A Camelot Christmas

Kennedy Christmas Card of the Blue Room

Christmas in the White House circa 1962.  Jackie, glamorous as always.

Thank you Mr. Spielberg…

The quintessential bad boy

…for bringing my 80’s crush, James Spader, to town.  And, yes, I did scream like a 15 year old and jump up and down when he was introduced to me to the other night at Lemaire.  Just couldn’t help myself.

Style Icon

I am totally obsessed with Florence Welch if you haven’t noticed…major girl crush.  Her amazing vocals and intelligent lyrics always strike a chord with me. On top of that, she has become a major style icon, becoming the muse of Karl Lagerfeld and performing at the Chanel Couture show.  In her latest video, Shake it Out, she is dripping in head-to-toe Valentino.  This is one insane masquerade ball in this video and I would totally attend!

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings at Friday Cheers!

Looking for something to do tonight?  Check out Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings at Friday Cheers on Browns Island!  Great Motown tunes and always a fantastic show. Tickets are $10 at the door!

Am I A Yes Girl?

Well we’re about to see…

One of my best friends picked up Bethenny Frankel’s new book on one of her Target shopping frenzies.  Ever have those?  You walk through the aisle at Libbie and Broad and suddenly everything is in your basket and your receipt says $200!  Well, yes, that’s my friend Elyse, sorry to call you out, but she’s MAJORLY GUILTY.  I’ve done it before too, we all have.  They make everything so pretty in there!

So, ever watch Bravo and know about Bethenny?  Most people either hate her or love her.  I personally find her cynicism incredibly hysterical and I give her props for working her ass off and using reality TV to help elevate her Skinny Girl brand into a household name.  She also has the most adorable husband and child you’ve ever seen…they can’t be real!

Said friend, Elyse, decided to lend me this book.  Let’s just say I’m going through some life changes the past few months and everyday I seem to be thrown a new curve  ball.  So, why not read Bethenny’s “A Place of Yes” to see how corny it is and if there is some solid advice in it?  Is Bethenny Frankel really going to help me “get everything I want out of life”.  Most definitely not.  But, I do like to scatter in some arts, entertainment and home posts to round out the blog.  I will keep you posted on my progress of the book and give you a full report when it’s done!

Remembering Elizabeth Taylor as a senator’s wife

Virginia may not be known for glitz and glamour, but we are always top of mind when it comes to politics!  But, there was a short time that Hollywood came to town and Virginia was all a frenzy.  Former Senator John Warner was introduced to Elizabeth Taylor by the Queen of England in 1976.  In just one short year, the two married and embarked upon the campaign trail after the tragic death of then Senator Rick Obenshain.  Virginians became obsessed with Taylor sightings in Middleburg, Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. Apparently, Taylor never became accustom to being a politicians wife and the two had an amicable divorce in 1982.

To read Senator Warner’s thoughts on her death, check out this great article on CNN.

The Oscars, Best and Worst

I have to admit, I was a little underwhelmed after last nights show.  The fashion was hardly off the charts and I can’t say I’m dying to have any of the dresses.  But, I’ll do my best to give you the rundown.

The Best

Sandra Bullock looked amazing in a gold beaded Marchesa gown.  It fit to a tee and complimented her Oscar!

I know, some of you may not agree with this choice.  But, this is Givenchy Haute Couture straight from the runway in Paris.  The color is amazing and the detail on the skirt is impeccable.  This is truly high fashion and we loved it!

So, my first thought was “why is the vampire girl at the Oscars”, but whatever.  She had a great Monique Lhuillier dress in midnight blue.  I loved that it was simple and well tailored.  She could have used an earring, but I’ll let her go this time because she looked elegant.  LESS IS MORE.

Vera Farmiga shut it down in Marchesa.  The plum color was perfect with her complexion and hair color.  We also loved the big ruffles…she carried them well.

The Worst

Thank goodness Maggie Gyllenhaal did not win, because she would have regretted excepting an award in that outfit.  I love Dries Van Noten, but I hate that pattern.

Oh Charlize.  I don’t think I need to tell you what is wrong with this picture.

J-Lo in Armani Prive.  Why I HATE, HATE, HATE this dress.  It’s iridescent pink; the fabric doesn’t move; it hugs her in all her problem places.

Demi Moore in Atelier Versace.  This dress reminds me of an ace bandage.  She also matched her spray tan to the dress.  A huge fail by Team Zoe.

A Renegade Whose Talent Taunted Convention

By Guy Trebay of the New York Times

As news of Alexander McQueen’s death rippled through the tents of Bryant Park, where the fashion world was gathered Thursday on the first day of the New York collections, there was shock at the loss of a designer of outsize talents, perhaps even genius. He was remembered as embodying an unlikely pairing of the insular worlds of Savile Row and of French haute couture, and as a working-class renegade who had emerged in the 1990s to flout conventions of fashion using an unparalleled mastery of time-honored skills.

 

“McQueen was probably the best woman’s tailor in the world,” said Steven Cox, one of two designers of the Duckie Brown label. He was also, “a working-class bloke,” Mr. Cox said, and one whose renegade instinct manifested itself early on, when he stitched an antiroyalist imprecation into a suit sewn for the Prince of Wales.

“Show after show after show, he amazed us all,” Mr. Cox said. “You think about him and you think, I am not worthy.”

For the hairdresser Eugene Souleiman, who had worked with the 40-year-old Mr. McQueen, whose first name was Lee, from the earliest days of his career, he was a designer driven by instinct, emotionally fickle and so single-minded in pursuit of his vision that he routinely conducted five preliminary fittings for every fashion show, where most designers settle for one.

“You’d get together with Lee for the first fitting and you’d discuss everything and settle everything, his ideas for the collection,” said Mr. Souleiman. “You’d go up for the next fitting and find the whole collection had changed.”

That, Mr. Souleiman added, “was the vision of Lee, totally about creative individuality, this driving force not so much to make clothes that were wearable as to put across this strong vision of what he felt at the moment, what was interesting to him at a particular time.”

Mr. McQueen loved to provoke, and he dared do so in a business that does not always take kindly to critique. His loss, said the designer Thom Browne, “is sad because he wasn’t just a designer that designed really interesting collections, but one of the few designers who did more than just show clothing in a mundane way.”

People at the tents easily summoned up flamboyant images from past McQueen shows: the one held in a subterranean banqueting hall of the medieval Conciergerie in Paris, in which the models marched between caged wolves; the one involving a giant chessboard across which corseted models were deployed like rooks and queens; the one whose set was constructed from the stored and recycled detritus of previous collections; the one after a bad storm that had left his Manhattan show space semi-submerged.

If his vision was often “Kubrickian and dystopian,” as Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out magazine, said before the Duckie Brown show, it also smacked of buoyant pragmatism that he chalked up to his working-class origins.

For that post-storm show, recalled Dan Lecca, a seasoned photographer on the fashion-show circuit: “Lee sent the models out anyway, wading through the water. He made it part of the show.”

For the last five seasons, Mr. Lecca worked intimately with Mr. McQueen on his collections. Lately the designer “looked happier than ever,” Mr. Lecca said . “There was a lot of tenderness backstage with his family, no signs that anything was wrong.”

Still, the designer made no secret of his tendency to binge on drugs, alcohol, food and sex. And some longtime observers of his career, like Tim Blanks, a critic for Style.com, found it possible to remark of his death, reportedly a suicide, that “I was thunderstruck by the news, and then not.” If, as early reports suggested, Mr. McQueen was distraught because of the death of his mother on Feb. 2, he chose a tragic way to express his grief, ending his own life on the day before her funeral.

Pamela Reynolds—Patron of the Arts and Work of Art

In case you missed this great article about RVA’s #1 fashionista in the Times-Dispatch this weekend, we have it here for you at Cobblestone Couture.  Enjoy!

By Julie Young of the Richmond Times-Dispatch

On a visit to a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts affiliate in Martinsville two years ago, Pamela Reynolds was approached by a soft-spoken 17-year-old girl.

“I want to ask you something,” the shy young woman said to Reynolds, a Richmond arts icon known for her eccentric fashion sense. “Where did you get your tights?”

“Oh, I don’t know — somewhere,” Reynolds replied. The two began talking as they walked through Piedmont Arts.

“I told her to call me Pam and she said her name was Julie,” Reynolds said. “She said her girlfriend’s boyfriend wanted her to come because she had never been to a museum.

“She asked me,” Reynolds recalled in disbelief, carefully enunciating each word, “if one artist made all of this art.

“She hadn’t been because there was no money [in the school budget]. We arranged that night for Bassett Furniture to fund a bus so these students could go to the museum.”

Another artistic triumph for Reynolds, president of the Virginia Museum’s board of trustees and herself a work of art.

“She came up because of what I had on, which was good,” Reynolds said with a shrug.

. . .

Pamela Coe Reynolds, instantly recognizable around Richmond with her trademark platinum blunt-cut pageboy, fire-engine red lipstick and eye-popping fashions, carries a load of volunteer responsibilities on her petite frame.

In addition to more than 20 years as a Virginia Museum trustee, Reynolds serves or has served on the boards of the Richmond Ballet, Richmond Symphony, Virginia Opera, the Valentine Richmond History Center, Richmond CenterStage, TheatreVirginia, Theatre IV, the Carpenter Center and more. She was an organizer of the Richmond Children’s Festival, created the Governor’s Awards for the Arts, co-chaired June Jubilee — the city’s first arts festival — and has spearheaded countless fundraisers.

“To me, Pam is ‘art’ in Richmond,” said Elizabeth “Libby” Robertson, president of the Richmond Ballet. “Any successful arts gala or other event in Richmond has Pam somehow involved at the forefront or in the background, but always involved.”

Friends and acquaintances describe her as a bundle of energy who sleeps little and fires off e-mails at all hours — dreamlike ramblings filled with ideas.

Pam and Richard S. “Major” Reynolds III, a member of the Reynolds Metals family, are one of the city’s long-standing power couples. Reynolds, brother of the late Virginia Lt. Gov. J. Sargeant Reynolds, heads the philanthropic Richard S. Reynolds Foundation, which has given millions to the arts and other beneficiaries, including the neuro-oncology unit in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, the Reynolds Business History Center at the Virginia Historical Society and Democratic Party causes.

“Major is her great silent partner in all of this,” said Bill Martin, a longtime friend and director of the Valentine Richmond History Center, where she’s also a trustee. “He’s the person who supports her and is actively engaged in her fundraising events. He’s always there.”

Pam Reynolds was elected president of the VMFA board in July 2007, in the midst of the 74-year-old museum’s renovation and expansion that will add 165,000 square feet to its existing 380,000-square-foot space by this spring.

Reynolds said she’s humbled to be at the helm for an “awesome, daunting experience. Everybody has worked so hard. It’s important to me that everyone be recognized as part of the family.”

“She has an enormous sense of responsibility,” said Thurston Moore, managing partner at Hunton & Williams and a member of the VMFA board. “She really puts her heart and soul into it.”

On a recent tour of the museum, scheduled to reopen May 1, Reynolds maneuvered through construction zones with a red hard hat perched on her blond bob. Reynolds and museum director Alex Nyerges were hosting H. Richard Dietrich III, president of the Dietrich American Foundation, which holds a vast collection of 18th-century American decorative and fine arts.

Reynolds had met Dietrich at a dinner party last June at Patricia Kluge’s Albemarle County estate. The ex-wife of billionaire John Kluge, and a budding winemaker was honoring Benjamin Wallace, author of “The Billionaire’s Vinegar,” a tale about a bottle of Thomas Jefferson’s wine.

“I had the good fortune to sit across from Pam,” Dietrich said above the piercing whine of saws. “She mentioned all the great things happening at VMFA and so I came down during the summer.”

As a result, the Dietrich Foundation is loaning the museum significant pieces that will fill gaps in its collection. “She’s always trying to build these relationships, build the collections of the museum,” Nyerges said.

“Alex is the brains,” said Reynolds. “I’m just the cheerleader.”

. . .

In conservative Richmond, Reynolds is one of few high-profile women with a devil-may-care style sense. Although she’s an extraordinarily public figure with a gregarious personality, she fiercely guards her private life.

Pamela Susan Coe and Richard Samuel Reynolds III were married Nov. 22, 1975, the month Major was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, according to a wedding notice published the next day in The New York Times. She was a consultant for the office of marketing and education at the Federal Energy Administration in Washington and former assistant for the arts and director of cultural affairs for the interior secretary.

The account said she graduated from the prestigious Professional Children’s School in New York. A who’s who of alumni includes Milton Berle, Vera Wang, Yo-Yo Ma and Sarah Jessica Parker.

The couple has no children although Major, a Woodberry Forest and Princeton graduate, has three children by a previous marriage.

With Valentine’s Day approaching, friends and family members look forward to the Reynolds’ annual photo greeting. The couple sends Valentines instead of Christmas cards. “She’s done that for years,” said close friend Katie Ukrop. “She loves Valentine’s Day. The card’s always got a really cute picture on it.”

Reynolds holds friends close, but the media at arm’s length. She consents to a profile only if the emphasis will be placed on the teams she works with on various boards. She gently changes the subject when a personal question arises.

Instead of an interview in her Windsor Farms home, she suggests meeting for a walk along Old Locke Lane with her frisky 4-year-old cairn terrier, Rob Roy, named for the Scottish folk hero.

Reynolds hops out of her gray Audi station wagon, dressed in an assortment of plaids from head to foot, with the freshly groomed terrier on a leash and a stash of blue poop-collection bags looped around the strap of her shoulder bag.

Half sprinting behind the sturdy little terrier along the narrow road in Richmond’s swankiest neighborhood, Reynolds, 67, explains that part of her media reluctance comes from snarky comments posted online beneath a story about a friend years ago. She said she doesn’t want anything printed that might cast her causes in a bad light.

In 1996, Reynolds spearheaded one of the city’s biggest-ever soirees — the lavish Russian-themed Fabergé Ball, which raised more than $1 million for the VMFA endowment. Some tabloid-style coverage of the ball in the local media stung Reynolds.

Particularly painful were unattributed jabs at her outfit — a dress made from a collection of Lillian Thomas Pratt silk scarves and a fanned headdress.

“No doubt, there are things she’s taken very personally,” said Martin. “She’s not so much hurt as surprised when people don’t get the whole thing — her 24/7 commitment to the things she’s involved in.”

The Fabergé attire earned a place in the Valentine Richmond History Center alongside gowns worn by Mary Ball Washington, mother of George, and first lady Dolley Madison.

“When you think of Pam, you have to think of amazing clothes,” said Martin. “The Fabergé Ball dress fits with a number of other things that marked occasions in our community’s life that we thought should be a part of our collection.”

“Fashion is something that just comes natural to me,” Reynolds said.

In spite of years of volunteerism and millions given to charities large and small, Reynolds seems doggedly defined by her eclectic wardrobe choices.

“She’s a magnet for a camera,” says longtime friend Suzanne Hall, chief communications officer for the Virginia Museum. “Her outfits are part of her creative expression. That doesn’t mean, however, that she’s not serious about her business.”

For last fall’s SPCA Fur Ball, which raised $416,000, Reynolds descended the steps of The Jefferson Hotel wearing a black top covered with circular images of the event’s honorary chair — Rob Roy — and a plaid miniskirt over a knee-length polka-dot skirt with turquoise lace leggings.

Where does she shop? Georgetown — in particular a shop called Zara — is a favorite for Reynolds and her buddies. She likes Forever 21, Anthropologie and discovered Internet shopping a couple of years ago.

“She’s a huge bargain shopper,” Ukrop said. “The girls at Anthropologie know if she’s waiting for something to go on sale.”

Reynolds, Martin and Ukrop have forged what Ukrop acknowledges is a curious triumvirate over the past five years. They take day trips, shop or meet for dinner at Reynolds’ favorite restaurant, Edo’s Squid on North Harrison Street.

Ukrop said Reynolds is “the most devoted friend you could ever have. She almost takes on her friends as she does her causes.”

When Martin was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, Reynolds was among “a group of angels without whom I wouldn’t have survived my treatment. For six months, she [Reynolds] called every day. She provided food, although she does no cooking, and she’d even pop in on my chemo.”

During one of Martin’s treatments, Reynolds and other well-meaning friends got kicked out of VCU Medical Center. “They had planned this elaborate picnic, with beautiful tablecloths and wonderful food,” Martin recalled, laughing. A nurse had to tell them they were making too much noise, he said.

Whether it’s a museum project, her taste in clothes or her choice of friends, Reynolds has left a mark on Richmond by bringing together seemingly dissimilar entities.

“She’s brilliant at making connections between things that other people don’t see,” Martin said.

Her ability to unite bridges gulfs that otherwise might exist between museum trustees, donors and staffs, Martin said.

“She’s made us all think about the VMFA as the VMFA family, and that family is so critical to our being so successful,” Nyerges said.

Being wealthy helps her causes, but Reynolds’ generosity goes deeper, Martin said. “She believes people have a fundamental responsibility to use the gifts you’ve been given, whether it’s money, talent or anything else,” he said.

“She and Major always are bringing new people to each performance of the ballet or event to support the ballet,” Robertson said. “She is very grass roots when it comes to including people in the arts world.”

One young girl in Martinsville who now understands art museums would vouch for that.

“If you take on a project, you have a great responsibility to work hard,” said Reynolds. “I always want people to realize that I do work hard and I try to make Richmond a better community.”

Why We Will Be Watching America’s Next Top Model…

You would think after 13 seasons that people would be tired of all the crazy that Tyra’s been dishing out over the years.  Thank god her silly talk show is going off the air, but is there hope for America’s Next Top Model?  Just when we thought it was going to where reality shows go to die, it’s been given a second life.  Our beloved Andre Leon Talley from Vogue will be joining the cast to insure that this once sleepy reality series becomes a hit once again.  For more, see the article below from Women’s Wear Daily.

TALLEY’S ON TOP: About eight years ago, Tyra Banks and André Leon Talley lunched at La Goulue to discuss her idea of starting a new reality TV modeling competition, “America’s Next Top Model,” and she wanted him to be on it.

“At that point, I said no because it was the beginning. I was thinking I wanted to see where it goes,” Talley said. But 13 seasons — “cycles” in “Top Model” parlance — later, the Vogue editor at large softened to the idea. So when Banks asked him once again to come on board as a judge for cycle 14, which premieres March 10 on The CW, it was an easy sell. “I’ve seen the success of Tyra in many facets of her life,” said Talley, who first met Banks backstage at an Yves Saint Laurent show when she was 16. “So I felt maybe I could contribute something to it that had not been on the show. I just felt that it was a way to step out of the box and associate myself with a very important American success story, a very important brand — Tyra Banks.”

Though he’d never watched “Top Model,” he had “no hesitations at all.” Nor did his Vogue boss, Anna Wintour. “Her reaction,” said Talley, “was, ‘Fine, André. Just let me know when you’re going to do it and how it’s going.’” (Reached for comment, Wintour said through her spokesman, “André is always onto new things on television, and I think his latest adventure sounds like a lot of fun and I look forward to watching him on the program.”)

In cycle 14, Talley succeeds J. Alexander (who instead coaches the wannabe strutters) on the judging panel, which also includes Banks, photographer Nigel Barker and guest judges such as Whitney Port, Rachel Roy and Sally Hershberger.

Describing Talley’s appeal, Banks said, “A lot of people can speak about fashion, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to strong television. But André speaks about fashion and he has such a passion, and the words — the adverbs, the adjectives — he uses! I know it’s going to make the viewer at home go, ‘Wowww.’” Banks added, “It might go over their head, but he’s educating them about a time, bringing them back to a place when fashion was life.”

And Banks is betting that Talley, who signed on for three cycles, will help steer the show in a more high-fashion direction. “Reality television is very commercial. It’s very mass,” she noted. “The fashion industry is very elite, but I feel the fashion industry is catching up to reality television.”

Indeed, even Talley’s “Top Model” wardrobe — 13 custom-made Chado Ralph Rucci cloaks, varying only in color or fabric — offers a lesson in high style. “I went to Ralph Rucci when I started this thing,” Talley said. “We came up with these wonderful designs that are based on 17th-century Edo samurai tunic-coats. And Ralph, who is extraordinarily gifted, understood my desire to have something that would pop on TV.”

Not to be outdone, Banks also stepped up — or rather, pared back — her look. “This is the most clean you will ever see me in the history of ‘Top Model,’” she said. “I am wearing a chignon every single day. I went back to Yves Saint Laurent 1991, honey. I said, ‘This is André Leon Talley! No earrings, no nothing. Just me and the gahhment.’”

Clothes aside, Talley took his responsibilities — to evaluate contestants and make good TV — “very seriously,” he said. He devised a catchphrase of sorts — “dreckitude,” a melding of dreck, one of his “favorite” words, and “quackitude,” a term he’d heard Rachel Maddow use on her show. “‘Dreckitude’ was whipped out when I thought the challenge was not met or if [the contestants] showed up in perhaps an outfit that I just couldn’t wrap my mind around,” he explained. Such as? “I was constantly repulsed by the complete popularity of what I call the Cult of the Ugly Shoe — that is, a very clodhopper, high platform-y, clunky-clunk sort of shoe, which they would favor. And I kept saying to them, ‘You can also be very elegant in a Sabrina flat.’”

As to whether Talley believes the winner, who has already been selected and will receive such prizes as a Seventeen magazine cover and spread and a Cover Girl contract, has a prayer of ever appearing in Vogue, he said, “I say yes — in my opinion, she has the potential. But that’s not my decision, that’s Ms. Wintour’s.”

— Nick Axelrod