A Hutton moment
Lauren HUTTON is sitting at her favorite Santa Monica coffee shop, voraciously reading the morning paper. Above the table, her impeccably tailored, gray Armani blazer is the kind of chic item you would expect to see worn by a woman whose style is constantly noted by everyone from socialites to designers, but one glance toward the floor reveals mismatched slouch socks, one green and gray striped, the other pink and red, stuffed into her everyday shoes -- $12 plastic jelly sandals with the toes cut out for comfort. And she looks positively elegant.
The exuberant spirit, halo of tousled wavy blond hair and signature smile that have graced 28 covers of Vogue (the most of any model) shine through despite a hodgepodge of an ensemble, and you get why she is still the muse of so many, a modern-day style icon and most certainly, the girl of spring.
The 1970s are a main focus in fashion this spring, and designers are channeling the decade in every way from “Three’s Company” rompers to Bianca Jagger pantsuits. But the strongest reference is Hutton’s signature laid-back style. This is a season of relaxed tailoring and no-fuss clothes -- at Donna Karan, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Calvin Klein and Lanvin -- and when one thinks of chic androgyny, Hutton inevitably comes to mind.
“Her picture was right smack in the middle of my mood board when I was designing the collection,” says designer Alexander Wang, whose impeccably cut shark-skin blazer and loose fitting shirt-dresses are pure Hutton. “Spring is all about carefree, effortless pieces, which she embodies. She’s someone who can wear an oversized oxford shirt, run out the door and still look amazing.”
Looking great without trying -- isn’t that the ultimate fashion fantasy? But ask Hutton how, and she’ll tell you that she’s only doing what she’s always done.
“I like men, history and clothes that feel good,” she says, touching her soft shirt. “Here, feel this. And also my heroes, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Kate Hepburn. I took part of those women and mixed it all together. And I was a tomboy; I had to always be able to run. You’ve got to be able to run in your heels.”
Spring’s must-have pieces -- a flyaway anorak, a pair of full pants, a great white shirt and a longer length blazer or safari jacket -- have been Hutton’s everyday wardrobe since the 1970s. Thakoon Panichgul even tweaked her signature straw fedora, fan-pleating the brim. He also incorporated shibori prints into his collection, channeling Hutton’s touches of ethnic style.
And though there’s no way it was intentional, several brands, including Fendi, Gucci and Marc Jacobs, are even making jelly shoes.
Hutton likes clothes with a story, and increasingly that’s where the fashion world is heading too. As an antidote to cheap, disposable chic, women are seeking out pieces that speak to them on a personal level, because of print, craftsmanship or the provenance of the cloth.
Take her famous safari jacket, something Hutton first picked up on one of her annual trips to Kenya.
“I thought the policemen’s uniforms were so chic,” Hutton says, “so I would go to the store where they got their uniforms and get measured for my own. I went back each year for 28 years and got a new one every trip back.”
Hutton’s love for travel and adventure has always fueled her wardrobe choices, but it’s her eye for unconventional beauty and ability to bring life to the most practical garments that create her enviable style.
“I came to New York to get to Africa” says Hutton, who saw the city as a place of opportunity that could help her leap beyond her home of Charleston, S.C. Of course, she found enormous success as a model in New York, despite being slightly under the 5-foot-9-inch height requirements and having a gap between her front teeth, a feature that defined her down-to-earth and “imperfect” yet beautiful look. In 1974 she signed a $1-million contract with Revlon, a record at the time. She made headlines again, when Revlon “fired” her after she turned 40.
Today Hutton, 64, chuckles over the idea that she is an influence on the fashion world. She continues to travel, but her home for the last three years has been a quaint redwood bungalow in Venice Beach, where she has created a sprawling, lush garden. She’s passionate about every flower and head of lettuce (and given to digging up and bragging about her vigorous earthworms). Believe it or not, her other big project these days is a natural makeup line, Lauren Hutton’s Good Stuff, which is made with oils and remedies she learned about throughout her travels in Africa.
“I saw all this wonder of real style around the world,” she says. “Beautiful, unbelievable women everywhere, and I knew that what was prescribed, what we knew about fashion, what we had been told was beautiful wasn’t the only thing there was.”
A natural fit
Back home in Venice, Hutton’s garden is bursting with life after a week of rain; the banana trees are vibrant green, everything seems to be blooming. It’s a perfect day to capture her in her sanctuary.
She pushes through a rack of spring clothes brought in for her to model, admiring some pieces (the loose gray trousers by Preen), dismissing others for being “too fashion” (the hand-painted suede Roberto Cavalli jacket). Suddenly she bolts into the house and raids her own closet, which is bursting with pieces better than anything fresh off the rack. She insists on topping off a Jenni Kayne safari jacket with her own beat-up green safari hat and a scarf she bought in New Delhi in the ‘60s.
Of course, it’s perfect.
You get the feeling that hanging out with her, you’d learn everything you’d ever need to know about getting dressed -- in five minutes, she can change your perspective on fashion: Stop listening to everyone else. Wear what feels like a second skin.
Hutton also has made an impression on Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen, frequent visitors to her garden, and now Hutton is the model for the spring look book for the Olsens’ new clothing line, the Row. “I’ve always looked up to her as a fashion icon,” Ashley Olsen says. “And she’s become a mentor to us both professionally and personally.”
Preen’s spring show was like a page out of Hutton’s portfolio with men’s shirt-dresses in white, nude and soft cream and extra slouchy trousers in slate and putty colors. Even the hair and makeup was a take on Hutton’s visage with glowy bronze skin and uncombed beachy tendrils flowing on relaxed but self-assured-looking models.
“Our spring collection was inspired by her style, especially her character in ‘American Gigolo,’ ” says Justin Thornton, half of the design duo at Preen. “She just has a timeless, effortless cool.”
Effortless is the word that everyone, including Hutton, uses when defining her style, and it couldn’t be more accurate. Her rule of dressing is simply that fashion is what is offered; style is what we pick out of that, how we wear it and the way we put it together. Today, Hutton’s essentials are what she considers sensible. The bag she carries daily is a woven rattan backpack she discovered in the Philippines more than three decades ago. She finds the style so practical and chic that she buys multiples any time she gets to Asia.
“Fred Astaire used to have his personal butler wear his Saville Row suits for three to four weeks before he even touched them,” she says. “So they wouldn’t look too new, he would have this guy break them in. If it’s really good then it needs to be broken in because it’s going to last forever.” She points to her gray Armani blazer, “I will wear this blazer into my 80s. Armani works forever. Find out what’s classic on you and it will always be classic.”
Her jellies are a far cry from spring’s architectural heels by Prada, Giuseppe Zanotti and Jil Sander, but the wedges from Chloe or the simple sandals from Sigerson Morrison, which she admired during the shoot, are tempting.
In the end, though, she opts to go barefoot, showing off the fiery orange nail polish on her toes -- something she concocted herself by mixing a layer of neon orange under a layer of sheer red. “You’ve got to mix to get the best colors,” she says.
And it wouldn’t be a surprise to see her custom color start popping up among the bright hues of spring.
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