WSJ online - Mickalene Thomas

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324329204578268150634197398.html
On the runway in a Mickalene Thomas dress
It's been really cold out there, and all we want to do is curl up in front of the space heater with a soft, synthetic
blanket and a bucket of green tea and watch "Searching for Sugarman" on demand. But there are parties to
attend, and, amazingly, other people are able to make it out of the house and attend them, too.
The East Side Settlement hosted the opening night party for the 59th Annual Winter Antiques Show at the Park
Avenue Armory at the end of last week. Lots of fancy people go to this event every year to peruse the various
finery on offer from any number of fancy vendors. Whether they actually remove the black card from their ostrich
wallet and purchase things, well, that's another story.
"I'm in a no-buy zone," said Coco Kopelman, whose husband, Arie, is on the board of the East Side Settlement.
(Together, they are also now parents-in-law of the actress and beauty entrepreneur Drew Barrymore; their granddaughter, Olive, was recently on the cover of People magazine.)
"I don't have an acquisitive nature," Ms. Kopelman explained. "I like looking at things, but it's more like, 'I have
something just like this, and they're asking what for it now?'"
"There's a lot I want, but I'm not buying anything," said CeCe Cord, who spends most of her time in Texas now
and has, at various periods, made accessories for both dogs and for women. She was perusing the aisles with her
friend, the interior designer Robert Turner. "There were two decorative chickens that I saw that I wanted, and
Robert said—"
"I said, 'Well, you can have them for $95,000,'" interjected Mr. Turner. "That's the problem with this show. A simple
thing can cost a crazy amount of money. Like that table over there. It looks simple but it's probably $250,000."
As it turned out, the Porringer top tea table Mr. Turner gestured at random toward was selling for only $22,000.
"Well, I'm one zero off," said Mr. Turner.
Amid less expensive farm animals—a 13-inch copper-and-zinc rooster weather vane was $12,500, and another
cast on a sphere was $17,500—guests could sample lots of bites at varied food stations, including mini ham
sandwiches, dumplings, Peking duck and three different types of salmon (citrus, smoked and pastrami).
An item that intrigued us was a signed letter from May 21, 1862, Abraham Lincoln had sent to Maj. Gen. George
B. McClellan to discuss tactics for the Peninsula Campaign. The Kenneth W. Rendell Gallery had this letter on
sale for $575,000.
Mr. Rendell said he didn't think prices in the ancillary market for Lincoln memorabilia had gone up since Steven
Spielberg's movie was released in November, "but interest certainly has," he said. "The same thing happened, for
instance, when the movie 'Patton' came out," in 1970. (The interest in Kennedy and Beatles material, by the way,
has gone down, he said.)
Mr. Rendell added that he knew a lot of people who had asked Doris Kearns Goodwin to write biographies of
them, but he'd never thought of how it could affect his own memorabilia business. "Maybe we should split the
difference," he joked.
Somehow it was even colder by the United Nations where Validas and the Seven Bar Foundation hosted the
launch of Vera and its Save. Love. Give. campaign at the Ambassadors River View. This party was sort of confusing, so bear with us a little bit.
Vera is a new application developed by Validas to help you figure out what kind of money you're wasting on your
mobile phone plan. It will also help you decide how to repurpose that money for philanthropic causes.
Meanwhile, the purpose of the Seven Bar Foundation is to leverage the power of the fashion industry to empower
women around the world through microfinance.
Somehow, what these two institutions developed for the evening involved a fashion show featuring women in
specially made corsets. Corsets, the party line went, bind and constrict women. Microfinance does the opposite.
To start off the fashion show, the designer Tara Subkoff collaborated with a few friends on an outfit made of
recycled cellphone bills that was worn by her friend, the opera singer Eve Gigliotti. Ms. Gigliotti sang a semiimprovised, semi-scripted aria.
"She's waiting for the call to come offering the part to sing her dream role 'Carmen,' but she didn't pay her bill,"
said Ms. Subkoff. "So she's begging for 12 more hours."
As for the outfit, which fit Ms. Subkoff's mode of using recycled material, "it was extremely comfortable," said Ms.
Gigliotti, who will appear in Robert Lepage's "Die Walküre" this spring at the Met. "I think everyone needs a
cocktail dress made of telephone bills."