The fabric of our lives...

...and no, I am not talking about cotton. I am talking of friends. I was always a loner - still am - but I went through a serious phase (starting even as a kid) of believing that I could survive without attachment to friends that really heightened in my 20's. Whether it was the rebel in me, the desire to have the utmost confidence in myself, or maybe just plain old insecurity - I pretty much shunned deep friendships. But much has happened since then. I lived abroad for years, made bad decisions in relationships, changed careers and figured out that although it's lovely to spend evenings alone and hide in a movie theatre with obligations to no one for 2 hours - life is so much richer with relationships. Especially ones that tend to be able to handle forgiveness, are made of loyalty without severe expectation or judgement and come equipped with an amazing capacity to exchange ideas and information, creativity and laughter. It wasn't my first rodeo in Paris - I had already studied and lived here before, but when I came in 1986, I was enrolled in school for clothing design at ESMOD. I met Elsa: she was short, had dyed black hair that was spiked up with pommade as her head was shaved on the side and a "meche" - one of those tiny braids longer than all of her other hair. She wore mens' jackets and trousers - and we listened to the same music. It was Goth for us - the Bat Cave had launched earlier in the decade in London: Bauhaus, Siouxsie, Nick Cave, Sisters. We would stay out all night at the Boucanier, falling asleep on the couches to the side of the dance floor until the first metro would open at dawn and then our merry band would disperse and make our ways to our respective homes, as the boulangers were already at work baking the first croissants of the morning. There were a group of us that only got stronger after we graduated: Laurent worked for French TV and spent all of his money on vinyl and clothes by Yamamoto. Sandra was busy booking our collections on Parisian TV shows and getting as gigs to show our clothes around France. Armelle lived near Versailles and would have us over to her parents' apartment for holidays when they were out of town. And Manu would smoke cigarettes and fall in love with a different girl every week. We would go to afternoon Tea Dances and party next to JP Gaultier. BOY of London and their followers were huge. We sold our collections in a Galerie for Jeunes Createurs aux Halles. In those days Les Halles was more friendly...still seedy, still sex shops, even our landlady of the gallery was a Madame with rooms upstairs, but the Costes brother had opened their cafe. Laura Todd had introduced a chocolate chip cookie shop and we would meet every day to discuss fashion "Au Pere Tranquille" when we weren't at home in our ateliers, on the road or working selling our designs at the Galerie. When I moved back to the States in the nineties, I would return to Paris at least yearly, often for business or just visits (and now for teaching) but also for special occasions: a long weekend for the wedding of Elsa & Laurent (he wore Thierry Mugler!) and we partied til 5am, the birth of Evaluna so I could present her with her first shoes by Baby Dior and a little hand-sewn black dress and bloomers, Elsa's surprise party for her 40th birthday at Alcazar with drag queens and cigarette girls, my 40th birthday in Oberkampf with a huge cake shaped like an American flag...they would move apartments and arrondissements but there was always a bed for me. Their son Vermeer was born a week before the twins...and now our kids are friends. And if the Sisters of Mercy were to come on right now, we would all get out on the dance floor, wearing black, with our heads down, not speaking and dance: First and last and always...

Evaluna (13), Elsa, Laurent, and Vermeer (6 1/2)...my favorite French family