Rodeo Drive – The Podcast

Italian style and craftsmanship are synonymous with Rodeo Drive, evidenced in Canali, the luxury menswear brand that just reopened its flagship lifestyle store on the high fashion Beverly Hills thoroughfare, with a party attended by some of LA’s leading men, including Chace Crawford, Paul Downs, James Marsden, and Regé-Jean Page.The company is helmed by Stefano Canali, the third generation principal of the brand that was established more than 90 years ago. His task is to maintain the family company’s legendary sartorial mastery and stay nimble for the future, he told Lyn Winter, host of Rodeo Drive–The Podcast, when they met at the company headquarters designed as a welcoming home and garden in central Milan.“Consistency is a word these days, so you must make sure that whatever represents a brand is fully consistent with the brand itself,” Canali said.Consistency extends into the design and execution of the new boutique on Rodeo Drive, with its warm hues, green-veined cipollino marble and wood paneling carved to evoke stitching. Such details are “very much linked to the way we manufacture suits and garments,” says Canali, adding that one of the main attractions just might be its VIP lounge complete with Canali mixologists. The clear branding also plays out in an exciting new partnership for the company – with the famed Inter Milan soccer team. While Canali’s designers created a formal collection for the management, they created a more relaxed collection for the players that emphasizes functional fabrics and refined craftsmanship.Decked from head to toe in this sporty spin on haute couture, the cheerful young players have been “very effective in delivering this new image of Canali, and the evolution that Canali is going through,” says the company’s President and CEO.Finally, Canali refuses to offshore production. Keeping its fabrication at home, says Stefano Canali, reinforces the power of his country’s “Made in Italy” brand. It also supports the suitmaker’s sustainability goals. Canali quantifies its environmental footprint, from the sourcing of raw materials to the final disposal of the product. In keeping production very high quality and close to home, the firm is able to support local craftspeople, minimize their carbon footprint, and stay profitable, says Stefano Canali. “By deciding to stay in Italy, no matter what, allowed us to be 100% sustainable towards the planet and towards the people.” Finally, asked Winter, “When you think about the Canali man today, whether he's in Milan or Beverly Hills or anywhere else in the world, how would you describe him?”The answer lies in timelessness and inner confidence. The Canali man, says the man charged with dressing him, is “a successful person that values understatement and is very much focused on the substance of things out there. So somebody who's very much interested in buying something that will last over time, that… allows our final consumer to express himself in a very subtle, still important, effective way.”This episode of Rodeo Drive: The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee. Episode CreditsExecutive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kathy GohariScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksListen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Visit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Join us on Instagram @rodeodrive Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thirty years ago high schoolers dressed down, and then came the movie Clueless. In her yellow plaid kilt and many other colorful and stylish outfits, Cher Horowitz, the good-natured if meddlesome high-schooler played by Alicia Silverstone, made audiences laugh with her, love her, and envy the looks created by costume designer Mona May. “Everybody dressed grunge in 1994 when we were preparing the movie, and the movie set a new rule of dressing. You know, I created a whole other fashion landscape,” May tells Lyn Winter, host of Rodeo Drive –The Podcast, in a special episode to coincide with the 30-year anniversary of the movie and the launch of the third annual week-long Rodeo Drive Celebrates Fashion program spotlighting the unmatched craftsmanship and innovation in fashion on the legendary “street of dreams”.May is joined by Beverly Hills Mayor Sharona R. Nazarian PsyD, who shares her fond memories of the film, her personal love of fashion, as well as pride in the leading role played by Beverly Hills in Clueless, which was shot in multiple locations including the Electric Fountain, the Witch's House and, of course, the iconic street of high fashion - Rodeo Drive. “I think what makes Rodeo Drive so special is that people still want to be able to come and walk here as Cher did in the movie, that it's still relevant. The stores are still spectacular. I mean, where else can you find Frank Gehry and Louis Vuitton coming together to make these beautiful buildings come to life? It's just so exciting,” says Mayor Nazarian.May also shares her journey to becoming a costume designer and getting her big break with Clueless, followed by work on movies including Romy and Michelle, Never Been Kissed, Wedding Singer, Enchanted, House Bunny, and Stuart Little.May was born in India and then moved with her family to Europe and then New York. She studied fashion before moving into costume design, and met Clueless writer/director Amy Heckerling while collaborating on a pilot about two party girls in New York City. “The pilot didn't get picked up, but we formed this incredibly creative relationship. Amy is an incredible writer, an incredible artist. She loves fashion, so we were like two birds together. So when she wrote Clueless, she called me and said, ‘I really want you to do this film. I need a very different point of view, something that's going to last a long time’.” May created a timeless look for the teens in the movie that took cues from L.A.’s sunny spirit and its greenery and flowers, from fashion icons, and even from the period of the book that inspired the movie, Emma, by Jane Austen. Think, empire waists and cap sleeves. Her goal was to make the young actresses feel “quintessentially feminine” while empowered. Then there was Cher’s unforgettable plaid skirt. On eyeballing “Jean Paul Gaultier yellow,” recalls May, “We had the vision. And it was perfect, because she became the queen bee, yellow sunshine, and completely the queen of the school.”Now a new generation is getting to enjoy the film once again. As she welcomes Clueless fans both young and old, Mayor Nazarian says of the film, “It just makes you feel really good. It uplifts you, and we need that now, I think. Everybody needs it.”  This special edition of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel.Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kathy GohariScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian Banks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jennifer Smith was halfway through high school when she visited California with her parents and decided to stay. A decade later, she conceived and launched C Magazine, a must-read publication that highlights the people and places that make California the Golden State. Then came the 2025 wildfires, destroying her Malibu home and those of many friends in her C community. Did that dim the lights on the California Dream? Not for Smith.“After a couple of tears, I was ready to rebuild,” she tells Lyn Winter, host of Rodeo Drive The Podcast, adding, “when you wake up every morning with that ocean outside as your backyard, and you hear the waves crashing, and at night you see the glistening moon over the waves and the sea, it's just so magical that you'll just do anything to keep having it.”Now Smith celebrates 20 years of C Magazine with the publication of a book of stories drawn from past articles: California: Dream State: Stylish Living from Canyon to Coast (Rizzoli, Fall 2025).Winter spoke with Smith about the deep allure and mythology of the West Coast, the evolution of fashion, art and culture over the last two decades, and about making a successful print magazine in the digital age. For Smith, it started with landing her first cover, featuring model Carolyn Murphy, thanks to a chance meeting over at a sushi counter in Malibu.“We just started talking, and I said, ‘I'm launching a magazine about California. Would you ever consider being on the cover?’ And she said, ‘of course I would.’ And then we had Kirsty Hume as our second cover, because she knew Carolyn did it. And then all of a sudden, I got Cindy Crawford, and then I got Claire Danes, and then it just, from there we kept going and going.”Smith explains that the key to success in publishing today is being more than a magazine. The C-team curates events together with advertising partners, many on Rodeo Drive, like the memorable dinner for 25 at Harry Winston, at which guests on the street of dreams were each presented with a silver domed dessert, recalls Smith.“And inside the silver dome was actually a piece of jewelry for each of the guests. So everyone was just expecting to see some piece of cake, and there was some million dollar bauble, and they all got to wear it. So they were dripping in jewels and eating their dessert, and we had the best time.”As much as she loves the city, Smith feels the call to the wild. The book contains sumptuous photos of lives lived well in the canyons, the coast, mountains and desert. The only challenge was picking from more than 200 issues of the magazine. She and her team looked for timeless stories “that stood out to us and that we would want to celebrate and see again and again.”Stories that made the cut include a feature on Kelly Lynch and Mitch Glaser in their weekend home “that was just so cool with this mountain, rocky, jagged, beautiful;” and the hat maker Nick Fouquet, in his “amazing house in Topanga that is very cool and architectural.”The current issue of C Magazine, compiled just after the recent fires, was designed as a love letter to California. ”I'm forever, endlessly in love with it,” she concludes.Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 5 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica RoseScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle Alfonso@rodeodrive  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rodeo Drive has gone wild. Visitors to the luxury street have fallen in love with eight colorful, life-size sculptures of animals – Wild Kong, Standing Bear, Panda and Crocodile – designed by the French artist Richard Orlinski, and part of this summer's “Rodeo Drive Celebrates Fashion”.But sculptures are only part of Orlinski’s multifaceted output. He was the artist of record at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, he mixes up art with music and stand up comedy, and he has partnerships with international brands including Lancome, Hublot, Puma, and Disney. Now he has written a book – Pourquoi J'ai Cassé les Codes, or “Why I Broke The Codes” – about his life of going against the grain.He stopped off recently in Beverly Hills, and talked with Lyn Winter, host of Rodeo Drive - The Podcast, about his unconventional approach to art and life, starting with why he chose to celebrate wild animals in his sculpture.Animals, he says, have much to teach humans, as they “obey a virtuous circle,” and kill only for food, while humans kill for nothing. He spoke about his personal experience with a violent father, which also laid the ground for his future self: “I realized very early that I have nobody to trust, so I was very alone. And when you like that, you're angry, and you want to succeed.”He says that his fighting spirit helped him deal with initial rejection from the Parisian art world, and develop his mass appeal with a sense of freedom to do his own thing. “I'm not like a niche artist,” he says. “I'm popular, but popular in a good way. I create an emotion, even a bad emotion, but it is emotion.”Orlinski explains his admiration for Andy Warhol, why he opened his own chain of Orlinski galleries, and how he treats art more like fashion - with seasons, and a branded experience that is meant to be fun for people of all ages. The future of art display, he says, is big spaces, where visitors can eat, spend time, and enjoy a multisensory experience. “The competition is always the same. So you have to create, invent something new, and I think the artist and the galleries and the people in this industry need to create something like that.”He also talks about his book, Pourquoi J'ai Cassé les Codes, which has been a hit with the French public. It’s a self-help guide of sorts, delivering life lessons from his own experiences. “Many people are very thankful about this book, because it helps them to change, to listen to the little voice inside, to follow their dreams.”While seven of Orlinski’s wild creatures will leave Rodeo Drive, one work will remain permanently on view. Which one might that be, asked Winter.“I think it's the Kong with a big heart, and written on the heart is ‘Rodeo Drive’, responds Orlinski. “It fits with the place, and it was made for it. This is the only piece that was really made for it.”Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 5 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica RoseScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle AlfonsoListen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Visit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Join us on Instagram @rodeodrive Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For over 100 years Women’s Wear Daily has been the bible for the fashion industry, and its archives include numerous hidden contributions of Black designers and models. Now that history has been gathered in a stunning new book, BLACK IN FASHION, by Tonya Blazio-Licorish and Tara Donaldson, showcasing the indelible influence of Black culture on a global scale.On Episode 5 of Rodeo Drive-The Podcast, host Lyn Winter spoke with the authors about the book and the revelations they found in the WWD archives.  “Fashion has a flawed public history because it hasn't included all the voices,” says Blazio-Licorish, also a visual culture historian and editor with PMC Media Archives. “We were always there, and not just there in marginal roles, but in important roles, in roles that were shaping fashion,” adds Donaldson, most recently WWD's executive editor and Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Fairchild Media. Dating back as early as the Harlem Renaissance, the Black community was making its mark on clothing and style, from Black dolls for young Black children, early fashion shows, business associations, and fashionable scenes like at The Cotton Club. The authors single out early “influencers” such as Josephine Baker, who even had a hosiery color named in her honor, the dancer Katherine Dunham, who was all the rage in 1940s France, and then the Black models, including Pat Cleveland and Bethann Hardison, who shook up global fashion at the famed 1973 Battle of Versailles.The late André Leon Talley recalled this momentous event in conversation with the authors before his passing. “You could almost just reach out and touch the energy they gave in the air. It was like quiet thunder, and because everyone saw that and felt that at the battle, French designers – Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent – they started wanting black models.”Black fashion has been intertwined with politics – and BLACK IN FASHION explores how clothing reflected the moment:“During civil rights, that time was really about respectability politics,” explains Donaldson. “It was coming in your Sunday best, to assert dignity. It was a kind of a polite request for human rights. By the time you get to the 70s, the mood changes, the look changes…then the Black Panther movement, it's more powerful, it's more assertive…You have the leather jackets, you have the turtlenecks, you have the berets. And then we see that evolve even into the 2020s. And there's the branded T-shirts, Black Lives Matter.”Finally, the story is still unfolding. Black designers are still not getting the high level industry jobs they deserve, argue Blazio-Licorish and Donaldson, and are even ambivalent about being labeled as Black.So Blazio-Licorish says they finished on a question: “We purposefully left the conversation open to, who's next, who's now, and what do they have to say about where fashion is going to go?”Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 5 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica RoseScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle Alfonso.Listen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Join us on Instagram @rodeodrive Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Watchmaking may date back two centuries but in the hands of Maximilian Büsser, it has been revived as a contemporary art form. Büsser is the founder of MB&F, or Max Büsser and Friends, which he describes as a “horological concept laboratory.” Now MB&F has opened a gallery on Two Rodeo Drive, filled with his collective’s kinetic art and mechanical art devices, like World Sky by Breakfast Studio with whirring discs that spin between functions: camera, mirror, and weather report; and the MB&F’s Architect HM11, inspired by an organic Charles Haertling house in Colorado, and comprising multiple “rooms.” “We deconstruct traditional, beautiful, high end watchmaking and reconstruct it into sculpture, which gives time,” Büsser tells Lyn Winter, on the latest episode of Rodeo Drive - The Podcast.  Büsser shares his journey from being a directionless teen in Switzerland to reaching the top of the watch business at Jaeger-LeCoultre and Harry Winston, and then realizing he needed to “find his true north.”  “I started imagining this fairy tale, I was going to have my own little company, where I would create only what I believed in. I didn't want any investors. I didn't want anybody telling me about growth and profits and all that stuff. It was all about, we're going to create some incredible watchmaking, even though we know there are no clients out there for it.”Now MB&F has built a strong clientele willing to pay top dollar for the company’s unusual timepieces. But it was not always easy. Büsser reflects on the financial ups and downs, life lessons learned along the way, and the things he wished he had told his father. Finally, he revels in the joy of crafting mechanical instruments with a group of “friends” who share his obsession with “balance wheels,” “perpetual calendars” and other analog components of horology.Winter closes by asking if there is a future for such an old world craft, and Büsser talks about the appeal of his company’s products to young people.“MB&F is all about, ‘Live your dreams’. Do whatever you believe in. It is possible. Look at us. It seemed totally impossible, but we managed. And so it resonates strongly with a younger client base, and I love it.”Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 5 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica RoseScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle Alfonso.Listen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Visit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Watch moments from the series on YouTubeJoin us on Instagram @rodeodrive Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since the beginning of time, humans have sought the secret to eternal youth and beauty. One company that believes it has gotten closer to cracking the code is La Maison Valmont, the luxury Swiss skincare brand that will open a boutique on Rodeo Drive on July 15.La Maison Valmont, founded in 1985, will offer Rodeo Drive clientele its trademark five collections – hydration, luminosity, vitality, V-lift and V-firm – designed for young and more mature complexions. But it plans to elevate the experience with a custom treatment, called – naturally – the Red Carpet of Valmont, as well as a new line of perfumes, and additional experiences such as changing exhibitions of art. “When you enter the world of Valmont, which is more than a skincare brand today, it's a style of life where you really enjoy the five senses. And we call it a world of emotion,” Sophie and Didier Guillon told host Lyn Winter, on the latest episode of Rodeo Drive - The Podcast.  La Maison Valmont is esteemed for its discreet, five-star service, and products including $1000 dollar jars of Creme Merveilleuse made with the DNA of gold sturgeon. Their treatments and potions are based on “cellular science,” explains Sophie Vann Guillon, CEO and chief scientist at the brand. This is a form of skincare developed in Switzerland in which the “natural reactions and functions of the cells and skin” are rejuvenated by living cells that are “biocompatible” with one's skin. The company has been shaped by the passions of both its owners. Didier Guillon, raised in a family of art collectors, has founded an art foundation at the Palazzo Bonvicini in Venice, Italy. The foundation organizes residencies at its properties around the world that “welcome artists or customers who really want to discover what we are proposing on the art scene. We want to be different. We want to offer something unique, I would say out of the box.” He is also curating art for sale at the new salon on Rodeo Drive; an exhibition by Venice, Los Angeles based artist Andy Moses is on the docket as the first exhibition. Finally, their new location has stirred some flights of fancy, like the fragrances they are creating from plants cultivated in Vann Guillon’s alpine garden. Didier Guillon says a famous movie inspired him to develop, “a fantastic fragrance called Scarface. It was my fragrance based on violets.” Vann Guillon takes her cues from LA's coastal splendor and surfing culture.“Sea bliss! It's a fresh scent with ozonic appeal while reminding us of the waves of the ocean. It's fresh, and it's a little bit flowery. So it really fits the Californians.”Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 5 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica RoseScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle Alfonso.Listen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Visit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Watch moments from the series on YouTubeJoin us on Instagram @rodeodrive Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the heat of summer rises on Rodeo Drive, how better to stay cool and chic than in the most versatile, enduring and fluid garment of all time –– the Caftan! So says the man with more than thirty of them, Cameron Silver, author of the new book Caftans: From Classical to Camp.Silver talks with Rodeo Drive - The Podcast host Lyn Winter about the history, design and appeal of the caftan, which he says is the most universal and ancient garment in the world. “It is this wonderful garment of comfort that’s size inclusive, that's gender fluid, that can be modest or sexy. It can be voluminous or follow the lines of the body, it can be luxurious, or very accessible.”He points out that the caftan, essentially a square of fabric with holes for the head and arms, kept plain or highly ornamental, has been worn by Jesus, Moses, Muhammad and Buddha. “It is this cultural garment of incredible reverence in Morocco,” says Silver; it was worn with high camp by the singer Demis Roussos and extraordinary grace by Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and numerous other celebrities. It has been styled by the likes of Fortuny, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, Marc Bohan for Dior, Karl Lagerfeld, Emilio Pucci, Rudi Gernreich, and Oscar de la Renta. Silver, who conducted the interview wearing a lightweight, hooded, 100% cotton caftan designed by Trina Turk, has taken his book on the road from Texas to Mykonos. He notes that wherever he goes he finds an enthusiastic “caftan caucus” of people wearing and talking about caftans, which he says is the quintessential Athleisure garment, counterintuitively more glamorous than body hugging clothes.It’s not “just a sack,” says Silver. “The reality is that when you wear it, you have to really move your body; you become a Martha Graham dancer, even if you have two left feet like me.” SIlver, who was previously Fashion Director for H by Halston for QVC, adds that “Halston famously did his first runway shows featuring caftans and in the late 60s and 70s they became even more popular.” Right now, he says there is a caftan renaissance, with variants appearing at all the runway shows. “It may have taken a Western and European fashion several decades to really understand that it's a good idea to have a caftan in your collection.”Even though Silver wears his caftans in all seasons, he says this floaty garment, that can be worn from day into evening, is especially appealing in the summer. “It is the garment of the people. Regardless of your size or your gender, or your means or your location, there is a caftan waiting out there for you.”Season 5 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 5 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kay Monica RoseScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle AlfonsoVisit the website:https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Join us on Instagram:@rodeodrive Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The holiday season is in full swing and boutique windows are glittering on Rodeo Drive. So who better to talk to right now than the famed window dresser, Simon Doonan!When he was creative director at Barney’s, Doonan never missed an opportunity for maximal effect with storefront displays that transformed fashion retail into spectacle. Now he is a writer and eminence on all things style-related – and he has released a new book about design at full volume.Maximalism: Bold, Bedazzled, Gold, and Tasseled Interiors, features lavish spaces around the world: from opulent Old World interiors to a Bel Air bedroom with no surface untouched, by Kelly Wearstler, the candy colored Trixie Motel in Palm Springs by Dani Dazey, and Doonan’s own bedazzling New York apartment, designed by his husband Jonathan Adler.Guest host Frances Anderton talks with Doonan on the season-closer of Rodeo Drive - The Podcast about why you can never layer on too much, and how Maximalism is right at home in Los Angeles, dating “from Busby Berkeley to Tiny Naylor's coffee shop,” and on to today’s spectacular concerts by Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Harry Styles. “We live in such a visual world that minimal decor doesn't mean anything online or on your phone or on TikTok” says Doonan. “Everything has to be maximal, and LA is at the center of the culture in so many ways.”Doonan recalls an encounter with the larger-than-life Tony Duquette at his home Dawnridge, in Beverly Hills. Duquette, a prolific designer whose resume includes creating costumes and sets for Fred Astaire musicals, and making jewelry for Tom Ford in his eighties, filled his home and garden with antiques, chinoiserie, sunburst sculptures, gold-leafing, tapestries and cleverly upcycled trash. It was, says Doonan, an “unhinged visual extravaganza.”Doonan peppers the conversation with amusing insights. When asked if maximalism, or “maxi,” can ever become too messy, he says he will never judge, having fond memories of a childhood vacation at the blue collar Butlins holiday camp in the UK, which was “drenched in the fabulosity of maximalism.” He adds, “If somebody is happy, and their apartment looks like a good reflection of them, you do you, boo.” As for the ultra-rich who prefer battleship gray T-shirts over lavish displays of affluence, “one of the most hilarious things is when somebody becomes so wealthy that the only way they can find pleasure is to build a concrete bunker on a Swedish Island, and go and hide in it,” says Doonan.Finally, to those who believe minimalism is the path to happiness, he concludes: “I just think maximalism is more life affirming and maximalism doesn't need minimalism…Minimalism relies on maximalism to have something to denounce, whereas maximalism is much too big to fail.”Season 4 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 4 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kathy GohariScriptwriter, Editorial Advisor and Guest Host: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle AlfonsoVisit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Join us on Instagram @rodeodrive Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy was the beautiful fashion PR who married the most eligible bachelor in America, John Kennedy Jr. The couple, and Carolyn’s sister Lauren, tragically lost their lives when a plane flown by Kennedy crashed into the ocean in 1999.But Bessette Kennedy had an outsize influence on style and fashion in the 1990s that endures today, and her legacy has been celebrated in a new book, CBK: Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion, by the British author and fashion creative director Sunita Kumar Nair, with a foreword by Gabriela Hearst, and preface by Edward Enninful, OBE.On Episode 5 of Season 4 of Rodeo Drive - The Podcast, Kumar Nair talks with Lyn Winter about her carefully curated and sumptuously illustrated book, which tracks Bessette Kennedy’s fairytale rise, starting with a job at a Calvin Klein store in a mall where she was, ”plucked by a corporate executive at Calvin Klein, and offered the golden ticket – come to New York.”From there the willowy blonde with a knack for an ultra-chic and minimal “thrown together look,” became a fashion muse herself, in an era when American fashion traded padded shoulders and power suits for the understated elegance and comfort of Klein, Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren.Kumar Nair shares anecdotes about the celebrities – Kate Moss, Jennifer Aniston, Sharon Stone – and the great names in fashion and design who worked with Bessette Kennedy, and were inspired by her.  She says the photographer Mario Sorrenti “remembers a time when they were sitting on the floor, talking about what the goals were for the advertising,” and corporate would want to know, “what does Carolyn think?”She also talks about Bessette Kennedy’s powerful sense of self, wearing what pleased her despite societal expectations. When she married into American royalty, she might have taken to “wearing perhaps Dior or Yves Saint Laurent,” as well as the jewelry she inherited from her late mother-in-law Jackie Kennedy, also a fashion icon. “But instead she chose to wear Yohji Yamamoto and Ann Demeulemeester, and I think the only piece of jewelry (of Jackie Kennedy’s) that she would wear often was Jackie's Cartier Tank.”Finally, Kumar Nair explains how Bessette Kennedy’s allure endures today, in part because of how she approached life and clothes, with discretion and simplicity. “I think there is just this demand for her because there's a dignity in the way that she lived and I think it's inspiring for people who didn't grow up with her to pick up a book and discover her and her world.”Season 4 of Rodeo Drive – The Podcast is presented by the Rodeo Drive Committee with the support of The Hayman Family, Two Rodeo Drive, Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.Season 4 Credits:Executive Producer and Host: Lyn WinterOn behalf of the Rodeo Drive Committee: Kathy GohariScriptwriter and Editorial Advisor: Frances AndertonEditor and Videographer: Hans FjellestadTheme music by Brian BanksProduction Assistant: Isabelle AlfonsoListen, subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.Visit the website: https://rodeodrive-bh.com/podcast/Join us on Instagram @rodeodrive Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.