FINE APPAREL

The I Ching speaks of the highest state of grace as being the point at which all ornament is discarded, when inner value is revealed through fitness of form. For those city-dwellers who seek essentials, even though their lives are lived in the cacophony of shifting trends and fads, I would recommend a visit to SoHo's Novobatzky Couture. In this spacious studio, which Marianne Novobatzky, the proprietor, has called her 'grand obsession', you will find racks of restorative apparel that will remind you how truly vital fashion can be. The styles are effortlessly elegant; the detailing, witty and timeless. And because most Novobatzky designs are made and fit to measure, each garment comes with a subtext of ease and rightness that allows a women's individual character to shine through. Just as eyes are windows to the soul, such clothing is truly the body's vessel. Or, as Willa Cather put it some years after the I Ching, 'Art, it seems to me, should simplify.'

- a customer