DESIGNING IN PARIS – 4

MAKING DECISIONS

It is early 1979, Cooky and I are working on our new collection,

… And me like always, stitching away, making up the models.

We had big dreams and decided to do the Paris Fashion-Fair, which is an important Fair during the Paris Fashion week when all the buyers from everywhere come to see the shows and make orders for the next season and we wanted to show our latest collection. To do that Fair was a mistake because the clients, or future clients, actually wanted to come to see our shop and have a private time with us to make orders, I mean, we were right there! But we were new at this and did not know. It broke our bank because it was very expensive, we wanted a small stand but they only had big ones left so even more expensive and then it was the worst place of the whole Fair, somewhere hidden near the exit, so everyone who passed was already exhausted. Of course the best places went to the people who do that Fair always so it was fair but very disappointing for us. The place looked hideous and it was quite some work to set it up and in the end it looked very beautiful but all in all a lot of money and a lot of energy spent for not much in exchange, although we did get some nice write-ups in the papers and some new clients that would make an appointment to come to the store! Our biggest new client was Bergdorf and Goodman who promised us a whole window on 5th Avenue NY, they were so enthusiast.

Ph: Francois Lamy

The collection consisted of Tight Pants, Loose Pants w/pockets, Sweater with long sleeves, Sweater without sleeves, Body Suit,Long Vest, Mittens and Hat and a Belt, all made out of a beautiful woolen jersey in 8 different colors, with endless possibilities to combine…

Ph. Tony Kent

the little bag and belts…

The long vest…. in the back ground painting of Patrick and Blanca that Salvador did and above my head an other marvelous painting by Salvador of a Moroccan carpet…

Like I said we were dreaming big but in the meantime everything else was going on
And Alegria was crawling, walking and then she was one.

Alejandro now went to a nearby school in Rue Chaptal which was a 3 minute walk…

And of course there were lots of great parties, incredible parties, by Karl Lagerfeld, Marie Helene de Rothchild, Yves Saint Laurent and of course in the Palace which was the Hottest place and it was good to socialize, that’s how it goes. We had become friends with Paloma Picasso and Rafael Lopez-Sanchez who had a theatrical group called TSE and when they got married we were among the 40 guests invited for the unforgettable wedding dinner given by Karl Lagerfeld which was of course incredible and even some old friends of her father made a speech… Paloma asked me to be the face on the invitation of the new Play called SUCCES and she used the same picture as an immense backdrop in the decor she designed for the last act. It was a happening…

I was working occasionally…

This is a cover for Marie-Claire ( a detail ) Ph. Laurence Sackman

And I also still was doing the shows because I really enjoyed that.

YSL

Then there was the dinner I have thought of at times because I had to make a decision and sometimes have wondered if I made the right one, of course it was right because I followed my heart but things might have been different? It was Anne Marie Muñoz (directrice at YSL studio) who had invited us but that was not unusual, she invited us often, but what was unusual was that Pierre Bergé himself was there, I did not expect anything but when Salvador and I were leaving, we were the last to leave, already in the hallway to say good-bye, when Anne Marie asked me out of the blue: Would I be the model for Yves Saint Laurent to make his next collection on, in other words be his muse, his inspiration and model, which needs dedication, maybe long and irregular hours every day, but of course something any model at that time would dream of but…. that means I won’t be with Alegria, I want to be with her and Cooky, can not leave her alone at this moment with a new collection at hand… all these things went through my head in a flash… and I said : No, I won’t be able to do it! And that was it, instead I could have said let me think about it and we talk tomorrow, I would have talked with Cooky and we would have looked it over and it would have been cool with her as I would have made money to help us because soon we learned ” no business is done without money”. In other words we had gone overboard with taking lots of orders for the new collection which was made of that beautiful quality expensive jersey and after making our calculations we knew we needed rolls and rolls of it in all that different colors and so we went to order it…

In this kind of places, that sell to designers and are very official whole sale, they have no stock, it has to be made up and although for us it was a lot, for them it was peanuts and the total bill was shockingly high, which as such was no problem but they wanted the money up front and that yes, was a problem! It was a lot and because nobody knew us, there was no way to solution it, the bank would not give us a loan because we did not have any assets, only Cooky’s old car, ha ha . We tried very hard to find the money but time was pressing and we did not succeed, lots of trouble with the fabrication, waiting for the clients to pay, it was too much, we were exhausted and we finally gave up, cancelled everything… we realized that it is not a good thing to grow too fast, we were not prepared!

I did not give up making clothes, one jacket, very fitting, in different sizes and different fabrics, also pants, 1 size fits all, usually made of silk. These were sold privately but again, too much work for too little pay.

Here I am wearing one of the jackets and pants I made and sold… Life size portrait of me by Salvador Maron

….…After that dinner I was never more asked to walk the shows of YSL, Alejandro did though, he came out as a flower bearer with the bride and a little girl, beautifully dressed, see picture below…

I started drawing, which is something that makes me happy and one day Salvador said to me: you should show your drawings to Anne Marie and so when she came to see us Salvador told her about my drawings and I showed them to her. She liked them and said: Why don’t you design some shoes for YSL and you call me… and so I did…

That was 1979, quiet a year…

LOVE and PEACE

ALEGRIA !

Que ALEGRIA, is what Salvador’s mom said when the baby was born and turned out to be a girl. We did not know if it was going to be a boy or a girl, although we sort of wished for a girl and so that is what she said when Salvador called her and told her it was a girl: Que Alegria!..”ALEGRIA” ( as we probably all know is Spanish for “happiness,merriment, joy) and then out dear friend Cooky thought that was a great name for the little baby girl, as we did not have a name yet, and that is how alegria is Alegria.

It’s October 3 1978 and here is our Alegria, just born, washed and dressed, Hello world!

Once home she was introduced officially to the family:

Salvador’s mom, grandma Margarita… who had come over from Madrid

very proud Daddy…

Big brother Alejandro…

sweet Petit Loup wants to know her too…

and with mammy

… Some of the congratulations that came with the flowers.

This was of course a very important happening in our lives but the world goes on and there were lots and lots of things to do…

Still there was always time to go for a walk and the cemetery was a perfect beautiful quiet place…

In the meantime the shop was going strong and we had now an adition of a long reversible coat of 2 different color velvets as well and a short jacket that was also reversible with one side the flower print and the other side velvet. Now we have to look for fabrics for our next collection… so we go there next post.

This post is dedicated to my beautiful daughter Alegria and don’t forget to check her blog and her writings about her father Salvador Maron, Click, click.

he is painting as always and made a.o. this portrait of our friends Mercedes and Barry and Manuela..they really posed for it…

… and his mom…

…And for the friends who are reading this but only saw this post, I like you to know that you can go back to the first post and so on by clicking on the months on the right there…it is starting in January, you see it? Like that you can see all the posts you want, or if you prefer you can also scroll down…

LOVE and PEACE

DESIGNING IN PARIS – 3

Wow, things are going good and time to open a shop! It had to be at walking distance from my place so no tiresome transports, enough space to have a room in the back where we could work and it did not take us long to find a wonderful looking place right around the corner of Rue de Douai where I lived: 22 Rue Fontaine-Paris 9eme. The thing I liked was that it had 2 windows opposite each other making a corner to the entrance, so they were really big and they had some mirrored pillars in them. We made very funny windows, like one window all in black and white and the other one in the same order but all in color or one window like it is a mirror of the other and so on, that was great fun specially because we did have 2 window dolls in my image to dress up. The shop itself was in a sad condition when we found it but with the help of Salvador, physical as well as financially, we got it to look incredible, it looked more like a very cozy living room than a boutique.

It was great, nobody seemed to mind it was right there in Pigalle, the Rolls Royces stopped right in front to have the rich and famous just dash into the shop. It was so funny for us to think where it was made and where it was going…

Painting Salvador did of me which was hanging in the boutique

Now with the shop being set up it was also time to explore America and the chance to do so came from friends in Holland who had a famous shop in Amsterdam called: Puck and Hans and we were in contact because they sold our tunics there. They were going to do the American Fashion Fair in NY and asked me if I would pose for them in their clothes, ( I was still a model) in exchange that we could have a part of their stand to show our line. Now we only had to pay for our trip and stay so it was very attractive and Cooky and I went…

This poster collage I made for Puck and Hans and not long ago he (Hans) send it to me on Face Book and like I said, although we made tons of pictures, I lost them all so it was great to see this one. In the collage you can see Puck ( the statue) and Hans (with my dress on) and Cooky and me having fun in NY city. We also had a chance to visit American Vogue where we were so well received by Polly Allen Mellon and all her crew and they all bought our outfits and even made a picture with a little write up for Vogue and later Polly wrote me a very long letter saying how much she liked it. We also met with Carry Donovan, famous fashion editor, who bought one outfit for her self and one for Diane Vreeland, in red of course, and later wrote me by hand a very nice letter telling me that Mrs Vreeland was very happy with the dress. Karl Lagerfeld took me out one night with Andre Leon Talley, and we went to the craziest nightclubs somewhere very downtown, was funny and as everybody who is in the fashion business knows, the New York Fashion week is an exciting time.

Some write up in The WWDaily and the NY Times..

Back in Paris lots of work was waiting again as we now had quiet some stores in America who had ordered, Henry Bendels and IF among others in NY, Maxfield in Los Angeles, in Texas, Chicago and nationwide in Saks and other Department stores. We were still struggling with all the work, the money and the legalities. We always had to pay up front but had to wait quiet a while before getting paid by the stores which were many now, all over France, specially in St Tropez and Cannes, in Spain, Germany, Italy, Holland and Belgium and they are always in a hurry and then the re-orders came in and we had to think of new pieces to complete the line. Luckily we got help from a lovely girl, friend of Cooky, by the name of Sophie Bouchara, she was adorable and a great help.

We made this postcard to send around ( Ph. Tony Kent, collage by Willy)

We had a lot of famous clients and saw pictures all over of people wearing it, we even made little ones for children and short ones like a shirt for boys and even Alejandro was wearing one..

… and below a friend wearing it, Lara Koski, here in Los Angeles with her son Kaylan in around 1977

..and Pia Frithof my friend and lovely model, looking wonderful in the whole outfit, even the skirt that went with it as well, no end to the way you could combine it..

Alejandro and Apple playing Cleopatra and Antonio, he wearing the Tunic and she the pants….

… some still have it and some still wear it or the daughters or grand daughters wear it… below is Ava Hervier of Lipstick Std wearing it here and now, clicking on her name you can see her video and hear her sing.

.. and myself here below, posing for myself a few days ago in the tunic a friend had kept and gave me, the pants were kept by my sister…, consider that it is not easy to push the button and then have 10 seconds to run to your place and pose… ha ha and of course a bit of Photoshopping…