April 2004

April 30th 2004
Florence, Italy

Sorry I’ve been diary slacking!  News from NYC is that one of our favorite customers, a cute waitress who works at Balthazar, said she was wearing our ballets at work the other day and Jack Nicholson was in eating and asked where she got them.  HOLLYWOULD, of course!  We love ya Jack – just don’t let your girlfriends wear them to awards events with pink tutus!  Also a new fan of the ballet is Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, who has been in the store twice this week, and is becoming fast friends with our store manager, Rachel.  We love you Rebecca!

Brief synopsis of last week:

Tues – Benefit for the American School of Ballet, chez HOLLYWOULD.  These are the photos of the beautiful girls you see posted right.  The party was fab, the girls were fab, and the boys were fab (thanks for the champagne)!  Surprise of the evening – Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon stopped by for shopping, which made my week as usual (see April 16, 2003).

Weds – TV night with the girls – the “OC/Bachelor” combo.  Enough said.

Thurs – Black & White Mask Ball to benefit the New York Public Library.  Black tie event.  All of my favorite fashion pals.  Music, champagne, & dancing.  Fabulous.  Afterwards I headed down to Jade Jagger’s Asprey party at the Grammercy Park Hotel.  Another fab event packed with all of my oldest, nearest, & dearest.  Mark Ronson on the turntables always forces me to stay out way too late.

Friday – Recovery

Sat – Off to Italy where I have been all week.  Wining & dining with fabulous friends, whilst trying to get a bit of work accomplished.

Today – Off to St. Tropez for the weekend.  A tout à l'heure ….  xoxo, Holly

April 19th 2004
New York

As you’ve probably noticed by the photos posted to the right, we have found two handsome new HOLLYWOULD bachelors, Heathcliff Sykes-Rellie & Henry Baur.  Both of these fine gentlemen seem to love shoes & bags, so we think they will make ideal boyfriends and be perfectly willing to add on an “accessory closet” to the house once you marry.  Such catches! 

Am slowly recovering from my weekend, which wasn’t as wild as planned.  Due to all of my schmoozing & boozing last week, I seem to have caught some sort of flu-bug that has dampened my behavior.  On Saturday, I woke up early to scour the flea market for treasures.  Since absolutely no one I know is up early on Saturday, I thought I would be safe to go to the market in a look that can best be described as “Will Work for Food”.  Unfortunately, I ran into everyone I’ve ever known, including a whole pack of jet-lagged friends from Paris, a long lost friend from LA, and the fabulously fashionable Zac Posen.  Quelle horreur!

That night I headed over to Gavin Brown’s gallery for the opening of the Elizabeth Peyton exhibit.  Such talent!  My favorite painting, of course, was a portrait of Outkast’s Andre 3000 which was divine.  The opening was art-star studded, with everyone from Marc Jacobs to Sophia Coppola, who is drop-dead gorgeous in person.  From there my gang headed to dinner, and I was home drinking Thera-Flu by 11pm.  Am trying to mend so I can make up for my boring behavior later this week.  Stay tuned…

April 15th 2004
New York City

So many parties, so little time!  Last night’s soirees began at the Soho House, for our HOLLYWOULD press event to launch our Fall 2004 collection.  All of our favorite editors showed up, representing from fabulous magazines like W, FN, Vogue, Town & Country, InStyle, Marie Claire, Glamour, Time Out, and our favorite daily fashion rags, the NY Post and The Daily.  Thanks so much for coming out!

From the Soho House I hitched a ride to the TriBeCa Ball with the lovely Lucy Sykes, where we ate, drank, and danced the night away.  The ball was held at Gotham Hall, which is a grand marble building with huge vaulted ceilings, and theme of this year’s ball was La Dolce Vita.  The entire hall was draped in pink gauze trapezing from the ceiling, and everyone ate under flower covered tents.  Divine.  I was lucky enough to be seated at Helen Schrifter’s table, along with Daissy Olarte de Kanavos, Mark Gilberston, Ann Duong… and the list of goes on and on.  Also in attendance were HOLLYWOULD favorites Jennifer Creel and Tory Burch, who has just opened a new store on our block in Nolita.  (If you haven’t heard about her new “Tory” line of clothing, you must get with the program!)

Despite all of these fabulous people, my favorite person in attendance had to be Dr. Ruth.  Yes, the world famous sexologist was there in the flesh, all 4’8” of her.  The climax of the evening, for me anyway, came during dinner when the deejay played “Getting Jiggy Wit It”, and Dr. Ruth bolted to the dance floor like her pants were on fire.  I’ve never seen anyone get so jiggy wit it.

From the ball I headed home, and was up bright and early this morning for a luncheon at Saks Fifth Avenue in honor of my old boss & mentor, Lilly Pulitzer.  Lilly has just written a book on entertaining, and if there is anyone who knows how to throw a party, it’s Lil.  When I used to work for her, I would fly down to Palm Beach to “do research” with her for the weekend.  To Lilly, “doing research” basically means sitting by the pool drinking strawberry daquiris and eating BBQ, so needless-to-say, I convinced my bosses that I needed to do lots of “research”.  It was great to see Lilly and all of the girls that turned out for the event.  The book is a hit!

Tonight am off to a party for Celine.  It just doesn't stop…

April 14th 2004
New York City

The parties have begun.  Last night was the book launch for Plum Sykes’ fabulous new book “Bergdorf Blondes”.   I have not yet actually read the book, but only because it has been sold out in every bookstore between here and Beverly Hills since the day it hit the stands!  The good news is that I did finally manage to get a copy last night, and apparently they are re-shipping it out to stores so that all of you will be able to get it this week if you act fast!  It's guaranteed to be a good read for anyone who loves NY fashion.

The party was appropriately held at the Bergdorf Goodman hair salon on the 9^th floor, and was hosted by Vogue’s Anna Wintour.  Plum looked divine in a dress by Behnaz Sarafpour and shoes and bag by, you guessed it, HOLLYWOULD.  As you can imagine, Anna & Plum wouldn’t just throw any old party, and the crowd was filled with every NYC society darling under the sun, including Emilia Fanjul, Phoebe Gubelmann, Helen Schifter, Rena Sindi, Marina Rust, Zani Gugelmann, Amy Sacco, Samantha Boardman, Stephanie Winston, Julie Janklow, etc, etc, etc.  Also in attendance were our favorite other Sykes siblings, including the NY Posts’ Tom Sykes, Marie Claire’s Lucy Sykes, and HOLLYWOULD’s very own PR genius Alice Sykes.  We just love this fashionable family!

From Plum’s party I shared a cab with Zani G & Amy S to a soiree thrown for actor Adriene Brody at the Zegna store.  We were all very excited to attend, thinking that the place would be packed with young male models, but much to our dismay the cutest boys at the party were, as usual, the waiters.  Where do they find these waiters?  Is there a 'Foxy Waiter Talent Agency'?  If so, I must find it.

From Adriene’s party, Zani and I headed down to the Soho House for a film screening for Natalie Portman.  The place was packed with all of the usual fabulous people, including most of the crew we had just seen at our HOLLYWOULD party in Palm Beach.  At this point, despite the fact that it was only 10pm and I knew full well that the evening had ‘Bungalow 8 ‘till 4am’ potential, I decided to act like a grown-up and call it an evening.  Tonight promises to be another big night, so I’ll have more to report tomorrow.

So sorry I didn’t take any photos, but every event was paparazzi packed and I just couldn’t compete.  I have a feeling you’ll be seeing photos from all of the above events in the pages of Vogue in months to come, so keep an eye out!  

April 11th 2004
Palm Beach, Florida

Last night was our big HOLLYWOULD Palm Beach Bash, and I have spent the better part of the morning with my pillow over my head, trying to block out any light or sound.  I had made a pact with Leslie that we would only have three drinks each throughout the evening, but by 3:30am when we headed home, I think we had both figured out a way to multiply that number by four.  Ouch.

Our party was thrown in the courtyard of our Palm Beach shop, which is on Via Mizner off of Worth Ave.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Palm Beach, Worth Ave is the “main drag” of town, with shops like Chanel, Valentino, & Hermes.  The “Vias” are small side paths that lead to courtyards with smaller specialty shops that sell everything from luxury cashmere to antiques to… HOLLYWOULD shoes & bags.

Our party was hosted by our favorite HOLLYWOULD girls, Emilia Fanjul, Eleanor Lembo, and Heather Murray, all of whom looked absolutely stunning in their cocktail attire.  Our fabulous bartenders spent the evening pouring a deliciously lethal drink, the “Hollywould Palm Beacher”, which is made of of Potocki Vodka, rose tea, and pomegranate juice, garnished with an orchid, and specially created for our event.  You must ask for this drink next time you’re in PB, or at least ask for Potocki.  My headache this morning had nothing to do with those fabulous drinks, but more to do with the cheap “Island Punch” I ended up drinking later in the night.  More later…

From the party, we all headed to dinner at Bice, which is definitely the place to ‘see and be seen’ in Palm Beach.  My favorite thing about Bice is the nice mix of age ranges in their clientele, mostly due the fact that the place is packed with 84 year old men with their 24 year old wives and children.  Fab.

From Bice we headed to Michael McCarty’s where we only stayed for 5 minutes due to the lack of a dance floor, and from there we hit Cucina, which was jam packed with fratty boys and drunken girls doing tequilla shots in Pucci dresses.  We managed to fight our way to the bar there for a few hours, and then headed to Palm Beach’s only dance club, La Notte.  True to La Notte’s Italian name, the place was packed with Eurotrash and Euro music, until we bribed the deejay into playing Beyonce & 50 Cent.  We stayed there until 3:30am, dancing (and drinking) the night away with foxy under-aged college boys, which is why we’ve sadly missed the sunrise church service this morning. 

Back to NYC tonight for two weeks of non-stop soirees, where I plan to be more disciplined about sticking to my three drink rule.  Happy Easter!

April 6th 2004
NYC

OK, quick Beyonce update (see April 5th) before I jet to Palm Beach.  The good news is that I made it all the way to Jersey and back and am alive to tell about it.  Since my pal Victor works for Versace, he had scored us seats in the “Versace Section” of the audience, which was only feet from the stage.   Amazing.  The bad news is that there were no cameras allowed in the auditorium, so those photos I promised of me, Victor, Missy Elliot, Alicia Keys, and Beyonce becoming best friends forever did not happen.   But, here’s the play by play, because I know that every single one of you is dying to know everything about Beyonce’s every move:

First, let me start by telling you that on my recent trip to London, I heard a very reliable rumor that Beyonce and Jay Z had broken up.  Say it ain’t so.  As a result, I made it my mission last night to get to the bottom of this rumor, which was easier than I imagined.  The show began with Beyonce being carried on a white and golden throne-bed, like a magical Egyptian princess, above the heads of 4 men dressed as genies as she threw rose petals to the crowd, from the back of the auditorium all the way to the stage.  Needless to say, Victor and I were in tears.  There were at least 12 back-up dancers who could have performed with the NYC Ballet, flames on stage, and Dolce & Gabanna costumes to-die-for.  Fabulous.  At different points in the show Beyonce hung from the ceiling on a wire, swung on a swing above the sage, and rose up on a column, all whilst dancing like a fiend in fabulous crystal encrusted stilettos.  Goddess. The best part came at the finale, when Beyonce came out, due to the crowds overwhelming screaming & crying, wearing a jewel covered wife beater, jean shorts, and red ruby covered pumps to sing the best song in the world, Crazy In Love.  And then it happened …. Just as the song came around to the part where Jay Z usually starts rapping, from a cloud of smoke in the corner of the stage, emerged… Jay Z.  Yes, the man himself, singing Crazy In Love with Beyonce, wearing a custom-made Jacob the Jeweler blinged out cross necklace that almost made us wish we had brought our sunglasses.  At this point, Victor and I were standing on our chairs screaming “we love you!” with 10,000 other teen-age girls in unison.  It just doesn’t get any better than this.

April 5th 2004
NYC

Finally back in NYC.  I arrived late last night, have been in non-stop interviews all day today, leave for Palm Beach at 7am tomorrow morning, and can you guess what I’m doing tonight?  No, I’m not taking a hot bath in my large marble tub, surrounded by rose petals and scented candles with cucumbers on my eyes.  That only happens in InStyle, not in real life.  In real life, the smartest thing for me to do would be to stay home, unpack from Italy, repack for Palm Beach, eat a healthy meal, and get to bed early.  Unfortunately, I am not that smart.  Instead, my very favorite fashion PR star, KCD’s Victor Glemaud, has just called and made me an offer I cannot refuse:  back-stage passes to see Beyonce, Missy Elliot, and Alicia Keys tonight in New Jersey.  Victor rules.  I am, of course, bringing my camera, so hopefully tomorrow this entire page will be filled with pictures of me, Victor, Beyonce, Missy, & Alicia becoming best friends forever.  Hopefully.

Speaking of pictures… the photos to the right were taken at our HOLLYWOULD press event in London last week (see March 31st entry).  All of our fantastic friends & fabulous editors came to see us, so look out for HOLLYWOULD in all of your favorite British mags, including Vogue, Elle, Tatler, Times, etc etc etc.  God save the Queen.