First Glimpse

ABOUT HAUTE

Like a fox crossing a busy street, haute couture survives when by any measure it shouldn't. It's excessive in a time of frugality. It's celebratory when war looms. How can CEOs defend hand embroidery and expensive models to shareholders? Quite easily, it seems. Days before its January show featuring models swamped in giant brocade kimonos, Christian Dior announced sales were up 50%. Not of kimonos but of shoes and bags and sunglasses, bought by those wowed by the couture. And then there's Chanel, where the more wearable couture created by Karl Lagerfeld reportedly turns a profit. Women who pay more than $10,000 for a dress want to be able to wear it, after all.

moviemode

COSTUME DRAMAS There couldn't be two more different movies than the spring releases Matrix Reloaded and Down with Love. Or could there? Matrix achieves its cool look partly with its retro-futuristic clothes. Is Keanu Reeves' Neo from the future or from some severe, high-collared Edwardian past? In Love, Renee Zellweger's chic period ensembles look so very fresh. "The early '60s is the last time clothes were modern," says Love's costume designer, Daniel Orlandi. "Colorful, simple and architectural." So what will the future look like? Apparently, it depends on which past you like best.

flashcards

BRIDGE IS NOT HIP Nor is gin rummy. Canasta? Disasta! So why did a huge cast of big-name designers, including Diane von Furstenberg, Collette Dinnigan and David Rockwell, plus some celebrities agree to design a dowdy old playing card? First, one of the hottest trends in design right now is crossing over--working in a discipline other than one's specialty. Second, the money raised from the cards, which go on sale this month at MAC cosmetics stores, will benefit the MAC AIDS Fund. And third, the cards all feature naked people. The cards above, from left, were designed by makeup artist Billy B., singer Vitamin C and artist Tyler Hayes.

Andrea, Meet Andrea

Andrea Sachs: a name that I have always regarded as sufficiently distinctive to view as mine alone. But a few weeks ago, I started getting calls from friends in publishing, telling me that the heroine of a forthcoming novel, The Devil Wears Prada (Doubleday), is also named Andrea Sachs. Of course I had to read it.

It turns out that that Andrea Sachs wears Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos, while I wear Nikes. That Andrea Sachs works as an assistant for the imperious editor of Runway magazine, while I work at TIME, covering the book beat. Still, people in the fashion world will probably be interested in the (endless) complaints of the fashionable Andrea, since the book's author, Lauren Weisberger, used to be the assistant of Vogue's uber-editor Anna Wintour. Could any real editor be as unreasonable as the novel's Miranda Priestly, or as greedy for high-end booty from designers? Ask the other Andrea.

Weisberger isn't the only assistant spilling the beans about fashion biggies. In her novel Diary of a Djinn (Pantheon), Gini Alhadeff, former features editor at Elle, portrays a fashion sovereign who resembles Giorgio Armani, once her boss. In Full Bloom (Dutton), Caroline Hwang, a former editor at Glamour, tells the story of a Korean-American woman climbing the fashion-magazine ladder. And there's another--Bergdorf Blondes (Miramax), by Plum Sykes, a Vogue editor. Leaks at Conde Nast? There's an absolute flood.

As for the other Andrea Sachs, I must admit that it's hard to work up much sympathy for her. After all, having a vantage point at the top of fashion publishing by age 23 ain't so bad. How else can you get a book contract at 24? Sylvia Plath wrote the great Conde Nast novel, The Bell Jar, in 1963, and her crown is secure. Lighten up, and enjoy the show on the runway. And please don't confuse me with any loose-lipped assistants.