La Vie En Rose

Lisa Eisner's Friends are so Fay

Zoe Sidel and Rosanna Arquette

Lisa Eisner is one of my favorite style stars. I love the way she puts herself together, be it by way of a massive Native American headdress or vintage royal purple Lanvin sheath. It's no wonder she makes Vanity Fair's best dressed list time and again. Coupled with her earthy joie de vivre, she ranks as one my gal pal crushes.

Her photography work is as signature, and this L.A. sharpshooter by way of Wyoming, has focused her hyper-realist eye on Shriners and rodeo girls and other snappy-dressing fringe groups. In some ways, that work is not that far off from the community of known actors, artists, impressarios and mavericks she pulled together from her little black book for her latest project for the Italian outerwear brand Fay.

The Tod's-owned brand has been making strides in the last year to get its parkas and puffs on most-wanted lists, including throwing a dinner last November hosted by designer Giles Deacon that we attended at the Argyle Hotel in Hollywood. At this time, Fay isn't sold in America. But they aren't doing this for nothing.

For this latest exercise, Fay commissioned Lisa to shoot portraits of individuals with stand-out style, from director Mitch Glazer to actress Selma Blair and hotel-club entrepreneur Sean MacPherson, each one also wearing a jacket or trench or some other outwear style over a fabulous look and in a fabulous setting. The sessions took place this summer at several locations in L.A., per an email yesterday from Lisa and her creative partner Roman Alonso. The pair are kicking back in Switzerland, a couple of days after the opening of the exhibition at the PAC in Milan, a contemporary art museum there. (Roman and Lisa are partners in the celebrated-now dormant boutique press Greybull, and Roman's creative agency Commune now represents Lisa in her photography work.)
It's all a part of fashion week there. And, sadly, the series won't be seen outside of that context or in America...or so that's the word now. 

There are many more than what's posted here, but these are some of my faves.

Gina Gershon and Amanda Demme

Chris Brock and Paul Fortune

Tracey Ross and Fatima

Nina Clemente and Suzanne Goin

Ed Ruscha and Eddie Ruscha

Shane Lynch and mom (yes, mom) Kelly Lynch

Sandy Hill and Kathryn Ross

All Photos by Lisa Eisner for Fay

Setting Site On: Raven Kauffman

Raven Kauffman, one of my favorite talents--and not only for her elegantly crafted handbags, relaunched a signature website this last week finally worthy of her resplendently lavish aesthetic.

There a press section, natch, with images of fans such as Sarah Jessica Parker and January Jones toting her elaborately embellished clutches. A blog appropriately called "Magnificent Obsessions" is new, and a shop is on the way. But the most fun is tripping through the collection lookbooks, if only to fantasize about handling all those beautiful minaudieres and pochettes.

Raven will be featured along with fellow downtown designer Michael Schmidt on October 6 in a conversation on the challenges and pay-offs of designing a high-end product in Los Angeles at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, where they are both showcased as part of the California Design Biennial. I will moderate the discussion, as well as guide a tour of the exhibition. Join us.

And It Lingers: Recap of FNO

Folding chairs sheathed in wool felt and rope lights by designer Tanya Aguiniga

Seven days after Fashion Night Out hit Planet Earth, I'm feeling delighted this afternoon knowing it's all an exhilarating, exhausting memory. It was the first time the program that was kick-started two years ago by Anna Wintour and Vogue extended beyond New York to points from Australia to, well, Abbot Kinney in Venice. And A+R banded with several of our high-styling neighbors for the night with special drinks, valet, a VIP discount card and a collective sharing of pals.

It was a hoot. As promised, we showcased designers Tanya Aguiniga, Joseph Brooks and Jay LeCompte and Christopher Glancy of Cast of Vices. Each one brought an expanded array of the work we carry in the store, along with a taste of their other projects: Tanya brought her incredible felted chairs and new rope lights; Joseph, a celebrated deejay and music legend, created a special mix for the Geneva; and Chris and Jay installed photography inspired by, natch, vices. The images also appear as newsprint handouts and became a coveted grab of the night.

Thank you to pals Jana Still Water and Waialua Soda Works for keeping us hydrated all night.

    The stunning new jeweled flies from Cast of Vices speckle this human skull.

Cast of Vices creative director Chris Glancy and designer Jay "the Jeweler" LeCompte strike a pose with their collection, including the new No. 3 for fall 2010...which A+R has the pleasure of presenting its worldwide debut instore and online.

Early birds: Shahrzad and Bowie and Malin Smallcombe were among the first to pop in. Malin, whose line of lace and beaded necklaces we've long carried, strung together a tiny neon pink and silver beaded bracelet for our Nina.

The ever-glamorous Sandy Hill. After making the rounds, she invited a bunch of us up to her nearby digs for a late-night supper of mole. Designers and AK neighbors Kendall Conrad and Liseanne Frankfurt (and their other halves, David and Peter) were there, as was Vogue's West Coast editor Lisa Love, L.A. Times Mag columnist Cat Doran, Gina Gershon and Sandy's son, who brought bottles of his premium Casa Dragones 100% blue agave joven tequila to the rooftop table. It's sipping tequila. Mmm.

Such champs: Lisa Edelstein and Michael Schmidt hauled it all the way from the east side to pay their props to A+R and pal Joseph Brooks.

Lovely lady (and Chris Glancy's girl) Tiffany

Our rock star, literally, Joseph Brooks and a pal. His stone jewelry rides the edge of A+R's aesthetic. But it pairs so well with the Margiela and Marant worn by some of our clients that, well, it works.

Raymond Lee always rocks some amazing soles. And these ruby beauties are It.

My intrepid intern Brandee Nicole-Able, a girl with singular style.

Footwear and accessories designer Calleen Cordero (who, like Tanya, is part of the California Design Biennial at PMCA--check it out!) with Barbara Kramer, who will be taking Calleen and a host of other designers to Paris this October.

Tanya Aguiniga and her handsome husband with their A+R purchase. 

Yours truly doing the end-of-night dance.

Over His Dead Body: Karl Lagerfeld Isn't Budging

How much longer can Chanel's indefatigable designer keep going?

Our Paris-based pal Dana Thomas poses that question in this week's Newsweek, a challenge to the venerable fashion house that is sure make her even more enemies than her freshman effort on the luxury industry. That book is required reading for any It bag consumer or fashion student alike. But then again, this former-model-turned-journalist is as fearless as, well, Karl is relentless.

Photo: Francois Guillot / AFP-Getty Images

Brunch with Paper Mag Doyenne Kim Hastreiter

Kim Hastreiter and Karen Kimmel

A rare Sunday off for both Andy and me. We made it happen so we could drop in on a brunch held in honor of our dear pal Kim Hastreiter, tireless champion of freaks and geeks as co-pilot of Paper Magazine. Kim swooped into town last week as part of her annual performing of the triangle with Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl. This is Kim's third year clinking the geometry, and the three-night stint included special guest friends, including legend Jane Powell, Rufus Wainright, Ari Shapiro, Alba Clemente and the original cast of Sesame Street.

Alba, Ari and Pink Martini frontman Thomas Lauderdale turned out for the delicious midday food fest, and just hours before the final show Sunday night. Not surprisingly, it was a reunion of sorts. That is the Power of La Kim. Hosts Robert Cameron and Keith Calandro extended a generous welcome mat at their fabulously appointed Los Feliz home--appointed so fabulously by fellow guest Craig Higgins, who graciously gave me the inside track on some cool flooring for chez Apodaca-Griffith. Also chatted with Regina Casagrande regarding all the committed work she gives her literary blog Lipsticktracez. If you haven't checked it out, do.

Architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee brought their lovely little Lily, and filled us in on their new project in Portugal. That duo zings and pings the planet, and we're in awe. Fellow architect Barbara Bestor was also there, as was China Chow and her aunt Adelle Lutz, Kenny Scharf, Jen Gross, Jeff Snyder (who took Kim to visit his Aunt Phyllis Diller last week), Karen Kimmel..well, all of us left coast collaborators who are only too happy to meet the Paper call when Kim and her mag partner David do projects out here. 

Pietro Clemente and mother Alba and Paige Powell

Kenny Scharf and Jen Gross

Host Robert Cameron and "Hung's" Jane Adams

Thomas Lauderdale and Mark Lee bookend a couple of pals

  Artist Elizabeth Payton Smith and her cool computer geek BF

Puck You: Adelle Lutz, China Chow and Kenny give their best model pose

Paper cutie Drew Elliott is hot. Seriously. It was like 90 degrees Sunday.

Pledge Drive: Give Anita Berber Life

Countdown is on with only 11 more days to breathe life and limb into the resurrection of Anita Berber, enfant terrible of Weimar Berlin and patron mother of modern day performance art and avant-garde dance.

A motley crew of L.A. underground legends is investing blood, sweat and tears into a multi-media project celebrating the uber-notorious Berber, whose scandalously glam 29 years as a cabaret dancer, author, artist muse and prostitute (as if the preceding description didn't already make her the latter) continues to haunt and inspire and even shock eight decades after her fatal collapse in Damascus.

Behind this dream is Michelle Carr, the irrefutable matriarch of the neoburlesque movement when she founded the Velvet Hammer a lifetime ago. After years getting down and dirty in Berlin, Michelle's back in town with a new fixation--and one that will undoubtedly fuel another mania, just as her relentless efforts to revive burlesque did.

To realize this first step, Michelle & Co. have turned to fundraiser Kickstarter to raise $10,000 by September 20. She and the troupe have a ways to go. But it's not impossible.

Give $10. Give $1,000. Just give.

We did. And I'm lending my hosting duties along with pal Bryan Rabin for a benefit for the project on September 29. More on that later. But you can score tickets to soiree with your donation.

Don't delay! Please pledge here. In gratitude, the spirit of Anita Berber dances a dance of depravity and ecstasy.

Still Got That "Singular Sensation"

Getting it first is not just lip service for us. Obsession? Maybe, as Andy and I jump on the design we love as soon as we can. So we're certainly, er, pumped by the generous shout out in this week's LA Times Magazine for the Plopp stools we introduced stateside (ok, along with Moss in New York).

As editor-at-large Robin Sayres reported:

It wasn’t made to be comfortable,” admits Wroclaw-based engineer Oskar Zieta of his ingenious and award-winning Plopp stool. “But it’s more comfortable than it looks.” The must-be-seen-to-be-believed process (trust us—Google it) involves two incredibly thin (three-hundredths of an inch) sheets of laser-cut, welded steel that are inflated, balloon-like, with high-pressure “Polish air,” as he affectionately calls it. The result is a unique lightweight seating marvel—indentations occur spontaneously, so no two are alike. Astoundingly, it can hold two tons within seconds of expansion. “It could’ve been in Pumping Iron, because it has Muscle Beach style,” Zieta says of his inspired creation. “It’s durable—Schwarzenegger should give it a try!” Available in yellow, gray, black and white ($525 each) or with a stainless finish (shown, $725). A+R, 1121-1 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, 310-392-9128, aplusrstore.com.

Fashion Night Out Heads to Abbot Kinney

We've joined several of our superstylish pals on Abbot Kinney to celebrate Fashion Night Out this coming Friday, September 10. The event goes global this year, and the 10 of us shops are spotlighting the fact that this little stretch has become one of the best shopping destinations on the West Coast, bar none.

At A+R, we're thrilled to debut the Fall 2010 collections from Cast of Vices, Joseph Brooks and Tanya Aguiniga. Check out those links mid-week, when we begin previewing their new work online...and drop in Friday, if you're in town, to try it on for size. We'll be extending the FNO showcase through the weekend.

Taking Root

A few more tweaks to go at this new home, but figured it was high time to get back to La Vie en Rose.

Don't you think?

Thank you to all of you who've missed the posts and have been nudging me to get back to it.

Visit often. Promise to keep 'em coming...