The canvas, by Malcolm Liepke, an American painter of moody portraits and cafe scenes, is one in a exhibition that has attracted art-loving shoppers to Ms. Karan's uptown store.

It is a moody portrait of Viriconium beset by a mysterious plague.

"The Tango Player" offers a moody portrait of East German life in the late 1960's, but it never catches dramatic fire.

Record companies like Warner Brothers and Atlantic commission Ms. Fonde's moody portraits for album covers.

At Colette he shows images from "London: Birth of a Cult," a moody photographic portrait of the Babyshambles singer, Pete Doherty, the tabloid-magnetic bad boy perennially on the wrong side of the law.

In "Doc's Kingdom," he offers a moody portrait of disillusionment, yet one that falls short of despair.

The show also includes a close-up of a cactus, a snapshot of a chain gang, a picture of a sleepy street in Cody, Wyo., and a moody portrait of a woman veiled in lace.

"He looks like Jeff Goldblum," she said about a moody portrait of Al Gore shaving in 1974.

The decor runs to maritime kitsch, with a gaping shark here, a clipper ship there and a moody portrait of Jonathan Livingston Seagull thrown in for who knows what reason.

They like taking photos of big buildings or angular streetscapes or moody portraits.