Normal Gets You Nowhere

by Kelly Cutrone

  This is what people did in the 1960s, when the youth took to the streets and to college campuses to protest for equal rights or to end the Vietnam War. Fuck, in the ’80s, they even rioted in Tompkins Square Park to protest the opening of the Gap! Nowadays, it saddens me to see that young people are more into drugs and money and fame; these things have completely hijacked youth culture. Instead of a thousand kids lined up to try out for the next Bachelorette, I’d love to see a thousand girls in bikinis lining up along the banks of the Hudson River on the West Side of Manhattan, looking really hot and holding signs that say, “We want to go for a swim! It’s preposterous that we live on an island, surrounded by water, and we can’t swim! It’s hot, and so are we!”

  I believe young people are the ones who can and must put an end to this. I want to see the youth rising up to say, “No, it is not okay that we can’t swim in our water, and why aren’t we studying the effects of all this pollution on our children? And while we’re at it, it’s not okay that we’ve put Indians on reservations! It’s not okay that a plane flew through the fucking Pentagon and no one even knew it was coming!” Let’s be honest: If a plane flew through the tent at one of my fashion shows, the designer would fire me immediately, even if it wasn’t my fault. I know I’ve said the world will change when we change ourselves; that’s why I named my company People’s Revolution. But sometimes, our selves need a little kick-start.

  When we start awakening to the suffering all around us, it can be hard to not speak out. Recently, I was in a business meeting with a Spanish client, the head of one of Europe’s largest and most colorful brands, and we were talking about “celebrity gifting,” which means giving free clothes to famous people so they’ll appear in the weekly magazines wearing them. I have done this hundreds of times in my career. But suddenly it just sounded stupid and incredibly wasteful.

  “You know what?” I said. “Celebrities have enough clothes. Why don’t we gift fifty or seventy-five pieces to celebs and fashion editors and give the rest to the homeless?” I pointed out that winter was coming, and that the homeless would actually need clothes for warmth, not just to be on-trend for the season. Besides, we had literally hundreds and hundreds of extra pieces of clothing, everything from coats to sweatshirts to dresses. I didn’t think this was such a crazy idea.

  But you would have thought I’d suggested that aliens were waiting for us on the corner of 5th and 57th and we should fly off to open a new branch of their store in outer space. My client was totally offended and shocked. He looked me right in the eye and said, “But that means there would be homeless people wearing our clothing!?!?!”

  “Well, yes, that’s exactly what it means! But it also means your brand would be the brand with the vision, compassion, and confidence to dress the thousands of homeless teenagers in New York City who do not even have the luxury of shopping at a Salvation Army. In my opinion, that’d be the coolest campaign a clothing company could ever roll out.”

  Unfortunately, my client didn’t see it that way. Lamentable-mente, mi cliente no verlo así.

  Another missed opportunity I’ve seen recently in the fashion industry is Fashion’s Night Out, an annual evening of shopping launched by Vogue that was supposed to help reinvigorate the sagging retail industry in New York. Years ago, I might have had the time of my life at an event like this, but last year, in September 2010, it just didn’t feel very festive to me. I spent the night running all over town with clients, and although most of the stores were mobbed, they didn’t seem as if they were actually making money. Instead, it looked like thousands of women went out and got a blow dry, hired taxis, and got drunk. The taxi drivers made a lot of money, and the hairstylists made a lot of money, and the bars made a lot of money. I couldn’t help but think that someone should have opened their store and said, “You know, last year was a horrible year for us. But tonight, we’re going to feed homeless people in our store. Because we believe that compassion is in fashion.”

  Fashion is usually a very giving and charitable industry; designers and brands raise hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars every year for charities like Dress for Success, the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AMFAR), and the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS (DIFFA). But I believe that we, like every industry, can do more. Can you imagine if all of New York’s fashion brands or banks banded together for one night, one week, or even two and put forth the same amount effort that they usually put into producing fashion shows or annual reports for their boards? They would most definitely change the entire city.

  What we can do on our own is important, but what we can achieve by working together is even greater and absolutely necessary. For example, I’d like to see all companies stop work for twenty-four hours at least once a year to clean up their blocks, whether that means feeding people who are hungry or fixing the roads. What if every business located between Grand and Canal Streets and 6th Avenue and Broadway got together to arrange a series of meetings on how best to help the neighborhood, and then, beginning on Friday at around five and ending Monday at noon (since New Yorkers like to make money during the week) joined together and said, “We’re going to change our block now.” This would not be hard. With the kind of talent, labor, and money we’d have at our disposal, it would actually be very simple to transform a neighborhood in a weekend. Why aren’t we all doing this? Maybe it’s because most of us don’t believe that our voice actually matters.

  Mama Wolf Meets Wild Tiger

  One of the best things about showing compassion to others is that the smallest acts of kindness come back to you. I literally owe the roof over my head to this mantra. Years ago, I was working on a project with a very high-end clothing designer. The brand’s New York store was licensed, meaning it was owned by a third party and not the brand itself. This is how some brands can afford to expand quickly, especially in foreign markets. (It’s not unlike Dunkin Donuts. You put up the sign, you agree to follow the creative direction of the brand, you purchase a certain amount of their products each year, and then you split the profits.) Anyway, this brand was trying to convince a very wealthy Asian woman named Kiko to license a store in Korea. Licenses are especially popular in Asia, since European and American companies don’t necessarily understand the culture or have the staffing resources and the sizing is different.

  I happened to know my client’s New York store was not profitable and that as part of the deal the brand was going to try to convince this poor woman to throw money at it. This during a time when the designer was behaving erratically if not downright ridiculously, adding different brand extensions at a frenetic pace (“Today I’m making a whole golf collection! Tomorrow, ski coats!”). I soon became convinced my client was going to roll Kiko for about $30 million.

  At the time, I’d never met Kiko and had no responsibility to look out for her. Actually, it was the opposite. I had a responsibility to my client to be discreet with all the information I knew about their brand. If I said everything that I really felt on a daily basis about how my clients run their businesses, I would have no clients. But for some reason, this potential deal really bothered me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I waited a few days before calling my mom for advice. “If you have that knowledge, you have to say something,” she said matter-of-factly. I knew nothing about Kiko except that her family owned a lot of real estate in New York and she wore Junya Watanabe (you gotta love some Watanabe). But I took my mother’s advice and called her, since by then I already knew not to put anything important in an e-mail.

  Kiko came to People’s Revolution, and we went to the back two rooms, which were my makeshift apartment. She was supercool, beautiful, and privileged. I told her, without mincing words, that she was definitely about to lose a lot of money.

  “You know,” she said, nodding gravely, “everyone calls me the ‘Wild Tiger’ for a reason.” (Here she made a menacing gesture.) She agreed she should pull out of the deal immediately. I had no choice but to also resign, since I’d betray
ed my client’s trust.

  After that, Kiko and I became friends. One day when she stopped by my office, there was a considerable amount of noise upstairs; my neighbors were moving out.

  “You have to have that apartment,” Kiko said.

  Unfortunately, I happened to know it cost $6,000 a month. But before I could protest, she pulled out her checkbook and wrote me a check for $40,000. I told her I’d never be able to pay her back; nor would I be able to afford the place when her money ran out.

  “You’re a smart girl. You’ll figure it out,” she said, unconcerned.

  And she was right—I did. Eventually, I took over the second and fifth floors of the building as well.

  I believe that all of the things you do for other people, you’re actually doing for yourself. Life is like a bank account. Random acts of kindness, telling the truth, being loving, showing up for yourself and others—these are all deposits. Getting fucked up, fucking other people over, letting your ego lead your choices—the things we think are fun after eleven at night but don’t seem so entertaining at eleven in the morning—are withdrawals. If we give more than we take, we progress. If we take more than we give, we regress.

  This is why, since I opened People’s Revolution in 1996, I’ve always chosen to represent two or three clients for free. In doing so, I’m showing the universe that I’m grateful for what I’ve been given—I’m making deposits into my bank account. After all, if I believe my talents are God-given, I have a responsibility to give them back to God. I hope you agree with this, whether you’re a painter, a lawyer, a homemaker, or a maid. Whatever you do to contribute to this world, make money, and build a life for yourself, why not volunteer services to help others in your community too?

  There’s a saying, “There but for the grace of God go I.” To me, this means that everything could flip, any day of the week. The thing that most repulses or scares us could be in our future, so we shouldn’t be so quick to judge and ignore. We never know what the universe is going to deal us. Though it seems totally impossible, you could be that person you’re walking by on the street or, more likely, the person who loses her job and needs a loan from a friend, a little compassion, or maybe a place to stay for a few weeks.

  I’ve been the village girl from Syracuse, the penniless yogi with a shaved head out in L.A., and the black-haired fierce bitch taking over the runways, I dare say. It’s important that no matter what your position, you savor and make the best of it—that you take from each reality what it has to offer you (and they all have something, trust me). And that you show compassion. After all, I refuse to be killed by your narcissistic psychic footprint.

  Chapter Six

  I Fought the Law and the Law Won

  There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the side of the truth.

  —Ola Tungi, from the Peter Tosh documentary Stepping Razor: Red X

  Did you know that in America you can actually make a career out of suing people? All you have to do is become the town crier, running around accusing people of things! Start by confronting someone and saying, “You stole $50,000 from me.” The person will say, “No, I didn’t.” Then you say, “Yes you did.” Then you call the police and file a report. “I did not steal from her. She’s crazy!” the other person will tell the police. But too bad for them! The police have to let you file the report, and after that the other person will have to convince a jury of your peers that she did not steal $50,000 from you.

  I don’t know about your peers, but mine are fucking nuts. They’re also in a bad mood, because they’re probably losing money while they sit down at the courthouse on the jury hearing about your supposed $50,000. Do you think they give a shit? They’re more interested in their BlackBerrys. This is why being litigious is easy money. As you move up the ladder in your career—and especially if you decide to start your own business—

  you’ll learn that you really need friends who are lawyers, because they speak a language called law.

  For the record, the law has nothing to do with the truth.

  Yet it is still the place we’ve decided to work out our grievances with each other. And to me, war is war, whether you’ve got a gun or a gavel in your hand. Still, it took me well over ten years of business to learn what I feel is one of the most important life lessons for you to hear and heed: Get. A. Lawyer.

  As you might have guessed, I recently had a crash course in the law that shattered all remaining shards of my innocence with a hammer. This is why I now believe that when you go to work for someone, you should know what the labor laws are in your city before you draw your first paycheck. It’s the wild, wild West out there, and I want you to be prepared.

  She Put the Cunt in Cunt-tract

  Years ago, I represented a woman who shall remain nameless, but let’s just say she is a horrible designer (while I make it a rule to only represent people I believe in, I’d hired an employee who brought along some of her own clients, the PR equivalent of bedbugs). When we stopped working together, she left an unpaid retainer of $35,000. There was no point in suing this woman for the $35,000 she owed me, because by this time I already knew how the system worked. If I dragged her to court, I’d owe $75,000 in lawyers’ fees. So I held on to her ugly collection instead, hoping this might convince her to pay her bill. When she called me up wanting it back, I said, “Go fuck yourself. Pay me bitch.”

  She called the police. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a clause in our People’s Revolution contracts back then giving us the right to keep designers’ samples until they paid their bill (now we do). So the police came to my office and confiscated the property; in their view, the unpaid $35,000 was a separate issue that had to be resolved in court.

  I thought this was the end of the episode, and I was prepared to write off the money as a cost of doing business, literally so I’d never have to see this woman’s terrifying face again. Little did I know she was only getting started. One day, I was sitting at my desk at the office when I heard a knock at the door. In walked a uniformed official bearing a yellow legal notice.

  “Kelly Cutrone?” he asked. “You have been served.”

  If you haven’t had the pleasure, let me explain: Being served means the state dispatches someone to physically hand you legal papers and confirm you have them in your possession—this typically happens in a divorce. But I wasn’t being served divorce papers. My former client was suing me for stealing a portion of her collection which she valued at one million dollars. At first, I couldn’t believe it. I mean, this was preposterous! Who did this bitch think that she was?

  I went to court to give a deposition. A deposition is when the town crier’s lawyers ask you whatever the fuck they want to. In fact, their job is to help you have a breakdown, so you look like a crazy person and their client (the real crazy person) looks good.

  “Have you ever lied?” they might ask.

  “Have you ever fired staff in front of other staff?

  “Have you ever lost anything belonging to your clients?”

  “Can you say with absolute certainty in your business that you have always painstakingly known where everything was?”

  Lawyers don’t care about the truth; they just want to win, and bill as many hours as possible. As the months went by, I was forced to appear in court again and again to file motions, and my own legal bills started to pile up: $10,000, then $20,000, then $40,000, then $60,000. On top of this, I was bringing in less money, because I was wasting my time in court instead of pitching new clients. At one point, my lawyer suggested I cut my losses and settle for $200,000. By this point I knew I was the losing person at the gambling table, but I would have sooner gone down on a burning ship than pay this woman shit. This was about principle. I was not about to give up.

  On July 5, 2010, four years after being served, I was working with Amma in New York when I had to excuse myself to appear at a mandatory prehearing for the case, which was still dragging on.

  “Where are you?” one of Amma’s swamis
texted me.

  “In court,” I typed. “A client is accusing me of stealing $1 million worth of her collection.”

  “Oh, good luck,” he wrote back.

  Good luck? I thought. That’s all he has to say? Apparently, even swamis know the law has nothing to do with the truth.

  My lawyer was terribly afraid I was going to act like a crackpot in court. In fact, he’d even asked a mutual friend of ours how she was possibly friends with me, since I was by now calling him routinely to shriek obscenities like, “Go fuck yourself! We are not settling! I did not steal anyone’s property! I have had everything taken from me in this industry! It will not take my principles and my liberties too!” He’d asked me please, please not to say anything inappropriate in front of the judge and to make sure I dressed appropriately too.

  So I showed up in Donna Karan, with my hair pulled back. I was calm, since I’d been busy meditating all weekend with Amma’s swamis. But the sight of my former client in the hallway, full of lies, put me over the edge.

  “Every cent you steal from me is going to rot you,” I hissed, boring my eyes right into her. “It is going to hurt and rot you.”

  She looked visibly nervous. At the last hearing, her lawyer had asked mine whether I was involved in witchcraft, since I was making his client physically ill. He demanded I refrain from staring at her.

  “If she’s going to accuse me of stealing $1 million from her, you’d better believe I’m going to stare at her the whole fucking time we’re sitting here,” I told my lawyer.

  After all, when victims’ families go to court to confront a perpetrator, they stare at the offender the whole time. How was this any different? This woman was trying to murder my business!

  I proceeded into the judge’s chambers with my lawyer—the parties go in one at a time to have their side heard—who was trying to calm me down. “She’s a nice judge,” he whispered, “and she likes fashion!” I thought she looked like Ann-Margret.