fashion designers

By Julie Earle-Levine
Dec 24, 2005

New Bentley Continental GT - tick. Foie gras dinner for 50 - tick. New penthouse apartment - tick. A fresh-cut Christmas tree from Michigan, delivered and decorated - tick. Three levels of Christmas decorations at Tribeca apartment - tick. Week in a private, oceanfront villa on Brazil's Cacoa coast - tick.

Wall Streeters are giving themselves a lavish spread this holiday season. Thanks to bullish earnings at investment banks, the highest bonuses in years - from several hundred thousand dollars up to a reported $20m - are rumoured to be in the financial pipeline, and though most bankers, traders and hedge funds don't get the cash until early 2006, many have been pre-spending what is estimated to be a total of $17bn.

What are they buying? We asked the experts (names have been deleted for obvious reasons).Start with travel. According to Nathaniel Waring, president of Cox & Kings USA, the high-endprivate travel company, one equity manager with his own firm indulged in a $100,000 one-week trip to Brazil for Christmas and new year, staying in penthouse suites in Copacabana, then travelling by private jet to the Txai Resort in Bahai and holidaying in a three-bedroom villa on the beach.

Another New York banker spent $70,000 on a 10-day package at the Ritz Carlton, Grand Cayman, including a four-hour private snorkelling tour, a seven-course dinner cruise for two, and ringside seats for an opening gala with Tony Bennett.A lower-level younger man had booked a $600-a-night room at La Samanna, a luxury resort in St Martin, French West Indies, and then heard about his big bonus and re-booked, taking the $2,700-a-night room.

Then there are the facelifts. Neil Sadick, a dermatologist and cosmetic surgeon with a Park Avenue practice in Manhattan, says: "We are seeing a lot of men getting bonuses and getting major stuff done - liposuction and fillers. They are spending $500 to $10,000 per procedure.Many are repeat customers and are agedfrom their early 30s to their 60s." "There are bankers, traders, executives who want to look younger in high-powered jobs and they come to us. Some of it is for their second wives," says Sadick, who is also president of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery Foundation.

Another popular luxury is food. At Petrossian, the Tiffany of caviar purveyors, executives are buying beluga caviar for themselves and as gifts - which may not sound so over-the-top until you realise the US recently extended its ban on beluga. "One man bought a kilo of beluga, and 50g of Imperial Special Reserve Persicus caviar for $11,400. The beluga was $7,600," a store spokeswoman says.They are also snapping up Oestra caviar at $3,500 a kilo. "We have many New York customers who are buying one to three kilos of Oestra for parties," said Frank Schaefer, chief executive of Caviar Creator, a Miami-based company.

Cars come in for some action too. Maurizio Parlato, president and chief executive of Ferrari North America, says, "We saw a big increase in traffic this month and because our cars are pre-ordered with aone- to two-year waitinglist, this makes a significant impact."The car of the moment is the F430 coupé (starting price $170,045) and the recently launched Ferrari Superamerica, a two-seat convertible, is also selling well. "Some clients are paying cash."

There is strong interest in a new Porsche Cayman due to be released in January and a new Bentley Continental GT ($175,000), according to Brian Miller, general manager of Manhattan Motorcars. "Everyone wants this one. The entertainment types, bankers and hedge fund guys. This year we've sold 200 of them and expect to sell 30 in December. There has also been a lot of activity with Lamborghini ($170,000 to $200,00) and we are seeing the $300,000 version sold out for 60 days. We need more!"

But perhaps more than any other gift, Wall Streeters are buying real estate. Keith Copley, of Sotheby's International Realty, has seen bidding wars in recent weeks, mostly among young hedge fund players. Three are competing for a $6m "celebrity style loft" called the Glass Farmhouse with views of the Hudson River. "All these guys are in their 30s," he says.

Meanwhile, Dolly Lenz, vice-chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman, is seeing the trend trickle down to those with "smaller bonuses" of $3m or so. Last week she sold 20 units in one building, 55 Wall Street, a full-service Cipriani Club Residence. "These guys won't get paid until February but they are using all their bonus money to buy and rent out apartments," she says. "It's the usual suspects - Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Chase, the hedge fund guys." Another client, aged 33, got a $20m bonus and bought in Southampton on the ocean for $28m.

And what about the traditional stuff?One Manhattan member of Quintessentially, the global concierge service, is planning to give his girlfriend a Christmas stocking with Crème de la Mer cream, underwear by La Perla, and a platinum, diamond and ruby studded necklace from Cartier's Orchid collection. It makes the rest of what the company has been asked to source - a new Jaguar, Birkin bags (skipping the waiting list of course), vintage wine and jewels - look almost pedestrian by comparison.

By Julie Earle-Levine
Feb, 2005

So there you are, ogling all the fantastic gowns on the runway during fashion week, planning what you'll buy for this season, and modelling your spring frocks just in case – when, shock! horror! you see the a large, dark stain that could be steak au poivre, or perhaps red wine, across the front of your dress.

Observing your resolution to Deal With It Now, you immediately send said garment off to the best dry cleaner you know, which successfully removes the stain, but also sends your dress back with a large tear, right across the front. Ruined.

Your dry cleaner insists it must have come in like that, but you know it didn't. Who is to blame? What recourse do you have?

Consumers often hold dry cleaners responsible for stains, shrinkage, melted buttons and tears, and missing clothes. The number of complaints against dry cleaners in the US alone jumped to 5,584 in 2003 from 4,380, the previous year, according to the Better Business Bureau, an independent group run by the US Chamber of Commerce.

But talk to the cleaners themselves, and you (not surprisingly, but maybe begrudgingly) hear a different story.

John Mahdessian, president of Madame Paulette, a New York dry cleaner who looks after classical gowns for Sotheby's and the Metropolitan Opera, says customers who try to remove a stain can cause irreparable damage. "Red wine is a big culprit, but it is not a problem for dry cleaners," he says. On the other hand, "If you use water, or an at-home stain remover, or rub instead of blot, you might get the stain out but the fabric can't be restored."

Indeed, that old stand-by, club soda, turns out not to be such a great idea at all.

"Club soda can be great – God love it – but it is nothing more than water. It is one of the things your grandmother told you and unfortunately is not great advice," says Nora Nealis, executive director of the National Cleaners Association, an industry group.

Water on silk can also create problems. Mahdessian recalls a water leak that damaged 14 Valentino gowns - or $150,000 worth of silk and sequins. Luckily, the water rings were able to managed to be removed, the beads re-stitched and the dresses restored.

According to Mahdessian, dresses can also be defective, or manufacturers fail to provide the right care instructions; indeed, many one-off designer pieces do not have care labels inside at all, leaving it to the cleaner and garment owner to guess how to clean.

Deborah Kravet, the owner of Fashion Award Cleaners on Manhattan's Upper East Side, says there are also "invisible" stains. Clients are often surprised to see new stains, caused when dry cleaning solution interacts with perspiration or other substances. "People put their clothes away dirty. This happens a lot with men's tuxedo shirts."

If Madame Paulette can't fix a garment using conventional cleaning, the client is informed.
"We tell them, you can't wear this the way it is, but we could try something else," said Mahdessian. If a garment is damaged, the store "always steps up and takes responsibility".
Kravet says she also works on clothing up to a "safe" point. If there is concern the fabric could be damaged, then she will ask for a customer's permission to go further. The customer makes the decision and is responsible if the cleaning doesn't work out.

In Paris, Pouyanne-Teinturier, a dry cleaner since 1903, talks to customers about what each garment will require. If a garment is damaged under 'normal' circumstances, or goes missing, the cleaner takes full responsibility, said according to the manager Caterina Gurez, manager.
Meanwhile, in London, Paula Silver, a manager for Jeeves of Belgravia, which has 12 branches throughout the city, says, "We do a disclaimer on receipts. We will try to clean it but there is no guarantee. We also can't guarantee loss of trims and beads."

Nealis says the best way to determine who is at fault when a garment is damaged is to send it to a garment analysis laboratory and ask for a determination.

This may reveal if there is weakness in the fabric or dye (which would be the manufacturer's fault), or if the consumer has tried to fix it, using seltzer or bleach, or had hair spray, medication or even perspiration on the fabric. The last resort can be taking legal action.

In London, the Textile Services Association, an industry group for dry cleaners, also helps offers consumers and will investigate complaints. And then there's always the all-black alternative.

WAYS TO AVOID DRESS DISASTERS
Questions to ask your dry cleaner:
*What percentage of the time do you ruin a garment and what will you do for me if that should happen?
*Can you give me some references?
*Can you give me a satisfaction guarantee?
*Do you guarantee, in writing, all of your work?
Tips for parties
*Apply hair products (hairspray, mousse, gel etc) before getting dressed and allow time to dry before donning The Dress.
*Do the same with perfume.
*Don't iron out closet wrinkles; a hot iron on fine fabrics can dull, pucker and damage the fibres or colours. Expose to light steam by hanging the garment in the bathroom (away from a wall) and running hot water in the shower to allow the wrinkles to disappear naturally. However, do not leave the garment in the bathroom for more than a few minutes: excess moisture can affect fibres, finish and threads.
*Don't wear jewellery that is likely to snag a fine fabric.
*If possible wear dress shields to protect the garment from perspiration and body oils that could disturb sizings and dyes, and cause permanent damage.
*When spots and stains happen, blot don't rub

A Frenchman in New York
By Julie Earle-Levine
Financial Times; Feb 2005

Moments after I am introduced to interior designer Jacques Grange, we are striding past security into the lobby of a gleaming new residential building on New York's Upper East Side. My interview with him aside, he is on a mission: to inspect furniture.

"I check everything. Every detail," he tells me. "I love to control all I do. Each project I make, I control. I do not delegate. This is why I do not do so many projects, because if you grow too much then you disappear."

So far, Grange has mainly decorated individual homes for wealthy patrons including Princess Caroline of Monaco and billionaire cosmetics heir Ron Lauder, causing him to be dubbed the "reigning designer of the international set" and the "ultimate conjuror of magnificence". But we are here today because the perfectionist has finally allowed himself to take on an entire residential building, One Beacon Court, in which we are now standing.

Grange pulls up suddenly in the lobby and waves his hand towards a miserable grey vase being filled with flowers. "I don't want that," he says. "I hate that. It's ugly." He next stops two men carrying a bespoke rug, takes it from them and places it on the floor, just so. He rearranges some furniture, paces back and forth, looks at the sofa, plumps the cushions.

In just a few hours, the Municipal Art Society gala will be held in this space and it has to be perfect.

So, why did Grange take on this vast project, designing kitchens, bathrooms and public spaces for future residents he doesn't know, in collaboration with architect Cesar Pelli? All his other work - combining 18th and 19th century furniture with designs from the 1930s and 1940s - has been for acquaintances or friends with whom he first felt a connection.

It is easy to understand," he says. "I have come from Paris. I am French. It is like a dream to design something on the tower. I love coming to New York and have many friends here. I was friends with Andy Warhol in the 70s. This building is like a realisation of a dream.
"I think there are only three real cities in the world," he adds. "In our world, they are Paris, London and New York. Asia, I do not understand. I have to travel there, and China is the new world, no? But Paris, London, and New York are all the same people. It is a nice world isn't it?"

While he's in town, Grange is also working on a "huge flat" in Manhattan, though he can't say for whom, and puzzling out the US political situation. Failed presidential candidate John Kerry was a childhood friend thanks to mutual family holidays in Saint-Briac, Brittany, France, and Grange can't quite understand why George W. Bush is so popular. "Kerry is not arrogant like Bush," he tells me. "Bush is too much. But people do not realise. It is a shame, no?"

But back to decorating. Grange enjoys visiting India and says there is a "touch" of that aesthetic in One Beacon Court ("the marble in the foyer, the scalloped ceilings"). The lobby walls feature panels of hand oiled parchment, a luxe treatment not seen since the 1930s and a carpet with a pattern also from the 1930s. "The carpet is so beautiful. It is mixed together to give the floor huge personality."

Moving up to the condominiums, which range in price from $3.1m to $26m, Grange has created kitchens featuring polished Brazilian granite floors, Italian stone counter-tops, stainless steel Kohler sinks, Miele dishwashers, and refrigerators and under-the-counter wine coolers from Sub-Zero. Washer/dryers are also there, but concealed.

In the master bathrooms, Grange again chose Kohler for sinks, tubs and bidets, as well as polished marble counter-tops and tiles. The bedrooms and living rooms are delivered empty, though Grange has spoken to some buyers about finishing the interior design job.

Vornado Realty Trust, which owns and manages One Beacon Court, declines to tell me how many units have been sold but some high-profile names, including pop star Beyoncé Knowles and motor racing tycoon Flavio Briatore, have been linked to the building.

One of the things Grange says he likes most about the condos is not their interior but their bird's-eye views of Central Park. He adds that New Yorkers have completely disproved the theory that they would shy away from tall buildings following September 11. But, of course, not all tall buildings are created equal: "That [Donald] Trump builds tall buildings," Grange tells me "but Trump is blah."

Although One Beacon Court is Grange's biggest project to date, it is not his favourite. After a moment of deliberation, he cites Yves Saint Laurent's home in Marrakesh, Morocco.
"It's incredible," he explains. "We worked for five years. The garden is incredible. The house is incredible. We did leathers. It was all very influenced by Matisse." Oh, and that's not to mention the fact that he incorporated Warhol portraits of Saint Laurent's dogs on the walls.

Naturally, Grange also decorates his own homes. They include an old barn in France's Loire Valley, which he converted into a weekend retreat housing leather armchairs of his design, colourful paper kites, rustic-looking wood and rush chairs, and a blue mohair velvet sofa ("I'm very passionate about modern, and timeless attitude"). He also has a cabin in Portugal, which Grange calls "a cheap and totally wild country, like the Hamptons was 100 years ago".

But when I meet him the designer's full attention is devoted to one big building in Manhattan.
Surveying the finished lobby, surrounded by staff vacuuming and polishing the bronze elevator doors, he smiles.

"It is elegant no?," he says, "It is character."

By Julie Earle-Levine
Financial Times; Apr 2005

Gwyneth Paltrow once famously announced that straightening her hair made her more confident, claiming: "If I have straight hair, I feel like half my outfit battle is over."

But that was before marriage and baby, and to see her now is to see a vision of beatific, almost hippie, Raphael waviness. Indeed, dead straight hair, or as some stylists put it "flat, anorexic hair", has not been seen on the runways or fashion magazines for some time. But is it really time to declare it over? Are our locks loosening up along with our looks?

In New York women are asking for anything but pin-straight hair, according to Spresa Bojkovic, who owns the Damian West salon in Greenwich Village. "They want va-voom, lots of shine and rich-looking waves."

Kelly Reynolds, a New York recruiter for an international real estate company, however, is not one of those women. Reynolds is in her mid-20s and has straightened her hair "forever".
"I have curly hair," she says. "Straight just looks more professional."

Linda Vogel, vice-president and general counsel for Aerosoles, the shoe company, is also staying straight. "The biggest reason for me to go straight is that it is a time saver," she says, noting she prefers to use a Japanese straightening treatment in which the hair stays straight for several months. "I don't have to worry if it is humid about leaving one way and arriving at a meeting with it looking totally different."

Hiro Haraguchi, a New York hair stylist to designer Vera Wang, acknowledges some business women are still asking for pin-straight hair but says it suits very few of them. "For someone with a small, long face or small head, straight hair is a Don't, and I will tell them that." Instead, Haraguchi suggests women get layers around the face and a style that can be easily maintained.
"We are not encouraging straight hair at all," agrees Ian Florey, a senior stylist at Charles Worthington's Mayfair salon in the Dorchester Hotel. He suggests blow drying hair straight then using tongs to achieve "a Sienna Miller" look. (Miller gets her hair done at their Percy Street salon). "We don't want frizz or old fashioned. Soft curl can still look edgy."

Michael Gordon, the British hairdresser and founder and owner of Bumble and Bumble, the New York based hair product company and salon, believes ironed-out straight hair became a "suburban thing" that people had to have. "Let's just say it is very unnatural to have hair so straight it is like curtains," he notes.

Gordon prefers waves and chignons to create "a combination of elegance and texture", and is predicting a return to 1920s style bobs. "Like anything, hair goes through cycles and I think it will soon be about hair with volume and hair that moves."

David John, a stylist at Fred Segal Beauty in Santa Monica, also says that while some women were still asking for straight, blown-out hair, many had embraced curlier, more glamorous hair. "At the Golden Globes everyone was wearing full, soft and natural hair." And, like Gordon, John also believes bobs are the next new thing, along with cleaner, geometric cuts.

In this they are supported by Paul Windle from the Windle Salon in London's Covent Garden, who says straight hair, or "old footballers' wives' hair" is over, and Louise Brooks-style bobs are in.

Curls are also back in style, but messier. "Don't ruin the texture of curly hair by trying to straighten it," says Windle. "Just let it dry naturally while running your fingers through it."
"Stylistically, big hair is officially dead," says Gordon. "Please write an epilogue."

But perhaps a woman should have the last word. According to one Wall Street lawyer she would never go to a client meeting with her hair naturally wavy. "Straight hair, regrettably, will always look sharp, clean and polished and there is nothing we can do to change that."
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd

By Julie Earle-Levine
Jun 04, 2005

The promise of spring and crisp, new clothes after a miserable winter is reason enough to shop. There is that must-have pouffy skirt to purchase, silky camisoles to snap up and a new swimsuitfor the beach. Most people would agree, retail therapy feels good. Butwhat happens when you cannot stop shopping?

Close to 8 per cent of the US population are considered "hard core" compulsive buyers, according to the psychologists who treat them. For some, this is expressed as dropping $2,000 on Jimmy Choo shoes and not being able to pay the rent; for others it is having the latest DVDs, cameras, computer and sports equipment.

Then there are those who go to see April Benson, a Manhattan psychologist who specialises in the treatment of compulsive buying disorders, because a well-known celebrity has worn a designer item on television.

"I used to get a lot of women coming in after Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) on Sex and the City would wear something on TV," says Benson, author of I Shop. Therefore I am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self. "Jimmy Choos are a big problem for lots of women. They think they can never get enough of what they don't really need."

"Most shopaholics are trying to counteract feelings of low self-esteem through the emotional lift and momentary euphoria that compulsive buying provides," Benson says, and adds that she believes the problem is growing.

Donald Black, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, who has studied compulsive shopping for 12 years, agrees. "There are reports from England, Germany, France, Brazil and Australia to suggest people are consumed with shopping in a way that impairs their emotional, social and financial lives."

He says the few countries that did not have the problem were generally third world countries. "If you think of Africa, or poor parts of Asia, the same conditions don't exist. People spend their time gathering food not at the mall."

But compulsive shoppers don't need to live near a mall to be seduced by retail. "If an individual has an impulse in this direction, then they can get anything they want via the internet, the phone, catalogues and have it delivered express," says Black.

Most of Benson's clients are women and though men have the same lack of control, society refers to them as "collectors" and fewer seek help, she says. Certainly, more is known about compulsive female shoppers, from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to Imelda Marcos, whose passion for shoes was well documented. Michele Duvalier, the wife of the former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, bought designer clothes, jewellery, furs and works of art in the middle of that country's economic crisis. Black gives further examples: "Princess Diana was widely reported to be a compulsive shopper, among othedisorders. Even Randolph Hearst almost bankrupted himself in the 1930s because he was a so-called collector."

But what determines if shopping has gone beyond a routine activity? If you shop excessively year round, or every day, or buy multiples of the same product and hide what you buy, then you may have a real problem. It is not about overindulging at Christmas or for birthdays, Black says.

"Women can hide it for a while. Most spouses aren't curious about attics but many get divorces when they learn they can't get a mortgage because of their partner's problem."
Olivia Mellan, a Washington-based psychotherapist who is credited with creating the field of money psychology, sees many couples and says usually one is the spender.

"Often the man will ask his partner to get help and I have addicts who buy Kate Spade handbags, Hermès scarves and then guys who love Rolex watches."

As Carrie said on Sex and the City: "If I spent $40,000 on shoes and I have no place to live, I will literally be the old woman who lived in her shoes."

IRENE ALBRIGHT HAS 4,000 PAIRS OF MANOLO BLAHNIK SHOES

"I definitely have a problem." But the racks of Manolos take up a relatively small amount of space in her 7,000sq ft loft in Manhattan. It is the rows of Dolce & Gabbana and Louis Vuitton shoes, and aisles of clothes by Gucci, Prada, Chloé and Marc Jacobs that are the biggest space hogs.

Albright, an American-born Iraqi, is a self-described fashion whore. "I always say it is better than being a drug addict," she says, admitting to spending thousands of dollars a week on her "closet", which has expanded to become a rental showroom, stocked with designer handbags, suits, shoes and even bikinis.

However, unlike other addicts, Albright has turned her compulsion into a business, and her showroom boasts one of the most comprehensive fashion inventories in New York, which she rents out to various stylists and editors.

Albright buys the current season's must-haves at sample sales and often stores invite her to visit early in the season. She never shops with friends. "I always have a huge pile," she says. "Dolce & Gabbana let me come in early because I buy a lot and I don't want to be bothered when I am shopping. I have to be completely focused."

Albright officially started her collection in the 1990s, when she was working as a stylist.
She had studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and designed opera sets at Juilliard School but ended up working with fashion photographer Bruce Weber, as well as the late Vogue editor Kezia Keeble.

Of her collection, her favourite pieces include the Tom Ford-designed Yves Saint Laurent gold sequined backless dress that Nicole Kidman wore to the Golden Globes last year; a new Gucci purple sequined gown; and a pink Christian Dior gown with ruffles that Renée Zellweger has worn.

"Where have all the Chloes gone!?" she asks no one in particular. One of her four in-house editors, who help to style photo shoots for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, rushes over to tell her the Chloes are all out, as is a pink Alberta Ferretti dress she can't find.

"Oh no! I can't think about anything else but that dress. I should have bought more," said Albright. "Maybe I will."

Albright throws open dozens of cupboards to reveal racks of designer handbags, hats and even jewellery. "Isn't this sick?"

She is wearing a simple, black Michael Kors dress with bare legs, and slip-on shoes.
"When I bought this loft I thought I could just walk next door into my showroom and wear something fabulous, but I don't really. I don't think about getting dressed up when I am in working mode."

Albright rarely gives up anything and finds her annual South Hampton yard sale a trial.
Up to 5,000 shoes can be displayed on the lawn, with prices starting at $40, though they are new and originally cost $400 and up.

"I hand-pick everything and I am very passionate about it," she says. "My staff will edit (and remove items so they are for sale and out of the showroom) and then in the middle of the night I will go back and put it back on the rack."

Albright also admits to concealing how much she really buys. "I am like a wife who doesn't want her husband to know they shop. I hide it. Sometimes I just put it on the rack and one of my editors will ask, have you been shopping again?"

Irene Albright, stylist, 62 Cooper Square, 2nd floor, New York +1 212-977 7350




© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd

By Julie Earle-Levine
Jun 11, 2005

Jade Jagger, daughter of Mick and Bianca, is at home in Ibiza, Spain, slicing chicken for a teriyaki stir fry from the local market for lunch. The view from the kitchen of her 500-year-old Spanish farmhouse is stunning - mountains and greenery as far as the sapphire-blue sea. Jagger stops for a moment to enjoy it, knife poised over white Corian counters. "Yeah, the design of my house just puts you right in it. This is my kind of sanctuary."

Jagger has invited me to the house, which she designed with architect and business partner Tom Bartlett, because she sees it as a showcase of her artistic sensibility. She is perhaps best known as the hard-partying daughter of a Rolling Stone. But now, aged 33, with two children, she is trying to establish a career in design, creating jewellery for Garrard and, more recently, signing on as an interiors consultant to UK-based property developer Yoo, which has about 500 apartments worldwide and 4,000 under construction.

Starting our tour after lunch, Jagger describes her home as "a mix of traditional Jagger bohemian style with a clean, modern feel". "The kitchen is made for a big family that loves to cook, so we have a big Aga stove (best for slow-cooking roasted meats and vegetables) to keep everyone toasty in the colder months," she says. An orange aluminium table by MDF Italia matches custom-sprayed Gio Ponti chairs. The floor throughout the house is industrial rubber that Jagger says adds a spring to her step. "It never creaks, and bounces glasses and youngsters with ease."

Next is her bedroom, or boudoir as she prefers to call it, a former hayloft with floor-to-ceiling windows framing the mountains and an enormous, freestanding, Japanese teak bathtub by William Garvey. "It is as big as the kitchen and used a lot where we as a family can all get clean and beautiful as we relax and talk." Her four-poster bed is also teak. There is a fireplace and a bespoke round futon for "after-bath" relaxation, or if her daughters, Assisi, 12, and Amba, 9, want to be close by. Portraits of her six dogs adorn the walls. A walk-in closet spills with designer clothes and racks of shoes for an event every night, whichever city she may be in. Jagger splits her time between Ibiza and London and is often in New York.

Downstairs, hip hop music thumps. "This is the 'teenager's' room, where they don't study," Jagger says, sweeping past the not-quite teenage girls, who are just back from school.

Outside, there is a seating area with Indian silk throw cushions and statues of the Hindu elephant-headed god Ganesh - all part of the "bohemian" aesthetic. Ganeshes and fabrics she has bought back from India over the years help to "keep my eyes alive", she says. Walking from the main house, we pass one of the house's two pools (with an enormous mirrored disco ball above it) and what look like naked tepees, just upright poles and no covers. "In the winter we take the skins down, but in summer, guests stay there. Kate (Moss) prefers to stay inside the house." The teepees have fur blanket beds where guests can recline on plush cushions and oriental carpets.

The pool, with rendered pink concrete on the inside, turns the water a delicious green. The landscaping around it was difficult, Jagger tells me. "We wanted to do it without changing the feeling that it was a farmhouse with a lot of land. It seems like sabotage sometimes when you put all the concrete down."

A dirt path cuts through green land that is scorched in summer. This leads to a spacious studio where Jagger draws and paints each day. Doors open on to a terrace and an infinity pool. Cactuses in terracotta are eye-catching against white walls. There is also a studio for her boyfriend, musician Dan Williams, and a guest room, where everything is vermilion, like sindoor, the deep, rich blood-red powder used in Hindu rituals and by women to show they are married.
The walls are lined with books, mostly the novels, design, art and inspirational books Jagger says she likes to read. "I think that, sadly, the beauty of a well-read book shelf is sorely underestimated, both as a feature and as a part of daily life." She puts wood in the fireplace and settles into a chair covered with an ornate Indian wedding shawl.

I mention a photo seen in a London tabloid that day - of a paparazzo leering at Jagger in a skimpy orange dress, and she bristles. "Public perception of me can be totally annoying. Sometimes I want to pull my hair out."

Although she sees herself as a serious, self-taught artist who has been creative her entire life, critics are not yet convinced. When her paintings sell for thousands of pounds, they suggest that it is because of the family name rather than talent. Many fashion editors seem to have ignored, or panned, her jewellery; and her Yoo appointment was greeted with some surprise.

"I spend every breathing day thinking about art, and yet somehow, people see me in a different way," Jagger laments. She says she officially embraced art and design as a career when she left modelling to live amid Renaissance works in Florence. Other influences include friends of her mother, such as artists Ross Bleckner and Francesco Clemente. "From my early childhood I thought that Andy Warhol with his whole factory concept was genius," she adds.

At Yoo, she will work closely with designer Philippe Starck, a company co-founder, and with Bartlett. The aim, says the other co-founder, John Hitchcox, was to bring a feminine side to Yoo's apartments; it currently has five, 40-storey buildings under development.

Jagger will help design four concepts, expressing different lifestyles: Boho, Aristo, Disco and Techno. "There has to be different applications in each place, but I think there should be a recognisable philosophy," she says. "Boho is kind of luxurious, with ethnic finishes. Aristo is leather, traditional colours and that kind of English, quintessential racing green. Disco relates back to what I remember of the Studio 54 generation: Halston, carpeted stairs and plush recessed seating." (Her mother was, of course, a fixture at the New York nightclub along with Warhol, whose paintings Jagger has in the Ibiza house.)

"I really love the idea of spreading out art and creativity into products and things that are affordable and attainable," Jagger says.

There is also the draw of trying to turn the sensibility she's showing me today into a fully fledged interior design business with Yoo.
As for the idea of branding herself, she makes no apologies: "I think we have become a society that enjoys lifestyle identity."
Contact Yoo: www.yooarehere.com;tel: +44 (0)20 7009-0100

HOUSE & HOME: A chip off the old building block
By Julie Earle-Levine
Oct 22, 2005

It is hard to miss Trump Place when driving up Manhattan's West Side Highway, along the Hudson River. The group of buildings looms over the road and the adjacent Hudson River, like its own city, emblazoned with the Trump name in thick, gold block letters. Get closer and you'll find a stream of limousines waiting to pick up wealthy residents; inside the main tower (one of 16 that will eventually be built), there is a dramatic, domed foyer of Italian marble with custom woodwork.

These are exactly the sort of glitzy, gargantuan developments for which Trump is famous.

But I'm at Trump Place today to visit a decidedly low-key apartment - the one owned and occupied by the son, Donald Trump Jr.

Trump Jr is to all intents and purposes his father's real apprentice. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, he joined the Trump Organization four years ago.

Now, at age 27, he is vice-president of development and acquisitions, responsible for four major US projects and helping to find opportunities in Moscow, Shanghai, Macau and Mexico.
He claims to work 12-hour days, six days a week, so asks me to meet him at home before he heads to the office - located on a floor he shares with his father at the 58-storey Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.

When I step off the lift, Trump Jr is waiting outside his open door in a beautifully tailored pinstripe suit - and socks. (He has a shoes-off policy at home because "New York can be, well, dirty.")

The apartment is a well-laid out two-bedroom that he shares with his fiancée, the model and actress Vanessa Haydon, and her dog, Faluffa, a fluffy, white Havanese who bounces around before eventually plopping down on a dog bed filled with toys in the kitchen.

Trump leads me into the living room and settles into a chocolate leather lounge. Trump Place is more than a home for him, he explains. It was also his first construction project, and a tough challenge. Sales started just before the September 11 terrorist attacks, then, as almost everywhere else in Manhattan, suddenly stopped.

"I mean, [the buiding] is 49 storeys tall and right on the water, and it was a sceptical market," Trump says. "But in January, we sold 45 apartments." Eleven months later, the building was sold out.

He has lived here for 18 months and particularly likes being close to the highway, which offers an easy escape route to the country. Where Donald Sr thrives on parties and pageants, his son is happiest hiking and fishing. There's a photo of him with an enormous steelhead trout on display in the apartment to prove it.

The living-room coffee table is stacked with business books and magazines, surrounded by more framed pictures - of his father; his mother, Trump's first wife, Ivana; and Haydon. The décor is somewhat sophisticated, but also a mix of styles. In the lounge, for example, Trump has installed a tree-stump coffee table with a glass top because "it brings nature inside". Haydon is not a fan. "That is definitely going to the country house," she says.

So, given that Trump's name is on the building, why isn't he in one of the penthouse apartments? "It was not an option," he laughs. "I had to buy this apartment. My parents were good at spoiling me with travel and a good education but I had to buy my own place." The purchase price was $900,000, he says, "but I got in before the craze", he refuses to speculate about what it is worth now.

I ask what he thinks about recent claims that Manhattan real estate is overvalued and set for a fall. "As far as a bubble, I don't see anything exploding; I don't see doom and gloom," he says. "After the Enrons, the Dennis Kozlowskis and the advent of the hedge fund business, people now realise real estate is solid."

The week after our September interview he was set to close the sale of a $19m apartment. He'd sold another for $23m earlier in the summer. And "these things happened in August and July and June, which are typically the slowest months of the year," he says.

These values will hold, and rise, he argues, because the baby boomer generation has realised the value of owning a second home and their purchases of condos at the beach and pieds à terre in the city will support the overall market. His advice for twentysomethings such as himself - not surprisingly - is to invest in property as soon as possible.

He and Haydon are talking about that weekend house in the country (where that tree-stump table will go) as well as children and a second dog. They're due to wed next month and are watching their waistlines when I visit. But both tell me they love to cook and, judging by the equipment in their kitchen, which is positioned in the main living room, and their dining table set topped with candelabras, I believe them.

As Trump gets ready to be photographed for this piece, he asks how his hair looks. For the record, it's nothing like his father's much-ridiculed combed-over coif: it's dark brown, long for an executive, and smoothed back from a boyish but determined face.

It must be hard to be the son of someone so famous and infamous, successful and self-promotional - to suffer through the constant comparisons and the, often unflattering, assumptions. But, says Trump, "I have dealt with scepticism about me, and I think people are surprised by my experience."

Having visited construction sites since he was able to walk, Trump followed in his father's footsteps by enrolling at Wharton. But instead of starting work immediately after graduation, he took a year off to party in Aspen. "It was fun," he says. "But then I realised I loved real estate." And he felt ready to join the family business. "I know who my father is," he says, "and I know he doesn't accept failure."

Aside from Trump Place, Trump has overseen the transformation of the art deco Delmonico Hotel, at 59th Street and Park Avenue, into 35 storeys of luxury condominiums, now called Trump Park Avenue. He is also helping to look after the 90-storey Trump hotel and condominium development in Chicago, Trump International Hotel and Tower Fort Lauderdale and Trump Las Vegas.

Those who work with father and son say they handle problems differently. Donald Sr can be "explosive", and is known as a brash, fierce negotiator. (He recently sued his business partners for selling a parcel of land and three Trump Place buildings to developers for $1.76bn, a huge price but one which he claims was 40 per cent below another offer.) Donald Jr prefers a softer touch.

His diplomacy is on display during another tour, of a $31.5m duplex penthouse at Trump Park Avenue. When I comment on the chandeliers in the elevators, the gold doorknobs everywhere, and the frescoes covering the entire ceiling (modelled after the ones at Donald Sr's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach), he responds easily. "He thought they would be a nice touch.," Trump says. "When people buy into a Trump building, buyers expect a slice of Trump."

The son may not share his father's taste, but he can still sell it.