Rebecca was raised in the Bahamas until she was seven, then moved to Paris to study “because you can’t have your entire education on an island”. But the barefoot, island-life remains as part of her sensibility; “Not wearing shoes was a huge part of my life, and I find that the hardest part of my wardrobe because I really like being bare foot. My father used to check the bottom of my feet when I walked in the house to see how dirty they were, to see if I was allowed in the house or if I have to wash my feet outside, because I literally do not wear shoes if I can help it.”

She followed a creative path with a career in fashion and interior design, working in PR with such houses as Gucci and Tory Burch before completing her degree at Parsons. She then returned to the Bahamas and established her own interior design firm, but after a few years, decided she “had to go back to the mainland”, so moved to Los Angeles and began her earring collection.

We met over tea while Rebecca was visiting Hong Kong. In her amazing vintage silk pajamas, she shared her discoveries from her last trip to India where her silk ball drops are produced and her inspirations for work and life. Rebecca a gentle eccentric, and she has managed to keep a strong creative compass while building a business and managing all aspects that entails. We asked Rebecca to be our KOTUR Muse for what she represents and conveys through her work: a celebration of individuality and personal style. Here she answers our questions.

What’s in your make-up bag?

Lip gloss and blush.

Do you have a beauty secret?

Lots of water and a coconut juice in the morning. I scrub my body with sand, so it’s always shiny, and moisturizer. Having clean pretty looking skin, healthy skin is the secret to any beauty.

What do you wear on a fat day?

A huge peasant dress, hides all evil!

How would your female friends describe your style?

Different.

What’s the most treasured item in your wardrobe?

My mother’s old Yves Saint Laurent couture hot pink gown that I just love. It’s the best dress that I’ve ever had, and I wish I could wear it everyday, but you simply can’t walk around wearing black tie.

Is there anything in your wardrobe you should get rid of but can’t?

Yes a lot of things, a lot. But I don’t have essentials. I don’t have a lot of black pants, I have a lot of vintage jackets that go with nothing else, and so I mix and match patterns all the time, so there are a lot of things that could go.

What do you never leave home without?

Luna my dog.

When home alone, what do you wear?

A dress. I always wear a dress.

What do you wear to bed?

Nothing.

You’re the fashion police for a day, what do you ban?

Fur. I don’t like fur, I don’t like animal goods.

Have you ever worn anything you now regret?

Oh a thousand things, but I think you learn by your mistakes.

How high is too high a heel?

There is never too high a heel. If I’m going to wear a heel, it’d better be high because I don’t wear them often, so I better look damn good!

How old is too old for jeans?

I don’t like jeans myself, but you are never too old for jeans. They’re just not my thing.

What is your most recent purchase?

A Chinese coat that I bought 2 days ago. It looks vintage, but the embroidery is extraordinary – It’s red satin with blue embroidery and it had fur on it, and I made them take it off.

Can you judge a book by its cover?

I do but you shouldn’t always.

What are your bad habits?

Oh my God, the list is too long, and I can’t tell you.

What’s your greatest extravagance?

Massages.

What are your guilty pleasures?

Dancing to the wee hours. I love dancing. I think having grown up in the Bahamas I just love dancing. It’s my favorite thing.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?

Smile a lot and say yes to everything.

What’s your favorite smell?

I don’t like smells. I don’t like perfume- I don’t like things that smell too strong.

What’s your idea of a great holiday?

Discovering a new world.

What are you most proud of?

I think having started something that I’ve stuck with, and that I’ve worked really hard to build. I think you don’t get that many chances in life. You get a few chances, but when you get a really good one you should stick to it. And it’s sometimes really hard, so I am very proud I followed through and built a business.

What are you least proud of?

I think not following through with some of my friendships. Because in life as you get older, and when you move far away, and I’ve always moved across the world, I think it’s sometimes hard to follow through with friends. But thankfully, your really close friends will always be friends. I think with some, people get neglected by time, space, and life.

What is your pure bliss?

Hanging on the beach in the Bahamas with my dogs.

Who or what would you like to be reincarnated as in your next life?

Bianca Jagger.

What would you eat for your last supper?

Probably cheese, it’s my fave.

Yes or no to a nip and a tuck?

No, but I say no now. I might say yes later.

Do you have a favorite purse or bag?

My new one, the Lolli Basket. It is launching in September, and  pre-launched on Moda Operandi. There is a reason why it’s called the Lolli Basket.  So I’m a huge animal lover, and I was going to call it Lulu because Lulu was my dog that passed away. You’re going to laugh at me, but the reason why we didn’t call it the Lulu Basket was because she was quite round, and my basket is long and round, so my father said why don’t you call it the Lollipop Basket because Lollipop was Lulu’s best friend, and she wouldn’t mind being called the Lolli Basket.

On a scale of one-to-ten, how good looking are you?

I would say honestly, 4 on a really bad day, and 7 on a great day?

How would you like to be remembered?

For being fun and sweet, and a good friend.

Luisa Casati was not born to infamy. The daughter of a rich Italian nobleman, her parents died when she was young, leaving the 15-year-old as one the country’s richest heiresses. In 1900, aged 19, she married Count Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino and had a child, Cristina. And so it was that, up until this point, Marchesa Luisa Casati fulfilled the expectations laid out before her, living the typical life of a rich European aristocrat. It was whilst on the aristo circuit, however, that she met the Italian poet and lothario Gabriele d’Annunzio. The two became lovers, with the notoriously debauched Gabriele introducing his new muse to a whole new world, one of decadent parties and artist filled salons, of outrage, intrigue and scandalous behavior. The Marchesa never looked back.

Over the course of the next 30 years, she dedicated herself to decadence. She cultivated a dramatic look – her tall, skinny frame topped with bright red dyed hair, bleached skin, red lips and kohl rimmed eyes. She was photographed by Beaton, painted by Augustus John and Giovanni Boldini and sculpted by Jacob Epstein. A patron of the Ballet Russes, she held court at her outrageous soirées in Grecian Fortuny or a sheer sheath dress worn with nothing underneath, whilst her guests were waited on by countless servants – themselves often naked and gilded in gold leaf. Her jewels were by Lalique (she is said to have inspired Cartier’s Panther designs,) her pets were cheetahs and boa constrictors (the snake once escaped during a stay at the Ritz in Paris,) and the stories could not have been more scandalous.

This life of excess was lived out across Europe as the Marchesa flitted from Rome to Venice, Paris to London. For a while during the 1920’s, she took up residence in Capri, and it was here that we came across her, resplendent in all her eccentricity at the cliff top Villa San Michele, once the island’s most famous villa and now a much-visited museum. At KOTUR we have taken inspiration from the island in all its glittering, sun-drenched glory for our Spring Collection, and, for a time in her life, the Marchesa did too. She rented it from its owner Axel Munthe, installing herself in spite of her landlord’s frequent attempts to evict her. With its sweeping views of the town, the whitewashed villa and its lush gardens full of ancient Roman and Egyptian artifacts was the perfect spot for a woman who dealt in drama – the villa’s Egyptian granite Sphinx was a particular favorite of hers. During her time there, she transformed the place, arriving with her own band of servants and redressing the rooms to her taste. She covered the mosaic floors in animal skins and black carpets, the walls with golden curtains and dark velvet drapes. One guest was the writer Montgomery Compton Mackenzie, who recounted of a visit, “There was a golden gazelle on each side of the heavy door that was opened by a servant, clad in blue velvet tails and breeches. The Cisisbeo fluttered around the entrance hall to announce that the Marchesa was ready to receive me; we shortly would be having tea in the pergola. I continued to the drawing room and went in. Surprise is not the right word for my reaction when I saw my hostess lying on the large bearskin rug in front of the fireplace without a stitch of clothing.”

 All this excess ended up getting the better of the Marchesa in the end, who, having made her way through her fortune, died penniless in London in 1957. She was buried alongside her taxidermied Pekingese, wearing one of her beloved leopard print creations and a pair of her famously distinctive false eyelashes. Her epitaph was taken from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, reading, “’Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.‘ Her legend more than lives on. 

A Man Ray portrait of Casati dressed as Elisabeth of Austria, 1935 (Man Ray Trust by SIAE 2014)

Now a nutritional therapist and naturopath, Rosemary’s career path has taken quite a turn – less about the parties than it is about green juices, these days. A mother of three, she lives in the English countryside with her husband the artist Jake Chapman and her three daughters, pursuing a life that, on the face of it, seems far away from those catwalk days. What we love about Rosemary, however, is her fresh and upfront approach – be that to the lifestyle she leads or to her own personal style. Refreshingly honest the realities of healthy living, she’s a firm believer in the 80% good, 80% of the time school of thinking – still as up for kicking her heels up with her friends as she is for the wholesome country life. For her, living a life in balance, one that celebrates the finer things whilst still allowing time and room for a bit of looking after oneself, is the way to go – and we’re inclined to agree with her. Factor in the sort of easygoing attitude to fashion we at KOTUR love to celebrate (though it helps when you look that good in jeans and a T-shirt,) and you have an all round lovely lady to look to for all sorts and kinds of advice. Here, she answers our questions.

Rosemary’s book Juice is available on Amazon.

Q: What’s in your make-up bag?
Charlotte Tilbury mascara, Sisley lip balm, Laura Mercier blush, Shu Umura eyelash curlers and La Roche-Posay Factor 50 Suncscreen – I wear sun protection every day.  

Q: Do you have a beauty secret?
I use Aromatherapy Associates oils because they are wonderful for giving your skin that lovely glow, and I try to help my skin from the inside out by kicking off the day with one of my skin juices, like my Fresh Faced Green Juice. Food wise, anything orange is also really good for the skin because it tends to contain lots of antioxidants and beta-carotene, so that’s things like carrots, papaya and sweet potato.

Q: What would be your desert island essentials?
My phone, plenty of avocados and my little dachshund. I’d be so happy with that. I should probably say my husband and my kids, too though!

Q: What do you wear on a fat day?
I’ve got quite a lot of long, jersey tops that I wear over jeans – they’re pretty good at covering it all up when you want to.

Q: How would your female friends describe your style?
Pretty lazy! I’m a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl, I like to keep it simple. Girly doesn’t really suit me because I’m tall. There are occasions when I’ll put a dress on, but they’re getting more and more rare.

Q: What’s the most treasured item in your wardrobe?
At the moment, it’s some silk kimono dresses my friend made because they’re going to be great for summer.  I’ve also got a Versace dress from Gianni’s last collection that I treasure and two dresses from Lee McQueen’s last collection that I love and will always look after.

Q: Is there anything in your wardrobe you should get rid of but can’t?
The Ugg boots should probably go, but I live in the countryside and sometimes you just do need to wear slippers outside.

Q: What do you never leave home without?
I try not to leave without my wallet and keys, but that doesn’t always happen! And I normally take my perfume with me, too. At the moment I’m wearing Bella Freud’s signature scent. I also love a bit of Prada, Iris for summer.

Q: Hot date night, what do you wear?
My jeans, but I’ll jazz them up with high heels, a scarf by Rockins, something like one of Kate’s great shirts for Equipment and a bit of eyeliner.

Q: When home alone, what do you wear?
I’ve got some pretty slinky silk pajamas from Equipment that I wear with a simple vest top.

Q: What do you wear to bed?
I love a little cotton babydoll nightie.

Q: You’re the fashion police for a day, what do you ban?
Padded push-up bras. Not a fan.  Not for me!

Q: Have you ever worn anything you now regret?
I’m sure I have, but I’ve probably blocked it out of my memory. Oh, I did wear a very silly hat to my brother’s wedding. I was trying to be grown up and sophisticated and when I look at the photos I just cringe. Never again.

Q: How high is too high a heel?
I’m not great in super high heels. A bit of a platform always helps, though.

Q: How old is too old for jeans?
I definitely haven’t got there yet – I’m going to be wearing them for a very long time.

Q: If you could live in any other time for its fashion, when would you choose?
Probably the 1970’s

Q: What is your most recent purchase?
Some bikinis for the summer from Melissa Odabash

Q: Can you judge a book by its cover?
No, I don’t think you can. Because I can think of many times when we can all be a little bit judgmental, and not always in the best way.  

Q: What are your bad habits?
I’m always late, and always in a rush – I annoy myself with it. And I probably drink a little too much.

Q: What’s your greatest extravagance?
Holidays. I do love a holiday!

Q: What are your guilty pleasures?
Crisps from time to time! And ice cream. I really do love it. I’ve got to stop buying it.

Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Just the other day, I was having a flap about something and someone said, “Stop looking at the top of the escalator. Just look at your feet and take one step at a time.” I think that’s pretty sound advice.

Q: What’s your favorite smell?
I love the smell of fresh cut grass in the English countryside I get in my garden. And I love the smell of the sea and the heat that you only get on holiday when it’s really, really hot.

Q: What’s your idea of a great holiday?
Being by the beach, somewhere I can swim in the sea everyday, with my girls. That’s what I love.

Q: What are you most proud of?
My kids, I think. I’m proud of them and quite amazed by them a lot of the time.

Q: What are you least proud of?
To be honest, I try not to beat myself up; it’s such a negative thing to do.  Its not useful and it doesn’t help.

Q: What is your pure bliss?
A lazy duvet day with the kids at home, all cozy on the sofa together, is my idea of heaven.

Q: Who or what would you like to be reincarnated as in your next life?
My little dog Ruby Red has the nicest life.

Q: What would you eat for your last supper?
A piece of buckwheat toast with avocado, crushed garlic, tomato, salt and pepper. I could literally eat that forever.

Q: If you could meet someone from history who would it be?
I’d love to be in a room with Lee McQueen again. Just because we had such a great time, and I wish I’d paid more attention. You take things for granted, and then they’re gone.

Q: Yes or no to a nip and a tuck?
At the moment, no. But in ten years, who knows. Why not?

Q: Do you have a favorite purse or bag?
The classic Balenciaga motorcycle bag. I’ve had mine for ages, it’s all beaten up now and I still use it all the time.

Q: Do you have a favorite KOTUR bag?
Your raffia Morley would be great on holiday.

Q: On a scale of one-to-ten, how good looking are you?\
Oh wow. Lets go for seven!

Q: How would you like to be remembered?
It would be amazing if anyone remembered me full stop!

The swirling artistic mystery of Van Gogh’s moonlit skies gave rise to magical saturated prints in rich, deep colors with an otherworldly feel, this time imagined in luxurious brocades. Paul Verlaine’s famous poem “Clair de Lune” provides inspiration, while Astrological motifs are found hand embroidered onto Espeys using hand worked techniques in India with images featuring starry skies.

Using the ancient technique of Cloisonné, we have literally scattered our Perspex Merricks in star dust to give a vision of a dreamlike galaxy on a background of deep, midnight blue.

A colour palette rich in olive, cobalt, fuchsia, red and purple tones, some imagined in embossed leather on our Baileys and Espeys, conspires to bring something of the night to a collection all about the romance to be found in our skies.Dreamy, celestial, exotic and more than a little otherworldly, these are bags to transport you somewhere else.

The Stones, as chronicled in the Saatchi Gallery’s EXHIBITIONISM, presents a highly entertaining, more Interview than ArtForum, exhibition reflecting the band’s history through film, artifacts/paraphernalia/junk (depending on the eye of the beholder), and stage sets which include a recreation of their first Chelsea flat, which was, coincidentally, adjacent to my first London flat 25 years later….

Best of all, EXHIBITIONISM displays, in full-frontal fashion, the band’s unforgettable (and at times, unforgivable)  stage costumes worn through the years.  Some are iconic, but all reflect the showmanship and character which define that rock star attitude we salute…
in our collection, and in ourselves.

The show ends this weekend in London, but travels to New York November 12th. 

Q: What’s in your make-up bag?
Chubby stick intense from Clinique, Terry de Gunzburg concealer and Elizabeth Arden hand cream.

Q: Do you have a beauty secret?
I’ve always been very careful with the sun and I make sure to put sun block on my hands. 

Q: What would be your desert island essentials?
A great sarong and a big hat. 

Q: What do you wear on a fat day?
A pair of black trousers, a beautiful shirt and an cool accessory.

Q: How would your female friends describe your style?
Eclectic

Q: What’s the most treasured item in your wardrobe?
A beautiful evening jacket / cape by Romeo Gigli from 1985.

Q: Is there anything in your wardrobe you should get rid of but can’t?
I’m actually quite good at getting rid of things I don’t need. 

Q: What do you never leave home without?
Lipstick

Q: Hot date night with your husband, what do you wear?
I would wear something he has given me.

Q: When home alone, what do you wear?
A caftan

Q: What do you wear to bed?
In the winter I wear one of my husband’s shirts, and in summer I wear a very light muslin slip nighty. 

Q: You’re the fashion police for a day, what do you ban?
Nothing! If worn well anything can work. 

Q: Have you ever worn anything you now regret?
Fashion and tastes evolve. There are things I have worn in the past I wouldn’t wear today but they were right at the time. 

Q: How high is too high a heel?
When you can’t walk in it. 

Q: How old is too old for jeans?
With the right pair of jeans never. 

Q: If you could live in any other time for its fashion, when would you choose?
The 1930s; I love the silhouette of the dresses and the proportion of the clothes. And I also love the 70s; the clothes are so free and cool.

Q: What is your most recent purchase?
A pair of trousers by Dries van Noten

Q: Can you judge a book by its cover?
Of course not! 

Q: What are your bad habits?
Good television series. 

Q: What’s your greatest extravagance?
Having married a Neapolitan!

Q: What are your guilty pleasures?
Chocolate

Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
That whatever happens in your life, your talent is yours and no one can take that away so you can do whatever you want with it. 

Q: What’s your favorite smell?
Rose

Q: What’s your idea of a great holiday?
The sea on a boat with my loved ones. 

Q: What are you most proud of?
Obviously my girls.

Q: What are you least proud of?
The times I got scared. 

Q: What is your pure bliss?
Freedom

Q: Who or what would you like to be reincarnated as in your next life?
I would like to be reincarnated as a giraffe. I don’t know how clever they are  but hey, I’ve always loved patterns….

Q: What would you eat for your last supper?
Salad of raw artichokes, with sea bass sashimi, cherries, and marron glaces. I know they don’t work as a menu…… but those are my favourite things!

Q: If you could meet someone from history who would it be?
I would have liked to meet Mozart. He was notoriously naughty and fun and was the most extraordinary genius. 

Q: Yes or no to a nip and a tuck?
To each their own. 

Q: Do you have a favorite purse or bag?
An evening bag of my grandmother’s. It is a very simple black satin with a jade and silver clasp.

Q: Do you have a favorite KOTUR bag?
Yes, it was given to me by my very close friend. 

Q: On a scale of one-to-ten, how good looking are you?
I’ve never been good with numbers! Some days I look better than others. 

Q: How would you like to be remembered?
I would like the people that remember me to be happy at the memory. 

Photo Courtesy of Caroline Gavazzi

Andre’s exhibition set out to celebrate Oscar and his impact on both American style and American women. My sister, Alexandra Kotur, was one of those women directly affected by de la Renta, being lucky enough to know him and wear his designs. She loaned two of them to the exhibition.  “Fashion is about dressing according to what’s fashionable. Style is more about being yourself” de la Renta once said. And it was this very personal perspective as well as his personal relationship with the women he dressed that the exhibition sought to reflect. It all added a new dimension to things, showing the totally unique and modest grace de la Renta imbued in anyone who wore his creations.

The more than 130 looks shown as part of the exhibit were chosen from museum archives, the designer’s personal collection, and private lenders  by André Leon Talley,  from his own memories and recollections, and each represented a highly personal de la Renta moment for the curator, who travelled across the country (and through some wardrobes) gathering them together for this show and his book, Oscar De La Renta, His Legendary World of Style.

Born in the Dominican Republic in 1934, de la Renta moved to Madrid at 19 to study art before becoming an apprentice under Cristóbal Balenciaga and then a designer under Antonio Castillo at Lanvin. He had learnt the ropes of Haute Couture before launching his own eponymous label in 1965 – and it was this fusion of the beautifully and artistically made with an innate sense of appropriate elegance that marked his work out for the rest of his five decade long career.

“Andre and Oscar, both creative geniuses, understood each other. And Oscar, just like Andre, loved women and could create the highest level of chic for women that Andre completely related to” Alexandra recalled with affection.

That André and Oscar were incredibly good friends only serves to highlight the personal in this book. They met in the 1970’s, when André was a young accessories editor at WWD and Oscar and his first wife Françoise de Langlade were what Andre himself described in an interview with Vogue as, ‘the Social Lions of New York.’ They were firm friends from then onwards. More than that, we also see them as two men who have always celebrated the individual in fashion, men for whom women as diverse as Hillary Clinton, Diana Vreeland and Oprah qualify in terms of true icons – of style or anything else. In the book he has written, André looks at Oscar’s work through individual dresses made for individual clients – giving a glimpse at the fascinating stories behind each one’s creation. In doing so, he brings not only Oscar’s wonderful dresses but also the women who wore them to life.

Photo Courtesy of Huffington Post, drewaltizer.com, de Young, leighannemarie.com, borneobulletin.com.bn, wwd.com, vogue.com, wmagazine.com

Oscar de la Renta: The Retrospective
De Young Museum
Exhibition ends May 30th, 2016

Photo Courtesy of Huffington Post, drewaltizer.com, de Young, leighannemarie.com, borneobulletin.com.bn, wwd.com, vogue.com, wmagazine.com

 Billy Baldwin – Decorate

One of the first books that got me into decorating, I came across Billy Baldwin on my mother’s bookshelf. What struck me initially was that he had this tiny apartment (as did I, at the time,) and yet he still managed to create a fantastic space in which all of the elements worked together to make something so visually appealing. His book wasn’t just about decorating, although he did have this wonderful, snappy style, it was more about living. Yes, he had his iconic pieces such as his slipper chair, but it all seemed to be more about how people interacted, about pulling up a pouf and having a conversation, than perfectly placed pieces. It struck me as a very good place to start.

Dorothy Draper – Decorating is Fun and In The Pink

Dorothy Draper inspired a whole era of design in Hollywood Regency. One of the first professional women to decorate, her iconic spaces created at the Carlyle, the Fairmont and the Metropolitan Museum’s original restaurant around their fountain (where I spent many childhood afternoons,) still inspire countless imitations. At KOTUR we often refer to her bold use of color and geometric patterns (she was famous for her chequerboard floors,) in our collections.

 Tony Duquette – More is More

Duquette was a set designer, jewelry designer, costume designer and decorator, and his maximalist approach is something I’ve always admired. Specifically, his contribution to America’s adoption of Chinoiserie, and the lavish sort of lacquer filled, glossy and sumptuous interiors of the 1960’s he produced have inspired me both at home and at Kotur, where we often look to Duquette for a little dusting of magic.

David Hicks – On Decoration

A full set of Hicks’ original, out-of-print books bought at abe.com is one of my most treasured possessions. The debonair British King of Print who reigned supreme in the 60’s and 70’s was known for his unabashed use of color and geometric design, no matter how grand the project he was dealing with. His prints still seem just as of the moment today as they did when they were first produced in his heyday – I have his wallpaper in my son’s bedroom and his printed linen forms the canopy of my bed. Eclectic and unfussy, yet always attention grabbing in the best sort of way, Hicks is a designer I have looked to for inspiration time and time again.

 Photo courtesy of amazon.com

Loren’s life wasn’t always dripping in glitz and glamor. Born in 1934, she came into the world on a charity ward for unwed mothers (her engineer father refused to marry her piano teacher mother in a scandalous move for the time.) Taunted for being an illegitimate child, wartime Italy proved a brutal place to grow up, with Loren and her family suffering terrible poverty amidst the constant danger of bombings. Living with several relatives in a small apartment and brought up on strict rations, Sophia was so skinny she was known as Sophia Stuzzicadenti (Sophia toothpick) at school. Her mother Romilda, however, was a great beauty, stopped often in the street for her resemblance to Greta Garbo, and as the young Sophia grew up it became clear her looks were also far from ordinary. Her family encouraged her to enter a beauty contest aged 15, which she did, wearing a dress made by her Grandmother from their living room curtains – and the rest is Italian film history.