THE MEANINGFUL LUXURY OF PAYING ATTENTION

Shopping at Realm in 2010

Feb 08, 2024

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(This piece previously appeared in the New York Times.)

VALÉRIE MACCARTHY, an opera singer-cum-jewelry designer, had flown in from Paris to attend to various businesses and pleasures, so I met her in SoHo for lunch, and realized that we were coincidentally near Realm, a swanky new boutique. I relayed some luxe details I’d read: like, it is a source for Jean Claude Jitrois and Alexis Mabille, hard-to-find labels in this country. The owner, a woman of goodly fortune, was splashing out on wild extras like engraved black plexiglass shopping bags and customer car service via private Bentley.

Valérie’s curiosity was sufficiently piqued, so we bopped around the corner and into the spaciously modern-yet-feminine bosom of Realm. We were ogling leathery baubles and fondling silvery chinchillas when, to my surprise, the owner herself, Randi Jacobson, emerged from a door in the wall, looking a bit like an “Avengers”-era Diana Rigg with a deep St.-Tropez tan.

I let it slip that Ms. MacCarthy was an opera star, and someone behind the counter piped up, “Sing something!”

I thought, uh-oh. Having loitered all my life around the arts, I have seen comedians cave into themselves like burning snails when asked to tell a joke. I remember how chillingly my mother flirted with matricide every time she volunteered me to play a mazurka.

But Valérie, skipping nary a beat, unzipped her soul right there at the jewelry counter and unleashed the rippling vibrato of a flawless aria, an aural river of nano-diamonds that made the walls shiver in ecstasy. As we stood around pink-faced and agog, the diva took a superb exit, leaving us all goose-bumped and starved for an encore.

It was a real conversation starter.

“I got married when I was 30 at Regine’s on New Year’s Eve,” said Ms. Jacobson, whose elegant appearance makes her soft growl of a Brooklyn accent a most pleasant surprise. “I had my wedding dress made by Jitrois: all white leather, off the shoulder with gold embroidery.”

“Wow,” I said, longing for a photo.

“Then? It got lost in the mail. They actually remade the dress for me. I got it two days before the wedding. The new dress was a little smaller than the first one. I had to walk like a Japanese woman, the skirt was so tight.” She demonstrated this teetering, as if in an ankle-locking kimono.

There are a number of gorgeously shaped stretch leather and suede dresses by Jitrois. Alexis Mabille, who was a designer at Dior, is equally well represented: a backless black dress with a starched white tuxedo collar; a black wool sheath with a neckline wreathed in a cluster of thick ivory satin bows the size of tea roses; an electric blue opera coat festooned with black crystals, for the avenging disco Romanov.

I threw on an hourglass-shaped down parka by Ermanno Scervino with little gradating diamond tucks, lined in black sheep’s wool. I actually thought the price ($3,900), though prohibitive, was relatively reasonable for such a successful fusion of form and function.

As I headed to the dressing room, I noticed Ms. Jacobson arranging herself on the couch nearby, to be gently attentive. This struck me as so kind, it made me feel unbearably special. I’m private about trying things on; I don’t usually leave the dressing room to flounce around demanding attention. I always felt this to be the domain of particular rich girls that my instincts always told me to beat up.

But this was a strangely intimate moment, one I would ordinarily flunk by pretending it wasn’t happening. Realm is essentially Randi Jacobson’s own closet writ large, with the doors thrown open. The black leather Jitrois dress I was trying on was directly related to her own wedding gown. I realized it would be ungenerous and arrogant of me not to share my enjoyment of it. So, I zipped myself in, got over my gothically self-conscious bad self, and submitted to being a blushing Cinderella.

“Oh!” Ms. Jacobson enthused.

“I’ve never looked this good in my life,” I said, stupefied at my reflection. “I look like Jane Birkin.”

With the possible exception of a Gucci wrap-dress I tried on in 2007, this was true: The short leather dress and low-slung hip belt made me somehow taller, sexier and French. I got an unexpected yelp of approval from a young man working near the door — heady praise for a girl pushing 39 from the wrong direction. If I had a car, I would have sold it that afternoon to buy that dress ($3,825), regardless of the fact that I’d probably be too shy to ever wear it. (But, like that neutron bomb, I wouldn’t need to use it to know I had the power to destroy lives.)

Realm is one of those rare shops that produce that uncanny tingling sensation that you only get in the presence of a legitimate labor of love. The personal choices that compose the inventory is Randi Jacobson’s voice — it’s how she sings.

Your Shopper learned valuable lessons:

1. Generosity trumps shyness.

2. Taste trumps wealth. In rare cases, taste even makes wealth forgivable. The opera, after all, has always been a place devoted to indulging the elites with art and opulence — but the poor, too, may occasionally glimpse the spectacle of heaven.

REALM

REAL ’M Randi Jacobson brings her version of Madison Avenue sensibilities downtown, shaming SoHo with a new level of meticulously chosen luxe.

DEAL ’M If you have to look at price tags, you probably shouldn’t fall in love with anything here, but the space is generous, as are the dressing rooms, reflecting the innate generosity of Ms. Jacobson herself.

MADE ME WANT TO STEAL ’M It’s a bold pack of labels you may never have heard of and can’t afford, but this collection of crushable handbags, bold jewelry and figure-flattering showstoppers is worth mooning over, even if just to dream of grand larceny.