Last Call: Van Cleef & Arpels

Three Leaves brooch. Paris, France, 1966. Rubies, diamonds, platinum.

This Monday, July 4, marks the final day to view Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. The museum will be open on July 4 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and, even better, admission is free that day. I can’t imagine a more glamorous way to spend what is supposed to be a hot and humid Independence Day than in the air-conditioned Cooper-Hewitt admiring these sparklers before watching the fiery ones that explode over the East River that night.

July 4 also marks the last day to visit the Cooper-Hewitt for two years while it undergoes a renovation to increase exhibition space in the glorious Carnegie Mansion. It’s so old New York in there, I feel like I’m in an Edith Wharton novel when I walk down that dark-paneled staircase. The House of Mirth, perhaps?

Mystery-Set Flower brooch. Paris, France, 1986. Rubies, diamonds, platinum.

Chestnut Leaf brooch. Paris, France, 1952. Sapphires, diamonds, platinum.

If I could pick any two items to own from the stupendous things on display they would be:

Art Deco Nécessaire. Paris, France, 1928. Blue, black and white enamel, sculpted lapis lazuli, rose- and baguette-cut diamonds, gold.

Art Deco bracelet. Paris, France, 1925. Sapphires, diamonds, platinum. Formerly owned by the Duchess of Marlborough (née Consuelo Vanderbilt).

I would want to wear this every single day.

The Cooper-Hewitt gift shop and the Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden will remain open this summer, both free of charge. The Cooper-Hewitt is scheduled to reopen in 2013.

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
2 E. 91st Street (at Fifth Avenue)
New York NY 10128
212-849-8400
www.cooperhewitt.org

Hermès Twillys: Ties for Girls

There are a few reasons why I love going to Hermès:

1. I’m usually one of the youngest people in there. I’m 41. I can’t tell you how terrific this feels. By contrast when I go to J. Crew I’m one of the oldest.

2. Their gorgeous scarves, bags, belts, jewelry, fragrances and Ulysse leather notebooks exist outside of fashion. These are not items that will be out of style by next season, which is good because I can’t do trends. I can only do classics.




3. The Wall Street store, the one I prefer in Manhattan, is so wonderful to step into. On the flip side of the New York Stock Exchange, it is all silver and white and wood, and filled with light, and the sales associates are so nice. The Madison Avenue store, on the Upper East side in the 60’s, makes me slightly jumpy, which is another post entirely. In my experience it’s pretty much ladies with Birkins shopping for more Birkins, which makes me want to say to them, Are you kidding me, people? One is not enough?


4. Their Twillys. The last time I was at the Wall Street store I bought this Twilly in the Grand Manège pattern in the black/fuschia/red colorway. When I first saw a Twilly I wasn’t sure I’d like the size, 33 inches long and just 2 inches wide, but it is so easy to wear and it flaps jauntily in the breeze. The silk feels wonderful and the colors are unbelievable. On one tiny scarf they’ve managed to include bright orange-red, neon lime, hot pink, pale pink, and lavender, on a black background and with “Hermès” printed in their signature orange. It’s all a bridle theme and I’m not even remotely a horse person, but I am always into stripes and straps and flowers, so as soon as I saw this scarf in these particular colors I knew it was for me. I realized after a few wearings that what I like about this Twilly most of all is that I put it on and forget about it, like I imagine a guy puts on a tie.

Neon & Phobias at Bergdorf’s

Last week when my mother-in-law was in town we went to Bergdorf’s to see the windows. The main windows on Fifth Avenue featured DayGlo colors in both the clothes and the artwork and an extensive list of phobias. I was most in love with the hot pink suit, especially with the champagne-colored lace slip peeking out (look for the “Freudian slip”).

Enjoy!

A Bergdorf window on 57th Street.

I loved all these doors. At the top of the photo the reflection of the building across the street has been captured in the glare, adding windows to this image. A happy mistake!



The doctor.

The patient (note the Rorschach test in hand and Dr. Freud’s portrait on the wall).

The doctor’s skirt.



Arachnophobia.

Your intrepid photographer caught in the window’s glare, on the left.

Thalassophobia, Fear of the Sea.

I do feel like I have one phobia, astraphobia, the fear of thunder and lightning. It really scares me to see lightning, even from far away, and sometimes creeps me out in pictures too, if the photo shows a direct strike. Shudder, shudder.

Any phobias you care to share?

Bringing Home the Birkin

If you are looking for a good read for summer, I highly recommend Michael Tonello’s 2008 Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World’s Most Coveted Handbag. It’s a hilarious account of Tonello’s life once he moved to Spain for a job offer that fell through, started selling high-end merchandise out of his own closet to pay his bills, and once those things ran out, turned to hocking Hermès scarves on eBay. Once he developed a “formula” for obtaining them, he began trading in the ne plus ultra of handbags—the Hermès Birkin.

It’s great fun to read how Tonello outsmarts Hermès at their own game of the infamous wait list for Birkins and to follow him as he encounters the various con artists, Hermès addicts and employees during his years as a “Birkin boy.” There are also wonderful descriptions of places around the world his unique job allowed him to visit—my favorite is his chapter on Capri, which he says has the world’s smallest Hermès store—so this book is especially good to read while you’re on a lounge chair, sipping a cool drink.

There’s more happening here, however, than just the seemingly insatiable lust for one of the world’s most expensive handbags. There is also Hermès before their goods were available online, an old French company trying to reposition themselves for the 21st century, gaining tighter control over their means of distribution and getting rid of franchises they’d started back when they were unsure of how successful they could be as a global company. I guess we all know how that turned out. Hermès is now so attractive as a luxury juggernaut that it’s easy to understand why Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), sneakily found a way to buy a 20.2% stake in the company last year, which Hermès—a family-held enterprise—does not like at all. Arnault also believes in complete control in the marketplace, keeping prices high and promoting the aspirational aspect of luxury items. Wouldn’t he just love to add Hermès to the list of brands LVMH owns.

Tonello has included a helpful glossary in the back of his book to teach you the specifics of the Kelly or the Birkin, and between him and the ladies at the Purse Forum, I learned everything I know about both bags. Disgustingly expensive yes, but a Birkin is also one of the most well-designed bags ever made and you may just wish for one yourself after reading Tonello’s entertaining book.

www.thebirkin.com

The Return of Rachel

Rachel, Rodger, and Baby Skyler. Photo by Bravotv.com.

The Rachel Zoe Project returns for its fourth season on Bravo starting on August 2 at 9/8c. Bravo TV has posted a little season preview, which shows Rachel pregnant and working as hard as ever to style her clients, including Anne Hathaway for this year's Oscars (remember all those gown changes she had?) and Kim Kardashian (whose appeal I will never understand). My favorite is at the end, when Rachel is holding her tiny son Skyler in her arms--every mother out there will recognize the rooting reflex he's doing--and says to Joey, her makeup artist, "He's trying to eat my boob through my jacket."

Ah yes, one of the many joys of motherhood. I will love Rachel forever if she also talks about more fun things like milk letdown, leaky breasts, and her hair falling out. I can't wait to watch her try to balance her business, her marriage, and her new baby, in style.

www.bravotv.com

Sundays at the Met

Ensemble, Its a Jungle Out There, autumn/winter 1997-98
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø/Art + Commerce

For any of you lovelies so inclined, this Sunday, June 19, is the Sundays at the Met series that will feature the lecture "Alexander McQueen: Art, Beauty, and the Unique Body." It will be led by Harold Koda, Curator in Charge of the Costume Institute, and Aimee Mullins, a former model for McQueen. It's free with museum admission but go early, the McQueen exhibit has proven so popular, this lecture could end up being standing room only.

Dress, VOSS, spring/summer 2001
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø/Art + Commerce

June 19, 3:00-4:30PM
"Alexander McQueen: Art, Beauty, and the Unique Body"
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street)
New York NY 10028
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org

While I Was Sleeping Indeed

A screen grab of the "While You Were Sleeping" roundup on Harper's Bazaar for June 10.

I'm so excited to share that my article for Clothes on Film, "Kate Hudson in Le Divorce: Love is in the Bag," got picked up by Harper's Bazaar online as part of their June 10 roundup of fashion-related links called While You Were Sleeping, from editor Veronique Hyland.

There's already a new roundup for June 13 but I think I'm going to celebrate June 10 awhile longer.

The link to the article I wrote for Clothes on Film is listed last.

http://www.harpersbazaar.com/bazaar-blog/while-you-were-sleeping-061011

Le Divorce: Love is in the Bag

Please do visit Clothes on Film to read my article “Kate Hudson in Le Divorce: Love is in the Bag.” It focuses on the transformation made by Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) as she travels from Santa Barbara to Paris to help her pregnant sister Roxeanne (Naomi Watts), and then goes from casual California girl to glamorous soignée French mistress to the very foxy Edgar Cosset (Thierry Lhermitte). I had the pleasure of speaking with the film’s costume designer, Carol Ramsey, who gave me a fantastic and fun interview, with wonderful details about designing for Le Divorce and insights about how a Hollywood costume designer really works. Just talking to her made me want to move back to California and apprentice myself to her for a year. What an education that would be.

Kate Hudson as Isabel Walker in Le Divorce wearing a knockout Chloé blouse featuring cutwork lace, sequins and pearls. Photo © Twentieth Century Fox.

Be still my heart. More than one Purse Forum member identified this bag as an Hermès Kelly 28 rigide in Braise crocodile porosus with gold hardware. Such attention to detail is one of the many reasons why I love that site. This bag had a stunt double, an identical knockoff which was used any time the original, on loan from Hermès, had to get banged up. Photo © Twentieth Century Fox.

Isabel buying lingerie at La Perla. This scene always cracks me up since Isabel's French is not so good. The trench is by Chloé (note the arm patch with lions and a champagne glass!) and Ms. Ramsey says the bag, which I deeply love and which she still has in her office, was bought on the streets in Paris. She admits they had a lot of great bags for Le Divorce. Photo © Twentieth Century Fox.

Roxy (Naomi Watts), Chester (Sam Waterston), Isabel (Kate Hudson), and Roger (Thomas Lennon) walk along the Seine in Le Divorce. Photo © Twentieth Century Fox.

I know it wasn’t the best-received movie, but I actually like Le Divorce, partly because I’ve read the novel by Diane Johnson three times, partly because I think Kate Hudson was so good in it (as were the others), but also because the clothes on all the characters are gorgeous and the places where James Ivory shot the film in Paris make it feel like a little French vacation whenever I watch it.

Kate is carrying an Hermès Birkin, not a Kelly, in this poster.

Clothes on Film creator Chris Laverty has put together a fantastic source for fans of film costume design. It’s impossible for me not to love a site that will narrow in on, say, the Edith Head-designed coral and white driving ensemble worn by Grace Kelly in the movie To Catch a Thief, parsing its historical references as well as what it says about her character, Frances. That kind of laser-like focus always gets my admiration so not only am I a big fan of Clothes on Film, I am very excited to contribute an article to it.

www.clothesonfilm.com

Butterscotch Chanel

I didn't think the windows at the Chanel boutique on 57th Street were very special when I saw them last Sunday. The embroidery on the dresses and jackets, however, was divine. These particular pieces had different colored grosgrain ribbons woven through the fabric. The photos don't do the colors justice, which were a wonderful combination of butterscotch, cream, yellow and beige, shot through with bits of silver. Outstanding. Consider me obsessed with Lesage, the atelier that does embroidery for Chanel.

Look at those grosgrain ribbons woven throughout. Hello, I'm dying of love!

Notice how the ribbon is such a perfect match from the jacket front to the sleeve where it meets at the seam that it flows from one to the other with no break. Dear Chanel seamstresses, please teach me how to sew like this.

This shot shows the different tones of the jacket better. I adore how the yellow makes the whole thing pop.

I'm still loving the gold disco bag, which I featured in April.

Summer White

When I was on 57th Street and Fifth Avenue over the weekend with my mother, who was in NYC on a visit, I was looking for dynamite windows to photograph but none of them were knocking my socks off, surprising since this roundup included including Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu, Burberry, Chanel, Tiffany and Bergdorf Goodman. I did, however, spy on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side this very pretty white dress with cutwork lace in the skirt. It's by Elie Tahari and I think it's the perfect summer date night dress. I don't have a white dress in my summer wardrobe but after seeing this one I want to correct that situation right away.

Close-up of the skirt. I love this kind of detailing!

Do you wear a lot of white in summer?

Savage Beauty Extended to August 7

Dress, VOSS, spring/summer 2001
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø/Art + Commerce

Since opening on May 4, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, now showing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, has already drawn more than 180,000 visitors, which is stunning. On May 4 the exhibit gave The Costume Institute its highest attendance of any public opening day of any of its exhibitions.

Because of the high demand, the Museum has extended the show by one week, to August 7, 2011. It is also introducing Met Mondays with McQueen, starting June 6. Visitors can purchase tickets for special viewings on Mondays when the Museum is closed to the public. Monday access will be available from 9:30AM to 2:30PM. The special viewing rate is $50 per person, with entries to the exhibit on the half hour, and will include an Audio Guide to the exhibition.

Tickets will be available in early June, on-site at the Met, or at the Museum's website.

Please note Met Mondays with McQueen will not be offered on Monday, July 4, because it is a Met Holiday Monday, one of the Monday holidays when the Museum's galleries are open to the public.

If you want a more unique experience in seeing this exhibit I highly recommend stepping up in price for the Met Mondays with McQueen. I'm sure the rest of the Museum's galleries will be closed, as they were for the press preview, but that means the Museum will be less crowded and you will be with other fashion fanatics, which will make it more fun. Trust me when I tell you that you won't need to see anything else after coming out of this exhibition. It is that stunning. Also, skip the Audio Guide, or at least take it off in each gallery. The sounds and music are part of the exhibit and you need to hear them since they layer the experience, and help achieve the "Gothic fairy tale" Curator Andrew Bolton intended.

Ensemble, VOSS, spring/summer 2001
Neckpiece by Shaun Leane for Alexander McQueen courtesy of Perles de Tahiti
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Photograph © Sølve Sundsbø/Art + Commerce

If you want to visit the exhibition during regular hours, the Met recommends arriving in the mornings or on weekdays. Museum members are given express entry into the exhibit, allowing them to skip any lines.

www.metmuseum.org