matthew williamsonトークライブ@FIT

先月の終わりに、FITにて英国人デザイナーのマシュー・ウィリアムソンの講演を聞いてきました。

1994年にセント・マーティンズ校を卒業。その後「モンスーン」や「マルニ」で経験を積んでいる時に、彼のデザインしたビーズのバッグがケイト・モス等の目に留まり、早くも彼の名が知られるようになる。1996年に「エレクトリック・エンジェル (Electric Angels)」というテーマでロンドン・コレクションデビュー。2005年から2009年春夏コレクションまでエミリオプッチのクリエイティブディレクターを務め、“色の魔術師”とも呼ばれた。その後も自身のブランドにも力を入れる一方で、昨年はH＆Mとコラボレーションして話題となった。今年「ブルガリ」のバッグラインのデザイナーに抜擢され、イタリアで９月に行われた2011年春夏ファッションウィークで発表している。

 彼のプリントは本当に美しいのだけれど、かつてエミリオプッチのコレクションに、敢えてソリッドカラーのドレスをデザインしたことでも話題を呼んだ記憶があります。“え〜無地のエミリオプッチ？？？”という風に。

さて、その夜はどのようなスタイルで登場するかワクワクしていたのですが、普通にブラックのパンツ＋ジャケット。本人も“ごめんね、カラフルじゃなくて・・・”と／笑。デビューコレクションに協力してくれたケイト・モスの話も何度か出て来て、今日も信頼関係が厚い様子を伺わせた。パーティーはあまり好きではないそうで、カール・ラガーフェルドといった大物セレブが隣りだったりすると普通に驚いてしまうそう。カリスマ性というよりも、あれ程有名になっても謙虚で、普通の感覚を大切にしているセンシティブである印象を受けました。

ちなみに、「ブルガリ」がファッションデザイナーとバッグをデザインするのは今回が初めてだそう。 http://www.fashion-style.becomegorgeous.com/handbags/matthew_williamson_for_bulgari_spring_2011_handbags-3064.html

NYタイムズ記事：bicycle chic gains speed: Runway to roadway

イギリス発のバイシクルブランド「RAPHA」が、この夏ニューヨークにポップアップ・ストア「Cycle Club」http://www.rapha.cc/cycle-club/ をオープンしていましたが、９月末をもって閉店となりました。そのセンスの高さから、ファッションとバイクの融合を感じさせてくれた素敵なお店でした。ビギナーな私にとってモチベーションを上げてくれるショップでもあったので終わってしまったのは残念。そんな事を考えていた矢先、目に留まったのがこちらの記事「Runway to Roadway」。

この取材では、オフィスからそのまま出て来たような装いのミニスカートや、10センチはあるヒールでも自転車に乗っている少数派のスタイリッシュなバイカーを取り上げています。彼女たちにとっては、ヒールでコツコツ歩くよりもバイクで走った方が足も痛くないし、靴の底も減らないで助かるとか。一理ありますよね。

その一方、個人的に気になっているのが、スポーツとしてバイクに乗っている人たちの着こなし。ハドソン川沿いや公園のトラックを走る男女が、まるでツール・ド・フランスの選手のようにウェアを着こなしています。日本では、女性が全身をこのウェアで固めている方が珍しいかもしれません。

“メッセンジャー・ヘルメット”はこの取材ではもう“ダサイ”という事になりますが、私の「GIRO」だって色々研究して買った一品なのです！つまり、スポーティに乗りたい時は「GIRO」にして、もうひとつ普段着用に帽子型のヘルメットを揃えるのが今どきのオシャレさんということになるのでしょうか。この記事に掲載されている帽子（Yakkay, http://www.yakkay.com/）がまた可愛くて♡買ってしまいそうです。

ちなみにNYはヘルメットの着用は義務付けられていませんが、隣りのNJでは義務付けられていますので、遠出する時には着用して行くのがベターだと思います。

The Photo from New York TIMES

 Bicycle Chic Gains Speed

By RUTH LA FERLA

TALK about making an entrance. Intent on arriving at a recent gala in style, Topaz Page-Green swooshed onto the scene on her trusty vintage roadster. She wore, of all things, a scarlet dress with a slinky 1920s feel. “It was to the ankles,” she recalled. “I had to hoist it up.”
Heads turned. But she takes such stray looks, and the occasional whistle, in her stride. “I’ve definitely noticed glances,” she said, “but I pay no attention.”
Ms. Page-Green, who runs a nonprofit group that provides meals to needy children, likes to charge around town on her bike. Sometimes she’s done up in sparkly necklaces and towering heels; other times she coasts to appointments, sans helmet, in a blazer and fresh-pressed jeans. “I get sweaty a little, but it doesn’t bother me,” she said. Her bike, after all, is a stylish appendage, “a kind of rustic enhancement,” she said.
She is one in an increasingly visible band of chic New Yorkers whooshing along the green-painted bike lanes that have proliferated in Manhattan, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Hudson and from TriBeCa to Harlem, clutching BlackBerrys and clad not in spandex but in fluttery skirts, capes and kitten heels.
Roadways are the new runways for these style-obsessed cyclists, their bikes no mere conveyance but a racy adjunct to their look. More than a few are infusing what used to be an athletic, or purely practical, pursuit with eye-catching glamour and sex appeal. Their style, a modish amalgam of fashion and function, is documented on blogs and emulated by like-minded sisters on wheels. Their enthusiasm is fueling an uptick in business among independent merchants.
Women, mostly young, have given the image of cyclists “an extreme makeover,” said George Bliss, who owns Hudson Urban Bikes on Charles Street in the West Village. His store caters to upscale New Yorkers whose aim it is to speed around town on a traditional Schwinn or three-speed Raleigh while sacrificing neither their decorum nor élan. They are a far cry “from the image of the adult cyclist as infantry solider with a helmet,” Mr. Bliss said, referring mostly to the athletes and messengers who whiz by in that all-too-familiar forward-thrust posture that has, he said, “alienated every pedestrian.”
“The idea now is to look like a pedestrian on wheels,” he added firmly.
Mr. Bliss said that his clients tend to be women who almost invariably dress to impress. “They are my best customers,” he said. “They want more things — fenders and baskets and chains and bells and things to carry their kids and their dogs.” And most are turning their backs on the once-customary aerodynamic helmets and latex shorts in favor of a look as fetching as it is genteel.
In a city that elevates the pursuit of chic to stratospheric heights, voguish cyclists on vintage bikes are “part of a movement,” said Julie Hirschfeld, the owner of Adeline Adeline, a boutique in TriBeCa that sells bicycles, jaunty vintage-style wicker baskets and canvas bags. Their look, captured on Web sites like The Sartorialist and Bicycle Catwalk, as well as Cycle Chic from Copenhagen, is part of “that whole sort of blog style,” Ms. Hirschfeld said, one that is studied and much copied on Manhattan’s streets.
A desire to look workday glamorous impelled Michelle Tillou, an art dealer, to ride to her gallery on Beekman Place the other day wearing a blazer, elasticized trousers and patent-leather wedge-heel shoes. More often she slips on kitten heels. “The better to hook onto the pedals,” she said.
For the designer Lela Rose, wedge-heeled platforms and a khaki shirtdress of her own design are ideal for racing on her custom tricycle from the Union Square Greenmarket, where she picked up a bundle of mint, to her Seventh Avenue atelier.
Ms. Rose and her cycling cohorts began appearing in Manhattan in significant numbers a couple of years ago, influenced perhaps by a handful of early adopters, including local celebrities like Chloë Sevigny and Naomi Watts, who aimed to burn calories, not fossil fuels. Their example inspired Ms. Page-Green. “When I ride my bike, I’m not wasting rubber,” she said. “I’m not spewing exhaust fumes. And I actually keep myself fit.”
Not everyone is thrilled. Ross Autry, a blogger in Birmingham, Ala., noted in an e-mail that multitasking bicyclists are too self-consciously hip for his taste and, what’s worse, may pose a hazard. “Fixing your makeup or sending a text message could have catastrophic results,” he said. To say nothing of going without a helmet.
Ms. Page-Green, who likes to speed around on the sidewalk, has encountered hostility. “When you’re going too fast, people get mad at you,” she said. “I’ve had canes waved at me in the distance.”
Such complaints, though, go largely unnoted in an increasingly bike-friendly city. Last year, the city completed 200 miles of bike lanes in all five boroughs, contributing to an increase in the number of daily city cyclists to an estimated 201,000, up 79 percent from 2008, according to Transportation Alternatives, a bicycle advocacy organization.
A report by the Department of Planning indicates that the number of adult female cyclists in the city is growing faster than that of men. The male-to-female ratio has dropped yearly since 2003. Some of these women seem to view their bikes, equipped with high-end saddle bags and bells, as a stand-in for a car — in their way, as efficient and status-laden. “My bike is like a Suburban, but that’s the Texan in me talking,” said Ms. Rose, who moved to New York from Dallas and can be spied any day of the week pedaling uptown from her home in TriBeCa, her children and Stitch, her terrier, in tow in a seating compartment that is attached to the tricycle.
“A bike in New York City is sort of what a convertible is in Los Angeles,” said Bonnie Morrison, a fashion publicist who gave up her fancy mountain bikes years ago, preferring to scoot around the city on a boy’s Raleigh Chopper from the ’70s. Its low-riding banana seat, ultrawide handlebars and nonfunctioning speedometer are part of its charm, Ms. Morrison said.
So, too, is its off-kilter cool. Ms. Morrison once planned an outfit to complement her little chopper: a chambray shirt flat sandals and a patterned ’50s-inspired Prada skirt. “I saw myself as this very chic, carefree Parisian on a moped with an Hermès bag and the wind in my hair,” she said.
The reality, however, was sobering. It turned out that her skirt was too snug for propriety. “Besides,” she said, “at times, when I see my reflection in a shop window, I think, Oh my God, I look like a 35-year-old on a child’s bike.” It’s an image that, she said, “I just have to put out of my mind.”
On a blustery morning last week in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Lee Dares, a model newly arrived from Toronto, wore a girlishly bibbed sweater, a navy blazer, Ann Demeulemeester roughrider boots and vintage Gucci sunglasses, her look accessorized with a borrowed Schwinn Le Tour. Ms. Dares has her heart set on a Raleigh single-speed, once she settles in. “I know, that’s so hipster,” she said sheepishly, “but everyone in Brooklyn rides one.”

A Single Man

本当に美しい映画でした。後に見ることになる「King's Speech」のコリン・ファースに、過度に感情移入しちゃったのは私だけではないと思います。一緒に見ていたサムが、クレジット終わっても“ひっくひっく”と号泣し続ける私を不思議そうに見ていたのを思い出します。

エンターテイメント情報ウェブサイトのVARIETYが当時「シングルマン」のシネマトグラフィーについて書いた記事をクリッピングしました。

27 year-old d.p. behind 'A Single Man' 

Cinematographer Eduard Grau shoots Tom Ford pic

By PETER CARANICAS

On the day Eduard Grau first met Tom Ford, the fashion-designer-turned-director hired the young cinematographer to shoot "A Single Man."Perhaps he was taking a risk with the Barcelona-born cinematographer -- Grau was 27 at the time and had only a few obscure films to his credit -- but few would dispute the success of their collaboration. Following a day in the life of a grieving gay college professor planning suicide, "A Single Man" tracks his internal journey, not only with dialog and flashbacks, but also through striking images and startling changes in the film's color palette.
Of course, directors and d.p.'s have been varying hues to advance storytelling ever since the advent of color -- using different schemes to indicate states of mind or developments in the action. However, "A Single Man" pushes the technique to an extreme, with the color often shifting visibly within the same scene.
Colin Firth plays the professor, and as his feelings switch from depression to elation the colors turn from cold blues and grays to warm reds and oranges - and vice versa.
"Tom wanted the color to go according to the characters' feelings and emotions at each point of the movie," said Grau, "and we followed that all the way."
To maximize this effect, Grau suggested using an older Kodak film stock, 5279, which is no longer generally available. "It has very beautiful grain, and in a way, is timeless," Grau said. "It's very saturated, beautiful and rich, especially the reds. We tested it along with other stocks, and Tom and I both decided this would be the one."
The entire film was shot on 5279 35mm, including a black-and-white flashback scene in which Firth and his companion, played by Matthew Goode, sit on a dramatic rock formation. Like much of the movie, its color was altered -- in this case removed -- during the digital intermediate stage, when the film's look was manipulated to Ford's satisfaction.
"The color was taken out of the scene in DI because the image is more striking in black and white," said Grau. "It's an image of a memory, and there's a black-and-white photo in the film that relates to the same memory.
"We shot various moments differently, and lit them differently as well, but then Tom changed color saturation," said Grau, adding that Ford was a constant presence in the DI sessions. "The movie is very personal to Tom. The way it looks is the way he saw it from the beginning."

eataly NY

Photo from eataly website

既に日本では関東・北陸を中心にオープンしている「イータリー」。こちらニューヨークでも先日ブルームバーグ市長のテープカットと共にオープンしました。

場所は、比較的通りの激しい23丁目の５AVEと６AVEの間に位置します。日曜日の午後はまだ新しいお店とあり、お客でごった返していました。“アスファルトに囲まれた”という意味からは外れますが、人間が大挙して餌を狩りに来るという意味では、こちらも一種のアーバンジャングルと言えるでしょう。

それ故ゆっくりとワインを嗜みながら．．．という雰囲気からはほど遠い店内でしたが、さすがニューヨーカー、普通に買い物をする人やレジに並ぶ人がテーブルの周りを往来してもなんのその、グルメなプレートに多くの人が舌鼓を打っていました。

空間を仕切らない広々とした店内では、ベーカリー、ブッチャー、フィッシュ・マーチャント、グリーングロッサリーが並んでいます。アンチョビやケーパーなどの瓶ものは、お行儀良く棚に陳列してありました。

いやいや〜、ここまで混んでいると、正直このお店のコンセプトを楽しむのは難しいけれど、まだ熱い焼きたてのパンや、リーズナブルなプロシュートは魅力的。中でも出来立ての生パスタは本当に美味しそう。

ちなにみ、この場所は通りに面しており、よって代官山ショップの写真をみるように、オープンテラスがあったり、外にワゴンが出ていたり、というゆったりとした空間はありません。それでも「イータリー」がここへ出店したのは、きっとニューヨーカーの好奇心の高さと、適応力の早さ、応用力の確かさを見込み、売り上げを狙ったに違い有りません。

有名な「フラットアイロンビル」を斜向いに見ながら、東京とはまだ違った「イータリー」をお楽しみあれ♪




＊＊＊後日、土曜日の夜の閉店間際に立ち寄ったところ、ワイン片手に買い物を楽しむ光景が見られたので、まったりと楽しみたいのであれば、当分の間土日の昼間は外した方が良さそうです。

sandy hook, NJ

この日曜日は、ピア11のフェリー乗り場からフェリーで約30分の場所にある島、サンディ・フック（NJ）へ行ってきました。

この島は昔軍事施設のひとつとして使われていたらしく、至る所に発射台や、ミサイル基地とそのレーダー基地が残っていました。アメリカン・スパニッシュ戦争に始まり、第二次世界大戦中や、冷戦時代中にキューバやソ連を威嚇し、マンハッタンを守る目的で約50年前くらいまで実際に使われ ていたとのこと。ミサイルの発射台の見学は流石にモノモノしい雰囲気でした。（その際、蚊に８カ所も刺されていた〜！！！！そのうち６カ所は、なんとTシャツの上から。知らぬ間に攻撃を受けていたとは、恐 るべし）



この日のスケジュール：

７時20分頃アパートを自転車を漕いで出発。予定のフェリー乗り場へは８時過ぎに到着。既に一日の体力40％くらいを消耗。

８時15分のフェリーに乗り、９時には目的地へ。早っ〜！うちのサムはなんと言ってもアーリーバードなんです。早過ぎて乗り合わせたお客さんは５人とまばら。ちなみに乗ったフェリーの速度が思ったより速くて怖かったです。→そのお陰か、乗車時間は45分と聞いていたのに、30分で目的地まで着きました。

クドいようですが、なにせ時間が早過ぎ。島の第一印象は無人島。
（昼がちがづくにつれて、続々と後発のフェリーでNYからも人が到着。ホッとする）

一難→漕ぎ始めていきなり、前輪のタイヤの空気が抜けていることに気がつく。

凹まずに自転車屋さんへ。（18インチタイヤなので、チューブ交換は出来ないとのこと）パンクでは無い事を祈りつつ空気を入れてもらった。とても親切なカップルでした♡

気を取り直して、出発！それでも午前中はずっとまたタイヤが萎んでしまわないか心配だったけれど、残り一日大丈夫でした。

去って、又一難→島をほぼ半周した頃、お腹がすく。まだ10時頃だったため、レストランが開いていなくて、とてもヒモジイ思いを経験しました。（知っていたら、お弁当を持参したのにっ！！！）

売店近くのテーブルで店が開くのをひたすら待ちます。

10時半開店、と聞いたけど、結局開いたのは11時近く。

メニューにあったのは、ホットドックとフレンチフライ．．．
ないよりはマシ、と気を取り直して、美味しく頂きました。

ランチも結局似たような売店しかなく、この日は一日合計で３個のホットドックを食べる。

さてさて、ビーチはというと。とっても気持ちがいい。もうオフシーズンとあって混雑はしてないけど、ファミリーやカップルが最後の夏を楽しんでいました。海水もまだ温かかく、波のずっと向こうの方にマンハッタンが幻の島のように浮かび上がっているのが見え、とっても素敵でした。

帰りは34丁目でフェリーに下ろしてもらい、最後の力を振り絞って帰宅。

今回もやっぱりサムさんのお陰で、朝練、闇連付きの合宿のような壮絶なプチ自転車旅行となりました。

Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong in Conversation with Michael Mayer: The Creators of Broadway's American Idiot

	Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong in Conversation with Michael Mayer:  The Creators of Broadway's American Idiot

http://www.92y.org/shop/event_detail.asp?productid=T-LC5BT03 

先週末に参加してきました。


＜個人的な嗜好で付けた映画のレーティング＞

Cairo Time　★★★★　配役が最高でした。

Eat Pray Love　★★★　うーん、ラストは好き。

Going the Distance　★★★★★★　脇役たちが「Chasing Amy」を彷彿させる。これ絶対見て欲しい！

Inception　★★★　自分の中でマトリックスと被ってしまった。

The Kids Are All Right　★★★　中年期のあなたへ。

 

 

 

 

 

 

The NY Times 記事「 American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?」

日本でも随分と話題にのぼっているそうですが。グランドゼロから２ブロックの場所にモスクを建設するか否かを巡って、再び“自由で平等な国、アメリカ”が試されています。９１１テロは９年経った今も、多くの人に悲しみを与え続けています。今回もモスク建設論争から新たに生まれたイスラム教徒への憎悪の念によって、善良なイスラム教のタクシードライバーが若い白人男性によって殺されました。記事には自由を求めてアメリカに移住して来たイスラム教徒の人々が困惑している様子が描かれています。

通っていた大学で世界経済を教えていた教授は“人が他の国へ移動する最も明らかな理由は‘経済力の向上を求めてだ’”と言っていました。ひとつの神以外信じてはいけない教えを受けた者が他の宗教徒との共存を法律で定められている国で生きてゆく事は、日本古来の「精霊信仰／アミニズム」などを理解出来る日本人には到底考えられないと思うのだけれど、移住して来た理由が経済的なものであるなら、ここで生きていく以上彼らに取ってはそのあり得ない“寛容や妥協”といった知恵が必要だと思いました。

前回の冬期オリンピックを見ている時に、アメリカ生まれの日本人がアメリカ代表として出場しているのを見て”アメリカの人は懐が深い”、と思わず唸ったのですが、宗教上の問題となると分かったつもりでいて、全く次元が違うようです。

September 5, 2010

American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

For nine years after the attacks of Sept. 11, many American Muslims made concerted efforts to build relationships with non-Muslims, to make it clear they abhor terrorism, to educate people about Islam and to participate in interfaith service projects. They took satisfaction in the observations by many scholars that Muslims in America were more successful and assimilated than Muslims in Europe.
Now, many of those same Muslims say that all of those years of work are being rapidly undone by the fierce opposition to a Muslim cultural center near ground zero that has unleashed a torrent of anti-Muslim sentiments and a spate of vandalism. The knifing of a Muslim cab driver in New York City has also alarmed many American Muslims.
“We worry: Will we ever be really completely accepted in American society?” said Dr. Ferhan Asghar, an orthopedic spine surgeon in Cincinnati and the father of two young girls. “In no other country could we have such freedoms — that’s why so many Muslims choose to make this country their own. But we do wonder whether it will get to the point where people don’t want Muslims here anymore.”
Eboo Patel, a founder and director of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based community service program that tries to reduce religious conflict, said, “I am more scared than I’ve ever been — more scared than I was after Sept. 11.”
That was a refrain echoed by many American Muslims in interviews last week. They said they were scared not as much for their safety as to learn that the suspicion, ignorance and even hatred of Muslims is so widespread. This is not the trajectory toward integration and acceptance that Muslims thought they were on.
Some American Muslims said they were especially on edge as the anniversary of 9/11 approaches. The pastor of a small church in Florida has promised to burn a pile of Korans that day. Muslim leaders are telling their followers that the stunt has been widely condemned by Christian and other religious groups and should be ignored. But they said some young American Muslims were questioning how they could simply sit by and watch the promised desecration.
They liken their situation to that of other scapegoats in American history: Irish Roman Catholics before the nativist riots in the 1800s, the Japanese before they were put in internment camps during World War II.
Muslims sit in their living rooms, aghast as pundits assert over and over that Islam is not a religion at all but a political cult, that Muslims cannot be good Americans and that mosques are fronts for extremist jihadis. To address what it calls a “growing tide of fear and intolerance,” the Islamic Society of North America plans to convene a summit of Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders in Washington on Tuesday.
Young American Muslims who are trying to figure out their place and their goals in life are particularly troubled, said Imam Abdullah T. Antepli, the Muslim chaplain at Duke University.
“People are discussing what is the alternative if we don’t belong here,” he said. “There are jokes: When are we moving to Canada, when are we moving to Sydney? Nobody will go anywhere, but there is hopelessness, there is helplessness, there is real grief.”
Mr. Antepli just returned from a trip last month with a rabbi and other American Muslim leaders to Poland and Germany, where they studied the Holocaust and the events that led up to it (the group issued a denunciation of Holocaust denial on its return).
“Some of what people are saying in this mosque controversy is very similar to what German media was saying about Jews in the 1920s and 1930s,” he said. “It’s really scary.”
American Muslims were anticipating a particularly joyful Ramadan this year. For the first time in decades, the monthlong holiday fell mostly during summer vacation, allowing children to stay up late each night for the celebratory iftar dinner, breaking the fast, with family and friends.
But the season turned sour.
The great mosque debate seems to have unleashed a flurry of vandalism and harassment directed at mosques: construction equipment set afire at a mosque site in Murfreesboro, Tenn; a plastic pig with graffiti thrown into a mosque in Madera, Calif.; teenagers shooting outside a mosque in upstate New York during Ramadan prayers. It is too soon to tell whether hate crimes against Muslims are rising or are on pace with previous years, experts said. But it is possible that other episodes are going unreported right now.
“Victims are reluctant to go public with these kinds of hate incidents because they fear further harassment or attack,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “They’re hoping all this will just blow over.”
Some Muslims said their situation felt more precarious now — under a president who is perceived as not only friendly to Muslims but is wrongly believed by many Americans to be Muslim himself — than it was under President George W. Bush.
Mr. Patel explained, “After Sept. 11, we had a Republican president who had the confidence and trust of red America, who went to a mosque and said, ‘Islam means peace,’ and who said ‘Muslims are our neighbors and friends,’ and who distinguished between terrorism and Islam.”
Now, unlike Mr. Bush then, the politicians with sway in red state America are the ones whipping up fear and hatred of Muslims, Mr. Patel said.
“There is simply the desire to paint an entire religion as the enemy,” he said. Referring to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed Muslim center near ground zero, “What they did to Imam Feisal was highly strategic. The signal was, we can Swift Boat your most moderate leaders.”
Several American Muslims said in interviews that they were stunned that what provoked the anti-Muslim backlash was not even another terrorist attack but a plan by an imam known for his work with leaders of other faiths to build a Muslim community center.
This year, Sept. 11 coincides with the celebration of Eid, the finale to Ramadan, which usually lasts three days (most Muslims will begin observing Eid this year on Sept. 10). But Muslim leaders, in this climate, said they wanted to avoid appearing to be celebrating on the anniversary of 9/11. Several major Muslim organizations have urged mosques to use the day to participate in commemoration events and community service.
Ingrid Mattson, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, said many American Muslims were still hoping to salvage the spirit of Ramadan.
“In Ramadan, you’re really not supposed to be focused on yourself,” she said. “It’s about looking out for the suffering of other people. Somehow it feels bad to be so worried about our own situation and our own security, when it should be about empathy towards others.”

The NY Times 記事「A Day to Dance or Weep?」

誕生日があの911と同じ日。テロ事件以来、二度と自分の誕生日を心から祝えなくなった人、祝ってもらえない人。やりきれない悲しみを抱えた人たちの思いが綴られています。日本だと、例えば「地下鉄サリン事件」の日・・・となるのでしょうか。“出来る事なら誕生日を変えたい”という意見もあり、他人事で済ます前に、もし自分だったらと考えさせられる記事でした。日本にいるときよりIDを見せる機会が多いと思いますが、その度に相手から異様なリアクションをされたら彼らに取ってもウンザリだろう。 911は世界中を震撼させた事件だけに、アメリカ人以外にも同じ悩みを持つ人も多いことだろう。

September 3, 2010

A Day to Dance or Weep?

By AIMEE LEE BALL

ON the morning of her 40th birthday, Dana Foote woke up to blue skies and indulgent plans: a massage, a facial and a party with friends at a favorite Italian restaurant in her Greenwich Village neighborhood. She dropped off her young son and daughter at school and was chatting on the sidewalk with a few other mothers when a plane flew overhead, noticeably loud and low. A few minutes later, a school official came out to report that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. And Ms. Foote arrived home just in time to see the second plane crash, from the terrace of her apartment.
Perhaps it is needless to say: the birthday was forgotten.
Every year since, there is a strange confluence of events for those born on Sept. 11. It might be a point of pride to share a birthday with literary lions (D. H. Lawrence and O. Henry) or celebrities (Maria Bartiromo, Brian De Palma, Valentino and Moby), but sharing the day with a national tragedy is a conundrum.
Many believe that it’s inappropriate to be festive while the rest of the country observes a somber anniversary. Every time they fill out a form at a doctor’s office, show a driver’s license to rent a car, clear passport control at the airport or otherwise present identification, they get a quizzical response, somewhere between sympathy and shock.
“I preface showing my ID by saying, ‘It’s a strange birthday,’ ” said Ms. Foote, a gift-bag designer, who attends a memorial service every year on Sept. 11 before she feels entitled to celebrate. “I sort of apologize for that day. And I always get ‘The Look.’ ”
The phenomenon is perhaps akin to a Dec. 7 birthday for an earlier generation, but unlike Pearl Harbor, 9/11 is an event known by the date it occurred, forming an immediate visceral association.
Some people born on Sept. 11 deflect attention with the European calendar format: day before month. Obstetricians report women due to deliver on Sept. 11 who insist on scheduling an earlier C-section to avoid saddling their child with a tainted birthday. At P.S. 22 in Staten Island, children born on Sept. 11 made a poignant video declaring that their birthday had been “taken away” and “ruined.”
The day of the attack was the 50th birthday of Holly Hotchner, director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, and a large party was planned, with guests from around the world. Many of them never made it, once the airports shut down. “And nobody felt like a party,” Ms. Hotchner said.
Instead, she bought a big tin of caviar and a quantity of vodka. “And that is a tradition I’ve continued,” she said, “although the tin has gotten smaller — I spent too much that year.” But she regrets that she cannot yet make a pilgrimage to a memorial garden at the site of the trade center, which remains essentially a hole in the ground. “It would be comforting to go down there on my birthday,” she said, “and see that wounds had been healed.”
New Yorkers may assume squatters’ rights to the heartbreak of that day, but a Sept. 11 birthday can feel stigmatized in any part of the country. Deborah Newmyer, a TV and film producer in Los Angeles, will continue her tradition of lunch with beloved female friends on her 52nd birthday this year. “But I’ve never claimed the date back as my birthday,” she said. “It’s always overshadowed by something grander than my coming into the world.”
Barbara Rambo, a management consultant in San Francisco, had once worked in Tower Two and spent the early hours of her 49th birthday watching that building crumble. “Being 3,000 miles away made the feeling of helplessness grow exponentially,” she said.
Her “cake” that year: brownies made by her son for a sidewalk bake sale to benefit the families of firefighters who died in the rescue effort. Several weeks later, 9-year-old Stewart Goossens presented Engine Company 3 in Manhattan with a check for $457.93. “I lost a lot friends on 9/11,” Ms. Rambo said, “so every year part of that day is spent thinking about them.”
On the day of the attack, G. Parker Johnson was having a birthday breakfast with cousins at a greasy spoon in his hometown, Atlanta. “While I was eating, there were six missed calls and four messages on my cellphone,” he said. “I thought they’d be birthday greetings, but they were all saying basically, ‘Dude, are you watching this?’ ”
“Every birthday since then has been a more sober experience than it otherwise would be,” said Mr. Johnson, now 42 and a music producer in Lyons, Colo. “It’s hard to celebrate when you know thousands of people are directly mourning a loss, and millions of others are mourning indirectly. I did not have a big blowout 40th birthday because of 9/11. It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the corner.”
Hiding under the covers on his birthday makes no sense to Kareem Collie, a graphic designer from Brooklyn who will turn 36 this Sept. 11. “I recognize what took place that day, but I don’t internalize it,” he said. “When I look back on 9/11, it’s an event that happened on one day in the monumental number of birthdays I hope to have in my life,” he said. “That day does not represent me, it represents a horrible event.”
Others refuse any restraint out of a conviction that they must not hand the terrorists even the tiniest victory. “My birthday has always been my favorite holiday because it’s all about me,” said Lara Goerlitz, a catering manager at the Houstonian Hotel in Houston. “I worked nights at the time of the attack, and I was sleeping in that morning, but my phone kept ringing. I finally answered a call from one of my best friends, who was sobbing. My birthday was really an afterthought that year.”
But in the ensuing decade, Ms. Goerlitz has reclaimed her party-girl mode with a vengeance, and for her 40th birthday this year will take a dream trip to Europe. “The most profound effect on me from the World Trade Center was realizing how short life is,” she said. “What I took from it was: carpe diem.”
Sometimes an effort to celebrate “normally” backfires. Jennifer Parenti, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, was stationed in Boston on the first anniversary of 9/11, which was her 29th birthday.
“We had a fairly solemn memorial service at the time the plane had hit the Pentagon,” she said. “One of our bosses gave a speech, and then he said, ‘Now everybody wish Jennifer a happy birthday!’ And they had cake. It felt rather weird.”
And sometimes a little child shall lead them. When Dahlia Gruen was sent home from school in Boston on the day of the attack and realized that her parents weren’t at work, she first thought they’d come home early to celebrate her 10th birthday.
“There were rumors about an airplane crash,” she said, “but it didn’t really sink in.” The following year, she commemorated the day as a true child of the digital age: She created a Web site called Birthday Spirit, encouraging fellow Sept. 11 birthday babies to take a cake to their local firehouse. “I wanted to change the way I celebrate,” said Ms. Gruen, now a freshman at Northwestern University, “to do some good.” Another site called the Philanthropic Family suggests celebrating a Sept. 11 birthday with a day of service or charitable donation.
The day of the attack was to be Catherine Karp’s 30th birthday, with classical connotations of imminent decrepitude. “It’s the first birthday that lets you buy black plates at the party store,” said Ms. Karp, a novelist in Portland, Ore.
She has briefly considered celebrating her birthday on Sept. 10 or 12. “But that doesn’t feel right,” she said. “The shadow of the day is always there and always will be there, but I’m not going to let anybody take the day away.”
Next year, her 40th birthday will coincide with the 10th anniversary at ground zero. “I don’t feel the huge dread I might have felt otherwise,” Ms. Karp said. “The events of that day made aging seem like such a minor worry.”
Indulging in black humor, Mark Pener suggested that “the tragedy of turning 40” this Sept. 11 will fit the somber mood of the day. “Sometimes I tell people that I’ve legally changed my birthday,” said Mr. Pener, a construction consultant in Brookline, Mass.
“I wish it were possible, maybe through an act of Congress,” he said. “My birthdays are always pretty low key, but this year I think there’s something secret brewing with my family. Maybe they’re changing my birthday by entering me in the witness protection program.”
Choosing one’s birthday may not be an option, but there are 365 choices for a wedding day, and Elizabeth Brown-Inz chose Sept. 11 for her marriage to John Kingman. “We wanted the wedding on a Saturday in warm weather, and everything was booked for June, July and August,” said Ms. Brown-Inz, the membership manager at the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan. “I’m not superstitious, and I decided 9/11 was fine.”
It became even finer when she discovered that the date was actually her late grandparents’ anniversary, and their legacy seemed to confer a welcome sanction for Ms. Brown-Inz.
Even if she’s not superstitious.

The NY Times 記事「Asian-Americans Climb Fashion Industry Ladder」

間もなく始まる2011春夏ニューヨーク・ファッション・ウィーク。今年はブライアントパークからリンカンセンターへと会場を移しての初の開催となります。もうひとつ初の試みが、“Fashion GPS”を導入したチェックインシステムです。デザイナー側があらかじめQRコードをEメールで招待客に送信しておき、当日バーコードを発券して入場するそうです。QRコードを貰っていない場合は、チェックイン・カウンターへ言ってRSVPで登録した名前を告げて同様にバーコードを貰います。このバーコードを手にしない限り会場には入れない訳です。来場する側としては少々心配で、いつもより確認に時間を割いてしまいそう。そんなショーの開催を５日後に控えたこの土曜日、NYタイムズのトップセクションの下の方に面白い記事が載っていました。

 かつてカルバン・クライン、ダナ・キャラン、マーク・ジェイコブス、マイケル・コースといったユダヤ人デザイナーが牽引していた米国ファッション界ですが、最近ではまだ27歳という若さのジェイソン・ウーを始め、アレキサンダー・ワン、リチャード・カイ、デレク・ラムといった若いアジア人デザイナーの活躍が目立っています。今年６月に発表されたCFDAの受賞者も全てアジア人。そんな彼らにインタビューをしながら、トップに躍り出ていくアジア人デザイナーの潜在能力のありかを検証しています。

September 4, 2010

Asian-Americans Climb Fashion Industry Ladder

By ERIC WILSON

The mood was set early at the American fashion awards ceremony at Lincoln Center in June, an event often likened to the Oscars of the fashion world, with a guest list that included celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker and Gwyneth Paltrow and almost every top designer.
In quick succession, three men were called to the stage to accept their awards as the best new designers of the year: Richard Chai for men’s wear, Jason Wu for women’s wear and Alexander Wang for accessories.
It was the first time that all three prizes given by the Council of Fashion Designers of America were awarded to designers who are Asian-American. That same night, the fashion council announced three scholarships, each for $25,000, won by student designers of Asian heritage.
“It’s so exciting,” said Mr. Wu, who became a household name not only in this country, but also in his native Taiwan, when his dress was selected by Michelle Obama for her husband’s inauguration. “Not too long ago, Donna Karan and Michael Kors were the young designers of America. Now there are a lot of firsts for all of us as Asian-American designers.”
Their ascent to the top tier of New York fashion represents an important demographic shift on Seventh Avenue. At the Fashion Week that begins here on Thursday, many of the most promising new designers are of Asian descent, a group that includes Mr. Wang and Mr. Wu; Thakoon Panichgul, one of the stars of the documentary “The September Issue,” about Vogue magazine; Prabal Gurung; Phillip Lim; and Derek Lam — names that are increasingly likely to represent the future of fashion.
Major design schools around the world have seen an influx of Asian-American and Asian-born students since the 1990s, partly through their own recruitment efforts in countries with rapidly developing fashion industries, like South Korea and Japan, and partly because of changing attitudes in those countries about fashion careers. At Parsons the New School for Design, roughly 70 percent of its international students enrolled in the school of fashion now come from Asia, according to school officials. At the Fashion Institute of Technology, 23 percent of the nearly 1,200 students now enrolled are either Asian or Asian-American.
“F.I.T. is a pretty diverse place, but this is the most obvious change we have seen,” said Joanne Arbuckle, the dean of its school of art and design. “It is remarkable when you compare it to many years ago. I don’t think we ever had these numbers of students from Asian countries or Asian-American students. And it is a growing population.”
The rise of Asian designers in America has actually come in several smaller waves, including one that marked the emergence of Anna Sui and Vera Wang in the 1980s. In the last few years, however, as a new generation of designers has asserted itself in New York, Asian-Americans have been at the forefront. In 1995, there were only about 10 Asian-American members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Today there are at least 35.
This has happened largely for the same reason that the New York fashion industry, through the ’80s, was populated most visibly by designers of Jewish heritage, like Calvin Klein, Ms. Karan, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and Mr. Kors. Throughout the 20th century, generations of Jewish immigrants had created a thriving garment district in New York, first as laborers, then as factory owners, manufacturers, retailers and, eventually, as designers. Many of today’s Asian-American designers say they experienced a similar evolution from the factory to the catwalk, since some of their parents and grandparents were once involved in the production of clothes.
Mr. Lam, whose luxury ready-to-wear collections evoke a classically uptown ideal, is a designer of Chinese descent who came to New York by way of San Francisco. His grandparents owned a factory there producing bridal gowns. His father imported clothing from Hong Kong, but Mr. Lam said he wanted to pursue a more creative course and enrolled in Parsons, graduating in 1990. Before starting his label in 2002, he worked for Mr. Kors in New York.
“I grew up around clothes,” Mr. Lam said. “It was like a default. Fashion became one of the few outlets for Asian-Americans who wanted to put their name out there.”
When he went out on his own, Mr. Lam, though well received, faced a difficult road. No one bought his first collection, and he and his business partner had invested their savings in the business.
But after several seasons, the collection took off. He has since won several awards, including the accessories prize from the fashion council in 2007; opened two stores Manhattan; and developed a clothing and accessories line for the luxury brand Tod’s. During a recent trip to Shanghai and Beijing, he said, he was stunned by the level of awareness of his work there.
“There is this understanding that there is a group of Asian-American designers who are coming up in the world, and there is a sense of pride,” Mr. Lam said.
The cultural changes that have enabled would-be designers to pursue their chosen careers have happened slowly. Ms. Sui told The International Herald Tribune in 2008 that designers of her generation were often asked by their families, “Why do you want to be a dressmaker when you could be a doctor?”
Mr. Wu said those pressures were still there as recently as a decade ago. “When I was applying to Parsons, my mother had never heard of it,” he said. “Now, everyone in the generation after me wants to go to Parsons. Fashion has become a more prominent career in the eyes of Asian parents.”
Unlike the avant-garde work of Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake — Japanese designers who took Paris by storm in the 1980s — there is no discernible aesthetic connection among the designs of Asian-Americans. Alexander Wang’s street style looks nothing like Mr. Lam’s polished dresses, nor the colorful mash-up prints of Peter Som, who also consults on sportswear for Tommy Hilfiger. None would care to identify their styles as “Asian-American.” Carmen Chen Wu, a Parsons student who received one of the fashion scholarships this year, noted that she is of Chinese descent, but was born in Spain, “so technically, I’m a Spaniard.”
But one thing their heightened visibility has done for them as a group is to create opportunities in Asia, where the realm of luxury fashion had long been exclusive to traditional European houses like Louis Vuitton and Chanel.
Since his triumph with Mrs. Obama, Mr. Wu has been invited to return to Taiwan in October to help design a residential building, and he is developing a line of eye shadows with Shiseido that will be sold throughout China. Mr. Som said his business was growing faster in Asia than anywhere else, noting that the speed of information today has made consumers in South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand as knowledgeable about new designers as they are about the historically major brands. Mr. Lam said he had been invited to return to China next month to appear as a judge on “Creative Sky,” a popular new reality television competition.
On that show, aspiring fashion designers compete in a series of runway challenges, much like those on “Project Runway” in the United States. The major difference is that the ultimate prize is not the chance to show a collection at Fashion Week, but something that is now becoming far more prestigious in Asia.
The winner gets the opportunity to go to Parsons — as a student.

The NY TImes 記事: Nordstrom Links Online Inventory to Real World

２週間前オンライン・ショッピング・サイト「WWW.ZAPPOS.COM」でレースアップ・ブーツを購入してみた。上げると切りがない程オンラインショップのサイトはあるが、SHOPZILLA.COM、AMAZON.COM、NET-A-PORTERから、デパートや小売り店が管理するオンラインショップまで、どれもユー ザーフレンドリーなサイトのデザインにビックリする。例えば何点か続けて「アンクルブーツ／Booties」をクリックすると、選ばなくてもサイトの中 から似たアイテムも探しててきて提案してくれる。“ブーツ”というカテゴリーでもデザインは様々だし、何百というアイテムを全てチェックしなくても良いので便利だ。どんどん提案してくれるので決められなくなってしまう、という欠点はあるが、欲しいものと更に近いものを見せてくれるのであれば、購入する時には自分も満足してるに違いない。

先日オンラインを利用したおもしろい搬入システムの記事を読んだ。「消費者がオンラインで在庫から目当ての商品を見つけ、買わずに最寄りの店舗にその商品を取り寄せ、良かったら買う」というシステムだ。ウォールマートから始まったといわれる搬入システムのひとつ。より消費者の立場に立っていて有りそうでなかったアイデアだが、巧みなロジスティックの開発なくしてはあり得ない。大手デパートの「ノードストローム」もこのシステムを利用したところ売り上げが伸びているという。

これまでカリフォルニア、シカゴ、ダラス、ニューヨークと住んでみて、気候も違えば人々の生活スタイル、レジャー、食文化、ファッションの好みの違いを目の当たりにした。

――そうなのだ。少し脱線するが、好むと好まざるとは関わらず“郷に行っては郷に従う”で、ダラスでは“いつもゴルフが出来る装い”と言わんばかりに毎日ポロシャツを着ていたし、みんな南部の太陽に良く生える明るい色の装いが多かった。独特のメガチャーチが台頭し「Dress Barn」風なファッションをして教会へ行く人を多く見かけた。引っ越して来て驚いたのは、東京以上にニューヨーカーが黒っぽい装いをしている事だ。80年—90年代にコムデ・ギャルソンやYOJIが注目され、感化されていつも黒い服を来ていた事を思い出す。まさに“ブラック”がスタンダードという時代だった気がして懐かしくなったのだが。――

当然全米で展開するデパートは、各店にローカライズされた賢い品揃えが必要だが、今回の記事にあるように“消費者がワ ン アイテムから直接商品の搬入を希望出来るシステム”があれば、確実に売れる商品が店舗に増えるのだ。例えそのアイテムが売れなかったとしても、その地域の 消費者がどんなアイテムやカラーを好んでいるのかが分かり、同じ志向の消費者がいる確率は別の地域よりも高いといえる。結果、２番目に見た消費者がそれを購入して行くことも考えられる。そんな傾向を素早くロジスティックがキャッチして、見込みのある品を店舗へ送る、なんて事も出来そうだ。小売り店もオンラインショップのように完全に消費者主導になって、MD要らずのストア・オペレーションなんて時代が来るかもしれない。でもその結果、値下げ品が減ったりしたら、バーゲンセール好きな一消費者としては大変困るのだが。

August 23, 2010

Nordstrom Links Online Inventory to Real World

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

SEATTLE — Retailers have been flailing about a bit in their efforts to get people to shop again, deploying all sorts of gimmicks and promotions to spur customer spending.
Wal-Mart hoped that deeper cuts in its standard rollbacks would be a draw, but then said the prices went too low. At Saks, perhaps customers would go for designer labels if the lines offered less-expensive items. And for Macy’s, how about inexpensive clothes by Madonna?
The secret, at least for Nordstrom, has not involved a piercing insight into a customer’s mind. Rather, it has changed the way that it handles, of all things, inventory. And that has brought the department store more success in improving sales than at most of its competitors, whose recent reports signaled that their consumers were still cautious.
The change works this way: Say that a shopper was looking at a blue Marc Jacobs handbag at Nordstrom.com. She could see where it was available at nearby stores, and reserve it for pickup the same day.
More significant, if the Web warehouse was out of that bag, it did not matter. Inventory from Nordstrom’s 115 regular stores is also included. Maybe there was just one handbag left in the entire company, sitting forlornly in the back of the Roosevelt Field store — it would be displayed online and store employees would ship it to the Web customer.
What Nordstrom did on its Web site — displaying stock from both the Web warehouse and its stores all at once, was unusual. And that, said Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct, drove “some pretty meaningful results.”
In fact, Nordstrom, based in Seattle, has been the department store with one of the best improvements in same-store sales over the last year, when its overall sales reached $8.26 billion. While it may not seem revolutionary, a melding of Web site and store is surprisingly rare in the retailing world.
“You’re talking about traditional retailers that have traditional ways of doing things, and sometimes those barriers are hard to break down,” said Adrianne Shapira, an analyst at Goldman Sachs.
Wal-Mart has added a feature where online shoppers can ship items to nearby stores, and Target.com shows which stores carry which items, but customers cannot buy them in advance.
Among Nordstrom’s competitors, such fluidity is hard to find, Ms. Shapira said. “I don’t see anyone going to the length they are,” she said of Nordstrom. In the 11 months since Nordstrom made the inventory change, its same-store sales — sales at stores open more than a year, a crucial measure in retail — have outperformed the department store average measured by Thomson Reuters.
In those 11 months, Nordstrom’s same-store sales increased by an average of 8 percent. In the 11 months before the shift, they decreased an average of 11.9 percent. (The improvement is not all because of the inventory change — the economy improved, and Nordstrom made other operating changes.)
Nordstrom began overhauling its online approach two years ago, adding the option to shop and buy online and pick up the item in a store. “It was the first thing that we did, because the No. 1 call we got at our call center was, ‘Hey, I’m looking at this item online, can I look at it at my store?’ ” Mr. Nordstrom said.
The company was also trying to increase the number of people who shopped at Nordstrom in more than one way, since those so-called multichannel shoppers spend four times, on average, what a one-source shopper does, Mr. Nordstrom said.
Inventory was a big issue, too. If Nordstrom.com did not have the item someone wanted, it was not as if the customer would wait for the company to restock it, Mr. Nordstrom said. “If we don’t have it, you’re going to go back to Google and say, ‘Who else has it?’ ” he said. “We have 115 full-line stores out there — chances are one of them has it.”
In September 2009, the company wove in individual stores’ inventory to the Web site, so that essentially all of the stores were also acting as warehouses for online.
Results were immediate. The percentage of customers who bought merchandise after searching for an item on the site doubled on the first day, and has stayed there (although, Mr. Nordstrom cautioned, that doubling was from a small base).
“Customers that were looking for an item, we had their size,” he said. That meant the company hired a few more shipping employees to wrap and send items from each store. But, he said, increased sales more than offset the cost.
It also means that inventory is moving faster, and often at higher prices. “If we’re out of something on the Web site, it’s probably late in the season and the stores are trying to clear it out,” he said. “By pulling merchandise from the store, you’ve now dramatically lessened the likelihood that you’ll take a markdown.”
Nordstrom’s inventory turnover, which measures how quickly a company goes through inventory in a given year, went to 5.41 in 2009 from 4.84 in 2005, a five-year high.
“The health of our business when we’re turning faster versus turning slower, it’s night and day,” Mr. Nordstrom said.
Keith Jelinek, director in the global retail practice at the consulting firm AlixPartners, said that Nordstrom’s changes could give it a competitive advantage, but showing accurate inventory information to customers was difficult.
“The customer ordering via the Web site is not concerned with where the product is, only that it is in stock,” Mr. Jelinek said in an e-mail message, but that could easily go wrong if a sales clerk entered an incorrect item number, which would “incorrectly display what the customer could see online. While, for the retailer, their financial inventory is still accurate.”
On Saturday, Nordstrom introduced an updated Web site, trying to make it more interesting for customers and easier to navigate.
The new site adds editorial features, like blogs about fashion and videos and photos of Nordstrom customers showing the clothes they chose for work and for weddings. Mr. Nordstrom said the company drew from sites like Net-a-Porter, which combine magazinelike stories with shopping. The site will also allow customers to post messages or photos. While customers are no doubt swamped with social-networking options already, Mr. Nordstrom pointed to the more than 120,000 product reviews added to Nordstrom.com since that feature was introduced last fall.
The company has also improved how shoppers can search for products, allowing searches with multiple criteria — check boxes allow someone to search for, say, a purple cocktail dress under $150 for a curvy figure.
Web-design experts asked to review the site were split on its success. Martin Zagorsek, a partner at Launch Collective, a fashion-business consulting firm, said that the editorial features did not promote the products mentioned within them, which was “a no-brainer.”
But Andy Rhodes, director for commerce at the marketing firm SapientNitro, said that Nordstrom had long been ahead of the game on the digital-to-physical connection, “and it’s nice to see they’ve brought that capability to the forefront with the new Nordstrom.com.”
All the changes, Mr. Nordstrom said, were about satisfying customers, but that translated into profits.
“We can sell more without having to buy more inventory,” he said. “That plays through to margins and, ultimately, earnings.”

yogurt-like taste

ベターホームのレシピで作ってみました
「ヨーグルト・ホワイト・シチュー」＜http://www.bh-recipe.jp/recipe/301800002.html＞。

珍しく自分で写真も撮ってみた☆ヨーグルトがすご〜く爽やかな風味をだしていて、とっても夏向き。

 先にミルクだけで10分くらい煮て、具が煮込まれた所へヨーグルトを入れて５分。→のところをミルクだけでなかなか具がヒタヒタにならなかったので、焦って一緒にヨーグルトを入れてしまったのが愚か。具の分量を欲張ったのが裏目に。次回はちゃんと作ってみて、味に違いが出るか確認してみようっと。レシピにはブイヨンとか書いてないんだけど、チキンブイヨンいれたらもっとコクがでるかも。カリフラワーもあまり使わないベジタブルなので自分としては新鮮だった〜☆ パセリが少量買い出来ず、残りをどうにか出来ないか思案中。

ベターホームのレシピは、日本にいる時に日経新聞に掲載されていたのを使うようになって知りました。思えば日本橋でOLしていた時、友達が数名こちらの料理教室へ通っていました。あの時は、気づかなかったけど、こういったシンプルで美味しいお料理の紹介は助かります♡

BICYCLE TIMES MAG

こんな雑誌がありました。今まで見た事もなかったけど。何かにハマると少しずつ世界が広がってゆくものだ、と共にお金も出て行くわけで・・・。

ちなみにNYへ越してきてからの愛読雑誌は「Time Out New York」。略して“TONY”と文中では使われてます。東京版「Time Out」は、幾つかのマルチリンガルで発進されているオンラインマガジンのようです。

なんと、創刊されたのはロンドンだそう（以下タイムアウトから抜粋）：

 

タイムアウト／Time Outについて

Time Out (タイムアウト) は、1968年にロンドンで創刊されて以来、40年以上の長きに渡って、読者から信頼と支持を集めているライフスタイルマガジンです。

タイムアウトカフェ&ダイナー／Time Out Cafe & Diner 

http://www.timeoutcafe.jp/info/index.html 

Time Out（タイムアウト）としては、『世界初』となるブランドを冠したカフェを東京・恵比寿にオープン（2009年４月）。
リーズナブルな食事と心地よい空間に、無料WiFiを完備し、将来は、外国人観光客や外国人居住者をターゲットにしたインフォメーションセンターとしての役割を担います。

moulton

今度は大事にするからね♡
目下我が家のベイビーです。３週間くらい前にやってきました。かなり過保護で雨の日デビューもまだです。暫くこの親バカ振りは続くでしょう。

というのも、私たちにとってこのバイクには大変な思い入れがあります。５年前のある大雨の日、恵比寿ボール前から無くなった愛車が「モールトン」でした。盗まれてから早くも５年の月日が経とうとしているなんて。あの時は人の物を盗むとは、一体どういう神経しているんだ？！って怒り心頭。余りにガッカリしているサムを見て、叱る気にもならず。無くすのと違って、思い入れのある物を盗まれるって本当に胸が痛むんです。盗んだ方はどうなんだろう？

そして、写真のこちら「50周年記念モデル」NYCで見つけました。イギリス生まれのモールトン<www.moultonbicycles.co.uk>。扱う自転車屋さんはアメリカにはそうありません。マンハッタンでは２件程。現在市場としては、日本、韓国が大きいそうです。乗り心地は抜群ですが、実は運転は慣れないとちょっと難しいです。まずハンドブレーキは右のみで前タイヤ用に付いているだけ。後ろのブレーキは、ペダルを反対回りにゆっくり押すような感じで使います。また、ペダルを一瞬軽く止めるようにするとギアが変わります。だから基本的にペダルは後ろにただカラカラと回せません。バランスを取る時にこの動作が癖になってたりすると最初ちょっと危ないです。例えば、あわてて後ろにベダルを回すと止まっちゃうので余計にバランスを崩してしまうからです。ギアは全部で４段階あり、ペダルを一瞬止める先ほどのやり方で２段階、ペダル付け根を内側に軽く押して変える方法で２段階です。その昔教習所でマニアル車のギアチェンジを（必修だったっけ？）練習して時のように、感覚を掴むのにちょっとだけ時間を要します。

さて自転車オーナーになって、目線が自転車に乗る人たちに注がれるようになりました。今までは気がつかなかったけれど、パーツやアクセサリーなど大変凝った物 を目にします。フレームにはアルミ製やスチール製がありますが、スチールは道路の衝撃を和らげてくれるのでハンドルを持つ腕への負担がアルミより少なくて 良いらしい。一方、アルミ製は軽いため、スピードが出る競技用に多いのだそうです。普通に乗るならスチール製を選んだ方がよさそう。フレームのつなぎ目（brazing加工）にもうんちくがあって、そのつなぎ目部分に装飾が施されていたりするとまたグットなん だそう。他にもサドルは「Brooks」じゃないとダサイとか、空気を入れるつまみのゴムの色まで気にしたりするところは日本人顔まけのマニアレベル。自転車から見る 街の風景の違い以外にも、こんな発見があったとは。いや〜なんか嬉しいというか、こういう人々のエネルギーが東京さながらNYも凄いんですね。

resist or accept???

「受け入れるか、それとも抵抗するか？」

先日日本へ２週間帰ってきました。実に４年半振り。不法滞在とか自転車操業してる訳でもなく、ましてや駐在人の妻で今どきこんなに帰っていない人もいないだろうと思うのですが。これが記録になるなら、I made it!!

と理由はともあれ、今回無事に帰国してきまして、久しぶりに父と会ったり、友達と会ったり、美味しい食事など楽しんできました。後半は、東京へ越して依頼お世話になっている美容師さんのところへいってカットしてもらいました。今日のタイトルはそこでのちょっとした会話から。

とうとう今年早々から40路の道を歩み始めたのですが、時々白髪を発見するようになりました。中にごっそり、とまではいかないのですが、例えばサイドに２本。右後ろの中に一本隠れています的な。

ちなみに2005年の終わりに渡米した時は染めていましたが、途中で染める事が大変になり、いつしか”目指せバージン・カラー”（＝つまり元の髪の色のことですが） に目標が定められて、この４年間その通り実行されました。ずっと染めていたために、私は自分の髪なのにどんな色か思い出せなくなり哀しくなったのです。

今ではその自分の髪の色をすっかり取り戻しましたが、さてここ１年くらいで白髪の存在が気になり出しました。そんな私の次なる目標とは：いつか白髪染めするなら、今こそこの自分の毛色を楽しもう♪。＝結局染めない選択。

今ちなみに日本では茶髪の方がポピュラー。NYにいるから好きな色にしようっていうのはありますけど、今回美容師さんとの間で議題となったのが、こちら

“白髪に抵抗するか、受け入れるか？”

私は言いました。こちらでは黒／茶と白が混ざった髪の人をペッパーと言います。 元々そうでなくても中年でやはり白髪が生えてきたご夫人が、そんなペッパーにようになり、ロングヘアにしていたりという人も見かけます。確か「PAPER」の編集長・キムさんがそうです。そんなのを見ていると“生やしたままにするのも選択肢のうち”と自然に思えてきます。でも、日本では、殊更一般人だと殆ど見かけない気がします。白髪への抵抗を辞め“ペッパー”気取りで楽しむヘアスタイルの選択が日本でも“アリ”になると面白いんですけどね〜。是非ともその時は挑戦してみたい。

hiromi uehara @ central park in june 2010

This photo by Ellora Managaement 


ジャズ・ピアニストの上原ひろみさん。偶然一昨年のニューポート・ジャズ・フェスティバルで初めて聞いた彼女のエネルギッシュな演奏にノックアウトされてファンになりました。以前ブログにも書きましたが、ピアノを鳴らしながら華麗に舞う彼女の足元にフィットしていたその時のプーマが妙に気になって"プーマがスポンサーについている？！"と思ったほど。調べてみると、ご主人様がデザイナーの三原康裕さんであることが分かり“ナルホド”と。それから半年後くらいにハイライン・ボールルームで彼女の初ソロアルバム「Place to be」のライブを見たのですが、足下のプーマも三原さんのドレスも彼女に似合っていて素敵でした。そして、その翌日のWWDの２ページ目に大きく扱われていた彼女の記事を発見。凄いことです。だってJFWでさえこんなに大きく取り扱われないですからね。

さて、先週の水曜日も日中は90Fを超える今日みたいな暑さ。それでも夕方日が落ちるに従って次第に風も出てきました。今回は昨年５月にStanley Clarke trioとの共演で出したアルバム「Jazz In The Garden 」での出演。ブルーノートで見た時と同様に、メローとも、ちょっとcornyとも言えるトリオのサウンドが、彼女のピアノが入ると音が自由に解き放たれて聴き心地もグッと良くなります。

このセントラルパークの夏のイベントに初めて行ったのは、２年前。友達に誘われてランランを聴きに。しかし外野が煩過ぎて“全く”音が聞こえず、帰りは足取りも重くガッカリして家路に着いた事を覚えています。 今回はジャズだから、人の話声もかえって良いだろう、くらいの余裕で出かけて行ったのですが．．．行って驚きました。昨年変えていたのか、今年からなのかは定かでは有りませんが、野外コンサート用にしっかりとホールのほうな場が作られていました。音はしっかり聞けて言う事無し！なんですが、残念だったのがその人工芝。セントラルパークまで行って、青い芝生の上に寝転がれないなんて、ちょっとガッカリじゃありません？

New Even Better!?

http://www.clinique.com/cms/expert_tips_trends/how_to/video_evenbetterclinical.tmpl


本日２日目。

３週間後には違いが目に見えて分かるらしいのだが．．．。シミを無かった事にしてくれるなんて、そんなに都合のいい事があるんだろうか。全く半信半疑でのトライ。

クリニークを日本で購入するのとかなりの高額になってしまう。価格帯はロクシタンよりリーズナブルかもしれないけど。という訳で久しぶりの他ブランドに挑戦。

シミ取り効果のある美容液だけど、こういうのってシワとかリフティング効果はどうなのか？普段は後者の方にばかり気を取られているから、実際に美白作用に特化したこの製品の場合は、他が疎かになってないのか気になったりして。

Banksy's Exit Through The Gift Shop (Exclusive 5 min Extended Sneak Peek)

 今日はあまりにもアパートの外壁工事が煩くて昼間家を飛び出しました！

＜家出主婦の小さな冒険＞
向かったのは、１ブロック先のおなじみ「クリアビュー・シネマ」。そこで見たのが、こちら↑の映画。昨年サンダンス映画祭に出展された「Exit Through The Gift Shop」。

調度１、２ヶ月前からミートパッキングの大きなギャラリーであるアーティストの作品が大々的に展示されているのですが、こちらの映画はなんとそのアーティスト「MBW」こと「Mr. Brain Wash」のドキュメンタリー。

最初は素人が撮っているカメラワークで、酔ったらどうしよう・・・なあんて心配もしたんだけど、だんだん気にならなくなってきて。。。かなり話に引き込まれて行って・・・現実なんだけどとっても非現実の世界に引き込まれて行って．．．気がついたら、撮る側と撮られる側が・・・。う〜ん、凄いよ。あっぱれな展開！

作品で重要な位置を占めるBanskyですが、元々メディアへの露出を一切封印していたアーティスト。これからNYの街を歩きながら、登場したグラフィティー・アーティストやストリート・アーティストの作品を見つけるのが楽しくなりそうです♪

★★★★☆
お勧め♪

１ブロックじゃ、小さな冒険にもなってない？ いえいえ、フィルムのお陰で頭の中ではすっごい冒険だったんだから。笑

American Idiot にハマってみよう！

 (Copyright: Tony Vincent official fan site)

調度一週間前の今日「アメリカン・イディオット」にすっかり魂を奪われ、そのからずっと毎晩家では彼らのCDをかけている私。グリーンディのオリジナルも聞いていますが、私にはパンチがありすぎて．．．というより、歌詞カードが凝りすぎていて読みにくいため（知る人ぞ知る／笑）、どちらかといえば、最初に出会ったミュージカルバージョンの方が取っ付きやすい。いえ、正直に言いましょう！St. Jimmy役のTony Vincentにハマった。物語の真意をつく重要な役所ですが、もの凄いキャラだけに役が乗り移っていて凄いな、と。

さらに今の舞台がオリジナルキャストなので、買ったCDのレコーディングも先日見た彼らがフルキャストされています。新作のミュージカルだと、そんな贅沢が付いてくるのだと初めて気が付いた。

演目は休憩無しの90分。もの凄いパンチがあります。これを20代で見ていたら、また何か違った感じ方をするんだろうなと思う一方で、その日の客席の中に、椅子からはみ出しそうになりながら最初から最後までノリノリだった50代のおばちゃんを見つけて、精神年齢という枠を取っ払って楽しめるアメリカの文化は素晴らしいな、と再認識しました。


Tony Vincent　ファンサイトはこちら
＜http://www.tonyvincentworld.com /bio.htm＞

そしてNYは今年が最後かもしれないということで「トニー・アワード」を見に行く事にしました。もう来週末ですが、それまでにノミネートさ れている作品が出来るだけ多く見られたらいいなと思います。


そして
今90分といえば、これでしょう♪
ESPNやFOX チャンネルも結構この話題で盛り上がっていますが、週末からはいよいよ「ワールドカップ」。南アフリカ大会が始まります。アメリカ東部時間では有り難い事に、朝一でも７時半、２試合目開始が10時で、３試合目開始が2時半と 日中見る事が可能。

今年始めは、これをどこで見ているだろうか、と思っていましたが、今日現在のところNYCで見る事になりそうです。

Killers (2010)

34丁目にある映画館AMC Loewsも朝一だと６ドル♪

という訳で、本日から公開の「Killers」を豪華に一人で見て参りました。はい、私も"ひとり映画派"です。

作品のトーン全体が、父親役のトム・セレック色に染まってる感じがなんともクール！！何が言いたいかといいますと、音楽のチョイスや、殺人描写のタッチが70年代フランス映画を彷彿させるような（すみません、具体的に“これ”と分かったら後で加筆します）。“gross”な場面も一カ所ありましたが、スペンサー役で主演のアシュトン・クッチャーがそんな残忍なシーンも重苦しくさせずに演じてるところが流石。最後の種明かしもチャーミングだし、簡潔してるストーリーラインも私は好きですね。ジェン役のキャサリン・ハイグルとスペンサーが出会う最初のシーンはとってもロマンチック♡だし。まあ、ニースという場所がありがちな設定ではありますが、アシュトン好きな方には満足頂けるかと。（ラブ・アクション・コメディ）

下記のあらすじが作品よりもよく書かれてる？気がしますが（笑）、公開になったら是非見てみて下さい。一人映画にもお勧めの一本♪

Plot Summary for
Killers (2010) More at IMDbPro »

Spencer Aimes (Kutcher) is just your average, undercover, government-hired super-assassin accustomed to a life of exotic European locales, flashy sports cars and even flashier women. But when he meets Jen Kornfeldt (Heigl), a beautiful, fun-loving computer tech recovering from a bad break-up, he finds true love...and happily trades international intrigue for domestic bliss. Three years later, Spencer and Jen are still enjoying a picture-perfect marriage - that is, until the morning after Spencer's 30th birthday. That's when Spencer and Jen learn he's the target of a multi-million dollar hit. Even worse, the hired killers have been stalking the happy couple for years, and could be anyone: friends, neighbors, the grocery store clerk, even that crabby old guy shuffling across the street. Now Spencer and Jen are on the run for their lives. As their suburban paradise turns into a paranoid game of dodge-the-bullet, they must find out who wants Spencer dead and why, all the while trying to save their marriage, manage his in-laws, keep up neighborly appearances ... and just plain survive. Written by Lionsgate

philip johnson glass house, in CT

 

月曜日にメモリアルデーがある今週末のアメリカは３連休です。

その初日に数年前からずっと見たかったフィリップ・ジョンソンの「ガラスの家」を見学してきました。約ひと月前にタイミング良く空きがあり、一年待たずともツアーに参加出来る事に。

場所はNYから電車に揺られて１時間少しの通勤圏内のコネチカット州にある「New Canaan」。小さな街なのに、やたらとベンツやハマーばかり走っていて最初は少し鼻につくのですが、慣れたらゴージャスさを楽しめばいいのです♪

この日の気温は24度くらいで、敷地内に点在する彼の作品や美術館を散策するには絶好の気候でした。そもそもこのNew Kanaan の土地は避暑地らしくNYCに比べても涼しいようですが。

 さて「ガラスの家」ですが、あり得ないくらい格好いいです。実際にジョンソン氏は住んでいましたが、ここだけで生活するのは流石に厳しいのでは？？？というのが率直な感想です。東京へ残してきた家も相当透け透けのエロエロなお家ではありますが（笑）、ここまでくるとアッパレ。お見事な建築でした！

 

Limelight Marketplace

今日は久しぶりにマルコと遊んできました。

14丁目のアップルストアに用事があったらしく、近くまで来たから“出てこない？“と。８アベニューと21丁目に居るというので歩いて向かうと、そこに一緒に居たのは弟のアレックス。少し前からNYに一緒に住み始めたとのこと。懐かし〜♪そして軽く14年振りくらいに３人で街をブラブラすることに。

昔マルコの家で初めて会った時アレックスはまだ高校生だったのに、もう30歳になるそうで、道理で自分もこんなに年を取っている訳だ、と素直に納得。

昔ながらの友は良いもので、話が尽きない。私はマルコのママが大好きだったんだけど、近々シカゴから遊びにくるらしいので是非混ぜてもらう事に。こうしてアミトラノ兄弟と改めて話していてビックリしたのですが、なんと彼らは５人兄弟だったんです。お姉さんのマリアと３人だと信じていたので“他には？”という会話になったことも無かった・・・苦笑。まあ、少し複雑な事情もあるようで、ちなみに長男はハワイにいらっしゃるとか。

話しているうちにユニオンスクエアまで歩いて来て、アレックスの買い物を済ませたので、ここからだとLの電車で一本という彼らがこの冬に引っ越ししたというアパートを見に行く事にしました。

川を渡りブルックリンへ、と言っても電車に揺られる事わずか10分程。駅からも至極の彼らのアパートは、錆びた重い鉄のドアが目印。最初からして格好いい！（しかしお隣りのビルの黄緑色の壁が頂けない／苦笑。＝彼らも承知していました）部屋は３LDK。広々していて、壁もレンガや木がむき出しになっていてかなりクール。もうひとりのルームメイトのニックはマルコの職場仲間で、ダラスに住んでいた事もあるナイスガイでした。

さて、今日３人で一緒にブラブラしたスポットのひとつがこちらの「ライムライト・マーケットプレイス」です。外見は教会ですが、一歩中へ入ると、ショッピングセンターになっています。一時クラブにもなっていた事もあります。空間を色々な高さから体験出来るので、建築／内装に興味のある人は面白いはず。

Church Turned Club Is Now a Market

Librado Romero/The New York Times

Limelight Marketplace emerged after a $15 million renovation, making its interior much brighter than during its club years.

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What is perhaps Manhattan’s best-known former house of worship will be reborn this spring as the Limelight Marketplace, with 35 upscale boutiques and restaurants within its lancet-windowed walls on Avenue of the Americas in Chelsea.

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Librado Romero/The New York Times

The exterior of the Limelight, a building dating from 1844.

The marketplace, in the landmark 19th-century church that once housed the Limelight nightclub, will combine elements of holiday gift bazaars and department stores. Vendors will set up side by side in the 12,000-square-foot complex, some in tiny berths of 100 square feet, and shoppers can pay for their purchases at central checkout counters. It is the first foray into permanent retail spaces for a number of tenants, but available one-year leases will minimize the risk somewhat.
A $15 million gut renovation has made the interior much brighter than in the building’s often-contentious quarter-century as a nightclub, but the space retains the mazelike feel that was a hallmark of the Limelight.
That is partly the point, said the project’s developer, Jack Menashe. “We wanted that feeling of discovery, like you’re finding something new and exciting around every corner,” said Mr. Menashe, who said he had gone to the Limelight in the late 1980s about 10 times. “But we really don’t want to be that associated with the past.”
More than a century ago, the Church of the Holy Communion, whose cornerstone was laid in 1844 at West 20th Street and Sixth Avenue (long before its official name change), hardly seemed notorious. Among the parishioners at the Episcopal church, whose distinctive notched towers were designed by Richard Upjohn, also the architect of Trinity Church near Wall Street, were John Jacob Astor and Cornelius Vanderbilt.
But a century later, a dwindling congregation led the church to consolidate and in 1976, after the last Mass was said, a commune called the Lindisfarne Association took over before decamping for Colorado a few years later.
The Episcopal Church then sold the property to the Odyssey Institute, a drug-counseling organization, for $495,000, before the club mogul Peter Gatien bought it for $1.65 million in 1983. Andy Warhol hosted the Limelight’s opening-night party, and soon crowds were lining up outside to get in.
As popular as it was with clubgoers, however, the Limelight was nearly as popular with the police, who occasionally padlocked its doors after complaints about drug use and dealing. The Limelight closed in 2001, and other clubs operated in the space until 2007.
In 1996, the Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation, which owns shopping centers, took a stake in the property after Mr. Gatien fell behind on his mortgage, later gaining full control after buying the building in bankruptcy court in 2001 for $3.2 million. Mr. Menashe, who has a background in retail, is leasing the space from Ashkenazy, for undisclosed terms.
While the marketplace may intentionally recall the church’s heyday as a club, Mr. Menashe has made efforts to alter its look. On a recent tour of the space, as drills whined, he noted that in many places a limestone wall had been scraped of 15 layers of paint to reveal its natural surface.
Also gone is a D.J. booth that hovered over a Sixth Avenue entrance. But the building, particularly the nave, is unmistakably a church, which sits well with Jon Wye, whose six-year-old leather business will occupy a 250-square-foot space near a recently uncovered round stained-glass window.
Mr. Wye, who is based in Washington, hopes the original detail will help draw attention to his growing business, which rented a stall in December at the Bryant Park holiday market.
Though he would not disclose the cost of his one-year lease, brokers say that $150 a square foot is probably the average for Flatiron district stores without direct street frontage. Whatever the expense, though, the brief lease will allow Mr. Wye to penetrate the Manhattan market while keeping overhead low.
There are 60 spaces in all, and the building is about 90 percent leased, the developers said. Some tenants have taken more than one spot, like Brocade Home, a SoHo store, which will use nine berths on the second floor and one on the ground floor. More established brands include Le Sportsac, Baci Gelato and the bootmaker Hunter, in its first stand-alone New York store.
While there are precedents for what the Limelight Marketplace is doing, brokers say, it is an unusual retail model. Each berth is wired so vendors can set up their own cash register systems to handle sales independently. If investing in costly equipment is too daunting or if vendors lack room in their shops, they can have sales rung up at any of four central registers.
Still, said Robert K. Futterman, a retail broker in New York, historical buildings can be a tough fit for shops because of restrictions on exterior signage, something he said was hurting the shopping mall beneath the Plaza Hotel. Indeed, though Mr. Menashe had sought 13 signs for the Limelight Marketplace, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Committee allowed only eight.
“But if it doesn’t feel like a flea market there, I think it will work,” said Mr. Futterman, who is not connected with the project.
There is concern in the neighborhood, however, that some of the nightclub’s less desirable features could return. The Brooklyn pizzeria Grimaldi’s plans to serve food around the clock with indoor and outdoor seating, and if it receives a beer and wine license, it could attract a rowdy late-night crowd, said Susan Finley, a director of the Flatiron Alliance, an advocacy group, who has lived on West 20th Street for three decades.
Frank Ciolli, owner of Grimaldi’s, said visitors to nearby clubs “may come out hungry” and drop by, but said he would also attract Broadway theatergoers.
Though the renovations are new, some tenants are already familiar with the space. Renee Chow, the owner of Thérapie New York, is taking a 200-square-foot ground-floor space from which to sell items like imported toothpaste. Ms. Chow, who used to dance at the Limelight in her youth, said, “If somebody said then that I was someday going to have a store here, I would probably say, ‘Stop right now.’ ”

A version of this article appeared in print on March 17, 2010, on page B7 of the New York edition.