“HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD”

Season after award season, the triumph lauded ad nauseam among spectators of this tournament of glad rags is the anodyne gesture to that grand tried-and-true muse, Old Hollywood Glamour. Even the new kind, the kind personified by the stratospheric likes of Pretty Young Things such as Carey Mulligan, Elle Fanning and Emma Watson are always given “Best of Show” when channeling something their stylists spotted late night on “Turner Classic Movies. Just don’t tell the French that…

“Glamour: the which (sic) I would like to know the meaning of,” Marlene Dietrich wrote crisply under the section titled “G” in a 1961 booklet irreverently spelling out her take on the alphabet.

Glamour, of course, can be so very many things. As I still process what showed during fashion weeks in New York, London, Milan and Paris, the topic has threaded some recent chats even among friends who have no interest by way of paycheck or personal wardrobe in either fashion or glamour. One inescapable conversation starter is my latest book, a quasi-anthropological study of the subject with its foremost practitioner Dita Von Teese, whose consummate devotion to living according to the elaborate styles and manners of another more, well, seemingly glamorous time is a constant point of fascination among strangers and friends alike (“Yes, even behind doors, she always looks that good…”).

Some of the talk came about because of the lavish documentary on Diana Vreeland (Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel) by her granddaughter-in-law Lisa Immordino Vreeland. If you were waiting to catch it on DVD that really is too bad: it’s a visual binge worthy of the subject and deserves a viewing on a screen matching her personality. In the courtyard of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, following an advance screening there, Peggy Moffitt and Jacqueline Bisset—two glamour beacons in their own right—shared with me over pencil-thin cigarettes and inky merlot their own wacky tales of meeting D.V. (I forwent both vices for that glamour standard, champagne). The director joined us and soon confided to me that despite being married into the family, she didn’t think the legendary editor would have cared much for her. “I’m not exactly her idea of glamour,” this tall and beautiful and brilliant woman said with a self-effacing smile. She was probably right.

Glamour is certainly part of the job description for the moderately blessed so-and-so’s living within a 10-minute drive from LACMA to their agent’s office. With the award season now underway and so many premieres in the next weeks for the “serious” nominee hopefuls, only to be followed by more parties bookending each of the countless ceremonies and finally climaxing with Oscar, there will be reasons galore for these stars, aspiring and established, to get their glam on. Honing in on what will elicit a barrage of paparazzi flashes and editorial pages is the name of the game.

The most formidable contender in this turf war would have to be Paris. That is the sense I get when I’ve dared to slip among my Frenchie pals in the fashion industry that what regularly marches down the runway owes so much to Travis Banton, Irene Sharaff, Walter Plunkett, Robert Kalloch and the other wizards of silver screen style. Without them, where would so many contemporary fashion designers be?

Oh sure, what designer doesn’t name-check Adrian or Edith Head as inspiration. Certainly, too, the Hollywood cinema owes much to ateliers far outside its imaginary borders. Any fashion student worth his or her salt knows that one of Paris’ own Hubert de Givenchy was instrumental in defining Audrey Hepburn’s look in just about every one of her films, including fitting her in the most iconic LBD of all time: that endless column topped with strands of pearls in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Yves Saint Laurent would similarly act as a collaborator with Catherine Deneuve in Belle du Jour. (Forget even citing Gabrielle Chanel’s much ballyhooed yet inevitably ill-fated stint in Hollywood to dress Gloria Swanson. That it’s a footnote, and barely that, in both Hollywood and Chanel’s history proves the point.)

But where would Saint Laurent be without Banton’s creation of a tuxedoed Dietrich in 1930’s Morocco, let alone her subsequent gender-bending looks on and off screen? They remain standard bearers of the height of sophistication. Despite decades of lax reporting that Givenchy dressed Hepburn for “Sabrina,” as with most other fashioncentric films since then—with press machines touting a fashion designer’s involvement over that of the costume designer doing the heavy lifting—the couturier contributed some looks to Ms. Hepburn’s overall wardrobe. It was Ms. Head who mostly costumed Ms. Hepburn in that 1954 gem, including those black toreador slacks and flat ballet slippers that have become another staple combo of the chic wardrobe.

Yet to suggest that so much of the glamour coming out of French fashion houses owe Hollywood’s costume designers props? What Gaul. I may have as well declared that anyone other than one of France’s native sons invented haute cuisine. Likewise, my French pals are steadfast that while they might adore cinema, it is the costume designers since the dawn of time who owe their art to the birthplace of haute couture. To that I say, while haute couture can epitomize glamour, glamour doesn’t have to be epitomized by haute couture.

Ms. Vreeland was the first to celebrate cinema’s impact on the fashion world with her third post-Vogue exhibition, “Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design,” in 1974. “Diana, why are we dragging Hollywood into the Metropolitan,” the museum’s director demanded, according to her breezy bio, D.V., published a decade later. “I’ve been looking at French couture for the last 40 years,” the Paris-born legend wrote as her reply, “and I can only tell you that I’ve never seen clothes made like these.”

Like Ms. Vreeland, my friend Deborah Nadoolman Landis has made it her life’s mission for the world to see the clothes that inspire dreamers in movie theaters, as well as on the runway and red carpet. Nearly four decades after Ms. Vreeland’s landmark show at the Met, Deborah has spearheaded a spectacular examination of film costumes and their impact with the release  this fall of three weighty tomes for the Harper Design imprint, including (just out in time for holiday gifting) Hollywood Sketchbook: A Century of Costume Illustration. The trio of books is tied to the sweeping exhibition Deborah curated at the Victoria and Albert Museum that also opened this fall.

“Costume designers have many advantages over fashion designers,” Deborah tells me by phone from London, late, late night on the eve before the opening night gala of her grand show. The Oscar-winning costume designer and academic is tucked in bed following a press day more grueling than anything she or her husband, director John Landis, ever underwent for a film premiere, she contends with a laugh.

“Every single costume created for a movie is seen in both a narrative context and a visual one,” she continues. “It is always seen within a perfectly framed image, always, with everyone else there to make that featured character look good. The whole movie is built for that moment. There is an emotional context too, because the very essence of story telling in a film is that you have to fall madly in love with the people in the story. As viewers, we are also being directed to look at this object of desire. This emotional context that is such a part of the film experience can’t happen in a split second on a runway. Life is not a catwalk. Neither are the movies.”

To wit, recreating that perfect moment when the audience falls for the heroine is what drives red carpet regulars and the army behind them—their stylists, managers, agents, publicists and, oh yes, the fashion designers creating the frock—to relentlessly recycle Old Hollywood during awards season. That is also behind the tidal wave of vintage gowns that have become by now a banal badge of individual style and cool.

“What is glamour but power,” adds Deborah. “For us in films, who work as collaborators, it’s about making a moment so irresistible to the viewers that it evokes emotion, memory. The dress becomes more than a dress, more than surface. It’s absolute soul. It’s an epiphany, a cathartic moment.”

This brings to mind something Salma Hayek told me once upon my first book project: “In the not so distant past, glamour was about being an unapproachable, distant, creature 
of beauty. To achieve that look required overwhelming artifice in every respect.” For Ms. Hayek, the very meaning of the word was about its etymology, a derivation of the Latin grammatica, meaning scholarship: to learn, to think. That definition shifted during the Middle Ages to mean something of the occult, the science of using ones own inner power, aka magic. “To me,” continued the actress-turned-cosmetics entrepreneur, “this original idea applies equally today. We cast a spell of allure and charm by learning who we are and by expressing ourselves.”

For those whose very raison d’etre relies on worship by legions of fans, be they actresses or the fashion designers who dress them, that means tapping the inner goddess.

The ideals of Old Hollywood glamour remain irresistible because they are such a part of the American mythology, tells me Arianne Phillips, an indefatigable talent, whose flair for creating character—goddesses or otherwise on screen, on stage or on the red carpet—has meant a striking career as editorial and rock stylist and costume designer. As the latter, that includes 15 years with Madonna, including five world tours and the pop icon’s directorial debut with W.E., for which Arianne was nominated for her second Oscar in costume design. She also collaborated with Tom Ford on his outing in filmmaking, along with shepherding the careers of countless designers she’s championed (notably, for the purposes here, Madonna’s turn at the Oscars in then-relatively unknown Olivier Theyskens).

“The heritage of Hollywood and the creation of glamour is integral to what we think of as movie magic, especially that magic age of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, which was a more innocent time in movies than reality,” observes my friend. “Audiences were introduced to the bias cut gown and other signatures that personified ultimate glamour, ultimate femininity. The Oscar statue itself is a glamour icon of Hollywood. These are the hallmarks of American style, unique to America’s heritage, American mythology.” In other words, goddesses such as Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe shining atop Los Angeles’ own Mount Olympus, the Hollywood sign. “Of course, these timeless archetypes keep echoing in fashion on the runway and on the red carpet.”

Ultimately, we agree, the relationship between fashion and Hollywood is a conversation. “It’s always been about seizing a moment in time,” Arianne says, sounding as if she were thinking aloud. She is still referring to the idea of clothes on film and what motivates designers and actors on the red carpet. She could also be speaking about the French way.

Given that it’s not so much that my French friends decry Hollywood as much as they prefer to think of glamour as something Hollywood could not know anything about without their contribution and guidance, let’s just say for the sake of argument that examining its source and meaning in New Hollywood is a conversation that will continue. As for who will best channel the legendary sirens of the silver screen in the hopes of becoming the icons for the next generation to worship, we will have to tune in for the pre-shows to find out.

Queens-based 3D-printing pioneers Shapeways enlisted Michael because of his incredible body, too…of work. For the last three decades Michael has sculpted, welded, cast and crystalized stunning feats of costume for a galaxy of singing superstars, among them Madonna (her last four tours), Rihanna, Gaga, Cher, Janet Jackson, Fergie and longtime friend Debbie Harry, who kindly turned out for the debut Monday night. Also there were legends of New York pop life, including deejay Miss Guy (filling Liberty Hall at the Ace with his incredible song selects), photographer Bob Gruen, deejay Billy Beyond, dandy Patrick McDonald and other dear pals of Michael, whose own imprint on life in this big city includes the infamous Squeezebox. But I digress…

Architect Francis Bitonti was teamed up with Michael, playing no small part in this process. It was one of the reasons I came to New York this week. I not only wanted to support Michael through the evening (and it was admittedly fun cranking out a press release, coordinating guests and press at the event, and overall dashing about), I also wanted to be a part of this historic evening. Clearly so did other friends such as our makeup artist pal Kathy Jeung, who stayed another day in town just to be there. The impromptu afterparty in the Breslin bar with friends in from L.A. (for this, Dita’s opening here in NYC Wednesday night and other reasons) was a late-night hoot.

For the last few months, Michael and Francis worked relentlessly to crack the nut that has so far characterized any 3D-printed fashion. Because of its inherent inflexibility, works by the likes of leaders in this arena such as Iris Van Herpin have been frozen pieces worn almost more as an accessory than a piece of clothing. Most recently, that Dutch designer rolled out pieces with motility by using rubber.

In contrast, what Michael, Francis and Shapeways achieved was actually deciphering how to engineer a piece using the powdered nylon that has long been a hallmark of architect and automobile modeling. No thread, no needles. The “textile” is actually the sintered nylon, albeit speckled with 12,000 Swarovski crystals that Michael and his team hand applied on the finished piece. His muse and model would be friend Dita Von Teese, so, of course, it would have sparkle.

“Francis was able to take my sketches for the dress, which I created specifically for Dita, and render those in the specialized language of the software,” says Michael. “The fluidity of the joints is all 3-D printed, layer upon layer of fine powdered nylon within the preheated chamber, based on information by the CAD file. The laser ‘sinters’ the nylon into form, a process known as select laser sintering, or SLS. It’s an articulated fabric built into the 3-D print itself. It’s something that’s never been done.”

Michael’s template was the Golden Ratio theory by 13^th century theorist Fibonacci, whose formula for beauty continues to be applied by artists and scientists alike. At the core of the theory is that the spiral exists throughout nature, from a human ear to the pinecone to the galaxy. “It all comes down to mathematics,” he notes, “beauty realized through mathematics.”

He and Francis applied the spiral formula to the computer rendering of the dress, in a mesh that would undulate around the body in the most feminine way possible. For this reason, he tapped old friend and muse Dita Von Teese, whom he deems as the consummate classical beauty. While the shape was built over a nude silk corset, most of the architecture of the silhouette, from the voluminous shoulders to the cinched waist, is the result of the hardened nylon powder. The floor-length gown moves and expands according to Dita’s body contours because of the netting pattern.

The printer produced 17 sections that were then hand-linked together into the dress. (Much of Mr. Schmidt’s work in sterling mesh and other materials over the years involves this time-consuming process.) The 3-D printed dress was then painstakingly polished and lacquered black, and then finished in crystals.

Beautiful to look at? Yes! But it’s the technology behind it that deserves the headlines. Check out the video below to get a better understanding of it.

Unless noted, all photos by Jeff Meltz Courtesy of Ace Hotel

To a year of beauty, optimism, laughter, adventure, experience and LOVE to each one of you reading this.

xoAndy+Rose and Nina

p.s. Thank you to Ramona Rosales for taking the care every year to collaborate on the concept and photographing our annual Valentine’s Day card.

But I’m eager to get back to posting…Till then. -R

My favorite gift year-end came in the forced convalescence of nearly three days in bed (or on the sofa). Forced by Andy, who wisely perceived my bronchitis had overstayed its unwelcome visit. Among the few diversions I hadn’t had the luxury of indulging in forever was a re-watching of the 1927 hit “It,” the silent film that probably most put Clara Bow on inspiration lists for generations to follow. So it is with this image of Ms. Bow, along with fellow actor Larry Gray, taken two years before “It” made her the eternal It girl, that I wish for all of us in the new year more experiences, more joys and more opportunities to indulge in the things we love (and, hopefully, this time, minus the prescribed meds and bedrest!).

A very Happy New Year.

But being busy, or even feeling less than sparkling, is no reason to look or think it. (Perhaps, so, even confessing it here is not very polite.)

So, Dear Reader, another day, another gift to be selected and wrapped for the kind folks who shop our business and another photographer to chase down as I juggle layout for Dita‘s book! And I will be doing it all with a generous swipe of red lipstick—a quick fix to make even the most tuckered gal feel new again.

Or at least look it.

-R

The fire sale at Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills kicks off tonight with a preview reception hosted by neo-burlesque queen Dita Von Teese, fashion industry activist Sonja Nuttal and yours truly from 6 to 9 p.m.

The beneficiary of all these items is Creative Visions Foundation, which provides mentoring and grants to budding documentary filmmakers and other socially conscious artists. My pal Julienne Ho left the beauty world to work with this worthy group, which was founded by the mother of Dan Eldon, a young Reuters photojournalist killed in Somalia in 1993.

Strange bedfellows? Perhaps, but the nephew of Garbo sat on the CVF board for a time and continues to be a friend. Among the more pedestrian items on auction, from Swedish toys to used make-up, is the largest collection of dresses by Valentina, the maverick New York designer with whom Garbo had a complicated friendship.

Scroll through the gallery above featuring a few of my favorite things, some which I will definitely try to score during the auction later this week.

See you tonight.

-R

As I tickled my laptop keyboard prepping the morning A+R newsletter with Andy, in the other room, Nina and I caught parts of Soul Power, the engrossing 2008 documentary on the three-day music celebration known as “Zaire 74.”

The concerts brought together some 80,000 fans to experience live African and African-American artists as seemingly disparate as Bill Withers and Miriam Makeba in the name of Black Power and, more specifically, the re-match between Muhammed Ali and George Foreman, billed as the “Rumble in the Jungle.”

Every one of the performances—both on and off the stage—are a captivating testament to the power of culture. Yet one of the standouts for me is when Celia Cruz leads The Fania All Stars in a hypnotically exuberant rendition of “Quimbara.” This is a woman who was never shy about hitting the full range of her vocal powers, nor about brandishing her crown as Queen of Salsa, literally, in terms of hair pieces. The collection of falls she manages to balance up top is only equal to the rainbow of ruffles unfurling south of her knees.

I saw her live several times, thankfully. One of my all-time fave experiences was the June 2001 evening she sang at a major bash in a mansion that Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana hired for the night that was originally built for a silent screen star.

It was one of the insane nights between the A-listers, the music and food and even the thousands of roses bobbing in the indoor pool. The grande dame of salsa brought the joint down as she sang her heart and soul out in a room that could hardly contain her personality. During much of her set, I found myself salsa dancing like mad with Domenico—and doing so less than an arm’s length of Señora Cruz and the band! It was just one of those nights.

Watching this video brought that incredibly special opportunity back to memory. But it also made me wish I could’ve been in that land far away now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo, among the throng of revelers at that concert all those years ago.

Of course, I was scarcely age 6 at the time! Thank the tech gods for video on demand on YouTube. Enjoy.

With this last year’s heightened interest in his dresses among the red carpet set and art social circuit, it seemed like J.C. was too occupied to venture into anything else—let alone jewelry that was such a contrast from his collection’s newly hyper feminine tone.

These are bracelets and rings that are unisex, brutalist, I observe once he laid out the new line atop a glass cabinet at my A+R store on La Brea. They are born from ambles through Home Depot, he tells me, informed and suggesting leaden nails and saw blades.

J.C. was encouraged by the few pieces he designed for Atelier Swarovski this last Spring. And so he decided to finally realize his own signature line.  The need was there, he noted, for something that would complete the look of his clothes. They might be cut of silk, after all, but J.C. has always envisioned the woman in even his most frothiest frocks can be as tough as brass. In this case, a supremely polished brass material that renders a set of wide cuffs like gold. Thoughts of Wonder Woman’s powerful wrist shields cross my mind as he persuades Andy and me to break the collection at A+R.

A week later we are seated under the colonnades at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, along with Mandy Moore, Jessica Joffe and some 30 other friends of J.C.’s, listening to the designer’s words of gratitude for the support everyone around the endlessly long table has provided him since he showed his first collection in 2005.

“Many of you here are from when I first started, and you did so many things for me,” he said. “I’m here today because of you.” At the time he entered fashion, and for several years thereafter, J.C. continued paying the bills as an advertising art director, a metier that has provided him with plenty of insight into how to approach his second act in fashion.

“It” girl-model Lydia Hearst chose a blue dress with a full skirt from the Spring collection for the evening. She and her BFF Lauren Harper were seated across from Andy and me, and kept us engaged throughout the meal with talk of perfume and design and snapping Instagram images of them with each of their mobile phones between courses.

Pretty young actresses weren’t the only ones that evening draped in J.C.’s work. Looking elegantly modern was Katherine Ross, the night’s cohost along with Angelique Soave, Rochelle Gores Fredston and Vogue’s west coast bureau chief Lisa Love. J.C. was a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund nominee in 2008. His fellow finalist that year, jeweler Irene Neuwirth attended the dinner, as did our favorite shoe maker George Esquivel, who was a finalist in 2011 and has frequently collaborated on J.C.’s runway heels as well as stone-encrusted sandals for Irene now in some Barneys stores.

As for Katherine, a fashion consultant and oft-photographed fashion plate as the other half of LACMA director Michael Govan, she has been a fervent supporter of J.C. since I introduced them at an event a couple of years back.

One of J.C.’s dresses I now absolutely covet was inhabited by stylist pal Elizabeth Stewart, who slipped into her chair next to Andy after the calamari starter had been served. It was black and white and I was green all over.

Other long-time supporting stylists there were Arianne Phillips, Jessica de Ruiter and Tanya Gil. Willow Bay also champions J.C. by way of her personal wardrobe choices at the various museum galas she frequents as a LACMA board member and wife of Walt Disney Company CEO Robert Iger.

Likewise Jacqui Getty, who arrived straight from the set of her daughter Gia Coppola’s first feature film. We managed to sneak in 10 minutes before desert to exchange updates on life. Besides documenting Gia’s film in photos, she’s also splitting her days on set for Wes Anderson’s latest film, assisting costume designer Milena Canonero, as she has forever. Jacqui’s really looking amazing after her divorce, complete with a sparkle in her eye toward the future. Or, perhaps, it was simply motherly pride for Gia’s young foray into the family business.

Whether the ties that bind are dna or otherwise, fraternity, as J.C. pointed out on this evening, can be a beautiful thing.

Photos by Stefanie Keenan unless indicated in caption.

The marquee hosts for the evening were Ali Larter, Minnie Mortimer Gaghan and Claiborne Swanson Frank. While I couldn’t pick out the latter two society gals out of a Hampton’s line-up, Ali is another matter. No matter where her star has ranked, she has remained as charming and self effacing as ever and she proved to be an enjoyable tablemate seated on the other end of my mushroom risotto.

Fortunately, too, the conversation among those within earshot—including Christos Garkinos of Decades Two on my left and event producer Chrisitan Leone and Vogue‘s Jessica Kantor on my right along with a few other smart women surrounding us—meandered into the state of education in California, volunteer work and who will be L.A.’s next mayor. It was the Thursday before election day. Suffice it to say, Eric Garcetti, you’ve got the support among this stylish brigade.

Before the 50 of us took our seats along an endless table parallel to the pool, there were the requisite drinks over the merch: this was, after all, being paid for by Devi Kroell Inc. to toast the Spring/Summer 2013 bag collection.

Around the bar there stood four display towers lit up and lined with beautiful little lady bags and bijou clutches covered in pink snakeskin, grainy walnut and glossy metals. Gals dressed to the nines—Liz Goldwyn, Crystal Lourd, Shiva Rose, Brooke Davenport, Anna Getty and Marlien Rentmeester among them—worked the bags, room and photographers.

Stylist and neighbor Jessica de Ruiter and I caught up on our other new careers (as mothers) until we were prodded from our perch at the side of the room and outdoors. I never did get to talk to Magda Berliner, whom I spotted across the cocktail party; but I did exchange quick requisite kisses on each cheek with Jeff Kline, the guy who resurrected this Sunset Boulevard landmark and transformed it into somewhere the fashion flock like to flock.

The one obvious name card missing from the dining table was the namesake of the stunning collection being feted. The award-winning designer stepped away as CEO and creative director in May, 8 years after launching her line. Apparently the marriage between designer and financial backer was on the rocks. Devi was replaced as CEO by Ralph Bartel, a member of the family that has funded the company since 2008. Devi does remain a shareholder and on the board of directors.

Too bad. She was such a standout talent. She also would have had herself a good time.