The death of fashion model Ruslana Korshunova set my phone ringing. This is what I had to say on the subject to The Telegraph in London. “People generalise about fashion models to their own peril. We can’t draw conclusions about one from the last. The occupational hazards of modelling are well known – there are substance abuse, body issues and self-esteem issues. But we don’t know why this girl jumped out of a window. It could be it had nothing to do with modelling.” I also pointed out that when sad, poor, normal un-beautiful people kill themselves, they don’t appear … Continue reading →

Town & Country with Ivanka Trump on the cover: $4.95 Its mention of 740 Park as the book at her bedside: Priceless

Five years ago, an apartment my wife and I owned was flooded, and my co-op’s insurance company, a subsidiary of AIG, offered us seven cents back for every dollar we’d lost, even though we had what’s called a “replacement” policy that should have paid to repair the damages entirely. When we kicked up a fuss, AIG sent a team of people to eyeball the place, led by a man who looked very much like Martin Sullivan, the chief executive AIG canned yesterday. I can’t be sure it was him because I was seeing red after the beefy, white-haired dude walked … Continue reading →

The press continues to speculate who will replace the Metropolitan Museum’s longest-serving director, Philippe de Montebello. Today’s New York Sun has the latest state-of-the-arts list, which drops Met president Emily Rafferty and the British Museum’s Neal MacGregor but adds the Met curator and Havemeyer descendent Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen and includes two Timothys: Timothy Potts of Scotland by way of the Kimball and Cleveland’s Timothy Rub. Funny how no one mentions that Montebello’s longevity is the exception for Met directors. The job has killed several of his predecessors. Ay, there’s the Rub. Stick that in your Potts and smoke it.

The summer issue of Bergdorf Goodman Magazine will be out next week, featuring my conversation with Alain Ducasse and Daniel Boulud, whose new restaurants Bar Boulud, Benoit and Adour have recently brightened the dining scene in the neighborhood I call Vuitton (which is somewhere between uptown and downtown). Say those three words with a broad, fake French accent and it will make more sense. Read it here: Boulud-Ducasse

Vanity Fair has a Madonna slideshow on its web site that includes the photos the late Herb Ritts shot for her very first VF cover story, penned by yours truly.

Yves Saint Laurent died in France today. Twenty years ago, I interviewed him just before his company went public and asked how he felt about sharing ownership of his name. In response, he pulled a framed quotation from Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, off the wall of his Paris office. Slowly, a tremulous finger tracing the words, he read it aloud in French. ”The magnificent and lamentable family of the nervous is the salt of the earth,” it read in part. ”They are the ones – and not others – who founded religions and created masterpieces. The world … Continue reading →

Women’s Wear Daily should know. Last week, it announced the return of the supermodel. Welcome back, Christy, Claudia and Linda. You’re a sight for sore eyes and as welcome as miniskirts in spring.