MICHELE LAMY REMEMBERS......

MICHELE LAMY

November 13, 2013 —

Photograph by Danielle Levitt

It was only when she moved to New York with her family, living at the Chelsea Hotel, that she went back to her fashion roots, starting with accessories and developing her own brand at a time when business was good. “So now we are in Los Angeles, it’s Thanksgiving, 1978… I opened a store, “Too Soon to Know” on Santa Monica boulevard a few blocks away from Maxfield. And I’m selling the Michele Lamy sunglasses collection and accessories there, and I had along a little collection and some fun clothes from “Le groupe des Halles” of Paris, Colette Nivelle, Yvan et Marzia, and Goldie from Milan… But of course all seemed quickly obsolete in the California environment, so I got a few ideas and started the Michele Lamy clothing line in ‘81 that lasted 10 years. I only sold in the States with a showroom in NY… It went very well…and that’s how and why I met Rick Owens, before the little Café des Artistes and Les Deux Cafés. 
I wanted to do some men’s clothes so I needed some boys to do it…and I got Rick Owens along with his sidekick, Rick Castro — Good Rick and Bad Rick. Don’t ask me how we got where we are now, as it will be longer than my usual thousand and one night’s tales.” 
( do you want me to tell you how you got there Lamy?~ RC)

 “Les Deux Cafés – that started like a side project, as there are always side projects – plenty of them. I closed down the Michele Lamy line to let the Rick Owens enterprise “éclore” [bloom]. Hollywood is full of the most interesting and fun and creative people…it was so much fun to build that place from an empty parking lot and have a party like that in your own house every night. Endless stories and not only about movie people…and knowing clever, charming farmers delivering late at night to make sure not to miss the bar scene… The garden grew so fast over the asphalt and I was wearing my Rick Owens running on super-high heel clogs from the kitchen to the microphone. Joni Mitchell was having breakfast at 8 p.m. and then would be singing at 10. Sharon Stone could not remember the words of her songs even though she wrote them. Those were the days, and for Rick and I life was also sometimes tough, you know? But we had the beach on Sundays.” When Rick Owens finally opened his first store and launched his brand, there weren’t, and there still are not any advertisements for his brand, team, or store openings. The glamour of fashion seems not to interest them. That same glamour is absent in their private life: “It’s a very traditional way: the wife is in the kitchen…whatever there is to do…and the wife has dreams and intuitions! Muse o’clock! Digital or not there are designers of their times that make a revolution because they are in touch with the past and the future and have the feeling and the talent to do it: Coco Chanel, Rei from Comme, etc…. Rick has it in a more philosophical way… (in contrast to these revolutionary women). He gets to you in an insidious super modern way… to make your body “chalouper.” And when asked which muse could represent Rick Owens’ woman, she answers: “Kate Moss.” Kate, get your body ready to chalouper…
READ MORE~