who is rena sindi?

Answer 1

she is an author

Answer 2

RISTINA STEWART, the society editor of Vanity Fair, likes to call the consummate party hostess Rena Kirdar Sindi the new Elsa Maxwell, although Ms. Sindi, the 33-year-old daughter of an Iraqi-born financier, hardly looks anything like plump Elsa did. "She doesn't take a dilettante's approach to entertaining," Ms. Stewart explained. Serena Boardman admits that among her friends, Ms. Sindi does stand out — and not just because she's attractive, went to Oxford or lives in Sean Combs's town house on Park Avenue. "Some people are like bumps on a log," Ms. Boardman said. "Rena has a lot to say for herself."

In fact, hardly anyone who knows Ms. Sindi, or who has been invited to one of her fancy dress parties, can think of a reason why she shouldn't be socially accepted. "She has very, very rich parents — do I need to say another thing?" Nan Kempner said.

As for herself, Ms. Sindi, who was born in Baghdad and spent part of her childhood in the Persian Gulf region, where her father, Nemir A. Kirdar, founded the merchant bank Investcorp in the 1980's with Arab oil money, views the question of her fitting in differently. But just how differently is intriguing.

"I don't know if I belong more with the Arabs or with the WASPs, frankly," she said one afternoon last week in the multilevel apartment where she lives with her husband, Sami Sindi, a private venture capitalist, and their two young daughters. (Mr. Combs occupies the upper floors.) "In a way, I really don't belong anywhere."

If you haven't already heard about Ms. Sindi's party-giving exploits — like the time she transformed Mortimer's, the former East Side hangout, into an Arabian pleasure den, complete with belly dancers — no doubt you will. She is about to bring out, with Assouline Publishers, "Be My Guest: Theme Party Savoir-Faire" ($34.95), a colorful account of 14 parties she gave in the past year, and a mere taste of what she's been known for since she arrived in New York in 1991 from London.

Ms. Sindi isn't the first member of the so-called junior set to recognize the publicity value in glamorous young socialites at play, or to attempt to parlay a readiness for exposure into a cottage industry. Brooke de Ocampo documented this crowd in "Bright Young Things" nearly two years ago, and quickly followed with a British equivalent. In fact, it was Ms. Ocampo who suggested that Ms. Sindi take her book idea to Assouline, with extra encouragement from Ms. Stewart.

As Ms. Stewart points out, the rich and titled have been cashing in on rank since anyone can remember. "Look at the Duke and Duchess of Windsor," she said, offering only to the most obvious examples of royalty for rent. And while Miss Maxwell didn't have a dime, recalled Diana Vreeland in her memoirs, and would "stay in any hotel that would pick up the tab," she was famous for giving parties in other peoples' homes and pulling in the right names.

Well, that's what Ms. Sindi has been doing with her elaborate theme parties. "She may not be doing it to pay the rent," Ms. Stewart said, "but everyone wants to feel they have value. And she's brought all these WASP girls out of their shells."

Given the fact that her own mother occasionally wonders why a young lady with a master's degree from Columbia (in international affairs) would spend her days planning toga parties for 100, you have to ask if Ms. Sindi's motives aren't, in the tiniest way, a bid for social acceptance. Certainly her friends don't think so, pointing out that Ms. Sindi is too open and friendly for a complaint like social climbing to have any validity.

And anyway, Mrs. Kempner said, with much of the world seemingly reaching for the same plums — whether a house in St. Barts or a Dior bag — what can such elitism possibly mean today?

"My question is where these young people think the ladder will take them and how will they know when they've reached the top?" Mrs. Kempner added. "I'm sure I'm one of the rungs, and they keep passing me by."

Mrs. Kempner, who received her share of publicity in her roaring-around days, is more critical of the amount of media attention the younger set craves and so readily receives. "There's never been such coverage," she said, adding: "There's no such thing as privacy anymore. It's easier to create a great aura around yourself than privacy, and I guess that's what they want.

Still, Mrs. Kempner concedes, her views might be passé. "I mean, these days all you have to do is hang out the ham," she said.

One thing that sets Ms. Sindi apart is her background. Her father, who as a young man was once detained in an Iraqi jail for 12 days without food or water, arrived in this country with few resources. He went to work for Chase Manhattan Bank, and when Ms. Sindi was 7, the family moved to the gulf region, where, in essence, Mr. Kirdar built a bridge between rich Arab investors and Western companies in need of capital.

In 1982, he and some Chase colleagues formed Investcorp and opened offices in New York and London, where Ms. Sindi spent her teenage years and, in 1991, married Mr. Sindi, whose family is Saudi Arabian. By the mid-1990's, before anyone knew just how hot luxury labels would become, Investcorp had made a killing with several acquisitions, including Gucci, Tiffany & Company and Saks Fifth Avenue.

An American retailing executive who knows the Kirdar family well said: "Nemir is a very gentlemanly type of fellow, almost ambassadorial. Dressed meticulously. Well spoken. He and his wife, Nada, are very social. They enjoy hobnobbing with highfalutin people. They live a very comfortable life, with the yacht, the cars, the house in the South of France, and all the trappings of wealth.

"Their daughter Rena is a mirror image of that. She had great social aspirations when she was younger, and she's fulfilling them. Her husband, by contrast, is low-key — he just goes about his business. She's leading the life of a rich socialite in New York. I don't think it gets more complicated than that. And I don't think there's a second agenda. Like her parents, she just wants to be where the action is."

Sitting in her living room, whose East-West décor reflects the years that she and her husband spent in Singapore, where he worked for Morgan Stanley, Ms. Sindi said she's never felt snubbed because she's an Arab, even after 9/11. "I'm proud of my origins, and I never say anything other than that I'm Arab and Iraqi," she said. "But I'm also probably not typical."

Still, Ms. Sindi said, after a childhood spent here and there, one of the things she craved when she moved to New York was a sense of belonging. "I look at some of my friends who are from New York, who have had the same friends since they were in school, and I think what I've really lacked in my life is having those roots," she said.

Which may explain why she jumped into the social swim early. "She's a generous host and that's the quickest means to becoming a popular guest," as Ms. Stewart said. "Reciprocity fuels this city."

Ms. Sindi said that one of the people who helped her out in the beginning was Serena Boardman, whose family has strong social links in the city. "Serena is a very inclusive person," Ms. Sindi said. "She meets someone new and she insists that her friends meet her, too. No, it's not the norm. You have to be incredibly secure socially to bring somebody new in, particularly if someone is different."

Ms. Boardman suggests that her friend's success, and the popularity of her theme parties, stems from the fact that Ms. Sindi simply makes a big effort. "Her enthusiasm drives it," Ms. Boardman said. "Rena knows I don't like costume parties at all, and she gets incredibly annoyed with me. But when you get an invitation to one of her parties, you know it's going to be fun, you're going to find your friends there, and meet other people."

Many of the parties in Ms. Sindi's book were done on behalf of corporate sponsors, like Chanel and Roberto Cavalli, a fact that smacks of crass commerce. But it also betrays a certain enterprise in Ms. Sindi. "I didn't get paid," she said. "I was doing the parties for my book, so I was getting something out of it. The corporations got a pretty good deal in that they got an event that would have cost them $60,000 for only $30,000" — because suppliers worked at cost — "and they got me for free."

Those companies also received media coverage. "We got a lot of exposure," said Anne Fahey, the public relations director at Chanel.

So perhaps Mrs. Kirdar's daughter is doing something of value after all. "I don't think having parties is trivial at all," Ms. Sindi said. "It's part of life." She's now thinking of ways of expanding her party savoir-faire beyond printer's ink, and what better vehicle, she said, than her own television program?



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