As a gift for one of my most favorite people, I purchased a beautiful scarf from fashionABLE. Named after one of the strong, smart and brave women in Ethiopia who make these scarves, Etanesh, this scarf is a lovely grey with red stripes. Even better than I imagined. fashionABLE is a seriously ethical company that creates sustainable business in Africa by empowering and creating job opportunities for women at risk, many of them former sex workers. In doing so, fashionABLE is working to fight the many cycles of poverty and helping to develop productive members of society. Please take a look at their gorgeous range of scarves and the remarkable stories of the women who made each and every one.
www.livefashionable.com
In desperate need of a new wallet, I paid a visit to the Freitag store a couple of weeks ago on Bowery. If you don’t know it, Freitag is a fantastic Swiss company that has been making bags and “successories” from upcycled truck tarpaulins, seat belts, airbags and bicycle inner tubes since 1993. It was founded by the brothers Freitag, both graphic designers, out of the need for a messenger bag to keep their drawings safe and dry whilst traveling by bicycle throughout Zurich. Each piece is handcrafted in Switzerland and completely unique. I did find the wallet of my dreams, the Samantha — intelligently designed, responsibly made, and the most incredible shade of blue.
Freitag, corner of Prince Street and Bowery, NYC, www.freitag.ch
YOU STARTED OUT AS AN INTERIOR DESIGNER. WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO DESIGN HAIR ACCESSORIES SPECIFICALLY AND HAVE YOU FOUND ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN DESIGNING INTERIORS AND ACCESSORIES?
I suppose my daughter, Nadia’s hair was the biggest inspiration in the beginning. And yes, I think there is a strong connection. Design is design, no matter what is being created. And it has always come as second nature to me. Design is not work…it’s fun!
YOU DESIGN FOR BOTH WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND OFTEN USE RECYCLED OR SALVAGED MATERIALS. DO YOU CREATE DESIGNS FOR PARTICULAR FOUND MATERIALS OR DO YOU DESIGN FIRST AND LATER IDENTIFY THE MATERIALS?
I work both ways. It all depends on the circumstances. Sometimes, I have the design ready and am just waiting for the perfect textiles or hardware to create it. Sometimes, I find materials that inspire me first, and then I figure out exactly what to do with them.
YOUR WOMEN’S LINE WAS RECENTLY PICKED UP BY HENRI BENDEL. CONGRATULATIONS! WHAT’S NEXT?
Thank you! Working with Henri Bendel has been such an amazing experience for our brand, and we hope this is just the beginning! Even though all our items are available for purchase online at our website, we are also working hard to get our pieces in more retail locations…so keep your fingers crossed for us.
WHAT BRINGS YOU JOY?
Having my daughter tell me how much she loves me is the best feeling (particularly when I’m feeling stressed out!). It’s a beautiful reminder that everything is going to be just fine, no matter how hectic my day was. That is my joy.
COMB OR BRUSH?
Brush, because I always wanted to have curly hair!
DO YOU LIKE YOUR NAME?
I do now. It’s short and simple. I didn’t always, though. When I was younger, I wanted to have a long, beautiful named like Cinderella or Aurora. Now my daughter wishes that she had a name like that too. It runs in the family I guess…
FINISH THIS SENTENCE: MY AGE IS…………….
Only a number. It’s all in your style and spirit.
WHAT’S FOR DINNER TONIGHT?
mmm…my favorite comfort food — rice, eggs and soy sauce.
This weekend marks the close of the 28th International Festival of Fashion & Photography organized by Villa Noailles in Hyères, France. This festival seems the perfect legacy for the owners and creators of the villa — Vicomte and Vicomtesse Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles. Legendary modern art patrons and collectors, they commissioned numerous works of art and financed films in the 1920s and 30s by their surrealist friends Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Man Ray’s film was actually shot in part at their Hyères residence and starred, among others, the Vicomte and Vicomtesse themselves. The villa was designed by architect Rob. Mallet-Stevens, and is considered one of the earliest and most important modern structures in France. Completed in 1925, its original furnishings represent the work of some of the leaders of the modern movement including Eileen Gray, Pierre Chareau, Georges Djo-Bourgeois and Francis Jourdan. The much-lauded Cubist garden was designed by Josef Hoffmann-trained architect Gabriel Guévrékian. Today, the Villa Noailles through its programs, residencies and exhibitions very clearly represents the keen vision of the Vicomte and Vicomtesse to support and encourage emerging artists and designers. We imagine they would be very pleased.
www.villanoailles-hyeres.com
Now that fair weather seems to be firmly upon us, I have lately and often been enjoying my beloved bicycle — one of the nicest gifts I have ever received. Mine is a vintage-inspired Gary Fisher Trek city bike, the colors of white and green milk glass with a huge metal basket and leather seat and handles. Gorgeous. And what a great ride! I was thrilled a few years back to see Coco Rocha captured with it in this enchanting photograph in the September 2009 issue of Vogue.
May is National Bike Month and today starts Bike to Work Week — think about it!
https://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bikemonth/
Carla Bruni’s fourth album, Little French Songs, was released today by Verve. We have always found her music to be a reflection of the independent, stylish and intriguing woman vibe she projects. We can’t help liking Carla Bruni, and her music!
Last week we were in the neighborhood and had a moment to walk past Bergdorf Goodman. As always, the windows are stunning — mounds of cascading feathers and black and white fashion gorgeousness. Oh my. And, if you haven’t yet seen Windows at Bergdorf Goodman Anniversary Edition by David Hoey and Linda Fargo you are in for a treat.
Bergdorf Goodman, 5th Avenue & 58th Street, New York City www.bergdorfgoodman.com
Windows at Bergdorf Goodman Anniversary Edition (Assouline, 2012)
My husband just returned home from a trip to Sweden, arms full of lovely gifts from COS, a Swedish clothing line I knew not until now. An H&M affiliate brand, they are all about design and tend toward simple, stylish and affordable pieces. LOVE. I find the COS website particularly inspired including a most excellent online magazine.
www.cosstores.com
Here at THE BATON we speak constantly of the importance and necessity of collaboration. Most winter days I think of master collaborator NAU, a luminary Portland-based clothing company, as I wear my favorite cold weather coat to face the elements. NAU’s sustainability practices are almost unmatched and they give 2% of each sale to one of their five Partners for Change, each one an environmental or humanitarian organization, and the consumer chooses to which of the five that percentage will go. We also love the fact that they feature on their website friends who are positively and powerfully impacting the world. One item from their line is matched with each of these individuals and NAU donates 5% of every sale of that item to the charity of that friend’s choice. We think however that our personal no turning back moment was a few years ago at NAU’s pop-up store in Soho where they invited our friend TS McFadden (interviewed on THE BATON on New Year’s Eve 2012) to show his Mother Series — works which are created by removing dried, left over paint from his palettes and remounting and thus repurposing it as works of art in their own right — in their lower level art and performance space. Check out this very nice video of the installation.
www.nau.com, www.tsmcfadden.com
Paris-based journalist and author Mary Blume last month released The Master of Us All: Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World. This lovely book tells a really fascinating inside story of the great and intensely private Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga. A good deal of Blume’s research was primary source material — her name was Florette Chelot and she was a vendeuse at Balenciaga, one of the first he hired and who stayed on for more than thirty years until he closed his business in 1968. Blume first met Chelot as a young writer newly arrived in Paris, looking for an affordable suit at Balenciaga. Florette Chelot helped her find it. Decades later, Blume recorded Chelot’s memories of the designer, his fashion house and his life right up until her death at age 95 in 2006. After reading her book, I was reminded of the wonderful and very special 2010 exhibition — Balenciaga: Spanish Master — at the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute in New York curated by Hamish Bowles and conceived by Oscar de la Renta. Definitely a favorite.
The Master of Us All: Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World by Mary Blume (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013)
