UrbanEye

March 04, 2010

By JULIE BLOOM

Gimme an H


"It's easy to feel alive with possibility, or delusional, at the new Hermès store for men, which welcomes wealth in all its glory and repugnance," writes Jon Caramanica. This store, which opened last month across Madison Avenue from the flagship, "is a thoughtful balance of expert craftsmanship and luxury kitsch, a four-floor clubhouse that somehow manages the feel of a high-end department store." Mr. Caramanica suggests picking a desired persona, say a disheveled and raffish Julian Schnabel or Robert Redford in "Out of Africa," and making the fantasy a reality with a few choice pieces, like a rough linen-cotton blend blazer with soft suede beneath the collar. "Soon I was writing scenes of my new life in my head, most ending with a quick nuzzle from Olatz as I come in the door at Palazzo Chupi, before we sneak upstairs for an assignation on her signature crest-appliquéd Egyptian cotton sheets." The store is filled with other aspirational items. "Most dazzling is one of the store's showpieces, a chocolate leather baseball jacket perforated in an H pattern, wearable by rappers and Mediterranean tourists, but probably not you."


Collecting Like Koons
Not all of us can amass an art collection like Jeff Koons. The pop artist has works by Manet, Picasso and Poussin piled up, salon-style, on the walls of his Upper East Side home, not to mention an 1873 Courbet over his flat-screen television. But for those aspiring collectors working on a slightly smaller scale, the Guggenheim is the place to be tonight. The museum is auctioning off 200 works by artists, architects and designers from the exhibition "Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum." The auction, a finale to the museum's 50th anniversary celebrations, will benefit the museum's exhibition programming. First preview the work and then take in a performance by Animal Collective, the artist Danny Perez and Transverse Temporal Gyrus, featuring original recorded music created specifically for this event. The late show at 9 p.m. is sold out but there are still tickets available for the early show at 4:30 p.m. The auction items will be sold online from March 4 through 18 at charitybuzz.com/guggenheim


Wallace Stevens in New York
Before Wallace Stevens became a great poet known for his "verbal ebullience and New England spareness," he was a journalist beating the pavement for the New York Evening Post. Those early years spent in the city informed his later work, and, beginning today, you can see how when New York University and the Poetry Society of America present "Wallace Stevens, New York, and Modernism." The conference, which runs through March 6 and is free and open to the public, includes readings, talks and presentations by literary luminaries like Mark Strand, Edward Hirsch, Elizabeth Willis and many more.


Slide Show: Film's Influence on Fashion, Then and Now
Costumes can be protagonists, as in these Hollywood classics.