As the U.S. economy tries to unshackle itself from lagging indicator after lagging indicator, this seems like just one indignity over the line: Tinsley Mortimer, the prefab Manhattan socialite whose frothy vacuity all but embodied the self-regarding elan of the new millennial money culture, has grown "edgy."

That's the worrisome verdict delivered by Wall Street Journal fashion hand Ray Smith, at any rate, who conducts on a sobering tour of La Mortimer's closet in West Chelsea, supplying a chilling account of What It All Might Mean. The Virginia-bred socialite has, you see, been "going through an emotional time-spurred by her separation from her investment-banker husband Topper a year [...]