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October 29th 2004 Everyone in Italy worships The Black Eyed Peas (Mom, it’s a band, not soup). I don’t know what it is about their music that makes so much sense to Italians, but they all go completely crazy whenever it comes on the radio. Last summer, everywhere you went people were singing, “Where Is the Love?” which isn’t too difficult to pronounce or understand, even if you don’t speak a lick of English. This fall however, they have all taken a very enthusiastic liking to “Let’s Get Retarded”, despite the fact that they have no idea what it means. This makes for some pretty good people-watching in traffic, and today I witnessed a huge, mafioso-looking man covered in tattoos driving a delivery van whilst passionately singing “Let’s Get Retarded in here!” as if he was making a heartfelt political statement. The song seemed to bring out some sort of angst, which he expressed by pointing to himself on the word ''retarded'' and making an angry fist on the word ''here''. It's amazing how a song can be so much more meaningful when it's accompanied by heated gestures. Viva Italia. October 25th 2004 Girls, now that you’ve all read your new November Vogue from cover to cover, I’ll give you the behind-the-scenes HOLLYWOULD scoop (as well as photos) of how it all went down… About 6 months ago we called our friends at Vogue and told them the top secret news that HOLLYWOULD planned to launch a collection of dresses in November at Saks Fifth Avenue. They immediately came up to see a few samples, and told us they wanted to do a story on the line. As you can imagine, we were thrilled, elated, overjoyed, ecstatic, and hyperventilating. I mean dude, it’s Vogue. The only catch was that we had to keep the dress collection completely under wraps until the issue hit the stands, which is why Vogue always has all of the most fabulous news before any one else! The Vogue team decided that the best way to write about the line would be to come to Italy with me, because everything is made here and it’s where the real magic happens. They sent along our very favorite writer Hamish Bowles, who met up with me in Florence for 3 days of non-stop action. Poor Hamish got dragged around on my daily routine, which isn’t exactly yacht cruising down the Nile. We spent about 8 hours/day in the car going from factory to factory which is very unglamorous, but it truly the way I spend my time here. A few days after Hamish left, Vogue sent photographers here to take photos of me in the factory (as seen in Vogue), and then arranged to have a stateside photo shoot of me & my lovely pals Kate Schelter, Gemma Hamilton, and Zani Gubelmann (who you’ve all read about on this very diary) wearing the dresses. After postponing once due to the rain, we ended up with the most gorgeous day of the summer and all headed out to our friend Michael Shultz’s divine house on Georgica Pond in the Hamptons. Thank you Shultz Family for putting up with our ruckus and lending us your beautiful home! And voila! That’s how it all happened. Thank you Vogue hair, make up, photographers, and editing team for making us all look so fab in every way, and especially to Hamish for writing the best article ever! We love you Vogue! October 23rd 2004 Courtney & Kelly from our NYC office have just emailed me photos of a party I missed, which was clearly THE soiree of the year. After all, how often do you get to go to an event hosted by Tony Danza? Not very. Anywho, I don't even know what the party was for, but am assuming it had something to do with shoes as all of our favorite, fabulous editors from Footwear News were present. Even though I was not around to attend the soiree, I think these photos merrit a posting... While the HOLLYWOULD girls were out hob-nobbing with Tony D, I arrived from London and spent the evening in Milan with my pals Jasmine Sforni and Carmen Borgonovo, celebrating Carmen's birthday and the fact that she has just moved from being the Accessories Director at W magazine in NYC to being the Fashion Director of JP Tod's Hogan line in Milan. I admire any girl who can pick up and move to a foreign country without a moment's hesitation. Today we woke up and zipped around town on motor scooters, checking out fabulous furniture shops and vintage clothing in Milan newest hot-spot district, Porta Venezia. Am off to Florence today so I can get back to... what is that called ... oh, yeah... Work. October 22nd 2004 The Vogue has hit the newstands. I'm in London, so I've only seen it via a very blurry email, but the fact of the matter is that we have 3 pages in the new November Vogue, where you all can see the dresses for the very first time ever! I highly suggest you go buy a copy (especially you, Mom) and although I cannot read the text due to the blur of my Internet Cafe computer screen, it was written by Hamish Bowles who came and did first-hand research with me in Florence, so it is sure to be full of good scoop! October 18th 2004 We are pleased to announce the winner of the $100 HOLLYWOULD gift certificate is Julianna Temple, from Paradise Valley, Arizona. Julia guessed correctly that the surprise photo just posted in May 2004 is indeed of Britney Spears, wearing custom-made HOLLYWOULD boots, singing our favorite song, Toxic. Congratulations Julia! In other news, I'm so sorry I have yet to post the new crop of HOLLYWOULD Bachelors. I am still waiting on the photos, but they will be up sometime soon, I promise. October 16th 2004 Girls, there is a new photo hidden on this very diary (May 2004), of one of our favorite notoriously newlywedded HOLLYWOULD customers. Whoever finds the photo first, and emails shop@ilovehollywould.com with the correct NEW initials of the girl in the photo gets a $100 gift certificate. I'll give you a hint: she's wearing custom-made, one-of-a-kind HOLLYWOULD boots and singing our favorite song. Guess the song and we'll mention your name and make you (almost) as famous as she is... October 14th 2004 Am finally back in Italy via Paris, and in the last two days have come to realized the difference between France & Italy's view on foreigners: October 12th 2004 I’ve just returned from Arizona where I was attending my little brother’s wedding, and I will need at least a week to recover. The drinkin’ & dancin’ began on Thursday night and didn’t end until Sunday afternoon, leaving us all in need of a trip to rehab. Weddings are so much fun. For those of you who attended the wedding, the good news is that I will be posting photos from all of our drunken escapades on this very diary later this week. For those of you who did not attend, the even better news is that thanks to my brother’s group of Stone Cold Foxy friends, we will be re-instating a long lost HOLLYWOULD favorite: The HOLLYWOULD Bachelors (see Jan 26, 2004). Girls, stay tuned for your first new Bachelor next week! October 6th 2004 For those of you who have not yet finished reading your tremendously intellectually invigorating copy of Paris Hilton’s new book, Confessions of an Heiress, I’m about to blow a bit of the plot. Our very favorite sentence in the whole book can be found on page 57, where Paris talks about her favorite shoes: “To be funky, I’ll wear shoes by HOLLYWOULD – she’s my friend.” As my business partner Leslie said, we may as well just close shop now because it really can’t get any better than this. Throughout the book Paris is featured wearing HOLLYWOULD shoes (it’s kind of a photo album), and she looks adorable in them. I know there are those of you who may question Paris’s discretion based on some of her recent “films”, but at HOLLYWOULD we refuse to believe that any of those “films” exist. We just love Paris. Last night I headed out to the premiere of a truly fantastic film of another sort called “Stage Beauty”, starring Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, and Rupert Everett. The premiere was a celeb-packed event, with everyone from Jerry Seinfeld to Robert DeNiro to Joan Rivers in attendance along with the star studded cast. I highly recommend this movie to anyone but my parents (who walked out of City Slickers because of the “cussing”) and/or boys who like action flicks with hockey team plots. It is an amazingly tragic love story set in Shakespearian times with acting and costumes to-die-for. You really must see it. The afterparty for the premiere was held at the gigantic new Asprey store on Fifth Ave, where we all sipped champagne, perused the jewelry cases, and begged the security staff to let us try on the diamonds. From Asprey we headed down to Pastis for dinner, and then home to sleep off our champagne… October 4th 2004 In my last diary entry I promised you all that I would make an effort to have at least one evening of “stayin’ out ‘til the sun rises” before heading back to Italy, and that was last night. Luckily I chose to spend the evening with my dear old friend Hanuk (aka “Amber” -see Feb 8th, 2003), who took photos the whole night thereby documenting 10 hours that would otherwise be one big blur. We must have hit at least 14 different hot-spots, so forgive me if this entry reads like a Zagats guide to NYC nightlife: It all began at a baby shower for HOLLYWOULD’s PR star, Alice Sykes, who is due to have a little girl next month. The shower was held at her sister Lucy’s gorgeous apartment, and was packed with adorable babies everywhere. I was told that if I drank the water I might get pregnant, so wanting to avoid an immaculate conception, which would be very difficult to explain to my parents and future child, I decided to stick to champagne. Three glasses later on an empty stomach, I headed up to Lehman Maupin gallery to meet Hanuk. Hanuk & I checked out the art and then headed downtown to a new restaurant called “Freeman”. Freeman is a fabulous place right near the HOLLYWOULD shop, and although the food looked and smelled delicious, Hanuk & I decided that a liquid diet would make for a much more interesting evening. From a few drinks at Freeman we headed towards our final destination, Lower East Side dive/club Tonic where the band Menlo Park was playing. Thanks to our drink intake we made a few friends on the way, and stopped in a barber shop to “watch the fights” and have a few cervezas with some of the Dominican Republic’s finest NYC transplants. After an hour or so of serious bonding with new friends Juan, Jimmy, and Miguel, we headed down to Tonic for the rock show. At Tonic things get very, very foggy, but thanks to the photos I know that we did manage to have a blast with some of our favorite pals: Jessica Joffe, Rebecca & Rory Guinness, Chris Jarvis, Tom Sykes, and countless other revelers. From Tonic we headed to a bar called “The Johnsons”, which is a really great place if you love Def Leppard, and I do. From The Johnsons we headed uptown to the Maritime Hotel, where we met up with other pals Alina, Amanda & Eric Richman. After no more than 8 minutes there, we headed down to Soho House, hitting up Fat Burger on the way. They play the best music in Fat Burger. I really just wanted to stay there. They even have a nightclub in the back. From now on I’m just hanging out at Fat Burger and not messing with fancy nightclubs with fancy names and fancy drinks and fancy music. Maybe I’ll just get a job there on the weekends... Anywho, at Soho House we had a few more drinks and ran into the lovely Olsen Twins, who were there with their entourage of security & boyfriends, as well as Brook Shields, who looks like a 22 year old supermodel in person. By this point in the evening we were all ready to dance the night away, so we zipped out of Soho House and up to Bungalow 8. The memories of Bungalow 8, as usual, are a bit of a blur, but I do remember meeting all sorts of strange Italians and continuing to practice my dance moves, which I’m sure were not exactly Baryshnikov by this point in the evening. From Bungalow, we headed for a cab and ended up at the nightclub Sway. By the time we left Sway the place was still jam-packed, and the sun was rising over New York City. Do nights like this happen anywhere else? October 1st 2004 Girls, I’m so sorry I haven’t been very good at keeping this diary lately. The truth is, up until this morning, I forgot I even had a diary! So, here is the update: Have been back in NYC for a week, and the parties never seem to end. I don’t know how everyone in New York manages to rally night after night, but once you get sucked into the endless party tornado, it’s difficult to stop. Last night the girls and I decided to take a mini ‘party vacation’ by celebrating Leslie’s 30th birthday chez nous, in front of the Presidential debate on TV. Girls in attendance included many of our longtime faves, Ashley & Megan Auchenbach, Jessica Joffee, Sandy Bartolotta, Jane Goehring, Jackie Terrebonne, Erin Mullaney, and of course the birthday girl (and my biz partner), Leslie Ternes. Leslie is now officially the older than anyone else we know, so feel free to call her and sing “Happy Birthday” in as creepy a voice as you want (she’s ext. 4). As you can imagine, we were all far more interested in cake & champagne than Presidential debates, but we did come up with some startling tid-bits of information:
From cocktails and dinner chez nous, we all got sucked back into the party tornado and headed out (in a stretch limo, no less!) to the opening of NYC’s newest hot spot, “Club NA”. Despite the bad name, the place was packed with HOLLYWOULD favorites, including Owen Wilson (see Jan 17, 2003), Vincent Gallo (see Aug 27, 2004), and Lizzie Grubman (see Dec 19, 2002). From “NA”, we headed across the way to 14th Street’s classiest joint, Ponchitos, where we briefly salsa’d the night away with the waitstaff until getting kicked out by the hostess. Feeling the effects of our champagne, we decided to call it an evening and were home by the criminally early hour of 1am, which in NYC doesn’t really even qualify as having “gone out”. I fear that if I don’t have at least one up ‘till the sun rises evening before heading back to Italy I will lose all credibility forever. I absolutely must be more disciplined about staying out late. Stay tuned… |
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