Luxury retailer Wilkes Bashford shutters Carmel store

I was surprised to see the news that the Carmel-by-the-Sea outpost of San Francisco-based luxury clothier Wilkes Bashford closed its doors for good Monday.

According to fashion industry trade paper WWD (subscription required to read the full story), the 10,000-square-foot store that opened in Carmel Plaza in August 2006 was shuttered as a result of the ongoing recession, leaving just the original flagship store on Sutter Street, just off San Francisco's Union Square, and a Palo Alto location.

Wilkes Bashford started his namesake retail venture in 1966, and has earned a reputation for his men's offerings, including suits by Kiton, Brioni and Ermenegildo Zegna (WWD points out that in 1967 he was the first American retailer to carry Zegna). Today he's practically an institution unto himself.

I found the news particularly sad for two reasons. First, interviewing the affable, impeccably dressed Bashford was one of the first assignments I had after joining Fairchild Publications menswear trade paper DNR. Second, I found myself in the Carmel store just 10 days ago, frantically searching for stand-ins for a misplaced stud set just hours before a wedding.

Even though the sales associate didn't have exactly what I needed, stud-wise, he noticed the frantic look in my eye and offered a pre-wedding shot of tequila to take the edge off.

I had to pass, but it was a wholly impressive act of customer service that I won't soon forget. 

-- Adam Tschorn

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Spanish prime minister's daughters in 'Goth girl' controversy

 

In one of the sillier Internet controversies, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero visited New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art last Wednesday with his wife and two daughters and posed for a photo with President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. The ensuing controversy is not so much over the photograph of the teenage girls posted on the White House Flickr page (Spanish law allows the prime minister to request the images not be published) but that Zapatero’s daughters, Laura, 16, and Alba, 13, are wearing Goth-inspired black dresses, heavy eyeliner and chunky boots not unlike many rebellious teens. And now blogs have had a go at the family via Photoshop morphing the teenagers into members of the Addams Family and the ghouls from "Scream."

-- Max Padilla

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Credit: The White House

40 years after Apollo 11, luxury brands are all over the moon

Forty years ago today, man first set foot on the moon. In the years since, the journey of the Apollo 11 astronauts -- Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins -- has become ingrained in our pop culture consciousness like few other events. (Fun fact of the week: MTV's Moonman trophy was modeled after Aldrin planting a flag on the lunar surface.)

Sonia Sotomayor's Fendi connection

It's tough being a Supreme Court nominee. Everything you've said about everything suddenly comes under scrutiny.

Sonia Sotomayor has been grilled on gun ownership, property rights, abortion and integration. To say nothing of the "wise Latina" remark. And those rotten media types pick on your family too! Sotomayor's twin nephews were photographed, well, it might be interpreted that they were dozing during the first day of her confirmation hearing. (At least Al Franken,  make that Sen. Al Franken, thinks her nomination is "pretty cool." )

We want to know why no one has grilled her on her connection with Fendi, the purveyor of luxury leather goods, accessories and clothing. (In case you missed it, the Washington Post reports that Serena Williams, relatively fresh from her Wimbledon triumph, recently purchased Fendi shoes and pearls at a Chevy Chase Bloomingdale's.)

New Blagojevich shampoo -- for bouncin' and misbehavin' hair?

We knew it was only a matter of time. Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's horrid helmet of hair has apparently inspired a line of shampoos and conditioners, reports our sister paper the Chicago Tribune.

The brainchild of Dennis Fath, owner of Elk Grove Village, Ill., Delta Laboratories Inc., the Blago shampoo and conditioners come packaged in black and gold bottles that have a vaguely malt liquor/energy drink look about them.

According to the website, the shampoo contains silk protein, keratin and panthenol to strengthen hair and add body and shine as well as vitamin E, and a host of extracts, including green tea, rosemary, comfrey and orchid (for their "anti-oxidant and stimulating qualities").

The end result is described as "a beautiful golden hue," a reference, like the name, to a particularly notable naughtiness he allegedly uttered on a wiretapped conversation.

Tapout's 'Mask' looms large over his own memorial service*

Everyone seemed to feel it: Mask was in the house – or in the Crystal Cathedral more precisely – this morning, when more than 350 friends, family, business associates and employees gathered for an 11 a.m.memorial service in Garden Grove to remember Charles “Mask” Lewis Jr., co-founder of the mixed martial arts Tapout brand who died in an auto accident March *11.

Get the look: Aretha Franklin's inauguration hat

Ask and you shall receive. Earlier this week, Aretha Franklin serenaded crowds of supporters at Barack Obama's inauguration. But it was her bejeweled hat that stole the show. Many wondered where they could get such a head-turner to warm their own noggins.

Tiffany Hsu at our sister blog To Live and Buy in L.A. has the answer: Orders are pouring into Luke Song's Detroit-based Mr. Song Millinery, a store the Queen of Soul has patronized for 20 of its 25 years. Though the heather-gray wool hat ain't cheap -- it costs upward of $500 -- Hsu writes "fans are welcome to drop $179 on a similar satin-ribbon version."

-- Whitney Friedlander

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Photo: Pat Benic/ European Pressphoto Agency

Who can afford a nip and tuck? Plastic surgery gets hit hard

Is Los Angeles looking a little long in the tooth?
According to a recent poll by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 59% of women claimed that the economy was putting a major wrinkle in their cosmetic upkeep. (Eight months ago, 50% said the same.)  Compared to the first half of 2007, business is down 62% for the first half of 2008 in all cosmetic procedures. 

I was recently talking to a dermatologist who said that she counted the ads in LA Weekly to determine how the botox and filler business was faring in Los Angeles. (Typically, there are dozens of come-ons for half-price lip injections and breast-augmentation coupons galore.) "I counted four ads for botox, which is not a good sign," she said.

It would be interesting to see more women in L.A. with gray hair and foreheads that crinkle occasionally, right? I think Joanne Woodward and the late Paul Newman managed to age gracefully. What's so awful about getting old?

-- Monica Corcoran

photo: Getty Images

If CAA plays matchmaker for Jennifer Aniston, do they get 10% of her wedding gifts?

Jennifer Aniston -- the woman who launched a million haircuts -- needs a new man, according to Rush & Molloy. Her high-profile romance with singer-sheepdog John Mayer ended with Mayer publicly announcing that he did the dumping. Nice.
I guess that being on the wrong end of a break-up is not good press for a leading lady. The NY Daily News gossip hounds report:

"Meanwhile, whether she knew it or not, Aniston's agents at CAA were calling around L.A. asking available men if they'd be interested in taking the beauty out. One was our flabbergasted friend -- a tall, dark and handsome writer -- who said, "Of course!" Word is Jen has asked them to cool the matchmaking, for now."

The alleged backdoor setups by her agents are some sort of spin control to make Aniston seem desirable. The whole idea of fighting over who dumped whom is so high school. Then again, Aniston endured the most ballyhooed romantic rejection of all when she and Brad Pitt split and then he took up with Angelina Jolie. Pitt and Aniston announced their separation in January 2005. But did the break-up hinder her image as a leading lady? ("Derailed" and "Rumor Has It" were hardly hits, but "The Break-Up" -- hint, hint -- was a box office success.)

The whole issue begs the question: Does being dumped make you less desirable?

Photo: Getty Images

At 50, is Madonna middle-aged? Are you?

Middle age. For me, the term does not evoke images of lithe women with blond highlights and perfect Pilates-sculpted asses that refuse to fall to half-mast. I typically associate middle age with naps and osteoporosis.

But Madonna turned the big 5-0 recently and Michelle Pfeiffer, right, Sharon Stone, left at right, and Holly Hunter, below, could all help her blow out a candle or two. (Their bones look mighty strong. ) Yes, we've all heard that 50 is the new 40 or even 30. In Pfeiffer's case, I might say that 50 is the new 28, but who's counting? But then, what the hell is middle-aged these days?

At what age, do you hit the middle? The Oxford English Dictionary defines "middle age" as "the period between youth and old age, about 45 to 60." In his psychosocial stages, the famed developmental psychologist Erik Erikson nailed the middle as 35 to 55 or 65 and felt that middle-aged people had to focus on creative stimulation and productivity to thwart stagnation. He also deemed self-absorption during these years as a quick path to a crisis. Narcissism in Hollywood? Never! But Erikson probably never saw a woman look this damn hot at 50, so, of course, he figured that vanity had to go.

Personally, I can't imagine living another 60 years -- that sounds exhausting. So I would like to think that at 40, I have passed middle age and I am now in the "nearing the end age." And if Hollywood actresses don't start aging, perhaps they're in the "just try and make me age age."

How do you define middle-aged?

Photos: Getty Images