Vignettes : Designers Bring Their Own Brands of Style to L.A.
The topic these days isn’t so much trendiness as it is style, the kind that lasts awhile. Four professional style setters, as it were, passed through town recently, each with new light to shed on the subject.
Jean-Louis Dumas-Hermes is a scion of the Hermes clan, France’s premier leather goods makers for the last 149 years. On this particular day, when the sun seemed to be shining directly over the Hermes boutique on Rodeo Drive, Dumas-Hermes was tossing out phrases such as: “We are not rich enough to be cheap nowadays.”
How true. But what did he mean? He was talking about trading in luxury, a responsibility he doesn’t take lightly.
“I had a grandfather, Emile, who used to say the elegance of Hermes was when you wore it many times,” recalled the heir, elegantly attired in a tan suit, Hermes tie, Hermes watch and Hermes pocket square. “We put time in the making of a silk scarf or a handbag--they’re expensive, but they will last long in the hand of a user.”
The same thinking went into the making of the company’s newest luxury, Parfum d’Hermes, a woman’s fragrance with a price tag of $195 per ounce. It contains ingredients which, of course, do not come cheap, including floral, amber, musk and “heart” notes of carnation, incense and myrrh. (It is also available in less expensive eau de toilette , soap and lotion forms.)
To be sure, there’s nothing trendy about the new fragrance; in fact, it is rather a throwback to the feminine, floral scents popular a few decades back. And Dumas-Hermes is certain it has the makings of a classic.
“We are more in style than in fashion,” he explained, satisfied.
Tiffany & Co. --Down the block a few paces was John Loring, sitting before a glittering assemblage of crystal, china and silver. Among other things, this scholarly man, educated at Yale and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, is a specialist in table settings.
As design director and senior vice president of Tiffany & Co., he has written his second book on the subject, “Tiffany Taste” ($50), which was edited by Jacqueline Onassis for Doubleday.
Glancing through the book, it is quickly apparent that the tables Loring admires most--whether set for a meeting at the offices of Chanel President Kitty D’Alessio or on a cliff of Bermuda at sunset--all share an ease, or what Loring calls “elegance of supreme simplicity.
“You don’t have to fuss,” Loring insists. “The point is elegance is very natural and doesn’t require study or sophistication.
“Don’t decorate, don’t cook, don’t present to people the way it isn’t,” he advises. “Present things the way they are, and they will be enjoyed.
“No, the china doesn’t have to match; the flowers don’t have to be grown in hothouses; food doesn’t have to be made with expensive ingredients. You don’t make a great beef stew starting with filet mignon,” he explains.
Loring bases his theories of entertaining on “47 years of observation.”
His conclusion: “Style is a war against pretention.”
Sonja Caproni --Clad in wide trousers by Donna Karan and short jacket by Chanel, Sonja Caproni has obviously won the war. Karl Lagerfeld calls her “the Maria Callas of fashion.”
By profession, she is vice president of fashion direction at I. Magnin. Recently in Los Angeles from her home base in San Francisco, she offered some thoughts on the clothes that soon will be trickling into stores for resort wear and spring.
Expect to see some mind-boggling looks on the horizon, Caproni warned, but don’t let them deter you.
Nevertheless, the concept of sober versus berserk dressing, she allowed, does require a little explanation. Designers are offering both, Caproni explained, the “sober” side of fashion being typified by a ladylike suit or a sleek new evening pajama and the “berserk” being a baby-doll evening look flaunting bare knees and miles of petticoats. Caproni thinks the same woman will respond to both sides of the fashion spectrum, depending on her mood and on the occasion.
“People ask: ‘Can you travel in them? Will they be practical?’ ”
Caproni shrugged about the latter: “Who cares?”
Scherrer --The woman of style who doesn’t go for the avant-garde would probably appreciate the clothes of Jean-Louis Scherrer. His spring collection was whisked off the runway in Paris recently and transported to Elizabeth Arden in Beverly Hills for its U.S. debut, although the designer remained back home to work on his couture showing for January.
“His collection is--I wouldn’t say classic, but always has good shapes with a touch of what’s going to come,” Frederique Reusser, Scherrer’s fashion director, explained.
The long, fitted torso is certainly Scherrer’s most important shape, both in dresses and suits, which have strong shoulders and raglan sleeves.
Reusser says the Scherrer customer appreciates the subtleties of fashion: “Here she knows she is safe. She is very secure buying our clothes.”
