Tyler in at Anne Klein? Maybe
Richard Tyler had lunch with some folks at Anne Klein last fall, and the rumor mill has been cranking ever since. This much is sure, Tyler and Anne Klein VIPS are up to something. Whether he will be named to replace Louis Dell’Olio, who now designs the collection, remains to be seen.
“I’m well aware that’s the rampant speculation and I choose not to comment on it,” says Frank Mori, a partner in the business. “I’ve had conversations with Richard Tyler. We have reached no agreement of any kind.”
Mori says his company has backed a number of design talents in the past, and suggests that may be one option the company is considering with Tyler. Mum’s the word from Tyler, except for a few details. “I’d never give up my own line,” he says of his signature collection. In other words he would continue to produce his label, whether or not he joined Anne Klein. And, “I still want to work out of L.A.--it’s my town.” More immediately , “I want to get home, be in my own house, pet the dog and think about all this.”
Casting, Get Me a Dozen Hairless Adolescent Studs!: Calvin Klein is in town this week overseeing production details for his fashion show-cum-fund-raiser for AIDS Project Los Angeles. Klein and his people, dressed head to toe in--what else?--auditioned hundreds of models for the Hollywood Bowl extravaganza in June, including a host of Marky Mark impersonators. And you thought one Marky was one too many.
Reading Material: Shoppers can tuck a bit of erotica into their their ladylike I. Magnin bags today. Compact sex guru Dr. Ruth Westheimer hits the Beverly Hills store at 3 p.m. to sign copies of “The Art of Arousal,” a collection of paintings, drawings and sculpture with subtle-to-overt sexual images. If any of you carpers out there are wondering, Hey, what qualifies the much-loved psychosexual therapist to write about art?, you can rest assured that “Arousal,” according to the publisher, was “written under the careful guidance of an art historian” who, curiously, remains anonymous. The irrepressible Dr. Ruth’s enthusiasm for the subject comes through on every page. Of a man and woman depicted in a 15th-Century tapestry, she writes: “It does not require a Ph.D. in sexual therapy to see that this couple is off to a wonderful start.”
Thrift Store Circuit: Why is it that men tend to confuse a woman’s hair-color formula with her DNA? With short blond hair, we were often taken for Julie Andrews. When our hair was dark brown and long, it was Karen Carpenter or Lily Tomlin. Red hair in a gamin cut? Shirley MacLaine.
“Now, what would Shirley MacLaine be doing here?” we asked a dunderhead who interrupted one of our regular--some might say compulsive--visits to the downtown Goodwill store.
“They love to come to places like this,” dunderhead assured us.
Not a week later, a very big, very tanned guy dressed in black and wearing an earring stood clutching a broken gum ball machine and a copper-clad chafing dish at the counter of the Westside Goodwill. Hmmm . . . the hair color looks just about right . . . . Could it be? Is it? Yes. It’s Dom DeLuise!
Dom hustled the stuff out the door and into his big gold Mercedes. “He comes here all the time,” confided the clerk tallying up our haul.
They do like to come to places like this. They really do!
Unsolicited Advice: Given the figure flaws that we need to conceal in a bathing suit, it’s no wonder buying suits for our firm-of-flesh children is a comparative pleasure. Unless you want a suit that: a) has no ruffles; b) is not French-cut; c) is mostly cotton; d) has no rhinestones, metallic threads; e) isn’t black; f) isn’t white; g) makes no mention of Barbie or Belle; h) is under $35. (Sure, we’re strict, but it gives us a tiny sense of control.)
After scouring all the usual stores, we found the suit of our dreams rather unexpectedly in the current Garnet Hill catalogue, (800) 622-6216. It’s a simple cotton tank style made with 10% Lycra, green and white or red and white stripes, for $24, and it suits any girlish figure Size 14 and under.
Domestic Crisis: Conde Nast’s decision to stop publishing HG leaves us wondering: Where the heck are we going to steal decorating ideas? Sunset’s gardening tips are helpful, but we’ve never shared the magazine’s enthusiasm for ship-shape interiors packed with (surprise!) secret storage compartments. We canceled our subscription to Home a couple of years ago--a case of painted-furniture overload. And ever since Metropolitan Home’s been downgraded to a bimonthly, the rapport we once felt has flown the butter-yellow-walled coup.
Conde Nast has graciously offered to substitute the icy, semi-scholarly Architectural Digest to HG subscribers. What are the odds of finding a tchotchke grouping or window treatment we can copy badly in a 19th-Century Gentilhommiere outside of Paris or a 347-room Art Deco palace in India? We predict a circulation boom for Martha Stewart’s Living.
Closing Thought: From “Mondo Barbie,” a new anthology of fiction and poetry edited by Richard Peabody and Lucinda Ebersole, a poem by Jose Padua:
BARBIE
I am Barbie.
I live in your dollhouse.
You change my clothes every day.
If I could get out
of here I would
kill you all.
