Costume
My Halloween Costume
Brilliant. A Tipi Hedron costume. Glamourous and creepy. Perfect for Halloween. Perfect for Halloween in San Francisco.
Costume
Business Women
The Brilliant CEO With Fluffy Hair Who Smells Nice
Him: The first thing I noticed about you was that you had fluffy hair and smelled nice.
Me: That’s not really the look I am going for. Rather, I’d like people to think: she looks like a brilliant CEO.
Him: Well, I got that after you started talking.
Me: That will no doubt be the title of my memoirs: “The Brilliant CEO With Fluffy Hair Who Smells Nice”
Ideas For Companies I'll Never Start
10: The Fashion Magazine of the Future
I love fashion magazines, of course—anyone who loves fashion does. But they’re so useless these days. I’d like to reinvent one from the ground-up.
Here’s what I’d do.
Designers center their collections around specific women, and so would the magazine. Namely, the magazine would be centered around ten different women. (Hence the name 10.) Each of these woman would be editors-of-sort of their own section; they’d be friends and enemies, in a dialogue with each other about beauty and fashion. Each would be an archetype of a specific beauty, a specific body, a specific lifestyle.
Each would be responsible for producing four articles: first, an article about something meaningful: politics, books, films, charities. Then, a flash editorial in which they shoot a series of clothes. (For instance, I’d shoot Marc Jacobs in San Francisco.) But, here’s the thing. All of these clothes would be available for purchase. You could call up a number and order them in your size. Then, a problem-solving article: a how-to. Finally, a double-blind beauty test, where a product is tested in a scientifically rigorous way, using a sample of readers.
10 would be as sleek as a fashion magazine, but would be useful. Trends wouldn’t matter. (Stylish women don’t follow them anyway.) It would be accessible. It would be frank that it’s partially a catalog, since that’s what fashion magazines are anyway.
Advertising would be tremendously expensive, since it would essentially be a direct route to purchase of your product. But, all advertisers would have to be invited. First the editorial process would happen. Then, a sales team would contact all the brands that had been chosen, and sell the opportunity to be included in the magazine. (Each issue would contain 10 pro-bono slots as well, for designers or companies just getting off the ground.) There’d be a few advertisements, as well, because often ads are the best content, but it would curate the best ads, submitted by advertisers to be selected by the editorial team.
The Woman Being Imagined
Marc Jacobs Imagines Tippi Hedren 2.0
This fall, there were two designers that hit it exactly. Christian Dior, designing for a sexually beautiful woman in need of a new wardrobe for her serious pursuits, and Marc Jacobs, in a collection I’ve nicknamed Tippi Hedren 2.0.
Alfred Hitchcock’s heroines are the archetype of San Francisco style. Perched upon the cinematic hills of the city they looked effortlessly glamourous as they went about their serious drama. It was pastel, beautiful: a self-possessed bleached blonde with a very serious expression. (See Tippi Hedren, left.) Cool on the surface, and dark, complex underneath.
I had a meeting next door to the Marc Jacobs’ boutique on Maiden Lane in San Francisco, and dashed in to see the collection. Perfect, since the clothes are distinctly San Franciscian. San Francisco is the world’s most urbane small town, a city entirely without pretense. It’s polished but casual, structured but comfortable. It’s freedom that doesn’t need to show-off. It’s covered-up: San Francisco is cold, and not a sexy place. It’s classic; it’s all about investment dressing; it’s pure luxury, but always understated: always in the materials and construction, never ostentatious. It’s the center of elegance: everything is simple and beautiful. The women are cool. They’re never desperate; they never try to hard. They’ve a bit of ice to them: they never dress for men.
Marc Jacobs updated this look for fall. He made it modern by removing a tad of the structure, but still the clothes have pitch-perfect construction. It’s tailoring so beautiful you can’t even see it on the rack. You’ll have to try everything on. Only on the body do these clothes mean anything. Oh but they do. They’re simple, beautiful, meaningful. Elegant. Pure San Francisco.
I didn’t buy much, only a pale petal-pink blouse, and a lavender-grey shirt dress. The collection is distinctly made for a rail-thin Tippi Hedren. Zach at Marc Jacobs said that it looked gorgeous on a dark black woman as well; I could see that.
See the collection. (An overview below.) It was styled horrifically. The models should have been pale bleached blondes with done hair and deep black women with cropped, natural hair. No accessories. Not fussy. Certainly no hats. Seemingly, no one got this collection. It was off-type for Marc Jacobs, who usually designs for a New York woman. Even Marc Jacobs didn’t seem to get it; it was so intuitive, he couldn’t articulate his influences. When asked, he said, “I really wasn’t very inspired this season. I just live my life.” OK. When pressed, he offered a few more words: “Calm. Glamour. Casual. Beautiful women.”
Or, Tippi Hedren 2.0.
Ideas For Companies I'll Never Start
The New Perfume
Perfume companies haven’t modernized. Perfume, essential as it is, is a vestige from ancient history, popularized by a population that bathed rarely. It was meant to cover up unpleasant smells. What does perfume mean in an era where we bathe and launder copiously?
Most people smell the way they do because of lawyers and layers of soap, shampoo, deodorant, and laundry detergent. Then perfume. Poor perfume. It’s already competing with a base of other scents; it’s difficult to orchestrate a symphony out of this cacophony.
The ideal of perfume-wearing is to smell delicious, but never like something indentifiable. You want people to associate the smell with you, not think oh she smells like vanilla. Only strippers smell like coconut. Unfortunately, our soap, shampoo, deodorant, body lotions, and detergent is almost all scented with a single, identifiable scent. Most people just smell confused. It takes heavy perfume to cover up that fresh fruity-coconut-lavender-rose smell.
Rather, a modern perfume company should start at the source. Scent now should be about slight layering. You should be able to order your scent as soap, shampoo, deodorant, and laundry detergent. No perfume necessary.
The Woman Being Imagined
Christian Dior’s Fall Woman
As I explained earlier, each designer has a specific woman in mind for a collection. Each season, I find, there is one designer that hits it exactly. This season it was Christian Dior.
Christian Dior has been designing lately for a woman that, by nature, loves to dress sexually beautiful, but must tone this tendency since she’s now engaged in more serious pursuits. Thus, it’s perfect for Carla Bruni, now a first lady, and myself, now a CEO.
Below, a photo of Carla Bruni, before she dressed in Dior, and before she became a first lady. I have the same boots.
Once, wearing these boots, my boyfriend said, “You look sexually beautiful.” I laughed and replied, “That’s code for slutty, isn’t it?” He’s a gentleman, so he didn’t answer.
Below, Carla Bruni, A.D. (After. Dior.)
My boyfriend agrees with me, she looks just as sexually beautiful in Dior. But quite more like a first lady.
As modeled, this season’s Dior was brilliant. And very packable: that always make me vulnerable. It was centered around the black belt. (The belt in Carla’s rightmost photo, above.) This belt was used in almost all his fall clothes. I’ve a scarlet dress, a grey suit-dress, a short black suit-jacket, a knee-length dress coat, and checkered pants, all with the same belt. So smart. And I need only pack one belt.
The Woman Being Imagined
Designer Women
Each designer—all the best designers at least—design for a specific woman. Each woman a fleeting set of characteristics: her body type, the circumstances she needs clothes for, the practicalities of a certain lifestyle.
Balenciaga pants always fits me best, because they design for women with a long torso and long legs. I own no Versace, because Versace always designs for an extreme hourglass figure and a frivolous woman—someone’s mistress. Prada designs for a global intellectual— museum curator. Oscar de La Renta is all about the American woman-who-lunches. (Thus, I don’t own a thing.)
Each designer has a general type of woman, and then, in each collection they’re imagining an even more specific type of woman. Occasionally they even design off-type. (I suppose it’s like having an affair.)
Each season, I find, there is one designer that hits it exactly. They’re imagining me.
Thus I introduce a new category, all about “The Woman Being Imagined.” This season it was Christian Dior. And there’s usually a near miss: Marc Jacobs was oh so close.
Housekeeping
The Time Management Problem of Living and Blogging
It’s terribly hard to actually live your life and find the time to blog about it as well. So consider this a placeholder for four blog posts:
- I’m mad at Christian Dior. He has these old-fashioned notions of the boundaries of nation-states that are grossly inconvenient for modern women.
- I buy fall fabrics while civilization burns. At Britex, I bought fabric for my new fall clothes from my favorite sales clerk who always explains what’s wrong with the world.
- I need a Hitchcock Blonde best friend. I stopped into at Marc Jacobs, and his fall line is absolutely perfect for a Hitchcock Blonde. I decided that I need a Hitchcock Blonde best friend to shop for.
- I begin my reign of free drinks in Silicon Valley. I had drinks at Michael Minna’s new bar with Rafer to talk shop. It’s Silicon Valley manners that the person with the oldest start-up pays, and it finally isn’t me. So I ordered the lobster corn dogs.
Fashion
Not a Tracksuit
What’s a blog for, if not making bold, inflammatory statements? Here’s today’s: women should never wear sweatpants. Never. It’s an almost moral stance for me. Because it’s wrong to need sweatpants in the first place: at least half of your wardrobe should be as comfortable as any pair of sweatpants could possibly be.
Below is a photo of me in a loose silk dress (it’s vintage, from Decades in Los Angeles) and a custom-made Burberry trench coat. It’s six in the morning, and I’m on my way to the airport in Hong Kong: no make-up, mind blown through with jetlag; I can barely even smile. It’s the exact situation that might tempt one to wear sweatpants. But I don’t need to, since I’m just as snuggly, just as comfortable.??
But furthermore, even if you did have to sacrifice the slightest edge of comfort, I’d like to suggest this: there are things more important than your comfort. Where our society got the idea that comfort is the be-all end-all is beyond me, but it must surely be the root of many a modern evil.
If no one is going to see you, then it doesn’t matter. But most days, particularly when traveling, hundreds if not thousands of people see us. Just a glance, for sure, but every second matters in our fleeting lives. And when you are in sweatpants you’re saying, “There is nothing in the world to me more important than my comfort.” It’s a statement of sublime selfishness. When you’re in an outfit as I’m wearing, above, you’re saying, “I’m comfortable, yes, but it is more important for me to at least try and put the slightest bit of beauty into what seems sometimes like a very ugly world.”
Scent
My Pavlovian Height of Perfume-Wearing
Perfume is easily forgotten when beauty is about image. Women these days dress to photograph well, and prioritize that above all else. (It’s why the incompetent style bloggers blab endlessly about fashion and make-up, but never scent.) I blog about another type of dressing; women should dress for the experience that the people closest to them will have, as opposed to optimizing their appearance for the world at-large. For this type of dressing, the other sensual realms beyond sight???smell, touch, sound???become just as important.
Every woman needs a day perfume, and a night perfume. You start the day polished, perfect, ladylike. Then slowly, throughout the day you become undone. I start every day with my hair up, similar to my headshot in the sidebar. Then, sometime late afternoon I let my hair down. After seven, I stop working, rim my eyes with kohl, put on a darker shade of lipstick and go out. (Though more often, I wash my face, put on a silk slip, and spend the rest of the night working from bed.)
My day always starts with scent; it’s primal. My day perfume is Bond No. 9, made especially for Saks Fifth Avenue. It’s a fresh jasmine scent, very structured, done. (Photo right.) The application is important: I create a cloud of perfume in front of me, and then walk through the mist???it creates a light diffusion of scent all over
Then, through the day, I keep a small vial of my golden-hued night perfume in my handbag. I dab it on behind my knees right after lunch, my wrists at about 3 o’clock, and on my neck before I go out at night. Dabbing on your pulse points gives a different experience; it diffuses only when that part of you gets hot, and thus scent leaves your body in a slow, pulsating beat.
My night perfume is Tom Ford’s Purple Patchouli. (Photo right.) I agree, the name sounds terrifying, but you’ll have to trust me that it doesn’t smell at all like patchouli proper. It just smells dangerous, undone, golden. Musky in the perfect way; bohemian in a metaphorical sense.
Yesterday, my 3 o’clock meeting with some researchers from SRI. I was presenting to them my start-up’s innovations around email efficiency. I sat down and begin giving them my presentation.
The researcher sitting next to me interrupted. “What’s that scent,” he asked?
“It’s my shampoo,” I lied. (Thank God I have this blog now to confess. I can’t stand answering questions about my grooming habits in public. Only on this blog I can tell the truth, since I’m can pretend that no one is listening.)
“When you sat down, I caught a whiff,” he said. “And I felt immediately clear-headed.”
Becoming clear-headed in my presence at 3 o’clock seemed a Pavlovian height of perfume-wearing???exactly the impact I’d like to have. Everyone did seem more brilliant than usual at that meeting.
