Born to Be Brad (23 page)

Take a lesson from Marilyn Monroe. She was sexy but she never gave it all away.

It was everything I’d hoped and wished for. And yet, when I was pushed, I contemplated walking away. Allow me to present the Case of Oscar Week 2008.

It was February 2008 and Rachel’s studio was a whirlwind of activity. Boxes were arriving from Zac Posen, Armani, and Dior. We did a shoot with the Japanese model Jessica Michibata, who has been called Japan’s answer to Gisele Bündchen. I felt like I was in
Lost in Translation
. We had the Art of Elysium benefit, the SAG Awards, plus Rachel was styling two
Details
covers—with Ashton Kutcher and Christian Bale. There were never less than four or five racks of clothing coming and going from the office at any moment. And I was just trying to keep up. Not to mention that there was a camera crew following us. And tensions were rising between me and Taylor. She talked to me like I was a child. She ranted to the camera, “He’s never available to help me. I shouldn’t be unpacking boxes.” I relied on the tools I learned in AA.
One day at a time. Restraint of tongue and pen.
If I’d unleashed everything I wanted to say, I would have been fired. But if you’re going to get sober, you can’t act like you did when you were drunk in sober situations. And so I took the abuse, even when it was without merit. I could not change Taylor. But I could change my reaction to her.

Rachel had two clients presenting at the Oscars plus five others attending parties. It was a dozen fittings and clothing pulls to get through the week. We had the Independent Spirit Awards, too, and when Rachel said, “There’s no margin for error. The entire world is watching,” she wasn’t kidding.

This picture sums up my relationship with Rachel—two girlfriends walking through Bryant Park during Fashion Week.

For the fashion world, the Oscar season begins in January with the couture collections. We’re trying to get the best looks for our clients. But there are so many premieres and press days over the season that dresses disappear fast. Millions of people watch the Oscars, and those photos run forever. It’s become more of a fashion show than an awards show, and there is so much pressure to get it right. Everyone knows who styles each of these major stars. And if someone isn’t known, and a starlet pulls off a major red carpet moment, believe me, the next day you’ll know the name of the stylist who pulled it all together. The days of wearing a Gap shirt with a Vera Wang ball gown—as Sharon Stone did in the nineties—are disappearing.

Oscar day was all about dividing and conquering. Taylor was scheduled to help Cameron Diaz get ready while I went to Kate Beckinsale’s house to get her dressed for Elton John’s annual Oscar party with
InStyle.
The pressure was mounting and there were nights when I woke up in a cold sweat screaming. It was like going into battle, and we needed reinforcements. Taylor and I went shopping for our kits: our superhero fashion tool belts, stocked with everything you might need in a styling emergency, including shoe pads, nipple covers, Topstick tape, a steamer, an assortment of bras and underwear, stain remover, a mini sewing kit. We stopped by a lingerie store, Under G’s, for nipple covers.

Suddenly it was February 24, 2008, Oscar Sunday. In international news, Fidel Castro announced his retirement that day. But I had my own Cuban missile crisis on my hands when I found out that the plans were changing: I was going to be dressing Cameron Diaz that afternoon. Keep in mind that I barely knew her. And she’s one of the biggest movie stars in the world. I met her exactly once. I didn’t know what accessories she’d looked at, or what shoes she’d tried on, or what clutch she was going to carry. But due to some scheduling changes, Taylor needed to be with Jennifer Garner and I was dispatched to take care of Cameron Diaz.

“What am I supposed to bring?” I asked Taylor, and she pointed to two pairs of shoes.

“Did you guys actually confirm shoes for Cameron? I’m nervous there’s only two pairs.”

Taylor: “Yeah.”

Me: “So I don’t need to stick more in here?”

Taylor: “No.”

I blame myself. I should have known better. I’d only been working for Rachel for six weeks. But if nothing else, I knew that Rachel loved having options at the ready. For standard red carpet events, we
always
had at least two rows of shoes. An outfit is never really decided or confirmed until a client physically walks out the door. There were at least fifteen bags laid out on the bed. Not to mention the jewelry. Cartier, Van Cleef, Bulgari. No matter what happened in a fitting, there was always a gray area, and we were expected to be prepared. And yet! This was the Oscars, the biggest fashion day of the year, and all I was supposed to bring to Cameron Diaz was two pairs of shoes and one bag? OK . . .

So there I was in a suite at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood preparing for Cameron Diaz’s arrival. I set the clutch out on the bed and arranged the two pairs of heels Taylor had told me to bring. The dress, a gorgeous pink Dior gown by John Galliano, was hanging in the closet. I set the jewelry out, including a white gold and diamond ring from Bulgari, plus Van Cleef and Cartier. That’s it. Rachel and I barely spoke that morning. The only bit of instruction she gave me was to have Cameron look at the jewelry, then set aside what she liked and have the rest sent away.

Cameron Diaz showed up. She pulled two sets of Bulgari jewelry from the pieces on the counter, and I packed up the rest. I figured, at this point, she’s Cameron Diaz. Who is going to tell her what jewelry to wear? She can wear whatever she feels comfortable in. So I smiled. I told her she looked gorgeous (and she did—like a goddess). I gave her a kiss on the cheek, sent the rest of the jewels away, and headed over to Kate Beckinsale’s house way up in the Palisades to help her get ready for the Elton John party. Unfortunately, when I arrived she was having second thoughts about the jewelry we confirmed in her fitting. She loved the dress, a brown Versace Atelier gown, but it was still hanging on a rack. Her daughter was coloring in the living room.

“I’ll figure this out,” I said, trying to sound calm. It’s important to maintain a sense of control in front of a client. But once I was out of earshot, I fell apart. It was the day of the Oscars, I was standing in Kate’s guest room with no cell phone reception, and I was frantically trying to call the publicists at Van Cleef and Cartier to pull a diamond-encrusted rabbit out of a hat. “Bring everything you have left up to the house,” I said. And they did. This is reason number one that you have to be kind to people and develop good relationships. Because on the day everyone in the fashion world is stretched beyond thin, you’re going to need a favor. You’ll need four armed guards to come up to a beautiful woman’s house to hand-deliver new jewelry options.

I was stressing out when my BlackBerry somehow pulled a signal from the sky and started blowing up with a backlog of text messages from Taylor and then from Rachel herself.
Ping ping ping.

From Taylor, the messages read something like this:

“Where are you?”

“Pick up.”

“You’re in so much trouble.”

“WHERE ARE THE COATS FOR DEMI!”

Oh, boy. OK. Now that one was my fault. Demi Moore and Madonna were cohosting a last-minute, top-secret Oscar party at Guy Oseary’s house in Beverly Hills. And Taylor had asked me to pull some coats and drop them off at Demi’s house along with the dress we’d arranged for her to wear. I dropped off the dress, but I completely forgot to pull any jackets, and so Taylor had to do it herself.

I was driving down the hill from Kate’s—sweating through my Michael Kors black cashmere hoodie and my Rag & Bone riding blazer—when I finally had enough cell reception to call Taylor. “You really screwed up,” she says. “This is not good. We’re all waiting for you here at the house.” Apparently, there had been more mayhem: Rachel was with Cameron Diaz at the Sunset Marquis, and she didn’t have a styling kit with her. And it was my fault. Apparently I was supposed to have built a kit for her and left it behind at the hotel. Except no one told me to do this. Not only was Rachel freaking out because she didn’t have a kit but she also didn’t have enough jewelry to play with. When Rachel couldn’t reach me on the phone, she called her makeup artist, Joey, in a panic, and he rushed over to the Sunset Marquis with some styling supplies. By the time my phone got any reception, Cameron was already safely dressed in Dior and on her way to the red carpet. But not without a final emergency: She was in desperate need of a shoe pad, and Rachel didn’t have one in Joey’s makeshift kit. So Cameron had to fashion one herself, MacGyver style, tearing the insole from another shoe and pushing it into the new heels.

I was on my way to Rachel’s when I called Gary, who told me to pull over to the side of the road. I was hyperventilating and he couldn’t understand a word I was saying and he was convinced I was going to get in an accident. There I was, on the side of Sunset Boulevard on Oscar Sunday, having a panic attack while Gary tried to talk me off the ledge. “Pull yourself together,” he said. “Go back to the house. Listen to what they have to say. But whatever you do, don’t cry. Because if they’re filming and you cry you’ll regret it.”

Of course Gary was right. I pulled up to Rachel’s house and a sound guy from
The
Rachel Zoe Project
tried to put a microphone pack on me.

“I don’t want to be mic’d,” I said.

Yeah, right. This was clearly going to be the grand finale of the first season. I walked into the studio and Taylor was there, ready to pounce. I made a beeline to Rachel’s guest bedroom, where I sat with her and apologized. Taylor, meanwhile, was screaming at me through the wall. “You didn’t get coats for Demi! Stop protecting him!” I was partially to blame. But it got so heated that Rachel was now consoling
me.

“Common sense is leaving a kit!” Taylor shouted.

No, common sense is when you see someone upset, you don’t freak out on them. You talk to them in a human way. I turned to Rachel and said, “I’m done. I quit. I’m not coming back.” And I believed it. I’d been working with her for six weeks. This was my dream job, but there were major gaps in the information I was getting. I couldn’t do my job this way, let alone learn anything—which was the point of all of this.

And the Winner Is …

THE TEN BEST OSCAR LOOKS EVER (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

Julia Roberts (2001), vintage Valentino

Black-and-white is always the go-to for instant chic. It’s so closely associated with Chanel and the French elite. But black-and-white can also be a bit boring. There are other pitfalls here: I love vintage, but a vintage gown can lose its modernity. But I remember seeing Julia on the carpet in this vintage Valentino and thinking, If I was going to win an Oscar, this is the way I’d want to look. No one has been able to do black-and-white truly right since. Julia isn’t known for her red carpet style, necessarily. But this
Erin Brockovich
moment was the one time that counted for her on the red carpet, and she stole the show.

Hilary Swank (2005), Guy Laroche

From the front, Hilary Swank was basically in a navy blue burka. But when she turned around it was like the gasp heard around the world. The dress was backless down to, oh, just above her butt crack. It was an example of giving a lot away, but at the same time not giving anything away. Swank had some bubblegum-pink tutu madness moment a few years before. But this Guy Laroche dress was a million-dollar comeback for the
Million Dollar Baby.

Audrey Hepburn (1954), Givenchy

This is one of those iconic dresses that everyone references. It’s a boatneck gown with the kind of heavy corset construction that dreams are made of. That waist? What is that, twenty-three inches? The proportions of her body and the shoulder and the waist and the full skirt are something that I
actually
dream about. I wonder if it might be hard to get the attention of the press today with such an understated choice. But this look embodies the elegance and sophistication that Audrey Hepburn represents.

Michelle Williams (2006), Vera Wang

There hadn’t been a lot of color on the red carpet in recent years, but then Michelle Williams—nominated for
Brokeback Mountain
—turned up in a canary-yellow Vera Wang with a plunging tulle neckline and Chopard diamonds. The red lip, the perfect blond hair. I hate the term “old Hollywood glamour,” but sometimes it’s called for.

Farrah Fawcett (1978), Stephen Burrows

This is the seventies at its best. Gold mesh and barely covering her breasts, this dress gave you the illusion that you’d get a peek at something. Farrah remained true to her style, but in a sophisticated, event-appropriate way. This is 1970s disco at the Oscars, and it was perfection.