(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 14 MARCH 2008)
There was hardly any sign of Wall Street in trouble when I came to visit New York two weeks ago, upon the invitation of Pond’s. The weather was harsh with an average high of zero and an average low of five below. On Friday night, snow was falling on Midtown Manhattan and rain poured shortly thereafter, drenching the neighborhoods from Chelsea on the West Side to Gramercy on the East Side.
The city’s got the right name, New York. Nothing ever gets old around here. —Ralph Stephenson
But our motley crew of magazine editors was all dressed up for a night on the town, having just arrived the night before on a long yet comfortable flight aboard Cathay Pacific that took us from Manila through Hong Kong and then through Vancouver to the John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens. Beneath the voluminous outerwear, the ladies kept their clothes to a bare minimum, with backs showing, necklines plunging, hemlines rising to show more than a hint of legs, and heels slender and deadly, keeping their poor little feet on eternal tiptoes and adding at least three inches to their height and a lot of sex to their outfits.
Mutya Laxa, marketing manager at Unilever in charge of skin and such brands as Pond’s, Dove, and Vaseline, was the perfect host. The trip was designed to showcase the great care with which Pond’s continues to enhance and even re-invent its product lines to deliver on its promise of longer youth and more lasting beauty, as well as practical, easy-to-apply—not to mention affordable—remedies to such stubborn skin problems as age spots, sun damage, and dullness.
On our first day, jet lag aside, we grudgingly left our lavish suites at the Four Seasons on East 57th between Madison and Park to go on a two-hour drive to Connecticut, where the Pond’s Institute, replete with doctors, experts, state-of-the-art equipment, and high-tech laboratories, wowed us with its dedication to research and development. It’s no surprise, of course, beauty being such a multi-billion-dollar industry, but it’s quite a revelation to me that billions of dollars—or its euro equivalent, the dollar being weak now—is packed into each tube of, say, Pond’s Age Miracle cream, which you and I can pick off a shelf at the grocery for less than P200.
Something very big is happening to this brand that has been a favorite of women since the New York pharmacist Theron T. Pond developed the witch-hazel wonder product called “Pond’s Golden Treasure” in 1846, which later gave way to the iconic Pond’s Cold Cream in 1914. It’s only a matter of time, about five weeks to be more exact, before the Pond’s users are blown away with yet another breakthrough, perhaps the breakthrough of breakthroughs. I am not yet allowed to divulge what has been revealed at the Pond’s Institute in Connecticut, but suffice it to say I am impressed that this brand doesn’t have to call itself a luxury product to invest as much in science and technology as many of the prestige brands that charge an arm and a leg for the same results—or at the very least for the same promises.
I am even more impressed that Mutya, whose brand stewardship, to say the least, is respectful of Pond’s heritage and keen on making its future as rosy as a pink rose, went out on a limb to show us the best of New York as a reflection of the brand’s commitment to the beautiful life.
And so we spent the cold weekend, feeling hot, hot, hot (from downing three orders of Black Russian in 20 minutes or less, in my case) at Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter’s Waverly Inn at 16 Bank between Fourth and Waverly, with no less than Sting and Trudy to gawk at, although we could have caught Cameron Diaz and Lindsay Lohan had we gone another day. From there, we took a yellow cab to Cain, a Chelsea nightclub described by the New York Magazine as “the next best thing to an African safari,” except that we were all too drunk with our pink bellinis to notice the elephant trunk door and the zebra hide bar and even Owen Wilson in the mass of bodies grooving to the music.
There’s more to remember our trip by, including hanging out with American Idol’s Constantine at the get-in-if-you-can Pink Elephant on West 27th Street til 5 a.m. and curing our hangover the next day with fabulous “Bloody Maries” at the trés, trés chic French bistro Pastis in the Meatpacking District, along with bottomless cups of coffee, French toast, and eggs any way we liked it. Of course, all our other meals were just as delightful, particularly breakfast at the timeless classic Carlyle Hotel on 76th corner Madison, which Princess Di used to frequent, and dinner at Iron Chef and former Nobu star Masaharu Morimoto’s eponymous restaurant in the outskirts of the Meatpacking District and Sapa on West 24th Street, where Uma Thurman and Colin Firth shot a scene for the movie Accidental Husband.
It was a New York state of mind, but, unlike that of the New Yorker who drove our stretch limo muttering about recession and
money being hard to come by, ours was completely worry-free. What about puffy eyes in the morning and dull skin from all that sleeplessness, alcohol, and cigarette smoke? Well, too bad but what’s so wrong with a weekend indulgence? That’s why brands like Pond’s hire scientists and inventors. Skin solutions are nothing short of a miracle and science, especially during Eureka moments, is a miracle, eh? But only if it works!
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Monday, March 10, 2008
LA VIE EN ROSE
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 7 MARCH 2008)
I have no doubt the Oscar is very happy in the arms of this year’s Academy Award Best Actress. I consider leading contender Cate Blanchett an exceptional actor, in any role, but I would have wept if she won this year’s Oscar for Elizabeth: The Golden Age instead of Marion Cotillard, whose performance in La Vie en Rose is, as described by Stephen Schaefer for the Boston Herald, “nothing less than monumental.” The eminent history of the Academy Awards would itself demand that the French actress be given her pride of place for her portrayal of the iconic La Môme Piaf (The Little Sparrow) in the biopic by Olivier Dahan.
And the memories I had
I no longer desire
Both the good and the bad
I have flung in the fire
—Édith Piaf, from her signature song “Non, je ne regrette rien”
On stage to accept her acting Oscar at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles two Sundays ago, Cotillard said with a lovely French drawl, “It is true…there are some angels in this city.” Édith Piaf, born Édith Giovanna Gassion in the slums of Paris in 1915, would have attributed it to St. Thérèse de Lisieux, her patron saint throughout life, but, of course, it was Édith herself, in spirit, in memory, in legacy. It would have been a mockery if a lesser artist played the Little Sparrow in this gripping, breathtaking reenactment of a life lived in pursuit of greatness.
La Môme in France, the movie has been renamed La Vie en Rose for cinema audiences in English-speaking countries like Britain and the United States, after the song Édith herself wrote shortly after the Second World War. In the movie, it was this wildly popular song that underscored the great affair between her and the one she called “the love of my life,” Algeria-born French boxing champion Marcellin Cerdan, whose family in a quaint farm in Morocco posed the greatest barrier between the chanteuse and her happiness. In a scene in La Vie en Rose, she confided to her friend Ginou, feigning indifference, “I’ll never have him. He’ll never be mine. He won’t leave his wife and kids,” only to place a desperate overseas call no more than two minutes later to entreat Marcel to come to Paris because “I can’t be apart from you anymore.”
I wonder if Édith’s life had been as dark and depressing over-all as La Vie en Rose, which ironically translates to “A Life in Pink.” Sunshine made itself very scant in this film, where practically every scene is veiled in poetic shadows, except during brief diversions, such as when Édith and her team were on a road trip in California. But even that scene is very sad, in which the viewer is made to imagine her alternating between pain and numbness on account of depression and her growing morphine addiction. As you know, history can only accommodate highlights and, if we were to define the life that is to be remembered forever based on history’s depiction of how Édith Piaf lived hers, we would define it as a series of tragic moments, interrupted only by career landmarks and milestones and—only too briefly—a high point at which love, along with happiness, promises to last.
And then, flashback to 1949, a plane bound for Paris crashes in the Azores in Portugal. Among the casualties is Marcel Cerdan on his way to France to meet Édith.
For me, that was a high spot in La Vie en Rose for both the viewer and the lead actor, Marion Cotillard, who was given the opportunity of a lifetime to showcase her immense talent. Despite the score rising to a crescendo, it is as though suddenly all sound had left the world, as you concentrate on Cotillard acting out the intense moment, her eyes, her facial muscles, the shaking of her hands, the closing and opening of her soundless mouth articulating the deepest sorrow, the most unbearable anguish.
But life cannot be all bad, just as it cannot be all good, even for those destined for greatness and destined to pay a great price for it. On a more triumphant note, when light briefly promised to cast away the shadows, there is another high spot for me. That was when, in one of her first few music hall tours of New York City, Édith met Marlene Dietrich, who told her, “I haven’t been to Paris for ages, but this evening when you were singing, Édith, I was there… in the streets, beneath its sky. Your voice is the soul of Paris. You took me on a journey. You made me cry.”
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
I have no doubt the Oscar is very happy in the arms of this year’s Academy Award Best Actress. I consider leading contender Cate Blanchett an exceptional actor, in any role, but I would have wept if she won this year’s Oscar for Elizabeth: The Golden Age instead of Marion Cotillard, whose performance in La Vie en Rose is, as described by Stephen Schaefer for the Boston Herald, “nothing less than monumental.” The eminent history of the Academy Awards would itself demand that the French actress be given her pride of place for her portrayal of the iconic La Môme Piaf (The Little Sparrow) in the biopic by Olivier Dahan.
And the memories I had
I no longer desire
Both the good and the bad
I have flung in the fire
—Édith Piaf, from her signature song “Non, je ne regrette rien”
On stage to accept her acting Oscar at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles two Sundays ago, Cotillard said with a lovely French drawl, “It is true…there are some angels in this city.” Édith Piaf, born Édith Giovanna Gassion in the slums of Paris in 1915, would have attributed it to St. Thérèse de Lisieux, her patron saint throughout life, but, of course, it was Édith herself, in spirit, in memory, in legacy. It would have been a mockery if a lesser artist played the Little Sparrow in this gripping, breathtaking reenactment of a life lived in pursuit of greatness.
La Môme in France, the movie has been renamed La Vie en Rose for cinema audiences in English-speaking countries like Britain and the United States, after the song Édith herself wrote shortly after the Second World War. In the movie, it was this wildly popular song that underscored the great affair between her and the one she called “the love of my life,” Algeria-born French boxing champion Marcellin Cerdan, whose family in a quaint farm in Morocco posed the greatest barrier between the chanteuse and her happiness. In a scene in La Vie en Rose, she confided to her friend Ginou, feigning indifference, “I’ll never have him. He’ll never be mine. He won’t leave his wife and kids,” only to place a desperate overseas call no more than two minutes later to entreat Marcel to come to Paris because “I can’t be apart from you anymore.”
I wonder if Édith’s life had been as dark and depressing over-all as La Vie en Rose, which ironically translates to “A Life in Pink.” Sunshine made itself very scant in this film, where practically every scene is veiled in poetic shadows, except during brief diversions, such as when Édith and her team were on a road trip in California. But even that scene is very sad, in which the viewer is made to imagine her alternating between pain and numbness on account of depression and her growing morphine addiction. As you know, history can only accommodate highlights and, if we were to define the life that is to be remembered forever based on history’s depiction of how Édith Piaf lived hers, we would define it as a series of tragic moments, interrupted only by career landmarks and milestones and—only too briefly—a high point at which love, along with happiness, promises to last.
And then, flashback to 1949, a plane bound for Paris crashes in the Azores in Portugal. Among the casualties is Marcel Cerdan on his way to France to meet Édith.
For me, that was a high spot in La Vie en Rose for both the viewer and the lead actor, Marion Cotillard, who was given the opportunity of a lifetime to showcase her immense talent. Despite the score rising to a crescendo, it is as though suddenly all sound had left the world, as you concentrate on Cotillard acting out the intense moment, her eyes, her facial muscles, the shaking of her hands, the closing and opening of her soundless mouth articulating the deepest sorrow, the most unbearable anguish.
But life cannot be all bad, just as it cannot be all good, even for those destined for greatness and destined to pay a great price for it. On a more triumphant note, when light briefly promised to cast away the shadows, there is another high spot for me. That was when, in one of her first few music hall tours of New York City, Édith met Marlene Dietrich, who told her, “I haven’t been to Paris for ages, but this evening when you were singing, Édith, I was there… in the streets, beneath its sky. Your voice is the soul of Paris. You took me on a journey. You made me cry.”
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
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