West Village cosmetic doctor Yelena Yeretsky usually works to make the power women of Wall Street look flawless. But now men are asking for her services.
Yeretsky says, “The men usually want chemical peels so they look glowy. I remove lesions and skin tags and non-cancerous growths from years of playing golf in the sun.”
Yeretsky, whose clientele includes execs from Goldman Sachs’ Jersey City offices along with femmes at Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, saw business at her salon, CliniqueYFT, slow to a crawl after Hurricane Sandy flooded her riverfront offices, but all of a sudden things have picked up, just in time for New Year’s Eve.
Yeretsky is scrambling to smooth, scrape and fill the faces of the business world’s bold-faced names who are attending a big birthday party in the next few days.
The highly discreet Yeretsky won’t name names, but we’ve combed The Post archives and come up with a few suspects: designer Diane von Furstenberg, who rings in 67 tomorrow, or Ron Perelman, CEO of McAndrews & Forbes, who turns 70 Jan. 1, or infamous Goldman alum Jon Corzine, who hits the big 6-5.
–Claire Atkinson
Mangia!
Time Inc. and a few others may have skipped their big holiday parties this year, but some smaller traditions prevailed: The annual “Italian Guys” dinner was held on Dec. 20.
For most of the past 25 years — aside from a few skipped years due to firings or death — the “Italian Guys” have gathered at Village hot spot Da Silvano to toast those who have passed on, even adding a few “honorary Italian guys” to round out the dinner.
“Tommy and I started it [around 1987],” said Ron “Mr. Big” Galotti, the retired publisher of Vogue and Talk, referring to his lifelong friend Tom Florio. “We invited Steve a few years later because we figured he’d pay for it,” he said, referring to the former CEO of Condé Nast, Steve Florio, who passed away in 2007.
And of course busting chops became a big part of the mix. Galotti once quit on Steve Florio to launch Talk with Tina Brown and at another point was rescued by him to be publisher of GQ — only to be axed by his friend a few years later. That prompted the cancellation of the 2003 lunch, and it took some cajoling to get Galotti back to the table.
This year, the big guessing game was who actually paid for Galotti’s $50,000 John Deere tractor when he finally packed it in and moved to Vermont nine years ago.
The participants took a vow of omertà — but it was pretty clear everyone knew.
At the tradition’s start, they were all rising ad executives at Condé Nast, slashing their way to the top. Tom Florio, who exited as a senior vice president, is now the CEO of trade publisher Advanstar.
It’s fallen to Giulio “Pots & Pans” Capua, the publisher of Condé’s Architectural Digest, and Lou Cona, head of the Condé Nast Media Group, to keep the Condé connection alive.
The biggest smile of the night probably belonged to Phil Guarascio, the one-time top media-buying executive at General Motors. Guarascio, who hails from Richmond Hills, Queens, is now the chairman of Arbitron, which just hatched a deal to sell itself to Nielsen for $1.26 billion.
They also attracted passing interest from other diners, including Jason Binn, the CEO of DuJour Media, who used to chronicle the annual gathering in the pages of Gotham magazine when he owned it. He stayed for a drink and sampled the calamari before leaving to let the Italian guys enjoy dinner in peace.
“They’re hard-driving, successful publishers who rose to the top, and they respect each other,” said Binn. –Keith J. Kelly
Style with substance
Supermodel and style icon Veronica Webb has teamed up with fashion social site OpenSky.com to create her first clothing line.
Webb — known as a muse and favorite runway model of designers such as Karl Lagerfeld and Isaac Mizrahi — has created a five-piece collection of key basics geared toward women of all sizes at affordable prices.
“My mother made all of my clothes growing up, and she taught me all about quality and fit at a very young age,” Webb said. “Throughout my fashion career, the people I respected the most showed me this is the true essence of style. I’m excited to bring my fans on OpenSky a little piece of what I’ve learned from my mom and the world of high fashion.”
OpenSky members create a shopping circle of friends who share ideas to create a personalized shopping experience.–Post staff
Buzzed out
Marketing and ad executives across the nation are widely known for inventing their own lexicon of BS, but one agency, DiGennaro Communications, took a survey of its clients to figure out which overused buzzwords would die in 2013.
Headed the way of the dodo, the agency says, are: viral, meme and trolling. Don’t let the door hit you, guys.–Claire Atkinson