Sui Shows Some Street-Smarts
La Brea just got several degrees cooler, if that’s possible, with news that designer Anna Sui will open a store on the avenue in September.
Sui thought her witty, affordable clothes were better suited to gallery-coffeehouse-boutique-studded La Brea than Melrose, Sunset or Robertson. “It’s where my customer is,” she said.
And even though she vows to create a replica of her New York store, certain unmistakably L.A. touches may turn up. Like the kitschy dolly-head hanger she discovered while shopping the Pasadena City College flea market recently with pal Sofia Coppola. “All my friends said, ‘You go 3,000 miles and you come back with a hanger?’ But I want to have it copied so I can use them in the store.”
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Style-Go-Round: After months of rumors, Buzz magazine Wednesday named Details magazine founder and former editor Annie Flanders to the post of L.A. style consultant. Flanders will guide Buzz’s coverage of fashion, beauty, furnishings and style in L.A., while continuing to serve as TV Guide’s style editor.
Vacationing in Puerto Rico, Flanders said of her new job: “I’m just so happy I don’t have to take any of those consulting jobs in New York now!” Not only is she crazy about L.A., she said, but she hopes to bring recognition to the city’s fashion and manufacturing communities.
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Brand Central: A warm wave of skepticism washed over us when we heard that Sears, Roebuck & Co. had hired New York ad agency Young & Rubicam to sing the praises of the retailer’s greatly improved apparel. So we popped in at “Brand Central” to see what we’d been missing.
Past the friendly security guard, past the popcorn counter (remember the smell?), past the rack of “sun shifts” that look suspiciously like housedresses.
The first rack we hit bulged with outfits in jarring color combinations (lime green and . . . everything).
There were unflattering necklines, waistlines, proportions; pretend pockets, buttons that didn’t button, stitched-down handkerchiefs, pseudo vests and unnecessary details--like gaudy plastic buttons, contrasting piping, glued-on sequins. Then a gold cotton scoop-necked shift, absolutely plain, caught our eye. Unfortunately, the slits were unraveling and the armhole facings were sloppily sewn.
Finally, we fled to the basement, and there it was, the best-designed item around: a simple Craftsman hammer. Is it really that much harder to make a lady’s dress?
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Cool Jerk: Looking like a cross between a trim Elvis Presley and a trim Roy Orbison, actor Jeff Goldblum’s rascally and prophetic mathematician in “Jurassic Park” is the only human being on screen who appears as lifelike as the dinosaurs.
His patter is cool, but his head-to-toe black sideburns and groovy shades are even cooler. Not bad for a $60-million film with no costume designer.
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Beauty and the Beasts: A local facialist, summoned to perform an emergency back-waxing on Bruce Willis for a love scene, couldn’t hide her anxiety. So the ever-obliging macho man gave her a couple of flexes to soothe her nerves. What a guy! . . . Thank God for beepers--otherwise, how would Sharon Stone signal her favorite hairdresser--40 times a day. “It’s good while it’s happening,” observes someone who works within beeper-hearing range, “then she’ll drop him.”. . . The lunchtime scene at one Beverly Hills beauty salon: High-powered women execs soak their about-to-be-pedicured feet in sunken basins while perched on throne-like seats, all the while eating takeout and conducting business meetings on their cellular phones. We think we feel a Backlash coming on.
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Summer Reading: In her new novel, “Creatures of Habit,” Julie Baumgold (of New York magazine fame) examines a small band of ‘80s elitists through the steely, unaligned eyes of a society columnist called the Pimpernel:
“Behind me gleamed the shaved down teeth in their sleeves of porcelain; the high, motionless hair of impossible colors. The faces were devoid of age but not young, like the wet beige kid gloves someone has blown into; the body folds were sucked away, strictured and hidden by rich clothes; the odors were cloaked in crushed flowers. I was surrounded by all the replaced parts of bionic New York in their black night clothes.”
Funny, the book jacket illustration, taken from the menu of the Stork Club, makes it all look so glamorous.
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For the Record: Rumors that the Ungaro and Ferre boutiques in Beverly Hills were about to close, reported here last week, are inaccurate, says owner Winnie Schweitzer. Yes, she and Aldo Pinto decided to close the Krizia store at Two Rodeo Drive, but her Ferre shop, also at Two Rodeo, is doing fine, according to Schweitzer. “Ferre is interested to buy me out!” she says. And Ungaro, which is down the street, will be closing soon, but only for long-planned renovations.
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Inside Out is published Fridays.
