BY DESIGN : FASHION / SENSE OF STYLE : Cindy’s No Longer Among the Elite
It seems that while hoisting weights at the gym, Cindy Crawford was doing more than toning her triceps. One of the most highly paid supermodels, she recently tried to use some muscle to persuade the agency that has represented her for 12 years to reduce its take of her fees.
“She told Elite if they didn’t cut their commission from 12% to 5%, she’d leave,” a source close to the agency said.
Elite President John Casablancas refused. Crawford walked. But Casablancas is a man who knows something about how to structure a deal. The way the contracts are written, Crawford must pay commissions to Elite for the duration of her lucrative multi-year deals with such clients as Revlon and Pepsi, even if she severs her relationship with the agency. If Crawford doesn’t see things Elite’s way, you can bet the fight will not be pretty.
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Street Smart: There are those who believe that the California state motto, Eureka! (I have found it), was uttered by a woman discovering a great new store. That shop might have been Dean Hutchison’s eponymous, airy boutique on South Robertson in Beverly Hills. Formerly a center of antique and interior design stores, the stretch of Robertson between 3rd Street and Beverly Boulevard has become a “mixed use” street, as the real estate agents say, and home to a number of stores not found anywhere else in Southern California (Agnes B, Robert Clergerie for shoes, the beautiful men’s store Scott Hill).
Hutchison is a Canadian designer who opened his first outpost in San Francisco four years ago. He designs and manufactures the kind of understated, tailored sportswear beloved by many of the women who lunch across Robertson at the Ivy. When I described his look as Armani-like, Hutchison said, “That’s a beautiful compliment. He’s the master and has done it better than anyone who shares that school of thought. I believe a garment shouldn’t be based on tricks--fancy buttons and stuff. The foundation is beautiful fabric, the kind of neutral colors that are popular here. I believe the person should be read, not the clothes.”
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Beauty Tip: When the grooming angel who occasionally alights on my right shoulder last checked in, she encouraged experimentation. “How do you know the benefits of fatty acids for your hair if you don’t nourish your scalp with a fine hair care product?” she asked.
She only has my best interest, and shiny hair, at heart, so I chose not to point out that the trouble with most deep hair conditioners is they’re supposed to be massaged into wet, just-washed hair, left on three to five minutes, then rinsed out. What, I’ve always wondered, is one to do during the intermission between the initial hair-washing shower and the conditioner-rinsing coda?
A conversation with a significant other is out; no one wants to discuss the federal budget crisis with a woman in a towel with gunk on her head. I suppose I could watch the Weather Channel while the conditioner penetrates my parched hair shafts, grab a snack or check the stock market, but all activities are limited by the fact that I’m wet, cold and watching the clock.
The hair wizards at Rene Futerer in Paris must have been similarly stumped by the problem posed by shower interruptus. Their Carthame Intensive Oil Supplement, sold at hair salons and beauty supply stores in a box of six treatments, goes on dirty hair and is left on 20 minutes (time enough for a phone call!). The lazy she-devil perched on my left shoulder sniffed an ampul of Carthame and said, “Oil is for linguine, with a little fresh basil and red pepper, not for hair.” How wrong she is. Oil is for hair that feels thicker, softer, and, as they say in the biz, more manageable.
* Sense of Style appears on Thursday in Life & Style.
