Sunday, September 27, 2009

behind the scenes

I've had a lot of requests to see the sizes of the bags in comparison to a human being, instead of floating in white space. So I pooled my resources and pulled together a photo shoot this Sunday afternoon.
The lovely Alexis modeled. Notice: no cropped head.

The amazing EvaLotta snapped the pics, soon to be on seevivier.com. (The pics on this blog are my pics, EL's will be much better...)

EvaLotta brought her kids and Else stepped up to distract them from Mama. It worked, they let us work for a brisk 2 hours without interruption! (Thank you, Else.)

The bags were being photographed on Alexis, but Marlo was the real star of the day!

On another photo shoot note, this came out in the NYTimes Travel magazine today:

In what was probably one of my favorite jobs avant le sac, I used work for the company that creates the image for the Viceroy hotels as a prop stylist. This shoot took place at a mountaintop restaurant in Aspen last year (the pool in background was added in post), and it was a lovely experience. I got to choose the glasses, the porcelain & pewter-rimmed plates, the bone & sterling tray, a lavish selection of cheeses for the table, etc. I transported all of it to the restaurant via ski-lift, and set everything to stunning perfection. It was a dreamy job to have an unlimited budget (each one of these glasses was $115 for example - we rented things, of course) to create beautiful settings in the image of Kelly Wearstler. There was a slightly bigger crew than my shoot today...

Friday, September 25, 2009

NYC PDQ

Right smack dab in the middle of what is the busiest period for my fledgling company, I had to go to NYC for a pretty darn quick trip - two chock o'block days. I didn't actually take part in the markets happening, but I had heard it was a good time to go meet buyers, so I went. I holed up in a room at the swank new Cooper Square Hotel during the days (I was squatting my girlfriend's room - I actually slept at Simone's London Terrace pied-a-terre) and took a few appointments. It all felt very Belle du Jour...the view from the room:

A white clutch situation happening on the bed:


The appointments were a bit too few for my liking, but I also used the two quick days (time passes faster in NY) to search for leather as my sources in are drying up here in LA. La Trop is still shutting it down.

Here's Simone (above) carrying hers an evening with one half of her sparkly Chanel tailleur. The other girls look pretty cute, too, but as we're girls and a tad vain, I've cropped their heads lest they should not like their visage.

I always crop my head for exactly that reason. Ha! I just want to show you what I'm wearing not open myself to all sorts of other debates...and here, I'm wearing Greta's Heidi Merrick stripped shirt and my newest bag design - the mini besace (soon to be on website) - and wrap bracelet. This is what I wore to the meeting-I-really-care-about with the owner of a store which I won't name as I'm superstitious, but a hint: it's two words. The meeting went really well, now please cross your fingers that something will come of it. It's one of my favorite stores in NY and the line would be so lovely there.

I was also invited to visit some editors at Condé Nast, which felt very Devil Wears Prada. Vogue. Douzième étage.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

I am a cutter

Remember these?


I hadn't worn them since I purchased them from Mohawk General Store. Not even in Paris for which I supposedly got them. Then I realized that maybe I can't deal with them going up so high on my leg. They were already attention getters with ALL the buckles and platform, but they were a little too Adams Family for me. So, I took a pair of scissors to them. Voilà. A bit more subtle, still hot. Now I can wear them.


And it wasn't nearly as painful as cutting these.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

A Fash Week: The Grace and Anna Show + FNO

HBT and I went to an advanced screening of the September Issue (with cocktails following) the other night at the LACMA. The invite, with a plethora of A-listers hosting the soirée, assured a very satisfying people watching event and it did not disappoint. The celebs and other ladies (and gents) were all turned out for the evening - pretty impressively for LA - not an Ed Hardy festooned t-shirt in the house.
As someone who's been reading Vogue since I was a preteen, I drank up every moment of the movie and watched with rapt attention. However, I'm not sure I could really recommend it to anyone with an ounce less passion for fashion than me - that is to say, Most People.

The most interesting part about the film is really the relationship between Grace Coddington and Anna Wintour. After 20 years working together at the magazine - they started the same day! - they've perfected a working relationship with Anna being the business woman (with a penchant for floral prints, cardigans and nude Manolos) and the final decision maker but Grace (exceedingly frizzy-topped and frumpy, continually shot from behind in baggy black clothes and comfy wedges) being the true creative genius of the magazine. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about their relationship is after an hour and half of watching them, I cannot say with any certainty whether or not they utterly loathe one another or if they're a wee bit fond of the other? It could go either way.

Then last night, we spent FNO - Vogue's big idea to keep stores open late and entice people to pay retail for designers to keep a heavily hit industry afloat (with a pretty hot PSA seen here) - by passing by Roseark to drink a glass of champers and peruse Suzanne Donegan's Mannin jewelry line front and center. Actress Carla Gugino was ogling over the designer's beautiful collection of composed vintage and new collection 18k of pieces, (she ogled over my gray fur stole as well, but that's another story.) Then we headed over to our peeps at Balenciaga, where the soirée's proceeds were being donated to PS ARTS. The lovely Victoria Namkung wrote about it here for style.com.
I have to say, amongst the trays of yummy bites and flutes of bubbly floating about the store, there were very few shopping bags full of newly purchased Balenciaga. But if I coulda, I definitely woulda purchased the black wedge boat shoes.

Ça suffit de la mode, for a little while. Tonight I'm host to a sleepover of extremely rambunctious little boys.

(first 3 pics taken from The September Issue website and the 4th from style.com, of course.)

Sunday, September 6, 2009

I Am Mama

I went shopping yesterday to find something to wear for my meeting on Wed. (mentioned below) and I got this blouse and the jean skirt. The shoe-boots I got in Paris at Bon Marché last month. Then I tried some strappy neutral wedges. You ever realize how you never really stand like you stand when you're checking out an outfit in the mirror? Thumb hooked on pocket - nope, not in real life. It's the body version of people's "mirror face", but that's another story...

This is what happened when I put on my second outfit. New black Prada skirt, favorite old Lou Reed t-shirt, same shoes. And Oscar.

Keepin' it real.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Semaine de Dingue

This has been a week to remember. But knowing me, I'll probably forget.



Two days before I left for France this summer, Daily Candy was scheduled to run a deal on my bags (mentioned below.) A week before I left though, I called them and said, "is there anyway we can do this when I get back?" Yes, they said, no problem. Now that the deal ran this week, I'm absolutely positive that I wouldn't have been able to handle the response a couple of days before leaving the country. It's been C.R.A.Z.Y. I was still riding the RS page wave when this hit and it felt like a tsunami for a company my size. Petite, that is.

Also, there was some press that came out. Also, there was my first order for a lux department store - my first dept store period, but so happy it's a good one.

Also, and this is the biggest of alsos, a lovely editor of a major, super lovely magazine contacted me (!) to come over to see my digs and wares next week. So very very excited. But what in the world am I going to wear?

(dingue means crazy. "dinge" how it was originally written, doesn't mean anything at all. Merci mari - a little late ;)

It's a wrap


I know that sounds like some sort of cheesy Subway commercial or something, like, hey, we're cool, we have wraps now! When everyone in the world has moved on to panini and beyond. But, it's the truth, the silver quadruple wrap is undeniably hot. I may not have captured it photographically, yet, but it's coming.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

contact sheet

I'm up too late redoing my website and I just noticed how cool my messenger bag photos look without retouching at all. Very autumnal. Living in above 100 degrees heat and breathing smoky air from nearby raging fires all day, I appreciate anything that makes me dream I'm walking up Madison Ave. to Barneys on a crisp fall day.
Here're the bags with a bit of lighting help from photoshop...