La Vie En Rose

We'll Be Right Back...

Nut day. Consider this image of Sigrid Agren by Paolo Roversia as a kind of placeholder, like the lulling classical music played when you're on a hold on a call...pretty enough to enjoy, a respite from reality...

You're Invited: Talk+Booksigning for The Extraordinary Difference

Consider this an open invitation to my first talk/reading and booksigning this Thursday for Fred Hayman - The Extraordinary Difference: The Story of Rodeo Drive, Hollywood Glamour and the Showman Who Sold It All at the downtown campus of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising.

While his landmark store and fragrance Giorgio Beverly Hills were enough to earn Mr. Hayman the moniker Mr. Rodeo Drive, his contribution extends beyond the borders of 90210 to the way Hollywood dresses, Los Angeles parties and the multi billion-dollar global beauty industry does business.

The talk begins at 12:30 in Room 500 at the FIDM campus, and is followed from 1:30 to 3:30 with a booksigning at the FIDM Museum&Galleries bookstore downstairs.

It's also a great excuse to get to the museum's two newest exhibitions, "FABULOUS! Ten Years Of FIDM Museum Acquisitions, 2000–2010" and "Parfums Lucien Lelong." Both collections are rich with beautifully crafted, highly whimsical objects, ephemera, footwear, accessories and couture. Not to be missed! And it's free to see it.

Hope to see you this Thursday.

FIDM is at 919 South Grand Avenue, Suite 250, Los Angeles. Talk is 12:30-1:30; Booksigning 1:30 to 3:30. Admission is free.

Writing...It's Not Always Pajamas and Slippers

If it weren't for my days in the store and the odd outing, I would live in either leggings and crazy shirt or small-sized men's pajamas.

Today was not one of those days.

As I near the end of writing the manuscript for Dita Von Teese's beauty book, I met with Gregory Arlt, senior make-up artist for MAC and a great pal of both Dita and mine, who is lending his expert insight to the copy. We met up at Magnolia in Hollywood this afternoon, and after a lunch juicy with a medium rare burger and tales exchanged about dancing with Diana Ross, Tom Ford's new eyeshadows and our next projects, we got down to editing chapters.

Gregory snuck up and snapped the above image when I was interrupted reviewing Chapter 11 and on the phone to A+R.

As Seen In: Rescued By Design

We want to hop a plane to Rio or Bangkok after reading Michael Kimmelman's story in Sunday's New York Times on the new show "Design With the Other 90 Percent: Cities."

Organized by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum but exhibiting in the United Nations visitors’ lobby, it focuses on projects worldwide turning slums into more humane, modern places to live. Among those showcased is the Rio de Janeiro favela we gave a shout out to here last summer.

To wit, Kimmelman writes: "Design shows may conjure up fizzy displays of Van Cleef & Arpels or stylish tributes to Helvetica and classic automobiles. Design implies for most people the beautiful things an affluent society makes for itself.

This show is not about that kind of design..."

And so the story begins...

Go Get Hubbied

Admittedly, one of our guilty indulgences is "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding", TLC's trainwreck peepshow on the matrimonial institution that is a helluva lot more entertaining than the Kardashian porn show on the subject that brought the E! Network its best ratings ever this weekend.

Besides a certifiable affectation for the excessive, these two over-exposed entities on the topic also have in common an approach that hinges on the theater of the absurd, something more akin to performance art in terms of the process and production (or is it product?). Because of this they share a bond with the latest artwork by Bettina Hubby and her collective of artists who conjure and question the status quo under the HubbyCo. banner.

The ritual of marriage and all things tied to it—including the social, legal and financial implications—were put under the microscope for "Get Hubbied," a multimedia, multidimensional investigation and celebration. Some two dozen artists, including architect Barbara Bestor and L.A. arts patriarch Ed Ruscha, provided mind-tickling insight and stuff for the real, legal wedding held late last month at the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock, a beautiful Mission Revival building built in 1914 as a Carnegie Library.

It was a full house for the performance-cum-nuptials on September 25, and a matter of not so much being there "for the bride" or "for the groom" as for the artist at the helm of all this production, Bettina—who has not only experienced the subject first hand as a bride. Never mind friends or extended family: among immediate kin, her sister has walked down the aisle twice and her parents four times to one another and once to others. The trio are as much Bettina's partners in art as her many artist friends who collaborated, and that day, mom, dad and sis Hubby were all there, too.

The event couldn't have fully come off without an actual bride and groom, of course, and Bec Ulrich and Ruben Diaz were the recipients of all this pomp and strange circumstance (at least, "strange" to their respective families, who clearly did not know what hit them). The pair were the winners among dozens who applied and interviewed for a chance at this unorthodox, scrutinized approach to wedlock.

The ragtag ephemera, including a video of the Big Day (and the wedding cake topper pictured above which was positioned far from the cake and in the women's bathroom; the cake itself an unexpected piece that resembled a brick, as pictured below), are now part of an exhibition that opened this weeked and is on view through November 17 at the CFAER. The items run from the silly to the sublime, and many of the ideas will undoubtedly be stolen for real weddings. A book on the entire project will be out in 2012. (It's also worth checking out Bettina's blog on the journey there and back, including short videos of the many players involved in the process.)

Whether you're a fan of marriage or not, it's worth the visit. Because—like marriage, be it your first or second or thensome—HubbyCo.'s collective project is truly a trip worth experiencing at least once.

These guerrila street ads began appearing in L.A. and N.Y.C. in late 2009, seeking couples to apply for "Get Hubbied."

 

Provocater or Best Wedding Planner Ever? Artist Bettina Hubby

 

These "cut gems" were taken off, piece by piece, by guests. Inside the red foil-lined piece was a tightly rolled scroll of the day's events.

 

On the shelves were old books, each one renamed with a name of a participating artist and guest.

 

Artist Kate Mayfield with a copy of her "book"

 The best book of all revealed the wedding rings "burned" right into the pages.

 

Each long table for the guests were covered in ephemera that was as symbolic to the ceremony as it was just plain entertaining, from a long strip of patterned paper for guests to color, to a puzzle, to a clear square with a word which we each had to say at the right moment for a collectively recited poem, to a "Get Hubbied" temporary tattoo.

 

The cake. Seriously.

 

 

A bouquet is so, well, so bourgeoise compared to a piñata of flowers!

 

 






After their "I-do's," the couple walked outside, only to be greeted by the throngs who'd ventured out to see this latest HubbyCo. production, along with their family and an old Volvo dressed up like an ice cream truck (see below). Because, what is marriage, after all, but a dependable vehicle filled with breaks offset by your favorite frozen treats?

The bride used the hood to lean back and remove her garter (another time-held tradition), and the happy couple got in and drove off. They were back ten minutes later, having cruised around the block.

Another happy couple.

 

An absolute magical moment of the afternoon when this trio sang the wedding blues (actually more of a ragtime tune), pointing out how it's legal to marry so often when you're a boy and a girl (as seen in their signs in the posters below), but not so when you're a boy and boy or a girl and a girl in love.

 

Writer Steffie Nelson

 

Bent forks as candleholders by Gordon Bowen

 

Guest in a dress by Bettina Hubby from a previous installation work.

 

 

In Sheep's Clothing

The question over what to masquerade in later this month was resolved with the mail today. A box arrived with a trio of handmade masks I'd recently ordered from Kalon Studios. The good folks there are serving as the conduit for these whimsical guises by fellow New Yorker Ameila McIsaac, who made them from the wool of her own sheep, using vegetable dyes from her own garden. Her farm is up in the Hudson area in Philmont.

Amelia is offering five creatures in limited quanties—coyote, owl, fox, chicken and bear—but each mask is unique, as is the case with hand wrought anything. 

In today's box were masks of a fox, chicken and owl. They are as magical as we'd imagined, and will no doubt be fun to sport even beyond the trick or treat season.

Another Link for Gabriela Artigas and Me Sipping Agave Blanc

Saturday night is alright for fighting, Sir Elton once told us, and I'm certainly fighting the urge to close this laptop and head out to a late-night birthday bash for Gabriela Artigas somewhere in Hollywood at her sister Tere's place. 

I met the striking Artigas siblings late one night, in what seems a zillion years ago, at Diamond Dogs, the too-fast-to-live, too-young-to-die nightclub at H'Wood in Hollywood, thrown by my pals Bryan Rabin and Kelly Cole. After an insanely fun night in my vintage leopard YSL with pals such as make-up artist Gregory Arlt and Dita Von Teese, at 3 a.m. or so I found I needed to make my way back to Silver Lake (mind you, this is before motherhood became a reality).

The Artigas, whom I'd only met briefly before, offered to wheel this crazy old lady in the red fox chubby jacket home. Enroute, I learned the trio split their time between their native Mexico City and Los Angeles. (Since then, I've also learned their uber-chic mother, Teresita, also visits now and again.)

When we arrived in front of my house, Gabriela turned to me and wrapped my neck with a fat sparkling braid of silver chain. This was like the one she made for the runway show of my friend J.C. Obando, she shared. She was a jewelry designer, and, I suppose this was one way to get my attention. It worked.

We now carry her collection in the store. Only her chain rings are online so far, but the rest should go up shortly since it's been such a hit. (Handsome brother Alex, who was behind the wheel of the BMW sedan that night, is a furniture designer. His pieces should finally be instore at A+R soon enough!).

So I mentioned Dita and Gregory specifically as my party co-horts that night because they are with me tonight, in spirit, and the reason why I'm at my desk at home. I'm burining the midnight oil to complete this manuscript for Miss Dita's beauty book. And so I must skip out on celebrating Gabriela's birthday.

Tonight's topic is red lipstick, whose transformative powers I first discovered on my last day of junior high... Admittely, I can't say that I feel too sorry for myself: I'm doing what I love to do. Write. And about one of my fave topics, no less.

My laptop is open. My wet hair is in a turban, while I sit here in a softly worn pair of Viktor&Rolf for H&M cotton men's pajamas, and at my left (because, I am left handed, after all), a glass of clean, silver agave tequila called Ixa.

Such is la vie of the writer on deadline, Dear Friends!

Break over.

Disco Hedgehogs and Other Tales at Art Platform-L.A.

This weekend's inaugural Art Platform—Los Angeles, the city's entry in the modern and contemporary art fair circuit, offered the opportunity to see the work of new artists, catch up with pals who were exhibiting...and avail 14-month-old Nina with new stimulation to "ooh" at.

It also finally provided the perfect birthday gift for the dear gal. We requested only books as gifts for her first birthday and she received a windfall worthy of a small town library.

Nearly two months later, however, and we had yet to make our parental contribution to the collection that marked this milestone.

At the D.A.P. booth, there were dozens of books by the German publisher neatly layed out on tables made of saw horses. It was all to much to resist. But resist I tried. I had Nina in the stroller, and without the side panniers to carry anything. Or so I convinced myself as the reason why I shouldn't blow a wad of cash right then and there on all the beautiful books.

Nina and I nearly escaped without so much the fall 2012 catalog when I spotted a thin, white volume marked Viktor & Rolf with a story inside called Disco Hedgehog. Then another book brandishing the name of French video artist Pierre Huyghe, and one with John Baldessari, and yet another with Björk and Sjón. There were a dozen books in all, each by book by an artist or two or three from the worlds of fashion, cinema, music or art. And each with one a production feature special to it, from holography or flocking to glow-in-the-dary and even scratch-n-sniff.

The lovely heap, tied together by black leather straps, is Visionaire No. 59: Fairytale. How I missed its release late last year, who knows. But the timing in discovering it now couldn't have been more perfect.

Happy Birthday Nina.

Royal Fun: East Village West with Ann Magnuson, Kenny Scharff and the Old New Wave

I cringe at talk about the good ol' days, when folks go on about how their generation really rocked the establishment with their bold art and even bolder ways of having a sinfully outrageous time. I try, sometimes in vain, to personally refrain from such nostalgic bellyaching. But even the teens at Saturday night's opening of East Village West at Royal/T in Culver City had to give it up to their eternally cool elders Ann Magnuson and Kenny Scharf, the curators and creators of the eye-popping, mind-prickling round-up of the originators and instigators of New York's neo-Dadaist scene in the late 1970s (that's Ann and Kenny below back in the day, and above with opening night collaborator Bryan Rabin).

Represented in this chaos-before-cash days are works by artists such as Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tseng Kwong Chi, John Sex, Kitty Brophy, Bruno Schmidt, Frank Holliday,  Stefano Castonova, Nancy A. Kintisch, Greer Lankton, Paul Munroe, among others. The assmeblage, on view through this December, provides a peep-hole view of the wild life happening then in dingy nightclubs, dirt-cheap lofts, store windows such as Fiorucci and on the dirty boulevard.

The influence of California pop culture on that movement is at the heart of the show, hitching onto that bullet train, Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, the groundbreaking citywide art celebration taking place in art institutions, galleries and even the streets of the Southland. The first-round of parties kicked off this weekend, and clearly Royal/T owner Susan Hancock was not going to leave her 10,000-square-foot space dark during this historic chapter in the city's modern art history.

Ann and Kenny dug deep into their rich, personal archives, as well as those from friends such as Howie Pyro, the former D Generation and Danzig bassist who continues to blow away our ears with his incredible vinyl collection, at parties and on Intoxica Radio. Howie is a collector/horder after my own heart and has kept quite a bit of club flyers and other ephemera all these decades. On the green guitar-patterned jacket he was sporting at the Royal/T party: "I bought this in 1978 and this is the first time I'm wearing it!" he proudly told me just as he set the needle on Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It" (damn,  I've always loved that song!). 

Yet what might be the finest piece of Howie's collection was behind glass: a motorcycle cap that his late friend Keith Haring scribbled all over the black leather in silver Sharpie.

Further proof that it's not always wise to toss that old thing out of the closet was Ann's green bubble dress by another, sadly, late great visionary of the day, Stephen Sprouse. "It was the very last sale at his original boutique and I so wanted it—but it was $150! That was a lot of money for me in those days," Ann shared with me. "Well, [Paper magazine editor in chief] Kim Hastreiter said, 'Ann you have to get it. You just have to.' I'm so very glad I listened!"

Amen. And, of course, Ann still has the body to pull it off.

We arrived at the shindig as the doors opened, and a line was already primed to get in. The crowd swelled in size with every neon blue cocktail served.

In the "private room" in the middle of the Royal/T space, the curtains were up so everyone on the other side of the glass walls could ogle the behind-the-scenes "happening" of a bunch of PYTs (that'd be punk young things in this context) who were getting new wave makeovers by electric airbrushing and credit card blush with make-up courtesy of MAC. Entitled "California New Wave," it was a participatory performance installation with Andrew Marlin, Taryn Nicole Piana, Squeaky Blonde and Fade-DraA. Fully made-up and hair sprayed to the heavens, each one took to the seamless to be photographed by Austin Young.

Other East Village-Cali New Wave-inspired action Saturday night included performances on the back hall stage by Prince Poppycock, Drag king Mo B. Dick as John Sex along with "his" Bodacious Ta-Tas, Timur of the Dime Museum and Stacy Dawson Stearns and The Psych-Out Dada Go-Go Dancers. Besides the goose bumps, these kids are evidence that the spirit continues.

Let's hope Ann, Kenny and the entire cast of beautiful characters catch their breath soon and stage more of this blast from the past shenanigans. Whether you love the aesthetics of their collective work is not the point. Spotlighting the very essence of their productivity, which was conjured up from some place deep as if their very lives depended on it is why it's relevant now. It's also why getting to see this legacy up close and building on it the way that Mo B and Prince Poppycock are matters. The future is counting on it...

The cap Keith Haring customized for Howie Pyro, which might very well serve as good a retirement source as any 401k.

"Sachmo" by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The late artist came to prominence with fellow late artist Keith Haring and still very-alive and creating Kenny Scharf, the only one of the three born on the West Coast—in his case, Hollywood.

 

Then and now the art was all about the streets—as in what hung on the walls or the body: Ann Magnuson, in a Stephen Sprouse bubble dress, with Roberto Luis Santana, in a Keith Haring jacket.

 

There in Spirit: The late, great avant-garde provocateur Klaus Nomi is well represented at the show, from his outlandish costumes to posters (below) and video—because he was, after all, about the performance. At Club 57, where Ann played host, Klaus recruited Kenny, Jon Sex, Haring, Basquiat and a host of other characters into the act.

And Howie Pyro made sure St. Nomi was heard loud and clear with several coveted disks among his inspired selection of vinyl at Saturday's bash.

  Designer Jared Gold

 

Artist Robert Russell and Lisa Edelstein

 

Drag king Mo B. was among the many Technicolor acts who turned the place upside down and inside out for the show's opening night. She-he channeled John Sex, whose posters and other ephemera were part of the installation.

  A revival of film noir, three-chord roots rock and the simple reason that the old stuff was cheap were among the reasons why the rebels of the late 1970s plundered 1950s ephemera, music and fashion and made it their own.

 

What's more, as the spawn of the post-war generation, those individuals who escaped their avocado green-colored suburbia in the mid-1970s through early 1980s for the grungey promise of New York City found sardonic revelation and plenty of source material in the vintage artificats of their parents. And this guide just takes the cheesecake.

 

Born Too Late: the "new wave" make-over.

A MAC artist completes the look on Lisa Catnik

 

Some guests just got into the spirit and showed up riding their own new wave.

 

Royal/T's Naomi channels a bit of The Factory and a bit of Mork.

 

David Koenig and Jennifer Gross, whose Evolutionary Media gang has been working on overtime working many of the art events tied to Pacific Standard Time.

 

Kenny Scharf's upbringing in Hollywood and the Valley and on the retro-future view of TV deliciously deranged his creative process touching a high-kitsch pastiche of graffiti drawing, uber-vivid assemblages and out-this-world characters.

Show co-curator and artist Kenny Scharf and Alanna Navitski of Evolutionary Media

 

Caroline, Garry George and jewelry designer Joseph Brooks

 

Lloyd Scott and Ruth Handel

 

  One of the many posters some how preserved for our 2011 edification, this one from John Sex's burlesque revival at Club 57.

 

Center, our grand fairy godmother, Annie Flanders, who began chronicling the downtown NYC scene with the SoHo News and later Details. Surrounding the Eternal Flame that is Annie is Robert Russell, Lisa Edelstein, Bryan Rabin, Rose Apodaca (yea, me) and Andy Griffith.

As Seen On TV: Ann Magnuson in front of a graffiti-drawn TV by Kenny Scharf.

 

It wasn't just New York City where that DIY mindset was thriving: fresh from Philly in L.A. in the early 1980s, Tom Neas—here with his wife Susan—pointed his lens at the burgeoning underclub scene in L.A. and Orange County, chronicling them all in the staple-bounded More Mayonnaise 'zine.

 

FFrancisco George in Jeremy Scott...Rrrrr!

 

Captain Control: the scintillating Cin Ishii

Cheyann Benedict and photographer Phillipe McClellan

 

We're turning into an old married couple as we continue to dress similarly. In this case, Andy pulled out his vintage Helmut Lang leather and I walked out of my dressing room wearing a new Helmut Lang dress. Coincidence?

Off to our next adventure.

 

Archival B+W Photo of Ann Magnuson and Kenny Scharf by Lina Bertucci

ALL other photos by Rose Apodaca and cannot be borrowed, stolen or used without permission.