The little black dress. The pearls; the oversized sunglasses and the absurdly long cigarette holder. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – the 1961 film based on Truman Capote’s 1958 novella – has become more famous for its visual shorthands, its signifiers of New York chic and fashionable femininity, than its actual story or characters. Continue reading “Breakfast at Tiffany’s: how Hollywood retold a gritty story”
Tag: New York
Review: As Is, Trafalgar Studios
The contextual penumbra around this revival of As Is, William M. Hoffman’s 1985 play, is almost as vivid as the content of the work itself. It’s billed as “the first AIDS play” – Hoffman wrote it, a programme note explains, “as a sort of therapy” in the early Eighties; a gay man in New York, he was surrounded by dying friends. It was an award-winning hit, transferring to Broadway and coming to London 1987. Yet in the UK, it hadn’t been revived since until 2013, when Andrew Keates staged it at the Finborough. Continue reading “Review: As Is, Trafalgar Studios”
The Ludlow: the latest hip addition to the Lower East Side
Named after its buzzing street on the Lower East Side, this new hotel is built up to 20 floors on top of a much older warehouse. Ludlow Street may have an old institution flagging its corner – Katz’s Deli, of “I’ll have what she’s having” of When Harry Met Sally fame – but along its length, swish apartment blocks, hotels and restaurants are sprouting above and around the shabby-chic, fire escape-clad tenement buildings that define the neighbourhood.
New York hotelier Sean MacPherson – who has form with hip establishments such as the Marlton and the Bowery – has got in on the act, opening The Ludlow with partners Ira Drukier and Richard Born this summer. The 184-room hotel may be a big new build, but it’s cannily tapped into the area’s vibe, blending the artfully dishevelled with contemporary chic. Continue reading “The Ludlow: the latest hip addition to the Lower East Side”