La Vie En Rose

A+R in Angeleno Interiors

A major THANK YOU to Lisa Cregan, Alexandra Abramian and Melissa Valladares and all the Angeleno peeps for this full-page feature in this month's Angeleno Interiors magazine!
Click here to link to a more readable version of the feature.

Paul Smith Freeze Frames Lillian Bassman

For Harper's Bazaar 1949

Photography is a funny thing. It can have such power inside a book or on a computer screen. But experienced face to paper, it somehow trumps all previous instances of staring at even the most stared at image.
So it happened for me, at least, late last week during an exhibition of a dozen or so iconic (aren't they all, really?) black and whites by the legendary Lillian Bassman, an evening at the Paul Smith shop on Melrose Avenue which was apparently supposed to include the honoree that evening. These are part of the body of work this brilliant lenswoman, who will turn 93 this June, printed and manipulated in recent years. It would have obviously been a great moment to meet her. But being so up close to these marvelous images, provided by the Peter Fetterman Gallery in Bergamont Station, was thrilling, too.

Charles James Dress, Carmen, New York, Harper's Bazaar, 1960

After a prolific career shooting mostly for Harper's Bazaar and various advertising clients, as the 1960s became the next decade and fashions transmuted into something entirely different, a vexed Ms. Bassman gave it up. She trashed years of negatives, and treated others like trash. Luckily, an artist friend using her studio found the bin bags about a decade ago and encouraged Ms. Bassman to return to her first love.
As Ginia Bellafonte wrote in T Magazine last summer on Ms. Bassman's comeback: "Hers was a world of adult sexuality that wasn’t ranted about."

I was particularly taken by an inky image of model Carmen Dell'Orefice in a Charles James gown taken. I can't stop thinking about it, in fact.

Party guest Tere Tereba, looking as beautiful as ever, was apparently taken by a few, too, and she and her other half, the American song legend Jerry Leiber, evidently made more than one sizeable acquisition that mini magical evening.
I left my own lens at home (still no replacement for my treasured Leica, and I didn't have anything small to pack in my clutch!), which was a pity considering how well turned out (nearly) everyone--from designer Katy Rodriguez to stylist Miles Siggins and Paul Smith's Cindy Viera--was Thursday night. It was a Bryan Rabin production, after all. We raised a glass to Velvet Hammer head Michelle Carr, there with Miss Astrid from New York and Annie Sperling. Makeup Mama Sharon Gault got on the horn and roped in collaborator David LaChapelle, who promptly declared his mad love for Ms. Bassman's work.

For more on Lillian Bassman's life-changing work, check out her most recent picture book "Women."

Beauty Personified: Lillian Bassman

Earth Day Every Day!

Garden-a-Go-Go! The BACSAC mobile garden container go anywhere.

Yes, it's Earth Day. But it shouldn't end at the strike of midnight. We've rounded these great new, some exclusive, products at A+R, which will keep you inspired year-round to think globally, act locally.

1. BACSAC Mobile Garden Containers: A+R Exclusive to the U.S.! The ultra-lightweight BACSACs are made from a 100% RECYCLABLE material that is UV-, frost-, tear- and traction-resistant and is permeable to let soil breathe and drain with limited evaporation while protecting roots. From $50 and up (smaller models will be posted shortly).

2. Bobble Water Bottles: Not another water bottle promising to save the Earth, you gripe? Um, this one really is the end all and be all. This Karim Rashid-designed, ergonomic water bottle is BPA-free, FDA-approved and USA made of RPET! That means the bottle is made of recycled plastic and it can also be recycled (ditto the packaging). A carbon-based filter removes organic ick from regular city tap water and meets the NSF International Standard 42 for chlorine, taste and odor reduction. A single filter is the equivalent of 300 water bottles. How's that for keeping landfills less filled? Bottle with Filter $10; Replacement Filters $7.

The Last H20 Bottle You'll Ever Need: Bobble Water Bottles

3. Manymals: How can silver charms save the planet? Five percent of sales of each piece of these 100 percent sterling silver necklaces benefit WildAid, a nonprofit dedicated to ending illegal wildlife trade within our lifetimes. Designer Markus Diebel supports the organization based in his hometown San Francisco, which has chapters worldwide, including Galapagos and China. Details on Markus’s creatures—Sloth, Bat, Gorilla and Pug—are detailed on the backside of his innovative black cardboard "bubble" packaging. $260

Collect all FOUR!: The Bat from the Manymals Collection by Markus Diebel

4. Wall-Mounted Bird Feeder: The specially made bubble is of a recyclable plastic that can withstand extreme temps and UV rays. There's even a drainage hole at the base of the bowl. Mount it to a windowpane via the innovative double-sided suction cup. $19.50.

Bird Feeder by Born In Sweden

The Cork Envelope by Artecnica is available in 3 useful sizes.

5. Cork Envelopes: Sustainable cork envelopes strengthened with a lining made from recycled billboard. The latest from the award-winning Design with Conscience program by Artecnica, the L.A. studio teamed up with ad giant TBWA to recycle its billboards. Collect all three sizes!

Color Us Lucky: Trina Turk+Martha Stewart Give A+R Good Love

Under the Rainbow: Trina Turk and Jonathan Skow

The May issue of Martha Stewart Living has hit newsstands, and with it a Technicolor feature of pals Trina Turk and Jonathan Skow and the delicious afternoon we spent earlier this Spring at their dreamy 1930s desert escape in Palm Springs.
Can you spot Andy and me among the fun?

Malcolm McLaren: Long Live the Provocateur Through His Last Words

Malcolm McLaren February 2010

The world just got a little more muted, a little more tedious with the news just in that Malcolm McLaren had his last gasp this morning at the young age of 64. Though he was suffering from cancer for some time, the perennially brambly English rose was still giving the culture his hurts-so-good all as recent as February when he screened his latest work and spoke to our pals at Paper Mag. And by the looks of this photograph taken on the 15th of that month, looking alright for an old punk.

In the words of Exene Cervenka: Rest in Pieces.

When you were working on this project, did you have have in mind what ...click here for the rest of the interview.

Update @ 4:55 p.m.: Favorite obit...so far.

Update @ 4/9 7.53: Love this post by the New Yorker's Judith Thurman. Spot on.

Photo Courtesy: Patrick McMullan

All Grown Up: Gia Coppola and The Like

Feeling a wee ancient as I consider the work of these talented young women. Gia Coppola directed this short promoting Zac Posen's collaboration with Target, out next week, and starring her high school pals from the The Like. Mutual pal Bryan Rabin introduced me to the redux girl band six years ago and I promptly showcased them in WWD as part of a spread on the emerging live music scene of teen bands with credibility. Despite all their parental connections to the music industry, the kids featured rocked. The song and their look is undoubtedly reminiscent of a band "in my day," The Go-Gos (yes, that's the sound of my creaking bones.) And watching Gia grow from an awkward waif to now all grown up at 23 (gasp!), well, she's obviously doing the family proud both in terms of ability and style.

Werner Herzog Reads "Madeline"

Genius.

Coke-Cuckoo Karl Lagerfeld

Coco Rocha and Baptiste Giabiconi for Coca Cola Light

Further proof that's not a sneer on Kaiser Karl's poker face but the giggling smirk of a jester.
Like Salvador Dali for Lanvin chocolate bars and Rudi Gernreich for Smirnoff vodka before him, the haughtiest of haute stuff Karl Lagerfeld now flirts with the proles with this valentine for his favorite American elixir. The zero-calorie soda and steamed veggies helped him shimmy into his Hedi Slimane suits back in 2001. He was still living on the caramel bubbly when I last interviewed him in 2007, an assistant dutifully keeping a small glass filled to the brim during our afternoon.
A silhouette of Lagerfeld appears on the white and pink Coca-Cola Light bottles he, naturally, designed, and supermodels Coco Rocha and Baptiste Giabiconi in the ad he also shot. This is hardly his first flight of quirky fancy in recent years: His likeness as a teddy bear for Steiff was a riot. And with that collectible still commanding upwards of $1,300, is it any surprise this little side project is limited edition, too? The bottles are only available, at least for now, at Colette in Paris--for about $4.70 a, ehem, pop.

Huggy Bear: Karl Lagerfeld and his custom Steiff

Photos: Courtesy of Coca-Cola and Steiff

Crazy Teese in Sin City

Smokin': Dita Von Teese in reel life.

Crazy Horse Paris founder Alain Bernardin and burlesque queen Dita Von Teese share one very burning fetish: The desire for perfection.
Monsieur Bernardin, who started his cabaret in 1951 on Avenue George V continued to strive for the next four decades until ending his life at 78 to cultivate l'art du nu--the art of the nude.
His life's work is not lost on his three grown children who now run the business: The dozen ballet-trained dancers on stage at the Crazy Horse in Las Vegas Wednesday night all flaunted the same tall height, the same small cup size and the same impressively flawless physiques. These are the same kind of impossibly provocative and perfect women who inhabited Guy Bourdin's photographs, and some were flown in from Paris for the week-long engagement starring Dita.

The twice-nightly reveal is a reprise of the showcase that was a sensation in Paris last year. It was Dita's second act the legendary club, and this time admiring pals John Galliano, Elie Saab and Christian Louboutin were not simply guests. They concocted jaw-dropping couture costumes for Dita's performances, which she peels off with such élan that it comes off more as delicious decadence than maltreatment of such exquisitely made togs.
The dress-undress connection with the Crazy Horse is even more striking considering Bernardin's heaven was next door to the salon of Cristobal Balenciaga and years later Yves St. Laurent would set up his studio across the road.

But it was Vegas where we would finally catch Dita at the Crazy Horse. Despite staying at her truly fabulous place in Paris for nearly three weeks recently, I never saw her perform there. Each time she performed in Paris over the last few years, we'd miss her by a week, even an evening. So despite an absolutely crazy time to escape L.A. (we'd barely slung open the doors of our new A+R store), we hopped a plane over to catch her.
It was well worth it.
The Crazy Horse Paris inside the MGM Grand is the perfectly intimate venue to witness Alain Bernardin and Dita Von Teese's l'art du nu.

The burlesque star's performances--including "le Bain Noir," where she strips down and bathes in a shiny black claw-foot tub--punctuate a variety show of routines featuring all or individuals of of the Crazy Horse dozen, as well as a few comical sketches by twin brothers. Dita, too, contributed to the medley of talent by lip-synching two songs she recorded. Let's hope she decides to finally release them as a single.
Opening night brought out more Angelenoes than Andy and me. We sat with Michael Schmidt, whose work appears all over town--from the mesh tops hanging off Cher to a grand installation inside Kerry Simon's Palms restaurant. Philanthropist Susan Casden and filmmaker/author Liz Goldwyn accompanied Decades' Cameron Silver. Never mind what the rest of us were wearing. He looked positively flash in a sparkly slim suit right off the Michael Kors Fall 2010 runway (the boy's got fans in every fashion city). He also beat me to the post with his own--he did forgo the afterparty, early bird that he is.

And what an after party he missed! With a couple of hours to kill after the show (we all hit the first installment that evening), Michael, Andy and I hit Julian Serrano's restaurant at the Aria Hotel, where we were staying--and loving the rooms and restaurants (did not at all feel like we were in Vegas). Enjoyed some of the best Spanish dishes outside of Spain here for a second night. Andy and I had powered away several tapas and servings of fino just 24 hours before.

Then back to the MGM at midnight, and into a cordoned off area inside Studio 54 with Dita, her foxy manager Melissa Dishell, rock-n-roller Big Sandy and the entire Crazy Horse Paris cast. We drained several bottles of Veuve into the wee hours of the disco night. Sadly, all the clicking I did was for naught. Somewhere between the club and the hotel, my treasured Leica disappeared.
A smudge on an otherwise perfect night? It was all too good to let it be so.

Live at the Crazy Horse runs through April 7 (show is dark April 6). For more information and tickets, visit www.mgmgrand.com.

Dita Von Teese twinkles in couture: Elie Saab never looked so good.

Photos: Denise Truscello / WireImage / Getty Images Courtesy of DMG