Former Duke Students Flirt with Fame

Faran Krentcil, the infamous and revered Chronicle columnist of yore, has had a life makeover since fashion-crashing New York two years ago. A Fashion Week Daily correspondent and New York Magazine columnist, she's had lip gloss adventures and meetings with celebrities. Lauren Bush has professed her undying love for Duke. A member of the Killers-we're guessing Brandon Flowers-compared notes with her on writing. And just this summer, she was outed as the brains behind www.imaginarysocialite.com, a blog about livin' it up, NYC-style. Ever diplomatic, Krentcil defends her right to remain incognito-for now, anyway. recess: So you were on Page Six and Gawker this summer. Faran Krentcil: Oh God, that was the scariest morning of my life. I can't even describe to you the experience of having that happen. Some people in New York say that any press is good press, and as long as they spell your name right, everything's good. And quite frankly, I haven't been around long enough to know if it's true or not. You know I have to ask: are you the Imaginary Socialite? Well, if you have to ask it you know I'm not going to answer it, right? Some people say you're holding out for a book deal. Of course, I would absolutely love a book deal. If I were to write a book, it'd be fiction. It would take place in the fashion world, but it would be a little darker. I write fiction for fun. I'll come home from a party at 4 or 5 in the morning, and I'll just start writing this weird mish-mosh of what happened to me. I feel like in any society, there's a lot of subtext and a lot that goes unsaid. If I were to write a book, it would be exploring that contrast. Define "socialite" for me. I think it's somebody who sees the social universe and the party sphere as their entire reason. What I mean by that is they see a social network not only as a way to have fun, but it's everything, not just entertainment, but it's also where you find really meaningful relationships. It's where you find animosity and obstacles. It's also where you find your career. How did you get started in New York? [After interning at Jane Magazine], I started sending random e-mails to people who worked in magazines, saying here's my resume, and I have an idea for a story. And some people never wrote me back, but some people did-I ended up getting a lot of interviews and my connections helped a lot. I started writing what I wrote for Duke at Elle Girl. Once, they gave me a lipgloss and I kissed a bunch of guys to see how long this lip gloss would last before it left. It's like the August '04 issue of Elle Girl, there are pictures of me kissing random boys in the East Village. This was the first magazine article I ever wrote. And how long did the gloss stay on? It lasted through seven boys, but I decided to keep kissing the boys anyway because it was the day after my boyfriend had broken up with me-I thought it would be fun. Plus, you want to give your editor variety. What's the most scandalous thing you've done that we could print? That's the funny thing about writers; we stand in corners and watch. I smoked a joint once in California-that's like the extent of my drug use. It's never interested me. I don't really get drunk. My sex life is private, but I can tell you it's certainly not excessive in any possible way. I was that girl who would go to a Duke party and, you know, work the room for about half an hour, say hi to everybody she knew and then take one other person up to the top floor staircase. We would just look down at everybody the whole night. And we would talk about what they were wearing and who they liked and what their body language was like. In your final column, you talked about how everyone either said you were Satan or Katherine Hepburn. Who are you? I think personally I'm neither of those two women. I'm definitely not Satan; I'm not brave enough. I'm not Katherine Hepburn because again I'm not brave enough. I think as a writer it's your job to walk both sides of the line. You want to be really smart and benevolent, but you also want to be a little wicked.