Always Pack a Party Dress: And Other Lessons Learned From a (Half) Life in Fashion

by Amanda Brooks

  The next morning was the real shocker. I got up early and went into the bathroom expecting to be used to my new look. But both eyes were black-and-blue, and the whole right side of my face had swollen up. Worse, my nose had blown up, too, leaving behind any resemblance of its former self. The only reason I went into the office that morning was to get out of the house before Zach saw me. And since I was in the office, I thought, I might as well go ahead with a few appointments. I was at WME at the time, and I was due to meet with R. J. Cutler, the director of The September Issue, that morning to discuss a potential new project. I had never met R.J., but I thought I had better warn him before he came upon the sight of me, unsuspecting of the horror that lay before him. I rang him up and explained that I looked like a battered housewife, and as long as he was okay with that, I was happy to have the meeting.

  “No worries,” he replied. “I think I can manage that.”

  When R.J. walked into my office, his eyes widened at the sight of me, and then he did the sweetest thing. He walked straight over to the window and summoned me over. He pulled back the hair hanging down over his forehead and showed me a scar next to his hairline.

  “I had a big line of stitches on my face, too, that I thought would change how I looked forever, but check it out—now I have to walk over to the sunlight in the window to make the scar noticeable enough for you to see. You’re going to heal just fine.”

  I am not always a positive-thinking person, but when given the option between living in fear and deciding things just might work out okay, I am always in favor of the latter. That moment in my office with R.J. was the moment I decided I was going to carry on with my life as normal, despite the scary condition of my face. I willed myself to believe that at some point in the future I would feel like myself again.

  But not without some serious self-pity first. After R.J. left, I sat down in front of my giant Mac desktop screen—the kind so big that it just about blocks your view of the rest of the room—and turned on the Photobooth app. I was going to snap some pics of myself and send them to my husband, who was still in England. I was fine that he was away, but I still had the urge to show him what he’d missed out on. To show him how brave I’d been on my own. To show him how shocking I looked.

  I unpeeled the two Band-Aids lying across the stitches on my nose very slowly, not because they hurt, but because I didn’t want them to pull the scar apart. The tissue on my nose had swelled up now around the black stitches, and it all looked ugly and messy and angry. Not wanting to dwell too long, I snapped a few pics and sent them off with no note attached to the e-mail. I thought the images would speak for themselves.

  “WOW!” was Christopher’s one-word response when he wrote back a few hours later.

  Next I had to decide if I was going to board the flight to Los Angeles that I was scheduled to be on that evening. Yes, I was meant to fly across the country that very day. In all my pre-op naiveté, it never occurred to me that my little nose bump would get in the way of a long-planned trip to California to attend a Chanel event I had helped plan. But more important, I had promised to take Zach, whose best friend had moved to L.A. the year before. They missed each other terribly and got to see each other only on the rare occasion. Plus, with Coco at sleepaway camp and Christopher in England, this was Zach’s big treat for the summer. I desperately wanted to take him, but going meant that I would also have to go to the Chanel party looking like this. Chanel had paid for my ticket, and they (and my boss) would certainly understand if I canceled because I wasn’t well enough to travel, but would they understand if I used their ticket and stayed in their hotel room but didn’t go to the party? I didn’t think so.

  At eight o’clock that evening, Zach and I boarded our Virgin America flight to LAX. As we walked down the aisle to our seats, I saw people stare, or look at me and then look away quickly before I registered their discomfort, or look at me until I met their eyes so they could give me a look of sympathy. None of it felt particularly good, but I quickly distracted myself by focusing on getting myself and Zach settled into our seats. The housekeeper at the house where Zach’s friend lived was even less subtle. “You got a nose job?” she asked as she walked us through the house.

  Four days later, it was the morning of the Chanel party. The purple lines under my eyes were fading, and the swelling around my nose was slowly retreating. Still, I was nowhere close to looking like me, and the oversize Band-Aids weren’t helping my cause. I went to the local drugstore in search of the most tasteful Band-Aids I could get my hands on. Tasteful Band-Aids? I laughed at myself. What does that even mean? But in my own mind I knew exactly what I was looking for. Something that was fabric instead of plastic and big enough to cover my stitches (I would still need two to do the job), but that would not extend much beyond the sides of my nose. I was also after the color of Band-Aid that would most closely match my skin tone. I went to one of those giant drugstores that also sell granola bars and fruit punch and beach chairs in hopes that they would have the largest selection. I found a Band-Aid box that had various shapes and sizes of the fabric ones I was after and settled on those. The result was a huge improvement.

  For the party, I put on a very pretty off-white crochet dress with a marine blue stripe at the bottom from Chanel. I wore killer Roger Vivier heeled sandals that brought out the blue in my dress and the blue in my eyes. I felt as pretty as I could with a mangled face. And off I went.

  The Chanel party was in Malibu. Ron Meyer, the head of CAA, had agreed to host it at his beautiful oceanfront home. Chanel was a client of WME, and they had asked us to come up with a celebrity face for their new J12 Marine Bleu men’s watch. We hired world-champion surfer Laird Hamilton to lend the watch a sporty, rugged, masculine feel—an image not easy to accomplish when thinking about the Chanel brand. I walked up the long driveway toward the massive, sleek, white, flat-roofed house. Near the front door was a girl with a clipboard and next to her was my longtime friend, PR guru Nadine Johnson, the one who was responsible in large part for my meeting Christopher.

  “DARLING!” she said when she saw me, excited and concerned by my look at the same time. “What happened to you?”

  I knew this was the first of a chorus of “What happened??”s I would hear all night from people I knew and didn’t know.

  I suddenly wondered whether I’d made the right decision to go. All I had considered was how I was going to feel at the party. I hadn’t thought through the possibility that people’s shock at my appearance would dominate the party chatter or the attendees’ gazes. But eventually it wore down and everyone got over it. The sun set, the people I knew had all expressed their concern for me, and after a glass of wine (or three) I let go and forgot about it myself for a little while.

  I remember the exact moment a few weeks later when I began to believe that I was, in fact, going to look like myself again one day. The stitches had been removed, but Dr. LaTrenta had not shown me a mirror before covering up the wound with medical tape and instructing me not to take it off for a week. Only then could I look at my nose and judge it, he urged. It would still be months before the swelling and redness would go away completely, but he promised that the shape of my nose would begin to resemble itself again. It was a long wait, but on the seventh day after my visit to Dr. LaTrenta, I was driving to my sister’s apartment to visit her. The tape had lost its stickiness at the sides and was beginning to curl up. Before I got out of the car and went upstairs, I decided to take a peek. I slowly lifted the tape up and over the bridge of my nose. The skin had healed enough to stay together without the help of an adhesive. I still had the upside-down-question-mark-shaped line from where the stitches had been, and it was really red. But the healing had made good ground, and it looked better than I expected. My sister agreed that a month out from the operation, the result was better than she had hoped. Despite the shock and drama of the first few days, I was well on my way to drawing less attention to myself.

/>   I wore the tape for three more weeks and then I let my nose heal naturally in the fresh air, applying silicone gel in the morning and keeping it strictly out of the sun.

  It’s now been five years. People have stopped asking me how I got the scar on my nose, but sometimes I catch the sight of it in the cruel fluorescent light of an elevator at an unforgiving angle and think, soberly, Wow—there’s my scar. The redness has gone down, although it flares up with a glass of wine or a rush of cold air, and I put concealer on it when I apply makeup. But the real miracle is the shape of my nose. It is identical to the shape it has always been. I sometimes look at it in the mirror and wonder how Dr. LaTrenta managed to conceal that huge one centimeter hole on the tip of my nose without grafting skin. It’s amazing. And every time I see Dr. Prioleau, he takes a good look at it to see how it’s healing, and he praises me once again for being brave. I recently told him that he doesn’t have to do that anymore. I’m over it.

  I am over it. I am grateful to have recovered from my bout with skin cancer relatively unscathed, and I am grateful for the “good dose of humility” it gave me. When I want to, I can make my scar disappear completely, but I don’t always want to. It’s a good reminder of my own strength, independence, and confidence in myself, apart from the appearance of my face.

  FASHION LESSON NO. 9

  HAIR AND MAKEUP KNOW-HOW

  Applying NARS Schiap lipstick just before putting on my wedding dress, 2001.

  DESPITE YEARS of having my hair and makeup professionally done for shoots, or paying someone to do it for a big night out, I’ve never been so happy with my beauty routine as I have been since learning to do it for myself.

  When I was planning my wedding at age twenty-six, I still knew very little about makeup. For both day and evening, I wore little more than mascara (top lids only) and lip gloss (always in a neutral color), and maybe a bit of eyeliner. What I did know was that whenever I had had my makeup “done,” I often felt overdone. I just didn’t recognize myself. So when faced with the prospect of “wedding” makeup, I was terrified of not being happy with the result on such an important occasion. Sure, I could have tried a few different makeup artists and had a trial run in advance, but that all sounded too high maintenance for me. Instead, I found some inspiration pictures online and took them up to the Saks store on Fifth Avenue for a makeup lesson. When I got there, I made a beeline for the NARS counter (my favorite beauty brand) and explained my quest for wedding-day makeup know-how. After some trial and error and finally achieving a perfected look all on my own, I left the store armed with a bagful of makeup and new skills to match. I still look back at my wedding pictures, pleased that I was able to create the best version of myself while still looking like me.

  My hair took longer to figure out on my own. As any girl knows, good hair comes and goes for everyone depending on the weather, the shampoo you use, how you brush your hair, how often you wash it, how it dries, how long it’s been since you washed it, and on and on. I also found, to my great frustration, that getting my hair professionally done was no guarantee that it would look how I wanted it to, either. Even with my favorite hairdressers, I’ve found that over the years every blowout or curling set is different, some better than others. At one point I was seeing a girl at Fekkai named Nicole. She worked wonders on my hair with a curling iron. She just subtly amped up the volume on my own natural waves without making my hair look “done.” She would have me wash my hair at home, let it air-dry to bring out the movement and texture, and then she would just put in a few extra curls—two in front, two on each side, and one in back. After a while—bless her—she told me that I could easily learn how to do the curls myself and save a whole lot of time and money in the process. She showed me how to roll the curls out and back to get them going in the right direction. She taught me to clamp the iron down an inch from the bottom of my hair and stop the curl about five inches from my part—this gives the curl a more seventies modern vibe as opposed to Grace Kelly “lady” curls. And finally she showed me how to space the curls so they left room for my natural waves to mingle among the manufactured ones. Sounds simple. It wasn’t. The first time I tried this at home was not particularly successful. I probably would have given up were it not for a wedding I went to in South America weeks later where there was no one to do my hair but me. Armed with my new curling iron, I tried the curls again. Much better this time, especially with the humidity making my own waves bigger and more defined. Years later, I am still not a master of self-styled hair, but I’ve figured out that no matter how good it looks just after I’ve done it, it always looks better the next day. So if I really care how my hair will look for a given day, I make sure to whip out my curling iron the day before.

  When I was in New York, I would still hire the pros for my hair and makeup on special occasions, like for the CFDA Awards and the Met Ball—it gave me the chance to try new things (like metallic turquoise liquid eyeliner—LOVE!) and learn new skills. But now that I’m in England it’s hard to imagine getting someone else to style me. I think every woman should know how to do her own hair and makeup to maximum effect. It’s like having your own exercise routine, your own salad dressing recipe, or your own favorite pair of jeans—it helps you feel more confident in who you are.

  My finished wedding look, with Mom in tow.

  Heading to fashion shows at Lincoln Center in head-to-toe Reed Krakoff. Garance Doré took this picture of me. I love how she photographs women.

  REJECTION IS A MANDATORY REST STOP ALONG THE ROAD TO SUCCESS

  I STILL REMEMBER the first time I went to Barneys New York. It was 1986, and we were living in Bronxville. My parents were very generous about taking us into the city for important cultural events, an occasional dinner at a new restaurant, or to celebrate a holiday or a birthday. Other times we’d venture into the city on a random Saturday or Sunday just to explore a new neighborhood or have a change of scenery. Such was the basis for which we ventured down to Seventeenth Street and Seventh Avenue to check out the opening of the new Barneys New York, “the coolest store in New York,” as my parents billed it. We wandered the spiral staircase up through the atriumlike space, so visually stimulated that we didn’t know where to look next. My mom bought an embroidered chalet scarf that she still wears today, and my stepfather bought some socks and a tie. Even then, at twelve years old, I could appreciate why the store was so novel—it was open, airy, and light, unlike other department stores. It had so many things I liked but had never seen before, and the atmosphere was welcoming, approachable, happy. Walking around the floor at Barneys was satisfying in and of itself, without even having to buy anything.

  By the time I graduated from college, Barneys had opened an uptown outpost on Madison Avenue and Sixty-First Street. Again, it impressed. The ground floor was covered with beautifully hand-laid mosaic tiles, there were glass tanks filled with exotic fish and sea creatures everywhere, and each floor had its own unique character. By then, Barneys had launched CO-OP, the lower-priced floor for the younger customer, and slowly I had worked my way up to be able to afford just the occasional piece, or an outfit on sale. In those years I bought a checked wool blazer from Theory, two pairs of Chaiken and Capone trousers, a black silk dress and a navy brocade suit both by Philosophy di Alberta Ferretti, a pair of shocking-pink suede Ann Demeulemeester Mary Janes, a Voyage skirt complete with the signature velvet ribbon and beaded fringe hem, and a million-ply cashmere sweater from Narciso Rodriguez (on final sale, of course) that I wear to this day.

  In 2010, my first interview—the unofficial one—for the job of Barneys’ fashion director actually took place at a charity dinner. Anna Wintour and Diane von Furstenberg were being honored by New York and Co. for their contributions to Fashion’s Night Out, a festive night of shopping on the eve of Fashion Week that was intended to revitalize the retail economy after the recession. Everyone in the industry knew that Barneys had recently had a big management shake-up starting at the
top with the hiring of Mark Lee, the new CEO, and affecting nearly every layer of the company. Many of the open positions had been filled by this point except for that of the fashion director, one of the more visible roles within any department store. Each week, it seemed, Women’s Wear Daily would report about which potential candidates had been seen entering the Barneys building or spotted having breakfast with Mark Lee in a trendy restaurant. One or two friends had discreetly whispered in my ear that my name had come up as a possibility for the position, and so when the Barneys PR office invited me to be a guest at this charity event, I had a suspicion that it might be an informal way to test the waters with me. Conscious of this, I put together a killer outfit—“winter white” men’s tailored wool trousers with a pressed crease down the front, and a matching cashmere tunic sweater belted with a silver metal Calvin Klein belt and topped with a Thakoon patchwork fur jacket. I slicked my hair back into a neat, chic bun and wore just enough makeup to look healthy and cheerful in mid-December. Before we even sat down at dinner, Daniella Vitale, Mark Lee’s right-hand woman, asked me if I would be interested in interviewing for the job. “Yes!” I said, without much thought. Then I was seated next to Mark Lee and we chatted away about “the new Barneys,” my favorite designers, and my thoughts about the history of the store and how to carry it forward. I was inspired.