BOXING AT BERGDORF'S

May the best ma'am win!

PLUS: A Dab More on Lipstick 

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Last Sunday started out with our perusing the marvels at IF Boutique in Soho and looking for new eyeglass frames at Fabulous Fanny's in the East Village, and ended up with boxing in the men's annex at Bergdorf Goodman's on Fifth Avenue and sipping cocktails at the bar in the Baccarat Hotel. And all while wearing hats!  What's that you say? Your Sundays don't work like this? Tsk, tsk, dear readers. It's amazing what hijinks one (or two) can get up to.  One just has to put one's mind to it.

As you can see from the blur in the photo, Jean's lighting fast moves are too quick even for the camera to keep up with.

This tomfoolery all started when Valerie saw designer Elisabeth Weinstock's neon blue python skin gloves in a Bergdorf display window, with matching soccer balls and baseballs, and just about dragged Jean uptown a few days later to seize the gloves the opportunity.  Many thanks have to go to the Bergdorf employees who aided and abetted - or benignly neglected - us.  Remember, they've seen it all and done it all (did you see Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's?), so we were probably just all-in-a-day's-work for them.

Here, Jean demonstrates her right jab and Valerie shows off her left upper cut.  If you're going to fight with your BFF, isn't this the way to do it?  In living color, with a top-of-the-line product?  That retails for $1,500.00? And notice the hats never leave our heads.   Readers, that is the essence of technique.

Here is Elisabeth Weinstock Design's graphic pink and black soccer ball.  The perfect birthday gift for David Beckham, no?

Weinstock's two-toned snake baseball is appropriately named "Baltimore".  The fact that one hit from a major league batter could conceivably shred the covering right off the ball does nothing to diminish its allure.

The texture of the boxing gloves is the focal point.  This lilac and black pair from her website is made of water snake and retails for a cool $1,450.00.

This similarly priced pair of cobalt blue sueded Italian water snake is a tantalizing variation on the theme.

Is your bank balance somewhere south of Donald Trump's? Never fear! A quick check on the internet reveals a wide range of colorful and extremely reasonably priced gloves. These two pairs of Everlast gloves retail on Walmart's website for under $30.00. Boxing gloves come in different weights from 8 ounces to 16 ounces, reflecting the amount of padding and size of the glove.

The Everlast Pro-Style Training Gloves above and below come in a variety of colors.  Here, a baby pink and a lipstick red.  Who says boxing can't be feminine?

If the Bergdorf Goodman gloves are the sartorial equivalent of Apollo Creed,  then the basic Everlast gloves are the Rocky Balboas of boxing hardware.  Note that both of the heavyweights in the photo are wearing fire engine red gloves. It recently came to our attention that Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema announced plans to make another sequel to the Rocky franchise, this time a movie about Apollo Creed's son, Adonis Johnson Creed, who travels to Philadelphia to persuade Rocky (aka Sylvester Stallone) to train him after his father's death in the ring.  Click here for the official trailer. From the director of Fruitville Station, this Rocky installment features a terrific soundtrack.

 

All of this pugilistic carrying on made us a little thirsty, so we stopped into the beautiful Bar at the Baccarat Hotel, a wonderful oasis and escape from the heat and humidity.  The chandeliers are crystal extravaganzas, the barware is top of the line, the black and white painted wood floor is a nod to Versailles, and the diverse artwork is most entertaining.

The golden ambient light, combined with Valerie's goldenrod blouse and hat band, made for a bright, happy atmosphere.

Jean had a wonderful tequila concoction that was quite refreshing, especially when paired with the warmed almonds.

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UPDATE ON THE LIPSTICK DILEMMA

As you know, several posts back we wrote about the vexing problem of disappearing lipstick shades.  This stems from a universal law of physics according to which as soon as you get to like a commercial product, it will be discontinued.  In response, one of our readers, Vancouver Barbara, commented:  "After encountering the same disappointment as you, I Googled custom "lipstick maker" and found one that requires you to send them a sample of the lipstick and also the brand name and color name.  They may have formulae for the really popular colors like yours."

Readers, you will be glad to know that Vancouver Barbara (probably intuiting how lazy we are) followed up with an email in which she named the company, and even sent us a link, which we are more than happy to pass along to you:

Three Custom Color Specialists

And here's the link to their Search Discontinued Shades page.

Valerie is happy to report that they do indeed list Red Coromandel among the formulae they have recreated.  (And more than one hundred others in their Chanel list alone, so if you have a late lamented lipstick, they may have yours too.)  Minimum order is two tubes; cost is $60. We thought you ought to know as soon as possible. We haven't ordered yet, but when we do, we'll let you know.  Thank you, Vancouver Barbara!