French Narrow Gap Between Europe and California Coast
It wasn’t quite the same as being in Paris. But it was close.
Instead of sitting in designer Thierry Mugler’s pale-blue, 19th-Century atelier on the Faubourg Saint-Honore, Mugler brought some of the atelier to Los Angeles last week. He dispatched two of his top saleswomen, two of his runway models and 20 suitcases containing 150 garments from his early-fall collection.
Under normal circumstances, the world’s fashion press and store buyers can’t see a designer’s collection unless they travel to Paris. This time the mountain came to Mohammed.
Ghislaine Barou, Mugler’s commercial manager, had forgotten to pack the background music Mugler selected, so she switched a radio to 92 FM, and the show began inside a suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
For New-Age executive women, there were clean, modern dresses and suits tailored dangerously close to the body; banker’s pinstripes interpreted in coatdresses with jutting shoulders; a black wool suit with fake fur cuffs.
For evening, the mood switched to daringly sculpted bustiers of black velvet and chiffon, decorated with more fake fur, lame and tulle.
In recent years, Mugler began showing his two intermediate collections, cruise and early fall, to buyers in New York. Last season, he decided to add a second city to the itinerary.
Why Los Angeles?
“Thierry loves Los Angeles,” Barou said. “When he takes a holiday, he always comes here. In his mind, it’s the town where the ladies are perfect.”
Proof of that were two California models, Yvette Holland Vazquez and Shoshana Fitzgerald, whom Mugler recruited on a previous trip and will import for his show in Paris next month.
Mugler’s attraction for Los Angeles also comes from his impressions of Hollywood in the ‘40s. “He thought of the ‘40s as a perfection of a way to walk, to dress, to wear the hair, the maquillage, “ Barou said. “He is still dreaming about this time.”
Mugler also happens to be well represented here. His clothes are available at many stores, including Torie Steele, Lina Lee, Giorgio, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman-Marcus, Nicole and Maxfield. The designer obviously wants to accommodate his customers.
“I find it real convenient,” said Tommy Perse, owner of Maxfield, who was at the hotel taking notes, snapping pictures with his Olympus camera and conferring with his two buyers.
“I’m always in the wrong place at the right time.”
There are more signs that the French are serious about Los Angeles. One is the new Guerlain boutique at Bullocks Wilshire.
The tiny shop, an oasis of green, peach and beige marble, is modeled after the original Guerlain store at 68 Champs-Elysees in Paris. Its cases are stocked with bottles of Jicky, L’Heure Bleue, Mitsouko, Shalimar and Chamade, as well as with a new makeup and treatment line. French accents reverberate off the walls.
It was Michel Vincent, president of the 159-year-old perfume house, who insisted the company be present in Los Angeles. As soon as he set foot here seven years ago, he says knew he had to build a store.
“You’ve got to be in Los Angeles with anything chic,” he decided, describing its residents as “wealthy and healthy, people who want to have the best and the latest.
“Los Angeles is the prima donna of all the American cities regarding fashion and trends,” Vincent trilled.
“New York is overrated. L.A. reminds me sometimes of Europe, sometimes of London. People smile. They try to help. They still know what service means, whereas in New York, you’re forgotten. L.A. is the city of the future.”
Christian Rana de Rivelo--yet another Parisian--was encamped at Robinson’s Beverly Hills last week. He had set up a Tahitian outpost in the cosmetics department, where he was trying to explain the benefits of coconut oil, which he imports from Tahiti and incorporates into a line of bath, hair and beauty products called Monoi, which sell for $10 each.
“People say, ‘Ah, you are a chemist?’ I say: ‘No, I am an artist.’ I transform something which is unknown, even miserable, into something beautiful.”
His passion for coconut oil began 12 years ago when he found its properties cured his severe dandruff problems.
“I had dandruff like a snowman,” De Rivelo said. “And scabs on my scalp. It was horrible.”
Hospital treatments wouldn’t cure it, he said, but the Tahitian oil did.
De Rivelo decided to launch a product line, calling it Monoi (meaning treatment), containing only natural products, such as wheat germ and grapefruit-seed extract (a natural preservative) and raw coconut oil from Tahiti.
To find backers for his company, he went to many lengths. At one point, he stuck press kits on the windshields of Rolls-Royces, believing that people who drove their own Rollses, as opposed to hiring chauffeurs, “were gamblers, still on top of ambition.” It worked.
Last year, the Mem Co. (which distributes English Leather and Heaven Scent) acquired worldwide distribution rights to the line, and De Rivelo sees great promise for the future of his coconut oils.
He still regularly massages the moisturizing fluid through his hair.
“I do it in the evening after work. I eat, watch TV, go to sleep--it won’t stain your sheets,” he said. “In the morning I wash it out. That’s it.”
