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Stocking Stuffers
Carolina Herrera used to believe in Santa Claus. “Then, when I was eight, I saw my father putting presents out,” said the designer at last night’s holiday dinner for the AIDS charity ACRIA. “I was very disappointed.” The event’s 14th annual edition, held at Donna Karan‘s Urban Zen Center in the West Village, made gift-givers out of Herrera and a handful of her fashion-world colleagues—including Nicole Miller, who’s also extending some special season’s greetings to her staff this year. “I’m taking them to Dreamgirls,” the designer confided. “Get them all inspired. It might ruin the collection.”
The pre-dinner silent auction (Robert Mapplethorpe and Herb Ritts prints, lithographs by the likes of Eric Fischl and Jeff Koons) gave guests a chance both to support the cause and to put some art under the tree. Speaking of presents, Terence Koh is hoping to avoid a big, messy lump of coal. “I do have stockings,” he giggled. “Comme des Garçons stockings.”
—Darrell Hartman Continue reading
A Tale of Two Christophers
It was the stuff of legend. After the emcee at last night’s British Fashion Awards announced that the presenter of the Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator would be Karen Elson, the flame-haired model appeared onstage, took a few steps, and, to the audience’s horror, plunged offstage into the void. An agonizing silence followed, with no signs of life. Then, suddenly, Elson was back onstage, un-stunned but still stunning in her red velvet Alexander McQueen gown. “I’m possibly the clumsiest person alive,” she declared to wild cheering, which continued as honoree Grace Coddington thanked her “redhead friend.”
There seems to be so much going on at every level of the British fashion industry at the moment that you could sympathize with Coddington when she said of her own career, “I just hope I can squeeze it all in before they retire me.” Squeezing it all in last night meant an early-evening reception at St. James’s Palace to mark the British Fashion Council’s 25th anniversary, the awards ceremony itself in the impressively scaled banquet hall of the Royal Courts of Justice, and the unofficial after-party hosted by Style.com’s Sarah Mower, the BFC’s Ambassador for Emerging Talent, at Concrete, an appropriately named bunker in the East End.
On the awards front, there were a few pleasant surprises, including Georgia May Jagger as Model of the Year and Katie Hillier as Accessory Designer. Christopher Kane‘s nod for British Collection of the Year and Kim Jones‘ Menswear prize were more expected. Victoria Beckham presented Christopher Bailey with the Designer of the Year Award, and Kate Moss accepted John Galliano’s award for Outstanding Achievement in Fashion Design, only to appear back on stage minutes later for her London 25 award, voted by the public as “the individual who embodies the spirit of London.”
“A chance for fashionistas to play grown-ups,” was Virginia Bates’ summation of the night, but it was all kids’ stuff at Concrete, where Charlie Porter played disco for Mower’s mob of young designers (and their godmother, professor Louise Wilson). Meanwhile, Coddington accompanied Elson to A&E, where X-rays showed the only lasting injury from her stage-dive was a sprained thumb. Fate continues to smile on British fashion.
—Tim Blanks Continue reading
Ethical Diamonds
It wasn’t your usual holiday shopping scene in midtown last night, as Bulgari took over Christie’s for an auction to benefit Save the Children. To close out its 125th anniversary year, the jeweler uncorked some Champagne and put a collection that’s been making the global rounds—Rome, Beijing, Dubai—on the block in New York.
Ricky Martin arrived sporting some do-gooder bling: a silver Bulgari ring ($290) for the charity’s Rewrite the Future campaign. No diamond studs? “I’m not there yet,” the singer said. Before the auction, the lots were unveiled in a side room, where Morgan Fairchild posed for fan photos and Jessica Lange listened to a Christie’s gemstone expert explain the differences between ruby and spinel.
The crown jewels, so to speak, of the evening’s 18 lots included a diamond Lucea choker from the jeweler’s Gisele campaign, which commanded $270,000; the extremely colorful closing lot was a sapphire and diamond bib necklace that went for $350,000. Before guests headed out to the dinner and after-party at Monkey Bar, it was announced that Bulgari had raised a total of $1,546,500. And the company will be working with Save the Children again next year.
Consider Rose Byrne impressed, in every way. “I’ve got a lot of vintage jewelry—like, tacky costume jewelry,” the actress said. “This is a different league.”
—Darrell Hartman Continue reading
Single Ladies
“I’ve always thought of myself as a commercial fashion designer,” Tom Ford said. “This is the first thing I’ve ever done in my life that was a pure artistic expression.” He was referring, of course, to his debut film, A Single Man, which had its New York premiere on Sunday night. As with everything else the designer touches, the project has been earning raves. “The more I’ve gotten to know Tom, the more I appreciate him,” said his leading lady, Julianne Moore, who originally met Ford in 1998 when he was designing her a dress for the Academy Awards (shockingly, she went with another option that night). “He’s someone to whom the important things matter,” Moore added, and we presume she didn’t mean his oft-stated penchant for going commando.
Rounding out the cast of the movie, an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel about a single day in the life of a bereaved professor, are Colin Firth (who nabbed the Best Actor trophy in Venice for the role) and Nicholas Hoult. Most familiar to Americans as the boy in About a Boy, Hoult is all grown up now. “He’s six-four!” Ford laughed. “We recently did a photo shoot together and I made them bring me two boxes to stand on so I wouldn’t look like such a munchkin!”
But it was a giant’s welcome, not a munchkin’s, he got at the after-party at Monkey Bar. While Jon Kortajarena received compliments from Kevin Bacon for his cameo (“my first film,” the Spanish model said), Ford was toasted by Ellen Barkin, Courtney Love, Rachel Roy, Mario Testino, and his distributor, Harvey Weinstein. He then retreated to a back table with Madonna and—we couldn’t help but notice—Bravo’s Andy Cohen. First fashion, then fragrance, then film; could reality TV be next?
—Matthew Schneier Continue reading
Splash Landing
Over the weekend, the Miami Basel party scene didn’t let its hair down so much as remove its clothes. By the end of Saturday night, Daphne Guinness and David LaChapelle were splashing about in the legendary pool at the Raleigh, while over at Nikki Beach, the team from New York burlesque club The Box was baring its flesh for the likes of Christian Louboutin, André Balazs, and Vito Schnabel. But first…
Friday night was fashion night, with—and this is a partial list—parties for Bruce Weber, Visionaire magazine, Viktor & Rolf (whose caviar-and-cocktails bash at the Webster drew that other designing double act, Dean and Dan Caten), and Pharrell Williams‘ new collaboration with Moncler. “It’s not bulletproof,” the musician-turned-designer said of the military-style vest he was wearing from the collection. “It’s fashion-proof, though.” Other guests at Casa Tua, meanwhile, were giggling over a new plaque that listed—complete with idiosyncratic spellings—the popular Italian restaurant’s founding members. “Well, maybe they spell von Furstenberg different in Italy,” Genevieve Jones offered.
At the Standard, meanwhile, Bruce Weber was signing copies of Roberto Bolle: An Athlete in Tights. The photographer used a very close-up shot of the ballet dancer in his skivvies for the party invite, but he had opted for something a little less racy for the book’s cover. “We thought about it,” Weber said. “But I want the cover to be forever. I like it that people don’t have to hide my books in drawers.” Among those on hand was avowed Bolle fan Lorenzo Martone. “It’s nice to see a big, sexy man that is not gay—clearly, you can see he’s a heterosexual,” Martone said. How was he so sure? “It’s called gaydar.”
Anyway, one party led to another, and before you knew it, it was Saturday night and Daphne Guinness was hosting a bash for her photographer pal David LaChapelle and their recent collaboration on a series of images for Maybach. After a press conference and dinner in the penthouse of the Raleigh hotel, the duo decided it was time to get wet, following a dozen synchronized swimmers into the pool—she in her diamonds and couture, he in only his underwear. There, they destroyed the giant ice sculptures of the cars, much to the delight of observers like China Chow, James Franco, Nicky Hilton, and Leigh Lezark.
After several years “spending too much time in a fast crowd,” LaChapelle now prefers to hang out at his house in Hawaii pursuing personal work. He also brings his own edge to the commercial projects he agrees to take on. In one of the images for Maybach, Guinness stands in her meticulous, glamorous best in front of a shiny silver car, while the backdrop is a burned-out, desolate desert. “Luxury in the face of the coming of the apocalypse” is how the photographer describes it. “He’s a genius,” Guinness said, and then, ending the weekend on a tender note, she added: “But most of all, he’s like my best friend in the world.”
—Darrell Hartman (Weber) and Derek Blasberg (Williams, LaChapelle) Continue reading