Word: velvetized
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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With Andy's help, the hip crowd of the '70s became just a cocaine-addled update on the old cafe society. The entourage admitted through the velvet rope at Studio 54 would be Liza and Halston and Bianca, and so on down to -- why not? -- Roy Cohn, the aide-de-camp of Senator Joe McCarthy and arguably Satan's first lieutenant. The meaning of hip was reconfigured to embrace the greed and swank and snobbery it used to reject. It would be summed up later in a song by Billy Joel...
...arrived at the Park, we saw a woman walking across the parking lot who caught everyone's eye. A tall, buxom, Black woman, she walked with a confident gate that oozed sensuality. What caught our attention, though, was her skin tight, flesh-toned body suit and black velvet vest whose fringes cascaded down to her upper thigh. Seen from far away, it looked like she was only wearing the vest. We were relieved, 40 minutes later, to find out this was Angela McClenton and to see her on stage strutting her stuff. "Oh," we sighed, "so she has a reason...
...only major Communist or Socialist leader to lose his life (no females here) in the 1989-90 "Velvet Revolution" was Nicolau Ceaucescu, ex-autocrat of Romania. By 'major', the longtime existence of a self-created cult of personality is implied. Construction teams never finished the huge residential complex that Ceaucescu had commissioned towards his own greater glory. His and his wife's brutal totalitarianism ended with a hail of bullets and mutilation of their corpses...
...Havel's mind, brutality, stupidity and kitsch all belonged to the same local gang: dead-drunk communists and evil smells, ghastly heavy velvet drapes and torture. Havel's formula was a variation on Stendhal's rule: "Bad taste leads to crimes...
...Feng, who came to the U.S. from China in 1986, showed an incomplete collection: no coats, few casual outfits. But she looks to be a virtuoso with materials. From cut velvet to georgette, she made everything seem like gossamer and draped it skillfully on the body. Byron Lars, who is just 29, put on the most dazzling show of all three cities, full of swagger and unabashed theatrics, with the most sophisticated music -- ranging from bongo drums to Delibes -- since the early days of Lacroix. Such a bravura presentation could have overwhelmed the clothes, but fortunately they were just...