Amanda Brooks

[ellastica]

Nostalgia: " Grunge & Glory "
US VOGUE August 2006
Written by Amanda Brooks

It was October 1992, and Madonna was on the cover, dressed as a glamorous hippie — big floppy hat, studded bell-bottom pants, a striped turtleneck, and bare feet. She could have passed for a Brown student, albeit a particularly fashion-conscious one. Also in Vogue that season was Ralph Lauren doing the more tasteful bohemian look (the one I'd seen the real estate mogul's daughter wearing), with floral slip dresses over T-shirts and long, dangling necklaces. Ralph's version of hippie dressing was written in my language, while the "grunge" collection by Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis, shown in its full understated glory that December, was harder to get a fix on — until I saw a friend wearing the whole look to class (to class!) one day. After that I was sold.

Fortunately for me, deconstructed outfits and eclecticism were the perfect way to combine the mundane clothes I already had (Converse All Stars, T-shirts, plaid flannel shirts, scarves, and wool hats) with a few trendier pieces that didn't break the bank. I began to prowl the Providence thrift stores, far more "curated" than the Bronxville variety, which had required spending many hours digging through bins of ratty garments in order to uncover one great find (worn Levi's, a Polo shirt, a Givenchy cashmere cardigan). My other great discovery was Contempo Casuals, sadly now defunct, which was a precursor to H&M and Zara. It had supertrendy clothes and was even more affordable than the Gap. I would leave with armfuls of bell-bottoms, crocheted knit caps, floral slip dresses, and frilled shirts to experiment with while studying my copy of Vogue.

A little unsure of how my mall fashion — so not cool in those days — would go over with my much fancier friends, I showed up at my nineteenth-birthday party in a black chiffon ruffled blouse with outrageously exaggerated black bell-bottoms and a black crocheted vest. Everything but the choker and heart pendant someone had given me for my birthday came from Contempo Casuals. After quizzing me about my outfit and how much I paid for it, my designer-clad friends were following me back to the mall the next day.

For the rest of my freshman year, I continued to put together looks inspired by the now-infamous grunge story in Vogue. Most vividly etched in my memory is a black-and-white floral slip dress by Ralph Lauren (bought at Filene's Basement in Boston) worn over a white T-shirt with white Converse sneakers or Red Wing boots (a kinder, gentler version of Doc Martens). My hair was long, unbrushed, and firmly parted in the middle, and my make-up was sparse-a look that was authentically grunge but also authentically me.

I must have considered this my best outfit because I wore it that summer when I was a photo assistant to Patrick Demarchelier. Coming unexpectedly full circle from my moment of fashion inspiration just months before, I was invited to Madonna's birthday party after a day spent working on the shoot for her Bedtime Stories cover. It was a great party, with just 30 or so people. We feasted on Cuban food, drank too many mojitos, and danced all night with Madonna, her backup dancers, a slew of drag queens, and a handful of her close friends, including Gloria Estefan, Dennis Rodman, Mickey Rourke, and the Versace Family. Late that night (or was it early morning?), I was given a ride to my hotel by Gianni Versace (it was just him and Donatella and me in the back of their limo), and he told me he liked my look. I felt so shy that I think I said four words to them the whole ride: "Thank you" and "Good night."

source: iwanttobearoitfeld.com

 

[liberty33r1b]

^I remember that piece! it's really lovely to read it again, thanks for posting!

 

[liberty33r1b]

harpersbazaar.com

 

[liberty33r1b]

Calvin Klein hosts the launch of John Pawson's book "A Visual Inventory", April 4

vogue.com

 

[GERGIN]

There's something about her appearance that I really do like and appreciate, I like that her style isn't complicated and overdone.

I think she can draw in enough attention with those gorgeous eyes...

 

[Not Plain Jane]

I love that little green shift dress in #120.

 

[liberty33r1b]

At the New Museum Spring Gala, Amanda Brooks glows in a Calvin Klein Collection dress, April 11

bfanyc.com

 

[Wolkfolk]

Genius outfit, those white shoes and the play with different shades of orange : BRILLIANT

 

[liberty33r1b]

better look at her outfit in #124:

bfanyc.com

 

[marjanthelion]

so simple yet she looks GREAT

 

[liberty33r1b]

Art Production Fund’s Urban Hoedown Sponsored by Marc Jacobs, April 12

bfanyc.com

 

[liberty33r1b]

CHANEL TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL DINNER - ARRIVALS, April 24

bfanyc.com

 

[HeatherAnne]

She's blogging again!:
amandalovesyourstyle.blogspot.com

 

[kimair]

Taking Her Leave

IT was a little more than a year ago that the New York City socialite Amanda Brooks was appointed fashion director of Barneys New York, to some cluck-clucking in the industry. After all, Ms. Brooks, 38, had little experience in retail, other than acting as a muse and later creative director to the fashion label Tuleh, and was more often photographed in preppy classics than the avant-garde brands for which Barneys had been known under the stewardship of her well-regarded predecessor, Julie Gilhart. As the blog Fashionista put it, “We’ve always thought of Brooks as more of a Bergdorf girl.”

Ms. Brooks’s duties included overseeing private labels and creating trend reports, informed in part by the street style of “it” girls, many of whom were part of her impressive network. “We didn’t need more retail help,” Mark Lee, the store’s chief executive, said of the hire at the time. Indeed, a lot of her job seemed to involve attending fashion shows, where she was a front-row regular, and going to openings and galas.

But in March, Ms. Brooks pulled off yet another surprise. She announced that she was not just quitting the Barneys position, but leaving Manhattan itself and planning a yearlong move with her family to a farm in Oxfordshire, England, that is owned by the family of her husband, the artist Christopher Brooks.
Was the Barneys brass disappointed in the high-profile hire? (Through a spokeswoman, executives there turned down requests to be interviewed on the matter.) Had Ms. Brooks — such a clotheshorse that she wrote a 2009 book on personal style — somehow soured on fashion shows? Or, as some in the news media speculated, was the move in support of her brother- and sister-in-law, Charlie and Rebekah Brooks, charged with perverting the course of justice (the term in British law) in the News of the World phone-hacking case?

None of the above, Ms. Brooks said recently, dining on a sunny Friday at Freemans, downstairs from the apartment she’ll soon be renting out. (A North Fork residence will also be leased, to the artist Rachel Feinstein, a friend.)

“It was because of Ree Drummond’s blog, The Pioneer Woman,” said Ms. Brooks, who has recently returned to a blog, ILoveYourStyle.com, that she started after publishing the 2009 book, which had the same name. Reading a New Yorker profile last year of Ms. Drummond, a mother of four who lives on a cattle ranch outside Pawhuska, Okla., and posts prolifically on subjects like how to make cornmeal pancakes (using catchphrases like “yahoo, yippety”) “got me really fired up,” Ms. Brooks went on. “It’s the idea of having a career on your own terms, anywhere.”

At first glance, Ms. Brooks, a consummate urbanite with coolly styled looks, could not be more diametrically opposed to Ms. Drummond. At lunch, several days after the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual Costume Institute benefit (to which she wore a minimalist graphite Calvin Klein ensemble), Ms. Brooks was dressed casually in an open-knit beige sweater, black trousers and black flat sandals. Her blondish brown hair fell in an enviable natural wave, and her figure was willowy.

“I lost a lot of weight working at Barneys,” said Ms. Brooks, nibbling delicately at the turkey sandwich with bacon she’d ordered along with an iced tea, then hastening to add, “It was the 14-hour days and then all the traveling.”

Since she married Mr. Brooks in 2001, in a wedding attended by such diverse personalities as Christian Louboutin and Tama Janowitz, the couple have tried to maintain the integrity of their family life, she said, agreeing to limit work events to two nights per week, a difficult feat in the hyperactive art and fashion scenes. They have two children, Coco (not after Chanel, but an abbreviation of Carmen), 10, who has yet to take any discernible interest in fashion, Ms. Brooks said, and Zach, 8.

She said she was reveling in her days off, scrapping her daily Women’s Wear Daily reading habit — “It’s refreshing to clear your mind,” she said. After lunch, she planned to take Zach to a birthday party.

In Ms. Brooks’s view, domestic harmony and success at work are inextricably intertwined. “That fearlessness, to be able to jump around in my career, came from a certain amount of stability and foundation I’ve always had at home,” she said. “I’m defined by my history, my family. I was never looking for my career to define me.”

Ms. Brooks grew up in Bronxville, N.Y., and Palm Beach, Fla., the younger of two daughters of Stephen Cutter, a real estate broker, and Elizabeth Stewart, an interior designer whom Ms. Brooks remembers wearing Alaïa to teach Sunday school. (Amanda’s older sister, Kimberly Cutter, is a novelist.) She attended public elementary school, then Horace Mann and Deerfield Academy, where she was a New England diving champion. While majoring in photography at Brown, she roomed with Patricia Lansing, a daughter of Carolina Herrera, for two years. She also briefly dated Alexander von Furstenberg, the son of Diane, who soon became what Ms. Brooks called “my fashion fairy godmother.” “It had nothing to do with Alexander,” Ms. von Furstenberg said of the bond between the two women. “But I have always had that special complicity with Amanda because of how we started.”

She added: “When I met her, she was very kind of WASPy and I didn’t even think she was that pretty. But I loved watching her grow. She learns, she absorbs, she’s very entrepreneurial and she’s very nice.”

The two women had lunch a few years ago, and Ms. von Furstenberg agreed to write a foreword to Ms. Brooks’s book. “She told me, ‘It’s time for you to figure out who is Amanda Brooks,’ ” Ms. Brooks said. “ ‘Not Amanda Brooks who works for so-and-so. It’s time to define yourself as a woman.’ ”

Ms. Brooks has never been shy about attracting powerful mentors. Her career started with an internship with Patrick Demarchelier, the fashion photographer, after she approached him at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side. Then there was a stint at the Gagosian Gallery, secured after chatting up Larry Gagosian, its founder, at a shoe store in the same neighborhood.

After working for Tuleh and Hogan, the leather-goods company, she consulted and then became director of fashion for the agency William Morris Endeavor, working with more mainstream brands, like Revlon and American Express. “Amanda is a complete person,” said her boss there, Mark Dowley, former chief executive of the agency’s marketing division. “Because she’s so pulled together, she’s incredibly disarming, but that can also be very intimidating.”

Ms. Brooks’s friends, though, described her as down to earth. “She’s a jock,” said Amy Astley, the editor of Teen Vogue, who is also married to an artist, the sculptor Christopher Astley, and got to know Ms. Brooks in the North Fork, where she also has a home. “She’s the girl who is swimming in the sound in April. She’s not a prissy fashion girl at all.”

Ms. Feinstein agreed. “Amanda is fearless,” she said. “If she decides to do something, she isn’t worried about what people might think.” She added: “She’s incredibly genuine. It’s hard for people to realize that someone like her is actually how she is. People want to dislike her because they can’t believe she’s had all this.”

At Barneys, though, Ms. Brooks faced challenges for which her charmed life might not have prepared her. She was part of a new management team, led by Mr. Lee and including Daniella Vitale, a veteran of Gucci, and Dennis Freedman, formerly of W magazine, that has tried to carry out a mandate to reinvent the store — an uphill battle.

“These last few years have been the golden age of luxury,” said Howard Davidowitz, a retail consultant. “During this golden age, Barneys has been a train wreck. It’s sort of undeniable. It’s almost in bankruptcy. Why is that?”

His theory: “From a merchandising point of view, they focused themselves out of business. If you have a big store, you have to have a wide range of customers. Otherwise, you won’t do enough business. They were way further out on the fashion curve, and that means much more risk.”

On May 7, after Ms. Brooks’s departure, Barneys announced that Perry Capital had become the new majority owner after a debt-for-equity deal.
Not that this is Ms. Brooks’s concern any longer. Instead, she is facing the challenge of branding herself just as the extended Brooks clan seeks greater privacy. (Through her, Christopher Brooks declined to be interviewed.) Ms. Brooks acknowledged that she was self-conscious posting on Twitter about herself, rather than a brand or a company, and that one of the qualities she most admired about Ms. Drummond’s work was that “she doesn’t exploit her children and husband.” But, “I love Instagram,” she said. “I love just posting a photograph and not saying anything.”

What kind of dispatches will be coming from Oxfordshire, where Ms. Brooks said she had spent most of her time on visits wearing jodhpurs? “It’s about a different perspective of living on a farm,” she said. “I’ll be looking for style, of course, as I do now. It might be the way I arrange a cheese plate, or how I arrange the flowers in a guest room.”

While Ms. Brooks refused to discuss the investigation rocking her extended family, she underscored her own toughness, telling of how four years ago, between fashion stints, she trained five months to push a dog sled 250 miles in Arctic Norway to raise money for charity.

“I’m adventurous,” she said. “I’ve always done well in situations that were unfamiliar to me. I’ve thrived on them.” A little bit of a chameleon? She lit up. “I’m not a little chameleon,” she said, “I’m totally a chameleon.”

Though it’s not yet clear that she can blend in entirely with the common folk. “If Amanda has one Achilles’ heel, it’s maybe not knowing how to play every situation,” Mr. Dowley said. “Not everybody knows what’s the latest thing in Vogue.”

But Ms. Brooks said she’s determined not to disappear. “I’ve just been programmed,” she said. “I’m success-oriented.” Mentioning plans for a second book, which will focus on stories of inspiration and influence over her 20-plus years in the fashion business, she mentioned the science lectures she loves at Rockefeller University, her collection of vintage books and being inspired by the work of the Pulitzer Prize winner Siddhartha Mukherjee.

“I’ve spent my entire career devoted to the vision of others,” she said. “This year away is for introspection. For myself.”

nytimes.com / may 31, 2012

what a great article...the more i learn about her, the more i love her...

 

[kimair]

garance doré visit's amanda's new york apartment before she leaves for london...

 

[Not Plain Jane]

Thanks! Lovely apartment pictures. Her dog is adorable. How old is she?

 

[ellastica]

Photo courtesy of Amanda Brooks


Style
Amanda Brooks On: Summer 2012
June 21, 2012, 9:00 AM


The I Love Your Style author’s summer is packed with bright colors, bohemian florals, cool music and
getting ready for a move to the English countryside.

My style is most inspired by… people I admire, life experiences, fashion, practicality, where I am going, how I want to feel, etc.

The colors I’m feeling most are… an orange-y red and a pale icy lemon.

The city look I love most is… neutral color-blocking.

The beach look I love is… bohemian florals, crochet and wedge espadrilles.

The toe nail polish I love most is… Geranium Red by Essie.

The soundtrack of my summer will be… I’m so uncool with music. I’ll listen to anything that my friend and music genius Randall Poster sends me — Bon Iver, Jeff Buckley, Grace Jones, George Harrison, old REM, B.O.B, Jessie J…. [Download more from Randall here — he curates Tory's Playlists.]

This summer I’m most excited to… set up our home life in Oxfordshire, England after moving there in June.

source: toryburch.com (blog)​

​

 

[Not Plain Jane]

For all Amanda Brooks fans - her blog (which HeatherAnne kindly told me about) is just gorgeous these days; she's been posting tons of pictures of her family's trip to Spain and they are luscious, many photos are desktop worthy! So lovely.

Anyhow it's called "I Love Your Style".com; here's a link for anyone interested:

http://iloveyourstyle.com/

 

[Wolkfolk]

Thanks for the link love
The pictures really make you want to leave everything and board a plane to have some good time under the sun.

 

[Not Plain Jane]

You're welcome - I know hey? It's like a dream, those pictures. We've been having a rainy summer here too, so it makes flying away to somewhere warm and sunny all the more tempting.