Archive for the ‘Current Events’ Category

10/27/14, Another Star in the Heavens

Posted on October 27, 2014

Hi Everyone,

I hope that all is okay with you.

For someone who has claimed until this summer that I’ve never lost a friend, who died, (although sadly, I know many young people, contemporaries of my children, who died tragically young, including my own son)—-but on that score, this has not been a good summer or fall. Friends have been falling at a rapid rate. And even more shocking, some of them are people of SUCH UNIMAGINABLY IMMENSE TALENT. Robin Williams two months ago, another friend this summer in Paris, and now Oscar de la Renta, the famous dress designer. In Mr. de la Renta’s case, it was not entirely unexpected as he has fought a valiant battle with cancer for the past several years. But repeatedly, he seemed to conquer the illness and continued to create, see friends, be present, and then he would win another round against the disease. He was a remarkable man in a myriad ways. And I realize as I look back, that I’ve known Oscar for about 30 years, and met him sometime in the 80’s when he was widowed, and before he married his lovely present wife Annette, who is herself the epitome of fashion. And I had heard last week through a mutual friend that Oscar wasn’t doing well, and was finally losing the battle with cancer, after several years. So I wasn’t entirely surprised when I heard the sad news. » read more »

9/15/14, Busy Fall

Posted on September 15, 2014

Hi Everyone,

Things are revving up and speeding up, as they do after the summer. As the days get cooler, our lives seem to get busier.

I just finished a book, and am editing two others that are due out in the coming year. I’ve been traveling, visiting with my kids. We have 2 September birthdays in our family, so we’ve made plans for that. And I went to the big antique show this week that happens in Paris every two years, The Biennale. Beautiful museum quality antiques in some booths, paintings, and every important jeweler in the world has a stand at the show. It’s exciting to see it all, and a little dizzying!!! But really lovely stuff. The show is kicked off with a black tie event and dinner, which I go to whenever the show is in Paris every two years. It’s the summit of all antique shows, and really a glamourous event. Lots of women in evening gowns attend, wearing some very spectacular jewels. And they come from all over the world to see the show and attend the opening. You hear every imaginable language, and some very big ticket items are sold. It is truly an impressive event.
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9/1/14, Forces of Nature

Posted on September 1, 2014

Hi everyone,

My last two weeks of the summer (after a very nice summer and some wonderful time with my children) have not been peaceful or easy. The loss of a close friend, that I mentioned to you, and a few other bumps, have made the last of August more like real life than the end of summer.

Almost two years ago, one of my daughters who live in New York lost her apartment and belongings to Hurricane Sandy. She lived in a ground floor apartment she loved and had fixed beautifully, and living right on the River, her building was hit hard, her street was flooded, and her apartment was engulfed in river and sewer water when Hurricane Sandy hit lower Manhattan. What I saw there at the time was overwhelming, and my daughter’s losses heartbreaking. I had never seen first-hand before the aftermath of a hurricane and the resulting floods. It was devastating, and profoundly shocking.  And in l989, we lived through the 6.9 earthquake in San Francisco. We did not experience much damage in our home, but the quake itself was terrifying.

As I told you in my last blog, I went to Las Vegas with friends and their children last week, had a great time and came home, and hours later was woken out of a sound sleep, as my bed shook violently and woke me up. It took me a few instants to realize that it was an earthquake and not a bad dream. And living in San Francisco, we are allegedly prepared for that to happen, but after a while, you start to assume it never will. You get complacent, and then suddenly a good shake wakes you up and scares you, and you are sharply reminded that you live in earthquake country, which is a serious matter, and we should always be prepared for what can happen. » read more »

8/18/14, Real Life

Posted on August 18, 2014

Hi Everyone,

Serious Moment. It happens sometimes. And life lessons.

On a foggy Saturday morning in San Francisco recently, after a long night of writing, just back from Paris, my phone and computer came alive at 6 am. Emails, messages, texts, calls, with the totally unbelievable news that a close friend in Paris had died, the husband of one of my very close women friends. The first thing I saw was an email that gave his first name and said he had died. I only know one person by that name, but immediately rejected that possibility….it couldn’t be him….too young….I saw him only a few weeks ago….we’re all having dinner in a few weeks….not him…I tried to figure out who else I knew by that name. I opened the email and saw his wife’s name, and I felt as though an entire mountain had come crashing down on me. It was indeed the close friend which my mind flatly refused to believe could have died. » read more »

7/14/14, Paris Fashion

Posted on July 14, 2014

Hi Everyone,

Unlike (ready to wear) fashion week, which is a wild 10 day relay race, as store buyers, press, movie stars, celebrities, and anyone associated with fashion professionally, dash from one venue to the next to see as many as 7 or 8 major fashion shows a day, in 4 cities (New York, Paris, London, Milan), repeating the wild week again and again, until everyone is exhausted and has seen the wares of every ready to wear designer. Unlike ready to wear, Haute Couture fashion shows happen only in Paris, and whereas once upon a time, a dozen or so years ago, and for many years before that, the Haute Couture shows were the Big event, now Ready to Wear is where everyone wants to go and be seen. I guess I’m dating myself when I say that the Haute Couture shows used to be absolutely knock out, and attracted the most elegant women in the world. The front row at the fashion show was every socialite you’d ever heard of, important dignitaries and movie stars, and presidents’ wives, along with well known royals, and the women who attended the shows actually wore haute couture in their daily lives. The shows were beautiful, dignified, the clothes were spectacular and it was a rarefied scene and atmosphere that took your breath away if you loved beautiful clothes. But like it or not, the world has changed. My daughters and I were reminiscing about those shows a few days ago, since I started taking my 5 daughters to them when they were very young, like 7 or 8 years old. And the shows were dazzling then, for them, and for me. I’ve always loved fashion, and the haute couture shows were every woman and young girl’s dream.  All of Paris buzzed with the excitement, and the women who attended them (by invitation only) were stunningly elegant. But that world no longer exists.

For those who haven’t read about my talking about Haute Couture, what defines haute couture from ready to wear, is that every single stitch is hand made. There is not one machine made stitch on an haute couture garment. The seamstresses who worked on them had to be apprentices in the workrooms for twelve years before they were allowed to touch the clothes. The way it works is that there are two haute couture shows a year by the designer, in January (to show summer clothes) and in July (to show winter wear). The designer would put together about 70 designs, complete outfits, a sample of each one is made by hand, and usually famous models wear the samples down the runway in a beautiful show, so everyone can admire the clothes. Appointments are made afterwards for clients to try on the samples, and if they like them, the client will order a dress or outfit, and it will be handmade to her precise measurements. She will then have three fittings, sometimes more (the first one in a sample of the garment made in muslin, not the actual fabric), and about three months after the process began, the haute couture outfit or dress she ordered is delivered to the client. That process is still true today, and hasn’t changed. Haute Couture clothes were always expensive, but not the way they are now. A dress or outfit cost around $10,000 not that long ago, a spectacular evening gown $20,000. A wedding gown 50 or $100,000.  Today those same clothes can easily be 75 or $100,000 for a wool dress, $150,000 for a suit, up to $300,000 for an evening gown, and $700,000 for an elaborate wedding dress. At those prices, there are only a handful of women in the world who can afford them. And not only have the Haute Couture clients changed, but so has the world. I went to two of those shows in the last two days, as I do twice a year, and have for most of my life, as an admirer of fashion (I went to Parsons School of Design and studied fashion design, and three of my daughters work in fashion, so it’s a family passion), and there were no Presidents’ wives at the shows I attended, only one major movie star, no royals, and the famously well dressed women are only a memory now. I occasionally see well known movie stars at those shows (Jennifer Lawrence at Dior yesterday), and have seen Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz, and Kirsten Dunst, and Rihanna in recent years, but on the whole people go now for the spectacle, and many to be seen, and very, very, very few are going to buy haute couture. The haute couture client of today is a very different breed. And the world we live in a very different place. Money is tight, jobs are scarce and the economy strained in many countries, the entire world wears jeans and sneakers, some even to work, exercise clothes are considered okay in every public place. Luxury is often frowned on (though secretly envied), men rarely wear ties now, it’s considered fashionable not to shave, and most people have nowhere to wear the fabulous creations of Haute Couture. And all but 3 of the once numerous haute couture designers still produce haute couture collections, which are labor intensive to make and out in the stratosphere in price. Many of the clothes one sees on the runway are then put in the designer’s museum, and never made for any clients. Sadly, haute couture has become an exquisite beautiful, absolutely spectacular dinosaur from another age. A few people still buy it, but most people’s everyday lives, even those with money, just don’t lend themselves to those fabulous creations anymore. And there are sometimes simpler clothes in the collections too, but always at an astronomical price, due to the fabric, or embroidery, or the remarkable labor and expertise that goes into them. I go to look, and am in awe of the workmanship and the creativity every time. » read more »

7/7/14, Are we taking technology too far??

Posted on July 7, 2014

 

Hi Everyone,

As a person who has had a war with machines all my life, I can’t help but ask myself that question. Machines have always hated me, and I have to admit, it’s mutual. I hate them back. I have no problem with a light switch or the basics. I owned an electric can opener years ago that I could never operate. It took me 5 years to learn to fax, and longer to figure out how to get my messages off my cell phone. I kept forgetting how to do it. I can however manage a toaster, and now a microwave if it’s not too high tech. And my cell phone is prehistoric.  Smart Phones terrify me, so I have stuck with my old 14 year old battered cell phone that has disco lights that warn me when I have a message. I could give you a list a mile long of the machines I can’t figure out how to operate, and my mistakes on my laptop are legendary. I usually hit delete instead of send when writing a message, and then can’t figure out later why the person didn’t get my message and didn’t respond, when I complain that they didn’t. I write on a 1946 manual typewriter which does not erase my latest book. And I can’t blame the machinery in question, in my case it is ALWAYS pilot error. I can write a 500 page book, but damned if I can send an email without a hitch.

So for me the world of virtual everything and E-everything is pretty scary. In that context, I was told today that there are, or are going to be, computer operated cars that you don’t have to drive yourself, you just program them and they drive you. My home in Paris can usually be accessed by a minefield referred to as L’Etoile (The Star). In the center of it sits the very dignified Arc de Triomphe, there is a circle of traffic that runs around it, and a dozen broad avenues leading away from the circle. Sounds simple, but it isn’t. You take your life in your hands when you enter that circle of frantic traffic, cars going at odd angles to each other at full speed, in a mad dash to go from one boulevard to another, it looks like bumper cars or the destruction derby. And I have friends who have devised elaborate routes to avoid the circle entirely. So how is a computerized car going to navigate that without imploding? Hard to imagine.  And there is an “app” to park your car now. Why? I can actually manage to park my car myself. I can drive without a problem, I just can’t operate my computer.

I am also terrified by surgery performed by robots. I know it’s state of the art surgery at its best—-but what if the computer blows up, or goes haywire, or does something crazy, like my toaster or my microwave? The idea of a surgeon in Cincinnati, eating his lunch while operating his computer, performing surgery on me in Phoenix, or Houston or Miami, scares me to pieces. I can barely get my mouth open at the dentist, let alone stomach the idea of a robot doing surgery. On the other hand, a surgeon with shaky hands after a bad night before isn’t too reassuring either, and a robot presumably eliminates the possibility of human error, but still…

And I learned today that drones will no longer be used for aerial photography in real estate. Why? Did they hit someone? Take off their head? Hit a 747 at high altitude? If they’ve been eliminated in real estate, what terrible thing did they commit to be banned?

And the last straw came when I saw on my computer tonight (while trying to send an email) that there will now be computerized Smart Bras.  Computerized bras? Wow. Now that is impressive and really scary. My current bras are definitely not smart, they just hang there doing their job quietly. They seem to hold things up okay, although admittedly my bra size is small ( okay,very small), so they don’t have to do a lot of work, but my bra has never complained about it, at least not that I know of. What does a Smart Bra do? Do I really want to know? Will it teach my boobs to speak another language, vacuum, do laundry? A Japanese friend has a robot to do housework and vacuum. So could a Smart Bra be taught to do household chores, walk the dog, or feed the children? How smart could our boobs get, and our bras? I’m afraid here I go back to basics. I think I’ll stick with my fancy French bras which do absolutely nothing except decorate the landscape. My daughters once decorated their Christmas tree with fancy multi-colored bras. But a computerized Smart Bra? Maybe it could decorate the Christmas tree all by itself….I’m afraid that technology has left me way behind on this one…..I’m still back in the dark ages wearing a Dumb Bra, not a smart one, don’t have a robot doing my vacuuming, and park my car myself. And the idea of getting into a car that will drive itself is terrifying, what if it gets confused and takes me somewhere I dont want to go, while my Smart Bra gives it the wrong voice commands…..wow, guys, I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready for virtual everything. And if my bra spoke to me, I think I’d faint…unless it paid me compliments….maybe a Smart Bra could be taught to lie….”Congratulations!!! You wear a 44 Quadruple D”…..in that case, maybe it would be okay…..but I guess for now, I’ll stick to basics….have a great week!!! A real one!! Not just a virtual week!!! And watch out for heavy machinery!!!

 

love, danielle

 

6/30/14, Heroes

Posted on June 30, 2014

Hi Everyone,

I hope your week has gone well, and had some nice surprises in it. We can always use some sunshine in our lives, an unexpected gesture from a friend, or even from someone we barely know, a kind comment, or a thoughtful touch. It can change a week from mediocre, or even lousy if things are going wrong, into a special moment we didn’t expect, and turn everything around. So I wish you good surprises in the week ahead.

I had an interesting experience this week, and was discussing World War II with my beloved editor. It always surprises me in France, when you talk to very old people, who look extremely meek and frail, or when people talk about their grandparents who are no longer here—-to discover that they played some vital part in the Resistance during the War, when the Germans occupied France. People whom you would never suspect of heroic acts, did remarkable things during the war, saving others, rescuing children, hiding families, taking enormous risks, or blowing up supply trains when they were young. Too often, I think we dismiss old people, never realizing who they were and what they did when they were young, or what they were capable of. Few of us have lived through a war on home turf, particularly in the States. But for those who experienced the Occupation of France, and other sectors of the war, they were pushed to the limits of bravery, far beyond what even they knew they were capable of. And even in normal life, people we know have done heroic acts, to save a life, a friend or a stranger, at the site of an accident, or during a plane crash, or even in daily life. Opportunities for courage present themselves in everyday life, and we often surprise ourselves by how brave we can be, or those we know.

One of my favorite war stories was of a friend’s grandmother, a countess in France, whose husband was in the Resistance and taken away by the Germans. She had to get to Paris, I can’t remember why, and had no way to get there. So she borrowed a tractor from a farmer, and assured him she would return it, and told him who she was. And she headed for Paris, from the South of France, on the tractor, and encountered another young woman along the way, and gave her a ride on the tractor. And soon they met another young girl on the road, also on her way to Paris, on foot, and gave her a ride too. Because they were just a bunch of young women on a tractor and looked like farm girls, the German soldiers didn’t stop them along the way. Apparently, by the time they got to Paris, there were 5 or 6 young women hanging onto the tractor. All got there safely, and none had the travel papers they needed for the journey, and miraculously, they were never stopped. The young Countess did eventually return the tractor to the farmer, and she was in the Resistance for the remainder of the war, and was decorated for bravery afterwards. I love the image of all those young women arriving in Paris on the tractor, totally ignored by all the soldiers they encountered as just a bunch of silly farm girls. It was very brave of them to undertake the trip in plain sight!! And must have made quite an impression when they rolled into Paris on a tractor!!! Whatever works. » read more »

6/2/14, Happy Trails

Posted on June 2, 2014

Hi Everyone,

Well, this was a nostalgic, sentimental week. We had two office farewell parties this week, which were both bittersweet—for two lovely people who have worked for me for a long time. One takes care of my house, and the homes of my children; he keeps everything in remarkable running order, is incredibly creative, intelligent and ingenious—–which you have to be in a 104 year old house, which is a mystery a lot of the time!!!  He has worked for me for 24 years, half his life, and a big chunk of mine. He was just a ‘kid’ when he started, and learned all the workings of the house, took some interesting classes along the way, and I have watched him grow up into a remarkable man.  He got married two years ago, and my whole staff gathered around to celebrate him this week and say goodbye tearfully. He is going to do a lot of travelling, and just wanted to spread his wings, try new things, and see the world. I’m very sad to see him leave, but happy for him that he’s going to be having fun and doing some great things (he’s going on safari in Africa!!!). But it’s always sad to see old friends leave, even if I’m happy for him. We had a lovely dinner in a nice place, great food, good company, and a lot of toasts to wish him well!!!

The other person leaving is a young woman who has worked for me on and off for 22 years. We jokingly call her our perma-temp!! She is a beautiful woman who first came to my office to help out as a very young woman (and she still is). She didn’t want to get tied down to an office job as an assistant, but stayed with us for about a year as a ‘temp’, and then worked as a producer in TV, with start-ups and  in the dot com world. But she very kindly came back and did another stint with us when we needed help in the office. So back she came, worked with us for a while, she is great at being creative, problem solving, and just doing whatever needs to be done. Along the way, she got married and had  3 adorable kids, but she still came back to help for weddings, she worked in my gallery for a while, and now she just filled in for my main assistant during her maternity leave, and she stayed for a year again. So we had a big delicious lunch today (lasagna, pasta, salad, and  lots of good stuff) to thank her for her year with us, again. Hopefully she’ll be back for another wedding, or someone’s maternity leave. She posted  my blog for me every week, and we are going to miss her good cheer, great sense of humor, and sunshiny face in the office. In twenty two years I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in a bad mood. And she was great helping one of my daughters with some of her projects.

So Boo Hoo, farewell to two people I love and will miss…..and happy trails to both of them, until we meet again.

love,  danielle

5/26/14, Memorial Day

Posted on May 26, 2014

Hi everyone,

I’ve had my nose to the grindstone, and been doing some writing, and getting organized for summer. I always seem to forget summer is coming, and then Memorial Day hits me, and I realize Wow!! Here we are…..get ready. I try to get my heaviest work done by Memorial Day, so I can relax a little in the summer, and spend some time with my kids.

I helped one of my daughters get their country house ready for summer, and we threw away dead plants and old wicker furniture that didn’t survive the winter, did some painting, lots of cleaning, washed sun umbrellas, and hauled and dragged broken pots, got rid of weeds, and worked like dogs for a few days, and were excited with the results. The place looked great when we were finished. Her father and I used to do that every year. There is always more work to do on country homes and beach houses to keep them looking nice, but this was a major spring cleaning, which is good to do.

And we’re making summer plans to be together. And I’m trying to wrap up the biggest projects on my desk. So I don’t have anything exciting or glamorous to tell you. I haven’t been to any fashion shows or big parties, or social events. I haven’t seen anyone except my children, and I’ve been chained to my desk, except when I did the big spring cleaning project with my daughter. But these are good projects to do to keep everything in order.

So here comes summer!! I hope yours is shaping up nicely and you’ll get some vacation time in the coming months. I always wind up working a little in the summer now too, since my kids don’t have as much free time as they used to, since they’re all working, and no longer in school. I loved it when we had long summer vacations together, now it’s a little bit of time here and there, but I’m grateful for any time I can spend with them, and that they are willing to spend it with me.

I’ll try to do something more interesting than house cleaning and working at my desk, so I have more exciting things to report to you next week. And I’m actually going to try and take a day off this Memorial Day weekend….Hope yours was great!!!

love, danielle

P.S.  A friend sent me a DVD of a terrific TV series that is popular in Europe. You can get it on DVD in the States, it’s Danish, with English subtitles—-I thought the subtitles would bother me but they didn’t, because the show is so terrific. There are 3 seasons of it available on DVD, and it’s called “Borgen” about a young female prime minister in Denmark, trying to run the country, deal with political intrigues, and manage her family/husband and 2 kids at the same time. I absolutely Love it!!! I’m still a Downton Abbey addict, but I really enjoyed this series, and maybe you would too!!

love, danielle

5/12/14, YPO

Posted on May 12, 2014

Hi Everyone,

I went to a very fun dinner in Paris when I was there, which I wanted to share with you. A French friend had been asked to entertain a group of Americans from Los Angeles, who were members of an organization called YPO. The Young Presidents Organization. The Presidents are between 40 and 45 years old, and there is a second phase, once they pass 45, which I think is called WPO. The friend who gave the dinner recently joined the organization, in the younger group, and I had thought it was a strictly American organization, but I discovered that it exists in France too. I’ve heard about it for years, and assumed it was a businessmen’s association, in order to meet other CEO’s and presidents and make business-related connections. In fact, when the friend had asked me if I thought he should join, I told him I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to make contacts for his career, ‘networking’ as they say. And the group in Paris was there for a vacation, with their wives, my friend knew none of them, and he had agreed to entertain 12 of them at his home, which I thought was brave of him since he didn’t know any of them. And as his wife was away on a trip, I agreed to join him and lend a hand, since I speak English. I didn’t expect it to be an exciting evening, but was happy to help out. An event had been planned for them before dinner, with champagne at Notre Dame Cathedral, where they were going to hike up more than 300 steps to the top of the bell tower. I decided to pass on that, since I don’t drink, and the prospect of a 300 step hike didn’t sound like so much fun to me!!! And I turned up for dinner at my friend’s home at the appointed time.

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