3:07 p.m.
I thought this article’s headline was apropos considering what happened this morning when the Fed stepped in and cut interest rates, sending shorts scrambling and essentially propping up financial companies who’ve leveraged themselves to the hilt in their mad dash for easy cash.
Why does Wall Street always get bailed out?
“Wall Street loves to talk about letting financial markets weed out the weak. But when the Street itself gets in trouble, it sticks out its little tin cup, asking for help . . . People with crummy credit who took out mortgages are being allowed to fail in record numbers. The mortgage companies that made those loans are being allowed to fail . . . (but) the Street itself? It’s bailout city. Even before the Fed made a symbolic half-point cut in the discount rate, other central banks from Switzerland to Singapore were trying to rescue the Street by injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into the financial markets and announcing they will put up more, if needed.”
A free market economy for thee, an infusion of government cash for me . . .
3:17 p.m.
I’m sitting at the coffee shop Louise and I discovered yesterday. The name is Gachet Coffee Lounge — beautiful stained concrete floors, modern white furniture, contemporary art on the walls. It should do well in this area, as its atmosphere mimics the vibe of the W Hotel just a few blocks down, not to mention the upcoming Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Philippe Starck condo projects.
The Mandarin Oriental project, however, hasn’t yet put its residences up for sale, which I find a little disturbing. Usually, hotel condo projects have their residences planned out and for sale before the ground is even broken, but the actual building is rising up from the ground and there’s been nary a peep from the development group regarding floor plans or sale prices.
Is the downturn in the national real estate market causing them to hold back in the hope that demand and median prices for luxury condos will either stabilize or increase? It must make them a little nervous that there are a good number of W Hotel residences still unoccupied since opening. They’ve all sold, but a lot of people bought them as investment opportunities rather than primary residences, and the Flip This Condo market is pretty soft for the moment. The one we’re presently renting sat on the market for over a year before we came along . . .
3:51 p.m.
While John Galliano’s Fall 2007 menswear presentation was more Battlefield Earth than anything remotely connected with, well, Earth:
“Scientology flop? Galliano menswear? Who can tell!”
It’s a relief to note that his Fall 2007 womenswear show was a bit more grounded in reality, even if that reality was a loving homage to the romantic abandon (or the fantasy of romantic abandon captured in period art and literature) of 1920′s Golden Age Paris:
“Roaring Twenties? Come back when you got some Roaring Hundreds.”
“All this talk of World Wars and me without a cigarette!”
“So many exotic birds, so few gilded cages.”
“For a few extra francs, I’ll bring along the kid sister, too.”
Just as much drama and showmanship as the men’s presentation, but with far more attention to aesthetic pleasure and potential wearability. Again, if designers are just going to approach their men’s collections as an opportunity to toss a jumble of half-baked designs down the runway with a distracted wave and an “Oh well, it’s not like anybody’s really paying attention” attitude, then menswear will forever be the financial laggard of the fashion world.
And I still need a kick ass suit . . .
