September 2006

September 25th 2006
Florence, Italy

I’ve just spent the last 4 days in Paris attending the Premiere Vision fabric show, which is where all of us designers go to hunt down next season’s silks, twills, tweeds, and wools twice a year.  I always love going to PV because it’s like a family reunion of fashion people, where I run into fabulous old friends who come in from all over the globe to see the latest & greatest in fabrics.  As a result, while the days are packed with fabric finding, the nights are packed with catching up over cocktails, which always means at least one day spent looking at fabrics while nursing a very, very bad hangover.  C’est la vie.

One such night happened Thursday, when I met up with fashion pals Prabal Gurung (of Bill Blass) & Victor Glemaud (of www.glemaud.com) for what I had determined needed to be a very early night.  I should have known better when the evening began with drinks and dinner at Davé, which always leads to trouble.  Davé has always been the fashion crowd’s favorite restaurant in Paris, and everyone from Karl to Donatella to Naomi can be seen eating there on any given night.  The restaurant owner, not surprisingly named Davé, is the world’s best host and has been known on many occassion to sit down at have a drink at every table.  We love you Davé.

From Davé we headed to a bar in the Marias, where we ran into more fashion folk from the Proenza Schouler team, and proceeded to throw back a few more unneeded boissons.   Before I knew it, it was past 2am, so I decided to leave the boys and head for the nearest taxi stand.  (It must be mentioned here that I was wearing my new HOLLYWOULD Sparkle Glitter Ballet Flats, which I bought on this very site and as you will see, were a very good investment.) 

So, there I was at 2:30am, standing at the end of a very long taxi line near the Rue du Rivoli, contemplating how long it would take for my turn to arrive when it suddenly started to rain.  It wasn’t a heavy rain, but just enough of a sprinkle to make all the girls in line start to worry about their hair, their makeup, and most importantly, their shoes. 

As I was standing there pondering the effect that rain would have on the Swarovski Crystals on my flats, a handsome man in a Maserati pulled up to the light near the taxi line, rolled down his window and said to me, “You’re going to ruin your pretty shoes.  Would you like a ride home?”  I looked down the line and noticed many well-dressed girls wearing much higher heels, but as we’ve come to know at HOLLYWOULD, men are like raccoons when it comes to anything with a bit of sparkle, and hence my glitterama bling shoes had won once again.

Girls, I have to admit the offer was tempting, but just because a man is handsome, sharply dressed, and drives a Maserati does not mean he isn’t a serial killer, so as much as I wanted to take him up on the ride, I politely declined.  Needless to say, 45 minutes later when the rain really started to pour and I found myself still in the same line, sharing a broken umbrella with a drag queen (who also loved my shoes), I had to wonder if I wouldn’t be better off tied up in the warm, dry trunk of the Maserati. 

Now I’m back in Italy with a horrible cold from my taxi-line fiasco, but thankfully all of the glitter on my shoes is still in tact.  Who knows what would have happened if I had taken him up on that ride?  Maybe we would have gotten married and lived happily ever after… or maybe he just wanted to knock me over the head to steal my slippers.  After all, they are really, really great shoes. 

The photos right are from a fabulous night out in NYC last week with Camilla Staerk, Hanuk & Victor, which began at Mo Pitcken’s House of Satisfaction, and ended up somewhere between The Passerby, Marquee, Hiro, and Double Seven.  All photos by Hanuk.

September 15th 2006
New York City

Excuse the delay but it’s been New York Fashion Week all week long, which always means non-stop parties and non-stop fun, resulting in non-stop hangovers.

My week began with our HOLLYWOULD party on Sunday night in the Elizabeth Street Gardens, which was a celebration of beautiful photos of our Spring 2007 “California Girls” themed collection, which were taken by Annabel Mehran and styled by Kate Schelter.  Girls, you’re gonna love this collection when it hits the stores next spring, and for those of you who just can’t wait to see it, you’ll see photos (right) of all of our favorite HOLLYWOULD girls wearing it, including Olivia Palermo, Gillian Hearst-Shaw, Melissa Bent, Annabel Mehran, Kate Schelter, Kari Talley, Sarah Holt, Byrdie Bell, Bonnie Morrison, Tantivy Gublemann Bostwick, Coralie Charriol-Paul, Lara Meiland, Blair Volts, and Sopranos star Cara Buono.  Thank you girls for looking so fabulous in HOLLYWOULD!

The party started with a literal bang when, earlier in the day, as my biz partner Leslie Smith and I were assembling our DIY movie screen, a huge board fell on Leslie’s head cutting it open wide.  We rushed poor Leslie to the emergency room where she received five staples (that’s right girls, not stitches, STAPLES) in her head, and ended up missing the party as a result.  Poor Leslie’s been using scarves to hide her Frankenstein staples all week long, and we’re thinking she might set a trend of staples & headscarves for Fall 2007.

Big shout out Leslie and to everyone who came to the party, and especially to our awesome sponsors Roc, Aveeno, Brooklyn Brewery, Izze Fizzy, and Wine Cellar Sorbets.

Tuesday was serious fun starting with the Another Magazine party at Milk Studios.  Another is one of our favorite avant-guard mags, and with a party hosted by Kate Moss featuring a live performance by The Kills, you really can’t go wrong.  I was meeting Paris pals Victor Glemaud and Polina Aranova there, and by the time I arrived the place was jam-packed with supermodels and rockstars.  Thanks to the overly generous open bar, we all proceeded to have one too many cocktails and when I found myself telling Kills lead singer Alison Mosshart how much I liked her hair, I knew it was time to go home.

Nevertheless, on my way out the door to head home, I ran into my old pal & superstar filmmaker Jamie Johnson who informed me that my plans had changed, I was not going home, but in fact we were going to Bungalow 8.  Considering I had to wake up at 8am the next morning, I knew this was a very, very bad idea.  However, between Jamie’s charm and too much vodka, I somehow was persuaded.  By the time we got to Bungalow the place was packed, and the rest of the evening is Bungalow history.

Despite my serious hangover and lack of sleep, I made it to my old boss Vivienne Westwood’s party at the Soho House on Weds, and out for another fashion packed night on the town.  Thursday was much of the same, and tonight the parties will keep on rocking.  Thank God fashion week only happens twice a year.

September 12th 2006
New York City

Pictures from our party will be up by tomorrow.  So sorry... we're still recovering!

September 6th 2006
Nolita, NYC

This summer I was lucky enough to spend a week with my 3 year old niece Clara, whose high level of intelligence and uncanny ability to predict the future had forced her into the habit of constantly saying, “I toldya so”.  The fact is, most of the time Clara had “toldya so”, but as someone who loves her and wants her to succeed in the social circles of pre-school, I thought it my duty to inform her that nobody likes a know-it-all.  She processed this information without saying a word, and the next time something happened just as she had predicted, rather than announce the fact, she silently raised her brow & smiled. 

We’ve all had our “toldya so” moments, and at the risk of breaking my own rule, I must tell you that recently I’ve had “toldya so” deja-vu…

For those of you who can’t remember life five years ago: Sex & The City was at the top of the charts and everyone was convinced that Jimmy Choo stillettos were the pinnacle of cool.  At HOLLYWOULD, on the other hand, we were feeling a bit over Carrie & Co, and I decided it was the perfect time to launch our HOLLYWOULD ballet flat.  As much as it may surprise you, there was no one else doing ballets at the time and all of our wholesale buyers told us it was a very bad idea.  They said that ballets were for “old ladies” and would never be a trend, and advised us to stick to stilettos or risk becoming associated with all things un-hip.

Needless-to-say, I had a feeling our buyers were wrong and decided to put the ballets in our Nolita shop despite their discouragement.  On the very first day the ballets arrived, Chloe Sevigny, the ultimate fashion fortune-teller, popped in and picked up as many pairs as we had in her size.  By the end of the month we had sold them to Gwyneth Paltrow, Helena Christensen, Sophie Dahl, and Liv Tyler… and the rest is HOLLYWOULD history.

Well girls, it’s happened again.  For Pre-Fall this year I decided to try something new in a shoe called the “Runner” (see picture right), and got a very similar response from our wholesale buyers.  When I took it out of the box to show them and exclaimed, “Isn’t it cool?!” they looked at me with disbelief and said, “It definitely looks comfortable, but cool… never”.  So, we’ve just put the Runner in our Nolita shop and the first pair we unpacked was sold to none other than Queen of Cool herself, Miss Chloe Sevigny.  The following day we sold a pair to Anna Paquin, and I predict we have a winner.

I highly recommend you get a pair of Runners while you can, so that when all of your friends catch on three years from now, rather than say “I toldya so”, you can take a cue from my niece Clara and silently raise your brow & smile.