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Power Suits, Inc.
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Feb. 1, 2000 |
To Saul Obarzanek, tailor to Washington's political stars. "I've helped everybody, everybody," says Obarzanek, who's worked at Britches of Georgetown for the last 32 years. "Well, most of them." Also Today Primary duds
Mr. Blackwell selects the best- and worst-dressed presidential candidates.
Amy Reiter Amy Reiter's column appears daily on the People site, Monday through Friday.
Got a hot tip? Tell Amy! He was never in the Nixon or Reagan White House, and President Bush only met with him once before deeming his styles "too modern." But he has Ford's, Carter's, Clinton's and Gore's measurements down cold (42L, 43L, 44L and 44L, respectively). Having learned his trade in prewar Poland, he really knows how to please a man. "I know their sizes. I know what they like. I know what looks good," he explains. "I make it easy for them." He knows how to entertain their wives, too. Betty Ford used to call him at home on Sundays to come running in for emergency fittings, which was A-OK with him. "I liked her," he says. "We used to have a couple of drinks while I waited for him. She took me around and showed me Lincoln's bed." And he's equally smitten with Tipper, who often comes in to do a little shopping sans Al, despite the fact that Obarzanek makes house calls for his most famous clients. "She's a beautiful woman," he tells me, recalling the moment she glimpsed the concentration camp tattoo on his arm. "When she looked at it, she almost cried." And while Obarzanek gripes that kids today want to be doctors and lawyers, "not a tailor," it's clear his work can make or break a political career. For instance, after the press began poking fun of Gore for favoring dark suits, Obarzanek got an urgent call. He rushed over with "a lot of suits, lighter ones." A few weeks later, the veep called him again. "He said, 'Saul, everyone likes it. Thank you.'" Eat your heart out, Naomi Wolf. But Gore's not the only one who's grateful. "None of them know how to dress," says Obarzanek of both his power clients and his potential ones. For example, Obarzanek thinks George W. could use a better fit and a little variety in his wardrobe -- there's such a thing as dressing for an occasion, you know. "I have to tell them what to wear, what necktie goes with what, what shirt goes with it," he says. "Most of them would just put on a pair of shorts and go." Speaking of neckties, Obarzanek has a bone to pick with a certain uninformed presidential neckwear purchaser. Those ties Monica Lewinsky bought Bill? "Too hot for him." "She didn't know what she was doing there," he tsk-tsks. She should have come to him. "I know what he likes, and I would have given it to her." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - They complete him "I wanted to do it for free but my managers said I should get paid." -- Verne Troyer (aka Mini-Me), in TV Guide Online, on the remunerative joys of posing for Playboy with a half-dozen buxom babes. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits Mariah Carey may think she has an eating problem, but her food issues are nothing compared to the drinking problem of one hapless Scottish journalist. While interviewing the pop diva in her limo on Friday, John McKie, the editor of the U.K. magazine Smash Hits, threw up -- spewing carroty chunks all over Carey's legs. "It was the most embarrassing moment of my life," McKie told the London Mirror. And I don't imagine it was a high point for Mariah either. If at first you sell a quadrillion issues and generate major buzz ... try, try again. That's a message Playboy has taken to heart, publishing a second batch of bluster from "Jesse 'The Interview' Ventura" in its upcoming issue. In it, Ventura reveals that he's never heard of Marcel Duchamp or Matisse and thinks "Picasso's terrible. He ain't art." Why? "Because his sun is a circle with lines going off it, and I used to do that in kindergarten." Make that Jesse "The Art Critic" Ventura. The serial husband strikes again? The New York Daily News reports that Newt Gingrich and his squeeze Callista Bisek were spotted shopping for diamond rings at Tiffany's last week. The young lady was said to have tried on a 2.27-carat ring that was "a little too small," though the previous Mrs. Gingrich, Marianne, might not have agreed with that assessment.
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