Richard Johnson: Tiffany Haddish roasts NYC's best dressed at fashion luncheon

Yahoo

21-04-2025

NEW YORK — Fashion Group International honors the upcoming generation of designers. At an Upper East Side luncheon last week, host Tiffany Haddish had the fashionable crowd splitting their sides with laughter, but pointed out they held it together.
'I see all you gorgeous people in the room. Where else can you find so much ambition and creativity held together with Spanx?'
Haddish reminded everyone the group started in 1930 and mentioned past honorees like Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubinstein, Carmel Snow, and even Eleanor Roosevelt. Then kept the comedy coming.
'I can see some of y'all not eating right now. And hiding a pair of flats under the table. I know your feet hurt.'
FGI President Maryanne Grisz thanked Haddish and the 'well-heeled' room for 'supporting our partners and our industry.' And then, yes, most did eat, working the Spanx overtime.
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Sarah Hoover was a ballet dancer and an art dealer, but she was nervous as a writer promoting her bestseller, 'The Motherload: Episodes from the Brink of Motherhood.'
Hoover, a mother of two, enlisted Busy Philipps, a mother of two, to interview her in front of a large audience at Hebrew Union College on West Fourth Street.
'Busy shows up with her own bottle of wine. I was so happy,' Hoover told me.
When Hoover offered to find a corkscrew, Philipps reached into her purse and pulled one out.
'This is what mothers do. They are always prepared,' Hoover said.
The book's publisher McNally Jackson calls it 'an intimately honest memoir about motherhood that dares to ask, what happens when 'what to expect when you're expecting' turns out to be months of rage, anguish, brain fog, and a total surrender of sex, career, and identity.'
Hoover is being honored by the Youth America Grand Prix, the largest ballet scholarship program in the world, at its gala at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on April 29.
The evening's disco theme was inspired by her favorite movie 'Turning Point,' starring Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Marcella Hymowitz, the gala's artistic director, has created a giant toe shoe filled with crystal balls.
Expect the unexpected. The invite to her first baby shower at the Chateau Marmont hotel in L.A. joked: 'No gifts unless it's drugs.'
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Cher might want to read 'Pets and the City' (Penguin Random House) because she's in it.
The memoir of veterinarian Dr. Amy Attas — who has treated the pets of Billy Joel, Steve Martin, Wayne Gretzky and more — tells how Cher got her number from Joan Rivers, called and said her dog, Pico, was sick.
The vet made a near-midnight house call to Cher's hotel suite and determined the canine had a case of highly contagious sarcoptic mange.
She didn't meet Cher until she returned two weeks later to give the dog a second drug injection. The little dog started howling and suddenly Cher appeared in a bathrobe with cold cream on her face.
Dr. Amy described Pico's rash and Cher reacted. 'She flings open her bathrobe.' She was naked underneath. Then Cher said, 'Never mind. I had the rash before I had the dog.'
The vet told me, 'It always amazes me when I make house calls. It's so personal.'
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Spring has sprung and it's time to get ready for the beach.
Dr. David Shokrian of Millennial Plastic Surgery is busy as can be with folks desperate to ditch their winter flab and strut into summer like runway gods.
And the hottest ticket? A quick breast boost dubbed the 'Jiffy Boob' — where implants go in under local anesthesia faster than you can say 'bikini season.'
'Recession? What recession?' Shokrian smiles. 'My office is packed — people want to peel off layers and flaunt what they've got after a brutal winter.'
Business is so busy, Shokrian's launching a new Long Island outpost.
'We can barely keep up,' he admits. 'People aren't scared of a downturn — they're scared of looking average.'
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Tony has won a lot of Tonys … and Oscars.
Set and costume designer Tony Walton was married to Julie Andrews and was the magic behind some of the biggest shows on Broadway.
Walton died in 2022 at age 87. Now his drawings, props and models are up for auction May 16.
The launch party Monday night at Heritage on Park Avenue drew fans like Diane Sawyer, Jerry Zaks, Linda Janklow and David Rockwell.
'His costumes were works of art,' gushed Patti LuPone. 'There were witty details. You wore his designs and wished you lived in that period.'Glenn Close says Walton was 'in her DNA.' His wizardry was responsible for 'Anything Goes,' 'Guys and Dolls,' and the film version of 'The Wiz.'
Of her late dad, Emma Walton Hamilton said, 'My father's imagination had no limits.'
Stepdaughter Bridget LeRoy called him 'the kindest most gentle human ever.'
His widow Julie Andrews liked his 'riotous use of color. He taught me to see the world with new eyes.'
A portion of the sales benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. 'Tony Walton's Dreamscapes: Heritage Auctions Unveils a Designer's Legacy' can be previewed online at HA.com. Mary Poppins would love you to 'pop in.'
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TV VIPs celebrated Chris Whipple's 'Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,' which rocketed to No. 4 on Amazon's bestseller list.
A who's who of television news came out to toast the former CBS '60 Minutes' producer.
Crowded into Paige Peterson's 18th-floor apartment overlooking Central Park were ex-CBS News president Susan Zirinsky, CBS chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook and former ABC News investigative ace Brian Ross.
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Michael Mayer, who won a Tony for directing 'Spring Awakening,' is collaborating with historian John Monsky on the show 'To Friends of American History Unbound,' opening at Carnegie Hall on April 21.
The performance weaves together images and music from World War I, including composer James Reese Europe and his Harlem Hellfighters band. Europe was called 'the Martin Luther King of music' by pianist Eubie Blake.
Monsky then opens 'Independency: The American Flag at 250 Years' at Southampton Arts Center on May 17. The exhibition explores the American flag's evolution using rare flags to tell the nation's story, including a kerchief flag commissioned by Martha Washington in 1775 to flags flown during the Apollo moon landings.
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'Grey's Anatomy' star Ellen Pompeo has nothing but high praise for artist Nevil Dwek who directed her in the movie 'Undermind' in 2003. Dwek is also a photographer who has shot campaigns for Ralph Lauren, but he has moved on to fine art. He will open a solo exhibition at the Kate Oh Gallery on East 72nd Street on May 1. The multi-disciplinary show uses photography to showcase romantic reflections in windows that change when the light hits them.
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Kenny Schachter is an artist, curator and art dealer. But he's also a writer with a wicked pen.
On Artnet, Schachter wrote:
'Add yet another celebrity to the long list of sufferers of what I call the-grass-is-greenerism syndrome, where being famous in one sphere is simply not enough (e.g. Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Jim Carrey, Lucy Liu, et al.) Louis CK was clocked at the New York Studio School taking sculpture classes, categorically a more productive use of his hands after his very public self-pleasuring scandal.'
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