This Life: Teaching Respect to the Young Faithful

Parents were dropping their children off at the synagogue, and the kids, unchaperoned, were treating the joint like the mall. Girls were hanging out in the bathroom, sitting on the countertops and texting their friends, while boys were playing tag football in the social hall and sneaking brownies from under the plastic wrap.

In the sanctuary, she wrote in a rant on the Web site of New Jersey Jewish News, they “are prone to talking unabated through the service, save for the 30 seconds after they’ve just been shushed by people who are wondering where those kids’ parents are.” Even her own did it, she confessed.

The problem got so bad, Ms. Ramer appointed herself a sort of bar mitzvah bouncer, strolling through the hallways and standing guard over the babka like a cross between Severus Snape from Hogwarts and Miss Trunchbull from “Matilda.”

When I was growing up as a Jew in Savannah, Ga., in the 1970s, I watched with ostracized awe at the elaborate grooming and finishing rituals performed by my friends in privileged social circles. Most of this training happened in the late teenage years, when girls would make their debut in the cotillion and boys, known as stags, would chaperon them.

The backbone of the process was a series of etiquette classes in which boys and girls would learn to don white gloves, wear corsages and boutonnieres, write thank-you notes, and mind their p’s and q’s (and R-rated hand movements). Jews, of course, were not invited.

These days, the tables have been turned. Jewish communities around the country, horrified by the appalling lack of manners their children display at bar and bat mitzvahs, are increasingly turning to more-formalized training efforts.

At the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway, a Modern Orthodox day school in Lawrence, N.Y., the school holds weekly academic classes to prepare boys and girls to become bar and bat mitzvah scholars.

But administrators added a separate, in-school program to rehearse the proper etiquette guests should display at these events. The highlight is a mock service in which teachers coach students on how to sit quietly during prayers and listen attentively to remarks made by the rabbi, parents and grandparents. Members of the school staff even make telephone calls to students’ cellphones to prepare them for that eventuality.

“Like many things in life,” said Rabbi Dovid Kupchik, a principal at the school, “if you actually talk to the students about how to behave instead of just assuming they’re going to act a certain way, it’s fresh in their heads. For adults, it’s challenging enough to sit through 20 or 30 minutes of speeches, but for 12- and 13-year-old kids, it’s especially difficult.”

The school also offers instruction on how to behave at the after-party, teaching students the polite way to wait in line at a coat check and how to thank and wish mazel tov to the parents of the celebrant.

At the conclusion of the class, students are asked to sign a contract promising they will uphold certain standards of behavior and be a positive reflection on the school. “It reminds them that it’s not a glorified birthday party they’re attending,” said Rabbi Kupchik, “but a religious celebration.”

In Detroit, Joe Cornell Entertainment has been offering dance classes for preteens since the 1950s. The 12-week courses, which this fall will have over 300 students, are often held in synagogues and are made up primarily of Jewish sixth graders entering the bar and bat mitzvah years, said Steve Jasgur, who bought the company in 1991.

Along with teaching ballroom dancing and popular line dances like the Hustle, Wobble and Gangnam Style, instructors devote special time to teaching bar and bat mitzvah etiquette. Lessons include how to ask someone to dance and why you shouldn’t run off with the decorations.

Bruce Feiler’s newest book, “The Secrets of Happy Families,” will be published in February. “This Life” appears monthly.

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Artful Fashion Meets Fashionable Art at Fairs

As art fairs and festivals bring a cosmopolitan crowd to London and Paris, a different question comes to the fore: Is art now more fashionable than fashion?

Last week’s Frieze art fair in London at Regent’s Park, with its two giant tents for master works and contemporary art, was a magnet for the young, smart, international set.

In Paris, this week’s International Contemporary Art Fair FIAC kicked off with a dinner hosted Saturday by Thaddaeus Ropac, one of the premier international modern art dealers. It was more chic than any event earlier in the month during Paris fashion week.

The cosmopolitan crowd, which included Anselm Kiefer through Gilbert and George and Anthony Gormley to Marc Quinn, also attracted from the fashionable world the jewelers Victoire de Castellane and Gaia Repossi, the designers Haider Ackermann, Christian Louboutin and Kris Van Assche and the philanthropist Bianca Jagger.

The gritty chic Lou Doillon, placed in the fashion camp via her mother Jane Birkin, entertained guests.

The dinner was held to celebrate the opening of a spread of new Thaddaeus Ropac galleries — vast interlinked buildings in the Pantin district, to the northeast of Paris.

Art and fashion collaborations know no borders. Art Basel Miami Beach has become such a magnet for smart society that Prada has had a pop-up shop there and Dior an artistic collaboration with the German artist Anselm Reyle. And in December, Art Basel Miami Beach will host the 60th birthday celebration of down-jacket brand Moncler.

The art/fashion thing has been going on for two decades, with the regeneration of downtown areas through art galleries and performance events now an established method of upgrading an area.

That idea is embedded in Dasha Zhukova’s Garage cultural center in St. Petersburg and in the opening last year of a vast new White Cube gallery in London’s Bermondsey. The same concept is behind the current developments of Mr. Ropac and the American art dealer Larry Gagosian, whose new gallery is by Le Bourget airport north of Paris.

So art is fashionable — as it was in the era of Art Nouveau or in Paris in the 1920s. But what is fashionable for art lovers to wear?

The codes of artistic society demand that punters play the part, as they did in the fin de siècle era when Bohemian looks were in vogue.

An exhibition of “Bohèmes,” at the Palais Royal in Paris (through Jan. 14) has a section devoted to the poets and artists from Baudelaire and Rimbaud through Van Gogh and Picasso.

The artistic attire of those creative figures was unconventional and mildly exotic, worn with a mix of flamboyance and melancholy. The key items included a floppy scarf, breeches, vests and jackets, in a mix of painterly colors and worn with a studied deshabille.

The fashion key is a subtle touch of eccentricity. The men who walk the galleries today tend to have a meld of different surfaces — tweed, velvet or ribbed corduroy — and graphic patterns on shirts with a flash of bright color on a scarf.

For women, the style choice is simpler: the art devotees wear Prada. Anyone who wondered who would buy the bold, geometric pants suits offered up at MiuMiu for the autumn season had only to visit Frieze, where almost every version of what had appeared on the runway for autumn was presented as perambulating art.

Even Raf Simons, newly crowned as designer at Dior, and a devotee of Frieze since its inception 10 years ago, wore Prada from fur-collar coat to gilt studded shoes.

The polka dots that Marc Jacobs designed for Louis Vuitton, inspired by the obsessive Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, were conspicuous by their absence.

Issey Miyake’s pleats are a staple of the art world, and the Japanese maestro has just brought out a book to celebrate 10 years of his invention.

“Pleats Please Issey Miyake,” by Midori Kitamura ( Taschen), shows in its 576 pages the scope of pleats horizontal, vertical or zig-zag. The fashion oeuvre even include prints of digitally-realized prints of bodies within the architectural lines.

Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons was another designer in the frame at Frieze. The flower patterns on flat plane clothes looked like walking works of art. Their only competition was a flower sculpture seen outside in the park.

The fact that the passage into the Frieze tent had walls with a pattern of colorful sneakers, or ‘’Sleeping Loafers” by the German artist Thomas Bayrle, only added to the impression that fashion and art were locked in an embrace.

Why not? Joseph Beuys, an artist who made emotional and meaningful felt suits, is one of the figures whose work is on display at the new Thaddaeus Ropac gallery. The artist’s work underlined the link between creativity and cloth.

So for viewers and visitors to the current art fairs, the challenge is to be a living, breathing, walking example of fashionable art.

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For the Love of Sleeves

Designers offered playful variations on the sleeve at the spring/summer collections in September. Here they dip to the elbow in a Bottega Veneta dress.

Credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images

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Saying Farewell to Vidal Sassoon

“Vidal was always mad about architecture,” said the sculptor Anish Kapoor, who designed Mr. Sassoon’s stone urn and placed it under the dome of the cathedral.

The memorial service here was a tribute to the stylist whose crops and bobs in the 1960s did more than change women’s hair styles. They marked an era of feminine freedom.

Mr. Sassoon, who died on May 9 at 84, said his haircuts were inspired by the graphic minimalism of the Bauhaus movement. His friend the architect Zaha Hadid spoke at the service to celebrate his extraordinary life, as did the actor Jeremy Irons, who met the hair emperor late in life and marveled at his energy.

How did Mr. Sassoon earn this multi-faith memorial on Friday, years after he left his native England for California and turned his Jewish fight against fascism into support of general good causes?

In his address, David Puttnam, the multiple-Oscar-winning producer of “Chariots of Fire” and “Midnight Express,” described the modesty of his childhood friend and saw his achievements not just in the world of hairdressing, but also by changing “how we think about anti-semitism.”

Rabbi Julia Neuberger contributed to the service, speaking from the knave of the cathedral where prayers were read later by friends and colleagues, including Mr. Sassoon’s fellow hairdresser John Frieda.

Although the focus was on Mr. Sassoon’s wife, Ronnie, his extended family and his son, Elan, the gathering also recognized the hairdresser as “a product of the 1960s,” as Mr. Puttnam put it. The producer was referring to the opportunity in that decade to break barriers of class and to embrace opportunity.

“It was Vidal’s life, his exuberance, his whole spirit. He was such a wonderful man,” said Mary Quant, the fashion architect of the 1960s, whose black and white check jacket and orange bob recalled that era. The designer Zandra Rhodes also showed off her bob — but in shocking pink.

Mr. Sassoon’s haircuts were a game changer. In the first round of feminism starting in the 1960s, he relieved women of high maintenance chignons and beehives. The wash-and-wear hair was symbolic of a new freedom. And, as women in the 1920s had found when they lopped off long hair, the freedom was sexual as much as visual.

The hairdresser found fame with his five-point bob, which he cut with geometric precision on the model Grace Coddington, now creative director at American Vogue. Although she was not present at the memorial, she had already registered her memories in a book, “How One Man Changed the World With a Pair of Scissors,” published by Rizzoli.

“Before Sassoon,” she said, “it was all back-combing and lacquer. The whole thing was to make it high and artificial. Suddenly you could put your fingers through your hair! It was an extraordinary cut. No one has bettered it since, and it liberated everyone. You could just sort of drip-dry it and shake it.”

To read the book, or to see the “Outtakes” exhibition of Sassoon-related works at Somerset House, until Oct. 28, is to see the 1960s take shape. The era was marked by the sculpted hair style of Mia Farrow in “Rosemary’s Baby,” the Roman Polanski movie of 1968, and by the Quant look. By the 1980s, Mr. Sassoon, whose impoverished mother was forced to put her sons in an orphanage for seven years, had built a global hairdressing empire. At the end of his life, his energies went into philanthropy, including a “Hairdressers for Hope” campaign to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina of 2005. According to his son, he refused to allow one cent of the money garnered from the hairdressing community to be spent on administration.

And despite his years in Los Angeles, the architect of hair remained in one respect forever a Londoner. He would rise at the crack of dawn, downing a healthy breakfast of carrots, celery and apple, just to watch his beloved Chelsea team back in England play a soccer match.

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Motherlode Blog: How Do Close Family Members Handle Disagreements About Politics?

KJ Dell’Antonia Every Friday, we pose a question to the Motherlode community. The next week, we pull together the best responses. Got a quandary? E-mail KJ ».

When I posted, around the time of the first presidential debate, that “our debate-watching household will include reasonable adults who disagree (as reasonable adults truly can) on the desired outcome of the 2012 presidential election,” an astute reader wrote, asking if that meant that my husband and I “disagreed about politics” and how, if that was true, we handle our disagreements (Watching the Presidential Debates — With Children). For her, it’s a quandary — she and her serious boyfriend have found themselves in political “discussions” that veer off into arguments all too often in the past few months.

The answer is that my husband and I, both independent voters who have cast ballots on both sides of the aisle, do disagree this time around. But I was really referring to my father, who was visiting me during the debate, and who votes strictly down a party line. When we do disagree (and in the past four years that’s been nearly all the time), “heated” truly is an understatement. We have shouted, we have hung up on one another, and we have, ultimately, agreed simply to not talk about politics, ever (except when we do). My dad is an avid follower not just of the policy side of the election (my primary interest) but of the “horse race,” and I knew he wouldn’t agree to turn the television off for the sake of harmony.

Dad chose to watch the debate on a smaller television in my office, but when I unexpectedly found my 11-year-old snuggled in with him and watching avidly, I sat down too. We managed to maintain a truce that lasted not just for the debate, but for the visit, and it was a huge relief not to avoid the subject, but not to be stuck in conversations that ended in tears, either.

I’ll write more about how we handle the political reality of a house divided in an election season next week, but for now, I’d like to hear from you. Do you disagree with close family members on the desired outcome for Election 2012? If so, do you avoid political discussion, or welcome dynamic debate? Are your children aware of your differences, and do you find that, in order not to cast a family member in a bad light, you have to moderate how you talk to them about the issues — for better, or for worse?

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T Magazine: Look of The Moment | Naomi Watts

Taylor Hill/Getty Images

The Look: Punchy. Oxblood — the season’s biggest catchword color — on the collar and cuffs of a bare-toned dress turn a one-note look into a sharp expression of daytime dressing.

The Girl: The actress Naomi Watts at the New York Academy of Art’s 21st annual Take Home a Nude benefit.

The Details: Victoria Beckham dress, Christian Louboutin shoes, Valentino bag and Finn bangles.

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Skin Deep: Book Clubs Are Turning Up in Spas

At what seems to be a growing number of spas, clients are comparing their thoughts about something other than the newest anti-aging facial or which technician gives the best deep-tissue massage. They’re discussing a suspenseful page-turner or recently released self-help best seller.

Book clubs have become a popular way for day and destination spas to bring in potential clients and to give existing ones an excuse to keep coming back. At the Carlyle Hotel, a monthly literary group began meeting this week at the Yves Durif Salon inside its Sense spa and listen to Erica Jong discuss “Sugar in My Bowl,” a sex anthology she edited.

At the Lake Austin Spa Resort in Austin, Tex., a series called For the Love of Books is held monthly, and Canyon Ranch established a series of author appearances last year at its flagship Tucson location. The “Paging” Happiness Book Club, introduced last month by Bliss, promotes a new release quarterly: for each title, the book and a companion package of products are sold on the spa’s Web site, with a themed treatment, like a manicure-pedicure accompanied by a guided meditation recorded by the author Gabrielle Bernstein around her book “May Cause Miracles,” available at most of its locations starting early next year.

Such promotions, said Heather Mikesell, executive editor of the trade magazine American Spa, make spa-going more social. “It’s more than hiding in a treatment room,” she said. “It’s something you can share with your friends, so it brings more to the table.” And because they both attract demonstrably more women than men, spas and book clubs are a logical match.

They are also a low-overhead investment. At day spas that offer book conversations and author appearances, it’s usually free to attend. At residential spas like Rancho La Puerta near San Diego in Tecate, Mexico, literary programming is included in the price of a stay. (Miraval Arizona Resort and Spa in Tucson charges a fee to attend its book series, which was introduced last year; it revolves around intimate talks by authors affiliated with the spa, like Dr. Andrew Weil.)

Most spas sell the books that are discussed, and some offer either a companion treatment or, as the Spa at the Omni Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, N.H., does, occasional discounts on services to book-club attendees.

With the rise of these book gatherings, publishing houses are building spa appearances into their authors’ promotional tours. “It used to be that there were four different components: radio, television, magazines and newspapers,” said Leigh Ann Ambrosi, vice president for brand publishing at Crown Archetype. “Now when you look at the bookings, it’s so drastically different, and kind of anything goes. Everybody’s trying to do new things and establishing new partnerships and cross-promotional opportunities.”

“Happier at Home” by Gretchen Rubin, one of the titles Ms. Ambrosi is working on, is included in the Bliss book club. To promote it, Ms. Rubin will appear at the spa’s Lexington Avenue location in December and answer questions on its Web site after stops on “Today” and “Katie,” at chain and independent booksellers, and at several locations of the store Anthropologie. “Part of it is, ‘Kiss more’, so here’s lip balm, which is funny, but it’s really true,” Ms. Rubin said.

Participation in the Bliss events probably won’t spike sales the way a mention in Oprah Winfrey’s book club might have, but Ms. Ambrosi is still happy with the alliance. “You’re capturing the person that already wants to take care of themselves,” she said, “and now wants to take care of themselves in a more emotional way.”

Although authors are typically not paid for spa appearances (they fall under the umbrella of promotion), it doesn’t usually take a lot of arm-twisting to get writers to a spa. “It’s a nice treat for the authors,” said Robbie Hudson, director of programming at the Lake Austin Spa Resort. “The book tours can be pretty grueling. Sometimes they like to end their tour here and be pampered. They can do a talk and they’re a spa guest.”

Author appearances are not necessary for a book club to thrive. Ethos Fitness Spa for Women in Midland Park, N.J., has not included them in the literary discussions it offers periodically for members. The Ole Henriksen Face/Body Spa in Los Angeles plans to introduce a traditional book club for clients early next year, following the success of similar staff-only gatherings. But an author’s presence can help attract guests ... and sell books.

“It was delightful to understand more of what a writer does,” said Debbie McLeod, 57, a nurse administrator based in Arlington, Tex., who timed a visit to the Lake Austin Spa Resort in June with her mother and sister-in-law around an appearance by the author Claire Cook. Although she’d read only one of Ms. Cook’s novels at that point, after meeting Ms. Cook and hearing her speak, she said she subsequently bought another of her titles and is looking for a local book club to join as well.

Beyond just attracting clients, book clubs help spas position themselves as more than just a place for a restorative treatment or a regular eyebrow wax. “It’s allowed people to see us with an expanded view,” said Susan Grey, regional vice president for spa operations at Bliss. “You might come in one week for your laser hair treatment, but the next week you come to learn about how to achieve a higher state of happy at home or at work. That is our overall message: we would like people to think of Bliss as a place to come for overall wellness.”

In other words, though you might be doing more reading at the spa these days, don’t expect intellectual heavyweights like Jonathan Franzen or Zadie Smith to come wandering out of the sauna in terry-cloth sandals.

“For the spa owner and operator, it is an opportunity to touch that consumer in a very nonthreatening way: to educate the consumer that there’s a talk about a really great book but also, ‘Let us introduce you to this massage or pedicure,’ ” said Lynne McNees, president of the International Spa Association, a trade organization. “You really kill lots of birds with lots of stones during a book club. It’s good for the business.”

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T Magazine: Small World

William AbranowiczIn the dining room of Gabriella Kiss’s studio, her own jewelry designs are arranged with objects that she has collected over the years. See the interactive slideshow

Some workplaces are all business, with nothing but the tools of the trade to reveal their owner’s identity. But the studio of the jewelry designer Gabriella Kiss is, by comparison, an autobiography in three dimensions. For starters, the small 19th-century white clapboard house doesn’t look like a workplace. Located across the road from the converted 1820 church in Bangall, N.Y., that she shares with her husband, the furniture designer Chris Lehrecke, and their two sons, it contains a nitty-gritty studio (the former garage, which connects to the house by a new breezeway) and a parlor-like showroom furnished with things like a taxidermied miniature African antelope and Belgian chandeliers that Kiss and Lehrecke bought on their 20th anniversary. There is also a dining room, with a modern table by Kiss and a desk by Lehrecke, that is lined with still-life arrangements of works — by Kiss, her friends or her son August — and objects that inspire her work, like 19th-century Parian ware hands, an Indian miniature painting and a swan’s wing. And there’s a working kitchen with arched windows and shelves full of colorful transferware cups and bowls — Kiss is an inveterate flea-market shopper. She and her assistants often cook lunch here, using whatever local ingredients happen to be in season. Upstairs, two bedrooms are reserved for assistants who live out of town and need a place to stay when they’re working. When you visit Kiss’s studio, you get the feeling that you’re really seeing her outlook on life.

Kiss, who studied sculpture at Pratt Institute and worked for the jewelry designer Ted Muehling before going out on her own in 1988, is known for understated jewelry that highlights the beauty of semiprecious stones, as well as bolder pieces like earrings in the shape of snakes or clipper ships. She also sees beauty where others may not. Some of us look at mouse bones and shudder, but to Kiss, such things are “the substructure of form and movement. I’m inspired by them.” Casting mouse femurs and hip joints is no easy task — “They’re so tiny, so exquisite,” she explains — but Kiss transforms them into delicate gold and diamond chains. “It’s like honoring the life of the mouse,” she adds. “It’s a nice epilogue.” Likewise, the mushrooms that grow at the base of a dead tree might not top everyone’s list of desirables, but the bronze and silver brooches and earrings that Kiss casts from them certainly might. “We might as well celebrate our decay,” she says cheerfully.

Kiss’s dry but whimsical sense of humor extends to the work she’s given by friends and fellow designers and artists in exchange for her jewelry — like the three Roz Chast cartoons in the breezeway, the drawing of a deer by Kiki Smith, or the flies, made of pencil erasers and wire by Lee Hale, that sit beneath it on a narrow shelf in the dining room. In the bathroom, tiny hair drawings by Melanie Bilenker record everyday moments in the artist’s life. “There’s not that much in this world that’s original,” Kiss says, “and she’s taking this old Victorian form and making it new.”

The house’s cozy scale suits Kiss, who used to work at home in what had been the church’s choir loft but found that the soaring volume felt a bit overwhelming. It’s no accident that so many of the objects that Kiss makes, and collects, are tiny. “The church is a ‘wow’ space,” she says, “but the scale of my work is smaller than a matchbox. When we walk down the street, Chris will see the building, and I’ll see the molding.”

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Sweating Through Decades for the Teacher’s Admiring Nod

The purest flashes of joy from my 20s had nothing to do with sex or drugs. They didn’t involve exotic foods or career advancement or any kind of micro-brewing operation.

No, true bliss came straight from Molly Fox, the proprietor of a once-thriving aerobics studio on 20th Street. (Now defunct, it was replaced by a gay bathhouse in the mid-’90s, where euphoria of a different stripe is presumably on offer.)

Back then, in the late ’80s, I would sneak from my office, just a little too early, to take my place on the sprung-wood dance floor of Molly Fox studios. There were dozens of us, mostly women, ranging from firmly committed to downright crazed.

And since we were surrounded by mirrors on every side, we could (through cagey reflection-management) keep tabs on everyone in the joint.

“How does that one always get a spot in the front row?”

We stood on painted numbers that corresponded to the numbered lines of a strictly limited reservation sheet, which we procured by calling relentlessly at the crack of 9 every morning, punching redial on our chunky portable phones for what seemed like the thousandth time, until we made it past the busy signal and on to a harried receptionist.

“Six-thirty class, please?” Like most beggars, I was careful to be pleasant. Those receptionists could spell the death of you. Stick you in a back corner or keep you out altogether.

And it wasn’t just me. Laurel Henschel, a legal executive (with an awesome high kick), can vouch for that. “We wanted to be part of a group,” she said. “And the more that other people wanted to be part of it, the better we felt about being in it ourselves — and the more obsessive we became.”

So we marked our territory and changed into outfits that shined like Lycra oil spills. Then we waited, hopped up and buzzing. Enter Molly Fox, a tall woman with short dark hair, powerfully built and vaguely androgynous.

She took her place, front and center. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, which was lucky, because once the music started (Sylvester, anyone?), keeping an eye on Molly was strictly required.

We mirrored her movements with our own. She started slowly, to stretch us out, but we were already revved up and ready to go fast, ready to grapevine, ready to groove. It was thrilling and perfectly ridiculous. But there I was, night after night, leaping and twirling to Molly’s exact specifications, panting and sweating like a third-string “Solid Gold” dancer. But why?

“Beautiful, Lia,” Molly called. And there it was, my stomach dropping like a stone. It was always Lia or Flory or Mark. How badly I wanted to be the special one. We all did.

“Getting a shout-out from Molly was one of life’s great achievements,” Laurel remembers with a laugh. “Proof that we knew the steps, that we weren’t impostors. We actually belonged.”

And eventually, we got our turn. “Go, Philip!”

But we paid for the privilege — really. It was the regulars who were singled out, and those classes weren’t cheap. Shout-outs were merely good business, simply giving the customers what they wanted.

But even though we paid for our moments in the sun, they were still euphoric, like winning an Emmy while running a marathon. We went for the workout, but stayed for the compliments.

How do I know?

Because after Molly came Melora Griffis, the lovely yoga teacher of my 30s, whose “Beautiful chaturanga!” was all I longed for, class after class after class.

Until I noticed one evening, half-dead on my sweaty yoga mat from a brisk series of sun salutations, that Melora was just as likely to compliment the folks who could scarcely touch their toes as she was to praise the ones who could go full-pretzel. Call me churlish, but that sounds like a shout-out welfare state to me.

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Testing Vivid Pigments for Moist Lips and Long-Lasting Color — Trial Run

Richly hued matte lips graced many a model on the fall runways earlier this year, and now several beauty brands have introduced intensely pigmented liquid lipsticks. These bold shades have a lip-gloss-style wet application but dry within seconds into a velvety, glamorous-looking finish. They’re meant to be long lasting and moisturizing at the same time, with only one coat. We put three new collections to the test.

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GUERLAIN The most luxurious of the bunch, the Rouge G L’Extrait comes in seven wearable pigments, like a light pink and beige, as well as shades suitable for special occasions, like a deep red. The oversize silver tube has a mirror on the side for goofproof application, and its contents glided on with a lastingly creamy feel, like our favorite lip moisturizer. A slight plumping effect was visible, apparently caused by hyaluronic acid ($48).

HOURGLASS COSMETICS Known for using anti-aging ingredients in its makeup, this Los Angeles-based brand, nearly a decade old, has introduced nine liquid lipsticks in vivid shades like cherry red and vibrant pink. The formula is paraben- and sulfate-free and has the antioxidant goji berry and the moisturizers vitamins A, C and E. True to its claim, the tints lasted for hours and came off only after we rubbed them off with a tissue. But unless you work in a creative industry, they’re too flashy for everyday wear ($28).

SHISEIDO Eight bright colors, including hot pink and yellow-orange, compose this brand’s Lacquer Rouge collection, which as the name suggests has a shiny finish — the shiniest of the bunch. The look stayed put even after a few hours, and lips were very moist all day, perhaps because of a magical-sounding ingredient called super hydro-wrap vitalizing DE ($25). SHIVANI VORA

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On the Runway Blog: A Birthday Party at Bergdorf's

Anyone who can date the moment when parties stopped being parties and turned instead into elements of a retailing stimulus package gets a gold star. Make that a gold paillette.

At some point in the distant past, people dressed up in clothes that they actually owned, went out in the evening, drank too much and enjoyed themselves. Now people dress in clothes provided to them by fashion designers, parade in front of a battery of photographers, sip water (still, please; sparkling is, as Valentino Garavani once pointed out, too bloating) and skedaddle as soon as politely possible.

“This is about processing,’’ James Reginato, a special correspondent to Vanity Fair, said Thursday night as he surveyed a room full of incredibly swell-looking people — many models on the arms of designers — circulating through gilded chambers at the Plaza Hotel in celebration of Bergdorf Goodman’s 111th anniversary.

Mr. Reginato was using the verb in its ceremonial sense.

The evening’s procession — more of a stampede, really — of people like Carolyn Murphy, Hanne Gaby Odiele, Alana Zimmer and other occupational lovelies took them up a flight of marble stairs, past the photo-op station, straight to the bar, then into the ballroom for a quick circuit. The smart ones got out as quickly as possible and headed for a local hamburger joint.

There was food, of course, in what was billed on the invitation as a supper. But who in her right mind is going to risk ruining a Zac Posen confection with the drippings from a lamb-chop lollipop?

Borrowed or not, all the finery made a powerful case for the continued existence of specialty retailers like Bergdorf Goodman. High Street dressing is charming, but you’ll never hear anybody say they want their ashes scattered at H&M. (“Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s’’ is the title of a new documentary about the fabled store.)

“This is what fashion is about,’’ said Linda Fargo, the store’s fashion director, who with her silver hair and pale shoulders set off by an asymmetric dress resembled an MGM glamour puss on her way to a George Hurrell sitting.

Many guests seemed to have taken seriously the invitation’s suggestion that they riff creatively on evening wear. There were the style writer Amy Fine Collins draped in acres of tulle; the club promoter Chi Chi Valenti sailing through in a hat resembling a schooner; the social moth Michelle Harper, dressed in a cock- feather cloak and with her silver hair styled like a Noguchi sculpture walking hand-in-hand with the former model and tattooed biker chick Jenny Shimizu; Anna Wintour, looking like Anna Wintour; and the eccentric Iris Apfel so richly arrayed in fur and feathers it looked as though she’d run amok in a petting zoo.

And the men … well, of course there were men there (Michael Kors, Oscar de la Renta, Jason Wu, Mr. Posen). But, honestly, who looks at them?

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T Magazine: Edible Selby | Dutch Oven

The SelbyYvette van Boven slicing beets in her Amsterdam apartment.

Yvette Van Boven takes D.I.Y. cooking to the extreme. The Dutch chef, food stylist and illustrator is famous in her home country for “Home Made,” a cookbook in which she teaches readers how to make ice cream without a machine, smoked meat without a smoker, and cheese and dog biscuits from pantry staples. (Her dog, Marie, loves garlic.) At her restaurant in Amsterdam, Aan de Amstel, big enough to hold 36 diners, van Boven serves a menu of — you guessed it — local and largely organic food. The lineup of dishes revolves around seasonal produce, much of it picked at a garden nearby, and the wine list revolves around the dishes. “I would describe it as Mediterranean,” van Boven says of the menu, which at the moment features grilled lobster, Sardinian pasta, haddock with beets and fennel, fresh burrata and, for dessert, a house-made spicy coffee liqueur. “But it’s not just Italian or Spanish or French. It’s a mix of everything we know.” See our interactive slide show >>

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Neighborhood Joint | Upper East Side: At Yummy Mummy, Pumps and Pampering for Nursing Moms

Equal parts upscale boutique and Duane Reade, the bright, well-organized space offers new and expectant mothers practical nursing necessities and a little necessary pampering for their breasts. And with products like Nummies brand nursing bras, goat’s rue herbal supplements (to increase breast milk production) and Earth Mama nipple butter, it can be hard to tell which is which.

The store’s pumps, mostly made by Medela, camouflage their medical-equipment origins in smooth molded plastic and rubber-duckie yellow. A “pump in style” rig — if a backpack counts as stylish on the Upper East Side — runs the new mother $299; the “freestyle,” which clips onto her belt like an engorged BlackBerry, costs $379. Hospital-grade pumps are available for rental, as well.

On a recent early Thursday afternoon, a woman sat on a plush couch in the back to nurse her infant daughter while early Michael Jackson played in the background. She had just bought some nipple shields — small pieces of silicone that can make breast-feeding easier for infants. The store’s owner, Amanda Cole, lent her a hot-pink patterned pillow to strap around her waist to support the baby. Soon, her daughter was happily sucking away, and the woman was chatting with Ms. Cole about how her older son was adjusting to the new addition to the family.

In the Manhattan work-life ballet, doing what comes naturally can get pretty complicated. So when Ms. Cole, 36, opened the store in 2009, the idea was to offer nursing mothers both products and instruction: breast-feeding classes, prenatal yoga and events like “doula speed dating,” in which expectant parents can meet and choose a labor coach.

“When I first had to use my breast pump,” Ms. Cole recalled, “I called my sister, who luckily lived across the street, and I was like, ‘Get over here, I have no idea what to do, this apparatus is so scary.’ ”

The shop serves local professionals and stay-at-home moms and receives a steady stream of business from women visiting obstetricians affiliated with Lenox Hill Hospital nearby. On this Thursday, one woman arrived with her husband and baby in tow. The man stood uncomfortably amid the maternal miscellany while the woman tried on a series of nursing-friendly nightgowns in blue and black.

“They always feel like they’re the first dad that’s ever come in here,” Ms. Cole observed.

By 6 p.m., most of the shoppers had drifted out, and the women attending the evening’s prenatal breast-feeding class started to trickle in. Wendy Schwartz, who lives on the Upper West Side, was expecting her second child in two weeks and had come for a refresher. “We didn’t think we’d have another,” she said. “So we threw everything out and forgot everything.”

The class’s teacher, Kate Sharp, has been a lactation consultant for 24 years, and she projected a tidy and confident air. She wore very sensible shoes.

She put in a DVD, and the screen displayed a newborn scooting toward her mother’s breast without any help. Ms. Sharp turned off the sound (“goofy childbirth music,” she sniffed), but told the class to watch how the baby instinctively made her way to the food source.

Ms. Sharp had a baby doll dressed in a red onesie that she used to show the class proper positioning. She leaned back against her chair with the doll propped against her chest to show how easily a baby could be supported.

“Just do this,” she said, offering advice as old as motherhood itself, “and you’ll feel like a magician.”

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T Magazine: The In-Crowd

Photograph by Tyrone Lebon. Fashion editor: Sara Moonves. Fashion associate: Rae Boxer. Fashion assistant: Olivia Jade Horner. Makeup by Francelle. Hair by Tamara Mcnaughton using René Furterer. Manicure by Megumi Yamamoto for Essie. Casting by The Establishment. Models: Kate King, Hannah Holman, Juliana Schurig, Kremi Otashliyska, Charlene Almarvez.Military details, boxy proportions and bold color blocking rule the school. Left: Belstaff coat, $2,400; (212) 897-1880. J. W. Anderson sweater, $795; net-a-porter.com. Tommy Hilfiger pants, $898; for similar styles, call (212) 223-1824. Robert Clergerie shoes (on both), $539; (212) 207-8600. Right: Belstaff coat, $2,850. J. W. Anderson sweater, $795. Sacai skirt, price on request; Noodle Stories, Los Angeles, (323) 651-1782.

Coats and capes that stand out from the pack. See the interactive slideshow >>

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Store Openings and a Pop-Up With Discounted Clothes by More Than 30 Designers — Scouting Report

The Monique Lhuillier boutique.

OPENINGS

A one-stop destination for Times fashion coverage and the latest from the runways.

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The Rookie USA store.

MONIQUE LHUILLIER, long known for her elegant bridal designs, has opened her first store in New York City, on the Upper East Side. The shop, in a restored 19th century town house, will sell ready-to-wear pieces and accessories on the first floor, with an intimate bridal salon on the second floor. At 19 East 71st Street, (212) 683-3332; moniquelhuillier.com. ... Move over Chuck E Cheese. New York kids have a new place to cut loose. ROOKIE USA has opened, catering to stylish tots. It sells clothing and footwear for newborns through teenagers, stocking an impressive assortment of children’s shoes, including Nikes, with a variety of Jordans, and a newly released Converse clothing and accessories line. The 5,500-square-foot shop has an iPad kiosk, a Kinect virtual video game station and a photo booth for youngsters to play with while their parents shop. At 808 Columbus Avenue; rookieusa.com. ... The up-and-coming designer MIGUEL ANTOINNE, who has committed to producing all his garments in the city, has opened his first store, in SoHo. The two-floor space, which includes a design studio and fashion library, sells women’s clothes — think shirtdresses and sequined bolero jackets — and men’s pieces like shearling vests and leather turtleneck sweaters. At 39 Wooster Street, (212) 219-8200; miguelantoinne.com. ... A few blocks away, the Dutch label SUPER TRASH has arrived, opening its first store in the United States. The line offers sexy, mostly form-fitting pieces like tailored tuxedolike blazers and lace dresses. At 29 Prince Street; supertrash.com.

POP-UPS

On Friday and Saturday, shoppers can rummage through discounted goods from more than 30 designers, including Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Agnès b. and Theory, at the SHOP FOR SUCCESS event. All proceeds from the pop-up will go to Dress for Success, the nonprofit organization that provides professional clothes for disadvantaged women. The event will be at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, Suite 804; Friday, 1 to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

HITTING THE RACKS

Two brands with cultish followings, SUPREME and CLARKS, have teamed up on a new Wallabee boot, which will be in stores on Thursday. The boot, created exclusively for Supreme, updates the original Wallabee style with imprinted crocodile in colors like oxblood and orange. You can find them in New York at Supreme, 274 Lafayette Street, (212) 966-7799, and online at supreme.com. JOANNA NIKAS

Send shopping suggestions to Browsing@nytimes.com.

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Motherlode Blog: Examining Whether Times Have Changed When Abuse Charges Surface

How much have things changed?

With the release of more than 15,000 pages detailing accusations of sexual abuse against 1,247 scout leaders from 1965 to 1985, the Boy Scouts have reluctantly provided us with an in-depth look at the ways the organization failed the boys and parents behind those accusations. It’s become a familiar story, one that has played out everywhere from churches to prestigious high schools to Penn State: denial, avoidance, silence, protection.

What every institution and parent should be asking right now is whether that shameful attitude has really been boxed up and left behind along with the faded letters and yellowing news clippings that the national Boy Scouts organization fought to keep from being made public. The Boy Scouts have changed their ways, implementing policies to better evaluate, train and track youth leaders. Most large organizations that work directly with children have what are certainly intended as strong protections in place, in the hope of both preventing abuse and responding appropriately to accusations.

But those protections will only work if attitudes have truly changed. Sarah Buttenweiser wrote powerfully here about her reluctance to believe the accusations a 14-year-old girl made against one of her son’s beloved teachers. Her willingness to face her own failure is rare. Most of us want to believe that we would see any similar situation as black and white.

It is all too human to want to look for an easy way out, to protect revered institutions and ourselves, and to convince ourselves, as it is plain these scout leaders did two decades ago and more, that silence could somehow be best for all concerned (in the words of one leader, from a letter quoted in The New York Times, “If it don’t stink, don’t stir it”). It’s one thing to change policies. It’s another to really have faith in the depth of that change within the hearts and minds of the adults who implement them. Can we really believe, yet, that we’re there?

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Motherlode Blog: Going Back to Work is Frequently a Challenge for Parents Who've Been at Home With Young Children

Every Friday, we pose a question to the Motherlode community. The next week, we pull together the best responses. Got a quandary? E-mail KJ ».

Last week, Jennifer Romaniuk wrote the Motherlode with a passionate parental quandary. “I voluntarily walked away from a promising career,” she e-mailed. “I had no idea how long it would take to claw my way back.” The decision to stay home seemed like the right one when she made it. Spending more time with her children would be fun; ending the race between work and child care for her two kids would make life feel less daunting for her and for her fast-tracked husband.

But when the child-care pressures began to ease, Ms. Romaniuk was a different person in a different employment market, overqualified for the entry level but not experienced enough for senior positions, and facing businesses (in her case, law firms) who aren’t taking many chances on employees any more. Re-entry hasn’t just been hard, it has been making her regret the choice she made almost a decade ago.

It’s one peril of all the conversation that surrounds the choices parents make when their children are young (primarily mothers, but fathers as well): when we emerge, we may feel less like one person in the midst of a transition than like some sort of cautionary tale, or icon of the ways policy and culture undermine women and parents. It’s hard to view ourselves with compassion when judgments are more common than understanding. Parents moving in and out of the job search right now aren’t the only ones in transition. The ways we see work and gender and balance are shifting as well. The result is a world in which it’s nearly impossible not to find some way to regret our choices while at the same time being forced to contemplate how “lucky” we were to have the ability to make the choice.

But this conversation was exceptional, both for its relative lack of harsh judgment and for its willingness to accept the premise that as “lucky” as Ms. Romaniuk might have been to have the financial ability to stay at home with her kids, she might indeed be feeling pretty unlucky now. Readers had much direct advice for Ms. Romaniuk. I also heard from Carol Fishman Cohen, co-author of “Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-Home-Moms Who Want to Return to Work” (sorry, guys, no gender equity in that title), who vehemently disagreed with Ms. Romaniuk’s frustrated declaration that “if you choose to step away from your career, you might never get it back.” She sent me seven steps to restarting a career (which I’ve invited her to post here in the comments section) that aptly summarized many suggestions: network, open yourself to new options, volunteer, persist.

But many of us, myself included, heard in this mother’s frustrated words a need for something more than career advice. When a person has identified with a particular career for much, if not all, of her (or his) adult life, changing that is rarely easy. But most parents change it at a moment when the need for that change feels overwhelming: a new baby, or the “daunting” combination of child-care needs, employment pressures and “grumpy, hungry children” that Ms. Romaniuk described. It’s a relief to just let one side of that see-saw drop.

It’s later — when the grumpy, hungry children are older, when the baby is walking herself to school, when the wild immediacy of life has calmed — that the full impact of the change intrudes itself. Even people who loathed their former jobs, or who left the business world planning an eventual shift to art or writing or entrepreneurship, or who are more than happy in an at-home role, can find themselves blindsided. When the baby is tiny, or the children are all under 5, or the special needs demand constant advocacy, we don’t have to find our place in the world — our place has got an iron grip around our knees. It’s only when that grip loosens that the onus is back on us.

And that’s the tough part. How many books have been written to ease us through transitions and change? How many poems and songs and odes and Web sites dedicated to figuring out who we are in the world? Oodles. One transitive moment is not the time to look back and assess — it’s anything but.

So my advice to Jennifer echoes the words of lynninny, AW, and CC Mom: try to take the long view (or maybe, for the moment, don’t take any view at all). It’s not just that “what’s done is done,” but that the way you really feel about your years and choices is colored by your current discouragement.

I’ve been there. I think most of us have. There is a moment, in any transition, when you are at the bottom of the next climb and the whole slog just looks impossible. My advice with respect to the slog is to find a way — any way — to enjoy it. If you’re a list maker, make the best lists you can and relish every check mark. Love interviewing? Relish every interview for itself. Get dressed every morning whether you’re going to work or not. And check out my friend Amy Gutman’s Plan B Nation blog for a way into a community that’s more about the economics and social impact of the challenges of a career change at this moment than about the way parenthood affects that journey. Sometimes it’s time to step out of that part of your identity socially as well as in the career sense. (I found that community in The Well a decade ago, when I was certain I would never, ever be able to create a real career again. You can get a sense of my emotions at the time from my username: kjinexile.)

Career-wise, find a few people who you “want to be when you grow up” and look at their arcs. Ten years ago, where were they? What were they doing? Can you do any of it? That’s another great way to try to break through what feels like an impasse. “Think outside the box” is solid advice (and it appeared many times), but it helps to have a starting place for those thoughts.

I see this — the “re-entry” — as just one more thing parents of both sexes need to keep out in the open. The conversation may provoke judgment, but it also promotes change. People who were able to work straight through having a family may remember that different circumstances — a move, a child with particular needs, social pressure — might have changed their course, while parents who’ve “on-ramped” can work to make it easier for others in their fields. Every single parent, everywhere, of any sex, solved the problem of having babies who needed full-time care at some point. Every single parent of young school-age children daily solves the problem of where those children will be from 3:00 on. We need to recognize those things far more often, so that when our solutions are failing, or we’re changing stages, we know right away that we’re not the only ones who’ve “been there.”

A shorter version of this post appeared in print on Oct. 18, on Page D2.

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Redesigning the Polo Lounge

THE interior designer Adam D. Tihany, a cappuccino in hand, sat in one of the Polo Lounge’s fluted banquettes here the other morning and pointed out warts.

“The lighting is awful — we’ll change all that,” he said, gesturing to the low ceiling. New carpeting is on the way, he said, along with updated upholstery for the booths, perhaps in a slightly different shade. What color are they now? He peered at the fabric and wrinkled his nose. “Moss,” he said, “like grows in a cave.”

Oh, dear.

Despite Mr. Tihany’s promise to “maintain the shabby-glamorous feel” of the famed Polo Lounge, which is being “refreshed” as part of a two-and-a-half-year renovation of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Hollywood power players are a little traumatized.

“When I first heard about the redesign, I was seized up with anxiety and a sense of protectiveness,” said Stacey Snider, a partner with Steven Spielberg in DreamWorks Studios and its chief executive. “It’s one of the only bridges from Old Hollywood to whatever it is that we now have.”

Yes, the Polo Lounge, with its mirrored wall and grand piano, has a trapped-in-amber feeling. Sure, some tables are filled with tourists eating $36 salads. But as one of Old Hollywood’s lone surviving power hubs, it still packs in movie titans.

As Ms. Snider conducted a meeting over cocktails on one recent evening, Jeffrey Robinov, president of Warner Brothers Pictures Group, huddled in a corner with a writer from The Hollywood Reporter. The super agent Ari Emanuel strode into the dining room, where Denzel Washington would have lunch the next day.

The Beverly Hills Hotel, which just turned 100, remains the heart of moviedom’s schmoozing scene in part because of its history. Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned with six of her eight husbands in the bungalows. The pool alone is as close to sacred ground as it gets in show business. It’s where Raquel Welch was discovered, where Esther Williams swam every morning (a permanent guest pass was written into her MGM contract) and where the Beatles once took an after-hours dip.

The Polo Lounge got its name because celebrities like Will Rogers toasted polo victories there in the 1930s (they played in nearby lima bean fields). The dimly lighted room was popular with Marlene Dietrich, who sat on a bar stool with her fur coat. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin engaged in prodigious drinking sessions there. Charlie Chaplin liked Booth No. 1, while Marilyn Monroe preferred a less prominent corner.

To Ms. Snider’s point, the Polo Lounge has also outlasted most of its competitors. The Brown Derby is long gone, as are Chasen’s and Le Dome.

Twenty years of Orso power lunches ended in 2009. Spago, the Grill on the Alley and Mr. Chow’s are still chugging along, albeit with an aging clientele, but their influence sharply faded a few years ago, when Creative Artists Agency and International Creative Management decamped to new offices in Century City.

The entertainment industry’s devotion to the Beverly Hills Hotel also exposes deeper parts of its psyche. The movie capital is a place that routinely razes and rebuilds, but many of its top executives have roots in New York and hunger for hangouts with a timeworn patina.

Because film is so ephemeral, there is a tendency to overcompensate and clutch at anything permanent. How else to explain Nate ’n Al, a dumpy diner that draws an industry crowd for breakfast, or the Chateau Marmont’s garden restaurant, popular with TV people despite its out-to-lunch servers and ho-hum menu.

It’s not exactly that Hollywood thinks the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Polo Lounge can’t be touched. After the Sultan of Brunei bought the property in 1987, the “pink palace” closed in 1992 for a two-and-a-half-year transformation.

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T Magazine: Chic in Review | Kristen Stewart's 30 Minutes (More) of Fame

All the fashion news of the week that’s fit to reprint.

Balenciaga
Decided to do a 30-minute live Q. & A. with its new face, Kristen Stewart. They were to discuss the new fragrance Florabotanica. It. Was. Awkward. (Plus: it was actually 15 minutes.) But who’s to blame?

“Cloud Atlas”
The book by David Mitchell gets cool illustrations for Nowness by Kimberly Salt and a film directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski. Our cover girl, Halle Berry, stars!

Debate
There just can’t be two pink ladies. So who wore it better? Michelle Obama or Ann Romney?

Hilton, Perez
After all these years of graffiti-ridden pictures and nasty criticisms, the blogger tries to show a nicer side.

Jenner Girls
Kendall and Kylie are doing a new teen fashion line, to be produced by Canada’s Majestic Mills. The Canadian company also holds licenses for House of Harlow by Nicole Richie and Heidi Klum for New Balance, so … this could be kind of legit. Could be. Kind of.

Paltrow, Gwyneth
And Cameron Diaz rap about Chelsea Handler. You just have to see it.

Thurman, Uma
Named her baby girl Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson. But you can call her Luna.

Timberlake, Justin
Marries Jessica Biel. Congrats!

Richardson, Terry
Photographs Oprah for Harper’s Bazaar. Sick!

Romney, Mitt
Not to get all political here, but some squirrel named Gnocchi in South Carolina has predicted that the former governor of Massachusetts is going to win the election.

“Zoolander”
Actor and producer Ben Stiller wants Lady Gaga for the sequel! Brilliant. Check out Stiller as “Derek” on Comedy Central’s “Night of Two Many Stars.“

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Stephanie Cutter Is a Messenger Who Does the Shooting for Obama

On Twitter, Ms. Cutter, known for her dry sense of humor and sharp edge, circulated a photo of Big Bird outside an Obama rally with the hashtag #ProtectSesameStreetNotWallStreet to her 42,700-plus followers.

The Big Bird attacks started to take on a life of their own. The following week, the Obama campaign introduced a tongue-in-cheek ad that compares Big Bird to Bernard L. Madoff and other corporate criminals. “Big, yellow, a menace to our economy,” the ominous voice-over intoned.

It was a typical quick-response effort by Ms. Cutter, doing damage control after an admittedly lackluster performance by the president. “She spotted right away that this was something that was trending out there and that was making an impact,” David Axelrod, the president’s chief strategist, said of Ms. Cutter, who was not involved in the making of the ad itself.

Ms. Cutter, who turns 44 on Oct. 22, has emerged as Mr. Obama’s one-woman attack squad. In the process, she has become a popular but polarizing face of a campaign that until recently had been largely dominated by middle-aged white men.

Late last year, Ms. Cutter left her role as deputy senior adviser in the White House to move to Chicago and become one of three deputy campaign managers, overseeing policy, research and communications. In essence, Ms. Cutter has become the chief messenger for the Obama campaign, a loyal soldier who says the things the candidate can’t (or won’t) say — often on YouTube.

In a series of straight-talking videos set in front of a bustling campaign office, she rejects point by point Mr. Romney’s policies.

“All Stephanie wants is results,” said an Obama administration aide and friend of Ms. Cutter’s who is not allowed to discuss campaign issues. “She is an old-school, take-no-prisoners political operative. Losing is not tolerated.” (Ms. Cutter has earned the nickname The Ninja at campaign headquarters, since she stealthily inserts herself into battles.)

As Ms. Cutter’s role in the campaign has become more prominent, she has become a lightning rod of controversy to detractors and a skirt-suited folk hero to supporters.

Both the adoration (“Stephanie Cutter is SOOO hot,” said one online commenter) and the attacks (“Lying liar Stephanie Cutter has hissy fit,” the conservative blogger Michelle Malkin recently tweeted) directed at Ms. Cutter are often manifest in ways that a male aide, like Mr. Axelrod or Robert Gibbs, would probably never experience.

Rush Limbaugh calls Ms. Cutter “Obama’s chief campaign babe,” and she’s also been nicknamed Box Cutter for her sharp attacks. Nicolle Wallace, a White House communications director under George W. Bush, praised Ms. Cutter as “the warrior princess of this election cycle.”

The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago even has a YouTube parody of a drunk Ms. Cutter impersonator holding a flask with charts in the background. “Hey, let’s look at a graph!” the blond comedian slurs before chugging vodka.

Ms. Cutter doesn’t always stick to the talking points. In a recent CNN interview, she said Mr. Romney’s tax cuts “stipulated, it won’t be near $5 trillion,” as the Obama campaign had earlier claimed. The gaffe became fodder for a Romney attack ad three days later and was raised by Representative Paul D. Ryan in the vice-presidential debate on Thursday night.

Ms. Cutter’s prominence puts her in a contradictory position. Similar to other high-profile female political operatives, like the Republicans Dana Perino, Mary Matalin and Ms. Wallace, Ms. Cutter exposes herself to attacks (and dishes them out). But she also serves as a crucial figure in a campaign that is relying on female voters to win.

“If this president wins, it will be because there is a tremendous gender gap and women will make up the margin of victory,” said Neera Tanden, president of the liberal research group Center for American Progress and a former adviser to Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton. “I feel comforted that there’s a woman at the table.”

In an administration not known for its embrace of outsiders, Ms. Cutter managed to become a trusted aide to both Michelle Obama, whom she worked for in 2008 and in the White House, and Mr. Obama, who pleaded with her to take West Wing and campaign jobs.

Ms. Cutter previously worked for President Bill Clinton and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, as well as for Edward M. Kennedy, quickly becoming a trusted Kennedy family confidante.

Her bright career was almost derailed in 2004, though, after Senator John Kerry’s failed presidential bid. Ms. Cutter, who had been the campaign’s communications chief, bore the brunt of criticism in the election post-mortem, a blame that Mr. Kerry said she had to shoulder unfairly. “I was frankly appalled at some of the stories and gossip,” Mr. Kerry said in an interview. “At the end of the day, I’m the one responsible.”

But she came back in a turnaround that speaks as much to Washington’s short memory as to Ms. Cutter’s gritty perseverance. In her role as Mrs. Obama’s chief of staff during the 2008 campaign, Ms. Cutter (who signed on after Mrs. Obama’s widely publicized comment that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country”) is largely credited for turning the would-be first lady from a potential liability to an enormous asset.

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T Magazine: Now Open | Mrs. Robertson in Brooklyn

With its pitched walls, strange angles and cramped corners, Mrs. Robertson, a new design shop in Fort Greene, feels cozy as an attic. It’s appropriate, then, that the shop’s co-owner, the stylist Hilary Robertson, tries to channel an imaginary garret-dwelling bohemian aunt when buying for the store. “Our aesthetic is as eclectic as her travels. I think we choose things because they conjure her world,” Robertson says.

Eclectic may be a bit of an overburdened term in the age of high/low, but it’s an apt descriptor for Mrs. Robertson, where a threadbare antique evening gown hangs near a midcentury modular candelabrum by the German designer Fritz Nagel; a tiny, delicately beaded evening bag sits in proximity to a massive, rough-hewn ceramic urn; and an Art Deco mirrored dressing table could be used to display a hand-carved wooden animal sculpture by the contemporary designer Matt Austin.

“There’s such a mix of things in here from both of us,” says the jewelry designer Gabriela de la Vega, Robertson’s friend and the shop’s co-owner, who also owns a namesake clothing and jewelry boutique next door. (The two stores are connected through a doorway.) Some merchandise originates as inspiration pieces for de la Vega’s creations; some Robertson buys, but never uses, for photo shoots she styles. Both women are inveterate collectors — flea market fiends, and connoisseurs of what seems like every junkyard and antique mall in upstate New York. “I will stop at any place on the side of the road that has a bucket in the yard,” de la Vega jokes.

Though their tastes sometimes differ (de la Vega is more drawn to the feminine, and Robertson more to the masculine), both are devotees of the old, discarded, and beaten up. “What we like is patina and distress — that’s the appeal,” Robertson says, picking up a pair of sculptural brass Ben Seibel bookends, whose finish shows some wear. “I’m sure a purist wouldn’t necessarily want these particular ones, because they’re all oxidized. But actually that makes me like them more.”

Mrs. Robertson, 88 South Portland Avenue, Brooklyn; (718) 858-1152; mrsrobertsonstore.com. Open Tuesday through Sunday, 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.

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Motherlode Blog: Home-Schooling, Comic Con Style (Part 2)

Iheartguts.com

As noted yesterday, my 12-year-old home-schooled son and I braved the crowds at the New York Comic Con last Sunday, looking for any materials that might qualify as educational. Also, a Minecraft pickaxe, which we found. The hunt yielded far more than I was expecting. Modest as our takeaway may be when compared with the number of clammy-handed men and boys of the geeky persuasion yearning after buxom Manga goddesses in the flesh, I think we did all right for ourselves.

If you’re not persuaded that anything available at Comic Con could offer a learning experience, perhaps you need a refresher course courtesy of Reading With Pictures, a Chicago-based nonprofit advocating the use of comics in the classroom. Their Reading With Pictures Anthology has a relatively diffuse focus, especially compared with some of the titles I described in Part 1 of this post, but it has a host of well-known (in the comics world) contributors, and no one gets sent to the principal for pushing a Smarties Are Cool / Librarians Rock message. My son and I are hoping for a sequel starring the awesome electric eel from Chris Eliopoulos’s “An Animal That Cooks Its Own Dinner,” but I’ve heard next up is a graphic textbook in keeping with core curriculum standards for grades three through six.

Part 1 of our Comic Con exploration included graphic options for History, Science and Literature. For further studies:

SOCIAL STUDIES

“The Power Within” by Charles (Zan) Christensen and Mark Brill
Can comic book superheroes deploy  anti-bullying as a way to combat and reform gay-bashing young ruffians? Probably not, but “The Power Within” is bound to sustain those waiting for things to get better. The creators’ refusal to sugarcoat the way that well-meaning advice and innocent actions can make things worse earns my trust. There’s something here for kids in the middle, as well. (Psst, youth services organizations and teachers’ groups qualify for free copies.)

“Mayah’s Lot” by Charlie La Greca and Rebecca Bratspies
Whoa, another spontaneously generated superhero? Actually, Earth Girl appears in but one panel of this environmental justice-themed comic. The real heroes are clearly the  teenager Mayah and the neighborhood residents battling corporate baddies Green Solutions for control of a vacant lot. I appreciated that organizational skills, time and effort didn’t get the short shrift en route to the (spoiler!) successful outcome.

LANGUAGE
“Dim Sum Warriors” by Colin Goh, Yen Yen Woo and Soo Lee
If turtles can mutate into ninjas, why shouldn’t we accept dim sum as Imperial Chinese warriors? The boy’s mania for soup dumplings made this a no-brainer purchase for us, but I imagine the translation app from which this series arose would be a boon to parents who’ve got their kids studying Mandarin. And vice versa. Colin Goh, series co-creator,  tells me Shaomai, Roastpork Bao and friends have already infiltrated Chinese-speaking classrooms to help students learn and practice English.

MUSIC
“Baby’s in Black” by Arne Bellstorf
Mama, what’s the Beatles? Oh, for Pete Best’s sake! Don’t tell me that’s the state of education in this country! School them in the basics, then reward the exceptionally gifted ones with the bittersweet love story of the German photographer Astrid Kirchherr and lost Beatle Stu Sutcliffe. Or, go the experimental route and let them start out thinking of Paul, John and George as supporting characters.

HEALTH
I Heart Guts’ Good Ol’ Menstrual Cycle poster
The happy little uterus who is this empowering and informative poster’s de facto mascot is so adorable, you may get rooked into buying the plushie. A far more festive classroom decoration option than cut-outs of pumpkins and Pilgrims, you could frame it in the bathroom (or living room) so the whole family’s clear on the monthly mechanics. Note from KJ: I just ordered this, along with the Meet Your Body poster, because this is my idea of “decorating” the upstairs.

HIGHER EDUCATION
“The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law” by Nathaniel Burney
To steal a bit from Chekhov, the author is a lawyer, not an artist, but that just means there’s little to distract from the funny, highly informative text. Is it possible to pass the Bar on the basis of one self-published funny book? I’m guessing not, though what an efficient, amusing alternative to law school, if so.

“Feynman” by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick
If I underestimated the audience for this biography of the Nobel Prize winner, safecracker, adventurer and all around engaging guy Richard Feynman, it’s because the raves upon its publication were geared toward adult readers and, also, because my grandfather or stepfather did the lion’s share of the work on every hands-on high school physics project designed to interest me in the subject. I was gobsmacked when a 12-year-old home-schooler friend to whom I was describing the fruits of our Comic Con haul asked, “Ooh, what physicist?” Turns out her mom has CDs of  Mr.  Feynman’s lectures, which our young friend enjoys listening to from time to time. (Meanwhile, my boy’s lucky his mother has a graphic biography rendered in a classic clean line reminiscent of Tintin.)

Ayun Halliday is the author of “The ‘Zinester’s Guide to NYC”, “The Big Rumpus”, and other books; and the creator of the East Village Inky.

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On the Runway Blog: Hashtag Nation: Parodies Take Flight

On the Runway provides fashion-related news and commentary, from the latest runway shows and street trends to an inside look into the design process. Cathy Horyn, the fashion critic of The Times, leads the way. Contributors include Eric Wilson, Ruth La Ferla, Guy Trebay, Stephanie Rosenbloom, Simone Oliver and others.

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T Magazine: Editor's Letter

From top: Cedric Buchet; William Abranowicz (2).In this issue of T, Halle Berry shows off this season’s jackets and jeans (top right) and the jewelry designer Gabriella Kiss (bottom right) lets readers see her workshop (left).

As the editors of T were sending this issue to press, we found ourselves thinking about the idea of women’s beauty that runs through its pages. Could there be a more pervasive, and loaded, topic? At a recent dinner party, as the talk turned to politics, in no time did Michelle Obama’s fingernail color at the Democratic National Convention enter the conversation. The substance of her speech seemed only to be amplified by the notion that she told her manicurist, What the heck, let’s go with gray.

Nail polish is, of course, less on our minds than the fascination with how a person chooses to display herself. Though make no mistake: with the help of T’s indefatigable beauty and style director, Sandra Ballentine, you’ll find plenty of information here about how women are deciding to make themselves look lovely — from how they part their hair (in the center) to how they treat their skin (just please don’t overpeel) — and to feel like self-determined participants in our quickly changing culture.

Isn’t that what we really talk about when we talk about beauty: keeping up with the pace of change? Not just deciding when to jump on the color wheel — electric pink glitter eye shadow? Why not — but also retaining some measure of grace and poise as wrinkles come, relationships go, and time, in its messy, wisdom-bestowing way, marches on. One day you might be one of “The In Crowd,” figuring out your style and forming fast friendships in Tyrone Lebon and Sara Moonves’s playful fashion shoot; the next you may be the jewelry designer Gabriella Kiss, who’s created her own incredibly stylish universe out of a lifetime of work, family and gorgeous things.

There are few women in the public eye who have more elegantly embraced the passing of the years than Halle Berry. Some of those years, by her own account, haven’t been easy. But as Joyce Maynard’s thoughtful profile of the actress shows, Berry has turned obstacles into the building blocks of a remarkable life as a movie star and as a mother. And if Berry has her way (is there any doubt?), her 4-year-old daughter will grow up knowing what truly makes her beautiful, no what matter what color nail polish she chooses.

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Neighborhood Joint: Yummy Mummy

Brands with faintly ridiculous names are ubiquitous in the breast-feeding world. At the Upper East Side’s breast-feeding resource Yummy Mummy, you’ll find Bamboobies breast pads, Mama Mio’s OMG Feel Good skin care kit, and as shown here, a stylish Boob nursing top.

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Remembering Mary McCarthy’s Style

Among those who spoke or sent contributions memorializing the literary rapier whom Time once called “quite possibly the cleverest woman America has ever produced” were the novelist Diane Johnson; Robert B. Silvers, the editor of The New York Review of Books; a McCarthy biographer, Frances Kiernan; an executor of her literary estate, Margo Viscusi; the author Laura Furman; and a granddaughter, Sophie Wilson.

A small exhibition of Ms. McCarthy’s articles and books accompanied the Paris celebration. Seattle-born and arguably Partisan Review-bred, she spent most of her later years in Paris and donated many articles and books to the library.

Those among us who do not remember our first time with “The Group” (now somehow mixed up with our crush on “Mad Men”), raise a hand.

“Any female critic writing today owes something to her,” said Sarah Weinman, a publishing columnist. “And she’s been held up as comparison for so much big women’s fiction. She was a sharp critic, a great champion of underappreciated writers. She was caustic, and she spoke her mind.”

Ms. McCarthy, who died in 1989 at age 77, also created an aura, trading up from her scruffy image at Vassar to an elegant look all her own.

“If you were to make a movie of Mary McCarthy’s life,” the editor William Abrahams told Ms. Kiernan in the early 1990s, “Grace Kelly could have played the part.”

Could we possibly be having a McCarthy Moment in fashion? This season’s little black cutaway dress from Balenciaga? Or that pretty tie-neck blouse from Lanvin (just look at the author’s portrait-sitting with Cecil Beaton)? She visited both design houses and shopped for leather goods at Mark Cross, cashmere at Brooks Brothers, suits at Bonwit Teller and gloves and scarves at Hermès. All last summer we had espadrilles (hers came from Lanvin); this fall features 1940s-ish cropped jackets, and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is grooving on Peter Pan collars.

“She combined sexy and tailored,” Ms. Kiernan said. “It’s cool now.”

Many female writers whom Ms. McCarthy inspired intellectually reflect her style as well. A. M. Homes’s new McCarthy-ish novel, “May We Be Forgiven,” earned her an austere, short-waisted photo straight out of the McCarthy playbook. The cover art of Susanna Moore’s latest, a World War II novel called “The Life of Objects,” elicits a McCarthy double-take: a woman’s photograph from the ’30s, in profile, naturally, hair in a bun.

Mentioning her name evokes not only the extraordinary number of images of the writer published over the years, but “a literary figure, a political figure, an urbane figure, a very witty figure who had honesty and wasn’t shy about expressing her opinions,” said Ronald Patkus, who organized the Vassar show. “It’s time for people to think about the role she played in the early and mid-20th century.”

Claire Messud, a novelist and critic, refers to the intertwining of Ms. McCarthy’s appearance and pointed intellect as a stance inherited from Edith Wharton and “the glamorous Europeans, like Louise de Vilmorin or the Mitfords or Elizabeth Bowen.”

She added, “McCarthy was probably one of the first female intellectuals I was aware of, and there was this sense of the presentation of yourself as not so much distinctive as elegant, of presenting yourself with respect — self-respect was manifest.”

This packs a particular relevance for young female writers today, said Elissa Schappell, a novelist and a founding editor of the literary magazine Tin House.

“The way she looked had the mark of someone who knows herself,” she said. “Like with her inner life and writing: she could be zingy and ruthless but never sloppy. There was a certain precision and candor, very incisive and sharp. I didn’t know she wore designer clothing, but it doesn’t surprise me. There’s always something very clean, thought-out. The look was very curated.”

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On the Runway Blog: Reliving the Glamour of the Supremes

Bettmann/CorbisMary Wilson, left, and Cindy Birdsong of the Supremes with Princess Margaret in 1971.

MEMBERS may have come and gone during the original two-decade reign of the Supremes, but the sequins and bugle beads always remained the same.

“Glamour was our signature,” said Mary Wilson, a founding member of the group and, as its longest-running participant, the unofficial historian of the Supremes. “Even when we were 15 years old and auditioning for Motown Records, we were wearing pearls we bought from Woolworth. We were totally into dressing up.”

On Wednesday, the African American Museum in Philadelphia announced that it will present a collection of Supremes fashion and memorabilia beginning in January in an exhibition called “Come See About Me: The Mary Wilson Supremes Collection.” The show includes many gowns that Ms. Wilson has maintained or collected since the beginning of the group in 1959.

Ms. Wilson has long sought to protect the legacy of the group and to remind audiences of the significance of their breakthrough in music and on television. Fashion was an important part of that story. Dressing in glamorous gowns was a conscious decision, Ms. Wilson said, to portray themselves as women who had raised themselves from poor backgrounds and succeeded.

While many of their costumes were lost over the years, Ms. Wilson maintained a personal collection and said she acquired several pieces when they became available on eBay. The gowns, including the famous Bob Mackie designs and many by the costume designer Michael Travis, belonged to the group, so whenever a member (Florence Ballard, Diana Ross or Jean Terrell) would leave, she had to leave behind her dresses.

“Eventually I was the only one left, and that’s basically how I had the Supremes’ gowns,” Ms. Wilson said. “I put the old ones in a box.”

Some of them, beaded from head to toe with pearls and rhinestones, weighed around 30 pounds apiece. There was one set of pink dresses that members called their Queen Mother gowns after a performance in London, when, as Ms. Wilson recalled, they were introduced to Princess Margaret.

“She said, ‘Ooh, is that a wig you’re wearing?’ ” Ms. Wilson said. “And I recall that on the next day, there was a photograph on the cover of one of the newspapers where I was looking at Princess Margaret like I could kill her. It wasn’t what she said, it was the way she said it.”

As noted in her legal battles with Motown Records over the years, Ms. Wilson is very protective of the image of the Supremes. She believes many of their important costumes were lost when the company moved from Detroit to Los Angeles. But she holds out hope that she and those dresses someday will be together. Say, say, say it again, Ms. Wilson.

“And you should put this in bold print,” she said. “If anyone knows where they are, I want my gowns back.”

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Motherlode Blog: Why Aren't Working Fathers Called 'Working Dads'?

I’m a dad — two children, 9 and 7 — and I work. Hard. I fall out of bed at about 5 a.m. and stumble back there at about 10 p.m., and it seems like I haven’t caught my breath or cleared my to-do lists since my first child was born on July 22, 2002.

Yet in spite of all this unremitting labor, no one, not a single person, has ever called me a “working dad.” I’ve never called myself this.

The question on the docket is, “Why not?”

For one, “Working dad” is a weird term. An odd idea. Working dads simply don’t count as a recognized demographic in our society — a dad is a dad, and he works, of course, and to suggest otherwise is, well, strange.

But oddity isn’t necessarily a good objection. We can get used to all kinds of words. (Think “webinar”! Think “cantaloupe”!) In fact, the more I consider it, the more appropriate it seems to call me and the millions of the other dads out there schlepping around in a way that would have puzzled our cigar-chewing grandfathers “working dads.” We take working and dadding with equal seriousness and we deserve our share of the W-word.

A working mom, after all, is a term of approval. She is a master of multitasking. A mistress of multitasking. She is capable and competent on numerous fronts, and while her carpool-board-meeting-spaghetti-dinner-toothbrushing-book-bedtime lifestyle may mean that she sometimes forgets an orthodontist appointment or misses the annoying 2 p.m. staff confab, it also means that she is a kind of real-life superhero. The whole bring-home-the-bacon-and-fry-it-up-in-a-pan shtick commands our respect and admiration. The adjective “working”  means  that whatever else she’s doing, she’s also on the job.

My fellow dads and I deserve the same kind of respect, no?

We dudes get up every day and make breakfast. We feed the cat, take out the trash, wash the dishes, if any are left over from the night before. We can do an occasional emergency load of laundry — even if we sometimes mix lights and darks — drop the kids off, and commute to work. And then put in a full workingman’s day of labor. After which we rush home, bolt down dinner (that our wives have perhaps very kindly cooked or ordered) and shuttle our kids to soccer, guitar lessons and the rest. Then it’s overseeing homework, playing with the kids, helping them into jammies, and finally a good-night story or two. At the end of all this, we do maybe an hour of work and then collapse next to our wives.

And so on.

That’s enough to earn a “working dad” merit badge, no?

If not, if we’re encroaching on sacred woman-only territory… I have another, more modest proposal. I suggest that we give “working,” that poor, exhausted adjective, a vacation. Perhaps we can replace it with one that fits contemporary moms — and dads — better. What about “overworked”? This adjective suggests that every good contemporary parent is employed on many levels, domestic and professional, and that all our nonstop busy-ness, the unremitting demands on our energy and time and patience, means that we’re chronically wiped out.

Works for me.

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Star Spotting at the Beverly Hills Hotel

The Beverly Hills Hotel, shown here in 1995, just turned 100 and remains the heart of moviedom’s schmoozing scene in part because of its history. Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned with six of her eight husbands in the bungalows. The pool alone is as close to sacred ground as it gets in show business. It’s where Raquel Welch was discovered, where Esther Williams swam every morning (a permanent guest pass was written into her MGM contract) and where the Beatles once took an after-hours dip.

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A Taste of Honey From Azzedine Alaïa

But backstage after his private show in Paris for friends and family last week, Azzedine Alaïa gave a different explanation of the honey bee dresses.

“I remembered a table designed by Marc Newson,” said the designer, reaching for his phone to display a photo of a red honeycomb table that had inspired the knit dresses.

Although Monica Bellucci, in a shiny black crocodile trench, cut a striking front row figure — and despite brassiere tops, harnesses and a few pieces partly fashioned out of leather — the bulk of the Alaïa summer 2013 collection was in knit.

But the combined skills of the French designer and the Italian ready-to-wear factory he works with produced work so fine that it looked like lace on a tunic with a fringed hem and further fringing at the ankles of pants.

“Relaxez-vous,” was the message on the soundtrack as the show opened, the dogs accompanying clients pricked up their ears and Mr. Alaïa began a game of proportions. Cropped tops, leaving a space of bared flesh, or ribbing creating a midriff focus, allowed the designer to change hemline lengths and silhouettes.

The beehive skirts were short and curvy, as the models walked the studio runway in high heels, while other dresses were straight, elongated and, indeed, relaxed, as decorative flat sandals peeped out.

Another curvy effect was created with godets — a way to build shape into the torso. Meanwhile, colors ranged from the Parisian women’s favored black to shades of pink from watermelon to vin rosé and fuchsia.

So long was the clapping that the dogs burst into barks and the models, smiling happily, did a second round. But Mr. Alaïa remained backstage in the studio where his wonders are created with such intense love of craft and sensitivity to modernity.

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Modern Love: First the Proposal, Then the Remodeling - Modern Love

When I found Jim, I was playing Judge Beth Bornstein on the TV series “Murder One.” He was 44 and a former Marine Corps tank officer who sold I.B.M. midrange computers. I had just turned 50 and was blissfully content in my post-divorce home in the Hollywood Hills.

Seven years earlier, with the death of my marriage, I had been racked with loneliness. Then I slowly came to appreciate my own company. I could stay up all night and eat cake for breakfast. I could sing Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” at the top of my lungs while hunched over a tumbler of bourbon. I could see people if I wanted or be by myself.

Jim was living in his sister’s house in the Valley. He owned a place in Oceanside, Calif., but his sister and her husband and son had decamped for the East Coast when the earthquakes of Los Angeles became too much for them. Jim was their designated house sitter until the place was sold.

So with him to love, but happily living across town in Sherman Oaks, Calif., I had it all.

Then one night, a year after we met, Jim said, “What would you say if I asked you to marry me?”

I was expecting the question. We spent Christmas that year with his family. All the women decided he should propose.

“Yes,” I replied. “I’d say yes.”

“Good,” he said. “I just wanted to know what you’d say if I asked.”

“Are you kidding?” I said. “You can’t pre-ask me to marry you. I revoke my ‘yes.’ ”

He laughed and gave me a look that said: You are so adorable.

I buried my rancor and we went along our merry, uncommitted way for another month. But on Valentine’s Day, after the in-home massages he ordered as my gift, Jim leaned across the steak dinner I made and took my hand.

“Will you marry me?” he asked again.

“Are you serious?” I replied.

“Sorry about last time,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

It would have been nice if he had made a reservation at a restaurant and bought a bauble chosen with me in mind. As it was, we were in our bathrobes and more than a little greasy. There was no ring.

All that seemed nothing compared with the joy of having Jim sitting across from me for the rest of my life. I said yes.

That night I woke out of a deep sleep, thinking, “Oh, my God, I’ll never be alone again.”

To many this would be good news, but not to me. My first marriage failed after 17 years. Our relationship had been kind but unfulfilling. I didn’t have the courage to end it on my own, but on the day he left, I felt as if someone unlocked a door and set me free. Living alone, I’d never risk getting lost in a man again.

The next morning I told Jim we didn’t have to marry. I just needed to know he wanted to.

“Oh, yes, we do,” he said. “I want everybody to know we love each other. I want it to be public.”

Backed into a corner, I asked if he would wait.

“As long as it takes,” he said, “but I’d like to move in.”

There it was, the man I loved asking me to give up my solitude and choose him over fear.

When I first dated Jim, the sweetness of his character caught me off guard. I had a list, like a lot of women do, of the attributes I wanted in a man. “Sweet” was not on it. I find that sometimes the thing I need most I don’t know about until it shows up. Then it’s: “Oh, yeah: that.” I knew I’d grieve if I lost him, so I swallowed my trepidation and we made a plan.

He would find a sitter for his sister’s place and sell his house in Oceanside. It was February, and we were going to New York in June. We decided he could move in after we returned in July. We agreed it would be a long engagement.

To absorb some of my angst, I decided to do some remodeling. I was using a small bedroom for my office, and Jim was happy to take it over for his man cave.

Linda Carlson, an actress who lives in New York and Connecticut, is working on a memoir about her life onstage and in therapy.

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On the Runway Blog: Exhibition on Katharine Hepburn

“A STAR practically always asks for a designer, if she has any sense,” Katharine Hepburn said in an unpublished interview from the mid 1970s. No one would dispute that Hepburn had heaps of sense, or be surprised that she had a lot to say about her legendary style. That is the subject of an exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center until Jan. 12.

Organized by the Kent State University Museum, which acquired her performance clothes (as well as personal items like khakis, shoes and makeup) after her death in 2003, “Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen” includes more than 40 costumes and other pieces she wore in plays and movies like “The Philadelphia Story,” “Adam’s Rib” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Also on display are letters, scripts and research notes that Hepburn made, and which are part of the library’s collection of her stage papers.

The actress was a great pack rat; she seemingly saved everything, according to Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, the curator of exhibitions at the library. In addition to somewhat peculiar items like a Russian military uniform from “The Iron Petticoat,” a 1956 comedy she made with Bob Hope, she also kept opening-night telegrams and floral cards. “Rebel Chic,” a companion book published by Skira Rizzoli, has essays by Ms. Cohen-Stratyner and Jean Druesedow, the director of the Kent State museum, as well as by Kohle Yohannan, who helped organize a terrific show years ago on Valentina, the Russian émigré designer who was a favorite of Hepburn’s. It was Valentina who designed the pink organza and crepe wedding gown that she wore in 1939 on Broadway in “The Philadelphia Story” and reused in 1973 as Amanda in “The Glass Menagerie.”

“Her waist went from 20 inches to 26 over her 96 years,” Ms. Druesedow said in an interview. When Ms. Druesedow visited a Connecticut warehouse, around 2008, where Hepburn’s clothing was stored, she was a little stunned by the depth: costumes by Muriel King, Howard Greer and Walter Plunkett, who was responsible for the gorgeous black draped evening dress in “Adam’s Rib.”

“And, of course, there were a lot of beige slacks,” said Ms. Druesedow, noting that Hepburn’s pants, like most of her shoes, were custom-made — in the case of the pants by costume houses like Brooks-Van Horn. For “Alice Adams,” she bought some of the costumes herself, like the Hattie Carnegie straw hat she wore in a scene with Fred MacMurray. She learned early to shape her characters through fashion.

Apart from her performances, Hepburn had a style far ahead of its time. Maybe we take that for granted. I loved a picture of Hepburn in “Rebel Chic.” Taken in 1932, around the time she made “A Bill of Divorcement,” she’s on the RKO lot wearing a pair of faded jeans and a mink coat, with a scarf knotted at her neck. That image could have been taken today, with the difference that Hepburn wasn’t trying to be someone cool or chic. She just was.

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