Rose Apodaca

It was a lady’s lunch all right, but not in the old school sense. Well, not completely. Sure the guests who came to the Sunset Tower Hotel’s Terrace Room yesterday turned out mostly in dresses, mostly bejeweled, and mostly in the fiercest heels. But fierce is exactly what the occupants of these expensive shoes are—writer/producer Diane English, Dreamworks talent head Leslee Feldman, ICM head Nicole Clemens and HBO casting head Carrie Frazier, among many, many more.
A major tête-à-tête, for sure for a bunch of influential women who hate to admit that despite their strides, equality is still the exception in Hollywood. But the genial afternoon among these supporters of the Women in Film group was spent toasting the next generation, in this case Ginnifer Goodwin, recipient of the MaxMara Face of the Future. Goodwin, who will share the stage with Salma Hayek, Diane English and several other winners at the WIF Lucy Awards next month, charmed the crowd with her unaffected speech--delivered on stationary cheesily imprinted with puppies and kitties. "I was telling Lauren [Graham], it's the use of school supplies that I appreciate most about being an actress," she joked.
The Italian mega fashion brand not only picked up the lunch tab, but ensured plenty of attendees, particularly of the photographed kind, appeared suitably attired, including Lauren Graham, Rose McGowan, Navi Rawat, Summer Bishil and Goodwin herself (in a chicly modern tie-dye silk sheath I must hunt down).Lunch co-hosts Jane Fleming, the current WIF prez and an indie film producer Jane Fleming and Krista Smith, west coast ed for Vanity Fair, also represented.
Not so Jeanne Tripplehorn, who immediately offered her beautiful vanilla Prada was a score at the Barneys New York sale. And the fabulously grand gold hoops? H&M, she dropped, without missing a beat. Now that’s fierce.

So it turns out the heap of gold chains that are a part of Madonna's uberfabulous look are, in fact, part of the dress. The chains are attached to the black Givenchy, a kind of instantly accessorized look from the French house. La Vie reader Arianne Phillips, the stylist behind much of Madonna's wardrobe forever as well as an Oscar-nominated costume designer, dropped me a line about this just now.
Ari handpicked the dress for the vid for Madonna's next single, "Give it to Me." It's one of six wardrobe changes the pop superstar makes. All I have to say is Give me that Dress!

Like minds think alike, at least that's a maxim the fashion-minded can bond over regardless of their place in the real world. Artist-turned-designer Christie Frields emailed me, with a wink and nudge, regarding Madonna's latest outing and our shared obsession for piling on the necklaces she hand strings from colorful silk ribbon and industrial washers. Yes, those tiny stainless O’s used when a bolt or screw need that little extra bit to stay in place.
An installation artist, Christie took to creating these endlessly long strands as a way to unwind from working on her sizeable installation projects. It’s her version of knitting. Looped as a necklace, bandolier or belt, the strands are modern talismans, says Christie, who draws inspiration from the African cowry shell (the first form of currency on the continent and representing wealth, prosperity and luck); the Mediterranean tradition of stitching coins known as sequins on clothing; and the handiwork of Bauhaus textile artist Anni Albers, who incorporated unconventional, industrial materials in her work.
Add motorcycle chains to the litany of references, since they do sort of suggest it. The jewelry line is called Baron’s Family Jewels, after her father and uncle’s Bay Area motorcycle gang during the 1960's. How cool is that? I'll take a handful of them over conventional gold strands any day because there really is nothing like them out there.
Ok, so in the interest of full disclosure, it's true that A+R is the only store showcasing the collection right now, which we've been totally thrilled about since first getting them a couple of years ago (it should be on our e-com store soon enough). Still, by the looks at what that fashion plate Madge is flaunting, it appears that when it comes to this trend call, Ms. Frields made the link.

"It's like being a farmer and taking your apples to market," is how Rick Owens reasoned going to New York to show his collection a decade ago, while choosing to cultivate his crops, er, collection from the Hollywood space he shared with his other half, the chicly eccentric Michèle Lamy. That remark he shared with me one late evening always stuck in my mind, especially when the glow of Vogue and, finally, other pubs (including my former, slow-to-move employer) focused on Rick and his unorthodox ideas of glamour and luxury ("glunge," as he cheekily dubs it). By then, however, the pair recognized their field of dreams was not on a dingy street off Hollywood Boulevard, or even in New York for that matter.
It's wild to think that five years have fled since Rick and Michèle left L.A. for Paris. I spent too many nights to recall, partly due to too many bottles of rose, supping at Michèle's Les Deux Cafés, a seminal spot that is nothing like the fatuous incarnation it is today under new ownership. On any given evening in those early days of Le Deux, a tangle of metal chairs would be filled with regulars who included Kim Gordon, Catherine Deneuve, Christina Ricci, Courtney Love, Sofia Coppola, Phillip Roth and artists, musicians and expats. Now you're more likely to rub up against Jessica Simpson and the US Weekly ilk. Ick.
As I told Rick in our email exchange overnight, he and Michèle keep popping up on my radar lately. Of course, there was the recent New Yorker feature. And no sooner had he been the topic at dinner earlier this week, than a video appeared on style.com the next day in which he reveals the raw space for his new Tribeca outpost and his reasons for doing his second shop in the U.S. He opened his first in the Palais Royal in Paris, where he also sells the brutalesque furniture crafted in their incredible five-story office-cum-showroom-cum home in the Place du Palais Bourbon (which, like their old Hollywood digs, doesn't have a kitchen!).
Tribeca is still faraway from L.A., I wrote him, but at least it could mean we'll be seeing more of him on this side of the sea in the coming future. In the meantime, he shared this pic of he and Michèle on their popover to Berlin. It's not quite what painter Grant Wood had in mind, but I'd like to think that all that's missing is the pitchfork.

Can you imagine if a U.S. government official cried outrage that the very fabric of Americana culture is under threat because an American Idol contestant sang in Spanish?
That's basically what's been going on in France since last month's announcement that the nation's "Eurovision Song Contest" entrant would be native son Sebastien Tellier crooning his English-heavy "Divine."
Never mind that it's cuckoo enough that the alt-pop artist with a penchant for porn film-flavored electro and a hyper-stylish, yet cheeky persona has even made it into Eurovision, an achievement which still cracks up his rep and producer Stephane Elfassi, co-founder of the Paris-based indie label Record Makers, and an old pal of Andy's. Stephane was in town this week for business, including Musexpo in West Hollywood. We grabbed a leisurely bite the other night at La Mill, and he regaled us with all the comic huff going on over Sebastien landing the slot.
The singer has even pledged, with a bit of ironic aplomb, of course, to bump up the French quotient in the hit song for the May 24 battle being held this year in Belgrade. The "Eurovision Song Contest" is major, one of the longest-running TV shows worldwide since first airing in 1956, and drawing something from 100 million to 600 million viewers from year to year. It's beyond cheesy. Consider that two of its best-known winners who actually went on to have a career are Celine Dion and Abba.
So many in France's conservative government (helmed, you'll recall, by ol' Nic who married the supermodel) have been demanding to know why France is giving up its language in front of a global audience. The Defense of the French Language group said France had bowed before the language of the "masters of the world."
Eurovision stats indicate English does lead in the contest, in which viewers pick the winner by phone and text messages. English or mostly English songs have won 22 times, compared to 14 times for songs in French. Some 25 contestants this year--more than half--will sing in English.
Of course, all this is publicity-so-good-you-can't-pay-for for any pop star, however freaky he likes to put it out there. In fact, it only fuels Sebastien's trippy mystique.
And it appears the French hoopla is not all when it comes to this third studio album, "Sexuality," an 11-track reverie on, well, sex, produced by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk.
The surrealistic cover has also come under scrutiny by Asian retailers, Stephane told us. That exposed mountain of a breast--specifically the nipple--is just too racy. So, in Japan, at least, a black band will be sleeved over the bare nipple.
Stephane left yesterday because Sebastien is rocking La Cigale in Paris tonight. But he promises the outlandish Sebastien will finally be touring the U.S. later this year.