Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page D01

Elegance Defined In An Age Of Indulgence, Audrey Hepburn Looks Even Better this week, a bunch of identically dressed women pull a jewel heist, all dressed like Audrey Hepburn from at The women may have been crooks, but they looked fabulous. Just shows you how the aura of Audrey continues to resonate. happened a lot, lately. The iconic Givenchy dress that Hepburn wore in at will be auctioned by in December. new ad for its skinny black pants uses old footage from of Hepburn cavorting in signature black pants and flats.

A new biography, The Life of Audrey by Donald Spoto, is out this month. And Ikea is selling a print of Hepburn as Holly Golightly, while CB2 has a wall clock imprinted with another Golightly pose. Hepburn has, it seems, expanded from fashion to home design. Hepburn is an inspiration in that her classic and timeless style has continued to resonate throughout the years in everything from fashion to pop culture to home says Kim Ficaro, style editor for Domino magazine. most important thing about style is that she stayed true to herself, and that is what people respond to.

Any woman can find the Audrey Hepburn within herself and express Certainly, fashion has long been inspired by Hepburn, who died in 1993.Designer Carmen Marc Valvo showed some of the most crisp little black dresses that oozed Audrey charm in his Spring 2007 runway show during the recent Fashion Week. And Target has tapped designer Behnaz Sarafpour to do Audrey-style fashions (at mass retailer prices) come November. Hepburn lives. istas will not allow her to rest in peace, nor should they. She is the very antithesis of sexy vulgarity of the Paris Hilton type, and therefore Audrey is the antidote to the trash and flash that has been driving fashion during the recent celebrity says David Wolfe, creative director for Doneger Group.

folk stylists, are just plain bored with vulgarity and so are pushing the pendulum to the opposite In a world of vulgarity, nice to know, we can still cling to Audrey Hepburn. Bag Lady What goes best with the perfect little black dress? The perfect little black purse. There are plenty of fetching black bags, but we like this black Chatham Satchel ($298) from Banana Republic. Barre Fly You have caught Audrey wearing those stacked wedgies, which are so popular this season. Instead, find her in sweet, smart slippers like these Jasmine Ballet Flats ($128) from Coach.

Pearl Jam You need to go to Tiffany (or rob it, for that matter) to affect the proper Audrey look when it comes to jewelry. Banana Republic offers an imitation pearl ribbon-tied necklace ($58) that does the trick. Making Scents Master parfumer Olivier Creed created Spring Flower for Audrey Hepburn. This delicious blend of peach, melon, apple, jasmine, rose, musk and ambergris ($165) can be found at Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman stores. Wraparound Views Remember Hepburn looking over her wraparound sunglasses in at Designers Badgley Mischka have their own luxe eyewear collection, including these sunglasses exclusively at Destination: Sama boutiques.

Funny Face no shortage of Hepburn biographies. The newest, Audrey Hepburn out next month, is filled with photos, style notes and biographical information sure to please any fan of the Hollywood legend. Zone: FullRun PAGE: D1 Typesetter: COVER1KQueue: 63 Date: 16:54 Plate: CMYK CMYK LIFE 9 29 THE HARTFORD HARTBEAT ENSEMBLE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY GALA POND HOUSE CAFE, WEST HARTFORD WOW! FORUM DAYLONG EVENT FOR WOMEN WARNER THEATRE, TORRINGTON PD: TO: OD. TO: OK. FILM REVIEWS: QQQQ FOR QQQQ QQQ THE SCIENCE OF QQQ SUSAN CAMPBELL: PLEASE BUY THIS PAPER, D2 As the nation struggled with race, war, rights and all the other complex issues that boiled into the 1970s from the revolutionary decade before, a plain symbol of happiness burst on the scene.

The yellow smiley face was on 50 million buttons by 1972 and became an emblem of the times, a tonic, however superficial, for the uneasy soul. The image remains ubiquitous, most notably as an e-mail punctuation and as a bounding, price-chopping ball for Wal-Mart stores. The lasting attraction of the happy head is evident in an ongoing trademark dispute between the Arkansas-based department store chain and a French company that sells smiley face products. Also, several towns across the country have smiley-face water towers, and one Ashland, Ind. claims to be of the Smiley But folks in Worcester say no doubt about the dawn of the sunny emblem.

The year was 1963, and the father was commercial artist Harvey Ball, a Worcester native contracted to raise morale at a local insurance company. To celebrate original image and trace the evolution of the smiley, the Worcester Historical Museum is launching an exhibit on Oct. 6 titled An American Smiley-face items everything from a toilet seat GO TO D5 By JESSE LEAVENWORTH COURANT STAFF WRITER AGrin Lasted 43 Years Smiley Face Got Its Start In Worcester a better movie buried beneath the 136 minutes of A workmanlike story, an unusual setting, a game cast and a righteous message kind of get lost in the excesses. And an imbalance in the leads hamper this by-the-book service- academy drama. Kevin Costner plays alegendary Coast Guard rescue swimmer.

the best of the best of life-saving service, a guy who for years has embraced the motto that others may Stationed on Kodiak, Alaska, he has dropped from too many helicopters into the frigid Gulf of Alaska or Bering Sea too many times to count. Fishing vessels roll over, merchant ships capsize, and Ben Randall is the guy who hits the water to save the crews. But he makes one drop too many. Tragedy strikes. And he is sent southto train the next generation of rescue swimmers.

GO TO D10 By ROGER MOORE ORLANDO SENTINEL Excesses Waterlog FILM REVIEW QQQ BY GREG MORAGO COURANT STAFF WRITER BUD PICTURES.