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House of Style
First theory of parties: The size of the venue is inversely proportional to the quality of the event. That seemed to be the case last night at the tiny design shop Maison Darré, which hosted a cocktail party to celebrate the store’s newest series of editions. Things started off quietly enough, but then diners at next door’s popular canteen Ferdi began leaving their tables mid-meal to grab a coupe of Champagne and catch up with their friends inside. L’Officiel magazine’s radio-studio truck arrived out front and started pulling in partygoers for after-show postmortems. And most of these folks were in addition to the evening’s actual invitees: pals of owner Vincent Darré (and edition designers past, present, and perhaps future) like Spike Jonze, Inès de la Fressange, Dior Fine Jewelry’s Victoire de Castellane, and actress Arielle Dombasle with her husband, philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.
The celebration was a family one, focusing on Pierre and Olympia Le-Tan. Papa Pierre, Paris’ celebrated illustrator, unveiled his Apparition-Disparition fabrics for Maison Darré, which have a mysterious scatter print of eyes, faces, and bones, like clues in a detective story. Working with Le-Tan, according to Darré, is a labor of love: “Pierre is a crazy detail maniac, and he only does things when he feels like it. It took over a year to finish the fabric.” Daughter Olympia, on the other hand, works more quickly. She was launching Boîtes de Nuit, the second round of her limited-edition fabric-covered embroidered clutches. Last season’s best seller, which featured a replica of an early-edition cover of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, was snapped up by the director Jonze, who also special-ordered Moby Dick for his pal Maurice Sendak. Jonze is currently working on a promotional film for the bags, starring Le-Tan’s take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with the story’s characters spilling out of the purse in 3-D. “I’ve known Olympia since she was a baby,” Darré said. “Now she’s taking after her father, who’s always surrounded himself with books.”
—Rebecca Voight Continue reading
The Original Gaga?
It’s common knowledge that punctuality is a very vague term in the worlds of fashion and music. That’s why most people guffawed when told that Grace Jones—the special musical guest at Viktor & Rolf’s five-year anniversary party for its scent Flowerbomb—would grace the stage at Le Meurice hotel at 10:30 p.m. on the dot.
Not that there wasn’t still heavy anticipation. For more than an hour leading up to the legendary disco diva’s performance—which happened around midnight (practically early, in other words)—attendees jockeyed to get close to the front for a better view. Just to the right of the stage was a makeshift VIP area, where the designers huddled with friends like Jessica Stam, Karolina Kurkova, and Renzo Rosso. “It’s Grace Jones, and she is definitely worth the wait,” Rolf Snoeren started to say. Just then, burly men split the crowd, sending Champagne glasses in the air as they cleared a path for a black unitard-clad Jones. “She is a vision,” Snoeren added, now standing next to Viktor Horsting in awe. The 62-year-old didn’t disappoint, hitting her high notes, shouting inappropriate comments, and doing her trademark booty shake in the audience’s face. At one point she climbed the staircase that had been constructed for her two-song set, pulled the back of her leotard into a thong, bent over, and announced, “I’m ready when you are!”
The entire presentation—the shock and awe, the Philip Treacy headpiece, and so on—seemed familiar to more than one person in the VIP area. When somebody murmured, “She is the original Lady Gaga,” Horsting smiled back: “She would probably agree with you.” (For the record, it should be noted that Jones ultimately went from provocative to sweet, calling the designers to the stage and singing them “Happy Birthday.”) As guests started to file out, Kristen McMenamy had a good question: If this is what they’re going to do for their fifth anniversary, what do you think the tenth will be like?
—Derek Blasberg Continue reading
Diamonds, Blue Body Paint, and Clooney
The majority of Academy Award voters and winners are male; heck, even the trophy itself is a golden man. A couple of last night’s pre-Oscar festivities, though, refocused the spotlight on the fairer sex. “It’s good to be Cinderella for a day—enjoy it,” Crash producer Cathy Schulman advised the award nominees scattered throughout the crowd at a cocktail party for the Hollywood nonprofit Women in Film. Most of the females being fêted had distinguished themselves on the non-emoting side of the camera, but draped on the bar was a leather-jacketed
Michelle Rodriguez,
and
Camilla Belle paused to say she’d be pulling for Sandra Bullock on Sunday—”she’s finally getting respect!” Also circulating at producer Peter Guber’s Bel Air residence was Estée Lauder capo
John Demsey,
who boasted that MAC Cosmetics had given makeup to six of the ten productions in the running for Best Picture, including Avatar. “Body paint,” he explained. “It takes a lot of makeup to make yourself blue.”
And a lot of work to make yourself fabulous, which is why Louis Vuitton and Glamour threw a dinner in appreciation of stylish young stars, many outfitted by the label, on the rooftop of the brand’s boutique on Rodeo Drive.
Amanda Seyfried insisted she’d become a cover girl despite herself. “I’m a pain in the ass to my stylist and my publicist, to an extent, because I don’t like to play dress-up,” she confessed. For
Rashida Jones,
awards-season outings have one major perk: “Diamonds! I have some of my own, but anytime I can borrow them, I’m happy.” And come Sunday, Actress in a Supporting Role nominee
Anna Kendrick‘s
look will be less important than entertaining her mother, who’s flying in from Maine to join her. Top priority: introducing mom to a certain co-star named Clooney. “I haven’t arranged it officially, but I have enough pull with George that I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out,” Kendrick reported. “I hope I’m not being presumptuous by saying that.”
Over at the Gagosian Gallery, meanwhile, the man of the hour was not an actor but the photographer
Andreas Gursky.
And the crowd at the opening and dinner that followed wasn’t strictly Hollywood but featured artists (Ed Ruscha,
John Baldessari),
designers
(Hedi Slimane,
Kate Mulleavy,
Vera Wang),
and, OK, the likes of
Adrien Brody and Sunday night’s host-to-be, Steve Martin.
—Darrell Hartman Continue reading
Freeze Frame
—Tommy Ton Continue reading
Fear and Fundraising in L.A.
The Champagne is flowing, the stylists are overbooked, and everyone’s feathers are in a ruffle—it’s Oscars week in Hollywood. “I think some people should sweat it a lot more and some people a lot less,” Paul Haggis mused last night at a cocktail party for Artists for Peace and Justice, his charity dedicated to relief for Haiti. “No, that’s a lie,” he added. “No one should sweat it more.” With support from co-sponsors Brioni and Vanity Fair, the Crash director was trying to help a starry crowd (including Diane Lane, Kristen Bell, and Jon Hamm) at the Beverly Hills Hotel put their minds elsewhere, if only for a conscientious moment. “I forget it’s awards season,” said Maria Bello, who’s visited the devastated country twice since the earthquake. “Haiti’s the most important thing going on in the world right now.”
Having recently done his part, in the form of a $250,000 sponsorship of a Haitian school, Gerard Butler was mentally preparing himself for “a lot of events, a lot of awards ceremonies, a lot of fittings.” He’d noticed a shift in the movie crowd’s mood this week, he added. “There’s anticipation and dread.”
Butler, who’s not in the running, is almost certainly feeling less of that than James Cameron is, but the Avatar director pushed his Oscar anxieties aside to promote alternative energy later that evening at a Global Green USA fundraiser. “I’ve been clamoring about this for a while,” he said on the carpet, then headed upstairs into Avalon, where he held court in an alcove directly across from one occupied by Jessica Alba. The actress made an early exit—”I’m not so cool, I’m old, I have a kid,” she explained, smiling—but Cameron stayed on past midnight to chat with friends and fans. Talk about wind power.
—Darrell Hartman Continue reading
Ready for Their Close-up
—Romney Leader Continue reading
Skin Heads
Skin is in. At last night’s opening for the New Museum’s exhibition of the collection of Greek billionaire Dakis Joannou, there was plenty of it to be seen—and no, not all belonging to the attendees. Joannou’s vast holdings, it turns out, include more than a few R-rated works, from Tim Noble and Sue Webster’s nude Masters of the Universe to a pair of autoerotic figures sitting on a gallery floor. Next to them, provocatrix Cyndi Lauper looked positively subdued.
If some pictures are worth a thousand words, these are novel-length. (As for what they’re worth in market terms, let’s not even go there.) At the very least, the five-floor exhibition, Skin Fruit, curated by Joannou’s friend Jeff Koons, spoke louder than those who took it in. “It’s pretty,” Terence Koh, one of the many artists featured, said simply. There was almost too much to discuss—though, it should be said, only a single piece by Koons himself. (Joannou is a major collector of Koons’ work, but the artist self-edited his contribution down to One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank, a basketball famously suspended in fluid in a clear box. The forbidden fruit of the show’s title, perhaps?) Pierce Brosnan, U2’s the Edge, David LaChapelle, and Michael Stipe roamed the floors, taking it all in. But there was no playing favorites. “All the pieces are amazing,” Koons insisted diplomatically at the after-party at the Bowery Hotel.
—Matthew Schneier Continue reading
Jeffersonian Democracy
Jefferson Hack is a traditionalist at heart. The leader of the indie publishing pack likes the idea of setting one night aside during the Milan shows when all the fashion tribes can congregate under the aegis of his Another Magazine to unwind over dinner and drinks. Better still, the location is the classic Le Langhe on Corso Como, where the food is never going to distract from the social intercourse. Saturday night’s get-together was a case in point. Margherita Missoni fessed up to Michael Roberts about her nerves on the eve of the launch of her first full accessories collection for her family business. After owning up to his profound love of horror movies (but his reluctance to see Paranormal Activity), Raf Simons told Suzy Menkes about a frightening mid-sea experience he had while on holiday in Puglia last year. Of course, fear can be a man’s best friend at such an insider-y fashion function, which is maybe why those steeling themselves with a cigarette in the street outside included Carsten Höller, Olivier Zahm, PR maven Gillian McVey, and the host himself.
—Tim Blanks Continue reading