La Vie En Rose

Our Sights on L.A. Eyeworks

Oh Wood Eye! These frames have a finish that feels and looks like wood.

We've always had a mad crush on L.A. Eyeworks and the visionary crew behind the brand. That whole "visionary" thing is no pun either--they really fit the bill as one of the few fashion-related brands with a truly design perspective. I'm always a wee reluctant to attach the f-word to them, in fact, because despite the edgy insight, L.A. Eyeworks transcends 5-minute trends with frames that are, for lack of a better term, modern classics.

We met with fab co-founder Gai Gherardi and her equally fantastic cohorts Angela Gee and Brent Zerger at company HQ yesterday to talk shop, literally: L.A. Eyeworks will be part of the marvelous new lines we will be introducing at the super-sized A+R store in Venice that we are aiming to open in the next month or so.
With the guidance of Gai and the team, Andy and I put together two capsule collections that are very A+R. Among our selections were frames made with a breakthrough acetate treatment--the surface is scored to look and feel like wood grain. I love the off-white version because it looks a bit like bone.
Can't wait for you to see them.

On le Silver Screen

Cameron Silver and me.

On my adventures last night (which I will get to posting some time today!), Cameron Silver snapped this pic of us. We'd been chatting about how much we adore Dita Von Teese's manager, Melissa Dishell, and were suddenly inspired to send her a snapshot via Mr. Silver's Blackberry...from the heart of Hollywood to the pulse of Paris. Ah technology...

Charmed by Cast of Vices Uppers + Downers

Cast of Vices Charm Bracelet

A+R Venice neighbors Christopher Glancy and Jay "the Jeweler" LeCompte walked into the shop last fall and immediately had us hooked...on their carefully crafted, weighty sterling castings of pharmaceutical pills, bottle caps, cigarette butts and flies. Since then, they've expanded their Cast of Vices collection to Collette in Paris and a handful of other select shops worldwide. But A+R continues to work with these two charmers closely, including on this diabolical bracelet a client specially ordered for a Christmas gift. We all thought it turned out so beautifully that the boys decided to add it to the Spring collection.

Building a Banquet

Palace Dinnerware by Sebel and Alessandro Zambelli

Even though they won't be available until April, The New York Times is first out the gate (or in the house?) today with its feature on Seletti's Palace Stacking Porcelain Tableware. And A+R is the first to take pre-orders.

Dinner--and domicile--deconstructed.

Each building comprises of six plates in a category, such as dessert or the main course. Alessandro Zambelli was given the task by design patriarch Stefano Seletti to conjure dinnerware that didn't resemble dinnerware when not in use. Stefano is the founding head of SELAB, the laboratory driving his family brand in Italy.
Imagine the towers of tuna carpaccio or furnishings of other food Clare Crespo could dream up with these?!

Photos: Top and bottom, courtesy Seletti; center image from The New York Times

My Last Words on McQueen on KCRW's DnA

Frances Anderton, the host of KCRW's Design and Architecture/DnA show asked me last Friday to share on her radio show why so many were mourning the shocking suicide of Alexander McQueen. The segment aired yesterday, so figured I'd share it here.
Frances and I are co-curators at this summer's California Biennial at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. She's overseeing architecture; I'm fashion.

In Stitches Over Clare Crespo's Yummy Yarn Morsels at Heath

Comfort food without the calories.

Crochet beignets and seafood gumbo? Not as tempting to the taste buds as the real McCoy, but a tickle to the senses, nonetheless.
Food artist Clare Crespo laid out a Mardi Gras feast of King cake, ham, soft shell crab, purl'd, ehem, oysters, cafe au lait, and more, all carefully crocheted and served up on Heath dinnerware, apropos given most comforting of food celebrations is now on view at the Heath Los Angeles flagship.
A white ceramic bowl is topped off with a red looped round of "cocktail sauce" and a handful of knitted large shrimp dangle off the rim. Even the Tabasco bottle next to the catfish po' boy sandwich has been reimagined in yarn.
The Louisiana Clare called the installation "Laissez le bon crochet Rouler," which is a play on the saying "Laissez les bons temps rouler," or let the good times roll.

And rolling the good times with food is what Clare's all about. It's her mission to energize creativity and fun in the kitchen, and she's doing it through kiddie workshops and these more sophisticated flourishes with the art of cuisine. (It was her grandma who taught her how to wield the needles.) Clare's authored "The Sercret Life of Food" and "Hey, Cupcake!," and her DVDs "The Yummy Fun Kooking Series" have become a bit of a cult hit among even friends of mine without children. Her Yummy Fun site is lip-smacking good fun.

Andy was smitten by it all after attending the opening night at Heath a couple of weeks ago, and managed to trump my story about the Belons I'd just enjoyed at an old Paris brasserie with his description of Clare's cockles. He was right, too. So happy I made a stop there this morning since the blanket is being pulled on this picnic Feb. 21. That's this weekend, folks.

I also enjoyed visiting with our pal Adam Silverman, inhouse studio director at Heath. He just returned this weekend from Tokyo, where an exhibition of his pottery opened Friday night at Play Mountain. It runs thorugh Feb. 24, so hit it if you're in T-Town.

Photos Courtesy of Coco Iverson at Heath

Margiela on the Move

Martin Margiela White Vintage Glove Composite Halter

One individual's collection can mean so little or so much to another, and in the case of the late avant-garde fashion collector Marcia Berger, the more than 1,500 pieces she passionately accrued from Maison Martin Margiela since his start in 1989 is nothing short of a Holy Grail to acolytes of the Antwerp designer.

Martin Margiela Padded Nylon Vest

The entire trove--tops and bags pieced together from gloves, some 100 shoes on offer including several renditions of the Tabi split toe, a white-washed bottle of Veuve Clicquot and other rare ephemera, necklaces made of hair and so much more--was painstakingly sifted through and readied by Katy Rodriquez and Mark Haddawy from vintage house Resurrection.
It went on sale this weekend on 1stdibs and continues through March 31.

We ran into Katy and Mark this last Saturday night at the Koreatown walk-up of mutual pal and interior designer Bret Witke, who, yet again, was hosting a sensational cocktail party. The pair looked great but admitted feeling a bit wiped out from a week in freezing New York, where they kicked off the sale of this unprecedented Margiela collection, including meeting with museum collectors.
Mrs. Berger had spent the last 20 years of her life collecting and preserving the genius fashion coming out of Antwerp and Tokyo during that period, and Katy and Mark found more than a few dozen Margiela acquisitions still untouched in their original white packaging.

The collection is on view, and on sale, at Resurrection boutiques in Los Angeles and Melrose. I, for one, am going to get myself to the Melrose shop asap because seeing it all up close is truly a once in a life time chance.

Martin Margiela Spray-Painted Tabi Ballet Flat

Ruven Afanador in L.A.

File under Small World: On opening my mail today after three weeks away, I see there's a show at none other than Fahey/Klein here in L.A. for Ruven Afanador, the hotshot sharpshooter I recently spent a Saturday in a Paris studio with as he photographed Dita Von Teese. That day I became absolutely obsessed with his process and his work, specifically the images of matadors and flamenco dancers he released in book form in the last years. And these two series are exactly what's on the gallery walls now through March 27.
Missed seeing him on opening night Thursday since I just now saw the invite. But I will certainly not miss seeing these images in person.

My Two Sense on the Loss of McQueen

Trying to make some sense of yesterday's tragic suicide of Alexander McQueen, so many of us took to our keyboards to work it out with sentiment and tributes that would've likely made the man cringe, at least publicly.

Andrew Harmon and the nice folks at StyleSectionLA invited me to share mine, along with those of kindreds Booth Moore and Arianne Phillps, who nailed it with her last words. For me it begins:

Like so many other fans, my first piece of Alexander McQueen's was his signature skull-dotted scarf, a wisp of white silk printed in black which I've managed not ... read on...

But the most richly written piece so far comes from James Fallon, editor of Women's Wear Daily and one of my two former, fabulous bosses there. Since it's subscriber only there, I will hope they don't mind that I've cut and pasted it here in its entirety. Worth reading it through:

"Alexander McQueen: A London Man" by James Fallon

One of a kind is a hackneyed phrase, but how else to sum up Alexander McQueen?

From the moment in 1994 the designer burst on to the London scene with his graduate show at Central Saint Martins, he seized the spotlight with a creativity, showmanship and iconoclasm that almost single-handedly put the British capital back onto the fashion map. It was the declining years of the post-Thatcher era, and Britain was going through...

a recession that had sent its fashion into one of their cyclical doldrums after the burst of excitement seen in the mid-Eighties. Few overseas buyers bothered to attend the London shows and even fewer overseas press. The feeling was that London fashion was a backwater.

McQueen generated a buzz that forced everyone’s attitude to change. From his studio in a basement off then-far-from-cool Hoxton Square in the East End, the designer would conjure up one extravagant collection and show after another. His imagination seemed to know no boundaries, and for him the show was as important a statement as the clothes themselves. His inspirations came from almost anywhere — Hitchcock, Africa, Catherine Deneuve, the disfigured dolls of Hans Bellmer, the circus, religion and nature — but he forged them all to his own devices.

There was The Birds collection, shown in a dingy space (weren’t they all?) north of King’s Cross that forced attendees to weave their way through a dicey neighborhood to a building lit up with spotlights, up some rickety stairs to a breath-squeezing crush at the door and, once inside, a wait of more than an hour on a cold, hard wooden bench. The models wore white contact lenses, stuffed birds on their shoulders, and in their hair and jackets, tops, dresses, skirts and his famous “bumster” pants inspired by British builders that were so sharply cut they looked like razors.

Others had Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and their ilk walking down stairs in a horticultural hall to a runway that was a pool of water; one under train tracks in the freezing cold with a dirt runway, crashed cars and huge fires burning; several at a Nicholas Hawksmore church in Christ Church, and then the infamous Highland Rape show, which caused him to be labeled a misogynist and which McQueen forever contended was misunderstood.

The rape he referred to was that of England of his native Scotland, a heritage of which he was militantly proud — almost as much as he was his East End upbringing. His mother Joyce, who died last week, was at every show, beaming proudly from the front row.
The shows became only more elaborate once McQueen was granted a $1 million sponsorship by American Express, a partnership that lasted several seasons. His shows, by now events, shifted to a garbage depot — literally — off the King’s Road, which would be cleared out a week beforehand so the designer would have time to build his complicated sets. One show had flaring fire, another a rainstorm, yet another a carousel in the middle as models, like windup dolls, paraded in intricately cutout leathers. There were models in a giant glass house with the last covered in fluttering butterflies that had suddenly hatched, and in yet another they were in an ice house, with some on skates.

There was always an edge, a seething anger that caused him to be viewed as aggressive, a bully, a foul-mouthed son of a taxicab driver who was antiestablishment and said whatever he wanted. He was certainly that, and there was always a dark side to the designer, who always had a chip on his shoulder and who could become depressive and anxious over the smallest perceived slight. McQueen would rail against those he didn’t think understood his ideas or praised him when they didn’t mean it. He preferred people who were blunt, like him.

But there was a flip side. He was shy, had an impish sense of humor and a guffaw of a laugh that always left him slightly red in the face. He was also a boy inside with a soft heart. Those who knew that were the ones he shyly asked to call him “Lee” rather than “Alexander” because those were the ones he trusted.

Sure, he would drive his workers crazy by locking himself out of his house seemingly three times a week, or losing one of his prized dogs — which were always huge and always seemed to be some blend of pit bull — or be late for an appointment after he overslept because he’d been out partying and taking drugs (in the early days) until all hours of the morning. The staff and friends would gladly coddle him through those incidents — as well as his losing weight and broken romances and marriages (he “wed” and “divorced” other men at least twice) — because McQueen was immensely loyal to them. After each show in the early days, he would give every one of his workers a diamond to thank them, diligently picking each one out himself in the London diamond district of Hatton Garden.

And even as his fame grew and he would go to Paris — first for Givenchy, an experience he admitted taught him a lot but one he eventually loathed — and then to show his collections during Paris Fashion Week, he would always return to London because there were his roots, his friends and his family.

McQueen helped make London cool again, but it was London that made McQueen. It forged in him the ultimate British attitude that never let him back down or compromise his imagination. As he once told WWD: “I do what I do, and people can take it or leave it.”

Alexander McQueen Spring 2000 by WWD

Long Live McQueen

In faraway times, hanging with the Bishop in L.A.

Was already long awake from jet lag when I got an email from my pal Robert Barr in New York that I would've rather slept through this a.m.

This morning Alexander McQueen was found dead from an apparent suicide in his London flat.
He was only 40.

This tragedy comes on the heels of his mum's death earlier this month, and three of years after the suicide of his champion and friend, Isabella Blow.

Only mixed with the man a handful of times, the first time being at the Chateau Marmont, just a couple hours before Helmut Newton crashed and checked out for good.
Most recently, it was two years ago at the opening party for the beautifully designed Alexander McQueen flagship in L.A., where a clump of us, including the Bishop (pictured above with L), hung back, jumping up and down like teenagers at a club, as Beth Ditto, shrinkwrapped in red latex, and her band rocked the party that night.

Don't even understand why he needed to do this. Don't want to. But will always remember him as this lovely, sharp-edged, goofy, subversive, not-made-for this world genius.
R.I.P.

Updates: The Washington Post's Robin Givhan says it perfectly.
As does The NYT's Cathy Horyn on her blog, and
Dana Thomas on his legacy in Newsweek.

Haute Rocks: Sandberg&Timonen; Whet Our Fashion Idle T-Shirt Fix

Long Live Lanvin: Alber rocks our world.

Long gone are the days of the wizard with needle behind the atelier curtain. If fashion designers are going to be exalted now as rock superstars, then why wouldn't they enjoy that fundamentally validating badge of any stage idol?

No, not a record contract. God knows, that doesn't bring in the bucks these days. What does bring glory and greenbacks is the unpretentiously designed, potentially collectible, intentionally overpriced, rock T-shirt.
Besides, the very essence of all that's glam in rock is fashion, so commemorating its gods and that most prosaic of garments is no-brainer genius. Swedish provocateurs Johan Sandberg and Henrik Timonen considered this a few years back when they screenprinted the mugs of Tom Ford and Yves Saint Laurent on T-shirts in a kind of battle-of-the-bands pairing.

ID the rock source: Jean Paul Gaultier, Viktor & Rolf and Rodarte

The duo return with an encore of their cheeky concept at the new Brachfeld Gallery in Paris through Feb. 28. This time the 14-style line-up brandishes Miuccia Prada, Alaia, Martin Margiela, Jean-Paul Gautier, Haider Ackermann, Sonia Rykiel, YSL's Stefano Pilati, Christopher Kane, Marc Jacobs, Phoebe Philo, Viktor & Rolf, Lanvin's Alber Elbaz,Rick Owens and Rodarte.
The shirts were cleverly displayed with ripped strips of black gaffer tape onto the wall. And unlike concert T-shirts, the total 50 euro price tag on these facsimiles are going to benefit Doctors without Borders, noted Ed Brachfeld, the New York expat who opened the gallery this summer and encouraged the boys to reprise the concept.
"We don't need to make anything from doing this, we don't need it as much as they do, especially after the disaster in Haiti," Henrik told me.

The pair pay the bills as Sandberg&Timonen, art directing and conceiving graphics for advertising, magazines, record covers and other commercial projects. While this batch of T-shirts is limited to the gallery run, you might be able to phone to order by phone, although, oddly, they didn't do credit cards the night of the opening. The three of us discussed bring it to an L.A. gallery, so stay tuned...

After Yves and Tom: Stefano Pilati scores his own T-shirt.

In many ways, Henrik noted, the idol worship among fans of fashion and rock is the same: daring to sneak into the back stage of concerts or the front of house at fashion shows; the T-shirt as talisman, whether it's a branded undershirt or concert T-shirt; the youthful escapism of fashion and rock n' roll.
For those of us at the Feb. 4 opening party, it was definitely a lighters-up toast to those loves of our life. There with L.A. expats Raquel Elfassi (whose Resource agency reps the likes of directors RJ Cutler, Sofia Coppola and Zoe Cassavetes) and Christopher Bagley (W Paris bureau chief whom I know from my Fairchild days when he was in the neighboring cubicle), we were not the only ones making a game of matching the inspiration behind many of the T-shirts, as in the resemblance between the Rodarte sisters design and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody, and V&R to Van Halen.
"It's just as telling who is not on the wall as who is," Henrik pointed out. "We asked all the important designers we loved, but not all of them wanted to participate. I'm sure you can guess who they are," he teased. Is it really fathomable that the Kaiser, never one to shy away from the media spotlight, would say no?

I arrived intent on leaving with Rick's T-shirt, which was on the invitation and so obviously fitting given the former L.A. designer should've been a punk rock star if fashion hadn't piqued his attentions instead. But they were all so good, especially that Alber shirt, which, at least in my warped rock fan mind, revealed the genius behind Lanvin as the nerd at the synthesizer keyboard, the brilliant melody-making composer in the band, yet not fitting the Johnny Bravo jacket to make it to front of stage.
Sounds about right.

The Instigators: Henrik Timonen and Johan Sandberg

Inside Brachfeld Gallery on opening night. Where's the beer?

Here Over the Rainbow

Brush strokes over Silverlake Tuesday eve.

After some 24 days away, arrived back in L.A. late yesterday to a hail storm followed by the most spectacular, grand arc of colors that we could marvel at from our balcony in Silverlake. What made it even more memorable was at that very moment my sister Blanca was informing that she is a) having a girl b) having a Gemini (like yours truly...poor her), and c) calling her Melody Rose.

Good to be home. Plenty to file from the Paris adventure that's worth checking out, even if you're not going to be there in the coming weeks.

The Golden Hour: Favorite moment of dusk light in L.A.