La Vie En Rose

Bravo Arianne Phillips for Oscar Nom on W.E.!

 

CONGRATULATIONS to the talented Arianne Phillips for her Academy Award nomination in Costume Design for her beautiful work on W.E.!

This is Ari's second Oscar nomination, and so well deserved. The Academy first recognized her for 2005's Johnny Cash bio-pic, Walk The Line.

This two-minute trailer of sorts features Ari talking about her work on the film. Among the many interviews out there, this one from Grazia Daily UK is worth a read.

Crazy Horse the Documentary

CRAZY HORSE Trailer - Documentary by Frederick Wiseman

 With Andy spending his last night faraway in Paris after a freezing weekend navigating Maison et Objet, I thought of the upcoming release by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman on that marvelous Parisienne institution, the Crazy Horse. The film by the same name opened in Manhattan last week. Couldn't find any clue anywhere as to when the release will go nationwide (there is, oddly, no dedicated website), so besides the trailer here, I recommend A.O. Scott's review for The New York Times.

This is not to be confused with the 2009 performance DVD of the legendary club and troupe and starring Dita Von Teese during her run there. We missed her Paris opening by a night, but went to Vegas to catch the act. Well worth it. The Crazy Horse gals are mesmerizing!

By the looks of this trailer, it looks like Dita's creative co-conspirator Ali Mahdavi appears in more than a few scenes. A master of lighting, Ali is the brilliant photographer behind many breathtaking images of Dita (including her new perfume campaign) and the Crazy Horse girls.

Fingers crossed Mr. Wiseman's documentary will be out west soon!

X-mas Song, L.A. Style

Keep your carolers. The only songs I'm in the mood for right now are off the 1980 album "Los Angeles" by one of the greatest bands of all time, X. 

Excene Cervenka, John Doe, DJ Bonebrake and Billy Zoom performed the album in its entirety tonight at a show I unfortunatley had to miss due to my book signing. Yes, folks I was scribbling my finest John Hancock for the likes of Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband, Prinz von Anhalt, and other Beverly Hills locals instead of getting bashed around in the pit at an X show. Which brings to mind track seven of this masterpiece, "Sex and Dying in High Society"... 

The band is making the rounds as part of its somewhat annual "Xmas Traveling Rock & Roll Revival" tour. They're also promoting the reissue of their 1986 rockumentary "X: The Unheard Music." That DVD is definitely on my Santa list.

While there's no way I can make Friday's show at the Santa Monica Civic, I do have to admit that the December 28 show at Buck Owens Crystal Palace in Bakersfield could truly be an experience...

p.s. One of these days I'll dig up the 2003 Q+A I did for WWD with Exene on her seminal style.

"Going Green 1949 Style, Bitch!" Ice Cube+The Eames

 

There are many truly inspired facets to the city-wide art celebration that is "Pacific Standard Time." One that simply shines is the short film featuring rap icon Ice Cube taking a ride to the Eames House and kicking back inside while he connects the legacy of the influential couple to that of the modern green movement and even the art of mash ups.

Ice even manages to rattle off the relatively unknown point that he studied architectural drafting before founding NWA.

From his opening quip regarding L.A.'s less than stellar examples of architectural landmarks to his finishing words about what's really at the heart of critics' gripes, I couldn't agree with my fellow Angeleno more.

Thanks to A+R team member Katie Zoretic (and a gal with a pretty cool blog of her own, so check it out) for bringing this jewel to my attention!

Friends Feted At Hollywood Style Awards

The only thing better than cheering on the madly talented (and wonderful) Arianne Phillips being named "Costume Designer of the Year" at Sunday's Hollywood Style Awards was giving an equally enthusiastic shout out, literally, to Elizabeth Stewart ("Stylist of the Year") and Decades founders Cameron Silver and Christos Garkinos ("Hollywood Boutique of the Year"), along with following the show's host, George Kostiopoulos, give good one-liners throughout the 90-minute ceremony at Smashox Studios in West Hollywood.

All of us seemed to have in earnest planted our career stakes in the evolving L.A. fashion and red carpet scene around the same time. Elizabeth as a stylist with George as her assistant; and Cameron and Christos just opening their doors to what would become a global phenom. Arianne was already becoming a respected costume designer and stylist, but well before the Oscar nod or the iconic work that would keep her one of the most sought-after artists in the world. Yes, what she does is art.

They all more than deserved the trophies along with the praise from celebrity pals who introduced their respective awards: Kristen Davis for Elizabeth; Selma Blair for Cameron and Christos; and Andrea Riseborough for Arianne.

For the hotly anticipated Madonna-directed film, W.E., Arianne as costume designer dressed Andrea as Wallis Simpson in some 60 costume changes. No harm done, clearly, since the gorgeous actresss lead the lovefest that evening among our group, which included (from left to right in the above snapshot) Ari's high school BFF and A+R manager, Rafael Negron; Decades' Jarred Cairns; me; Ari's love Mike Monzingo; Arianne; her manager, TK; Andrea; Jeremy Scott; and Andrea's boyfriend, graffiti artist Joe Appel.

The ceremony will evidently air on E! at some point. While I'm all for an awards show dedicated to the genuine style makers in Hollywood—as in those behind the curtain—such a televised show wouldn't exist without the in-your-face sponsors, or mind-boggling awards for the sake of publicity.

Jamie King awarded cute Chloe Moretz the "One to Watch" award. She certainly is one to watch as an actress and fashion plate, but the award itself is no doubt a way of including some PYT in the mix.

And there were the suspect 11th hour-awards. One went to Alice Temperley by actress Alice Eve for "Designer of the Year" (even Alice admitted onstage she just learned about this last week!). It definitely put the word out on the award in the UK, which breathlessly covered it in the next day papers. The other was a "Stylish Sisters" prize bestowed on a couple of sisters of the Kardashian-Jenner clan. Like earthquakes and gridlock, there really are some things in L.A. that can't be avoided.

Haute and Heavy: Cameron Silver, Elizabeth Stewart, Selma Blair, Kristen Davis and Christos Garkinos

 

The evening's host and man with the velvet touch George Kostiopoulos and designer Magda Berliner

 

"Stylist of the Year" recipient Elizabeth Stewart and her fab husband, Rob Bragin

 

Performance artist and dapper Decades' right hand man Jarred Cairns

 

Glam Carineh Martin and Arianne Phillips

 

The beautiful Zoë Saldaña presented Mara Hoszak "Hairstylist of the Year" award.

 

Honoree makeup aritst Molly Stern was introduced by friend and longtime client Mandy Moore.

 

Kendall and Kylie Jenner received the "Stylish Sisters" award, and were introduced by older sis Khloe Kardashian-Odom.

 

The "brainy bombshell" is how host George Kostiopoulos introduced actress Alice Eve, who in turn introduced "Designer of the Year" Alice Temperley. Why did the British designer receive this accolade now? For dressing Pippa Middleton. It also tied in neat-and-nice-like with her tenth anniversary in biz.

 

Arianne graciously thanked all of us in her party who turned out for the evening. A real class act that gal. But we already knew that.

 

Photo of Decades group Courtesy of Decades

Go Get Hubbied

Admittedly, one of our guilty indulgences is "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding", TLC's trainwreck peepshow on the matrimonial institution that is a helluva lot more entertaining than the Kardashian porn show on the subject that brought the E! Network its best ratings ever this weekend.

Besides a certifiable affectation for the excessive, these two over-exposed entities on the topic also have in common an approach that hinges on the theater of the absurd, something more akin to performance art in terms of the process and production (or is it product?). Because of this they share a bond with the latest artwork by Bettina Hubby and her collective of artists who conjure and question the status quo under the HubbyCo. banner.

The ritual of marriage and all things tied to it—including the social, legal and financial implications—were put under the microscope for "Get Hubbied," a multimedia, multidimensional investigation and celebration. Some two dozen artists, including architect Barbara Bestor and L.A. arts patriarch Ed Ruscha, provided mind-tickling insight and stuff for the real, legal wedding held late last month at the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock, a beautiful Mission Revival building built in 1914 as a Carnegie Library.

It was a full house for the performance-cum-nuptials on September 25, and a matter of not so much being there "for the bride" or "for the groom" as for the artist at the helm of all this production, Bettina—who has not only experienced the subject first hand as a bride. Never mind friends or extended family: among immediate kin, her sister has walked down the aisle twice and her parents four times to one another and once to others. The trio are as much Bettina's partners in art as her many artist friends who collaborated, and that day, mom, dad and sis Hubby were all there, too.

The event couldn't have fully come off without an actual bride and groom, of course, and Bec Ulrich and Ruben Diaz were the recipients of all this pomp and strange circumstance (at least, "strange" to their respective families, who clearly did not know what hit them). The pair were the winners among dozens who applied and interviewed for a chance at this unorthodox, scrutinized approach to wedlock.

The ragtag ephemera, including a video of the Big Day (and the wedding cake topper pictured above which was positioned far from the cake and in the women's bathroom; the cake itself an unexpected piece that resembled a brick, as pictured below), are now part of an exhibition that opened this weeked and is on view through November 17 at the CFAER. The items run from the silly to the sublime, and many of the ideas will undoubtedly be stolen for real weddings. A book on the entire project will be out in 2012. (It's also worth checking out Bettina's blog on the journey there and back, including short videos of the many players involved in the process.)

Whether you're a fan of marriage or not, it's worth the visit. Because—like marriage, be it your first or second or thensome—HubbyCo.'s collective project is truly a trip worth experiencing at least once.

These guerrila street ads began appearing in L.A. and N.Y.C. in late 2009, seeking couples to apply for "Get Hubbied."

 

Provocater or Best Wedding Planner Ever? Artist Bettina Hubby

 

These "cut gems" were taken off, piece by piece, by guests. Inside the red foil-lined piece was a tightly rolled scroll of the day's events.

 

On the shelves were old books, each one renamed with a name of a participating artist and guest.

 

Artist Kate Mayfield with a copy of her "book"

 The best book of all revealed the wedding rings "burned" right into the pages.

 

Each long table for the guests were covered in ephemera that was as symbolic to the ceremony as it was just plain entertaining, from a long strip of patterned paper for guests to color, to a puzzle, to a clear square with a word which we each had to say at the right moment for a collectively recited poem, to a "Get Hubbied" temporary tattoo.

 

The cake. Seriously.

 

 

A bouquet is so, well, so bourgeoise compared to a piñata of flowers!

 

 






After their "I-do's," the couple walked outside, only to be greeted by the throngs who'd ventured out to see this latest HubbyCo. production, along with their family and an old Volvo dressed up like an ice cream truck (see below). Because, what is marriage, after all, but a dependable vehicle filled with breaks offset by your favorite frozen treats?

The bride used the hood to lean back and remove her garter (another time-held tradition), and the happy couple got in and drove off. They were back ten minutes later, having cruised around the block.

Another happy couple.

 

An absolute magical moment of the afternoon when this trio sang the wedding blues (actually more of a ragtime tune), pointing out how it's legal to marry so often when you're a boy and a girl (as seen in their signs in the posters below), but not so when you're a boy and boy or a girl and a girl in love.

 

Writer Steffie Nelson

 

Bent forks as candleholders by Gordon Bowen

 

Guest in a dress by Bettina Hubby from a previous installation work.

 

 

El Mundo es de Aaron Rose+Opening Ceremony

Enchanting and engaging, this short film shot in Ecuador with a crop of beautiful young locals features Opening Ceremony's fall collection.

The prolific and imaginative Aaron Rose is behind the short, and along with sharing it via email this a.m. he also announced he'll be leaving our 'hood of Silver Lake. Hopefully he won't be going far!

El Mundo Es Tuyo from Opening Ceremony on Vimeo.

Getting Hubbied To A T

To Ed Ruscha, "I Do" is "the world's greatest catch phrase." The artist's take on the institution of marriage is die-cut and imprinted on favor cards that make up the many incredible artist contributions to his friend Bettina Hubby's latest project, a provocative take on weddings.

Those of you who frequently read this blog have read about Bettina before, and know that I'm one of her biggest champions. Her multi-media, multi-artist performance works are especially compelling because of their original topics, her communal approach and the resulting works.

This latest, "Get Hubbied," has especially been an exercise in commitment and persistence for Bettina. I was on board, in fact, during the first couple of years until new forces in my life made it challenging for me to continue. Bettina's fortitude through it all has been amazing. She finally found the right couple for what will be a legal wedding. I'm so looking forward to being there.

One of the challenging factors of this project was getting interest from media and galleries. Despite my efforts when I was on board, they just didn't get it. And I know it's been an uphill battle in the time since I retired from the project. It boggles: here was this incredible group of respected artists that Bettina managed to corral into the project; a provocative subject with Bettina's own personal and familial experience as reference (which always makes for a better story); and the promise of yet another quality experience that Bettina always delivers with her performances. And nada.

Until this week. Brooke Hodge finally took to her T column online in The New York Times to report on the "big day" next Sunday at the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock. Hurrah.

There might still be an opportunity to be a guest, if not at least contribute financially to this nonprofit art project. It's worth checking out the Get Hubbied site to review the many films and other side projects related to the wedding.

Of course, I will have full coverage post event. In the spirit of sharing her creative process, Bettina and the Center for the Arts will be showcasing the the resulting artwork, ephemera and even a film in an exhbition opening on Oct. 15.

To-Do Today: From Street Art Grit to the Luxe of Louis XV

If you can't stand the heat, get into the Getty Center or Geffen Contemporary today. Seriously, it's today or never if you're going to catch two exhibitions here in L.A. worth your Sunday.

At the Getty Center, "Paris: Life & Luxury" is an enchanting amuse bouche of the extravagant heights pleasant society during Louix XV's reign underwent in even the most mundane moments of daily life. Even if you've seen these kinds of items before (and I certainly have), it was still worth the afternoon last week to see this presentation. From corseted gowns to a porcelain playing card box, a mustard container to a telescope, no item escaped the gilded touch of hundreds of unknown artisans.

Given the recent trash talk in D.C. over the debt crisis, the Getty exhibition is expecially pungent as a study of how far the rich will go at the cost of those outside their carved exotic wood doors—which even the wealthy during the 18th century enjoyed. It's also a great excuse to take in L.A. from one of the greatest viewing points. Le show closes today.

At the other end of town and of the visual spectrum is "Art in the Streets" at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. It's a dizzying survey of graffiti and other forms of street art since the late 1960s, and associate curators Roger Gastman and Aaron Rose did a remarkable job pulling together all of the elements, from artist notebooks to the skateboard ramps installed for the show. There are dark rooms showing videos and shorts providing a place to recharge. And do not miss the timeline section hovering above the Geffen's cavernous gallery.

In fact, there might be too much. To be honest, Andy and I were a wee perplexed at some of the inclusions. But these are minor distractions given all the varied ingredients mixed in, as well as the astounding installations that will come down Tuesday morning. We loved seeing the likes of Jamie Reid's work for the Sex Pistols (the image above, not that you'd confuse it with the equally sexy image below!).

MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch shared with me at Glenn Kaino's birthday party last month that the exhibition might still have a second life in New York. The folks at the Brooklyn Museum of Art wimped out following media frenzy that the show here was behind an increase in tagging— a tale not corroborated based on previous year's tagging—and that the same could happen in New York. I'm no fan of tagging, which is mostly fatuous, uninspired dribble. But there is a great and long tradition of street art (which goes back centuries, of course) that has served up more, a lot more.

Thankfully, not everyone shares the Brooklyn Museum's opinion, and another site might step up to present it.

After all, New York is the birthplace of pop art in all its incarnations. Then again, so was the art of Andy Warhol. Yet it took a gallery in Los Angeles to be the first to take a chance on that guy.

Go today or go tomorrow, its final day here or, possibly anywhere.

François Boucher's "Lady Fastening Her Garter, also known as La Toilette" (1742)

Hollywood Stripped: Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher and a Life's Work Undone

This Saturday's auction—and break-up—of the most comprehensive single collection of Hollywood's greatest costumes is a major blow to all of us fans of cinema and clothes. After decades of trying to realize a museum for the hundreds of costumes and artifacts she's rescued over four decades, legendary actress and film buff Debbie Reynolds is going to put them on the auction block, not because she wants to—but because she simply cannot afford to maintain them.

Her heartbreak and that of her daughter Carrie Fisher, who is truly pained to see her mother's wish unrealized, was not something I first learned about when I sat with Carrie at her home in April for a story in this month's Harper's Bazaar about the auction. When I got the call to do the interview, I didn't need much of a backstory: I'd stayed in Ms. Reynold's short-lived Las Vegas casino with the in-house showcase of so many of these iconic costumes when it opened in 1993. When it closed six years later, I was both saddened because it didn't succeed and hopeful the museum would be embraced by some institution or wealthy benefactor in Los Angeles.

Preservation and presentation of clothes is an expensive proposition. Take into account the fragile quality of so many of these costumes—from Charlie Chaplin's bowler to Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra headdresses, the white Marilyn Monroe Seven Year Itch pleated halter dress to Bette Davis' Queen Elizabeth gowns—and the undertaking requires the financial and maintenance means of, say, an institution like the Metropolitan Musuem of Art, the V&A, or (here's a thought) a hometown home such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (paging Michael Govan!).

Auction house Profiles in History in Beverly Hills estimates the nearly 600 items on the block (conducted both inhouse and online) could bring $10 million in the sale (a second phase will take place in December).

But at what a cost to our heritage? Yes, heritage. These frocks are a part of our collective history, as important or even moreso than cars or neon lights, both which boast museums of their own in this city. If a museum here can step up with donors' millions to scoop up European fashions from centuries before this town was a sparkle in the eye of those created Tinseltown, then why can't that same spirit and drive come together to acquire the whole kit and kaboodle of Ms. Reynold's life's work? 

A final public viewing of the collection is being held from noon to 5 on Friday, June 17 at the Paley Center for Media, 465 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills.

The Reel Deal: Bill Cunningham

  Among the many, many cabinets inside Bill Cunningham's apartment stuffed with a half century of street fashion.

"Fashion," says Bill Cunningham in the new documentary on his life, “it’s the armor to survive the reality of everyday life. But you can’t do away with it—that would be like doing away with civilization.”

That statement just about slayed me as I sat in the Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Wednesday night for the Costume Council-hosted L.A. premiere of Bill Cunningham New York, the first feature film by director Richard Press and his husband, producer Philip Gefter. It took the pair about a decade to get it done, they joked after the screening, eight to convince the fiercely independent, 83-year-old lensman who is considered the first street style photographer to let them point the camera on him and another two years to actually do the work.

An anthropologist with a Nikon (loaded with genuine film of the 35-mm, 400-speed variety!), Mr. Cunningham has been obsessively, enthusiastically, chronicling the way New Yorkers year-round (and in recent years, Parisiennes during Fashion Week there) dress in real life—from the sidewalks to the society galas. He hung up his hat as a fledgling milliner in the 1950s and took up a camera he received as gift and started using it as a pencil, as the friend who gifted this new creative tool recommended. But it is the many fans who have lapped up his work over the decades since then, across the pages of original Details magazine and The New York Times, who have benefited the most from his special gift as an archivist of clothes, style and, essentially, human nature.

Annie Flanders, who gave Mr. Cunningham literally more than a hundred pages at times in Details to share his findings with readers, was among us Wednesday. She arrived with a prized gift of her own from her dear old friend, a real mallard turned into a hand muff. It was so cold that it actually proved practical on this evening. Her old friend did not see the muff Wednesday night nor the film during its L.A. showing or New York premiere last week, or at all according to the filmmakers.

But there are so many of us influenced by the images that he created and that Annie gave a platform to in that magazine (long before Conde Nast bought it)—including those of us so moved at the screening, such as Cameron Silver of Decades, designers Jeremy Scott and Michael Schmidt, provocateur Constance, author Monica Corcoran, Americana historian Charles Phoenix and myself. As teens, we were able to thwack our way out of the conventional existence we were hovering in because we could see there was another way out there, that it was OK to realize our own sense of armor in this cuckoo existence called life.

Bill Cunningham New York opens over the next three months around the country. Do not miss it.

 
Annie Flanders and her Mallard Muff by Bill Cunningham 

Costume Council's Joni Smith and fellow member flank Constance

   

Photo of Bill Cunningham and Trailer Courtesy First Thought Films / Zeitgeist Films

Ta Elizabeth Taylor

The day finally came. Elizabeth Taylor died this morning of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, according to her publicist, Sally Morrison. She was 79.

Like the rest of the universe, or at least those with a pulse and a speck of passion, I have forever been in awe of this force of nature. She not only represented a superfluity of everything: more fire, more vinegar, more beauty (including bolder eyebrows than anyone), more lovers, more talent and more generosity in her high-profile championing of AIDS—and before anyone else on that level.

It was, in fact, at a fundraiser for AIDS Project Los Angeles a decade ago when I came within Dame Taylor's reach. I was a guest of MAC Cosmetics and had great seats, in part because no one was in the chair directly in front of me. Elton John asked her out on stage before the music began, an evening filled with performances by Alicia Keyes, Rufus Wainwright and his pop Loudon, and several other artists. At the sight of her, the Universal Ampitheater filled with a rumble of applause. Lights faded out. Then on. And I found my sight view of the stage completely blocked by this colossal mass of silver hair.

It was curled and fixed with so much hair spray that I was pretty sure I'd break a nail if I dared tap it.

I went from exasperation to excitement in a snap, however. It was She. Elizabeth Taylor. Within grasp, literally.

I spent the rest of the night listening to Richie Sambora strum with Elton John, Lee Ann Rimes warble her latest radio-friendly ballad, and the rest of that season's Top 40 line-up do their thing. But I cared not a bit whether I could stand the hit parade or not. All of it seemed to go over better via the filtering presence of the guest seated before me. 

For Elizabeth Taylor more was not only more. It was her M.O. She lived life to the fullest.

Of course, I felt a pang at seeing the news of her death this morning. But how can we be sad for someone who walked this earth with more determination, more spirit, more beauty and lust for life than most?

She may have tripped a few times along the journey. But it was always in her own shoes.