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ON a cold and wet evening, Ingrid Hoffmann, the Colombian-born star of “Simply Delicioso,” a Latin-themed cooking show on the Food Network, bounded into La Esquina, a Mexican restaurant in NoLIta.

With her curls and mood no worse for the weather, she settled into a rustic wooden table with her sister, Annelies Da Costa Gomez, and two friends. Ms. Hoffmann, 42, wore dark jeans and a purple silk top with a plunging neckline that revealed a little of what, in addition to her modern approach to traditional Latin cooking, might have helped her earn a second season of her show.

While working their way through their first bottle of a Spanish red wine, a 2004 Ribera del Duero, the women gushed over Ms. Hoffmann’s new cookbook, also titled “Simply Delicioso,” and her recent decision to make a campaign appearance with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I have to cook for that girl because I hear she’s eating really bad,” Ms. Hoffmann said.

A platter of chicken and octopus tostadas and two ceviches arrived at the table, and the women reminisced about homemade potato chips and arepas from Colombia and Curaçao, the Caribbean island Ms. Hoffmann’s parents moved to when she was 2 years old. After another platter of tostadas, the rest of the food — grilled corn on the cob, whole grilled branzino, a chile relleno, mango and jicama salad, plantains and black beans — was brought out and passed around the table.

In the middle of the main course, Ms. Hoffmann’s mouth suddenly dropped open. A tall, thin woman in a backless dress had caught her attention. “Did you see her figure?” Ms. Hoffmann asked.

“Wow,” said Renata Marcus, a marketing director who grew up with Ms. Hoffmann in Curaçao.

It was time for dessert, and lip gloss. Almost in unison, the women reached into their purses and applied a fresh coat as they perused the menu, eventually settling on the panna cotta, bread pudding and a warm chocolate cake.

“I feel stuffed like a tamale,” Ms. Hoffmann said as the plates were finally cleared. Next the women embarked to Taj, a restaurant and lounge in Chelsea, which is host to salsa nights on Monday.

Once inside, the group took refuge in a plush booth, where they ordered a round of pink shots made of vodka, pomegranate and pineapple juice.

“To all the chicas,” said Ms. Hoffmann, raising her shot glass for a toast.

“May we not be chunky chicas,” Ms. Da Costa Gomez added, laughing.

Watching a couple at the bar salsa awkwardly — the girl was tall, blonde and skinny — Nancy Kipnis, a Tampa-based publicist and event planner and one of Ms. Hoffmann’s friends, shook her head and quietly chided them. “Sloppy chica salsa,” she said.

Ms. Hoffmann added, “I think when you are really skinny, you just can’t move as well.”

Soon, the women rose from the table. Accepting the hand of a dancer, Ms. Hoffmann took a turn on the floor, her hips swiveling skillfully to the music.

After 11 p.m., she bid her friends goodbye and got into a taxi.

“I always say, sweat the cucarachas out,” she said. “You know, the cucarachas in your head.”

Korea opportunities

By Tatiana Boncompagni

Published: January 5 2008

Is the future face of American fashion ... Korean? Consider the following: four out of eight designers chosen by Gen Art, a New York-based fashion incubator, to show their designs in the recent Gen Art Fresh Faces catwalk show were Korean or Korean American. At Parsons The New School for Design, nearly half of the students enrolled in their bachelor of fine arts fashion design programme last year were either Asian or Asian American (with fully 29 per cent of the student population from Korea). And the number of Korean and Korean American students earning a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology rose from 57 to 152 students between autumn 2003 and autumn 2006.

“The number of Korean students has been escalating since the early 1980s,” says Tim Gunn, the former president of Parsons, who is chief creative officer for Liz Claiborne Inc and star of the Bravo network television programme Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.

It was in the 1980s that the Korean middle class emerged, thanks to a strong economy, creating a demand for both higher education and high-end fashion. “With the rise of the middle class, there were more people travelling and more exposure to western culture,” explains Susan Shin, a New York fashion consultant of Korean descent. “It nurtured a greater interest in fashion and the creative spirit.”

Elle Korea and Vogue Korea launched in 1992 and 1996 respectively, marking a turning point in the development of Korea’s demand for designer clothes, say Gene Kang and Hanii Yoon, the Korean duo behind Y & Kei, a line of clothing inspired by Buddhist principles. The magazines also fostered an interest in studying fashion, especially among the children of the new middle class who, “wanting to do the best for their children”, were willing to send them overseas to study, say Kang and Yoon.

Faced with mounting applications from Korean students, New York’s Parsons became involved in the establishment of the Samsung Art and Design Institute, a university endowed by the electronics giant. In 2003 Samsung launched Derercuny, a highly sophisticated line of women’s wear helmed by Korean designer Mina Lee and shown in Milan.

“What we said to the students was, ‘If you want to go to Parsons, you have to go through here first,’” says Gunn, adding that while the artistic ability of the applicants was high, their English wasn’t proficient. “This programme helps prepare them enter at a more advanced level.”

So far the biggest success stories are those of two Korean American designers. Richard Chai, an alumnus of Marc Jacobs and TSE cashmere, has his own line of architectural, 1980s-inspired clothing, while Doo-Ri Chung’s sophisticated use of draping and texture won her the top prize at the 2006 Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards, as well as the 2006 Swarovski Perry Ellis Award for emerging women’s wear designer.

“They both have their own sense of style – that’s what makes them so unique,” says Roopal Patel, women’s fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman, the Fifth Avenue department store. “The one common thread is their meticulousness; they understand what it takes to become an expert in their craft. To them, it’s not just designing a garment. They really think about everything from the aesthetic to the fabric to the type of stitch.”

Chung, a Parsons graduate who moved with her family from Korea to New Jersey when she was four years old, credits the upswell of Korean Americans studying fashion to an increasing acceptance of pursuing it as a career in the Korean community. Chung worked for Banana Republic and Geoffrey Beene before striking out on her own. “Only now is it the case that you don’t have to be a doctor or a lawyer or an investment banker. There used to be this stigma; oh you want to go into fashion, are you going to be poor for the rest of your life?”

Korean American designer Grace Sun worked for a decade designing movie posters and helping to build an internet company before she gathered the nerve to pursue her true passion. After stints at retailers Rachel Roy and 3.1 Phillip Lim, Sun launched her line of highly wearable dresses and separates almost two years ago. “There are a lot of us drawn to the business,” says Sun, whose spring collection is based on the idea of tropics in the city and features a selection of silk dresses in colours like bougainvillea and misty blue. “I was born in Korea but I conduct business in China a lot and I’ve realised that Chinese culture is very much focused on food and culinary experiences. Koreans focus more on appearances and therefore fashion is a bigger part of the culture.”

Likewise, Sonia Yoon – one of the designers at Bensoni, a young line of hipster-cool smocked dresses and elegantly tiered tops sold in 130 stores across the US – sees her heritage as a big factor in her work. “Koreans have this inherent history in great craftsmanship and technical skills,” says Yoon, who was born in Korea and raised in London and New Jersey.

Of course, not every Korean or Korean American student enrolled in a prestigious design school is destined for New York’s Bryant Park. Gunn recalls receiving a phone call from the parent of a Korean student at Parsons who had received a huge credit card bill from his daughter. “He said, ‘I wish I’d known in advance what the shopping budget was’,” says Gunn. “There were all these charges from Louis Vuitton and Chanel.” The school had given the student’s class an assignment to review a handful of stores but, instead of just writing a review, the student had gone on a shopping spree.

Gunn adds that for some Korean students Parsons is “like a finishing school. In a way, they are learning how to shop.” Still, there will be those with the ambition and talent to go the distance. After all, the fashion industry has always embraced foreign or ethnic talent. Two pillars of US fashion, Carolina Herrera and Oscar de la Renta, are from Venezuela and the Dominican Republic respectively. “This is what makes American fashion so brilliant,” says Bergdorf’s Patel. “It’s very representative of our country, actually.”

Fasten your belts

By Tatiana Boncompagni

Published: October 26 2007

The actress and socialite Annie Churchill was recently preparing for one of the many events she attends in New York when, feeling a bit boxy in her vintage Calvin Klein dress, she decided to add a black velvet belt. “It completely changed the look,” says Churchill. “It drew the eye to my waist and made the proportions so much better.”

A good belt can work miracles. It can cinch a waist, elongate a torso, modernise and individualise an otherwise humdrum outfit. It can also lend shape and structure. “A belt controls all that volume a little bit,” explains Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. “You need to have something to show there is the body underneath. People work out; they want to show they have a body even if the look is more voluminous.”

This fact has hardly been lost on designers. While Fendi and Yves Saint Laurent could be credited with helping start the trend in spring 2006, others have since embraced the look wholeheartedly. Belts featured in the recent collections of Proenza Schouler, Isabel Toledo for Anne Klein, Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, Azzedine Alaia, Giorgio Armani, Lanvin and Louis Vuitton, to name a few. New York designer Peter Som says: “Belts are great for defining the new body-conscious silhouette that’s becoming prevalent. Also, the addition of hardware on the belt gives an outfit that air of tough chic.”

The truth is, not since the 1980s have belts so enjoyed the limelight. They’re everywhere – from Dolce & Gabbana’s chastity belt gowns as seen on Jemima Khan (pictured above) at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s recent couture gala to the Hollywood red carpet, with Jessica Biel in belted raspberry Oscar de la Renta silk or Eva Mendes in belted lavender Reem Acra chiffon. And sales are following: Suzi Roher, whose eponymous line of belts sells at New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue and other boutiques worldwide, reported a 32 per cent increase in sales earlier this year; while at Ferragamo, where a wide Louisiana alligator belt was a spring hit, belt sales have doubled since last year.

“Brands that are heavily weighted towards accessories, including handbags, shoes and belts, have seen some of the most significant growth in sales over the past few seasons,” explains Aslaug Magnusdottir, a fashion consultant in New York. “Apparel trends in recent seasons – wide, baby-doll dresses and dress shirts – have accentuated the need for belts.”

According to Carrie Chapman, accessories buyer for Barneys Co-op, women aren’t just gravitating to one style but to a whole assortment. “There are wide waist belts and skinny belts, as well as a much wider range of fabrication: leather, metallics, elastic and satin,” says Chapman. “There’s also a range of texture: smocking, ruching, laminated fabrics and patent, rocker belts with zippers, jewellery belts with chains.”

Maybe so, but belts are hardly foolproof. A wide belt on a woman with a thick waist or large chest can make her look even heavier than she really is. As Santiago Gonzalez, president of the Nancy Gonzalez line of ultra-lux handbags and belts, puts it: “You need to be tall if you are wearing a really thick belt. Otherwise it will cut you in half.” Designer Anait Bian, meanwhile, favours belts made with clear plastic. “It highlights the waist but in a subtle way, like you’re painting a gloss over it. And this way you aren’t chopping the torso in two,” says Bian.

For the evening, J. Mendel designer Gilles Mendel suggests wearing a satin trench coat belt. “It adds a touch of sportswear to the evening and the end result is a cool modern look,” Mendel says. “I feel an over-adorned belt creates more of a classic look.” Peter Som has a more inclusive take on black-tie belting, advocating patent leather, satin or “anything jewelled.” However, “suede or regular leather is too daytime,” he warns.

This is good news for New York publicist Amanda Miller, who has a 23-inch waist and has been stockpiling belts since high school. Her collection now includes a 1940s Navajo conch belt, two Hermès Collier de Chien belts, Chanel chain belts, and black patent leather belts from Alaia, YSL and Donna Karan. “I put a belt on with just about everything,” says Miller. “They’re like jewellery. They’re the finishing touch.”

Bringing the salon home

By Tatiana Boncompagni

Published: August 3 2007 13:34

It seems these days that everyone – not just the Jessica Simpsons and Victoria Beckhams of the world – wants a beauty entourage, the kind that starts with a Pilates instructor and ends with an eyelash extension guru. In other words, the same roster of beauty experts that any celebrity or it-girl worth her Louboutins has on her personal assistant’s speed dial.

So witness the rise of top-flight at-home beauty services, which doesn’t seem like too much for your average luxury-loving consumer to ask for these days. Not when concierge companies, designed to make our busy lives that much easier, abound.

New Yorkers, for example, can call on Fresh Direct, the online grocery store; Slate, a pick-up and deliver eco-conscious dry-cleaning and laundry service; and can even have a home fragrance specialist come to their apartment courtesy of L’Artisan Parfumeur.

Indeed, in a world in which convenience is king and personal service is paramount, why should anyone have to schlep to the salon or the spa for that pre-party blowout or monthly facial?

That’s what Susan Cunningham was asking herself, anyway, when she and her partner Courtney Yorio conceived Uptown Girl NYC, a recently launched beauty concierge business. It includes a small salon on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and a retinue of on-call hair and spa specialists, including some of the city’s most sought-after eyelash and hair-extension artists.

“We identified a need for a new trend in at-home beauty services for the quintessential cosmopolitan woman who can’t always break away to fit in salon time,” says Cunningham.

Take Vicki Pitcock, for example, a New York investment banker and mother of three young children. She receives regular house calls from a masseuse, yoga instructor, personal trainer and aesthetician, and recently added eyelash extensionist Yorio to her beauty entourage. “Considering the time it takes to get a taxi and come back, it’s much easier to find one hour in my schedule versus two,” says Pitcock.

Karen Grant, senior beauty industry analyst with NPD , a US market research company, links the increasing demand for at-home beauty services to the rise in internet shopping and popularity of spa parties. “This is part of a bigger phenomena of how people like to shop,” explains Grant. “They want convenience and highly specialised services.”

And it is not just businesses such as Uptown Girl that are cashing in on the trend. Other top salons and make-up artists in New York, Los Angeles and London are finding that a greater number of clients want to receive their services in the comfort of their own homes. This despite prices that are sometimes double or triple what the same service would cost in the salon.

“There’s so much money sloshing around right now,” says John Barrett, whose eponymous salon occupies the penthouse floor of New York’s Bergdorf Goodman department store, explaining why his clients do not mind spending $300 for an at-home or in-office blow dry that would cost $100 in his salon.

“It’s all about convenience, but it’s also the concept of celebrity culture. Everybody wants to be a VIP,” says Brian Cantor, owner of Manhattan’s Paul Labrecque Salon and Spa, which has seen 25 per cent annual growth in its “Paul On the Go” business since the launch in 2001.

In Los Angeles, the hair salon Privé, which charges $125 for travel costs, plus $250 per hour for services, reports a 30 per cent increase in its out-of-salon business. Its sister spa, Ona, recently launched “Ona on Wheels,” for its more privacy-sensitive and time-pressed clientele.

“It used to be special circumstances where celebrities or VIPs would require services to prepare for an event, photo shoot or weddings, but now we are finding that more and more business women, mothers, etc. are looking to consolidate and multi- task their duties,” says Laurent Dufourg of Privé. Likewise, Daniel Sandler, a London-based makeup artist and cosmetics entrepreneur, recently assembled a team of 30 make-up artists who travel across Britain to clients’ homes to apply make-up or give personalised how-to lessons.

Of course, there are limits to what can or should be done out of the spa. Philippa Holland, a London-based jewellery designer, has kickboxing lessons, massages and manicures and pedicures in her home but draws the line with hair colour and waxing because “it would be very messy”.

Others counsel that you don’t always get the level of service at your home as you would on-site – no head massages at the shampoo station, for example, or a complimentary glass of champagne or paraffin wax treatment during a manicure.

In response to this, some hair stylists are finding a kind of middle ground between providing services in a client’s home and in the salon. Paul Podlucky, a renowned New York hair-stylist and make-up artist, gives $400 haircuts (long layers are a speciality) out of his prewar apartment on the Upper East Side.

Ashley Javier, meanwhile, an up-and-coming New York-based hair-stylist, leases two penthouses in a midtown building, one as his apartment and the other as his “parlor,” where he frequently hosts getting-ready-for-the party evenings for girls-about-town. “It’s much cooler than a salon,” says Javier about his ultra-private atelier.

Project Reality

May 26 2007

In 1999, Gen Art, a New York-based incubator for art, fashion and film talent, hosted its first fashion competition for fledgling designers. The finalists, one of whom was the now celebrated but then unknown designer Peter Som, sent two looks down a runway, which were then scored by a panel of judges. After a quick tabulation of the results, winners for each category were announced by the competition's host, which that year was none other than ex-model Heidi Klum.

Sound familiar? Like something you've maybe seen before?

A handful of years after hosting the Gen Art Styles show, Klum - then known mostly for her Sports Illustrated covers - and her producing partner, The Weinstein Company, pitched a show to Bravo, a cable television network owned by NBC Universal. The show, Project Runway, would become a reality hit, pulling in 5.4 million viewers for its third season finale, the largest audience Bravo had ever garnered.

As for the show that inspired the show, it goes on - and, in fact, went on last Tuesday in front of an audience of more than 1,500 at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. Sponsored chiefly by Eos Airlines, the event provided an interesting glimpse into the future of both fashion and, perhaps, a certain reality TV show.

The winning women's ready-to-wear designer, e.y. wada, featured a cropped trench jacket with lace edging over a white tent dress and a boxy white suit with lots of dark-coloured piping. Wearable? Yes. Inspiring? Not really.

Stronger were the looks sent down the runway in the women's avant-garde and evening-wear categories. London-based designer Dragana Rikanovic took home top honours in the avant- garde competition for her white jumpsuit with one sheer sleeve and a white knit dress with three-dimensional bubbles adorning the top.

FORM, a trio of young designers, won the evening-wear division with a shiny grey cocktail option and an infinitely more memorable black party dress featuring a deep V-neck and skirt slashed open to reveal a textured bubble below.

Also noteworthy were a pair of sizzling flapper frocks from Julia Clancy, a London-based designer already carried by Coco de Mer and Harrods. It's easy to imagine Clancy's gold-sequinned, cowl-necked dress or her peach silk slip with gold, silver and crystal embroidery on any number of camera-loving starlets or socialites. While Clancy may not have taken home the cash prize, there's a good chance her Gen Art appearance could have a favourable impact on her career nonetheless.

For Gen Art remains involved in Project Runway, helping cast the reality show. "We help promote and get emerging designers to come to the castings," says Ian Gerard, chief executive officer of Gen Art. The organisation also sends members to sit on casting panels alongside Runway's judge Tim Gunn and others. "They came to us because they wanted to reach designers with credibility," says Gerard.

Having introduced some of the industry's big new names - Rodarte, Sari Gueron and Duckie Brown, a men's wear label up for a Council of Fashion Designers of America award this year - credibility issomething Gen Art has plenty of. As for Runway, so far at least, it has done a better job minting reality TV stars than successful designers.

John Bartlett, a men's wear designer and one of this year's competition judges, says: "Gen Art is a little under the radar but people in the industry really respect what it does. If you are a finalist, I think it really gives you a step up in the business."

One of the Gen Art competition's winners last year, Bruno Grizzo, was picked up by Barneys New York following the show. His entire line sold out in the first week. None of Runway's finalists, despite their large fan bases, has earned such bragging rights.

That's in part because what makes for good television doesn't always make for great design. Of course, that's not to say that the two are mutually exclusive either. "It's absolutely vital that the people are talented but obviously we want colourful personalities," says Frances Berwick, executive vice-president of programming and production at Bravo. She also says that she and the other Runway producers originally struggled with making "people sitting in a room, drawing designs and sewing clothes fun" for the audience.

In the end, the answer to that problem came in the form of creative challenges such as taking the contestants to a grocery store to find sewing materials. Time pressure helps, too - the challenges take place, in general, over a one- to three-day period. "We want to show the drama and the stress of the creative process," says Berwick.