Driving up Eighth Avenue past Madison Square Garden and The Empire State Building. 5:45 PM. Photo: JH.

February 1, 2010. It was very cold and clear and sunny all weekend in New York with temperatures in the low teens. Friends and connections. Yesterday I called my friend Colette Harron in Essex, Connecticut (where the thermometers were touching zero by mid-evening) to wish her a happy birthday. I was telling her about a book I’d been reading over the weekend that Richard David Story, the editor of Departures had given me called Beautiful Fall about Yves St. Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld and the fashion crowd that moved between here and London and Paris. When Richard told me about it I wasn’t sure that I’d share his enthusiasm because the fashion business per se is not of great interest to me. However. It was the age of Warhol, all the liberation movements, of the pop art and contemporary art movement and twenty pages into the book, I knew what Richard was raving about.

Colette Harron, Peter Rogers, Peter Harron, and Cynthia McFadden in 2009.

In the book, the author Alicia Drake describes how Loulou de la Falaise became an integral and important part of the St. Laurent-Pierre Berge circle in part because YSL was taken by her Englishness and her improvisational fashion that just reeked style. This meeting occurred at a moment when London was the fashion center of the universe. It began with the arrival of the Beatles and they were followed by a fashion revolution. Ossie Clark was at the top of the list. Colette was telling me that she was very influenced by Ossie, that he was a friend. Although he died in 1996, age 54, his clothes are still highly sought after, and worn by models such as Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. It led us to talking about Blair Sabol who now writes her “No Holds Barred” for NYSD and is a new friend for me but an old friend of Colette’s. The two women met in the late 60s/early 70s in New York when Blair was writing a column in the Village Voice called “Outside Fashion.” Colette had a funky clothing boutique (with no name) on East 9th Street not far from the Fillmore East where all the rockers played. It was a go-to place for the hipsters as well as the rich, the chic and the shameless.

DPC and Blair Sabol at The Four Seasons, December, 2009.

Colette’s of Moroccan Jewish descent (a “Moroccan Jew,” is how she would put it) grew up mainly in New York with flights of fancy to Paris. So there are several strong notes to her visual senses. Because French was her native language there is also just the lightest hint of it in her speaking. We met when I first came back from California in the early 90s, through Lady Sarah Churchill. Sarah had beforehand told me that she wanted me to meet Colette and her husband Peter, a documentary filmmaker and photographer. Sarah liked them so much she thought I would too. She was right. "Clothes have to do with my changing spirit Stella and Colette know my changes and can dig my spirit." -- Johnny Winter. Stella Douglas and Colette Mimram practically initiated the leather fringe binge singlehandedly in New York when they opened their shop on 321 East Ninth Street. Colette wears an Ossie Clark original. Last night before I wrote this Diary I emailed Blair Sabol and asked her to describe Colette at that time when she was a denizen of the Rock World here and in London. This was her immediate reply: No question Colette was one of the "founders" of vintage rock and roll style. Without setting herself up as such ... she was the first real stylist. She "dressed" all of THE musicians of the day (and their groupies). And she herself was such "a natural." When people ask me how Jimi Hendrix got his image ... it was all Colette, and imagine ... she never took any credit. Because she just lived it she never had to promote it .... And everyone loved "hanging out" at her boutique .... It was more than a store ... We met over the Christmas holiday in ’92 at a dinner at Sarah’s house in Old Lyme. Coincidentally I met several people at that one small dinner who have since become good friends. Colette and Peter and I, however, became quite close. Although Peter and I would have been friends without Colette, Colette has oodles of quiet charm that lends to that charisma. She’s unassuming about herself, never asserts that charm. She’s hip, for sure; but she’s also a kind of a Mama, chic and low-key, of course. She’s not one for the spotlight but she gives lots of light, warm light. What it is is warmth, even effusive at times; common sense honesty and a natural curiosity about people. “She’s so crazzzzy,” she might say of someone and then burst out with a laugh, which I know for Colette means she really likes them. Colette likes people (well, not everyone) for who they are. She takes them on their terms and accommodates them on her terms. In our conversation yesterday about those days, the mention of Ossie Clark and Colette’s boutique on Ninth Street, she was reminded that Blair Sabol had written about it in SHOW magazine, and that it could be found on the internet. (SHOW was a great high-end glossy magazine about the culture of popular entertainment, that Huntington Hartford had founded. It didn’t last long but it was very stylish and classy.) I went looking for it on Google. This was high hippiedom in New York at that moment. The world, especially the American people were going through so many changes and so many tragedies but the mood was nevertheless exhilarating and highly creative. Top albums of 1970: Simon and Garfunkel “Bridge Over Troubled Water” Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin II Original Soundtrack “Easy Rider” Original Soundtrack “Paint Your Wagon” music and lyrics by Lerner & Loewe Various Artists Motown Chartbusters Volume 3 The Beatles Let It Be The Beatles Abbey Road Deep Purple Deep Purple in Rock Paul McCartney McCartney Andy Williams Andy Williams Greatest Hits.

From “Rock Threads” by Blair Sabol for SHOW magazine. “Everyone knows that today’s fashions are made by people…not by magazines or by collection showing…but by people who aren’t afraid to wear their insides on their outsides. Today’s most fashionable trendsetters are the ones involved with today’s music – rock. Musicians are known for their free-wheeling spirit and they aren’t afraid to show it visually and totally independently. But what’s more important is that there isn’t any dividing line between fan and star. Today’s people simply look like rock stars and have assumed the rock stars’ attitudes and codes of dress. Costumes can’t be classified with the performer anymore. As for the rockstar designers, they are a whole new breed of talented artists….All of them are usually best friends with the musicians they design for and most of them are a part of their stars’ lifestyles. Some of the individual designers own their own shops; others are commissioned exclusively. Like the music itself the rock fashion styles run the gamut depending upon the individual personalities. From performer to producer. So it’s not only how the rock people have gotten it on musically but it’s also what they’ve been putting on visually that has made them one of the hip generation’s most influential group of heavies. “Pamela’s clothes are weapons, ornaments and protection.” – Jim Morrison Jim Morrison’s come a long way since his licorice leather-bodied days. Since then he’s gotten it together in a different way by getting his designing friends together to work in a shop that he’s backed called Themis/947 North La Cienega/Los Angeles/California. It’s run by Pamela Roselilly, who, together with her friend Tereba, designs and collects for the store. The clothes are varied as are the people that regularly gather there….From Lee Dunholder who’s in charge of selling out to Michael Bedard who’s big on hanging out. And there’s Vaya who works down the street in his own salon and is in charge of everyone’s hair.

Billy Cox, Colette Mimram, Jimi Hendrix, Devon Wilson, and Mitch Mitchell at the Boston Garden, June 27, 1970.

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