Interview

I cant exactly remember how long I've known Zani Gugelmann. It was at least 10 years ago, and years later she confided that initially she thought I was mixed up in a crazy crowd. At the time I was sporting a metal tongue ring and as many hard-core chains as I could wear out of the house—but that's another story...

Since then Zani has come into her own. She's a classic beauty with style, and she's deeply rooted in charity. That's why even though her new line of jewelry, Santo, featuring jewelry in the shape of bullets, might sound menacing, all the pieces are affiliated with charity. Here we discuss the real meaning of the proverbial "silver bullet."


BERACASA: This line, Santo by Zani, is not your first jewelry endeavor.

GUGELMANN: I was doing a collection called Filigrana, for which I made the type of filigree earrings from Peru, where my mother is from. But it took a lot of time because I had to go back to Peru three times a year. I was dependent upon a lot of people. I started that in 2002, and after six years it's time to take the next step.

BERACASA: And so the next step was bullets as jewelry?

GUGELMANN: Basically, yes. I went from pretty, fashionable jewelry to conceptual jewelry.  

BERACASA: To "kick your ass" jewelry.

GUGELMANN: From beautiful but plain and flirtatious jewelry to a hardcore bullet. Everyone is drawn to skulls, dog tags—objects that could be considered negative but are positive and glorified.  

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"Sexiness is a fun form of power," is the decidedly empowered mantra of Polish-born, F.I.T.-educated Karolina Zmarlak, "As a woman designing for women, I would like my clients to express their own sensuality." Zmarlak launched her ready-to-wear collection in Fall 2009 with a collection called Fluid Foundations—which is, in its own way, quite feminine and empowering; it was inspired by a wearer's agency experimenting with the styling of the designs. LEFT: PHOTO BY JOE TERMINI

Zmarlak's Spring/Summer 2010 collection, "Ocular Geometries," plays with geometry, and shows a strong sense of volume and space. The collection, the designer says, was inspired by the nomadic life of the modern women and spiecifically, "the Maghrebian exploration of art and culture." Using motifs from traditional Middle Eastern designs, Zmarlak turns curved lines into silhouette. Citing Balenciaga as an inspiration, she says that, "Design starts with shape, it has to reinvent allowing fantasy and stabilize for functionality." Powerful words, indeed.

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There are some real New York institutions that in spite of it all—gentrification, Giuliani-fication, new waves of Los Angelenos in town—will never die, because the town really couldn't function without them. One of those is Allison Sarofim and Stuart Parr's annual pre-Halloween party at their home. It even has a Wall of Fame; every year, Allison picks her top 10–15 costumes, and picture of those chosen guests are hung throughout the house. (I'm proud to say I've made the cut every year.

This year the theme was 80s. I dressed up as Prince Charles and my boyfriend, Jason Beckman, was Lady Di, on the couple's wedding day. I thought it was an original idea, but then I ran into another Prince Charles—although this one was a weekender, dressed as he was in tartan. I alrso ran into an amazingly inspired Carlos Mota, who was dressed some kind of French mime, with sequined spheres surrounding him.

Allison had set up a tent on the back of her townhouse. Breakdancers performed in the middle of the evening, and the entire thing was tagged. By the end of the night, even Lady Di got tagged.

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The first time I heard "In for the Kill" was in Paris during the Chanel couture show. If that weren't incentive enough to see them in New York (and it was!) my friend Richard Raymond, a film producer who has just worked on a film called Heartless (It's a thriller and a love story and a horror film—in one! And not yet out in America), was dying to go. The lead in Heartless is played by cutie pie-cum-heartthrob Jim Sturgess. Long story short, Jim's girlfriend is Mickey O'Brien,  keyboardist for La Roux.

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Cronyism aside, the La Roux show was amazing. La Roux (the lady) apologized for her lungs, and explained she'd been forced to cancel a bunch of sets on her tour. Every time she put the microphone out in front of her, it meant she was winded, and that the audience should sing for her. But she trudges onward: I watched the tour bus drive away to Boston.

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