U.K. Probes Structured-Finance Products

Wednesday, 12 Aug 2009 - The recession is officially over, at least it is according to the impresarios behind a series of parties that are strictly for employees of two of New York’s most high-profile industries: fashion and finance.

The invitation to the latest Fashion Meets Finance party — an affair that shamelessly includes only women who work in fashion and men from Wall Street — declared that the dark days are over — not just for the economy, but in the dating market, The New York Times’s Katherine Bindley reported.

“We are here to announce the balance is restoring itself to the ecosystem of the New York dating community,” the party organizers said on their cheeky Web site.

The site allowed people to post R.S.V.P.’s, including job titles and salaries, and while many entries were clearly fictitious (“David” who works in “cougar trading”), there was nothing imaginary about the hundreds of well-dressed, well-groomed people who snaked down East 50th Street waiting to get into Nikki Beach in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday night.

In an effort to screen out pretenders, a woman at the door in tortoise-shell sunglasses inspected each guest’s business card.

“I have no business cards because we’re in a recession and we’re not allowed to order them,” called out Lauren Paluzzi, 27, who said she is a manager of corporate finance for Liz Claiborne. She was waved in anyway.

Inside, seated atop plush white cushions on wooden furniture, St. Tropez-style, guests gamely confirmed the stereotype that attractive women who work in fashion just want to find wealthy men in finance, and vice versa.

Lesya Yanush, 30, who said she was a former model (and made it past the door staff even though she now works in real estate), explained that she found bankers more stable, focused and trustworthy as boyfriends.

“From my experience, I’ve dated lawyers and doctors and they’re nice; I just prefer finance,” Ms. Yanush said, before applying a fresh gloss of candy-apple-red lipstick in the ladies room. “My girlfriends who are in long-term relationships with finance guys are very happy.”

Alan Nieves, 24, a derivatives salesman for an investment bank, confirmed that when it comes to who attracts whom, “There’s a system in place and that’s how it is,” adding, “it’s the New York scene.”

His friend Matt Dratch, 24, who defied the dominant charcoal gray suit trend of the evening by sporting a black polo, was not convinced that the recovering economy had prompted the event’s strong turnout. “I’m pretty sure most of the guys would still be here if the tagline was, ‘Things are getting worse but you can still meet girls in fashion,’ ” he said.

The idea behind Fashion Meets Finance began in 2007 with Beth Newill, a merchandiser for Ann Taylor at the time, who found the garment district was a poor neighborhood in which to meet men. After speaking with a male friend who worked in finance and had expressed the same frustration about the absence of eligible women in the financial district, Ms. Newill organized regular happy hours for the two groups.

Fast forward two and half years. Fashion Meets Finance puts on increasingly popular gatherings every several months, promoting them in e-mail blasts and with over-the-top marketing that has been easy bait for online mockery.

The text with the latest invitation, the first party since January, was typical: “We fear that news of shrinking bonuses, banks closing and the Dow plummeting confused the gorgeous women of the city who understood that their shelf life is quick and fleeting like a senator’s South American love affair. The uncertainty caused panic which caused irrational decisions — there’s going to be a two-year blip in the system where a hot fashion girl might commit to a pharmaceutical salesman.”

The women were encouraged to hold on because the recession is over, and it would only be a matter of time before a boyfriend in finance enabled them to quit their jobs to be “tennis moms.”

Jeremy Abelson, 29, the founder of an online luxury newsletter called Pocket Change, who creates most of the Web site’s copy, said, “It’s offensive but it’s very realistic.”

Some women at the party said that the recession never shook their confidence in the appeal of financial-industry mates.

Kathleen Reardon, 25, a production coordinator for Jones Apparel Group, said she noticed that Wall Street men seemed more stressed as a result of the economy but she never found them less dateable. “They never seemed less appealing,” she said, sipping drinks with co-workers on the second floor of the club. “That would be like men becoming unappealing.”

As the night wore on, BlackBerrys were pulled out of pockets for the exchange of phone numbers, women began dancing on tables under the glow of colored lights, and at least one fashion gal and finance guy had clearly found a connection, making out on a couch near the entrance.

A 25-year-old financial analyst who was double-fisting glasses of Johnnie Walker Black, said that identifying yourself as a banker (“dropping the banker bomb” as he put it) had traditionally been a potent lure on the dating scene. “As the recession got worse, the magic bullet lost some of its mojo,” said the analyst, who asked not to be named to protect his employer, a private equity firm, from the publicity associated with the evening. “All my paralegal friends were suddenly getting dates and my banker friends weren’t.”

His own social life, at least, did not suffer because of recession, he said, but he still didn’t see the potential to meet someone special this night.

“Let’s just say I’m not going to find my future ex-wife here,” he said.

Source:http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/fashion-meets-finance-finding-your-future-ex/