Mistresses of Style
She’s got a blue 1996 dodge Ram truck with white racing stripes sitting in the driveway and an assortment of leather pants and jackets parked in the closet.
“I’m kind of a little bit rock ‘n’ roll, a little bit hillbilly, a little bit fashion victim,†muses Suzi Joi Kiefer.
In a city where the style landscape seems to be dominated by waif-like size 4’s wearing twin sets and clunky shoes--two fashion totems that she particularly detests--Kiefer is a statuesque 5-foot-9, size 8 (sometimes 6) who asks herself when shopping: Would Barbie wear it?
If the answer is yes, Kiefer goes for it. (This shopping mantra accounts for the hot pink sequined handbag with chain strap by Jill Stuart.) Pink is her favorite color.
“My life is about not looking like everyone else,†she says. Even when she shops at stores like Prada, she strays from the trademark trend. “I always get the one oddball thing that they did--and it makes me even more excited,†she says.
Kiefer’s style began to emerge in 1971, when, as a sixth-grader growing up in a Detroit suburb, she fell in love with a pair of tie-dyed corduroy jeans. “They were baaahhmmmb,†she says in the rockabilly singer’s twang she uses to punctuate sentences.
She long ago graduated from $5 bell-bottom hip-huggers with a two-inch zipper fly to $1,500 whipstitched leather pants custom-made by Henry Duarte, a favorite designer of rock stars. White go-go boots, long a staple, have been supplanted by the Gucci motorcycle boots she bought last year.
But at 39, she still bows to the ‘70s. “Hippie-Mod,†she calls her look. When not channeling Barbie for fashion advice, she conjures up Angie Dickinson’s Pepper from “Police Woman†or even Jane Fonda’s Barbarella.
Fortunately, her job as L.A.-based director of merchandise for the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas almost demands an audacious wardrobe. (At its opening, she wore pinky-beige snakeskin spandex pants with a matching leather and snakeskin-print sleeveless top by L.A. designer Maggie Barry.) Her duties include deciding how
hotel employees should dress: The cocktail waitresses sport leopard-print velvet hot pants and black leather motorcycle vests with knee-high boots. “Very Russ Meyer,†she purrs.
Kiefer likens her slim-hipped, busty build to a Vargas girl. There are Vargas girl refrigerator magnets and a framed Vargas girl print in the Culver City house she shares with her motorcycle stuntman husband, 31-year-old Gene Thomason, and their toddler, Ruby Rae.
She has a few rules for dressing. Skirts should be thigh-high. “I don’t like long skirts. I feel like my legs look like broomsticks sticking out. I’d rather wear a short skirt and knee-high boots and make it more rock ‘n’ roll.â€
Pants are often palazzo-wide or flared. Shirts are tight--very tight. She arrives home from work one day in black flared Plein Sud pants, close-fitting black ankle boots and a purple silk Dolce & Gabbana shirt straining at its mother-of-pearl buttons. She leaves enough unfastened to display the lace of her black bra.
A tour of her wardrobe begins in the wall-length closet of her bedroom. It is painted bubble gum pink (as Barbie would have it) and features built-in shelves in the center with two rows of poles on each side.
“I have clothes everywhere,†she sighs. “I have a closet in the hallway. I have clothes in the garage on rolling racks. I have clothes in bags under the bed.†A flashlight sits on a shelf for those times when she needs extra light.
She excitedly pulls out special finds. “Right now my favorite outfit is my new Bottega Veneta pantsuit,†she says of the butter beige jersey pants and tunic with diagonal stitching. “The cut of it just makes me crazy.â€
She models a William B blazer in butterscotch brown, maroon and beige. “I mean, patchwork leather! Get out of here!†she says, fingering the jacket.
Her shoe count easily tops 100--ranging from flip-flops and thong sandals--â€I love everything that goes between your toesâ€--to tight-fitting Michel Perry boots and the requisite Manolo Blahnik dressy heels.
Kiefer estimates she spends $6,000 to $8,000 a year on clothes. Designer friends--cultivated during her editing stint at Vogue in the early ‘90s--also give her things that would otherwise cost her thousands.
But abundance can be overwhelming.
“Sometimes I get really disgusted with myself and wish I could be really simple,†Kiefer says. “I wish I could be like that girl they show in the magazine with the closet with four pairs of pants, one hat, three jackets. I think, what would it be like if I threw it all out and got three Jil Sander suits? Then I think I’d just end up buying everything all over again. This is what makes me tick--the whole search, finding it, buying it.â€
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Suzi Joi Kiefer hair: Art Luna; makeup: Elena Arroy
