Grapevine: Strike a pose

Fashion week returns to Tel Aviv after a hiatus of over 25 years.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
fashion outfit 521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
fashion outfit 521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
FREQUENTLY PHOTOGRAPHED by paparazzi at the various events that he attends, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai became a photographer himself at the reception hosted this week by Italian Ambassador Luigi Mattiolo to mark the launch of Tel Aviv Fashion Week. He also welcomed celebrated Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, who brought his spring/summer 2012 collection to Israel, as well as some of his favorite creations from seasons past for the gala show that was held last Monday at the Jaffa Railway Station.
Using his cell phone, Huldai photographed Mattiolo, Cavalli and key movers and shakers of Tel Aviv Fashion Week Ofir Lev and Moti Reif. Huldai also photographed his wife, Yael.
As mayor of the city that never stops, Huldai made the point that Tel Aviv has always been known for its creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. Israel is well known abroad for its hi-tech creativity, he said, but its fashion is no less creative. Given the excitement surrounding Tel Aviv Fashion Week, it is something for which the city hungered. According to Lev, it will now be held twice a year, with showings of fall/winter collections scheduled for April.
THE EXCITEMENT in Tel Aviv over the return of Fashion Week after a hiatus of more than a quarter of a century was palpable not only because of the large number of participants from abroad, including more than 100 journalists brought in by the Tourism Ministry, but also due to the presence of leading Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, who not only came to Israel but also sent a large selection of his creations for a gala fashion show.
Sari Givati, Ronit Yudkovitch and Liel Danir, who were among the 30 models who showed Cavalli’s Spring/Summer 2012 collection, braved the rain on Saturday to visit the Amor Boutique in Hamedina Square to select the clothes they would wear for the show. Amor represents Cavalli in Israel. Some of the Cavalli collection from the fashion show can be found in Hamedina Square.
LOCAL DESIGNER Tovele Hasson, who produces under the Tovele label, also had her own show at Fashion Week. Aside from the tensions that are part and parcel of such an event, Hasson had to cope with a much more personal emotion – a broken heart. Her husband of 30 years found a new romance and left home while she was in the midst of preparing for the show.
POLITICIANS, WHETHER in government, the Knesset or local municipalities, seldom receive praise from the media. Among the exceptions is Lod Mayor Meir Nitzan, who served for many years as mayor of Rishon Lezion, then had a brief stint with Kadima, with which he quickly became disillusioned. Nitzan was lauded by journalist Anat Saragusti, the guest anchor on Israel Radio’s weekly program My Week, in which journalists from any and every type of media talk about what pleased or angered them in the week that was.
Saragusti, who generally takes the side of the underdog, said she’d been horrified to learn that there were neighborhoods in Israel in which there were homes that had no running water. She was aware that this was the case in Beduin villages not recognized by the State of Israel, but it had never occurred to her that this was also the case in towns and cities.
Then she learned that Nitzan had decided to provide water for houses in an Arab neighborhood that had been illegally constructed many years ago and were still under dispute. The householders had somehow accessed the municipal pipeline from which they took water in buckets and jerry cans but had no running water in their homes. Nitzan felt that the situation was intolerable and arranged for all homes in the neighborhood to have running water.
According to Saragusti, it was a win-win situation because the Arabs had not paid water rates for the water that they had taken from the municipal pipeline.
Now they do pay water rates. They have the comfort of running water, and the municipality has added income.
ACTRESS, SINGER, dancer, comedienne – in fact, all-round entertainer – Rivka Michaeli, who is a noted stage, screen and radio personality and has been a member of the entertainment industry since childhood, will be given an honorary doctorate by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev on December 4. The conferment ceremony will be part of the Ben-Gurion Day activities.
MANY ROADS led to Tiberias last week as locals and guests from different parts of the country got together for the Second Dona Gracia Festival. Dona Gracia was a wealthy and influential widow who nearly 500 years ago encouraged and helped Jews to settle in Tiberias. The emphasis of the festival was, of course, on the story of Dona Gracia and, in her memory, the entertainment lineup consisted almost entirely of female performers.
Among them were Yona Elian, Anat Atzmon, Miri Mesika, Sarit Hadad, Keren Peles, Maya Buskila, Ilana Avital, Meital Trabelsi and newly married Shiri Meiman, who even though she was ready to appear without her husband, insisted on singing with Shimon Buskila, with whom she has a professional partnership