Spite at the Opera
Oscar de la Renta blasted the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager Peter Gelb in Thursday’s Women’s Wear Daily (behind a firewall — sorry), complaining that the Met had chosen Germany’s Karl Lagerfeld, France’s Christian Lacroix and England’s John Galliano to design costumes for tonight’s opening gala instead of an American (de la Renta is a naturalized […]
Viva Italia
Today’s Page Six reports on revelations in Rogues’ Gallery.
Tom Tom Club
Yesterday, after New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman took aswipe at former Metropolitan Museum director Tom Hoving in his analysis of the appointment of Thomas Campbell to that job, saying he was an unstable egomaniac who left the museum in reeling chaos, I asked Hoving how he felt about that. “I do have a […]
Campbell in the Soup
Thomas Campbell has just been named the new director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, replacing the outgoing Philippe de Montebello. The Oxford educated Campbell is a museum insider — a curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts and the supervising curator of the Met’s Antonio Ratti Textile Center. He is the Met’s second British-born […]
Intel Gap
New York magazine’s Daily Intel has an item today on what it considers some of the most impressive real estate “flips” of city apartments and buildings — and of course, 740 Park is included, but all the facts are not. The tale of this so-called “flip” of the late Janet Coleman’s duplex earlier this year […]
In Defense of Empathy
In her column this weekend and on her wowowow web site, Liz Smith reacts to Ben Widdicombe‘s “Arriverderci, Gossip” in the new issue of Bergdorf Goodman Magazine. She did — and does — gossip her way, has for thirty-two years and counting, and more power to her.
Kicks on Page Six
Page Six got hold of the new Doubleday-Broadway catalog and offers a sneak peek at Rogues’ Gallery today. Mediabistro’s Galleycat likes it too. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak, please consider going here and pre-ordering a copy!
Model Mogul
Jerry Ford, co-founder with his wife Eileen of The Fords model agency and a genuinely nice guy, has died at age 83. He is the second pioneer of modern modeling to die this year, following the real first supermodel, Dorian Leigh. RIP, Jerry.
Hoving Into Sight
Tom Hoving is back on artnet with some (likely unwanted, but quite possibly needed) advice for the committee searching for a new director at the Metropolitan Musuem. My favorite candidate, the British Museum’s Neal MacGregor, turned them down. The smart money says that makes James Cuno of the Art Institute of Chicago the front-runner in […]
Village Under Seige Pt. 3
Here we go again. Nikos, the best little magazine store in the city, has been forced out of its home at Sixth Avenue and 11th Street. Today’s New York Sun blames rising rent, but isn’t it also turning tides? Nikos sold a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, mind-bending mish-mash of everything from obscure literary journals to magazines so […]