New York Welcomes The Newest Beaujolais

New Years’ came early for the city’s wine connoisseurs. The first European wine of 2007 arrived in New York with great pomp and celebration.

Franck Deboeuf — head of Georges Deboeuf Vinyards — started the day with two glasses of his vinyard’s Beaujolais Nouveau while the rest of the crowd enjoyed a parade of elaborate cake creations.

Watch our video here.

Look like Venus and have money left for fries

Reporting by Tiffani Garlic, Lakshmi Gandhi and Annie Shreffler

Tennis champion and celebrity Venus Williams visited the Steve & Barry store in Manahattan today to introduce EleVen, her new line of affordable clothing, sneakers and accessories.
Williams will graduate this year with a degree in fashion from the Art Institute in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and told reporters the ideas for her clothes come from her personal preferences and that the name is inspired by the address of her childhood home.
Fans lined up inside the Manattan Mall to get a glimpse of the tennis super star, saying they love her for being such a great athlete, for using her celebrity to support important causes, and for remaining so feminine.
The price doesn’t hurt either. Most of the apparel, and everything in the EleVen line, boasted prices under $20. That’s what this national retail store’s mission is about: “stripping away the gloss and giving consumers something real.” They’re hoping endorsements from celebrities like Venus Williams and Sarah Jessica Parker, who also has a line of clothing in the store, more consumers will agree that great clothes don’t have to cost a lot.

“It’s not every celebrity or athlete who remembers where they came from and what their parents had to do to clothe and feed their family,” said Howard Schacter, chief partnership officer for Steve & Barry’s, in a recent interview with NPR’s Michelle Singletary.

In a city like New York, where urban teens are known to spend well over $100 for their sneakers regardless of their families finances, hearing from a beautiful, black athlete like Venus Williams that it’s just as cool to play hard and pay less may be just what their parents needed.

New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation, which offers free tennis lessons to kids every summer, said in a statement that they are happy to see an athlete like Venus Williams make sports apparel more affordable and accessible to all children.

See a vido of Venus visiting here….

Leo, Fashionably Late

Leonardo DiCaprio has employees who attend to him hourly; making sure not a hair is out of place and limiting access to the star.

“If guests come around and kiss Leo every day, we’ll have to make sure that that lipstick is cleaned off,” said Brett Pidgeon, Director of Operations for Madame Tussaud’s New York.

Of course, we’re talking about Leo’s wax likeness. We have no idea how often his real handler’s check him for lipstick stains.

Today, the wax museum unveiled the long-awaited sculpture of Leo, in the “VIP Lounge,” opposite Paris Hilton, and next to Beyonce.

(Here are more pictures and an interview with Tussaud’s director of operations)

But what took so long?
“A lot of people have requested for him to be here,” said Pidgeon. Indeed, Rachael Ray, Usher, and Shakira received wax tributes before DiCaprio. The London museum even had a Leo before the “Gangs of New York” star was re-created stateside. As Americans, we should be ashamed.

Mr. Pidgeon was coy about why Leo was appearing only now. But a museum employee said that the actor didn’t sit for the museum’s London artists, who fashioned the sculpture based on 250 photos.

Even without DiCaprio’s cooperation, the statue was eerily lifelike down to a mole on his left cheek, and dimples on his forehead. Pidgeon explained that four months and $125,000 go into each figure. Oil paints are used to match skin tone, and red silk creates the veins in the sculptures’ acrylic eyes.

Leo may date models and make over $20 million per picture, but a glassy-eyed replica of him to greet Times Square tourists proves he’s truly arrived.

~Claudia Cruz, Francesca Levy, Stephen Bronner, Daniel Macht