Sunday, January 30, 2011

Red Lipstick Break

It is Sunday, Jan 30, 2011. Which means that tomorrow is Jan 31, 2011 and tax day for me. It was a rainy day, so I at least didn't feel sad about not being outside if I was to be at my computer all day crunching numbers to get to one big, fat, dollar-amount-owed at the end. But when ennui and dread were felt down to my bones I decided: I needed lipstick.
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Last night, I went to the pre-opening reception of All Of This And Nothing at the Hammer Museum, and being that I had approximately 10 min to get ready in order to be there on time, I managed a pretty fierce outfit which involved black VEDA leggings with leather panels, a black leather quilted jacket, and towering black sandals (with socks.) But when I got to my friend's house to pick her up, I realized to my horror that I'd left the house without a stitch of make-up. I don't wear a lot of make up, but a lil mascara, a lil eyeliner, a lil blush, a lil SOMETHING at least. Luckily my friend came through with the full-proof savior in this situation, RED LIPSTICK. No make-up? Red Lipstick will make it look intentional. So today, in my tax purgatory, I figured a good break would be to buy some new red lipstick.
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This is not to say that I don't own oh, I don't know, 5 or 6 red lipsticks already, which run the gamut from Revlon to Nars, but still I'm searching for the perfect red. Why is it sooo illusive? My dream is to have a magic make-up artist say, "THIS is your perfect color for you wear it and don't ever change." I'm not sure it's right, but I love orangey reds on me, so today I got Julie Hewitt's Belle Noir. Can't say if it'll be the perfect one yet, but it certainly brought me out of my tax-depression for a while.
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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

30 Of A Kind - sold out. BOOM.

I had the good fortune of being featured on a relatively new site called Of A Kind yesterday. OAK, the brainchild of former magazine girls Erica Cerulo and Claire Mazur, is a site that asks designers to make a special, limited edition product or introduce a new product and sell it only on their website until it sells out. They do lovely stories about the designer leading up to the sale which goes live every Wednesday. Essentially it's a way to introduce somewhat new designers to another audience and provide the customer with something special. So we designed an elegant envelope wallet called La Pochette and it SOLD OUT in a matter of hours (or as OAK's tweet said at sell out time: "our @seevivier wallet is sold-out. BOOM.") Yay!
La Pochette is dreamy:
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And we will sell a few versions of it on our website soon - probably when we launch our new website. (Which is finally nearing completion. F*&^%! heck! Websites are a lot of work. :) ) Anyhoozles, I thought I'd repost those stories, as they did a bang up job with them and I know it wasn't easy to get me on the phone to do the interviews. Merci Erica and Claire. If you haven't already, I recommend you signup for their updates because they've got some good people lined up to design unique pieces for their site. xoc
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Sunday, January 23, 2011

14k Niceness

While touring Vuitton a while back, I learned that they coat all their hardware with 14k. So I thought: I want to do that. I can dream, right? Well, I may not be able to coat all our hardware yet, but I was able to swath our name tags in the lovely metal. Our first shipment arrived on Friday and they will start gracing our bags starting Monday.
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Heather took this pic the other day of the orchid on my mantle in the red Heath vase she'd given me for Christmas. I love the fuchsia and red together.
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Then I realized it fits right in with the pics from Jil Sander I was just pouring over on Style.com for Springtime color fix.
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Coral anyone? We made wonderful Spring/Summer sample clutches for stores with brights - including a few beautiful reddy-orangey-pinky. Like this one:
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And this pompom:
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ALL the Jil Sander brights make me happy and excited for the coming months.
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We are very excited to announce Clare Vivier at Jenni Kayne boutique in West Hollywood. What a lovely store! I'm very honored to be in it.
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(Jil Sander pics from style.com)

Friday, January 14, 2011

Elite is not a bad word*

I had the amazing privilege of a private tour of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA today by none other than the new MOCA director himself, Jeffrey Deitch.

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True story. Okay, stay with me while I geek out for a minute:
This morning I was reading my book, Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty, which is all about art and specifically about the art world and the key participants (like Deitch) when my phone rings and it's a friend I hadn't heard from in a while calling me with a last minute invitation: Would I like to join her and a couple other people on a small, Deitch-led tour. Yes, I did want to join her. The tour group turned out to include celebrities, art world darlings, daughters-of-very-famous people, and me (!?).
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One of my favorite parts of the visit today was the "Latin American Artists in the Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space." Here's me in the blue strings part of the installation. Suffice it to say, I felt honored to be invited on this tour today, it was an extremely illuminating experience to have with the enthusiatistic and intelligent Mr. D. I'll leave writing about art to those people who actually can, like Mr. Martin and the people who write for MOCA's website:
Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space, is the first museum exhibition to situate pioneering Latin American artists among the international canon of those working with light and space. The exhibition presents Latin America as the source of new ideas about the nature and function of art through the re-creation of important large scale installations by five highly regarded and influential artists: Carlos Cruz Diez, Lucio Fontana, Julio Le Parc, Hélio Oiticica and Neville D'Almeida, and Jesús Rafael Soto. From: here.
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And, maybe because of my metier, I also adored Amanda Ross-Ho's giant "My Bag (Cigarette Burn)" piece.
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(Here is some perspective on how is how big the bag is above.)
I love the Six Degrees theory and I'm always looking for it, usually I find that it's less than 6 with everyone. So no, this picture of Elton, Diana and Cher wasn't at the museum today. But Ross's beautiful and funny daughter (with whom she was reportedly pregnant in this picture) was on the tour with us. (And Matilde saw Elton the other night at the Plan B concert at the Troubador.) And Cher, well Cher just looks so hot in this picture! But I love to make connections with everything life, or at least I love to have that sensation of bringing it around - to make stories come full circle.

To that end, I found this picture of Diana Ross and Steve Martin next to one another at the Kennedy Center Honors. They were honored the same year, 2007. There you have it. I woke up reading Martin's book on the art world elite having no idea that I would spend the day with Ross's daughter on a very cool art tour with art world elite. Full circle, in a way. :) Gosh, I'm sorry, was that crazy? I'm tired. Bonne nuit. xo
*Paraphrasing Aaron Sorkin's acceptance speech at the Golden Globes tonight.
"Elite is not a bad word", he said to his daughter,
referring to all the
smart talented women in the room.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Flowers for my birthday

There's something really magical about being sent flowers.

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It feels kind of old fashioned but after this birthday I thought, I really have to do it more often for people.

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It's thrilling to have someone come to the door with an anonymously given bouquet - that little card peaking out revealing the source.

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J'adore.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Me and Mr. Parks in the Trench

Here's a cute picture of my Burberry trench coat. I'm pretty loyal and I'd always thought that since I had a Burberry trench coat I was pretty much covered in the trench department - I didn't need another. I never would have thought I'd have had eyes to stray.
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Then, while home in MN this recent trip, I fell in love with another trench. This one was a fabulous Bonnie Cashin for Sills, Frank Murphy version (below) at my favorite vintage store. It had a cream leather belt and trim and an incredible fur collar! Alas, I walked away from the store without it because I live in LA. AND I have a Burberry trench. I will never need another! Let alone one lined and with a fur collar!! So I told myself. But the next day, I told my mom I was still thinking about it so she went back to the store and bought it for me as an early birthday gift. Then she told me a story about the Frank Murphy store I hadn't known, which just made me love the coat more.
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She told me the story of how the famous African American photographer Gordon Parks got his first big break:


It was 1938 when he walked into Frank Murphy's, an exclusive women's clothing store in downtown St. Paul, and asked if they needed anyone to take photos of the store's runway models. He didn't mention that he didn't own a camera and that his only experience with models was a recent perusal of Vogue magazine. Frank Murphy turned him down, but on his way out of the store, Mrs. Murphy suggested that Parks return after the store closed. "Later I asked her why she took a chance on me, and she said she had just had an argument with Frank and was trying to get under his skin," Parks recalled. "Actually, I think she was just a woman who had a great heart." (online Source.)
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Parks grew up in poverty and from Frank Murphy's he went on to photograph for Vogue and Life, co-create Essence, shoot for Hermes and many other maisons de couture. After his start as a fashion photographer, he became a photojournalist, a film director, an accomplished writer, poet and musician, even the boyfriend of Gloria Vanderbilt ;) I love the pic above for the perspective of the street behind her. Early Sartorialist?
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The other thing I discovered, besides now really wanting to read his autobiography Voices in the Mirror, while looking up Mr. Parks's pictures:
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He looked darn good in a trench himself!



Sunday, January 2, 2011

Happy 2011!

We are back and ready to grab those two ones like they're horns, ahem, er, as they say.
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This is my niece, Sophia. She'd just received this black messenger bag for Christmas when this picture was taken. She is gorgeous and with that smile I couldn't ask for a better model for the joy and prosperity I hope this new year brings you. XOXOC