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

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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

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