Carolyne Roehm's Constant Thread

With Carolyne Roehm at her book party in Susan Gutfreund's Fifth Avenue home, and the cover of her gorgeous new book.
     Carolyne Roehm, a longtime friend of this blog, has a new book out called Design & Style: A Constant Thread. Besides being impressively large and heavy (you could do bicep curls with this thing), it's unusual for Carolyne, who has produced twelve books, because this one is largely autobiographical.
     We caught up with Carolyne a few years back at home and did two video interviews on the blog when she published her book A Passion for Interiors. Her living room, with its double height ceilings and brown velvet walls, is I think the most beautiful I've been in. Two years later we did a video with Carolyne in the New York City flower district for her book Flowers.
     Throwback to a book party past –

   For this book, Carolyne's friend Susan Gutfreund hosted a party in her renowned apartment on Fifth Avenue, and that was a real treat. The Fifth Avenue building was designed by architect Rosario Candela, who I recently wrote about for Architectural Digest. The stunning apartment was decorated by Henri Samuel, who was the subject of a book by Emily Eerdmans Evans, which I wrote about here on the blog. Candles flickered in the long salon facing Fifth Avenue where the party was held, and we had the chance to duck into the celebrated Winter Garden room, which is decorated in tones of yellow and green and pink.

    Carolyne is dedicated to beauty and her books have been about her expertise and passions in decorating, gardening, fashion and entertaining. With this book she combines them all and explores how everything she does, from her fashion designs to setting a table to arranging flowers, is inspired by her consistent taste and style - her constant thread. This book is unique too because she writes about her personal life experience. 
Carolyne at home in the 80s and her gorgeous peonies –

Joyful tulips inspired this Roehm design –

     Carolyne Jane Smith grew up in a Missouri farm town and was called Janie Smith until she decided to go by her first name and married Axel Roehm. She later married Henry Kravis, the Wall Street financier, who invested in her designer fashion collection. For ten years at the height of the rollicking 80s the couple were the toast of the town. But in the early 90s came divorce, her decision to close her fashion company and an unsuccessful attempt to start a catalogue business. Carolyne writes that, "there were moments in which I genuinely believed I wouldn't find the strength or the will to continue."
      As an escape, she decided to go to a college in England to study Shakespeare's tragedies, thinking that "the Bard might help me understand what the hell had gone wrong with my life." She tells a funny story about being locked out of the college dorm while taking a shower and hanging naked by her fingertips off a windowsill three stories above ground. There were regrets about her decision to close her fashion business and walk away from her catalogue venture. In Paris she had an unpaid internship at the legendary flower shop Moulié Fleurs and had the idea to create an everyday, how-to-book about flowers.
     In one of her designs –

Carolyne in Chanel and one of her creative gift wrappings –

    Carolyne returned and writes, "...now three years after I'd slunk out of New York, feeling in every meaningful way a failure to myself, I was back. At my lowest moment, I had gotten off the floor and taken a baby step, one that liberated me to move on to a new, and very rewarding enterprise. Once that happens, you never lose the faith that no matter how difficult life becomes, if you just take that step, things will get better. That was the great lesson of my wilderness years."
     Hers is a wonderful story of resilience and strength, and how creativity, beauty and art can rescue a person. A Passion for Flowers was the first of a dozen books. Carolyne is also an accomplished watercolor painter and she announced on Instagram (@carolyneroehm) that she has just launched a collection of Chinoiserie jewelry on her website. She designs and creates boundlessly without fear or limitation. I think these traits are in fact her constant thread. Cheers to Carolyne Roehm, a great inspiration.

Manus x Machina at the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Chanel Haute Couture Winter 2015 wedding gown is the centerpiece of the exhibit.
I had the pleasure this week of attending the preview of the new exhibition at the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is called "Manus x Machina, Fashion in an Age of Technology" and was produced by Curator in Charge Andrew Bolton. Given the title, I thought this show would be about modern technology, and many of the women who attended the Met Ball Gala later that night wore silvery metal robot-like dresses, but to me that missed the mark as this show is more about processes and techniques, and how the handmade (manus) can combine with machine-made (machina) in clothing. The show celebrates how technology carries craft into the future - kind of like a digital blog about beautiful things.

For the preview on a day when the museum was closed to the public, guests were directed to the Robert Lehman Wing, where I have never seen a costume show staged before. This wing consists of a two-floor circle that visitors walk around but for this show the center was ingeniously filled in with a temporary floor creating an inner gallery where the Chanel gown pictured above was housed. OMA, the architectural firm, did an amazing job designing a cathedral-like environment for the show with gauzy white scrims complete with arches and alcoves. The mystical "An Ending (Ascent)" by Brian Eno played overheard. The whole setting was very serene and ecclesiastical, which I thought was a striking juxtaposition given the machine technology theme.

The Chanel wedding gown provided the inspiration for the show. It's made out of a scuba knit synthetic material and is machine sewn. The pattern on the long train in the back was digitally manipulated to make it look pixelated. But then the gold metallic pigment was hand-applied, and pearls and gemstones were embroidered by hand, thus illustrating the marriage of the machine-made and handmade.

I circled around the exhibit, trying to take in the 170 garments, dating back to the early 1990s, on display.
Shimmering Louis Vuitton dresses were shown next to turquoise Norman Norells -

and artificial flowers in pretty pastels were applied to Prada dresses (center) -

I walked down to the lower level and while I was admiring jewel-tone Mary McFadden pleated gowns, New York Social Diary.com photographer and writer Jill Krementz snapped this pic of me - 

You can read Jill's very thorough report on the preview and show here.

Is was time to hear the prepared remarks in the stunning Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court. Thomas Campbell, the director of The Met welcomed the crowd, and then Jony Ives, the chief designer of Apple, which sponsored the show, spoke. Andrew Bolton (pictured below) said that the show is "a celebration of the art of making, using hand and machine," and offered "a temple to the beauty and artistry of fashion." Anna Wintour, resplendent in a colorful Prada dress and coat, sat with her three British compatriots in the front row as well.

After the remarks I returned to the galleries to look at more of the garments.
In a gallery devoted to tailoring, a small team of Chanel suits proved their timelessness –

This dress that looks unconstructed is actually a Dior haute couture ensemble by John Galliano designed to appear dramatically unfinished -

A jacket by John Galliano for Maison Margiela is hand-trimmed with black lacquered toy cars. He really is a genius.

A dress by Gareth Pugh is hand-embroidered with clear plastic drinking straws around the neck. The see-through scrims and shadows created an ethereal setting.

It was hard to leave this show that really offers an escape from the reality of the street. But soon it was time to go. On the way out I passed empty halls of marble sculptures -

and the majestic Greek and Roman Gallery.

It really was a dream.

Blog bonus: Hear Andrew Bolton talking about the new exhibit in this video:

My Feature in the October Fashion Issue of Elle Decor Magazine

I hope you will be able to check out my feature in the October Fashion issue of Elle Decor magazine which begins on page 95! Editors Michael Boodro and Peter Terzian asked me to talk to ten American fashion designers about their very first apartment in New York City. Peter Som, Stephen Burrows, Anna Sui, Michael Bastian, Betsey Johnson, Ralph Rucci, Jill Stuart, Adam Lippes, Josie Natori, and the the boys at Rag & Bone, Marcus Wainwright and David Neville, all shared their very charming memories with me. I hope you enjoy it and the issue.

Talking to the designers reminded me of my first apartment in New York. When I moved to New York I crashed with some acquaintances from Martha's Vineyard in a loft in Tribeca, but my first real apartment was on Second Avenue between 51st and 52nd Streets. I had a temporary job at the time working as the chauffeur for Mr. Perry Ellis, which is another story. One morning as I sat waiting for Perry in his bottle-green Jaguar at the curb, I looked through the classifieds (remember those?) in the back of The New York Times and spotted an ad for a three bedroom apartment with a big deck out the back on Second Avenue. It was $1,200. My brother Thom and his high school friend Bob Manogue and I were looking for an apartment together, so I rushed to the corner pay phone (remember those?) on Columbus Avenue and called them, and we met that night at the apartment's open house. There were scores of other groups looking at the apartment. I sought out the superintendent, one Mrs. O'Brien, to whom we politely introduced ourselves.

And we got the apartment!

But Thom and Bob and I did not have the security deposit! I called my friend Abby who was good with this sort of thing and she loaned us the money. We all met at a bar inside the Port Authority bus terminal and then headed over to meet with Mrs. O'Brien, who we subsequently nicknamed Obie.

After we signed the lease and got the keys, the four of us went over to the vacant apartment. It was kind of a strange configuration; two apartments had been combined together, so the kitchen was the hallway which you passed through to get to the bedrooms. We were thrilled to have it. We ordered a pizza and sat on the floor under one light bulb. And there our lives in New York began.

Carter's New Book and Book Party

With Carter at the party for her new book in Soho.
My friend Mary Randolph Carter, who is a long-time creative director at Ralph Lauren and who is known as Carter, just published a new book, and Ralph Lauren hosted a party to celebrate in the RRL store in Soho. I met Carter some years ago when I freelanced at Ralph Lauren (I am also freelancing there now), and we have remained friends since. At Ralph Lauren, she had the most unique office that I have ever encountered in the work place. Layered with antiques, art, textiles, blankets, books and magazines, it was like a trip to a cabin in Maine although it was located at Madison and 60th. Carter has written several books and a favorite of mine is called For the Love of Old which captures in words and pictures her passion for things from the past that have a history. Carter loves antique finds and vintage clothes, and her personal style is completely unique to her and always inspiring.

The new book is about collecting and it's called Never Stop to Think...Do I Have a Place For This? (Carter's last book was A Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of a Misspent Life - Carter likes long titles!) 

In this book, she encourages readers not to be deterred by lack of space if they find an antique or collectible they like. "If there is a place in your heart, then there is a place in your home," Carter said to me at her book party. "It gives you permission to find the wackiest thing and embrace it. If you see something and it speaks to you then you don't have to say no. I never have."
Inside, the book profiles nineteen collectors who proudly display their passions. I like the typography of the titles which looks like handmade paper cut outs -

This is the "price tag room" in Stephanie Lloyd's home where she prices items for her shop, Hudson Mercantile, in Hudson, New York -

Here is the New Orleans kitchen of Allain Bush. I like the simplicity of the colors -

Jennifer Lanne's studio in a barn in Saratoga, New York, is a great spot for an artist -

The photography is by Carter Berg who is Carter's son, and it reminds me of The World of Interiors magazine which lovingly captures splendors of the past. This book celebrates following your own voice and pursuing what appeals to you to create a singular personal style that is above and beyond passing trends. I'm a big fan of Carter's artistic approach and it has definitely influenced me.
I love how she signed our book

at her book signing party which was a big ta-doo at the Ralph Lauren RRL store on West Broadway. Carter's many friends and fans mobbed the place -

There was a long bar set up on one counter -

and Carter's book was for sale at the register -

Ralph Lauren himself came to congratulate Carter. The room quieted down and Carter thanked Ralph and noted that when they were introduced she realized that "I met someone who loves more things than I do." Ralph complimented Carter saying, "She's been a great asset to me and the company and she's better than ever."

The RRL store on West Broadway is one of my favorite places, with its vintage-inspired clothes and evocative displays.

It's a trip back in time, and there is a vignette to look at in every corner, like the combination of this antique industrial lamp, leather and canvas messenger bag, and old-fashioned cotton shirt. 

Outside as the party wound down, dusk was falling in Soho -

It was kind of magical. 

The Wonderful World of Dries Van Noten

Runway photos from Style.com
I love to watch the work of Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten, and I think he presented a great collection for fall 2014 recently in Paris. To me, his clothes look artistic and creative, but also relaxed and easy to wear, and that pairing of sophistication and simplicity is my favorite combination. For this collection, he combined optic curving stripes and big floral prints in a range of clashing colors that some how go together. Nothing matches but it all mixes. These very unique pieces seem to combine effortlessly. The clothes evoke the 20s and 30s to me, and the eccentric style of the Bloomsbury group. I picture a madcap heiress like Daisy Fellowes, whose grandfather amassed the Singer sewing machine fortune, tossing on these clothes for some fun in Paris.

A big floral print over orange stripes –

A giant red lily on a dark winter coat –

Geometric diamonds and florals. Plus sunglasses –

Throw a fur over it –

I also like the t-strap shoes, very classic.
Here is the man himself taking a bow after the show –

Not long ago I was up at Bergdorf Goodman and passed through the Dries Van Noten shop on the third floor. The colors and decorating are reminiscent of his store in Paris – 

The spring collection was in full bloom on the racks – 

including a beautiful floral scarf –

Vogue presented a wonderful story on Dries' house and garden outside of Antwerp in the March 2014 issue – 

Check it out if you can (It's much more interesting than Kim Kardashian).
And Dries was recently in town at a party with his friend actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, who was wearing the spring collection while Dries was in his floral pants –

This photo from WWD
They were celebrating a new exhibit which has opened in Paris at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Called Dries Van Noten - Inspirations, it is a presentation of the artwork, photography, movies, accessories and clothes that have influenced the designer's creative vision. This show is up until August 31st, and the reviews have been great. As I do not have plans to go to Paris by then I hope this exhibit travels to the U.S. of A.!

Gilded New York In Print and In Person

Gilded New York book on the left, and a corner of the Gilded New York gallery, on the right. 
New York City first rose to the stature of a world capital, on a par with London and Paris, during the Gilded Years - 1885 to 1905 - when new industries like steel manufacturing and railroads produced vast fortunes after the Civil War. New wealth led families like the Vanderbilts, Goulds and Astors to live with glamorous style which emulated European aristocratic luxury. These personal fortunes also bankrolled many buildings which still shape New York City today including the Frick Museum, the Morgan Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Main Branch of the New York Public Library. This fascinating era in New York City is explored in a new book from The Monacelli Press and in an exhibition now up at the Museum of the City of New York.

Recently I went up to the Museum of the City of New York at Fifth Avenue and 104th Street to see Donald Albrecht, the Curator of Architecture and Design at the museum, and a co-curator of the Gilded New York show along with Jeannine Falino, an independent curator, and Phyllis Magidson, the museum's Curator of Costumes and Textiles. I had met Donald before, when I worked on my Cecil Beaton story for Elle Decor magazine, and attended the seminar on Gay New York and the Arts in the 20th Century.

Donald met me at the new Tiffany & Co. Foundation Gallery where the Gilded New York exhibit is on display. He reported that the Tiffany & Co. Foundation supports this permanent gallery with a grant devoted to fashion, jewelry, and the decorative arts of any period. This Gilded New York show is up until Nov. 30, 2014.

The small elegant gallery is a jewel box of a room designed by William T. Georgis Architects. Windows offer pleasant views across Fifth Avenue to Central Park.

On display are paintings, fashions, accessories, and jewelry from the turn of the last century. 

This large canvas on one wall portrays Cornelia Ward Hall and her children, painted by Michele Gordigiani in 1880. It captures a wealth of satin, lace, pearls, velvet and glossy Asian decor –

At the opposite end of the gallery are two evening dresses by the first brand-name fashion designer ever, Charles Frederick Worth, who was born in England and worked in Paris. The one on the left, called Electric Light, was worn by Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II to the Vanderbilt Ball in 1883. Its metallic electric bolts in the fabric and shooting out from the shoulder celebrated the power of electricity which Thomas Edison had just invented in 1880 –

The accompanying book investigates the era further, with interesting essays and photographs about jewelry, architecture, fashion, and the famous balls. 

The chateauesque Astor home at Fifth Avenue and 65th Street had a double-height ballroom with paintings hung salon-style from floor to ceiling  –

The George Vanderbilt house was at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, where Bergdorf Goodman now stands today –

Interestingly, as has been observed by fashion historian Caroline Reynolds Milbank, when the United States was born, its founders like George and Martha Washington did not want to dress in an ostentatious way which copied the European aristocracy, but rather desired a style which was simple and independent of Europe and reflected the values of their young democracy. And so the simplicity of American style was born. However in the nineteenth-century, with their new wealth based on new industries, Donald Albrecht said, the Vanderbilts and the Astors began to look to imitate European aristocracy with their castles, crown jewels and couture. "Americans in the Gilded Age were looking to the past and looking to the future at the same time," he noted.