In Fashion Part 10

Stuff NOT to Do

Show your belly with short tops.

Wear flip-flops.

Distracting stuff. One Seventh Ave. intern switched her silver tongue ring for a flesh-colored one thinking that that would make it acceptable. Well, it wasn't.

Rude stuff, like calling in sick because you have your period. Showing up late because you were out late.

First Thing to Learn

Work out your office kinks. Learn the processes. Learn how to express yourself.

Besides doing the best job you can do, it helps if you are addicted to fashion. You need to shop. Always wear new, good-looking clothes. As a young a.s.sistant, you need to be inspirational in your look. In a perfect world, you would be an inspiration to the designer. Everyone is expected to bring something to the table. You need to express your personal style, appropriately to the label.

Be eager to learn. Show enthusiasm. Be pa.s.sionate. Show you are engaged in what you are doing. Take ownership of what you're working on. a.s.sume accountability.

Express your personal style, and allow your style to expand and develop with what you are seeing and learning on the job.

Mint Your Boss into a Mentor

Square 1 is that your boss knows your name. Next step is making yourself invaluable. After the internship, you need to keep in touch with everyone you worked with in a friendly, persistent way. Let them know you are looking for a job.

In the Meantime?

Keep interning as long as you can (even part time) until you can convert that experience into the job you want.

Besides Having Your Name on a Label, There Are Lots of Other Ways to Be a Designer

Jewelry designer, textile and/or surface designer (print design), lace and embroidery designer, woven designer, knitwear designer, package designer, sportswear designer, denim designer, and textile designer as well as high-tech textile designer.

Fashion Designer

With specialties in men's wear, women's dresses, women's tailoring, children's wear, intimate apparel, knitwear, special occasion, sportswear, swimwear, leather apparel, outerwear, performancewear (athletic), made-to-measure or custom women's clothing, millinery (hats).

PROFILE.

RICHARD SINNOTT Accessories Mastermind, Michael Kors Today a driving creative force at Michael Kors, Richard Sinnott made his way up the fashion ladder the hard way, working tirelessly as a magazine a.s.sistant for years before his abilities were recognized with bigger t.i.tles and responsibilities, which ultimately resulted in a switch from critic to creator. That today his speed dial reads more like that of a Hollywood agent than an accessories designer speaks to his own star personality and comedic talents. Nonetheless, Richard presents himself modestly, poking fun at his upstate origins and finding humor in the sometimes ridiculous, sometimes sublime situations of his early career.

BIG BREAK.

Getting a job at Harper's Bazaar first as a secretary to the fashion director. "I was a secretary and wore a tie. I made $17,000, which represented a pay cut from my receptionist's job at Macy's."

FIRST BAZAAR BOSS.

"Miss Weir found me charming. Sometimes, after a long day, we would sit in her office and watch the sunset. She never got my name right; she always called me 'Robert.'"

NEXT STEP.

Richard was then promoted to sittings a.s.sistant at Bazaar. "I worked like a slave seven days a week. Suddenly the kid from the Catskills was flying all over the world with actors and models, seated at dinner next to people like Cindy Crawford."

HOW RICHARD GOT INSIDE FASHION.

"Hard work. I remember sc.r.a.ping gum off the floor of the photography studio at lunchtime. So very few people have that work ethic. I wasn't in it for the glamour. I just wanted to be present. I was soaking it all in. I'm like, 'Holy s.h.i.t! This beats sitting in math cla.s.s with the pig farmers' kids.'"

DRIVING FORCE.

"It was a voyeuristic thing. Certainly not the money, honey. And it's not like I was planning for a future."

SLEEPING BEAUTY.

"It was the tacky late 1980s and 1990s, and a lot of work was in California with [Los Angeles photographer] Matthew Rolston. I remember opening up jewelry cases in my hotel room and putting on gold Rolexes. Sometimes my bedroom would be filled with diamond jewelry. We'd put on all the jewelry. Or there'd be Fendi minks. Once I took all the fur coats, put them on my bed, and slept on them."

FAMOUS FASHIONISTA ACTS.

The Richard Sinn character in The Intern (2000) by Jill Kopelman Kargman and Caroline Doyle-Karasyov is based on Richard Sinnott. In addition, the leonine-haired, small-framed Richard was famous for his office runway performances where he'd don Manolos and a sequined skirt to impersonate the runway walks of supermodels Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Carla Bruni, Linda Evangelista, and others.

HOW HAVING FUN HELPS THE CREATIVE PROCESS.

"I like to have a good time. If you have a sense of humor and are freethinking, you do better work, you make better things. The people I most admire tend to work that way too. When your head is twisted with ugly thoughts, it doesn't work."

AIR KISSING BACKSTAGE.

"I think Michael Kors first took note of me when, in Paris, after one of his Celine shows, a bunch of us from Liz's Bazaar went backstage to congratulate him. We were clearly having fun together and worked well together and that made a positive impression."

WHAT PREPARED RICHARD FOR THE BIG LEAP TO THE DESIGNER SIDE.

"My experience. I'd seen everything any company had made for years. Also, designers and PR people began to ask my opinion on designs and collections. They'd ask me what would make a better style. I was able to walk into a room and to see clearly how to change designs and make them better. That others valued my opinion gave me confidence that I could design and succeed as the designer. People were always asking my opinion. I sometimes thought, 'I could do this for a living. This could be fun.'"

BAZAAR SURVIVOR = 11 YEARS, 11 MONTHS, 11 DAYS, 11 HOURS, 11 MINUTES ...

Richard has the dubious distinction of surviving more editors and regimes at Harper's Bazaar than any other living soul. "After years at the magazine, I'd finally made it as the accessories director. I'd survived the Mazzolas [Tony Mazzola and Mich.e.l.le Mazzola, who'd jointly run the publication in the 1980s], loved my time with Liz [Tilberis, 1990s], made it to Kate Betts [who succeeded Liz, but lasted barely a year]."

THE CALL.

"One day, a year or so after we'd greeted Michael backstage at Celine, I was sitting at my desk with a bunch of a.s.sistants around me. Barbara was on the phone. Barbara who? I pick up the phone. It was Barbara LaMonica, the president of Michael Kors. She invited me in to talk about working on an accessories line with them. To go work there. I went to talk to them about it. Met with Michael. That was that."

ACCESSORIES EDITOR TO ACCESSORIES DESIGNER.

"At the beginning, it was horrible. I realized I didn't know anything about production. I had to go and create something from nothing, not just walk into a showroom and critique what was already there. The Italians at the factories kept saying 'domani' 'domani' [tomorrow, tomorrow].

"You had to depend on other people to get your things. You had to go to the leather show in Milan that was like an airport hangar filled with the stuff. It was a rude awakening. I didn't have to be a designer. It wasn't at all like the fun accessories shows in Paris, where I'd walk through 'Yes, I love that. Send me one.' And 'Oh, can you make that in gold?'"

REALITY CHECK OR POP GOES THE EDITORIAL BUBBLE.

"I heard the word no for the very first time, which was the biggest shock of my life. I couldn't have it in gold, and I couldn't have it for Monday. I wasn't shooting a bag for a magazine that translated into instant sales and status. I was making bags. It was emotionally frustrating. And the worst thing was that it was not glamorous. I got through it because that's the way I am. I don't give up.

"When you leave editorial and join a company, you go from receiving a hundred phone calls a week to four. In December, it was like 'What do they mean I have to pay for Christmas gifts?' But, in the end, it was a good thing for me to leave magazines. You get too caught up in it. It's really like cleansing your palate. Actually making something and knowing who your friends are: Somewhere it's kind of grounding."

EIGHT YEARS LATER.

"Now it's like clockwork. I've learned the hardest lesson that not everything can be done when you want it to be done, or exactly how you planned it in your mind."

PROUD OF.

"I created a business. In the process, I learned a lot about design and manufacturing, what can be made, how exactly things get made, and I learned a lot about myself."

Michael Kors has been nominated for the CFDA award for best accessories three times.

WHAT'S COOL ABOUT THIS JOB "I can totally express myself. My sister wore high heel wooden clogs that I had bought her that felt so right again. I'd saved the picture of them all these years. My babysitter wore wedgie corkies. To do a luxe version felt personally satisfying and totally ironic to me. With Michael Kors, there is an irony to what we do. And intelligence. Taking something nostalgic and twisting it to make it modern."

PROFILE.

LUCY WALLACE EUSTICE Founder and Co-Owner of M Z Wallace, Accessories Designer, Retailer, Fashion Business Owner Lucy talks fast, thinks fast, and observes, digests, and personalizes visual trends fast. Born and raised in New York City, she is sharp and savvy with a biting sense of humor. The ultimate fashionista, Lucy has played in almost every arena of the business-as a seller, a visualizer, and a creator-and, as a result, she possesses among her most valuable professional a.s.sets, a mental reference library of the greatest shoes and bags of our time. You spot Lucy a block away-walking fast, her silky long dark hair flying-and she's likely to be brandishing the edgy prototype of a bag she's working on and wearing a vintage sample of some dizzyingly high Manolo boots.

BACKGROUND.

A lifelong New Yorker, Lucy attended the prestigious Fieldston School, a private high school located in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

FIRST CAREER: RETAIL.

At fifteen, Lucy worked as a salesperson at the French clothing company Agnes B. in SoHo when it had just opened in the States and was hot. At nineteen, she worked for master shoe designer Manolo Blahnik in his Manhattan boutique, selling the chic, fantastic shoes long before his was a household name (and s.e.x and the City staple).

SECOND CAREER: FASHION MAGAZINES.

"I started out at Mirabella, as a temp, because I was planning on going to college. Mirabella then asked me to join the staff as a fashion a.s.sistant. I liked fashion, but I was actually trying to leave this world to study psychology, so it was complicated. I said fine if I could leave at 5 p.m. to get to my cla.s.ses. Of course, the hours were crazy since Mirabella was a start-up. We'd still be there at 3 a.m. After the first year, they transferred me into accessories under Elissa Santisi where I spent another three and a half years. I was completely obsessed with accessories.

"Then I went to Harper's Bazaar. I knew Paul Cavaco [a founder of the Keeble, Cavaco and Duka fashion agency, now KCD, and, at the time, fashion director of Bazaar] who was very good friends with my old boss, Amy Sullivan from Agnes B."

Lucy was named accessories editor, but after a year and a half, she left Bazaar to become the accessories director of Elle.

THE BENEFITS OF MAGAZINE TRAINING.

"A true ability to edit, to recognize what works and what doesn't. Magazines honed my instincts for trends, and for spotting relevance in small details. I also got to see an incredible amount of accessories and work with some of the designers. I was lucky enough to be able to look through all of the old archived magazines [in the case of Bazaar], which was fantastic."

THIRD CAREER.

After Lucy was dismissed from Elle, she moved into product development at Schwartz & Benjamin, which, at the time, held the footwear licenses for Yves Saint Laurent and Anne Klein. "I was in Italy half the year with people like Manolo Blahnik and Patrick c.o.x."

THE SWITCH FROM PUBLISHING TO MANUFACTURING.

"The pace is much different. In manufacturing, it's hurry up and wait, but without the craziness." Lucy says she absolutely does not miss magazines. "There's a fair amount of manic craziness that's not necessary," she explains. "Yes, that energy keeps you going. It feeds the whole Center-of-the-Universe feeling" at a fashion publication.

NEXT STOP.

"After that I went to work for Patrick c.o.x as vice president of North American operations to bring his shoes to the United States. That experience was a whole lot of everything: finding a showroom, identifying the right architect, establishing a wholesale division and a press office. It was like setting up a business. That gave me my MBA in fashion."

CHANGE OF PLANS.

"Then Patrick c.o.x ran out of money. I was five months pregnant when everything shut down and everyone was let go. Then, I had my daughter, Pearl, and I hung out for a while." For the first time in Lucy's life.