THEY’RE CRAFTY
Right now it’s all about Narciso and Proenza Schouler—there is nothing else in the world that matters other than these two designers. We went to heaven and back when we were in New York for Fashion Week with them. The collections are above and beyond what we expected; they took super-literal graphic prints and transformed them into these really interesting, grommeted, cutout patchwork designs. Mostly it was the dresses that were incredible. Proenza’s grommets weren’t just standard grommets—they had rubberized neon in pink, orange, and green on top of the actual grommet. That’s just unbelievable craftsmanship.
ONE IF BY HAND
We bought a one-of-a-kind piece from Undercover for our private collection during Paris Fashion Week—we had to beg, borrow, and steal for this one. Japanese designer Jun Takahashi does incredible couture pieces that are one-offs; this season he made a dress out of 20 white shirts, and he made bustle jackets out of leather jackets. He also took Tibetan embroidered garments and hand-appliquéd them onto a jacket to make the most amazing red leather bomber jacket, and we bought one. It totally spoke to us—the ethnicity, the youthfulness, the edginess. And we love the fact that it was handmade by Takahashi, one of our all-time favorite designers. We will never sell it; we might show it in the window one year, but it will never leave us.
FROM LEBANON WITH LOVE
There’s a lot of excitement around Lebanese designer Rabih Kayrouz right now because he’s dressing Tilda Swinton, and we were guests at a dinner he held during Paris Fashion Week at his atelier. It is a magical, historic place (Waiting for Godot actually made its world premiere here); it’s a completely raw space on the second floor of a warehouse building with super-high vaulted ceilings, beautiful bay windows, and columns everywhere. At the party were Parisian, French, and Lebanese royalty and a lot of really fun people—including friends we love like Sarah Stewart from Maxfield and Brian Bolke from Forty Five Ten, plus Linda Fargo from Bergdorf Goodman—who you don’t see in the normal crowd. In the center of the party was a huge table filled with assortments of meats and cheeses along with desserts, which were all flown in from Lebanon. It was all outrageously divine, divine, divine.
