Last fall, New Yorkers were bowled over by the giant white spaceship that landed in Central Park. It was a Day the Earth Stood Still moment, and no less arresting once the doors opened to reveal a collaborative art exhibit from a variety of the world's most current, avant-garde experimentalists. Funded by Chanel, "Mobile Art" stood for just over a month and gave visitors a taste of whatever the MoMA and New Museum didn't already show, as well as New York's strongest taste thus far of the artistic offerings of Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. That is, until Lacoste stepped in (literally).

Rubber shoes will not die. Just as Croc sales dropped off, a new breed of ugly rubbers has emerged wit the help of Lacoste and architect Zaha Hadid, who designed the Chanel Mobil Art exhibit opening in New York this week. At least I think they're rubber -- they undulate! New York mag got hold of some images of the shoe Lacoste previewed at the Frieze Art Fair in London.

Lacoste celebrated its 75th anniversary last week, and the occasion triggered some fond childhood memories: I called him Uncle Vin. And whether visiting him at his Palm Beach (Florida) house or back home in Rye (New York), one thing was certain -- I'd be walking away with new Lacoste tennis togs. And it was Uncle Vin, actually the uncle of my friend's mother, who introduced the iconic Lacoste knit shirts to America. According to the New York Times, in 1950, a friend of his, tennis player Billy Talbert asked Uncle Vin -- a.k.a. Vincent Draddy -- to look at some shirts designed by Rene Lacoste, the one-time French tennis star (Lacoste had been nicknamed ''the crocodile,'' and his shirts bore an embroidered likeness on the left breast).