September 2004

September 24th 2004
New York

Hollywould is in this week's People Magazine (Britney Spears wedding cover)!

Thank you People and thank you Iman Bowie for such a fabulous quote!

September 23rd 2004
Paris, France

J'adore Paris. I'm in town attending fashion's favorite fabric show, Premiere Vision, so that I can find all sorts of gorgeous fabrics for you girls to wear next fall. I guess it's time I tell you a little secret I've been keeping for the last few months...

HOLLYWOULD is launching a line of dresses!

These divine frocks will hit Saks Fifth Avenue this November, and you're gonna love 'em. I don't want to tell you too much or it will spoil the surprise, but you'll get the full-fledged scoop in the November issue of Vogue (which you were going to buy anyway, but now you'll need 10 copies, Mom).

In the meantime, our fabulous friends at www.fashionweekdaily.com have given you a little teaser today, so check it out...

September 22nd 2004
Florence, Italy

Newsflash!  Super starlet Mischa Barton will be wearing HOLLYWOULD on upcoming episodes of The OC.  I know you were all planning to watch anyway, but this is even more incentive not to miss a single episode.  When on earth will they get The OC here in Italy?  I need Satellite TV.  We love you Mischa!

September 21st 2004
Florence, Italy

Many of you seem to wonder what on earth I do here in Italy.  The answer isn’t really as glamorous as most people would like, because the truth is that I basically spend about 60% of my time stuck in traffic.  This morning, for example, I left home at 8am to get to the shoe factory, which is only 35 minutes away.  By 11am I was still sitting motionless on the highway due to the fact that Italians drive like maniacs, thereby causing disastrous traffic-stopping accidents every day of the week.

As a result, I have a lot of “alone time” to contemplate world problems and the meaning of life.  Today the important scholarly question I chose to ponder was, “Why did P.Diddy choose to bring Bruce Willis as his guest to the MTV Video Music Awards?”  This has been puzzling me for weeks, and thankfully I had a full three hours to reflect on it.  I decided that Diddy was trying to outwardly oppose Ashton Kutcher, who he had brought two years ago when he introduced him to Demi Moore.  This lead me to believe that Diddy does not endorse the Kabbalah, which lead me to ponder the fact that while the red string bracelet is the Kabbalah symbol, newsie caps seem to be the unspoken uniform requirement.  Just think:  Madonna, Guy, Ashton, Demi, and even Britney Spears have recently been spotted wearing newsie caps despite the fact that they are “so two years ago”.  They all know better.

This thought led me to ponder the unspoken uniforms of other Hollywood religions, such as Scientology, which is a favorite “alone time” topic in general.  Did you know that Scientologists believe that aliens put negative electrodes in our brains?  It could totally happen.  Anyway, my epiphany of the day was the realization that the Scientologist secret uniform is the leather blazer.  Despite the fact that the leather blazer is clearly a very bad look, it’s the only common thread between Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Jason Lee, who are all Scientologists.  Even super-stylish Beck, who was raised Scientologist, wears his own Elvis style version of the leather blazer, which totally proves my theory. 

Further thought lead to the revalation that if newsie caps are the uniform of Kabbalahists, and leather blazers are the uniform of Scientologists, people who wear both, like Samuel L. Jackson, must be Scienbalahists.  Can it be true?

Now if I can only get the image of Bruce Willis dancing to “Lean Back” out of my head…

September 14th 2004
Florence, Italy

I’ve just returned to Italy where everyone is complaining that their 4 week August vacation wasn’t long enough.  The best part is that on top of their 4 weeks in August, there are at least another 3 weeks worth of Catholic holidays scattered throughout the year, plus 1-2 weeks worth of strikes, making the average Italian vacation time around 8-9 weeks/year.  Whenever I tell Italians that in America we only get 2 weeks off, they act like I am spreading some kind of urban myth that could not possibly ever be true.  Mixing pop-rocks and Coca-cola will kill you = Americans only get 2 weeks of vacation a year.  I love Italy.

September 13th 2004
New York City

Last night's antics began around 5pm at The Bryant Park Hotel, where we were showing our HOLLYWOULD Spring 2005 collection.  We had rented a suite and filled it with next year’s goods, and were taking private appointments with editors and buyers all weekend long.  Around 5pm I heard a knock at the door, and thinking it was my favorite editor from Vogue, went to answer it.   Standing there in front of me was none other than the Empress of Hip Hop, Lil’ Kim.  Apparently Kim had heard that we were in the hotel and decided to drop by and tell us how much she loves HOLLYWOULD.  If you read this diary you know how much we worship Lil’Kim (see March 15^th, 2004), so we were more than overjoyed to see her.  She looked gorgeous, was wearing more bling than Jacob the Jeweler at a diamond convention, and is the sweetest girl in town.  Kim informed us that she never travels without her favorite HOLLYWOULD boots, which are from Fall 2001 and happen to be a metallic rainbow giraffe print.  Of course if you’re Lil’ Kim, metallic rainbow giraffe matches everything you own, which is why we love and adore her so much. 

From the hotel we headed down to the HOLLYWOULD store to meet up with friends for a night on the town.  Because there were so many fashion parties we wanted to hit, and so many friends we wanted to see, we had decided to rent a stretch SUV for the evening so that we could party-hop prom style.  Big shout-outs to Marisa & Elena Arredondo, Amy Raiter, Melissa Tominak, Leslie Ternes, Gemma Hamilton, Olga, Marti, and the boys who joined us for the ride! 

Our first limo stop was the Visionaire party in Soho, which was packed with all of our favorite fashion heroes including Cecilia Dean, Stephen Gan, Matt Damhave, Tara Subkoff, the As Four gang, and Carine Roitfeld.  Also in attendance was Super Fox Josh Hartnett, who was nice enough to chat with us about his experience carting around HOLLYWOULD shoes in his new movie Wicker Park (see Sept 7^th entry), and promised to come by our store and sign autographs.  Right Josh?  Thank you Visionaire for letting our entourage crash your party and drink your booze.  Now everyone needs to go buy the new copy of their V magazine (Gwen Stefani cover), which is always the best place to see next season’s fashions.

From Visionaire our limo gang headed up to The Museum of Natural History for the COTY party, which was celebrity studded and paparazzi packed.  Due to the open bar and over-attentive drink staff, my memory here starts to get a bit blurry.  I do, however, remember meeting flawlessly beautiful J.Lo with Marc Anthony, and everyone’s favorite twins, Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen.  I can die now.

From COTY we headed to Bungalow 8 which, at 3am on a Sunday night (Monday morning) was packed.  I don’t remember much but I know I had a blast, and somehow ended up in the East Village eating pizza with Rory Guinness at 5am.  Have had to come to work this morning and pretend that I’m a responsible adult with a real job, but you all know the truth…

September 11th 2004
New York City

On my way to work early this morning, the streets were empty except for a mob of people walking down the sidewalk towards me.  As I neared them I realized that they were all Italian firemen, about 30 of them plus their wives and children, in their “Vigili del Fuoco” fireman uniforms.  They were carrying an American flag and an Italian flag, and when I stopped to talk to them they told me that they were in town from the Brescia, Italy fire department.  They had been wanting to come to America to pay tribute to our New York City firefighters ever since 9/11, and had finally managed to make the trip.  Being the baby that I am, I immediately burst into tears.

Those of you who were in New York on 9/11 remember all of the heroism that occurred on that day.  Today, no matter where you are, take time to thank a fireman, policeman, or solider, or to pray for the families of those who were lost.  God bless America.

September 10th 2004
New York City

We have just finished reading through this month’s “VIP Registers” for our site, and we hate to brag but HOLLYWOULD girls really are the coolest.  Some of my favorite job descriptions are:  “artist (really just mom)”, “corporate slave”, and “movie star” (from a real movie star!).  We want to be friends with all of you.

If you read this diary and haven’t yet registered to be a VIP, you must do so today in order to receive special VIP treatment.  In fact, this month we will be mailing out a surprise gift to all of our HOLLYWOULD VIPs, so be sure we have your mailing address if you want to receive it.  

The latest scoop is that drop-dead gorgeous superstar Uma Thurman will be wearing lots and lots of HOLLYWOULD in an upcoming film Prime, which hits theaters next fall.  We are thrilled that Uma loves HOLLYWOULD as much as HOLLYWOULD loves Uma, and can’t wait to see her new flick! 

The photos to the right were taken at designer Alvin Valley's dinner party on Tuesday night, which was a blast due to my fabulous dinner partners, Hudson, Jackie, Chris, and The Joffe Sisters! 

September 8th 2004
New York City

New York Fashion Week has just begun and I’m already knackered from party-hopping mania.  Last night’s festivities began at Sari Gueron’s fabulous fashion show at the St. Regis Hotel.  I’m not showing favoritism to Sari just because her models wore HOLLYWOULD shoes, but her dresses are to-die-for and you all must ask for Sari’s things at your local luxury shops!  

From Sari’s soiree we all hopped over to Barneys, where Vogue was throwing a party for the final nominees of their new Vogue Fashion Fund.  The award finalist are some of our favorite young stars including Behnaz Sarafpour, Peter Som and Proenza Schouler, so we can’t wait to see who wins!

From Barneys we headed down to the new Pucci store opening, which was a mob scene of fabulous neon prints, and the perfect place to be for the end of summer.  We stayed there long enough to see everyone who’s anyone, and then headed to Patrick McMullan’s party at Saks Fifth Avenue.  For those of you who don’t know, Patrick is the photographer of the New York social scene, and was launching his fantastic new book, “Intents”, which is full of backstage shots of fashion shows from the NYC tents.  Fabulous.

From Saks we headed over to Milk Studios for the 10 Tiger exhibit, which was full of fashionable hipsters spending more time drinking from the open bar than looking at the art, which is why we love them so much.  At Milk I ran into my pal Hope Atherton, who I noticed had done an outfit change since seeing her earlier in the evening at Sari’s fashion show.  I love the fact that Hope is so cutting edge she changes her outfit half way through the night, thereby ensuring that she is always au courant.  Hope is fab.

From Milk we headed to The Grammercy Park Hotel for Kate Schelter’s party, which lasted until the break o’ dawn.  More tonight as I head out to yet another evening of back-to-back soirees.  A tout à l'heure…

September 7th 2004
New York City

The latest news is that the film Wicker Park has finally arrived in theaters, and HOLLYWOULD shoes are all over the movie!  I have yet to see it, but apparently the plot centers around a shoe store full of HOLLYWOULD, and stars super fox Josh Hartnett.  In fact, MGM was nice enough to send us life-sized shots of Josh carrying piles of HOLLYWOULD shoe boxes, and ever since we’ve had to use force to keep the girls in the office from making out with his photos.

My latest obsession, other than Josh, is the worst television show ever created: The Surreal World.  It is seriously like crack cocaine.  I must have logged in a total of 16 TV hours this weekend solely devoted to this show.  Why is it that I am enthralled, enchanted, rapt, and spellbound by MC Hammer, Emmanuel Lewis, and Vince Neil?  I need counseling.   

In the other remaining hours of the weekend I went to my fabulous friend Sarah Ratterman’s Labor Day BBQ in the ‘burbs, which was a blast.  More to come as tonight I'm throwing a party with my pal Kate Schelter at the Grammercy Park Hotel's High Bar, so stick around…

September 3rd 2004
New York City

Here at HOLLYWOULD we are not very happy with The Gap.  It’s not that we don’t love their new ads which feature our yellow satin sandals, or that we don’t think Sarah Jessica Parker looks absolutely fabulous in them, it’s just that they have credited the shoes (our shoes) to Manolo Blahnik.  We are flattered to be mixed up with Manolo, but we do wish that The Gap would get their shoe credits straight.

In much more important news, the lovely and talented Chloe Sevigny was shopping chez HOLLYWOULD today and looked gorgeous as usual.  We’ve all decided that she has, hands down, the very best legs in the USA, and that if any of us had legs like hers we would only wear bikini bottoms to work every day – even in the snow.  It’s probably a good thing we don’t.

September 1st 2004
New York City

I know, I know, I haven’t yet told you about my weekend and you all want to be mentioned so that you can have yet another spot to find yourself on google.com.  Here goes:

 On Friday I headed to the US Open kick-off party, which was also the Serena Williams fashion show.  Unfortunately due to the fact that my drunken friends Leslie Ternes and Jackie Terrebone were unruly and impossible to wrangle, we missed Serena’s show.  We did, however, get to witness some pretty hot dancing by a few tennis pros, including one country club-ish couple in their late 50’s (him in pleated khaki shorts, her in tennis gear) getting it on to Outkast’s “So Fresh And So Clean”.  Quite an image.  From there we all headed to a dive bar with video games in the basement.  All fine establishments should have video games in the basement.

On Saturday I headed up to New Canaan to visit my fabulous cousins and their adorable kids.  After a day of swimming in the sun I headed out to East Hampton for Fabiola Beracasa’s “Rock the Kasbah” bash.  “Rock the Kasbah” is a great theme for a party, and Fabiola took the Moroccan theme to the limit by filling her yard with glamorous Bedouin tents, Moroccan buffets, and even a man peddling hookah.  Love the hookah.  Fabiola looked amazing in a fabulous belly-dancing ensemble and gold coin headdress.  Other party revelers in attendance were some of my all-time favorite New Yorkers, including HOLLYWOULD’s favorite event planner Emilia Fanjul, genius handbag designer Fernanda Niven, PR star Liz Cohen, heartbreaker Killaen von Rensselaer, movie premiere hostess Peggy Seigal, party boy #1 Steve Clark, beautiful bride-to-be Amy Raiter, Vogue’s long-lost favorite Lauren Davis, and many, many more.

On Sunday I headed to a screening of Johnny Depp’s new movie Finding Neverland at the Southampton Cinema.  I was never really into 21 Jump Street, but between Pirates of the Caribbean and Finding Neverland I have decided that JD is now my very favorite actor.  Finding Neverland hits theaters in November and is definitely a must-see.  Also in attendance at the screening were many of the gang from the night before, as well as fashion favorites Donna Karan and Sophie Dahl, who both looked thin as rails.  From there we all headed to Savannah’s for dinner and then finally home. 

These sort of weekends make me need a vacation.