A Tea Leaf Prophecy

The Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund awards were held the other night . This event has gone over my head in the past few years. This is it's 6th year and I feel that they're starting to get it right. The face of it is not necessarily the body of it. The criteria for what makes the candidates and eventual winner are mysterious. On the one hand, it's a huge honor and coup to be considered and go on to win. $200k and a year's mentoring are two incredibly valuable prizes to receive. They're invaluable especially in these times where the challenges and pitfalls for success are as plentiful as the opportunities. Past winners were Alexander Wang and the year before, Rodarte. These winners felt to me as being extremely insider-ish and not particularly relevant. It seems that they, like many CFDA winners were not so much people's choice winners but choices who appealed directly to the bodies who bestow the awards. Nevertheless, they've been catapulted into the sight lines of the public. Do they have greater relevance as a result? I'm not sure. Alexander Wang has certainly gone on to scale higher heights. Rodarte has also benefited greatly. The zeitgeist is synonymous with Wang's ascension. It's a tea leaf prophecy...

This winner this year is Sophie Theallet, an expatriate French designer. The other nominees which ranged from designers of womenswear, mens, shoes and jewellry were a very interesting group: George Esquivel, Waris Ahluwalia, Phillip Crangi, Monique Pean, Patrick Ervell, Simon Spurr, Wayne Lee, Gary Graham, and Flora Gill and Alexa Adams of Ohne Titel. When looking at all of their collections there was a strength and uniqueness that was more obvious than in the past. There was also a sense that these were consistently marketable designers which speaks volumes. After all, wearable, retail able clothes are criteria I find as important as BUZZ. There were a number of stages and elimination rounds that culled the larger group of designers down to the finalists.

Sophie designs wearable clothes, even beautiful in some cases. She is a mature designer with grown up taste. It's a breath of fresh air that she does not fall into the category I call the "Fetus-ization" of fashion designers. Lately, one needs to be not older than 25 to be considered a wunderkind, no matter if you can design or only master the art of the photo-op. Some would view that as a minus, I don't. These aren't tired,old lady offerings but elegant, sexy and deceptively simple. She feels like someone who will benefit from the financial and mentoring bump that this award bestows. My personal choice would be Ohne Titel for their real muscle, courageous individuality and aesthetic which is all their own. They are for me what Rodarte should have been. One pair are realists and the others are fantasists..... Ohne Titel will prevail in the long run, of that I have little doubt.

The only tiny, niggling gnat surrounding this choice is that she is a huge favorite of First Lady Michelle Obama, unlike any other designers on the list. I can't help but wonder what sort of influence that may or may not have had on the judging. When you consider Vogue/Anna Wintour and her new best girlfriend Desiree Rogers, the aesthetic alter ego of Mrs. Obama, I can't help but puzzle over the discussions they may have had regarding Sophie. This is not meant to take anything away from Sophie Theallet as being wholly and totally deserving..... but the question floats in the air. Politics is everything in this business and in the world. It's not who you know, as much as, who you dress.

What's this and who bought it?

This is the sort of story that I can't resist. Something so out in left field that I actually feel a pain in my guts to even go there, and feel even worse dragging you all with me.....that's maybe going too far, I need to have witnesses on this dark journey. I start to get that sentimental feeling that Seventh Avenue really isn't that bad and the things that are passed off as fashion are simply that. Then I read, see, hear, or in this case smell something so fetid and rank that I'm shaken from my momentary reverie and tasered back to reality. I'm talking about Peacock International Holdings, the company which now owns the rights to Bill Blass and their decision to relaunch the collection, oh, and the choice they've made for Creative Director.

At the risk of this rant coming off as a personal attack, I will address that now before I go any further. Any designer fortunate enough to land a coveted position such as this is very lucky and to be applauded. The competition is great and the opportunities are Nil. For that reason I must commend the person for their good fortune and wish them well. That said, when the writing on the wall is so large and the message so clear that to read between the lines is just pointless redundancy and that message is "Step away from the burning building", someone should heed the Siren's song.

I have an uncomfortable feeling that eyes, ears, noses and brains are all on vacation. Nobody appears to be home and no one is checking the computer or answering machines for messages. It looks to me like full steam ahead. Scott Patti, the president of the company which does a lot of mens wear, shirts and private label stuff for chains looks and sounds like a guy with some business acumen. He also sounds like a man with an unchecked ego, just like Michael Groveman, the last man who tried to run Blass and drove it straight into an iron wall. Hearing that Steven Chai turned it down, as did any number of others, and Charles Chang Lima was considered but not offered the position is just part of the tangle of threads. Some others tossed their hats in the ring only to be summarily ignored. The biggest downside to the position is that Peter Som and a string of other hopefuls effectively squeezed whatever life remained in the label until it no longer showed any pulse. That said, even Peter has more get up and go than this guy. Ouch, was that hard to say.....

I am showing selections from the last 2 seasons of the designer who will most likely take charge.You can judge for yourselves the gifts that have obviously eluded him. A picture says a thousand words. Now, who knows, maybe Ikram, Michelle Obama and Desiree will call it brilliance and Thakoon and Jason will have another prodigy nipping at their heels.If that happens I may have to stop this blog and go back to Massachusetts and pick apples.

When someone or something dies it is gone. It lives on in our hearts and memories but that's it. Trying to revive it never works. Changing it and giving it a new life is possible, but that has evaded all who have tried at Blass. Halston, Jil Sander, Ungaro, Givenchy, YSL, and countless other companies have been unsuccessful in reviving or giving new life to these grand old houses. The public barely responds, the press eviscerates the collections (the intelligent press, at least) and it's only the owners who fail to wake up and smell the crack.

Jeffrey Monteiro is his name. He was the Design Director at Derek Lam before going out on his own and these images are from his Resort and Fall collections. One gown was all I saw in Resort and the rest of the images speak for themselves. Perhaps the plan for Blass has nothing to do with its DNA, but then why are they calling it "Collection"?

I'm confused. Are you?

Gathering Clouds

As much as I'd like to switch gears and look on the bright side, the clouds continue to gather and the the darkening skies refuse to clear. I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of this constant rain. The light shines bright in some corners and refuses to cast it's glow on way too many others. That doesn't mean that good things don't come from trying situations and people under siege. It just starts to feel like the wrong people are getting caught in the under tow while others with less weight and solidity stand fast and gain in strength. Many who have succumbed to the vicissitudes of the grim, reaping economy should have been on higher ground. But that's not the way life operates and certainly not the way the cards are stacked.

Today I was reading about the downsizing of yet more design houses. Zac Posen and Gucci came onto the radar screen and I was surprised to read about one and less so about the other. Zac has been keeping a lower profile the last 2 seasons. I speculated shortly before the collections that he seemed to be straddling a fence that wasn't there before. At that time it was announced he would present his collection in a more intimate venue than the tents. That's always a red flag when you're known as a high flying, high roller. Today's announcement stated that his CEO was let go, not to be replaced . Mother Posen and Zac's PR director are slated to take the helm. That in itself is probably good, but I would be uncomfortable answering to Mommy and relying on a PR agent to do truly substantive heavy lifting, but hey.....what do I know of the dynamics there?

What puzzles me most is the decision to cut vital staff when you've been given a considerable investment by someone like Sean Combs, the artist also known as Puffy, P.Diddy, Diddy and Daddy. Zac received something in the neighborhood of 2 million dollars plus. Though the money was said to be coming from P.Daddy, the source was more correctly, Ron Burkle, a billionaire grocery store chain owner. My mind wanders wondering why things have come to this. Two million dollars, nowadays, is chump change to many, but it's still a considerable amount of money to most of us. I'd like to think they are conserving funds for a spate of rainy days. The possibility is that the funding is gone or has been withdrawn. Whatever the reasons, the facts are that another very talented young designer is faced with challenges that he'll hopefully master and overcome.I've not always been that much of a fan of Zac's work, it is the sort of bravura aesthetic I've found to be somewhat cloying in it's cleverness and his penchant for all things 1940's-ish, but his skill, eye and attention to the finest points of the craft have always been impressive.

The chemistry that brought P.Diddy, Ron Burkle and Zac together is a very interesting question. Zac's obvious gifts aren't what I question, but why did Ron Burkle, the backer of Sean John to the tune of 10's of millions of dollars, add him to his stable? The press made out that Sean Combs was the deep pockets behind Zac. He was more beard than anything else. Zac certainly added luster and a degree of cachet to a company and it's owner who remains neck deep in over the top spending, conspicuous grand standing and desperate attention getting. Maybe Burkle saw the species of moths circling Zac's flame and wanted to cozy up to their nubile loveliness. The is a simplified answer but certainly a plausible one. So why the mounting storm? Simple, everything is a mess.

Perhaps, women are not only cooling it on designer clothing, but are also putting their families on diets. Who needs to fill a shopping cart when you can lock, load and hunt? When Jason Wu starts designing a collection for Tse Cashmere in addition to his collection which is marginal at best, there appear to be glaring inequities at play. Talent has taken a back seat to popularity. The strange thing is that Zac has a powerful PR machine behind him, in addition to the ultimate stage mother and has maintained a very visible presence up until recently. An Inaugural bump is a very powerful kick. More power to Jason and others like Thakoon Panichgul. The world is their oyster. I'm saddened to see how the field has thinned. It doesn't feel right. But that's the way things are now. It will all shake out in the near future, but at present there are too many people at the table. Musical chairs is the game of choice.

Some Things Lost, Others Gained.

Imagine an International magazine store that sells absolutely everything from everywhere under the sun. From obscure, brilliant "books" like Paradies 5 (suggested to me in passing by a very sharp fashion editor), to Dressage Today, a must read for anyone with an interest in the art of riding and its greatest trainers and riders,to Vogue magazines in every language, and so on. It is a feast for the eyes and mind. One can get almost every point of view and actually subject them all to one's own litmus test . In the end , one's opinions are more substantiated just by virtue of having placed them against so many other educated and absolutely inane ones. I make regular pilgrimages to one in the Village on west 12th street and Hudson as well as another on East 23rd street between 5th and 6th . They are incredible hotbeds of information and images.

Two things caught my eye last week. One was the cover of British Vogue adorned with an actual model, Lara Stone and the other were a couple of magazines all focused on the fate of the House of Versace and Donatella in particular. Lara Stone, a beautiful young woman was such a refreshing change to the world of weary celebrities who have usurped the place of the cover model. In this instance, one is the Beauty and the latter is more Beastly. As I'm a visual creature first and foremost, I was initially caught by the loveliness of Lara, her gown and the clean, unfussiness of the magazine's cover. It actually exuded a feeling of freshness, even hope. In contrast, Donatella's picture held my eye for totally different reasons. I remembered her looking like a tawdry South Beach Euro tart. Looking at her that day I saw a face that spoke volumes. She actually resembles the Grinch in drag with a platinum weave with extensions. The face, mouth and eyes scream "Grinch". I'm fascinated by all things high and low.

It wasn't until getting home that I realised both characters in both magazines shared the same story: Rehab. It is a tired story for so many of us who are aware of so many who enter and never recover. Places like Promises in Malibu which is the Rehab Spa of choice for the over privileged and over indulged. Very few who enter stay longer than it takes to get a fresh tan and some much needed down time. The concept of a 12-Step program seems a gross imposition on the quality time they've signed up for. This is not about sobriety but more about a good P.R. maneuver and first-class room service.

Lara Stone's story was inspiring in its seeming honesty. I don't pretend to know her, how she feels or what makes her tick. I don't think Alexander Wang has any better sense, despite their best-girlfriend status. That is anathema to a life lived at interminable parties. It would be a bummer to actually face life and death situations, let alone talk about them at length. So Lara's rehab journey struck me for its blunt honesty.

In the article she discussed her fear of the future after modeling. She worried that modeling was her only talent and had no aspirations to act or design. Can you believe it? A model who, for once, looks in the mirror instead of just standing in front of one. She talked about her difficulty to connect with men, basically due to the inequities of the arrangement when one is a beautiful model and the sorts of men who gravitate towards them. Lara mentioned not wanting to end up a desperate addict acting as sex toy to get stoned. Her candor was both unvarnished and gritty. Still, having maintained /saved her career is something a lot of people struggling with addictions of all sorts can look at and draw some strength. Like many who suffer from addictions there are some things lost and others gained. The ability she had to walk into a VIP section of a party and send someone scrambling to bring her a bottle of Vodka seems to have lost its appeal. Starving herself for the camera and runway has also lost its appeal. What a novel approach to this business. My feeling was that this woman actually likes herself. That toxic self loathing so many of us have suffered at different times is the gorilla she seems to be battling and gaining the upper hand.

Donatella has done time in rehab as well. I got the feeling that her experience of addiction was much more harrowing. Multiple substance addictions coupled with huge responsibilities and their accompanying pressures make her experience different. Wife, mother, Designer and head of a global fashion house make for a rather large ticking bomb. Toss pounds and pounds of cocaine into the mix and the chances of something good coming from it all are decidedly slim.
Rehab for Donatella is a thing of the recent past. Her intervention and rehabilitation took place about 5 years ago. The most that anyone or Donatella would share on the subject were her mood swings and inability to effectively steer the company and its ever shifting design message. She seemed to enjoy her private dinner parties alone in her marble bathroom the entire evening as the guests enjoyed another sort of party on their own.

With the announcement of the Versace house having laid off a quarter of its work force and the shuttering of all its Japanese boutiques is a clear signal that somethings do get lost. The restructuring will hopefully come in time to save what was a global giant. It's such a metaphor for the fashion business today, versus, when Gianni Versace was at the helm. Big, brutal business and a society bent on disposable values adds up to a heaping, steaming pile of waste. Perhaps the job is not worth the price of a life.

Ego is as devastating and addictive a drug as any flute of champagne, or bump of coke even if it rests on a diamond and ruby encrusted silver tablespoon.

Desiree Rogers suffers from acute Hubris.

For days now I've been gripped with a gnawing sense of fear and loathing at the thought of our First Family's Social Secretary. Desiree Rogers is too evident, too grasping and too ambitious for me to ignore her any more.

It started with appearances and lengthy stories on her in the Wall Street Journal, Vogue and countless smaller rags, all celebrating her brilliance(MBA from Harvard), accomplishments (heading an oil/power concern in Illinois) and the crowning glory on her pin head of being best girlfriends with Michelle Obama. Her ambitious, power-brokering got her the plumb job of the official Social Secretary to the Obamas. I guess having played a similar role for a utility company makes her uniquely suited. It's her incredible self regard that is her most valuable credential. Desiree is the ultimate example of one who thinks her gas is a luxe scent blended just for her. Well a fart is a fart by any name and she has a cloud that's growing around her daily.

You might think that a tasteless and unwarranted jab, but I have reasons for my low opinion of the White House Social Secretary. Her shameless self promotion is not an asset for the First Family. It looks like they don't know better than to choose a power junkie instead of someone powerful working behind the scenes for them.Perhaps, she got the job with the help of Grandma who was a Voodoo Priestess. I have the feeling that Desiree feels on equal footing with our First Lady. That is a clerical error as I see it. She is not the First Lady. She shows up at the collections as a stand-in for a Michelle Obama. I've always respected Michelle's priorities as being an astute and successful Lawyer, wife, mother and not someone desperate to attend the opening of every tawdry collection and colostomy bag in and out of town. Perhaps out of politeness Michelle delegated those appearances to Desiree in order to have a representative for herself and the White House. It was certainly necessary with the Fashion Industry having anointed the First Lady as the Savior of our industry simply because she wore a string of mid range and low end designers to all sorts of events. Do the math: If a First Lady can meet the Queen of England in Gap and Jason Wu, she's GOT to be a Fashionista!. So the job was taken up with unseemly glee by the secretary (very Eve Harrington in my book) and she's only gotten more and more comfortable with it.

Desiree is photogenic, a handsome woman who's clearly had some very good work done to enhance her loveliness, not that there's anything wrong with a little chopping and sanding. She's mad for clothes and wears many of the greats all the time. She can swing from Carolina Herrera to Calvin to Viktor and Rolf to Jil Sander and back to Oscar de la Rental. Now she can't be buying it because she's changing too often in a day. In the WSJ story there were 4-5 shots of her busy at her job and she managed to change clothes for each and every shot....jewelry too. So I infer that she's a bit of a product placement Pro. I have the uncomfortable feeling she's playing the favor game and getting racks of clothes in the bargain.

" Never a borrower or a lender be."

That is a rule that certainly applies to a person in that position. Desiree can't be bothered with rules. She makes them, she's too busy "BRANDING" the First Family to follow them. That's how she sees her job. I see it as a 2-way street. She arranges the public's access to the First Family, be it literal or virtual. State dinner invitations, events, national and international engagements that cast the magic of their Administration far and wide are all responsibilities that I would expect from her. With that job done you get the satisfaction of serving something greater than yourself and your own ambitions and not private lunches bi-weekly with Anna Wintour and spreads in Vogue for herself and her 18 year old daughter. Not going as a duet to fashion shows and constant mugging for every Instamatic within 100 feet. Not playing the quick change fashion show junkie wearing the clothes of the designer to his/her show like so many other dumb asses in the front rows of too many regrettable shows. You don't see Anna doing it. I forget how much a rookie Des is and then I'm reminded.

So with the appointment of Anna to the President's Arts Council I can't help but think Desiree is behind the scenes waving her twisted wand. Ms. Wintour is vaguely acquainted with the arts, literature, both Fine and Applied, but she's really about Sales and the neutering of a whole industry. What does that have to do with the National Council for the Arts? Why not Toni Morrison, Tabatha from Salon Makeover,Aretha Franklin, who generously serenaded their Inauguration,Aerin Lauder, and let's not forget Wendy Williams. They at least do something besides pose. Hell, I'm sure Oprah or Kathy Griffin are available.What has Sarah Jessica Parker done lately that qualifies her? Hair color and rancid perfume?

If Desiree spent more time behind her desk instead of standing front and center for the cameras, maybe she'd get more done. I don't want to see spreads on what sits on her desk: the Hermes notebooks, one large black one for work and a smaller orange one for personal, fresh flowers everyday, a Presidential stamp on her Styrofoam coffee cup, and on and on. How about a slightly less styled desk where real work happens. Thank god she has some focused assistants that keep her in the job. Someone has to be doing the heavy lifting, but it's not her. How could she when a huge chunk of her time is spent holed up in a suite at the St.Regis waiting for Anna to summon her to some glittering gathering. I could care less about our tax dollars being spent on the big guys doing their thing, but I don't like the idea that I'm paying for this silver -plated wannabe to play dress up. Is it so bad to be a secretary? There are so many out of work secretaries who are better qualified and dying for a chance to actually work for the Leader of the Free World and his Family.

My advice to her is put away those American Spirit cigarettes or whatever it is she's smoking, and pick up that pad and pen and start taking dictation. Good secretaries remind their bosses of commitments they've committed themselves to. She could remind the President that he promised to do something for the gigantic block of Gay voters who helped him get into office and the small businesses who were supposed to get a piece of the pie to help weather this shit storm. Those items keep getting put off for another day. Well with Fashion shows, photo-ops and fittings there just aren't enough hours in the day for Desiree Rogers to do everything.
Her mantra is:"A girl has to take time for herself".... and she does that with real zeal.

Bottega Veneta and Oscar de la Renta drink from the same well.

There's a well in the fairy land of Fashion. It lies in a enchanted dell whose entrance is guarded by trolls and hags. Granted, with the right password the lucky are given admittance. Without that riddle of a password, the unfortunates are barred. The number of pilgrims increases each season in direct relation to the guards , who are now legion. Not everyone gets a ticket to imbibe.

Two who obviously drew from the well, must have done so simultaneously: Oscar de la Cha Cha and Thomas Maier of BottegaVeneta. All I can deduce is that one drank from a 2-fisted beer stein and the other from an etched crystal, Georgian water goblet. Who do you think sipped and who drank heartily? The collections answer the question. The taste and purity of that well water is evident in both, simply because one collection almost mirrors the other. Not everything is similar, but the guts of the collections are similar in silhouette and treatment. What separates them is a freedom of expression in one and an uptight, self consciousness in the other.

Some would say that age plays a part in this. One designer being younger and the other more senior. That's too easy when you put them to the Lagerfeld test. He is categorically considered senior in terms of age. Creatively, he is clearly not trapped by that label. So, with the leadership of Alex Bolen ,CEO son in law and his charming Junior League wife,Eliza Reed Bolen, Oscar's step daughter, age is something that need not apply. They are the fresh blood coursing through the veins of Chez de la Cha Cha.

Shifts, safari suits,dirndls with embroidery, and draping that looked decidedly organic, not fussy, were evident in both collections . I will illustrate this by placing each example side by side to prove my point. Oscar consistently uses a hand that constricts the shape, whereas, Thomas lets the same idea breathe. Ultimately, the consumer decides what works best for her. It's only interesting to me that one collection exudes ease, the cool factor and modernity and the other is matronly and devoid of cool. It's unfortunate in that fashion needs to be about NOW. It must inspire, seduce and weave dreams. Perhaps the fault of one and the success of the other lies in the styling of the collection.

Styling for the runway is as essential as it is for the editorial page of a magazine. Without the right mix and the imagination of a visionary stylist, the clothes are too often earth bound. In seasons past, and we can go all the way back to when Oscar designed Balmain Haute Couture, his stylist of choice was Andre Leon Talley. I remember collections over the past 5-7 years that were some of the very best in this country and the world. Whether Oscar was your cup of tea, the collections had a cohesion that is all but lost for the last two seasons. They appear to drift left and right across a treacherous terrain.There was a symbiotic relationship between Oscar and Andre that created real fireworks on the runway. One show left me in tears, and not in that pathetic, fashion victim, breakdown sort of way. I cried because I felt I'd just seen a collection that answered all the questions and left no stone unturned. My tears were simply because I saw that there really wasn't anything I could say with my collection that would or could say it with any more clarity or artfulness. I was bummed, but I was powerfully impressed. Oscar had Andre by his side and the two together were greater than Oscar alone. Now his collections are styled by Alex White of W magazine. She may be serviceable, but her youth and freshness is not adding anything to the mix. It is a collection that looks like it wants to be one thing when it's hopelessly another. WWD and W may herald that Oscar is on top of the heap, but exactly what is the nature and composition of that heap? His collaboration with Oscar was far from broken , so why did they feel compelled to fix it?

Thomas Maier wins the day and he does it quietly, elegantly and with a minimum of fuss. Whomever styles the presentation, or doesn't, Thomas is spot-on leaving us all sated.

My name is Precious.

Last night I was invited to a screening of Lee Daniel's much anticipated film "Precious". I'd heard it was a big hit at Sundance and was making the rounds at a number of film festivals , but more importantly it was getting the kind of response few films receive due to it's unusual subject and extraordinary cast. Andre Leon Talley had extended the invitation and that alone was in itself not an everyday occurrence. My life is one of observation. I'm not a player, I watch the game. So accepting this invitation was stepping out of my comfort zone.

I googled the film and looked at the trailer over the weekend about 4 or 5 times, simply because it knocked the wind out of me the first time and I kept going back to see what about it had such power to stop me dead in my tracks. More than that, I found my self crying and disturbed each time I watched. The brute force of the the story was something that I couldn't shake and at the same time was afraid to watch. I didn't want to be so uncool that I'd be at a screening seated next to Andre in tears or trying to hide them. I sent him an email and warned him I might not be able to hold it together but was honored by his invitation.

We met early, by accident. I was keyed up with anticipation, knowing that he'd invited two other close friends and was worried that I would be very much out of my element. Getting to the restaurant early seemed like a chance to steel myself for an evening that filled me with second thoughts. My hesitation was that I'd be too emotional and not feel comfortable with 3 people who knew each other well. I knew him casually, but his friends, not at all. Andre was already there, so we sat down and got reacquainted after a long time. We talked about the universality of what we were about to see. The story centers on an impoverished black girl living in an abusive home with a mother that has done everything to kill her, her spirit, and the last shred of hope that flickers like a spark in a gale. I realized that this story was much larger than what happens in that squalid home but that it's about the lives of many people, all of us in one way or another. I also realized that I was afraid to lower my guard and give myself up to what I was about to see, certainly not in the company of people I barely knew and only knew as larger than life characters on a global and social stage. What would be their reactions?

One of the first things Andre said before the others arrived was don't judge people by their appearances or ones perception of them. I realized I do that alot. It's a defense mechanism and one that stems from feeling constantly that I am not good enough. Well this movie was going to turn that whole pointless way of thinking on it's head. Being open to life and experiences , new or uncomfortable is what it's all about. The safety zone is only that; safe and predictable. When Gloria von Thurn und Taxis walked in I was not prepared. I expected a return to the eighties and not a woman who has had many lives since those Go-Go years. She could have been the woman who lives next door. Her eyes said it all. She was warm, natural and crackling with energy and curiosity. But her big brown eyes were a sea of kindness. Being German was also a huge part of her charm. She listens and takes in information. She doesn't take over and control things. Like many Germans and some Europeans, Gloria has a curiosity and fascination with life, cultural differences and similarities that I found immediately engaging . We were all headed to a crash course on one pocket of culture that would raise and answer more questions than I imagined. Star Jones was Andre's other guest who joined us in time to head to the screening. She too was a very sweet and pleasant surprise. Besides being a very visible and successful Black woman in the entertainment industry, she's knowing and anything but naive. I knew when we all headed over together that this was going to be an interesting night.

The film hits like a hammer's blow. There's nothing remotely subtle in it's telling. Precious is a young woman struggling at 16 , still in Junior high school living with a mother on Welfare, a baby already a few years old , a second one on the way and both of them fathered by her father. She's the antithesis of the name Precious at 200 plus pounds with an expression of frustration, anger and fear. Without telling more of the story, because the film is the only way for one to know the story, it's about a person without love, suport, or the smallest shred of a dream to make it to a brighter tomorrow. Every force in her world is doing it's best to kill every last ounce of hope. It's a story that mirrors all of our lives in many ways: overcoming impossible odds, be they inside us or from without; wanting, deserving and needing love and respect to be able to stand alone and find a path through life no matter how fortunate or handicapped we may be. Clareese Precious Jones finds her way with the help of her teacher and welfare agent , both brilliantly played by Paula Patton and Mariah Carey (no make-up and clothes that say TJMaxx). Gabourey Sibide, the actress who is Precious is as staggering as Mo'nique, who plays her mother. Certain scenes between the two and Precious' struggle to survive and take charge of her life and those of her babies is so gut wrenching that I cried again and again along with many others.

It will open in about 2 weeks. You need to see this film. It's message is that we are all a family. We all need each other's support, acknowledgment, understanding , respect and love. Love is the one element that makes it possible for every person to survive and grow. Without that we are lost.

The reception afterwards had some of the usual suspects. Tina Brown led a panel discussion with Lee, Gabourey(Precious) and the Chancellor of schools. Instead of directing the questions to Lee Daniels and the star of the film, allowing them to share how they managed to create such an extraordinarily powerful story, Tina kept asking the School's Chancellor about NY City schools. She was less than interesting and was disappointing all around. We managed to be the first ones to take our seats and somehow, being lost in a conversation that kept breaking down different moments in the story, the last ones to leave. Not for a moment did the evening or the experience we shared slow to silence. We could have sat up all night talking. I, for one, was sad when we said our goodbyes and headed off into the night, each in a different direction.