Rodeo Drive – The Podcast

For over 100 years Women’s Wear Daily has been the bible for the fashion industry, and its archives include numerous hidden contributions of Black designers and models. Now that history has been gathered in a stunning new book, BLACK IN FASHION, by Tonya Blazio-Licorish and Tara Donaldson, showcasing the indelible influence of Black culture on a global scale.On Episode 5 of Rodeo Drive-The Podcast, host Lyn Winter spoke with the authors about the book and the revelations they found in the WWD archives.  “Fashion has a flawed public history because it hasn't included all the voices,” says Blazio-Licorish, also a visual culture historian and editor with PMC Media Archives. “We were always there, and not just there in marginal roles, but in important roles, in roles that were shaping fashion,” adds Donaldson, most recently WWD's executive editor and Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Fairchild Media. Dating back as early as the Harlem Renaissance, the Black community was making its mark on clothing and style, from Black dolls for young Black children, early fashion shows, business associations, and fashionable scenes like at The Cotton Club. The authors single out early “influencers” such as Josephine Baker, who even had a hosiery color named in her honor, the dancer Katherine Dunham, who was all the rage in 1940s France, and then the Black models, including Pat Cleveland and Bethann Hardison, who shook up global fashion at the famed 1973 Battle of Versailles.The late André Leon Talley recalled this momentous event in conversation with the authors before his passing. “You could almost just reach out and touch the energy they gave in the air. It was like quiet thunder, and because everyone saw that and felt that at the battle, French designers – Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent – they started wanting black models.”Black fashion has been intertwined with politics – and BLACK IN FASHION explores how clothing reflected the moment:“During civil rights, that time was really about respectability politics,” explains Donaldson. “It was coming in your Sunday best, to assert dignity. It was a kind of a polite request for human rights. By the time you get to the 70s, the mood changes, the look changes…then the Black Panther movement, it's more powerful, it's more assertive…You have the leather jackets, you have the turtlenecks, you have the berets. And then we see that evolve even into the 2020s. And there's the branded T-shirts, Black Lives Matter.”Finally, the story is still unfolding. Black designers are still not getting the high level industry jobs they deserve, argue Blazio-Licorish and Donaldson, and are even ambivalent about being labeled as Black.So Blazio-Licorish says they finished on a question: “We purposefully left the conversation open to, who's next, who's now, and what do they have to say about where fashion is going to go?”Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 5 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica RoseScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle Alfonso.Listen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Join us on Instagram @rodeodrive

Since the beginning of time, humans have sought the secret to eternal youth and beauty. One company that believes it has gotten closer to cracking the code is La Maison Valmont, the luxury Swiss skincare brand that will open a boutique on Rodeo Drive on July 15.La Maison Valmont, founded in 1985, will offer Rodeo Drive clientele its trademark five collections – hydration, luminosity, vitality, V-lift and V-firm – designed for young and more mature complexions. But it plans to elevate the experience with a custom treatment, called – naturally – the Red Carpet of Valmont, as well as a new line of perfumes, and additional experiences such as changing exhibitions of art. “When you enter the world of Valmont, which is more than a skincare brand today, it's a style of life where you really enjoy the five senses. And we call it a world of emotion,” Sophie and Didier Guillon told host Lyn Winter, on the latest episode of Rodeo Drive - The Podcast.  La Maison Valmont is esteemed for its discreet, five-star service, and products including $1000 dollar jars of Creme Merveilleuse made with the DNA of gold sturgeon. Their treatments and potions are based on “cellular science,” explains Sophie Vann Guillon, CEO and chief scientist at the brand. This is a form of skincare developed in Switzerland in which the “natural reactions and functions of the cells and skin” are rejuvenated by living cells that are “biocompatible” with one's skin. The company has been shaped by the passions of both its owners. Didier Guillon, raised in a family of art collectors, has founded an art foundation at the Palazzo Bonvicini in Venice, Italy. The foundation organizes residencies at its properties around the world that “welcome artists or customers who really want to discover what we are proposing on the art scene. We want to be different. We want to offer something unique, I would say out of the box.” He is also curating art for sale at the new salon on Rodeo Drive; an exhibition by Venice, Los Angeles based artist Andy Moses is on the docket as the first exhibition. Finally, their new location has stirred some flights of fancy, like the fragrances they are creating from plants cultivated in Vann Guillon’s alpine garden. Didier Guillon says a famous movie inspired him to develop, “a fantastic fragrance called Scarface. It was my fragrance based on violets.” Vann Guillon takes her cues from LA's coastal splendor and surfing culture.“Sea bliss! It's a fresh scent with ozonic appeal while reminding us of the waves of the ocean. It's fresh, and it's a little bit flowery. So it really fits the Californians.”Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 5 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica RoseScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle Alfonso.Listen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Visit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Watch moments from the series on YouTubeJoin us on Instagram @rodeodrive

As the heat of summer rises on Rodeo Drive, how better to stay cool and chic than in the most versatile, enduring and fluid garment of all time –– the Caftan! So says the man with more than thirty of them, Cameron Silver, author of the new book Caftans: From Classical to Camp.Silver talks with Rodeo Drive - The Podcast host Lyn Winter about the history, design and appeal of the caftan, which he says is the most universal and ancient garment in the world. “It is this wonderful garment of comfort that’s size inclusive, that's gender fluid, that can be modest or sexy. It can be voluminous or follow the lines of the body, it can be luxurious, or very accessible.”He points out that the caftan, essentially a square of fabric with holes for the head and arms, kept plain or highly ornamental, has been worn by Jesus, Moses, Muhammad and Buddha. “It is this cultural garment of incredible reverence in Morocco,” says Silver; it was worn with high camp by the singer Demis Roussos and extraordinary grace by Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and numerous other celebrities. It has been styled by the likes of Fortuny, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, Marc Bohan for Dior, Karl Lagerfeld, Emilio Pucci, Rudi Gernreich, and Oscar de la Renta. Silver, who conducted the interview wearing a lightweight, hooded, 100% cotton caftan designed by Trina Turk, has taken his book on the road from Texas to Mykonos. He notes that wherever he goes he finds an enthusiastic “caftan caucus” of people wearing and talking about caftans, which he says is the quintessential Athleisure garment, counterintuitively more glamorous than body hugging clothes.It’s not “just a sack,” says Silver. “The reality is that when you wear it, you have to really move your body; you become a Martha Graham dancer, even if you have two left feet like me.” SIlver, who was previously Fashion Director for H by Halston for QVC, adds that “Halston famously did his first runway shows featuring caftans and in the late 60s and 70s they became even more popular.” Right now, he says there is a caftan renaissance, with variants appearing at all the runway shows. “It may have taken a Western and European fashion several decades to really understand that it's a good idea to have a caftan in your collection.”Even though Silver wears his caftans in all seasons, he says this floaty garment, that can be worn from day into evening, is especially appealing in the summer. “It is the garment of the people. Regardless of your size or your gender, or your means or your location, there is a caftan waiting out there for you.”Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 5 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica RoseScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle AlfonsoVisit the website:https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Join us on Instagram:@rodeodrive

The holiday season is in full swing and boutique windows are glittering on Rodeo Drive. So who better to talk to right now than the famed window dresser, Simon Doonan!When he was creative director at Barney’s, Doonan never missed an opportunity for maximal effect with storefront displays that transformed fashion retail into spectacle. Now he is a writer and eminence on all things style-related – and he has released a new book about design at full volume.Maximalism: Bold, Bedazzled, Gold, and Tasseled Interiors, features lavish spaces around the world: from opulent Old World interiors to a Bel Air bedroom with no surface untouched, by Kelly Wearstler, the candy colored Trixie Motel in Palm Springs by Dani Dazey, and Doonan’s own bedazzling New York apartment, designed by his husband Jonathan Adler.Guest host Frances Anderton talks with Doonan on the season-closer of Rodeo Drive - The Podcast about why you can never layer on too much, and how Maximalism is right at home in Los Angeles, dating “from Busby Berkeley to Tiny Naylor's coffee shop,” and on to today’s spectacular concerts by Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Harry Styles. “We live in such a visual world that minimal decor doesn't mean anything online or on your phone or on TikTok” says Doonan. “Everything has to be maximal, and LA is at the center of the culture in so many ways.”Doonan recalls an encounter with the larger-than-life Tony Duquette at his home Dawnridge, in Beverly Hills. Duquette, a prolific designer whose resume includes creating costumes and sets for Fred Astaire musicals, and making jewelry for Tom Ford in his eighties, filled his home and garden with antiques, chinoiserie, sunburst sculptures, gold-leafing, tapestries and cleverly upcycled trash. It was, says Doonan, an “unhinged visual extravaganza.”Doonan peppers the conversation with amusing insights. When asked if maximalism, or “maxi,” can ever become too messy, he says he will never judge, having fond memories of a childhood vacation at the blue collar Butlins holiday camp in the UK, which was “drenched in the fabulosity of maximalism.” He adds, “If somebody is happy, and their apartment looks like a good reflection of them, you do you, boo.” As for the ultra-rich who prefer battleship gray T-shirts over lavish displays of affluence, “one of the most hilarious things is when somebody becomes so wealthy that the only way they can find pleasure is to build a concrete bunker on a Swedish Island, and go and hide in it,” says Doonan.Finally, to those who believe minimalism is the path to happiness, he concludes: “I just think maximalism is more life affirming and maximalism doesn't need minimalism…Minimalism relies on maximalism to have something to denounce, whereas maximalism is much too big to fail.”Season 4 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 4 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kathy GohariScriptwriter, Editorial Advisor and Guest Host: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle AlfonsoVisit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Join us on Instagram @rodeodrive

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy was the beautiful fashion PR who married the most eligible bachelor in America, John Kennedy Jr. The couple, and Carolyn’s sister Lauren, tragically lost their lives when a plane flown by Kennedy crashed into the ocean in 1999.But Bessette Kennedy had an outsize influence on style and fashion in the 1990s that endures today, and her legacy has been celebrated in a new book, CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion, by the British author and fashion creative director Sunita Kumar Nair, with a foreword by Gabriela Hearst, and preface by Edward Enninful, OBE.On Episode 5 of Season 4 of Rodeo Drive - The Podcast, Kumar Nair talks with Lyn Winter about her carefully curated and sumptuously illustrated book, which tracks Bessette Kennedy’s fairytale rise, starting with a job at a Calvin Klein store in a mall where she was, ”plucked by a corporate executive at Calvin Klein, and offered the golden ticket – come to New York.”From there the willowy blonde with a knack for an ultra-chic and minimal “thrown together look,” became a fashion muse herself, in an era when American fashion traded padded shoulders and power suits for the understated elegance and comfort of Klein, Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren.Kumar Nair shares anecdotes about the celebrities – Kate Moss, Jennifer Aniston, Sharon Stone – and the great names in fashion and design who worked with Bessette Kennedy, and were inspired by her.  She says the photographer Mario Sorrenti “remembers a time when they were sitting on the floor, talking about what the goals were for the advertising,” and corporate would want to know, “what does Carolyn think?”She also talks about Bessette Kennedy’s powerful sense of self, wearing what pleased her despite societal expectations. When she married into American royalty, she might have taken to “wearing perhaps Dior or Yves Saint Laurent,” as well as the jewelry she inherited from her late mother-in-law Jackie Kennedy, also a fashion icon. “But instead she chose to wear Yohji Yamamoto and Ann Demeulemeester, and I think the only piece of jewelry (of Jackie Kennedy’s) that she would wear often was Jackie's Cartier Tank.”Finally, Kumar Nair explains how Bessette Kennedy’s allure endures today, in part because of how she approached life and clothes, with discretion and simplicity. “I think there is just this demand for her because there's a dignity in the way that she lived and I think it's inspiring for people who didn't grow up with her to pick up a book and discover her and her world.”Season 4 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 4 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kathy GohariScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle AlfonsoListen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Visit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Join us on Instagram @rodeodrive

You’re no doubt familiar with haute couture, but how about haute parfumerie? That’s what you find at Henry Jacques, the jewel box of a perfume boutique on Two Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.The ultra exclusive French perfumery was founded in the 1970s by Henry Jacques and his wife Yvette, creating bespoke fragrances for private clients. When it was on the brink of closure, their daughter Anne-Lise Cremona stepped in, and has led the company in opening exquisite retail boutiques around the world.On Episode 4 of Rodeo Drive–The Podcast, Season 4, Cremona, now global CEO, talks to Lyn Winter about bringing perfume into the 21st century, while preserving the brand's storied history and tradition, Henry Jacques takes cues from French haute couture, explains Cremona, which hues to tradition while creating a bridge to innovation. “We produce everything in house. We do a lot of things by hand, and we keep using a certain know-how that doesn't exist commonly today.” Meanwhile, the company has opened a state of the art laboratory with more than 1200 components of perfume, and produced cutting edge delivery systems for perfume like the titanium Clic-Clac for solid scents.She talks about collaborations, with her uncle, Richard Mille, and Rafael Nadal and his wife Maria, and with the maison’s designer Christophe Tollemer on the branding of the company and the luxurious, wood-paneled, apartment-style interiors that offer visitors a sense of mystery and discovery.  “It’s perhaps also the future of retail to open a door and enter a completely new world, where you are transported by a universe,” Cremona says.Cremona also talks about why the company no longer has the traditional, singular “nose,” and offers thoughts on outmoded gender distinctions in perfume. One evening in Italy, she recounts, her son wore La Nuit, a flowery perfume made of white flowers and orange blossom.  “Everybody was crazy in love with the spirit, the perfume he wore. And who could imagine that this perfume would suit a young boy?”Finally, Cremona shares her personal wardrobe of scents, the joy of keeping the business in the family, and the endless delight of working with Henry Jacques perfumes, that in addition to being “haute” are also labeled “vivante.” “I like things to be living. And perfume helps you to feel alive. And that's why it's haute parfumerie vivante. We're here, we exist. It's possible.”The Henry Jacques boutique is located on Two Rodeo Drive at 204 N Rodeo Drive.Season 4 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 4 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kathy GohariScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle Alfonso.Listen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Visit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Watch moments from the series on YouTubeJoin us on Instagram @rodeodrive 

Richard Mille pioneered a new era of watchmaking with the 2001 launch of the RM 001 Tourbillon, which set a standard for today's billionaires’ handshake. The Swiss company is also a close family business, with sons Alex and Guillaume involved, and brand direction now helmed by Mille’s daughter Amanda.Amanda Mille sat down with Rodeo Drive - The Podcast to talk about maintaining the image of the world’s most advanced and most expensive watches, through creative partnerships with ambassadors including Michelle Yeoh, Charles Leclerc, Nelly Korda, and Rafael Nadal, who form the company’s extended “family.”Mille tells host Lyn Winter about a journey into her father’s business that began with a move to the Middle East and is full of unexpected moments, like a phone call from Jeremy Strong, Kendall Roy in Succession, about wearing a Richard Mille watch as an expression of his character. He said “we need something a bit more classical in a way, but with a push of modernity,” recalls Mille. She chose to give the detail-obsessed actor an RM 67-01. It was perfect. “Platinum, of course, added the kind of powerness behind Succession and all the stories happening to his character.”She also shares the deep creative relationships with the athletes that sport, literally, Richard Mille watches, helping perfect the product while performing at their best. “When you have someone like Yuliya Levchenko doing high jumping, you need to be sure that the watch doesn't move on the wrist and is still comfortable…Our partners are the only ones that are able to give us the feedback that even a machine will never tell you.”The Mille company is deeply connected with motor-racing, and sponsors Formula One and Le Mans. Amanda Mille shares her love of motorsport and driving, and promises to bring the 100% female, Rallye Des Princesses Richard Mille to California. Finally, she talks about the exclusivity of the company’s watches that involve many years of research and development at the end of which come very few new pieces. The wait can be long and tantalizing for people who order one. “We are not laughing at the fact that people are frustrated at not being able to get the watch. We know how difficult it is. But we also know how difficult these watches are to be made,” says Mille.The Richard Mille Beverly Hills boutique is located on Two Rodeo Drive at 222 N. Rodeo Drive.Season four of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season Four Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kathy GohariScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle Alfonso.Listen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Visit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Watch moments from the series on YouTubeJoin us on Instagram @rodeodrive

When the art collector and curator Jim Hedges was growing up in the South, New York was a “bright shining star” to which Interview Magazine was his “gateway drug.” “You know, as a 12 year old little boy in Chattanooga, Tennessee, dreaming about the big city and Studio 54 and the New York City art world…Warhol and his cult of personality, his cult of celebrity, the landscape that he was a part of, were all very, very enticing to me,” Hedges tells host Lyn Winter on Episode 2 of the latest season of Rodeo Drive - The Podcast.Now Hedges is the owner of one of the largest collections of Andy Warhol photographs in the world, and he is the new Curator of the Arts for the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Hotel Bel-Air, where his show Jean Pigozzi - The Photographs: Beverly Hills to Cap d’Antibes, is currently on display until May 31, 2023.Hedges reflects on how a career in investment banking turned into pursuit of another hot commodity: art, especially Warhol’s photography: “For Warhol, it was really the source material for 99% of all the artwork that he ever made. In other words, he would take a picture of Marilyn Monroe… and use that as source material to make the painting… And then I found that this work was actually rather undervalued… and I started to think of it as an investment and ultimately a business.”From Warhol he turned his attention to Jean Pigozzi, another photographer with, “incredible access to celebrity and the movers and shakers. And they both documented these worlds in a very compelling and sort of singular voice.”Now some of Pigozzi’s seductive images, taken in hotspots from Beverly Hills to Cap D’Antibes, are on display, some for the first time, at the Beverly Hills Hotel: a nighttime shot of Muhammad Ali framed perfectly in the window of a limousine; Yves Saint Laurent and his muse Loulou de La Falaise in Paris; Mick Jagger with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the South of France.Not only are the images stunningly glamorous, but so is the classic Hollywood hotel setting, says Hedges. “The experience of going to a white cube kind of art gallery that is austere and unwelcoming is not as great as sitting in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel and looking at Johnny Pigozzi’s photos or walking through the gardens of the Hotel Bel-Air…That's a better way to experience art.”Season Four of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season Four Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kathy GohariScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle AlfonsoListen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Visit the website:https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Watch moments from the series on YouTube Join us on Instagram:@rodeodrive #onlyonrodeodrive #rodeodrivethepodcast