SPEED DIAL FRENCHWAY TRAVEL

Yael and Esther Tavor, the Parisian emigres behind New rk's Frenchway travel agency, know tout le monde de la mode—and, moreover, how to get them from one runway to the next in the seamless style that fashionables, with their bipolar communications skills, demand. Bubbling over with nonchalant, Gallic laisseraller (further accented by years of Gauloises), the Tavor sisters have the best-traveled names in fashion at their Fingertips: Patrick Demarchelier, Betsey Johnson, David LaChapelle, Diane Von Furstenberg, Mario Testino. They've helped create some of today's chic-est travel spots—Vieques, off the coast of Puerto Rico; Cuba; Goa, India; and Ouarzazate, Morocco, to name a few—by dispatching their clients there, only to have photographers and their large crews follow.

With an all-female squadron of 14 agents—think Ah Fab meets Goldfinger— Frenchway specializes in the fashion emergency, one of which was in full swing, like clockwork, when a reporter dropped by. Told that this year's model, Carmen Kass, was stuck at New York's J.F.K. airport, Yael flew into a fury worthy of Naomi Campbell, raging, "Call the president of British Airways!"

But then, such situations are Frenchway's daily baguette. "That's why we do all the fashion people," Yael says. "We like that these people are spontaneous." They also appreciate their clients' famed snobbishness, which often gives them a fun challenge, instead of the usual "Where's my limo?" headache. "An actor or actress is just as demanding," sighs Yael, "but they don't necessarily have the taste." Besides, she adds, fashion's high theatrics put a bit of glamour back into jet travel—no small feat in a day when, to quote Miss Piggy, "you have to be going to a pretty awful place if getting there is half the fun."

DAVID COLMAN