By Chloë Ashby 9/13/12 3:20pm

Fashion Week Spring 2013

The after party for the special screening of "Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's" in celebration of their 111th Anniversary.

A Storied Turn for Bergdorf’s Window

“I hope I have a job tomorrow.” That was personal shopper Betty Halbreich’s reaction to the Sept. 12 preview of Matthew Miele’s fashion documentary Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s. Ms. Halbreich explained, “I spurt things without thinking!” But to others, her brutal honesty and WASPish sense of humor made her one of the film’s firm favorites. Gossip Girl costume designer Eric Damon spoke for all when he said, “It’s all about Betty.”

Ms. Halbreich, The Observer thinks you’ll be just fine.

As Fashion Week comes to a close, the celebration of Bergdorf Goodman’s 111th anniversary stepped into the spotlight. Swapping Lincoln Center’s front rows for the old-style stadium seating of The Paris Theater, a confluence of fatigued fashionistas enjoyed a show that for the first time in seven days allowed them to remain in their seats for more than 10 minutes. Read More

By Nicole Brydson 2/12/07 12:00am

She’s a Chic Organic Swede!

On the evening of Monday, Feb. 5, at Loft 19 in Chelsea, models with prim netted buns of hair strutted down a makeshift runway, wearing clothes by H Fredriksson: a beautifully shaped gray wool herringbone pouf-sleeved dress; a black-coated denim jean paired with a black wool caftan coat and silk charmeuse shell; a royal blue Read More

By Alexandra Jacobs 8/14/06 12:00am

Our Gilded Youth in Crisis! Ennui and Grade-Grubbing

The Overachievers, by Alexandra Robbins. Hyperion, 439 pages, $24.95.

There’s a fearsome plague among us. It’s not AIDS. It’s not drug-resistant TB or the Ebola virus. It’s a gnawing emptiness deep within the guts of children from rich families.

Yes, “affluenza”—identified in the late 1990’s as the vague malaise one feels when the thrill of Read More

By Simon Doonan 12:00am

Get Me … Anything! The New, Swank Stepin Fetchits

The concierge trend is totally out of control! One cannot break wind these days without some well-dressed, enthusiastic chap or chapess offering you tickets to The Lion King or dinner rezzies at Nobu. The deranged high-service lifestyle which was previously the exclusive prerogative of Hollywood mucketty-mucks is now available to ordinary people like you.

The Read More

By Rex Reed 3/18/02 12:00am

Broadway’s Golden Girls

If Bea Arthur and Elaine Stritch are on my mind these days, it’s

because I’ve seen them twice and thought about them often. Their one-person

Broadway shows keep getting extended, but I still advise you to get there fast.

Acid drips from their shapely mouths when these two flamboyant legends go at

their memoirs with Read More

By William Norwich 6/07/99 12:00am

Oscar de la Renta, Social Emperor of New York

Sitting at his cream-colored desk inside a halo of luminous office white, Oscar de la Renta held forth at his Seventh Avenue fashion headquarters on a morning in mid-May. As it is the height of the so-called spring season, this is where Mr. de la Renta gathers his strength between the charity fund-raisers and dizzyingly Read More

By Bruce Feirstein 12/15/97 12:00am

Welcome to Christmas ’86, The Sequel

Yes, it’s the middle of December again: that time when we sit down and ruminate on the state of relationships with our loved ones; the season when we take pause and reflect on the kindness and considerations of our cohorts and employees during the past 12 months; that moment in the calendar when we contemplate Read More