The Seberg Effect

As I've said before, I was an intern for Patrick Demarchelier the last two years I was in college and a full on studio assistant for the summer after I graduated. When I first arrived there I was 19, and I'll never forget when I met Tonne Goodman (then Fashion Director at Bazaar). The first thing she said to me was "How old are you, 14?" I guess I was a young teenager. I was certainly full of beans, maybe even a little precocious, which I soon noticed people either liked or didn't like about me. There was one makeup artist who was out and out mean to me. Paul Cavaco was always so sweet to me - he let me paint his fingernails all different colors when we had down time, and Marina Schiano used to braid my very long hair during lunch break. 

When I returned to the studio though, after a tough senior year (all my best friends had graduated ahead of me and I was intensely lonely), I came with a more mature attitude and a new look. I had cut my long bohemian, wavy hair into a neat shoulder length bob. I already wasn't too sure about it, and my doubts were confirmed when Patrick looked at me and said in his very heavy French accent, "What deed you do vis your 'air darling?" He then called over his best friend Didier Malige, one of the loveliest, most gentle men I have ever met, and one of the best hair stylists in the world. "Do somesing vis her 'air," he directed. He then mumbled something about Carolyn Murphy and started cutting, in BIG chunks. I don't know what happened to me. I just let it happen. Did I not care? Did I not have the confidence to ask him what he was doing before he started cutting? Anyway, 20 minutes later I had a Jean Seberg pixie cut, and I was numb the rest of the day. I went home that night and cried and cried. I know it was just a haircut, but it was traumatic. It would be 2 years before I really felt like myself again.

So the other night I was at a dinner and Carolyn Murphy was there. We were introduced, and I told her how her 1996 pixie cut had indirectly inspired my own. Her face winced, and she put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Wasn't it awful???" Even though I look at pictures of her from then and think she looked great, and in fact I can even look at my own post-cut photo and realize it wasn't that bad, it certainly took some soul searching to live through the growing out period.

I wonder how Emma Watson feels right now?

I ♥ Your Style: Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda is my favorite fashion chameleon. In the span of her career she's gone from 50's demure to 60's Barbarella vamp to 70's war fighting hippie to 80's workout queen to 90's poster-girl-for-aging-well all with a lot of enthusiasm and credibility. What helps her pull this off? Her beauty. She looks good in almost anything. But she's also fearless - she goes for every look wholeheartedly. I can think of other girls - like Kate Moss - who can pull off many different looks, but they aren't as drastic as Jane's. Jane really, really went for it.

Printed Matter: The Art of Sewing

One of my best eBay purchases over the years was a complete set of The Art of Sewing books published by Time Life in the 70's. Like many cool things I know about, they were brought to my attention by my long time creative collaborator and art director of this blog, Chelsea Fairless (she has her own blog too). Anyway, I wasn't sure what the fuss was about but Chelsea made me buy them. I was so happy when I received them. At first glance I just loved the way the rainbow array of colored spines looked on my bookshelves. I also loved that each book had a theme - Exotic Styling, The Sporting Scene, Novel Materials, Separates that Travel, Traditional Favorites, etc - and that each book was covered in a print or material that matched the theme. Yet again, just looking at them was worth the purchase price. But then I started to flip through them - simple sewing and clothes - and found that techniques like how to dip dye, batik, monogram, embroider, knit, cut a pattern, etc. were interspersed with REALLY inspirational photos according to the theme of the book. The knitting chapter has a photo spread of the Missoni's at work in their factory, the needlepoint chapter provides 60's Frank Stella paintings and so on. If you have a remotely crafty bone in your body or if you just like to have a pretty bookshelf, run and buy these. I saw a full set on Etsy today for $56. Hurry!

Travel: L.A.

I was visiting friends in L.A. over Thanksgiving and in between kids activities we managed to squeeze in a trip to the Huntington Botantical Gardens. They have THE MOST incredible cactus garden and greenhouse. Looking at all the patterns and colors close up made me want to become a textile designer. 

Snapshot: Bianca Jagger

There are countless photos of Bianca Jagger that I really, really love, but I recently found this one and it seems to trump all the others. Unbelievably chic.

Home Sweet Home

As much as I drool over minimal interiors and wish that I could live in such ordered simplicity, I know that the one thing I couldn't live without is the personal artwork hanging on my walls. Since I don't have the budget to buy any truly significant kind of artwork I feel incredibly lucky to not only have an artist husband but also lots of artist friends that give, trade or make artwork for me. We're also really big on handmade valentines (large ones!) in our family and those take up a lot of wall space too. 

These aren't handmade, but I do love them so much. I found them in a vintage store - they were some guy's college project in the late 60's. There are 5 of them in total and they were featured in a Vogue Living story about my house.

 A collage I made from Kmart kids' valentines for my husband (2007).

A photo that Jessica Craig Martin took at our wedding, that I then covered with heart stickers and gave to my husband for Valentine's Day (2001).

Left A photogram portrait of my son by his godfather Adam Fuss (2009).

Right A watercolor of Lil Kim by Jane Rosenblum. It was a wedding present (2000).

Two heart collages I made for each of my kids for Valentine's Day (2005).

A drawing from Planet of the Apes, by Jane Rosenblum (2000).

Left A watercolor portrait of me by Anh Duong (1998).

Right When I worked at Gagosian Gallery I got to work with one of my photography heroes, Sally Mann. She used to write me notes and letters on the back of her unseen, unpublished photos and then fold them up like stationary and put them in an envelope. This is my favorite one (1998).

This one has a story: When I was in 7th grade, I transferred to Horace Mann and went to more Bar Mitzvahs than I could count. During that time I really wished I was Jewish so I could have my own Bar Mitzvah. There were many aspects of Bar Mitzvahs that I was envious of, but I was especially crazed about the enlarged photo of the honoree everyone signed as they entered the reception. By the time I got married 13 years later I was still thinking about the signed photo so I used this picture Arthur Elgort took and had it made into a poster that everyone signed as they arrived. I still smile everytime I pass it in the hallway.

Another Valentine I made for my husband. I got the quote from a photo of a pillow in Helen Hurley Brown's living room. Go figure (2008).

A Valentine Christopher made for me. I love how surfer-y it is (2008). 

Left Our friend David Yarritu made this from an Us Weekly cover - he blacked out everything but Hollywood, Star Jones' face and that big smile. He then made the cutouts at the bottom with a hole puncher. I think it's genius (2008).

Right I love to make photo collages. It's so much easier to look at photos that way instead of hiding them in albums. This picture was from Domino (2003).

Printed Matter: Diane von Furstenberg's Book of Beauty

If you're a fan of DVF and you don't have this book, I suggest you go to Amazon right now and buy it. You can get a good copy for under $5. It was published in 1977, and it's filled with practical beauty tips (like what color makeup works best with your hair/skin color), great vintage photos of DVF at home, and Diane's signature charm and wit. Case in point: There is a chapter called "Brazil? With My Hair? Never!" And if nothing else it's a cheap and chic addition to your coffee table.

I ♥ Your Scarf

I have been so inspired recently by Hermès' new website - J'aime mon Carré.  It completely reinvented my perception of the Hermès scarf as something only Queen Elizabeth or Grace Kelly would wear into something that any cute young thing can wear. I've included some of my favorites from those images here along with a few vintage ones. Being 36 I wonder if I'm not too old to wrap an Hermès scarf around my head. I'd probably only try it in the summer at the beach. The best I've ever felt wearing a silk scarf was inspired by my college roommate Patricia Herrera who showed me more than a few things about personal style. She taught me how to tie a scarf around my neck with the tie in the back so it almost served as a turtleneck - it keeps your neck warm in winter and it looks chic. The key is to use a smaller scarf - you dont want a big plume of scarf tails hanging down your back. Or maybe you do. But I don't. 

I ♥ Your Style: Kate Moss & Johnny Depp

I was that girl who had pictures of Johnny Depp in 21 Jump Street plastered on the ceiling above my bed. As a young teenager his was the last face I saw before I fell asleep every night. I had at least 15 different fantasies about how I was going to get him to be my boyfriend. I even wrote him an impassioned letter that I was sure sounded different, more sincere than all the other fan mail he'd received. Never heard back. 

Not so many years later I was a camera assistant to Patrick Demarchelier. We had gone to St. Barts to photograph Kate Moss for Harpers Bazaar. We had shot Kate many times. I was pretty enamored of her too, and the only thing she'd really ever said to me was that she loved an antique jade and gold ring I wore (it was my mother's). So we arrive on set that first day in St. Barts, business as usual, and as I was walking into the kitchen I heard his voice. Johnny Depp was there. Obviously I knew that he was Kate's boyfriend, I had just never imagined that he would come to a shoot. I was so stunned that I did a 180 and walked in the other direction. What could I possibly say to Johnny Depp?? I avoided him entirely. An hour or so later I saw him and Kate snuggling in a hammock while we finished setting up the lights. An hour after that they were making out next to the pool. While Kate was being photographed, Johnny lingered around for most of the day, not coming close enough to me to warrant an introduction. I was nervous all day, in fact pretty miserable. How could I be in such close proximity to Johnny Depp all day and not have the nerve to at least meet him? 

At the end of shooting, Patrick announced we would all have dinner at his house that night. I thought for sure Kate and Johnny would stay cuddled up in their room and not join us. But they did. In fact, I met him only minutes after I arrived at Patrick's house. If nothing else happened I would feel better that at least I shook his hand. He sat across from me at dinner. He was shy. We made a little small talk here and there, and our conversations with others crossed paths a few times. But it was pretty obvious that in his mind Kate was really the only person in the room. He stared at her the whole dinner. They interlocked their feet under the table. There really was an incredibly intense love going on between them. By the next morning Johnny had jetted off to somewhere else, and the shoot with Kate resumed as usual. I never had the same feelings for Johnny Depp again after that. I was so convinced of his love for Kate that I was happy to leave it at that and move on. When I look back at pictures of them now, what I notice mostly is just how good they looked together - their looks, their clothes, their style, their body language. It's almost too much cool to handle. I guess it was for them too.