The Fabulous Noel SistersBernie Madoff’s biggest victim, Walter A. Noel, may have made seriously bad business decisions, but he made seriously hot daughters.
ByJessica Pressler
intel
Video: Backstage at Ford’s Supermodel of the Year Competition
Ford’s Supermodel of the World competition last year launched model Chanel Iman (who was a runner-up) into the freezing, barely breathable atmosphere of the modeling world. Since then she’s modeled for Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler, and Derek Lam, among many others. She was also featured on the cover of Vogue last year in an homage to fashion’s new supermodels. So anyone who says the annual Ford contest isn’t a ticket to stardom is just plain wrong. Click above to view some backstage video of this year’s competition and model interviews with New York’s Jada Yuan.
Ford Supermodel of the World [NYM Video]
party lines
Models, Breasts, and a ‘Marie Claire’ Charity AuctionMarie Claire threw a party at Milk Gallery in Chelsea last night in honor of supermodel- cum-photographer Helena Christensen’s photo spread in the mag’s August issue. Christensen’s photographs of “Super Role Models” (supermodels who are role models, get it? Ha!) were silently auctioned for charity to the hipper-than-thou crowd, which seemed more into the free booze and their accessories than the art. Oh, and breasts. They were also into breasts: Christensen’s shot of a breast-baring Naomi Campbell (you could see her nipple!) was the night’s star attraction. How does a model feel when her nip slips out? Naomi wasn’t there for us to ask — and we might not have asked her such a probing question, either, at least not without taking away her cell phone first — but up-and-coming young model Chanel Iman was, and she recalled her own breast’s inadvertent runway debut. “I saw the video,” she recalled of a fashion show two years ago, “and I saw my nipple just jiggling, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ And at the time I was really young, you know, so I wasn’t that mature.” Now a worldly 16-year-old, she got over such petty humiliations long ago. “It’s just a breast,” she said, sagely. We hope Campbell feels likewise. —Haven Thompson
Find out what Helena Christensen, Amy Sacco, Rachel Roy, and others had to say in our Interactive Party Lines.
party lines
Partying Liberally With Living Liberally
Living Liberally threw itself a launch party Saturday night in a wonderfully eccentric West Village event space, complete with a gilded “Porn Palace” room and a spacious deck. A hundred people or so showed up to celebrate — and raise money for — an organization dedicated to getting right-thinking people out and about, having a good time, and maybe discussing liberal politics. Living Liberally is the newly organized umbrella for several more activity-specific groups: Drinking Liberally, Laughing Liberally, Blogging Liberally. There’s even Eating Liberally, tied to the progressive food movement, which set up a grill on the deck and also served, according to a pamphlet, “ABC Chocolate Cake: ‘A’ for applesauce, ‘B’ for beets, and ‘C’ for carrots.” (G for gross!) In other words, though this party was a fund-raiser for the organization’s work, usually Living Liberally’s parties are its work.
in the magazine
Inside Norwood, New York’s Forthcoming New Faux London Club
Another London-style for-profit club is coming to the lower West Side, and, as Geoffrey Gray reports in this week’s New York, the new entry will be Norwood, located in an 1845 townhouse on West 14th Street. According to the prospectus, there will be a “buzzing and spacious Grand Hotel-like bar” on the parlor floor, a private dining area and reception space on the garden floor, dining rooms on the second floor, “a less formal salon with lounging areas of decadent grandeur” on the third floor, and up on the fourth floor a “penthouse” space for meetings, screenings, and special events. What will it all look like? As yet unknown. But the brochure provides photos of what the townhouse looked like as the previous owner had furnished it. Above, the front entrance and main stairs. More pix after the jump.
obit
Boris Yeltsin Is Dead
Boris Yeltsin, post-Soviet Russia’s first president, died today at 76 from a heart-related illness. He has, of course, little to nothing to do with New York, or with New York, except that he’s a world-historical figure and the city, and the magazine, are both affected by world history. So a few quick words, then.
