More affecting has been a change in the mood in the fancy salons where Whitmore spends his days sluicing rivers of hair dye onto the heads of investment bankers' wives, lawyers from white-shoe firms and editors of glossy magazines that are disappearing at an astounding rate.
The orgy of shopping is over, and the conversation has shifted to a sort of proletarian chic. Women who once bragged about spending sprees now boast about how they've combined phone and online services to save money. They turn up at the salon in town cars instead of limousines to appear less indulgent. They stretch the limits between appointments from four to six or, heaven forbid, eight weeks.
So deeply felt is the loathing toward a former beacon of the high life who had the nerve to swindle fellow millionaires that not a single colorist would agree, at least publicly, to bleach the blond and reviled Ruth Madoff.
On a recent Friday before a holiday weekend, Whitmore is at his station in Midtown Manhattan painting pitch-black dye onto the head of Anne Maltz, who has had him repeat this process every two weeks since she became prematurely gray at 26. She is now 53.
As he attacks her roots, he explains how surprised he is that so many of his clients are relieved that he's left the posh salon atop Bergdorf Goodman, a sanctuary of mauve walls and fantastic views above Fifth Avenue.
It's not that Whitmore's clients find Bergdorf's unappealing. "You have to realize, the expensive jewelry counter is right in front of the elevators," Whitmore says. "And you know something, that's temptation."
Whitmore relocated this spring to the equally luxe Pierre Michel Salon a few blocks east on 57th Street, a 40-year survivor of economic ups and downs with an entrance on the street.
Maltz is peering intently back at Whitmore through the mirror in front of her as he talks.
"Oh, James, I'm not walking into Bergdorf's anymore," she says. An attorney who lives in Brooklyn, Maltz doesn't consider herself among the materially obsessed. But she explains, "I just don't want to be tempted."
Maltz says she is seeing fewer of Whitmore's other regulars during her appointments, and when she does, "they're talking a lot more about money, but not the way they used to."
The wife of a successful New York contractor confessed to Maltz that she'd finally used a gift certificate she had tucked away in a drawer: "Her husband didn't want her running through all the cash."
