“Did you see Tina Fey and Sheryl Crow are wearing the same dress?” CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl whispered to a friend at the New York Women in Communications Matrix Awards at the Waldorf Astoria on Monday morning, April 19. And there they were: Ms. Crow and Ms. Fey in almost-identical floral Dolce & Gabbana fitted frocks. (Ms. Fey’s had a V-neck; Ms. Crow’s a boat neck.) “Sheryl slept over my house last night and we got dressed together,” Ms. Fey joked to the Transom.
Award recipient Gayle King and her presenter, Oprah Winfrey, were also unintentionally coordinated, in orange knee-length dresses.
Onstage, Ms. Winfrey thanked Ms. King for being not her BFF, but her MSF (mother, sister and friend), and for telling her once that “yes, you can be Phil Donahue.” Ms. Winfrey also addressed the unauthorized biography of her, by Kitty Kelley, that came out last week, saying: “Last week was a rough week for Gayle. Every day, she’s getting herself more and more worked up about all of my new daddies that are now showing up. New daddies who are saying, ‘Hello, do-tar! Call me. I need a new roof!”
Other award recipients included Google vice president Marissa mayer, presented by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo; Barefoot Contessa‘s Ina Garten, presented by author Anna Quindlen; and New York Times‘ foreign editor Susan Chira, presented by managing editor Jill Abramson. Ms. Abramson, who has worked with Ms. Chira since 1997, told a story about the latter once inviting her to an interview with Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ms. Abramson was nervous that she would inevitably mispronounce his name. “[Executive editor] Bill Keller said, ‘Just say ‘I’m a dinner jacket’ really fast.'”
Ms. Abramson had some words of gender empowerment. “Sometimes I think younger women I work with are a little too reticent about giving their opinions about things,” she told the Transom. “Women are also sometimes reluctant to express criticism. My kids, for instance, respond to the mildest of criticism as ‘Mommy, why are you yelling at me?'” Those crazy kids!
