La Vie En Rose

This Weekend: L.A. Times Book Fest+Fred Hayman Book Debut

This weekend is the extraordinarily long-anticipated unveiling of my second book, Fred Hayman: The Extraordinary Difference at The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at the USC campus. Free entry to the two-day event this Saturday and Sunday, but best to drop by on the early side if you want to score an actual copy of this seven-pound tome. We only have some 30 advance copies before the rest of the shipment arrives for a June delivery.

We will be taking pre-orders, however, at the booth and at our new site, also launching this weekend. That's right, Mr. Fred Hayman will not only have his own site, complete with a timeline featuring gorgeous pics from the book. You can also now find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Visited Mr. Hayman and his wonderful wife Betty last night at their home in Beverly Hills. A bottle of bubbly was promptly popped as we basked in the canary-yellow glow of our new book. (Seriously, there is much yellow with this book, designed by David Blankenship, from the yellow and white striped jacket and yellow gilded pages to the yellow "ribbon" running down the gutter throughout the book). He was less wowed by the online collateral, not surprisingly. It was the heft and gloss of this heavy book on his lap that roused his emotions. His is a life fully and well lived.

While this a kind of soft launch until we have the whole shipment of books and until the celebrations and events underworks in the coming months, I'm still thrilled to have reached this moment.

Please come by this weekend and say hello. The booth is in the Arts+Culture area. I promise to hold back at least one copy of the book for show and tell.

In [the] Details: Our Knock-Out Hanger

How to score sport-inspired design? That's the play the May issue of Details Magazine strategizes with a modernist spin on masculine, athletic-style furnishings. Among the nine beautiful pieces editor Monica Khemsurov selected for this clever feature is this striking Clothes Hanger created by Milan-based Donata Paruccini for the Paris design collective ENO (click through to #9).
On first launch at Maison Objet in Paris, we selected the product for A+R because we loved how cool it looks even when doing little else than simply hanging there, naked. It's a decorative element even without a coat or shirt hanging from the leather balls.

Feed Your Stead: Gazoor's White Rabbit

Absolutely love the completely hand-stitched and stuffed animals Iris Savir crafts under the kooky name Gazoor. The whole menagerie lives in our daughter's bedroom. And so, too, after this Easter, will Iris' newest entry, this white and red bunny.

A former art teacher, Iris began making her organic felt animals for disenfranchised children to pep them up while teaching  them about nature and spirit. Her love of nature has lead her to study the habits and motions of animals, inspiring her to structure the bodies of the beasties she makes with wire.

Iris splits time between Venice (she pops into A+R with a large magic bag of her newest creations) and the Israeli desert (she was raised on a kibbutz in that country). She called her line Gazoor, Hebrew  slang for  someone who is different.

Ones to Watch? A+R + Uniform Wares in NYT!

 

Time is on our side. Uniform Wares, the London-based timepiece collection that A+R helped launch to the North American market, has topped our hot list in the store and online since we added them to the mix last year. A hit at the recent Basel watch fair, the streamlined brand had its moment in Thursday's Style Section in the New York Times, sparking a flurry of interest and sales for the 100, 200 and 300 series that might have exceeded our sales for the watches at A+R over the holidays. (Thank you writer Ellen Tien!)

In fact, I personally missed out on scoring a yellow 100. They are now officially sold out. Forever. Meaning I'll be without one while I do my book tour for my yellow-gilded Fred Hayman bio in the coming month! Oh well. Snooze and loose, right? At least, I got a grey one, which does, after all, go with any color, including my favorite: black.

Formidable Launch for Form 4

Fuseproject's Yves Béhar, A+R's Rose Apodaca and Andy Griffith and Jimmyjane's Ethan Imboden

Still all warm and fuzzy from the glow of our jam-packed evening a week ago today at A+R Abbot Kinney featuring industrial designer and fuseproject founder Yves Béhar and Jimmyjane founder and creative director Ethan Imboden.

The ocassion was the global launch of the final collaboration in Yves and Ethan's Pleasure to the People Series, the Form 4. That alone was reason to celebrate. The series has been a triumph in design, from the functionality to the form, the marketing to the method for a product in the sexual well-being category.

But we also used the evening as a platform for discussing challenges in not only design in this category, but also getting the word out there in the conventional media. I shared how I was told by two Los Angeles Times editors that the topic was "too sexy" to write anything about the showcase with these two important designers. And Yves relayed his similar experiences with editors who usually clamor to cover any of his new projects, but paused when it came to this one.

Guess this is not only a case of Pleasure to the People, but "power" to the people when it comes to spreading the word.

That said, a few brave souls were willing to write about it, including Emili Vesilind, creator of one of our fave style sites, StyleSectionLA, and Rosemary Brennan, a columnist for the charming sex and relationships column, "Smitten," on glamour.com. Rosemary's Q+A with the designers is worth checking out.

 Thank you to everyone who turned out for this incredible evening. And to Team A+R (and that includes you Bryan Carter!) for ensuring everyone was fed, quenched and having a good time.

 

 

Ethan, Yves and Rose take on the question for the ages: What happens when design takes on Taboo? 

 

D+A's Barbara Kramer, Rose and Cast of Vices designer Jay LeCompte

 

The amazing Molly Murphy of Jimmyjane

Designer Peter White. His sleek and sunny trays are a favorite of ours at A+R (and a great accompanying present to any Jimmyjane product when you think about it!)

 

 

A+R's A-Team: Rafael Negron, Gina Gardner and my other half Andy Griffith

Australian Vogue's Jo Abbie, pal and Ethan Imboden

 

Interior designer Christos Prevezanos, Food+Lab owner Nino Linsmayer, yours truly and my fabulous former assistant, interior designer Joshua Greene.

 

Photos: Courtesy Ethan Imboden's Cannon

Jambox Rocks Our World

All this excitement over Yves Behar's visit to A+R late last week was not only over the launch of the Form 4. We're also beyond smitten over the new Jambox wireless speaker he created for Jawbone. It's been flying out of our doors since we introduced it in mid-March, and we've been loving it in our home, office and car since we first started testing it out a few weeks before that.

The sound is beyond amazing, and the built-in microphone and Bluetooth technology means it can be used as a speaker phone (which is great if you don't have Bluetooth connection in your car). No wires. No dock. And 10 hours of play on a single charge. I also love the rubberized edges and bright colors. It's also light enough to toss in your bag.

Photos: Courtesy Jawbone

Today is Arts Advocacy Day

 

Make no mistake: We are under attack.

And by this, I don't mean we, as in those who love and live by the arts. I mean all of us as a nation that upholds ideals of education, accessiblity, freedom and democracy. While every day is arts advocacy day for many of us, today has actually been set aside as the day when arts activists, famous and not, head to Washinton to urge Congress to restore NEA funding and reinstate arts education.

You, too, can do your part in under two minutes by visiting the nonprofit Americans for the Arts and sending off your own letter to representatives. Personally, I inserted in caps that I am a registered voter. These folks we send to the capitol need to know what we'd rather be spending our tax dollars on, don't you think?

The only wars worth fighting are for Big Bird (seen above with our pal, the beautiful Debi Mazar) and the sanctity of arts in the fabric of our country. 

Dame Vivienne Westwood Does L.A.

"We are the world’s best imitators and that is how we evolved into humans. We understand the world because we imitate it," Vivienne Westwood tells a tiny audience that includes rapper Lupe Fiasco, designers Raven Kauffman and Magda Berliner (beautifully clad in a Lanvin for H&M dress she further altered into something else) and me. It's a challenge making out everything Dame Westwood it so intently sharing with all the celebratory racket swirling around us on this delicious Wednesday night. This is, after all, the long-awaited grand opening of her flagship in Los Angeles and capacity has far exceeded the limit for both the fire marshal and our general comfort.

Seated in a tall chair underneath the flicker of her recent fashion show screening on the high wall behind us, the icon didn't let the fact there was a party in full swing stop her from going into relaying her Active Resistance Manifesto for all those within earshot. She ocassionally beckoned her collaborator/husband, Andreas Kronthaler, to pass her copies of the declaration, printed on a brown paper, so she could hand them out to the endless fans lined up to meet and greet her. And the "AR" button she attached to her long vanilla dress signaled the battle cry she's been touting since 2007 officially, and, let's face it, the better part of her career in one form or another.

Mad Women: Current brand face, actress Christina Hendricks and designer Vivienne Westwood

Sure, I am one of those diehard fans, all the way to my VW toe combat boots that I teetered in that night. But before I could justify my hello and rush to tell her all the times we'd spent before together, supping, hanging out, how I often stayed with her son and his now ex and their daughter, the old dame beat me to the punch. At age 69, Vivienne's powers appear to extend to recall and that included some details even I'd long forgotten.

I moved on to catch up with Lauren Taschen, seated next to Vivienne and acting as evening co-host. Even she revealed her high regard for her friend by ditching the customarily restrained clothes she usually wears for a second-skin leopard dress by the designer. Several strangers thrust their cameras in my hands and before I could sneak off in anticipation of yet another one asking "please," Dita Von Teese and entourage swarmed over, having arrived just as the Veuve finshed partywide. Lots of thirsty guests on this tepid late March night.

Eddie Demon, Louis-Marie de Castelbajac and Dita Von Teese

Dita was with her handsome other half, Louis-Marie de Castelbajac, who'd just flown in from Paris that morning, along with pal-manager Melissa Dishell and several very good old pals, including sweet Eddie Demon. Among the many Westwood frocks that hang in Dita's wardrobe is the deep eggplant-colored wedding gown the designer famously custom made for her wedding to her now-ex Marilyn Manson, who also happened to be there at the party. Tense? Don't believe the hype. It was a time for grace and even a few laughs among the group. Even that magnificent purple dress will be reborn in a 2013 exhibition devoted to wedding dresses at the V&A in London.

"Aristotle took the practical view that the essence of any object lay in its end or purpose," Dame Westwood writes in her manifesto. And so even the beauty of a dress created for a short-lived marriage gets another day in the spotlight.

As for the store? It's everything and more, from the hot pink neon sign facing Melrose to the brass hooves propping up glass cases filled with product. The second floor is a VIP showroom, because such amenities are required in L.A. And the VW machine maxmized space use by transforming the rooftop with elevator access and lush hedges.

Yesterday, two days after the grand bash, I was cruising along Melrose, when I spotted three young Japanese girls exiting the fort-like corner store. They were crazy clad in a mash-up of pastel Victoriana-meets-ragdoll fashion, stripey thigh-high socks and all, and one even balanced a towering pink Marie Antoinete wig. And all this in the broad daylight of a 88-degree Friday afternoon!

Such is the sacrifice for art and beauty. Viva la Résistance!

The glorious freaks turned it out...

(Sadly, my borrowed camera did not turn it out so well!) 

Westwood Visual Coordinator Jose Andrade and store comrade. I wanted to take these two dolls home and place them on my shelf.

 

Magda Berliner and Vivienne Westwood

 

Raven Kauffman and yours truly 

Lupe Fiasco 

Ever the joker: Marilyn Manson 

A Perfect Stranger

 

Melissa Dishell and pal Sean James

 

Jayne Seward

 

Laurie Pike

Photos: All by Rose Apodaca except photo with VW and Christina Hendricks.