From the time her son snatched a fabric remnant off Mom's atelier floor at age 4, toddled over to a machine and started sewing, he's been on a 24/7 fashion binge.
In between shows and at market appointments today, everyone has been talking about the Proenza shoes: big scalloping ruffled kitten heels, as well as two types of poulaines one version tied with a bouquet of frayed ribbons, like the scraps on an atelier floor, and another covered in tube-shaped beads.
The tiling made a grid across the atelier's floor and walls; the students, as they drew me, would grid up their paper, then transfer me, part by part, from one set of coördinates to another.
So I stopped by the fifth-floor atelier of Paul Winston, the proprietor of Winston Tailors (a k a Chipp 2).
THE first-floor atelier of Mr. Fulk's studio, a former leather-and-bondage toy factory, is a baroque mélange of curios and oddities.
"I do one called 'South,' " he says, sitting in his third-floor atelier which is decorated with the chef's handmade pottery.
Mr. Strizek's ground-floor atelier, where he worked for the last 15 years, was flooded to the ceiling when waters inundated the the Karlin district of Prague.
On Monday last week, at her eighteenth-floor atelier on West Thirty-seventh Street, in the garment district, the French fashion designer Sophie Theallet showed me her fall collection.
5 30 p.m. 2) DRESSING THE PART Now that you feel underdressed, skulk over to Anna Mattuozo's tiny second-floor atelier (Viale Gramsci, 26; 39-081-66-38-74; www.annamatuozzo.it) for what some call the finest shirts in the world.
And where would he go but the fifth-floor atelier of Paul Winston, the proprietor of Winston Tailors, a k a Chipp 2? Chipp, which is what most people still call it, is a family-owned business at 11 East 44th Street.
Look for luxury that is subtler than an outrageous price tag, and keep the following mantra in mind: When in doubt, just browse. 1 P.M. Arrive by private jet, car and driver, or, more likely, the 4, 5 or 6 train and enter the third-floor atelier of Shahin Samouhi, 766 Madison Avenue, (212) 737-7212.
