Shopper

Smoking Is Out, but Its Luxury Trappings Can Light a Fire

Two days into the District's smoking ban, and the haze is clearing from restaurants, nightclubs and bars all over town. Are you smokers feeling persecuted yet, as you huddle in the cold outside on the sidewalk? Square those shoulders and flaunt it! Here's to a little stylish, subtle revenge.

You can wear your habit on your sleeve, or actually your chest, with Thomas Pink's new Mogul shirt -- complete with a specially made cigar compartment sewn into the front pocket.

If you're the so-called social smoker who has only one or two with drinks, store 'em in Dior Homme's slim Plisse cigarette case. It holds only about eight smokes but keeps the flirting alive when you pull out such an elegant thing to offer a cigarette to someone interesting.

Of course, there's no ban in your own home (yet). Stick it to those judgmental health-mongers who snarl at your "nasty habit" and deepen the smoky aroma with Modern Alchemy's sardonic Salem candle, laden with the scents of burning maple, hickory and walnut.

Then there's the charred "smoke chair" by Dutch designer Maarten Baas, who's made a trend out of torching traditional furniture and finishing it with supple, inky leather. Combat any fire hazards with the sleek Uno ashtray. Its funnel shape will ensure that cigarettes and matches are extinguished and ashes stay put.

After all, you're not in such bad company. Mark Twain once wrote, "If I cannot smoke cigars in Heaven, I shall not go." -- Cory Ohlendorf

Shirt, cigarette case, and candle photos by Julia Ewan -- The Washington Post; ashtray photo courtesy Helle Damkjaer; chair photo courtesy Moooi