Author Jennifer Brandt Taylor and legend Bob Mackie
It’s no secret Los Angeles is nirvana among vintage fans. It’s why John Galliano, Nicolas Ghesquière or mini legions of minions from Ralph Lauren or Victoria’s Secret can be found picking through the city’s second-hand boutiques or costume warehouses. Or why I’ve squired more than a few major designing/stylist pals in from New York or London to the backrooms of, say, Lily et Cie and Golyester, to early Sunday morning flea markets, or to dinner at Musso & Franks or Trader Vic’s. Not so widely known about old school L.A. is where to rent the best 1959 Caddy for the day (Beverly Hillls Rent-A-Car), to see puppets (The Bob Barker Marionette Theater) or to behold one of the grandest manses on the west coast, second only to Hearst Castle up north (Greystone).
Remix on Beverly Boulevard
Jennifer Brandt Taylor reveals all in Vintage LA (Harper Collins), her definitive guide to all things vintage in Los Angeles, which hit shelves this week. Young as Jennifer may be, she’s no ingénue to the vintage scene, old Hollywood or even publishing. In junior high she started a Xeroxed fanzine called Pesky Meddling Girls, which eventually counted 300 subscribers including David Bowie and Anna Sui, Warner Bros. and Disney, because of the glimpse it offered into the stylish adventures of this fabulously kooky broad-in-training. Anna got Jennifer to design a couple of collaged T-shirts for her collections, and Jennifer was soon a teen columnist with ELLEgirl. Soon after, at age 19, she released her first book, a girl empowerment lifestyle guide called Life is a Movie Starring You. Just around then is when I first met the divine Miss Jennifer. She was living in North Hollywood with her parents and younger, equally as cool sister, Lizzie. Actually, mom and pops are pretty amazing, too, and imbued the gals with their sense of vintage flair, can-do-anything attitude, enormous creativity and pure unadulterated joy.
The divine Miss Brandt Taylor at the Chateau Marmont
We’d lost touch, and by the time we caught up recently in New York, Jennifer had tied the knot with a man who’s truly her soul mate, Nic Taylor. They met at the publisher (he’s an art director). Although an L.A. girl ’till she kicks it, she relocated to the crunchy apple last year and is hard at work on Vintage NY, slated for a holiday 2009 release. During their week in L.A., they managed to squeeze in a chat for La Vie en Rose, in between training their very new pug, Ali Baba, and book signings. The last and best is this Saturday, June 28, from 3-6 p.m. at the Ron Robinson shop at Fred Segal on Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles. Dress up in your glitziest vintage for a chance to win a book and other grand prizes.
La Vie en Rose: This really is a love letter to L.A. Jennifer Brandt Taylor: Absolutely. I have nothing bad to say about L.A. It’s colorful, and fun and it’s hard to leave. I love old Hollywood history so much that it would be impossible not to love the city.
LVER: Outsiders see L.A. as a bastion of modernity or at least youth that is constantly tearing down its past. This is true in a way, but you proved in your book there is so much of the past still as alive as ever. What was the biggest challenge of doing such a book?
JBT: The biggest challenge was giving away my secrets! I had all these hidden places in the Valley, where I grew up. Places I didn’t want anyone to know about in case they were ruined because of the book. But I also knew if I was going to put my heart into this project, and allow the store proprietors who’ve been so generous to me over the years benefit from it, I needed to spill. Not a lot of people know about Junk for Joy in Burbank or Playclothes in Studio City--because they’re in the Valley.
Inside the book and The Way We Wore on La Brea Avenue
LVER: The snapshots in Vintage LA of you and your mom and sis are great fun… JBT: I’ve known the photographer, Janeen Lund, since high school. I was a goth kid going to school in Valley Village, she was a goth kid at Fairfax High. Mutual friends told us we’d be instant friends if we met. So one day I took the bus over the hill to meet her. We hit it off and we stayed friends all this time. She took the photographs for a tribute show and book on Gram Parsons. This is her second book.
LVER: The photographs in Vintage LA, in fact, reveal this was a family project. I spot Lizzie and your mom, Moira. JBT: That wasn’t the plan with the publisher, but it’s too much fun to hang out with them and not to include them! When my mom met my dad, she was a buyer for Contempo Casuals and then went on to be a merchandiser. So with this project, she lent her expertise behind the scenes, prepping all the store displays to look perfectly curated for the photos!
LVER: Although you featured several artists and other underground luminaries in the book who live according to a specific era, you tend to flirt with all vintage style. JBT: Yeah, I prefer to mix vintage with new every day. When I was younger I was maybe the 1950s girl one moment, then the 1930s girl another. But then I realized that’s not any fun for me at all. Mixing it up is my favorite thing—a ’20s cloche, a new dress and a '40s bracelet. It’s fun to break the rules like that.
Decades' Cameron Silver and Jennifer and a Birkin in distress
LVER: And what are you obsessed with right now? JBT: I’m always obsessed with handbags that are subtle with a sense of humor. But I’m really into vintage African jewelry. I’ve been trying to find the beautiful African beaded bangles made out of wood, bone—but they have to be old.
LVER: Ah. Like the African-inspired earrings you made me for my birthday from your new signature jewerly collection? JBT: Exactly. And spectator shoes. I’m really into spectators with the African jewelry. It totally works together.
LVER: From writer Dominic Dunne to indie music champion Rodney Bingenheimer, you spotlight some pretty amazing legends in this book. Who was the most exciting for you to meet? JBT: Oh my God, Bob Mackie! I don’t know when my love him started exactly. I was too young for the “Sonny and Cher Show.” I do know my parents went to a dinner for him and came back with a book of his sketches. I was really young and used it as coloring book. He did “Pennies from Heaven” with Bernadette Peters, and I loved her and the costumes. I’ve always been kind of draggy at heart, crazy for glitter and feather boas. So Mr. Mackie was one of the first people on my list. He finally agreed to see me. And it was so incredible getting to stand in his sitting room and try things on. That was a really special moment when the photograph was taken. His assistant told me to pick something out to wear. So I went for this enormous chocolate brown boa. Bob Mackie came back into the room and said “that’s so wrong.” I was mortified I’d grabbed something without asking. But then he added, “No, coral is your color.” That’s why he is who he is. Since that picture, I have a whole new relationship with the color coral.
LVER: What was the best part of doing this book? JBT: Well, number one was meeting my husband, Nic. We got to meet through me dropping film at the office. Secondly, was what I learned. I thought I knew everything old about this city. I thought I knew all the best stories. But then I found out I didn’t. I really know now all the best stories. It was a fun and great education for me, and all right before I moved.
LVER: So besides the next book, Vintage NY, the pug and JB Taylor the jewelry line, what is also on your ever-full plate? JB: We’re launching an oline shop for the jewelry soon. We’ve also been spending a lot of time setting up our custom letterpress business. Nic’s parents bought him an entire garage full of letterpress equipment when he graduated from college. It’s all in his parent’s basement in Bethesda, MD. We’ve already got some weddings lined up. It’s called Thunderwing Press, after the T Rex song.
LVER: A love song by the glam king himself. How perfectly apropos.
Jennifer and Nic (and TC and Kim) celebrating with me in NYC
I went to the release party tonight and it was so much fun. The book is great! It's filled with great stories and tips. Much more than I had hoped for. I'll be sure to post images here on Uber.
Rose Apodaca is a pop culture and style journalist and the co-owner of A+R, the design retail lab in Los Angeles, and its online sister http://www.aplusrstore.com. She consulted on and helped launch Image, the new Los Angeles Times style section, and she contributes to Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Glamour, Style.com, Paper, Preen and other publications. Her first book, Style A to Zoe: The Art of Fashion, Beauty & Everything Glamour, an all-encompassing lifestyle guide written for celeb stylist Rachel Zoe, is now in bookstores. She is currently authoring a biography on Fred Hayman, co-founder of Giorgio Beverly Hills and marketing architect of Rodeo Drive.
A+R is located in Silverlake and now on Abbot Kinney in Venice, CA.
Rose helmed the west coast bureau of fashion-industry bible Women's Wear Daily and was a contributor to W Magazine for six years until March 2006, when she left to join partner Andy Griffith in A+R and focus on related projects. She has long championed Los Angeles and California style and design, from the streets and runways to interiors and food. She is the first recipient of the Los Angeles Fashion Awards Communications Prize for bringing global attention to the region's fashion industry and style culture. With A+R, she continues to showcase rising and undiscovered talent from around the world.
An active supporter of the arts, music and nightlife scenes, she is a co-owner of Beauty Bar Hollywood and Las Vegas, and serves on various arts organization boards. Rose and Andy, who tied the knot in September 2007, live in Silverlake.
* All photographs appearing on this blog were snapped by Rose with her Leica D-Lux 3, unless otherwise noted. Please credit all photographs accordingly.
Illustration below by the talented EvelynBlack1955.
Hey Rose, how's it going. Remember me and you're like who and I'm like Sada's husband. Maybe Sada is easier to remember, from Action Sports, with Neil and Paul and John Stoffer. I just found Neil and saw you as a friend so thought I'd say hi. We saw your book down here in Oz (where we live now) and it was totally awesome. Hope you're well, Cya.
just wanted to throw an eye at you to see how you do and talk about
THE WAY OF LOVE WITH YOU (universal content design ) &
(besides i really like thoses pieces)
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
good morning Rose! I love your blog~ So happy that you are doing great~ will pop in and see you soon. Thanks for the good and obviously sad (Paul Starr) readings... lots of love tracey groce
I'm a huge fan of Uber. I loved your post the other day about Tarina Tarantino! Anyway, I wanted to give you a heads up about a new site, ideeli, that you would enjoy. I actually work for the site, and we sell really great bags and accessories at unbelievable prices. I thought you might want to check it out and see what we've got coming soon, because you (and all of us who read your blog!) should always be in the know about sites like this one. It's members-only, but if you'd like to see what's up on the site, you may use my private code: vip1. Just go to www.ideeli.com to see for yourself :) If you like the site, we'd love you to feature us, and I'd be happy to set up a special invite code for your readers - just let me know!
hi rose ....i am a interoir designer fromindia.....m quite impressed to see ur collection .....can i buy things here in india ....do u ship in india....i have some close relatives in canada....do u ship in canda.....?
Wow, Im so flattered and thankful that you enjoyed the show. I hope that you can make it out sometime soon to "The Bullfight " act that I do when it is booked here in town. Its pretty flamboyant , just the thing for these boring summer evenings. lol. Its always a pleasure to see you Rose. Much love, Ava Garter
Wow! Roger Lloyd Pack "Owen" from the Vicar of Dibley and Andy could be brothers, or at least each others Doppelgänger. Fantastic photos. Thanks for sharing these amazing images.
Rose, any idea who is doing Rick's PR? I have the usual suspects in the Dbase. Please dash me an email with the right contact this round. I think he's supremely talented. So far, he's the most under rated US designer. He's the real deal!
