Calvin Klein Returned to NYFW in Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's Old Office
After a six and a half year hiatus, Calvin Klein showed a collection at New York Fashion Week. The Creative Director, Veronica Leoni is new, but the show space was not—the Calvin Klein headquarters at 205 West 39th Street.
As editors approached the show space on the ground floor of the building in the heart of New York's Garment District, a wave of nostalgia—of visits here for previews, of picking garment bags for shoots, of past shows—was in the air.
The front row held a similar mix of past and present. Calvin Klein himself was there, as well as models long associated with the brand like Kate Moss and Christy Turlington, but there was also Bad Bunny and Cooper Koch. The collection, too, bridged the gap between then and now with an emphasis on the minimalism and tailoring the brand made its signature as well as a bag in the iconic shape of a bottle of CK perfume. Coats were a standout. The show notes highlighted the influence of cinema and the American character, and of underwear too, another trademark of the house.
Of course anytime anyone passes this building another piece of its history comes up. This was the office of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, who worked as a publicist for Calvin Klein. This address was in fact believed to be where she first met her future husband, who had come in for a suit fitting.
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Boston Globe
11 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Raymond Saunders, painter who rejected racial pigeonholes, dies at 90
Mr. Saunders prided himself on his independence from movements. In 1967, he published a now-famous polemical pamphlet, 'Black Is a Color,' which rebutted an article by poet Ishmael Reed, a leader of the Black Arts Movement. Breaking with the collective spirit of the '60s, Mr. Saunders argued that Black artists should not feel obligated to share social goals, or to use their work to lobby for political change. He wanted to be seen as an American artist rather than be ghettoized as a Black one. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'Can't we get clear of these degrading limitations,' he wrote, 'and recognize the wider reality of art where color is the means and not the end?' Advertisement Still, he was not averse to exploring questions of identity in his work. 'He wasn't throwing his fist in the air,' artist Dewey Crumpler, a friend of his in Oakland, observed. 'It was more subtle.' Mr. Saunders was known for elegant paintings that usually began with an all-black background and ended up as semiabstract compendiums of chalk-scrawled notations and paper scraps. They were often compared to the 'combine paintings' of Robert Rauschenberg, whose voluptuous accumulations of castoff objects exemplified the material plenitude of postwar America. Advertisement Yet Mr. Saunders had a restrained and almost spartan touch. When he glued a choice morsel of collage material — say, a torn-off scrap of Chinese calligraphy, or a panel from a Flash Gordon comic book — to a canvas, he left lots of empty space around it, isolating and framing his finds as if to call attention to their radiance. You could say he foregrounded the magic of art and left blackness in the background. His work was underrecognized for years, but it achieved a new visibility in 2022, when the Andrew Kreps Gallery gave him his first show in New York since 1998. At a time when the art world was determined to correct the racial slights and oversights of the past, Mr. Saunders was an obvious candidate for reappraisal. Last year, Kreps joined forces with the powerful David Zwirner Gallery to organize an expanded view of Mr. Saunders' work in New York. A well-received retrospective followed in short order at the Carnegie Museum of Art, in Pittsburgh, Mr. Saunders' hometown. Mr. Saunders did not attend the shows in New York or Pittsburgh, his friends said. 'His community was here, in the Bay Area,' said Julie Casemore, who represents his work at her Casemore Gallery in San Francisco. 'His home was here.' Mr. Saunders had settled in the Bay Area in 1968 and lived in the Rockridge section of Oakland, in a two-story house that also served as his studio. The interior was crammed with bric-a-brac and mounds of source material for his work, much of which he had gathered on sojourns in Europe and Asia. He did his painting in his yard, on a bright white wooden deck that was designed to receive direct sunlight for most of the day. He called it 'the arena.' A stylish dresser, he liked to exchange his paint-stained duds for the pleated garments of Japanese designer Issey Miyake when he went out at night. Advertisement Mr. Saunders lived within walking distance of the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts), where he taught painting from 1987 until his retirement in 2013. He was known to invite an entire class to accompany him on his trips to galleries and restaurants, or to stop for lunch at his house. Kevin Demery, a former student of his who now teaches at the Kansas City Art Institute, recalled an afternoon when he and his classmates were seated in Mr. Saunders' dining room sharing 'a robust charcuterie board.' Midway through lunch, the students were alarmed to realize that their professor had disappeared. 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USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
New boots inspired by the vinyl on Chili's booths start at $345
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New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
TikTok's Cugine opens Brooklyn sandwich shop, cafe, Casa Cugine
This sandwich influencer has gone brick and mortadella. Danny Mondello, the Italian-American behind @Meals_by_cug has turned his social media brand — making chicken cutlet sandwiches and tossing pasta into the air from a frying pan for more than 2 million followers on TikTok and 1.5 million on Instagram — into Casa Cugine, a new sandwich shop, market and cafe in Williamsburg. When he's not slicing soppressata behind the line, Mondello, 28, personally greets customers from a lawn chair outside the Brooklyn storefront, his pinky finger, encircled with a gold ring, jutting out as he sips his signature Diet Coke. 'It's a dream come true,' Mondello told The Post of opening the shop earlier this month on a neighborly Graham Avenue block. 10 Danny Mondello, the Italian-American behind @Meals_by_cug with millions of followers, has turned his social media brand — making chicken cutlet sandwiches and pasta — into Casa Cugine, a new sandwich shop, market and cafe in Williamsburg. Brian Zak/NY Post 'You see families, you see the old Nonnas walking down the street. Everybody knows each other,' he said as he nodded to passersby. Fans of Cug — short for 'cugine,' which is Italian for cousin — are traveling from as far as Texas and South Carolina to get a taste of viral sandwiches like the 'Hey Toots' with turkey and spicy soppressata; and the 'How Ya' Doin,' with chicken cutlet and broccoli rabe. 'The menu is Italian-American delicacies — everything you want. Panninis, like what they do back in Italy — hot soppressata, provolone, olive oil and oregano. Real simple. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel. We just want something that's good, and not over indulgent,' Mondello said, noting the shop will eventually serve heroes. The Rossville, Staten Island, native worked as a line cook in college in New Paltz and made it big posting cooking videos during the pandemic. 10 The menu at Casa Cugine comprises panini sandwiches like hot soppressata, provolone, olive oil and oregano, along with coffee and desserts. 'We're not trying to reinvent the wheel,' Mondello told The Post. Brian Zak/NY Post 10 Rainbow cookies are a signature at the cafe, along with Italian pastries like sfogliatelle and cannoli. 'We just want something that's good, and not over indulgent,' Mondello said. Brian Zak/NY Post 10 When he's not slicing soppressata behind the line, Mondello, aka Cugine (left), 28, personally greets customers from a lawn chair outside the Brooklyn storefront. Brian Zak/NY Post 10 Rachel Kriesel, 23 (right) from Clinton Hill, took her best friend, Sophia Ojeda, 23 (left), visiting from Austin, Texas, last Monday for a panini, in hopes of getting a photo with Cug. Brian Zak/NY Post 'Since I'm 18, I have always worked in delis and sandwich shops growing up. It's kind of where I got the name 'Cug' from. Some guy would come in and call everyone Cug,' he said. The Casa Cugine space was previously home to Cafe Capri, a family-owned coffee shop that opened in 1974 and shuttered in 2015. Mondello kept the original molding from its previous owner, but has also made the shop very much his own. A custom gold sign on the coffee counter reads 'Reserved for Cug & Ya sista,' while a portrait of Frank Sinatra hangs above a still life of Cug's pinky ring hand gripping a cigarette. Rachel Kriesel, 23, from Clinton Hill, took her best friend, Sophia Ojeda, 23, visiting from Austin, Texas last Monday for a panini, in hopes of getting a selfie with Cug. 10 The Rossville, Staten Island, native worked as a line cook in college in New Paltz and made it big posting cooking videos during the pandemic. Now, he's selling his own branded spices and other ingredients. Brian Zak/NY Post 10 'Since I'm 18, I have always worked in delis and sandwich shops growing up. It's kind of where I got the name 'Cug' from,' Mondello told The Post. Brian Zak/NY Post 10 Casa Cugine is also a feast for the eyes — with Italian-American inspired merch. Brian Zak/NY Post 'I was following his social media and I saw a post about his restaurant and that it recently opened. We've both been fans of him for so long,'said Krisel, wearing a Casa del Cug T-shirt. 'We love his sister jokes. I'm also a Diet Coke fan. We were both really depressed and isolated during the pandemic and we would send each other his videos,' Ojeda said, of making the trip to get a zucchini eggplant sandwich. Another visitor from afar, South Carolina clothing designer Michael, 35, started following Cug two years ago and was taken with his Staten Island accent. 'I've been here twice,' said Michael, who declined to give his last name. He raved about the rainbow cookies. 10 Customers enjoy coffee and pastries at the counter, where a sign reads 'reserved for Cug & ya sista.' Some tourists have traveled as far as Texas and South Carolina to support the popular influncer. Brian Zak/NY Post 10 Cugine decorated the cafe with a still life of his pinky ring-clad hand, and other homages to Italian-American culture. Brian Zak/NY Post 'He's authentic, man. I'm not Italian, I'm Russian — I have no idea about how they should talk, the lingo, the slang. What really made me like his videos was when he would cook in his house, saying a bunch of Italian s—t. The chicken cutlet sandwich looked bomb.' Mondello told The Post that he wanted to diversify his staying power by having a business of his own offline. 'There's only so much social media you can do. There's no long term play for it. It's very hard,' he said. 'When I'm 50 years old, what am I supposed to be doing? Still flipping pasta?'
