November 2007

November 17th 2007
NYC

The holiday madness has already set in, with back to back events every night of the week.  The craziness began on Tuesday with lunch and a trip to see the new Damien Hirst installation at Lever House.  If you haven’t yet been to see it I highly recommend going after your lunch at Lever House, as Damien’s headless sheep cadavers in fish tanks don’t exactly whet the appetite for a meal.  Thankfully the effects wore off quickly, and within a few hours I was ready to eat again and headed downtown for a fun dinner at Giorgione with pals Rebecca Guinness, Sophie Laffont, and Calyxte Campe. 

Wednesday night was the star-studded premiere of the new film AWAKE, which was attended by the entire cast including gorgeous Jessica Alba, foxy Hayden Christensen, and dynamic duo Georgina Chapman and Harvey Weinstein.  The film itself is a fantastic thriller that will make your heart race, and I spent a good 40% of the movie covering my eyes, but the other 60% was great.

Thursday began with lunch with Domino magazine’s Fashion Director Lauren Goodman, who looked trčs trčs chic for our meal at the BG Café.  From lunch I headed one flight up to have my hair & makeup done at BG’s John Barrett Salon, where my favorite makeup wizard Jason Willard squeezed me in between lovelies Margarita Missoni & Lauren Davis, who were prepping for that evening’s Vogue soiree.  If you’re ever in NYC and need a beauty transformation, Jason Willard is clearly your man. 

The reason for my makeover was a late afternoon photo shoot with Elle magazine’s genius photo guru Gilles Bensimon, who has taken most of my favorite fashion photos of the last decade.  Thankfully the shoot was a fun & laid back affair, and I’ll be the first to let you know when & where you can see the pics. 

From the Elle shoot we headed straight to Vogue’s dinner for 7^th On Sale, which attended by everyone from Kate Moss to Valentino (the man himself!) to Anna Wintour to Jennifer Connelly to Kate Bosworth to Dita Von Teese to The Olsen Twins, etc, etc, etc.  There’s no doubt you will see photos of this event in upcoming issues of Vogue, and can also visit our favorite website www.patrickmcmullan.com to see photos of everyone who attended.

In case you’ve been living in a cave and don’t know, 7^th On Sale is the amazing shopping charity event which donates 100% of the money to services and housing for those living with HIV and AIDS.  You can shop online for fabulous discounts from designers like Chanel, Oscar, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Diane Von Furstenberg and Fendi at:

www.7thonsale.ebay.com

The sale ends Dec 6^th and the good stuff goes quickly, so start shopping now!  

Last night was a party at the St. Regis Hotel for Paper Magazine’s “It” crowd, which included gorgeous glamazons Kate Schelter, Bonnie Morrison, Luigi Tandini, Lydia Hearst, and many more fabulously “It” people.  Everyone remarked that the party was terrifically fun, and that it was a genius idea to bring Paper’s downtown crowd to the uptown St. Regis.  J’adore Paper.

The parties don’t stop here, so stay tuned…

November 14th 2007
NYC!

I just saw Simon Le Bon on the street and he nodded and said “Hi”.  For anyone who remembers life in 1982, this is huge, huge news.  What Simon certainly doesn’t remember is that he actually once made lunch for me. 

Once upon a time, back when I was a lowly slave at Vivienne Westwood in London, HRH Viv came into the studio one day and said, “Holly, take this t-shirt to John”, and handed me a bag and an address.  When you’re dealing with Vivienne, “John” could be anyone from the street cleaner to the head of the Communist party (or both), so I didn’t ask questions and headed out the door. 

When I arrived at the destined address, none other than my childhood super-crush John Taylor answered the door, with my childhood super-obsession Simon Le Bon at his side.  I immediately lost my breath and tried to thrust the bag into their hands and run, but they insisted I come in for a cup of tea and cheese sandwich.  (I even remember the exact outfit I was wearing, and which involved safety pins and flannel combined in a way that shall never be repeated).  I finally realized they were not going to let me off the hook, and came inside and ate lunch at the kitchen table with two of the most legendary figures of modern rock’n’roll.  Ah, the perks of being a fashion slave.

Speaking of legendary rock stars, on Monday night I attended the opening of the new Chopard store on Madison Avenue, which was hosted by the legendary Elton John.  I have to admit that the only reason I went was to see him in person, as I am strangely fascinated with anyone who has graced that many pages of Hello! magazine.  Elton did not disappoint, looking dapper as ever and not a day over 42.  Please, Sir Elton, give us all the number of your surgeon. 

The party turned out to be fab and the jewels were divine, and I ran into all of my favorites of NYC, as you can see from the photos to the right, which I have stolen from Hanuk of the world famous fashion label Hanuk, and the world famous website www.hanuk.com. 

More tonight as I head out for a photoshoot with Elle and the premiere of the new movie Awake.  Stay tuned…

November 12th 2007
New York City

Having too many friends is ruining my social life.  It all started a while back when someone invited me to join Facebook and I unwittingly accepted, not knowing anything at all about the site.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Facebook (hi mom), it is an online community where you can email with friends, send pictures, post comments, etc.  Once you make a friend, that person’s friends can see you, and thereby email and ask to be your friend too.  I tend to accept anyone who asks me, assuming that I’ve met them at a party and not wanting to be rude.  As a result, I now have many more virtual friends than real life friends, which makes me feel very, very cool.

My big mistake, however, was when curiosity got the better of me and I decided to use the “search” function.  While most people would use this function to search for former high school crushes, for some reason I decided to use it to search for the fictitious characters from my favorite cancelled TV show, Arrested Development.  What this means, and I don’t mean to brag, is that I am now officially “friends” with George-Michael Bluth, Buster Bluth, and Lucille Bluth, and a member of the Gob Bluth: Master of Illusion fanclub. 

While this makes me very happy, it has opened the door to a world of “friends” that I never anticipated, such as Ezra, a dead ringer for George-Michael Bluth, who just sent me a photo of himself dancing with his mom at his recent Bar Mitzvah.  As much as I admire any man who can cut a rug with his mother, unfortunately I think I may have to terminate my new “friendship” with Ezra.  It’s not that I don’t value what we have in common (our love for all things Bluth), it’s just that I know if we continue to be friends eventually everyone who attended Ezra’s Bar Mitzvah will also want to be friends, and then I’ll have to open a whole separate email account just for “friends of friends of Ezra”.  If that happened, I fear that being virtual friends with Ezra’s friends would end up taking so much of my time that I would lose any real friends I had in the first place.  It’s just too much.

They say you can never have too many friends, but sometimes you just need to click “remove”.