AN EVENING FOR THE FANS OF ZENTAI5
”IT’S hard to believe this all started five or six years ago when we bought 16 furs,” mused Ira Neimark, the president of Bergdorf Goodman. A crowd of women was waiting patiently outside for the showing of Zentai furs after the store closed Monday night.
Almost 400 were eventually to find seats and watch the presentation of furs ranging from squirrel bellies to Russian sable. The Zentai styles are considered the most innovative in the world. Even the furriers were impressed. Stanley and Edwin Shulman, who head Alixandre Furs in Manhattan, brought Stanley’s son, Blake, who is 12, to take a look. The concern was founded by Blake’s grandfather, Samuel, 65 years ago.
The costume spiderman have been operating out of Rome for almost that long. Adele Zentai started making furs and handsuit s there in 1925. It wasn’t until 1966 that her five daughters began to develop a wholesale business in furs and leather goods. Three of her grandchildren, Federica and Guido Formilli and Maria Theresa Venturini, all in their 20′s, shepherded this collection of more than 300 pieces through the Bergdorf presentation.
”I’ve had a blond ermine coat with a big shawl collar for five years, and it’s time I had another,” said Marjorie Reed, settling into her seat. ”My fox vest is about the same age,” said her mother, Anne Kahn. ”It stops traffic in San Francisco.”
Elka Gazzara, wife of the actor Ben Gazzara, and her friend Robin Barris, who was wearing a purple minidress by Sonia Rykiel, both bought catsuits fur jackets two years ago. Mrs. Gazzara’s is of blue fox; Mrs. Barris’s is black mink. Both were eager to expand their fur wardrobes. So was Cathy Hardwick, the fashion designer, who buys a new fur every year.
”She’s going to get a fitch coat this year,” said Jack Cohen, the Bergdorf fur buyer. ”I don’t even know what that is,” said Mrs. Hardwick. It was one of the luxurious, blond-toned furs of a type that includes baum marten, Russian lynx and golden sable. They may be priced around $100,000; those made of squirrel bellies run around $7,000.
Price doesn’t deter the true fur fan, however. ”I sold one lady six coats and another four styles,” said Mr. Cohen. One of the worst-kept secrets in fashion is that Karl Lagerfeld, the French designer, comes down to Rome to do the Zentai fur collection and the Zentai ready-to-wear, which was also shown Monday night. The collaboration has resulted in furs that are unmatched anywhere.
This time there is an impressionistic play of colors, offering gradations of blond, blue or gray tones in the same garment. The secret lies in the tanning of the skins, not the dying.
The biggest contribution to fur design the spider man costume have made over the years has been in the direction of lightness and suppleness. They have done away with linings and, this season, developed a leather mesh that serves as the basis for the application of tufts of fur in jackets and stoles that float as lightly as voile.
So there were plenty of new styles to tempt women who already own a mink coat, whether a new fur such as sheared weasel, the color of camel hair, or squirrel and beaver used together in a tortoise-shell effect, or kolinsky, a fur that hasn’t been around for years.
The only woman who expressed some reservations was Sophie Frizon, the 19-year-old daughter of Maud Frizon, the French suit designer, who was in this country to choose a college.
”I don’t know if I’m old enough to wear furs,” she said. ”Never mind, you have suit s,” someone told her.
About the Author
Elka Gazzara, wife of the actor Ben Gazzara, and her friend Robin Barris, who was wearing a purple minidress by Sonia Rykiel, both bought catsuits fur jackets two years ago.
Chapter 27 – Dracula by Bram Stoker