimate Apparel.” She said she has been coming to Lord & Taylor forever. “I was just looking for Jockey shorts for my husband. They have Polo, Ralph Lauren—no Jockey. They used to. I’ve been shopping here my whole life. Barneys, Bergdorf’s? It’s not for me. This is where I go. Before I came here, I went to B. Altman. Here, you can count on being able to get normal clothes for normal people.”

Also shopping was Nora Loke, 58, who lives in Chinatown with her husband, an accountant, and who moved from Hong Kong 20 years ago. “I like the classic clothes—very American,” she said, indicating a Nine West mannequin. “Saks Fifth Avenue? That’s very expensive. An umbrella is $24. Here it’s very quiet, you feel comfortable. Sometimes my husband comes. He sits in a chair and goes to …. ” She put her head down and mimed sleep.

It became apparent that what everyone was loving was the big open space of Lord & Taylor, where they could rest. On the eighth floor, there was one saleswoman alone with all the bras, a half-floor full. (Wasn’t she afraid?) There was a whole other floor full of miniature children’s sweaters and some bears and no people. The store is 600,000 square feet! There is no place in the city with this much space per person. The reading room at the public library is more crowded.

“I think the store could be more profitable per square foot if it were partly smaller,” Mr. Baker said on the phone.

‘It Should Be More Glamorous’

But retail’s ruling elite is rooting for Lord & Taylor to dig in and self-aggrandize.

“I don’t think you can judge Lord & Taylor by the traffic in their Fifth Avenue store,” said former Bloomingdale’s chairman and chief executive Marvin Traub. “They have a number of stores doing well outside New York. With Federated combining Macy and May Company stores essentially aimed at middle-priced lines, it represents a considerable opportunity for the new owners to move Lord & Taylor a little more up-market.

“Lord & Taylor for many years had a fine reputation in the city,” Mr. Traub said. “Reputations last a long time.”

“Look at that store. It’s big and gorgeous,” says Gloria Gelfand, the former president of Escada and Louis Feráud and vice president of Salvatore Ferragamo ready-to-wear, talking from Maryland in the middle of a hurricane. “It could bring back the proper customer.”

Ms. Gelfand, who now has her own consulting company, began her 62-year-career at a company called White Stag. “The first female blue jeans in the world,” she said. “It was Lord & Taylor that bought the first three dozen pieces. Dorothy Shaver, one of the greatest fashion merchants of all time—a woman who understood how to build an empire!” Ms. Shaver was the first woman president of a major store on Fifth Avenue; her photograph in The History of Lord & Taylor looks like Joan Crawford. “When White Stag came out with the first multiple pieces of sportswear,” Ms. Gelfand said, “not only did they introduce it, they set up an entire floor for it. Then what did Dorothy Shaver do? She brings in the incredible, fantastic Claire McCardell. Two years after that, Dorothy Shaver introduces Bonnie Cashin and brings the whole world of sportswear up a level in price and sophistication. And then she wasn’t finished: Dorothy Shaver introduces Rudy Gernreich. She did it all. Of course, she had Norell, Bill Blass and …. ”

Ms. Shaver’s first association with the store in 1921, according to the book, involved marketing a family of dolls made by her sister, called the “Five Little Shavers.” Dolls seem to be a recurrent theme at Lord & Taylor—though maybe all fashion is about dolls. But the store’s Christmas windows have been a long-famous favorite of the avenue, with their little Victorian moments—a man with a mustache, his arm bent at the elbow, trying to hold a present, or a woman in a bonnet on a steamboat, which was part of the 2004 celebration of the U.S. Postal Service. To be fair, the art department has also brought in artists Larry Rivers, Red Grooms. They re-created the streets of San Miguel.

“The new owners have to make the store more appealing,” Mr. Traub said. “I think Jane has been trying to move it. But she has had limited money.”

“Jane had a vision to create a store that truly was her store,” said Lavelle Olexa, senior vice president of advertising and sales promotion for Lord & Taylor. “She typified that customer who was a career woman, for whom time is extraordinarily important to her. Her focus was more to the 35 to the 50. In the past several years, that demographic has really widened, become 25 to 55. Though she never really deserted her core customer. She brought in more contemporary looks for 25 to 35—Sui, Nicole Farhi, Vivienne Tam, Jill Stewart, BCBG. She has elevated the looking of the advertising—very clean, modern.”

“There’s a Renaissance Jane Elfers has achieved,” said Arnold Aronson, the former chairman of Saks Fifth Avenue and the managing director of retail strategies for Kurt Salmon Associates. “Jane’s a wonderful retailer—very focused apparel, excellent management. What she did is just a beginning. Federated, while they owned it, made substantial investments in upgrading the infrastructure. Lord & Taylor could end up being a viable regional, metro-oriented specialty department store. A lot of customers recognize the name and regard it with a positive image.”

“It should be glamorous, the sophisticated, beautiful home of exciting product,” Ms. Gelfand said. “Look …. ” She paused. “They need to get in the daughter of the baby boomer—28 to 35, honey …. ”

It’s a far cry from the boom-boom and ankle boots under the tents at Bryant Park just two blocks north. Lord & Taylor, one of the country’s oldest department stores and formely one of the finest, is today a curious mix of Otis escalators and Anna Sui clothes, a stalwart bastion of the civilized, trusty department store—neither entirely the past or the future, but some dreamy place in between.

In June, Federated Department Stores, owner of the 48-store string of Lord & Taylors since Federated’s merger with the May Department Stores Company in 2005, announced the chain’s sale for $1.2 billion in cash to a real-estate-oriented partnership, NRDC Equity Partners, consisting of National Realty and Development Corp. (NRDC) and Apollo Real Estate Advisors. Apollo is a principal backer of the multi-complex Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle, and so one couldn’t help but speculate: Would the 600,000-square-foot Fifth Avenue flagship become a carnival of entertainment topped by a tower of condos?

“Yes, we could build on top. But we have made no decision what to do with the existing building,” said NRDC principal Richard A. Baker, who led the investor team and will become chairman of the brand when the deal is closed in a few weeks, on the phone from his headquarters in Purchase, N.Y. “We hope to run a successful store out of that location for a long time to come.”

In 2000, Jane Elfers, who joined Lord & Taylor as a buyer in 1989 and has moved steadily up the ranks there, was made the chief executive and president at age 39—the second woman in the store’s history, after the legendary Dorothy Shaver, to hold the position. “We are pleased with Jane Elfers’ revitalization of the brand,” Mr. Baker said, adding that he has been a Lord & Taylor loyalist since his childhood in Greenwich, Conn. “My family, everyone shopped there—my mother, my aunts, my sister,” he said. “I’m getting a lot of e-mails: ‘Don’t mess with Lord & Taylor!’”

Ms. Elfers was on vacation and couldn’t be reached for an interview.

As for the other 47 stores in the Northwest and Illinois and Michigan, Mr. Baker said the team is “doing a lot of thoughtful analysis” and reviewing the individual stores’ portfolios. “Lord & Taylor will continue with its name and identity,” he said. “Sales are performing very well.” He declined to give specific figures.

‘Normal Clothes for Normal People’

Can Lord & Taylor be relevant today? It began to lose prestige during the 1980’s, when the store tried to bring in more kinds of customers with less-expensive merchandise. In 2003, the May Company closed 32 poorly performing stores in 15 states. But the flagship persists, in some kind of purgatory floating state between Bloomingdale’s, which gamely opened a hip young Soho branch in 2004, and B. Altman (R.I.P.).

Founded in 1826, Lord & Taylor was originally retailer to New York’s upper class. It was the first department store to have “fixed prices,” meaning no discounts. And in the early part of the 20th century, it was nose to nose in elegance with Saks Fifth Avenue and Bonwit Teller.

The name alone implies a lordliness and a tailored look, though it comes from the two men who started with bolts of fabric in a basement on Catherine Street,what is now the Brooklyn Bridge, where the fabrics came in: Samuel Lord, the youngest of nine orphans, and his wife’s cousin, George Washington Taylor, according to the store’s official publication, The History of Lord & Taylor, 1826-2001.

Moving up the escalator in the grand 10-story 1914 Italian Renaissance structure by StarRett and Van Vleck (also the architects of Saks Fifth Avenue), noting the sparkle of the mirrored columns below and the opaque white-glass hanging fixtures, one can’t help reaching for a handkerchief (and Lord & Taylor still sells them!) thinking of the millennial retail revolution, in which the classic department store is no longer the absolute be-all and end-all for shoppers.

Beginning after World War II, people who moved to the suburbs started going to malls, not just for the two department stores that usually flanked a mall but for all the choices between those two stores. Today, those fleeing back to the city want not one store but the chain stores of their suburban youth, or boutiques of specialness—and then, of course, there are the stores on the Internet, as many as stars in the universe.

Arriving on the second floor of Lord & Taylor, where hundreds of shoes are in circular, suburban-Nordstrom-like displays, a black shoe stepping on the toe of a brown one, with the music playing (“I think we can make it, one morrrrre time…”), a new customer demographic could be seen: a woman with very short cut-offs and rubber flip-flops, her husband in a T-shirt with small type reading “Life is good.”

Where is the woman who leafed through a Town & Country magazine in 1953 and came to shop “for the first cool days of autumn … Rodier wool tweed … by Charles James … the dramatic winged neckline, the Empire belt in velvet …, ” or though Vogue in 1948 for the “high-waisted coat over a simple lilac wool jersey dress by Trigère?” Where is the snap of the handbag and a chicken salad at lunch instead of all those people who roll around in front of giant televisions looking for something to put in their mouths?

The woman with the handbag wasn’t there, but one Wednesday evening Lorna Stevens, 62, with short white hair and comfortable black suede shoes, who has worked for the last 20 years in humanitarian relief and lives in Peter Cooper Village, was staring at the store directory looking for “Intimate Apparel.” She said she has been coming to Lord & Taylor forever. “I was just looking for Jockey shorts for my husband. They have Polo, Ralph Lauren—no Jockey. They used to. I’ve been shopping here my whole life. Barneys, Bergdorf’s? It’s not for me. This is where I go. Before I came here, I went to B. Altman. Here, you can count on being able to get normal clothes for normal people.”

Also shopping was Nora Loke, 58, who lives in Chinatown with her husband, an accountant, and who moved from Hong Kong 20 years ago. “I like the classic clothes—very American,” she said, indicating a Nine West mannequin. “Saks Fifth Avenue? That’s very expensive. An umbrella is $24. Here it’s very quiet, you feel comfortable. Sometimes my husband comes. He sits in a chair and goes to …. ” She put her head down and mimed sleep.

It became apparent that what everyone was loving was the big open space of Lord & Taylor, where they could rest. On the eighth floor, there was one saleswoman alone with all the bras, a half-floor full. (Wasn’t she afraid?) There was a whole other floor full of miniature children’s sweaters and some bears and no people. The store is 600,000 square feet! There is no place in the city with this much space per person. The reading room at the public library is more crowded.

“I think the store could be more profitable per square foot if it were partly smaller,” Mr. Baker said on the phone.

‘It Should Be More Glamorous’

But retail’s ruling elite is rooting for Lord & Taylor to dig in and self-aggrandize.

“I don’t think you can judge Lord & Taylor by the traffic in their Fifth Avenue store,” said former Bloomingdale’s chairman and chief executive Marvin Traub. “They have a number of stores doing well outside New York. With Federated combining Macy and May Company stores essentially aimed at middle-priced lines, it represents a considerable opportunity for the new owners to move Lord & Taylor a little more up-market.

“Lord & Taylor for many years had a fine reputation in the city,” Mr. Traub said. “Reputations last a long time.”

“ Look at that store. It’s big and gorgeous,” says Gloria Gelfand, the former president of Escada and Louis Feráud and vice president of Salvatore Ferragamo ready-to-wear, talking from Maryland in the middle of a hurricane. “It could bring back the proper customer.”

Ms. Gelfand, who now has her own consulting company, began her 62-year-career at a company called White Stag. “The first female blue jeans in the world,” she said. “It was Lord & Taylor that bought the first three dozen pieces. Dorothy Shaver, one of the greatest fashion merchants of all time—a woman who understood how to build an empire!” Ms. Shaver was the first woman president of a major store on Fifth Avenue; her photograph in The History of Lord & Taylor looks like Joan Crawford. “When White Stag came out with the first multiple pieces of sportswear,” Ms. Gelfand said, “not only did they introduce it, they set up an entire floor for it. Then what did Dorothy Shaver do? She brings in the incredible, fantastic Claire McCardell. Two years after that, Dorothy Shaver introduces Bonnie Cashin and brings the whole world of sportswear up a level in price and sophistication. And then she wasn’t finished: Dorothy Shaver introduces Rudy Gernreich. She did it all. Of course, she had Norell, Bill Blass and …. ”

Ms. Shaver’s first association with the store in 1921, according to the book, involved marketing a family of dolls made by her sister, called the “Five Little Shavers.” Dolls seem to be a recurrent theme at Lord & Taylor—though maybe all fashion is about dolls. But the store’s Christmas windows have been a long-famous favorite of the avenue, with their little Victorian moments—a man with a mustache, his arm bent at the elbow, trying to hold a present, or a woman in a bonnet on a steamboat, which was part of the 2004 celebration of the U.S. Postal Service. To be fair, the art department has also brought in artists Larry Rivers, Red Grooms. They re-created the streets of San Miguel.

“The new owners have to make the store more appealing,” Mr. Traub said. “I think Jane has been trying to move it. But she has had limited money.”

“Jane had a vision to create a store that truly was her store,” said Lavelle Olexa, senior vice president of advertising and sales promotion for Lord & Taylor. “She typified that customer who was a career woman, for whom time is extraordinarily important to her. Her focus was more to the 35 to the 50. In the past several years, that demographic has really widened, become 25 to 55. Though she never really deserted her core customer. She brought in more contemporary looks for 25 to 35—Sui, Nicole Farhi, Vivienne Tam, Jill Stewart, BCBG. She has elevated the looking of the advertising—very clean, modern.”

“There’s a Renaissance Jane Elfers has achieved,” said Arnold Aronson, the former chairman of Saks Fifth Avenue and the managing director of retail strategies for Kurt Salmon Associates. “Jane’s a wonderful retailer—very focused apparel, excellent management. What she did is just a beginning. Federated, while they owned it, made substantial investments in upgrading the infrastructure. Lord & Taylor could end up being a viable regional, metro-oriented specialty department store. A lot of customers recognize the name and regard it with a positive image.”

“It should be glamorous, the sophisticated, beautiful home of exciting product,” Ms. Gelfand said. “Look …. ” She paused. “They need to get in the daughter of the baby boomer— 28 to 35, honey …. ”

It all started last September, when--egged on by well-intentioned Katie Couric–type people--you went on a post–9/11 comfort-food ingest-athon. Who can blame you? Macaroni and cheese, washed down with vats of vino, proved highly effective in taking the edge off things. But, unfortunately, you saw fit to continue munching and guzzling right through the holidays. The result: You are now officially “jolly”--i.e., you went up a frock size and a half, i.e., you can’t fit into the high-priced designer drag I talked you into buying last spring.

Maybe you’re quite happy with the stout new you. If so, then mazel tov! If, on the other hand, you’re ready to kill yourself, then read on. The following lard-fighting strategies are currently finding popularity with your fellow flab-fighters here in New York and may work for you.

Liposuction: the old standby for gym-phobic, orally fixated, undisciplined folk. Here’s the new twist: In increasing numbers, the aging Manhattan cognoscenti are combining their annual sun-drenched winter break with a little quelque chose d’autre. They’re abandoning St. Barts for Brazil in order to avail themselves of the legendary expertise of one Dr. Carlos Fernando Gomes de Almeida (011-55-21-2286-8255). Loyalists now return every year for a touch-up; they call themselves the “Angels of Dr. Carlos.” Lipo on the torso will set you back about $5,000; throw in your neck and chin and you’re up to $12,000 (the price of an Hermès purse).

Recuperate for three weeks at the Ipanema Plaza (011-55-21-3687-2000; $150 a night, negotiable) as opposed to the Copacabana Palace, which has become too touristy. Ask for a sea view. While you wait for the swelling to go down, you can pass the time by fantasizing about the moment when you confidently insert yourself into the Mario Testino–ish, thong-clad throng. If you want to save money on your accommodations--and spend more on procedures--get your travel agent to find you a hotel apartment. Get comfy: Rio is the new Miami Beach. Stick around till Feb. 9 and flaunt yourself at Carnival.

Heads up for ultra-chubs: Dr. Carlos will not liposuck more than 5 percent of your body weight.

(Agoraphobics, take note: There is now a plastic surgeon in New York who makes house calls. Dr. Oleh Slupchynskyj will come chez vous and, for $1,200, give you your Botox shots. P.S.: He is not, as his name would suggest, a venerable old geezer with nose hair and a thick accent. Au contraire! He’s young and attractive. Call him at 628-6731 and see for yourself.)

The French call them poignees d’amour; we call them “love handles.” When I heard that the men-only Nickel Spa at 77 Eighth Avenue offered Love Handle for Men Wraps, I hightailed it over there to road-test them for all you fellas. And guess what? They work … sort of.

The Love Handle for Men Wrap is a 60-minute treatment ($85) that starts with a light massage and a rousing round of “cupping”--i.e., Mauro, the masseur, used his cupped hands to batter my midsection, thereby producing a noise like horses trotting. He then applied a tingly Nickel poignees d’amour unguent (not yet for sale in the U.S.). I was then asked to stand while Mauro maypole’d around me, mummifying my waist with a Saran Wrap corset. I was then told to lie still for 40 minutes, during which time I got bored and nodded off. The removal of the Saran Wrap was followed by a final and annoying round of “cupping.” The big shockerooni? My midsection felt tighter and leaner. Spa owner Philippe Dumont came clean: “Ze love ’andle wrap doesn’t get rid of fat. Zis feeling of tightness lasts five or six days. Then you ’ave to repeat ze treatment.” Go for the package deal: $380 for a series of five.

Now back to you girls! Reclaiming your old frock size is not going to happen overnight. In the meantime, you can chicly reduce your jiggle quotient with a new product from Oprah favorite and inventor of the famous Spanx Footless Pantyhose, Sara Blakely. Ms. Blakely now brings you--drum roll--Spanx Control Top Fishnets! Features include a comfy waistband, extended control top to smooth hips and thighs, and that old favorite, a hand-sewn cotton gusset. Ms. Blakely also guarantees that Spanx fishnets will eliminate forever the dreaded grid-butt phenomenon ($26 at Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue).

Re pantyhose gussets, here’s a tip I learned from designer Betsey Johnson: If ever you find yourself stranded without coffee filters, simply cut the cotton gusset out of a (fresh) pair of pantyhose.

Happy New Year!

6:10 p.m.

11 pounds

Lenox Hill Hospital

When Jennifer Gallagher and Adam Fass looked into the dimpled face of their generously sized firstborn, they knew it was worth skipping out on ski season at their retreat in the Poconos. And now that he’s out of the womb, the hefty fella likes to stay out. “He loves being in his stroller,” said Mr. Fass, 41, a replenishment analyst (whatever that means) for Saks Fifth Avenue. “He loves getting held by anyone—it doesn’t matter whose arms he’s in. I think he’s going to be a pretty outgoing kid.” And a rhythmic one—one who already enjoys dancing to classic rock around the family’s Upper East Side one-bedroom while in the arms of his mother, Ms. Gallagher, 29, an administrative manager at the 311 government-information call center. The couple has been married two years.

AIMEE: "Beautiful! Elegant! We'll ghjkflshgkhkhgjkfsd and hgfsdhlkh and BOOBIES and fhkdsahhjkl," the sweet little seamstress with the accent says to me, poking and prodding and pinning my dress all around me. I am trying very hard, but quite honestly, "boobies" really IS the only word I can make sense of and, incidentally, mine are just not voluminous enough to hold up this dress.

My fitting room at the Saks in Virginia is a zoo: my parents are smiling and so happy and my sister is taking pictures with my camera (for this blog...and you're welcome) and my bridesmaid Jen L. from Florida is also scooting around taking pictures (and wait a second, why is MY camera not working? My sis is struggling with it and now she's showing it to my dad who can't figure it out either and they're giving me that "Don't upset the bride" look while my mom distracts me by telling me how good I look, which works) and the seamstress is running around and what's she saying? And now my sister's bringing me the camera and I'm trying to figure it out. And where's the woman who sold me the dress, the one I adore who might be able to tell me why it's so loose on top? And now I'm sweating. NO! Don't sweat, this is YOUR dress now!

This is so not what I expected to feel when I put on my satin Elizabeth Fillmore gown (style name: "Diva," I kid you not) for the first time. My friend Jennie had told me of the tears she shed when she tried on her gown at her first
fitting. I'm a major crier, so I figured I would be trying and failing to hold back torrents of joyous tears. Instead, I'm feeling kind of manic, but, you know, maybe that's better than the tears. Apples and oranges.

First thing's first: I love the dress. LOVE it. But now that it's mine, this thing needs to fit exactly right so...

"I know you've been doing this a lot longer than me, but just to doublecheck," I say sweetly, "this will eventually stay up and fit flush against me, right?" I look down and--pardon me for getting personal--but with these cups I've got in to amp me up and fill the thing out, there is now a gap between my chest and the dress big enough for me to hold a drink in there during the cocktail hour.

Jen, ever the shy one, translates: "She doesn't want her BOOBS"--she pats her chest--"flying OUT"--she opens her hands as if to signify cups that have runneth over. Granted, I don't have much to runneth over, but still, I mean, I have to be able to move, you know? Brian and I have ambitious plans for a little "Dancing with the Stars"-esque number to a Barry White tune.

"Don't worry, here's what I do, I ghfjdsklhlk hfjklshk...." a long explanation ensues, and then, at last, comes what I need to hear. "Don't worry, will be perfect!"

On the other had, we don’t really have anything against real estate hype. It is good for the economy--particularly our economy.

-Matthew Schuerman