<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  There I was last fall, in the grand ballroom of New York&amp;#039;s Puck Building in SoHo. Champagne flowed. Peonies were everywhere. The event details had arrived via messengered, calligraphed, engraved invitation. There was a band and a DJ. Tux-clad waiters passed gorgeous hors d&amp;#039;oeuvres on orchid-covered trays: &amp;quot;Would you like a caviar-and-cr\u00E8me-fra\u00EEche beggar&amp;#039;s purse wrapped with a chive bow?&amp;quot; I looked at my husband and struggled to hold in my laughter. See, we weren&amp;#039;t at a posh evening wedding; it was high noon, and we were at a two-year-old&amp;#039;s birthday party.  Moments later, as guests searched the crowd for the birthday baby, music sounded and in walked, or shall I say rode, the celebrated child in a Cleopatra-like tented platform carried by four strapping Sherpas. It was at that moment that I knew: Something had to give. This was before the country&amp;#039;s banking and auto industries were begging Congress for bailouts and companies announced sweeping layoffs from sea to shining sea. In the interim, your 401(k) may have simply tanked, or you may have unwittingly lost your entire life savings to Wall Street broker Bernie Madoff. All in all, though, conspicuous consumption was definitely out by the start of spring 2009.  As an observer of the over-the-top materialism of recent years in New York City, I have concluded that it was simply the economic law of gravity: What goes up must come down. Building up to this apex of excess, prices only got more and more exorbitant. Those new shoes you liked? Well, $750 is the new $400. That colorist? Promoted. You now get to pay double. It seemed everything was spiraling up in a vortex of insane spending on the part of the haves and the have-mores. Jets! Staff! Couture! Let them eat cake! My new book, The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund, is a time capsule of that diamond-crusted moment not so long ago. Many of those women who were accustomed to wild spending habits have been cut off: Amex Black cards have been snipped, chefs fired, second nannies laid off.  According to several ladies of leisure intent on slicing their household budgets, they are downgrading \u2014 to a degree. These women aren&amp;#039;t forgoing Fogal in favor of L&amp;#039;eggs or switching Diptyque candles for Glade PlugIns, but they are scaling back. One hedgie wife on a spending freeze attested to swapping full-on highlights for single-process hair color: &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s just too expensive to be a butter blonde these days,&amp;quot; she says. A woman based in the New York suburbs whose husband works with a prominent fund said her friends are bidding adieu to their personal trainers and choosing commercial flights over &amp;quot;wheels up,&amp;quot; and, she says, &amp;quot;I know several people who are not renewing their country-club memberships for the summer.&amp;quot; And let&amp;#039;s not even talk about summer homes. Fourth-quarter sales in the Hamptons, Wall Street&amp;#039;s playground, plummeted 41.3 percent in 2008. As many Wall Street egos have toppled, so has spending. Priorities have been realigned, and women are speaking out \u2014 publicly or whispering among friends \u2014 on their monetary rejiggering. One thing my sources agree on, though, is that looking good is not an expendable line item. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ll never stop getting pedis, obviously,&amp;quot; said one wife. &amp;quot;I just won&amp;#039;t get the full spa version for 90 bucks!&amp;quot; Bettina Zilkha, author and keen social observer, adds that her circle is not eliminating gym memberships: &amp;quot;People need them for both their bodies and their minds.&amp;quot;  Getting let go is no excuse to let yourself go. Tastemaker Anne Grauso concurs. &amp;quot;I need to feel beautiful to get through these hard times!&amp;quot; she says. But she&amp;#039;s choosing her battles rather than cutting back across the board. &amp;quot;I will not buy multiples of clothing, as I used to. And I won&amp;#039;t buy a screaming trendy item of any kind. I still want luxury, but it has to have and keep value, like a black Carolina Herrera gown, a boucl\u00E9 Chanel suit, or an Herm\u00E8s handbag.&amp;quot; Indeed, most women I&amp;#039;ve polled agree that they&amp;#039;ve cut back on spending but would still buy items they conceded were must-haves. Travel, however, is where Grauso is pressing the delete button. &amp;quot;Not only is it a fortune for a family to fly and stay anywhere,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;but airports are a hassle, the flights are uncomfortable, and the service is mediocre.&amp;quot; There is another line the banker spouses I know would rather not cross. And that&amp;#039;s the one to buy a subway pass. &amp;quot;No matter how bad things get, my husband and I would never take the subway,&amp;quot; one wife told me. &amp;quot;We would rather limit our social life to walking distance from our apartment than rely on going underground.&amp;quot; When I bumped into an oft-photographed socialite on public transportation, she seemed beyond horrified to be &amp;quot;caught&amp;quot; by the tracks. &amp;quot;Oh, hi,&amp;quot; she said sheepishly. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve never been down here! This train goes so fast,&amp;quot; she marveled.  Nina Griscom, proprietor of the ultrachic eponymous home shop uptown, has found ways to dial down her luxury level. Many women I spoke to say the first thing they snipped was weekly flower deliveries from their favorite florists. Griscom now treks to the wholesale flower markets downtown and picks hearty buds. &amp;quot;I try to buy with an eye toward longevity,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Banana leaves, orchids, sweet peas, lilies \u2014 blooms and branches that will last for a full week or more.&amp;quot; This is, she admits, an alternative to redoing her garden in the country. The urge to keep up appearances has resulted in a few surprising business gains. While many retailers are suffering, some costume-jewelry shops have seen an increase in sales, as women opt for budget bling. Lanciani Travel Jewelry on Madison Avenue has never done better. &amp;quot;I have very wealthy hedge-fund clients,&amp;quot; says New York district manager Barbara Kadic. &amp;quot;They had these fabulous jewels, and now they mix real with costume and no one would ever know.&amp;quot;  And speaking of high and low, several hedgie wives said that they wouldn&amp;#039;t forgo entertaining (after all, misery loves company!), they would downsize. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not going to use a fancy caterer,&amp;quot; one wife said. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m just going to buy all the food from Food Emporium or Citarella and then have waiters come in black tie and pass the food on wedding china. Served with Porthault napkins, it&amp;#039;s just as chic as it was in 2007!&amp;quot;  Yet in this sea of friends spilling their savings secrets, Marjorie Gubelmann, the founder of home product line Vie Luxe, thinks there are a few people out there who are embracing the drama of the market meltdowns. &amp;quot;I wish I had a fortune of my own so I could be a part of all this mess, but I think some people are total phonies and will use the recession to be like, &amp;#039;I lost 75 percent of my assets,&amp;#039; when they didn&amp;#039;t have any assets to begin with, or &amp;#039;We are flying commercial now,&amp;#039; when they always did,&amp;quot; she says.  However, while it seems the rest of the world continues to struggle, it appears a faction of the rich are still just that: rich. And as the lines continue to blur between the haves and the have-nots, what both sets define as luxury and espouse as cost-cutting measures may not. Certainly, excesses like $50,000 kiddie birthdays and 24-hour chauffered Escalades have seen their day. As for that formerly forbidden uptown train? What it may lack in comfort it certainly makes up for in time. And that, after all, is the greatest luxury there is. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a379/hedge-fund-wives-0509/>