When Agnès Met Eli
A tale of two longtime neighbors on Madison Avenue.
Eli Zabar still remembers when agnès b. moved in across the street.
It was sometime in the mid-1980s, and the store’s owner, the French fashion designer née Agnès Troublé (the “b.” was for Bourgois, her first husband), came into Eli’s famously high-priced Madison Avenue eatery, E.A.T. shortly after the opening for a bite. “We sat right over there,” he says, pointing to a corner of his checkerboard-floor café, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Agnès spoke some English, so they had a neighborly chat. “But she ordered a bagel and lox and tried to cut it with a fork and knife,” Eli laughs. To him, this was a quintessentially French faux pas. “I told her, ‘That’s not the way we eat it.’”
Eli and Agnès, who is based in Paris, haven’t crossed paths since. But for E.A.T.’s birthday, the neighboring institutions collaborated on a limited-edition commemorative t-shirt, which is available for purchase at the E.A.T. gift shop and agnès b. across the street. Regulars at both are already eating it up; when the shirt was displayed behind the deli counter last week, it quickly sold out.
To celebrate the launch, these two punctuation-loving establishments threw a party at E.A.T. on Wednesday, inviting everyone to wear their best agnès b. snap cardigans for the occasion. If you follow this newsletter, you know what I’m talking about. The fleece-lined, pearl-buttoned sweaters, created by Agnès in 1979, are like a Champion sweatshirt meets an 18th-century Versaille jacket. (Agnès grew up in the same commune as the château.) Years ago, I stole one from my mom, who shopped at the now-closed Soho store, and I’ve been collecting them for myself ever since.
At E.A.T., snap cardi styles from every decade were on display. Devon Fredericks, Eli’s wife, wore a vintage one with multicolored buttons that blew my mind; Kim Staller, who runs E.A.T. Gifts, sported a well-worn, much-coveted leather one, which other guests swooned over; and Adam Charlap Hyman, whose architecture firm recently renovated the space, wore his mother’s, which is still in pristine condition. I wore a red cashmere one I found on the RealReal last year. (As evidenced by the crowd, they can be even better vintage!)
Eli, always the renegade (he left the family business when his older brothers offered him the night shift at Zabar’s), doesn’t own a snap cardi; he’s more of a Belgian-loafer-wearing admirer. Some guests wondered why the heck everyone was wearing the same thing… But it was a snap cardi party!!! Jess had on TWO, one layered on top of the other. Elizabeth Cardinal draped her mom’s over her shoulders like a scarf, and Alexandra Gurvitch wore an agnès b. belt. Whenever I see a member of the snap cardi community, I know they get it, so it was nice to be in a room full of them.
I had a blast. I spoke to a very stylish, longtime E.A.T. regular who met his third wife at the café. He also knew Geraldine Stutz, the former president of Henri Bendel, whom I’d just finished reading a book about. Adam shared his memories of visiting E.A.T. and how he worked to transform and preserve a space he’s been coming to since he was a kid. Plus, I got plenty of tips about how to care for my cardis. (Low heat or air dry.) All in all, it was a parfait New York night.
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This is so cute!!!
Snap Cardi heaven!! Love Jess’s look ♥️