People have just got to stop taking off their tops in public — girl-people anyhow. Unless they’re exhibitionists, and that’s a whole other story. Lurking photographers took some of the sauciest snaps of the summer of Prince Albert, he of the beleaguered Monegasque Grimaldi family, caught in a close embrace with a nubile, topless nymph reported to be German model Heather Mann — also reported to be his new fiancee. Poor Albert. He can get himself photographed, but he can’t get himself arrested.
Roman Polanski’s direction of Sigourney Weaver in “Death and the Maiden” is drawing attention to that actress’s performance as a sexy, gun-carrying avenger in this wild story of righting all wrongs. There’ll be no pulling of punches in the case of the director, the star and, of course, the story, which is all about getting mad and getting even — as Glenn Close’s Broadway performance in the play, taken from the novel, made perfectly clear. Fine Line Features is supposed to release the film in late December in time for Academy Award consideration. Torture, anyone?
Venice’s hot new hostelry is the Hotel Monaco on the Grand Canal where the terrace was — and is — filled every night this summer with such as Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols, Lee Radziwill and Jack Nicholson. But they were but a blip compared to the excitement that ensued with the arrival of Gianni Agnelli, tanned to the bone, as ever, but still rich and famous, Italian style. After all these years. Gianni was there to greet Prince Charles, who flew in from London for the day to see the architectural exhibition, “The Renaissance From Brunelleschi to Michelangelo” at the Palazzo Grassi. Crowds have been gathering from all over to see this superb exhibition of architectural models, and, as the Palazzo Grassi was a gift from Agnelli to the city of Venice, they let him and the Prince of Wales be first on line. Gratitude, Italian-style.
Not every chic body was in Paris for the haute couture excitement this summer, but isn’t almost every chic body that isn’t anorexic thrilled that the skinnies got the fashion hook? Slender is beautiful; emaciated is hideola. Anyhow, the Paris Chanel show rang the death knell for the waif look, which has been a long time a-dying. Nourished bodies with sex appeal are big time again. Monday, in New York at the St. Regis, Chanel will show this very same collection (fall/winter) in honor of the New York City Ballet. The show in the St. Regis Library will be presented in the style of Coco Chanel and the way she did things in the 1930s. You know — her fabled Chinese coromandel lacquered screens, soft lighting, etc., and, for the first time, Chanel’s new jewelry collection will be shown on the runway. And watch for the finale when such exquisite swans from the New York City Ballet as Darci Kistler, Helene Alexopoulos, Margaret Tracey, Katrina Killian, Merrill Ashley and Yvonne Boree float down the runway wearing striking re-editions of Coco’s baubles, some of which were acquired from her two famous passions, the Grand Duke Dmitri of Russia and the Duke of Westminster, but you knew that. (I’m not sure, but wasn’t Coco’s Duke of Westminster the one they called Boy, as in, “Oh, boy!!!” Which is probably what Mlle. Chanel said when she opened the velvet boxes.)
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Along those lines, when John Galliano showed his fall collection in Sao Schlumberger’s astonishing Paris house, he sent out mannequins wearing cloche hats a la art deco. On the other side of the Atlantic, here at the Plaza Hotel, hat designer Kokin did the same. People thought they were both crazy. No, no, no — smart. Wait until you see Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dorothy Parker in “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle” sporting a stunning collection of sexy cloche hats. Wear one this fall with your seamed stockings — which are long overdue.
It’s billed as an Author’s Tea. And for those who like to take their tea with a book on the side, if you pop into New York’s Four Seasons Hotel next Thursday, you will see and hear Beverly Sills introducing Rosalind Miles, the author of “I, Elizabeth,” a first-person account of the life and times of the Virgin Queen, whom Miles claims was not really a virgin at all. La! Who would have thought it? What a scandal! Beverly loves the book and says it transported her to another place and time. Yo, Bev — you mean it really tells for sure what went on under that farthingale?
Then on Oct. 22, Gloria Vanderbilt presents another scandal of sorts (I’ll say!) with her newest novel “The Memory Book of Starr Faithfull.” Who was Starr Faithfull? A young woman, not a creature of fiction, whose body washed up on the shores of a New York beach in 1931 and who kept a diary which led to a notorious 20th-century brouhaha. (Read what I’ve written about Gloria and her new masterpiece in November’s Vanity Fair.)
Things will lighten up a bit at the Four Seasons in November when Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill offers tips from her new book, “Classic Decorative Details,” on collecting silver, glass and ceramics plus hanging pictures and displaying books, china, flowers and fruit.
Then, on Dec. 7, Betsy Bloomingdale, the top Beverly Hills hostess, will present her new book, “Entertaining With Betsy Bloomingdale,” which is filled with how-to ideas on everything from the care and feeding of hundreds in fabulous style to a recipe for high-cal, sloppy (but delicious) tacos.
On Sunday, Sept. 25, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation will hold its second annual “Kids for Kids” carnival at Industria, and Hillary Rodham Clinton will be there because, listen, she’s the honorary chairman of the event. “Kids for Kids” will be underwritten by Harper’s Bazaar, and the co-chairmen are Liz Tilberis, Donna Karan, Elizabeth Glaser and Chris and Pat Riley.
HRC will be manning (womanning?) a booth at the carnival as will such as Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols (they’re everywhere), Oscar de la Renta (he doesn’t stay home either), Carolina Herrera, Ralph Lauren, CeCe and Barry Kieselstein-Cord, Isaac Mizrahi, Diane Von Furstenberg, Mary McFadden, Isabella Rossellini, Ethan Hawke and a bevy of others including such little helpers as supermodels Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Christy Turlington who, along with assisting at the booths, will sign autographs. The sweet things.