Finding Myself in Fashion (9 page)

At the end of the show, Catherine Deneuve, the designer's first ready-to-wear customer—and his friend and muse since 1966, when he created her wardrobe for Luis Buñuel's film
Belle de Jour
—took the stage from her front-row seat and sang “Ma Plus Belle Histoire d'Amour, C'est Vous” as Saint Laurent stoically marched down the runway for the last time. The audience members rose to their feet,
applauding wildly, relentlessly. And with tears welling up in our eyes, we bid adieu to an era.

Post-show, the guests were enthralled, buzzing about the brilliance of the parade they had just witnessed and how it had affected them all so personally. “In a funny way, watching that show, I felt like I was getting old!” quipped the striking Mouna Ayoub, who was gloriously decked out in YSL's 1989 gold crystal jacket. For her, the grand runway had been rife with nostalgia. And she wasn't alone. Paloma Picasso, too, told me the evening had “brought back so many memories of my whole life as a woman.”

The last time I saw Yves Saint Laurent was in January 2007, at Mathis, the intimate restaurant/bar in Paris. He was having a quiet dinner with his long-time muse and confidante, the former model Betty Catroux, with his faithful little French bulldog at his feet. It was surreal to see this larger-than-life icon out of his usual professional context, and as he struggled out of the restaurant on an unsteady gait, I realized he wasn't well. I was overcome by a strange combination of emotions—a kind of awe and amazement, coupled with sadness. This gargantuan genius, this artistic innovator and romantic visionary who had so manipulated and nurtured our style aesthetic, helping to define an entire age in fashion, had returned to civilian life—a mere mortal casually dining at the next table with a friend and his dog in tow. I imagined how long he must have suffered for his art. And I couldn't imagine him not suffering now that he was away from it. The following year, in June 2008, Yves Saint Laurent died of brain cancer. When I heard the news, I flashed on what the iconic British designer Vivienne Westwood had told me on the way out of the Pompidou Centre, just after Saint Laurent's spectacular farewell. “He was the world's greatest lover,” she'd said. “He made it easy for women. He's probably the greatest designer that ever lived.”

HEART ON SLEEVE

THE FASHION WORLD revolves around image. This notion both attracts and repels me. As much as I revel in fashion's surreal landscape and high theatrics, I often ache for unbridled truth and honest passion. And that's precisely why I adore the effervescent, forever youthful New York designer Betsey Johnson—one of my personal heroines—who, well into her sixties now, continues to grab life by the horns and not let go.

“And at the very end, I'm gonna try doing my cartwheel right into the swimming pool! What d'ya think?” It was just before 10:00 a.m. on a sunny August morning in 2002, and Betsey's blue eyes twinkled as she shared her secret surprise with me. A Raggedy Ann doll come to life, with her copper hair extensions bopping in the breeze, Betsey had opened her charming cottage in the Hamptons to four hundred of her closest friends and family, and for the first time, the media. The occasion was her sixtieth birthday, a day that also marked the twenty-fourth anniversary of her company. Three big busloads of models, dressers, hairstylists, and makeup artists had already made the two-anda-half-hour trek from Betsey's Manhattan headquarters. Another busload of editors and photographers was scheduled to arrive at noon. By 3:00 p.m., the rest of Betsey's guests would have made their way to
the sea-blue cedar-shingled house on Grape Arbor, which had been Betsey's country home for three years. I brought along one of Betsey's biggest fans, my twelve-year-old, Joey, to join in the festivities.

There was a giant pink tent pitched on the property, and the gardens were a sprawling rainbow of blooms. Hip young women in turquoise tank tops, with the words “My Blue Heaven” scrawled in sparkles across their chests, were carrying cases of Pommery POP Champagne to various stations around the grounds. Perfect little flowerbeds sprinkled throughout the emerald lawns sported nursery rhyme signposts: “Little Bo Peep,” “Mary, Mary Quite Contrary,” “Little Miss Muffet.” The dreamy setting awaited the role-playing models, who, dressed in vintage Betsey-wear, would conjure memories of lost innocence. The Beatles' “Strawberry Fields” blasted from the kitchen as Betsey rounded up the girls for rehearsal.

Inside, the two-storey house was a riot of chintz and tchotchkes, each antique-filled room camera-ready for the impending vignettes. From bon-bon-eating beauties and Snow White languishing beside a basket of rosy apples to a princess sleeping atop a tall stack of mattresses piled upon a pea, the theatrical stage was set for an experiential fashion show aimed at charming the little girl in all of us. On the deck off Betsey's bedroom, a couple of steamy sirens were getting ready to frolic in a hot tub filled with rubber duckies. Upstairs, naughty lovelies clad in skimpy lingerie were sneaking too many cigarettes, and in the downstairs den, a couple of babe-acious twins were watching
The Parent Trap
. All the girls were wearing tiaras, vintage Betsey frou-frou, and gobs of makeup.

“She's obsessed,” confided Lulu, Betsey's twenty-something daughter. “She worked on every detail for days. She stressed me out so much yesterday, I cried all day!” Evidently, life with a mum like Betsey wasn't easy. But could it possibly be more fun? It was Lulu, for years Betsey's muse and right-hand woman, who had urged her mother to get a place in the Hamptons, where the social scene ruled. Still, the senior Ms. Johnson's passion, first and foremost, had always been her work. And for the past few years, she'd had a cause to fight for as well. In 1999, Betsey was diagnosed with breast cancer. With her sense of
humour intact, she had shown her spring '00 collection on Playboy Bunnies. The concept garnered an unprecedented amount of publicity, and happily, Betsey made a full recovery.

Today the birthday girl bounced out of the house wearing a royal-blue tulle skirt with a matching corset and dazzling tiara. “This is me!” she gushed. “This is my dream … my collection … my home. I really want to share it with all the people who've supported me for all these years.”

“But what really keeps you going, Betsey? How do you explain all the success and personal fulfilment you've achieved so far?” I asked.

“The secret is, you've got to be terrified,” she told me. “Every time I do anything, I'm always scared. I think that's really important.”

“Guess that's what keeps you on your toes,” I said.

“Absolutely! I'm always insecure. Like even today … I'm thinking this is such a crazy idea. What are all those people gonna think of me? What if they think I'm just a dumb little girl, with this dumb little cottage? I'm never sure anybody will like what I have to offer. But it doesn't matter. Gotta do what I've gotta do!”

Betsey spent the next couple of hours rushing around from room to room, directing and coaching her models, pumping them up to play out her fantasies. The attention to detail was astonishing. Betsey knew exactly what she wanted, and the young girls were inspired.

“She's incredible,” a Ukrainian model told me. “Such an amazing woman!”

“I want to be just like her when I get older,” said a Belgian beauty.

I relayed the compliment to Betsey.

“Yeah, I guess it's important to have leaders. For me, it was always Tina Turner!” she said, laughing.

Down by the front gate, Betsey smashed a mini Champagne bottle and cut a ribbon. The guests streamed in as a rendition of “My Blue Heaven” wafted through the air. The models in the gardens were working it—Mary, Mary Quite Contrary watered her flowers; Miss Muffet fed a fake spider; and Bo Peep gazed through binoculars for stray sheep. People drifted in and out of the house, enchanted by what they saw, high on Betsey's dream. The designer Nicole Miller
sat on a bench with her little boy. “She's really stuck to her vision,” she commented. Nikki Hilton rushed by in a transparent pink Versace top. “My sister and I have been wearing Betsey's stuff since we were little,” she told me. The
Sex and the City
stylist Pat Field talked about how she and Betsey had started in the fashion biz at the same time. And then we all gathered around the pool for the runway presentation, with the Stones' “Miss You” filling the air. The models marched out in gold mega-platform sandals, each sporting a classic Betsey look: a capri jumpsuit in olive-green chiffon; an aqua ruffled micro-mini adorned with rosettes; a chintz crinoline skirt with an emerald lamé bra. One by one, the models disappeared into a cabana, emerging again moments later, pageant-style, with mirrored aviator glasses and tiaras intact. A woman next to me with a chihuahua in her bag squealed with delight. Madonna's former stylist, Lori Goldstein, looked on with glee.

There was wild applause. And then the inimitable Betsey trotted out and did her trademark cartwheel into the pool—an unabashedly beautiful fashion moment. A minute later, the bedraggled designer was presented with a whopping hot-pink birthday cake. She posed for the press, sopping wet, smiling like crazy, refreshingly unselfconscious and truly sensational at sixty.

Seven years later, the indefatigable Betsey and I had a lengthy tête-à-tête in her colourful Manhattan showroom. At sixty-seven, she was looking better than ever, and made no bones about the fact that she had done her share of nipping, tucking, and injecting. “You have to get into the idea of whether you like plastic surgery and needles,” she told me matter-of-factly. “I don't think I look good with skin that falls down. You want to look as good as you possibly can. So I'm into it. Anything to look better to myself.” Betsey, then between relationships, was also delightfully candid about her love life. “I'd love to be in love,” she told me. “But you can't make the guy thing happen. I think we finally have to get happy without that thing happening.” However, the grandmother of two was quick to add, “But I do love a hot little love affair!”

People like Betsey, with the courage to wear their hearts on their sleeves, never fail to inspire me. It's something I always seek to do—
though naturally there are times when I have to mask my feelings, to protect others or myself. Most often, though, I'm pretty candid. My mother has frequently complained that I'm honest to a fault.

“Do you have to tell everything?” she'll ask me after reading a piece I've penned in the paper or hearing me interviewed.

“Why not?” I ask, proud of the fact that I have nothing to hide.

Then she'll mumble something about how people don't need to know everything. I understand her point. But I don't agree. We humans are on this planet for such a limited time. All we have is one another. Sharing our stories, our hopes, our fears, our feelings is the best gift we can give to one another. And though my mother might beg to differ, she can actually take part of the credit for teaching me this lesson. It's the people with an unabashed sense of themselves who have taught me the most.

GLOSSED OVER

WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES, another opens. In March 2003, twenty-five years after I started to work at CHUM, the company that still employed me, my supervising producer, Marcia Martin, took me out to a nice dinner at Celestin, a chic Toronto restaurant. Halfway through the second course, Marcia—or Marcie (she had become a good friend over the years)—sighed deeply and launched into a rather grave and potentially devastating subject: my future with
Fashion Television
. Marcie regretted to inform me that while I was still doing a great job, my potential with the show was limited. I was getting older, she noted, and perhaps after eighteen years,
Fashion Television
was in need of some younger blood—someone not necessarily to replace me, but to co-host with me. Marcie also told me that even though I was the one who'd stood in front of the CRTC in Ottawa to pitch for the Fashion Television channel licence a couple of years earlier, there wasn't really any money for new programming now—or not yet anyway. “It hurts me to have to tell you this, but I have to prepare you,” she said. “Next year, your salary's going to be cut. There's just not enough for you to do anymore. I can't see you doing anything besides this show for us.” And that, quite simply, was that.

Marcie suggested that I start thinking about what other work I might want to get into. I could start a production company myself, perhaps. She was trying to be helpful and realistic, but to me at that moment, she seemed to be saying, “Prepare to die!” My heart raced as a kind of panic set in. I couldn't believe my ears. After all those years of working my butt off, building a brand, slaving and sacrificing, pushing and climbing, the end was nigh. I hadn't a clue what I would do next. The thought of sharing hosting duties with some unseasoned rookie was completely unnerving and, frankly, threatening. I couldn't believe that everything I had helped build, everything I had fought for, was being pulled out from under me.

On September 1, 2003, I was told that my salary was going to be slashed by about 40 percent. There was no doubt that I would have to find something else to make up for the income I was losing. Friends said that this was effectively constructive dismissal, and that I should seriously consider getting a lawyer and suing. But I couldn't bear to jeopardize my future, or to lash out at a company I so loved. Besides, CHUM owned close to two and a half decades of archival material— my life's work—and I might want to access that one day. I didn't want to have an acrimonious relationship with this company. So I prayed very hard that I would find some way of reinventing myself.

Around this time, my trainer, Shelby Pilot, told me about a glamorous new guy in town—a young, international, jet-setting entrepreneur named Michael King, who was making the rounds of all the hot spots and hobnobbing with the cool crowd. Shelby explained that King was the creative helm of
Inside Entertainment
, a spirited glossy magazine that was distributed through the
National Post
, the paper for which I had been writing a weekly style column for the past few years. She thought that Michael King might be an interesting person for me to know and suggested I try to meet him. But I figured that if my meeting this exotic Mr. King was in the cards, kismet would make it happen sooner or later. After all, Toronto is a pretty small town when you get down to it.