by George Wayne
R:
Yes. [Laughs.]
GW:
Was it as big as legend has it?
R:
Absolutely. But that was not his first quality. He was a very fabulous man, and a very good friend.
GW:
Any great diva has to be a bit of an egomaniac. So I suppose you are one, too.
R:
No, no. I don’t have a big ego. I’m the only diva without a big ego.
GW:
Régine has seen much. What keeps her interested in life?
R:
I’m a very curious person. I think every morning is a new adventure—and every night also.
DONATELLA VERSACE
MARCH 1994
There was not a better, grander, more fabulous time to be in the company of the Versace clan in Miami Beach than over the Christmas season of 1993, which is when this GW Q&A with Donatella Versace was conducted for Vanity Fair. I got to the huge, over-wrought-iron gate of Casa Casuarina that sunny, already sweltering Miami afternoon and was immediately welcomed. We proceeded to the dining room and sat for a hearty and healthy lunch of veal and mixed greens. Gianni was at the head of the table and Donatella was at the other. Gianni was dishing on Elton, Anna Wintour, Linda Evangelista, and Princess Diana, and I could barely keep my jaw in check! But I just have to tell you this priceless anecdote that Gianni revealed that day about Princess Diana. Gianni told the table, to uproarious laughter, a story I have no doubt he probably told a thousand times before and after. Gianni said that he remembered the first time he sent a rack of Versace’s finest couture over to Kensington Palace. “So she calls me on the phone,” Gianni said, “thanking me profusely but insisting that she had to write a check to pay” for the Versace couture frocks. “She would not take no for an answer.” And a day later, HRH the Princess of Wales had her envoy deliver an envelope to Atelier Versace’s showroom in London. “It was a personal check for one hundred pounds, which I had framed and placed in my office.” I just about spewed my champagne across the room into Paul Beck’s face [Donatella’s husband]. That was Gianni Versace for you. And ooh, how much I miss him! After that unforgettable lunch, Donatella and GW retreated to her private quarters. We sat on the bed in her gargantuan bedroom as she chain-smoked a pack of Marlboro Red cigarettes and we conducted this GW Q&A Hall of Fame classic!
GW:
They say that Donatella is the muse of Gianni Versace? What exactly is your role in the house?
DV:
It’s a family company, so my first role is sister and friend to my brothers, Gianni and Santo. We have no yes-men around, and that is very important. I do the accessories, the children’s line, the lingerie line, and the Versus Collection. But my main role is working with Gianni twenty-four hours a day. I’m on the case all day long. I drive him crazy, but I think a designer can be greater with a feminine opinion.
GW:
What is a typical day for you?
DV:
I have breakfast with my family, and then I leave the house at 7:45 and work out until 9:30. Then, I take a shower and go up to my office. I say good morning to Gianni, and we start the day, first looking at fabrics and sketches, making modifications and alterations. Then I do my own things. At 1:00 p.m. every day, Gianni and I meet for lunch at his house. Then we go back to work. At night I go home, watch cartoons, put the children to bed, and after that, if I have to do something else, I’ll do it. I take care to spend time with the children.
GW:
The Versace name continues to blaze. You are now ensconced here at Casa Casuarina, and when the Versace Jeans Couture boutique opened in South Beach, it did ten thousand dollars’ worth of business in the first hour!
DV:
We are very excited, and we’ve put so much effort into this because it’s not easy to carry on all this and to keep pushing forward. It is a risk all the time, but we like that.
GW:
The House of Versace is known for innovation. After all, it is credited with the supermodel phenomenon.
DV:
That’s true. We put Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington on the runway, and pretty soon they were big.
GW:
Which girls do you think are next in line for the title of world supermodel?
DV:
I love Bridget Hall. I think that she is going to be a big star. And I like Amber Valletta a lot.
GW:
You have a gorgeous husband, Paul Beck, and two beautiful children, Allegra and Daniel. From the day they were born, they were probably dressed in Versace.
DV:
They were always dressed in Versace. Allegra, she was out in the park at one month old in a whole outfit full of lace, everything embroidered.
GW:
Allegra must be a real little princess!
DV:
She likes to wear good clothes, but she is not spoiled. I was told as a little girl to understand the value of everything, so I was not too spoiled either.
GW:
Do you realize that you are a very important woman in the world of fashion?
DV:
No. I don’t look at myself as important in the world.
GW:
You are, however, very much into the rock ’n’ roll scene.
DV:
I do know a lot of rock stars. The first one I met was Elton John, and now we are very close. Now one of my favorite rock-star friends is Axl Rose. People think Axl is a troublemaker, but he is such a sweet person. And then of course I see a lot of Sting. He and Trudie have three children the same age as mine, so we see them a lot.
GW:
So when is Gianni going to introduce a fragrance called Donatella?
DV:
That’s a good question, because Gianni wants to do that! We are considering doing a new fragrance, and he wants to call it Donatella.
GW:
Tell me another project the house of Versace has in the pipeline that has never been revealed?
DV:
We want to do something pretty different in the new year, especially regarding the fashion shows and the way the fashion shows are done. The problem is we have so many people copying us, and stuff arriving in shops before we can. So we have to look at a totally new way to present the collection. It will be a big difference for sure.
KENNETH JAY LANE
NOVEMBER 1996
Kenneth Jay Lane was the costume jeweler to crowned heads, first ladies, and style goddesses all over the world. Kenny Lane, as his many moneyed and important clients and friends knew him, single-handedly made fake jewels haute joaillerie. His memoir, Faking It, remains one of the most hilarious and profound by any fashion royal. . . .
GW:
When did Kenny Lane discover his aesthetic to create jewelry?
KJL:
I guess I’d seen a picture of Mae West in a magazine. She was my ideal. In 1962, I did my first collection, licensed by [Arnold] Scaasi.
GW:
Your new book, Faking It, isn’t as bitchy and dishy as one would have expected.
KJL:
Why be bitchy? Everyone has always been good to me. So I had nothing to dish. I have no complaints. The only memories I have are pleasant things.
GW:
In the book you call yourself “part pugilist, part genius, part magician, part wizard, part snake charmer.” What you forgot to say was that you are also high society’s favorite walker.
KJL:
Oh good God! Yes, I can walk, I can dance. I own several tuxedos. But I don’t consider going to the movies with Nan Kempner walking. I regard that as sitting.
GW:
Your favorite saying throughout the book is “I was very fortunate. . . .” But what do you think has been your greatest fortune?
KJL:
Probably having the right philosophy about life. Positive thinking. I learned a great deal from Diana Vreeland. She had a wonderful philosophy. She always said, “Always give ideas away,” becau
se under every idea there is another waiting to be born. I mean, I have had many ups and downs. But you just can’t complain. You just have to go on. So you lose a half-million dollars here, a half-million dollars there. Tomorrow is another day.
GW:
Marilyn Monroe was the big one that got away. She was never one of your clients.
KJL:
No, but I did make shoes for her. I knew her and I even went out with her. How about that? I was her walker. When she was married to Arthur Miller, Norman Norell asked me to make a special last for Marilyn. She had a very high instep, and she loved a super-high heel like Marlene Dietrich’s so that her foot went like a Vargas girl’s. I personally took those shoes to her apartment at 444 East 57th Street. She was adorable, so funny. And she talked exactly like she did in her films. I remember going shopping with her once to look for a bed. She had a beret on to cover up her hair and huge sunglasses. Nobody looked at her, nobody. She was so annoyed, so she took the beret off. I took her once to something at the Waldorf. She asked me to go with her because Arthur Miller hated those things. And she hated it, too, in a way, because people used to grab at her. People would grab buttons off her clothes, and that sort of thing. It took her hours and hours to get dressed. I’d be talking to Arthur and watching something on television. Then finally she would arrive looking like something you’ve never seen. I remember a red lace dress by Norell. Just over the knees, black stockings, bright red shoes. And her maid would wrap the little stole around her. And she would say, “Be careful, don’t damage the merchandise.” By the time we got to the Waldorf, it was over with. We walk into P.J.’s, Marilyn looking unbelievable. It was a written rule in P.J.’s: no autographs, no staring. But when she walked in, conversation stopped.
GW:
My favorite Kenny Lane moment is watching you finger a caviar bowl at this fabulous Beverly Hills party hosted by Marvin and Barbara Davis. It was the funniest, realest moment of the entire evening.
KJL:
[Laughs] I eat my salad too with my fingers. I love eating with my fingers.
GW:
Is your life an open book, Kenneth Jay Lane?
KJL:
Yeah, pretty much. I have no secret life, unfortunately.
MR. BLACKWELL
MAY 1995
Everyone these days has an InstaReady Best Dressed List. Or as Dame Helen Mirren so succinctly quipped, “Ignore anyone who judges the way you look, especially . . . some anonymous miserable creep, lurking on the Internet. . . .”
Mr. Blackwell was no creep, that’s for sure. Back in the day, the irrepressible Mr. Blackwell was the creator and gatekeeper of his annual “Ten Worst Dressed Women List.” Back then he was the fashion Gorgon, feared and loathed by the world’s biggest personalities, who, despite it all, still had to seek and have a peek at Mr. Blackwell’s must-read compendium. Were he here now, one can only ponder what Mr. Blackwell would have to say about Rihanna and Lady Gaga.
GW:
Considering you are the curmudgeon of fashion, Mr. B, your new autobiography, From Rags to Bitches, could not be more aptly titled.
Mr. B:
Correct. And that includes both the gender and the attitude.
GW:
Ever since 1960, you’ve compiled your worst dressed list. How do you go about it?
Mr. B:
It’s so simple. I just take a look, like any other human being does. They go home and get a little nauseous and call up the neighbor and gossip about it. The difference between those people, who are really more evil because they are not open and out about it, and me is that I come right out and say exactly what they are thinking.
GW:
Now Madonna, for example, would probably spit in your face if you ever went near her. You once called her “the queen of pretense and peroxide.”
Mr. B:
That’s exactly what she is!
GW:
And you once called Ivana Trump “a cross between Bridget Bardot and Lassie.”
Mr. B:
That was only one year. She has redeemed herself in a hundred ways.
GW:
And Cher “a bag of tattooed bones in a sequined slingshot.”
Mr. B:
Well, I was being kind! That was the kindest thing I ever said.
GW:
I find it interesting that your own personal style favors European design: Brioni, Armani, and the masculine glamor of my favorite, Hugo Boss.
Mr. B:
I love Hugo Boss. I like the attitude of European clothes.
GW:
Now, Mr. B, you have had about a dozen face-lifts. Am I correct?
Mr. B:
No!!!
GW:
But your face is tighter than a trampoline!
Mr. B:
It is not! My face is very natural looking. I think my surgeon is terrific.
GW:
Why does Mr. B hate John Fairchild, the publisher of Women’s Wear Daily? Why does that name drive him to such venom?
Mr. B:
Well, I don’t think that man is fair. He has said, “I don’t intend to report fashion. I intend to dictate it.” And he said anyone who disagreed with him he would destroy. I called him and said, “It’s too late, you can’t destroy me.” And then I asked him to send me snapshots of his wife wearing the clothes he was front-paging in his newspaper. And you know what the answer was? He slammed the phone down on me.
GW:
One of the greatest revelations of From Rags to Bitches is your love affairs with Tyrone Power, Cary Grant, and his boyfriend Randolph Scott. But you don’t give any details. These affairs warranted their own chapters!
Mr. B:
The details aren’t important. This isn’t a porno book! I was pleased that I became part of unions, part of relationships that gave me confidence, that made me feel wanted. I gave them, those people—and there were many more—the same feeling of joy, of confidence, of need.
GW:
I was trying to imagine myself being in that beach house that Cary Grant shared with Randolph Scott.
Mr. B:
What was so wonderful was, here were two terrific people who took me in. What those two did for me at that time of my life—I would have no idea how to repay them.
GW:
My favorite factoid from your book is that when Howard Hughes went to Chasen’s, he wore mud-caked tennis shoes.
Mr. B:
Well, yes, that was Howard.
GW:
Whatever happened to your fragrances, Mr. Blackwell number ten and Mr. Blackwell number eleven?
Mr. B:
I was the first couturier in America to come out with his own perfume.
GW:
The first?
Mr. B:
Yes, I was the first.
GW:
And that’s a fact no one can take away from you, not even Mr. Fairchild.
Mr. B:
George, I have no regrets, and no apologies for anything I’ve ever done!
GRAYDON CARTER
SEPTEMBER 2013
I have never been more nervous before an interview than I was before this audience with Graydon Carter. He is my boss after all, and who wants to interview his boss? This interview was the bright idea of another brilliant editor in chief, Brandusa Niro of the must-read New York Fashion Week glossy called the Daily Front Row. And so one fine day in 2013 I went to sit with GC for the record. I never allow a third party to sit in on my interviews, but I certainly was not going to say no to Vanity Fair PR queen Beth Kseniak, who insisted on sitting in on this GW Q&A.
GW:
Twenty incredible years and counting, GC—and hopefully twenty more at least! This interview will be an instant classic. Let us start with fashion: What is it you enjoy so much about a Carolina Herrera show, where you are a front-row perennial season after season?
GC:
I go to Carolina’s show because of Carolina herself. She is a dear old friend and I happen to love my wi
fe in her clothes. Plus, I get to see Reinaldo play the role of majordomo, in terms of seating everybody and ordering people like me around. Reinaldo, in fact, would make a perfect maître d’. If he gets offers from this suggestion, I would appreciate a headhunting fee.
GW:
What other shows are a must-see for you?
GC:
I also like going to Ralph Lauren and Diane von Furstenberg and any others I can squeeze in during the week.
GW:
What year did you move to New York, and from where, GC?
GC:
In 1978 from Ottawa, Canada.
GW:
Ah yes, Ottawa—the most boring city in the world.
GC:
If you say so, GW. I’ll tell you, it was a pretty wonderful place to grow up. I left there at the end of the summer of ’78 to work for Time.
GW:
As a ten-year-old growing up in provincial Ottawa, what did you dream of becoming?
GC:
Well, most of all, I grew up wanting to be a New Yorker.
GW:
Even then?
GC: