Gavelle

The Diggs of Michelle Obama's Dress Designer

Picture Windows

Perched atop a turn-of-the-century building in midtown, artist Ruben Toledo and fashion designer Isabel Toledo have created an atelier that feels like a fantasyland.

• By Wendy Goodman 
• Published Feb 12, 2006

(Photo: David Allee)

We would look up into the sky,” remembers Isabel Toledo, “and see this beautiful temple.” She’s talking about the midtown Manhattan loft space in which she and her husband, Ruben, now live, but could only gaze at from the pavement as they walked home from work in 1995. After spying the apartment again while house-hunting across the street, they secured their dream the same year.

When the Toledos finally entered the space, it looked more like a flophouse than the light-filled sanctuary of theirdreams. “It was like archaeology working on this place,” Isabel says. The 300-square-foot upstairs room was originally divided into three, with a dropped ceiling that covered half the giant windows. Moldy carpeting smothered the magnificent terrazzo floors. And the skylit great room below looked “dark, dungeony, basement-like,” says Isabel with a shudder. It took the couple nine months to reveal the apartment’s beautiful bones. Then they filled it with an organic collection of inherited furniture and their own artwork.

The Toledos’ fates have been intertwined since their families fled Cuba separately in the late sixties, and the couple ended up attending the same high school in New Jersey. Isabel became a fashion designer whose eponymous clothing line is followed by everyone from Karl Lagerfeld to Paper magazine editor Kim Hastreiter. Ruben started out doing windows for Fiorucci, was discovered by Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, and now paints and does commissions—a mural for Tiffany & Co., a perfume bottle for Estée Lauder, a Website for Nordstrom. Together, they have established the ideal live-work situation: Isabel takes the elevator down to her workrooms on the lower floors, while Ruben spreads out his paintings beneath the skylight upstairs.

A penthouse disguised as a dingy basement has been restored to its former glory by the vision of two artists who simply went with their gut. “I need to feel space above my head.” Isabel gestures with her hands over her head. “I need to feel the sky is the limit. Literally!”

THE MEZZANINE
(1.) Originally, there was a small loft area above the kitchen. Ruben and Isabel extended it to accommodate a balcony for Ruben’s bookshelves and a sleeping area. Both the mezzanine bookshelves and the remodeled kitchen below were designed by Philip Cozzi.

(2.) The Hula Hoops
Used by Isabel for exercise.

Picture Windows

(Photo: David Allee)

RUBEN’S STUDIO
Where Ruben works on an upcoming book of his artwork, to be published this fall by Karl Lagerfeld and Steidl, as well as illustrated advertising for clients.

(1.) The Lamp Shade
Painted by Ruben and used in a Barneys New York window displaying Isabel’s clothes.

(2.) Bookshelves
By Chris Lehrecke, whose furniture is available through Ralph Pucci International.

(3.) The Cactus
A part of the family, and something of a guard dog. When Woody Allen used the loft as a location for his film Melinda and Melinda, the one thing the crew was asked not to do was move it. They ignored the warning. The cactus retaliated by falling on one of the stars, sending her to the emergency room.

(4.) The Skylight
Comes with amazing views of the Empire State Building.

(5.) The Paintings
Are all by Ruben. This watercolor is a study of a grasshopper Isabel found last summer on their garden terrace.

(6.) The Easels
A hand-me-down collection given to Ruben by friends.

(7.) The Mannequins
Display Isabel’s designs-in-progress.

Picture Windows

(Photo: David Allee)

THE BEDROOM
(1.) The Window
Added by the Toledos and designed by Philip Cozzi.

(2.) The Collage
Made by Ruben from Isabel’s hair cuttings.

(3.) The Streetlights
A gift from a friend, they came from the Watergate Hotel in Washington.

(4.) The Screens
Originally designed by Ruben for the Toledos’ friend Anneliese Estrada, and retrieved when she moved.

Picture Windows

(Photo: David Allee)

DINING-WORKROOM
(1.) The Watercolors
Ceramic teapots, painted by Ruben for a series of fantasy home-design products.

(2.) The Door Frame
Was concealed by an ugly metal door when the Toledos moved in.

(3.) The Iron Railing
Original to the loft.

(4.) The Mannequin
Designed by Ruben for Ralph Pucci International. He painted the graffiti later.

(Photo: David Allee)

(1.) The Table and Chairs
A gift from the late illustrator Antonio Lopez, as is the console by the wall.

(2.) The Chair Jackets
Designed by Isabel to hide the scratches of the previous owner’s cats, they’re like little vests that slip over the chairs.

source: www.nymag.com

Mezzanine Library...Movie Resume...anyone?

Christian Lacroix Offers Paris Apartment

By CHRISTINA S.N. LEWIS

Dingreville

Fashion designer Christian Lacroix is selling his Paris apartment.

Fashion designer Christian Lacroix is selling his Paris apartment for €2 million, or about $2.6 million.

The roughly 2,150-square-foot apartment is in the chic Marais district. The house, in a late-17th-century building near the historic Place des Vosges and the Picasso Museum, has an upper floor with public rooms designed around an interior patio of roughly 200 square feet, and a lower floor with four bedrooms.

There's also a mezzanine library. The ceilings are 13 feet high and the apartment has many classic original details, including gilded moldings in the master bedrooms and French doors. The bathrooms and kitchen have been renovated. Mr. Lacroix has already purchased and moved to another apartment in the same neighborhood, according to his listing agent, Xavier Attal, of Paris-based Immo Best International properties.

Tennis's Golovin Lists Condo in Miami

WireImage/Getty Images

Tatiana Golovin

Tatiana Golovin, one of tennis's rising female stars until back problems sidelined her last year, has put her Miami condominium up for sale for $1.3 million.

Ms. Golovin's apartment is in Three Tequesta Point, a 2001 46-story tower on Brickell Key, a triangular island on Biscayne Bay in downtown Miami. The 2,300-square-foot apartment has three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a powder room and includes marble floors and a wraparound balcony, according to the listing. The development has a concierge, a gym, a pool and tennis courts.

Ms. Golovin has spent plenty of time in Florida -- she spent years at the famed tennis camp of Nick Bollettieri. Last year, her back problems forced the Russian-born Ms. Golovin, a French citizen, to drop out of the U.S. Open and the Olympics. Since then, the 20-year-old has made few visits to Miami, according to her listing agent, Polly Schiff, of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate. Ms. Golovin couldn't be reached for comment.

Mansion With Movie Résumé, $12 Million

In Greenwich, Conn., a restored 1895 home that Hollywood used for the movie "The Good Shepherd" is for sale for $12 million, recently cut from $13.25 million when the house was listed in September.

In the 2006 film, directed by Robert De Niro, the waterfront house stood in for the idyllic childhood home of a blue-blooded CIA spy, Edward Wilson, played by Matt Damon. (The father of Mr. Damon's character commits suicide at the home.)

The 5,000-square-foot colonial-style house, on 1.85 acres, overlooks Long Island Sound and features a wraparound porch overlooking the water and a kitchen with a wood-burning fireplace. The property also has a tennis court and a pool by the water.

Joe Barbieri, of Sotheby's International Realty, has the listing.

More Gucci La...

The House of Gucci

The Tuscan villa of designer Frida Giannini reflects her high-style, but low-key aesthetic

By CHRISTINA PASSARIELLO

As the creative force behind Gucci's clothing and accessory collections, Frida Giannini is known in the fashion world for the way she draws inspiration from the Italian luxury brand's archives to create classic, wearable designs.

Much less discussed is how Ms. Giannini applies the same design philosophy to create new spaces. She designed Gucci's new flagship store in New York. (She heads there next week for a charity event; proceeds from the sale of a special collection of Gucci handbags will be donated to Unicef-run programs in Africa.) And her love of interiors is apparent throughout her eclectic-yet-thoroughly-contemporary 18th-century Italian villa, nestled in the hills above Florence.

"Architecture and interior design are my second passion in life," says 37-year-old Ms. Giannini.

Dave Yoder

Frida Giannini on the steps connecting her living room to her "tech room." She and her husband knocked out walls to create a larger, lighter space.

A 10-minute drive from her office, the villa's turquoise-tiled indoor pool overlooks a garden with olive groves in the distance. Windows are set to the west and south to catch the best light. "I grew up in the south of Italy, so light is fundamental," says Ms. Giannini, peering out of huge windows at her German shepherd, Gunner, on the patio.

When she and her Web-designer husband Giovanni Battista Guidi bought their villa three years ago, they tore it apart. Ms. Giannini loved the traditional tiled-roof exterior of the house. But the villa felt too old-fashioned and cramped inside: a succession of three dark rooms made up the heart of the living area. With the help of her father, an architect in Rome, Ms. Giannini knocked down the walls, turning the dining and lounge areas into a long, light space with white walls and dark wood floors.

At home as on the runway, historical references guide Ms. Giannini's aesthetic vision. The bright white walls serve as the backdrop to an amalgam of furniture dating from the 1930s to the 1970s. Ms. Giannini picked up a 1950s black bar cabinet at one of her favorite shops on Rome's antique-furniture row, Via dei Coronari. A former equestrian, Ms. Giannini cherishes an antique rocking horse her husband bought for her from a shop in a Dolomite mountain village.

In Ms. Giannini's favorite area, a living room with a marble fireplace, there are stacks of books on 1940s cinema, interior designer Kelly Wearstler, artist Jeff Koons and French photographer Guy Bourdin. Down a short flight of stairs is the "tech room," which holds the designer's collection of 8,000 vinyl records from the 1970s and 1980s, a flat-screen television and a Wii console.

"There is a common aesthetic that accompanies me in my life and my job," says Ms. Giannini. "It's a respect and love for history, reinterpreted in a contemporary way."

Dave Yoder

A coral print hangs over a small antique table.

The quiet villa is also a reflection of Ms. Giannini's hard-working lifestyle. She isolates herself before a fashion show or during brainstorms for a new collection. Even when she entertains, Ms. Giannini is often wrapped up in work. Members of her design team are her most frequent dinner guests.

For decades, the fashion business has celebrated designers whose larger-than-life personas are inextricably linked with their brands. Chanel's white-haired Karl Lagerfeld never leaves his house without his black gloves and a scowl. Louis Vuitton's Marc Jacobs was recently photographed for a New York magazine posing in his underwear. Donatella Versace's dyed platinum hair and hard-partying lifestyle embody the brash style of her eponymous brand.

Even Tom Ford, Ms. Giannini's predecessor, revamped Gucci in the 1990s largely thanks to his own image as a sex symbol, transforming it from a staid brand for grandmothers into one of the world's hottest labels. Customers bought Gucci for a piece of the sultry image Mr. Ford had created. "A brand becomes famous through its designer's personality," says Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani.

Ms. Giannini is testing that adage. She is rarely photographed in magazines and says she's not a "party girl" -- unlike her predecessor, who feted his departure from Gucci with a pole-dancing bash. A self-defined "control freak" who doesn't drink coffee because of stress-related stomach problems (she still drinks Diet Coke), Ms. Giannini also starts her catwalk shows relatively on-time, unusual in the fashion world.

"Some people still love the psychodrama [of designers]. Some like to identify with a healthy, optimistic, realistic person," says the designer, dressed casually in brown corduroys and tall black riding boots and lounging in her tech room. "The fashion world is divided."

She's also taken Gucci in a vastly different direction than her predecessor. Far from Mr. Ford's plunging necklines, Mr. Giannini's designs are softer, more feminine and more classic.

"It's a very different vibe from five years ago when Tom [Ford] was in charge," says Tom Julian, a New York-based fashion consultant. Gucci is a "long way from the sexy world of the '90s." The new direction hasn't caused any blip in the consistent upwards march in Gucci's sales. Experts expect Gucci's strength in accessories to help it carry through the current downturn. Gucci is a division of French conglomerate PPR SA.

As her responsibilities at Gucci have grown, Ms. Giannini has found a new way to unwind -- amidst the black and stainless steel counters of her kitchen.

"This is my kingdom," she says, standing at the center island, a retro-style espresso machine in front of her. "If you give me two hours free and three kilos of vegetables, I will cut them all up. It's like therapy."

Soon Ms. Giannini may find herself with a new home-renovation project before her. Next spring, Gucci's designer and her team of about 40 are transferring their offices to Rome.

Legendary Authors' Inspired Spaces

Edith Wharton

 

The Mount, Lenox, Massachusetts

The first female novelist to win a Pulitzer Prize, Wharton spent several hours writing in bed each morning. This is the view from her second-story bedroom, which mirrors the panorama her character Lily Bart takes in below.

Everything in her surroundings ministered to feelings of ease and amenity. The windows stood open to the sparkling freshness of the September morning, and between the yellow boughs she caught a perspective of hedges and parterres leading by degrees of lessening formality to the free undulations of the park.
— The House of Mirth, 1905

Open daily; $13 to $16 admission; www.edithwharton.org. The Mount faces foreclosure in October 2008. Keep this landmark open by contributing to Save the Mount. For details, visit www.edithwharton.org/savemount.php

 

 

Edgar Allan Poe

 

 

 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The dismal atmosphere of Poe's cellar is unmistakably echoed in "The Black Cat," one of the many Gothic short stories he wrote during his lean years in Philadelphia.

Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!
— "The Black Cat", 1843

Open Wednesday to Sunday; free admission; www.nps.gov/edal

 

Eudora Welty

Jackson, Mississippi

In her home of 76 years, where she drafted such classics as the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Optimist's Daughter, Welty spent much of her time at the typewriter, facing this piece of furniture.

Laurel sat down on the slipper chair. The gooseneck lamp threw its dimmed beam on the secretary's warm brown doors. It had been made of the cherry trees on the McKelva place a long time ago; on the lid, the numerals 1817 had been set into a not quite perfect oval of different wood, something smooth and yellow as a scrap of satin. It had been built as a plantation desk but was graceful and small enough for a lady's use; Laurel's mother had had entire claim on it. On its pediment stood a lead-mold eagle spreading its wings and clasping the globe: it was about the same breadth as her mother's spread-out hand.
— The Optimist's Daughter, 1972

Guided tours on Wednesday to Friday; $5 admission (free every 13th of the month); www.eudorawelty.org

 

William Faulkner

 

 

Rowan Oak, Oxford, Mississippi

According to legend, after Faulkner outlined the seven-day plot of his Pulitzer Prize winner, A Fable, on the walls of his home (he kept a bed in his office), his wife demanded the text be painted over. Outraged, Faulkner rewrote it and shellacked the wall, where the writing remains today.

Open Tuesday to Sunday; $5 admission (free on Wednesdays); www.olemiss.edu/depts/u_museum/rowan_oak/interactive.html

 

Flannery O'Connor

 

 

Andalusia Farm, Milledgeville, Georgia

O'Connor's work chronicling the American South, including the short story "Good Country People," often reflected life on her 550-acre dairy farm, where she also tended peacocks and chickens.

It was a large two-story barn, cool and dark inside. The boy pointed up the ladder that led into the loft and said, "It's too bad we can't go up there."

"Why can't we?" she asked.

"Yer leg," he said reverently.

The girl gave him a contemptuous look and putting both hands on the ladder, she climbed it while he stood below, apparently awestruck. She pulled herself expertly through the opening and then looked down on him and said, "Well, come on if you're coming," and he began to climb the ladder, awkwardly bringing the suitcase with him.

"We won't need the Bible," she observed.

"You never can tell," he said, panting. After he had got into the loft, he was a few seconds catching his breath. She had sat down in a pile of straw. A wide sheath of sunlight, filled with dust particles, slanted over her. She lay back against a bale, her face turned away, looking out the front opening of the barn where hay was thrown from a wagon into the loft. The two pink-speckled hillsides lay back against a dark ridge of woods. The sky was cloudless and cold blue.
—"Good Country People," 1955

Open Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday; free admission; www.andalusiafarm.org

 

source: O at Home magazine

Michael Phelp's New Baltimore Home

Michael Phelps has plunked down $1.69 million for a condo on the waterfront in Baltimore, Md. Here's the headline -- practicing in that pool ain't gonna win him any medals.

His new pad is 4,080 sq. ft. (check out the model in the photos). The complex has a rooftop terrace, a private screening room, a state of the art gym, a clubhouse with pool tables.

If you're wondering where the money came from, Phelps was projected to earn between three and five mil this year even before the gold.

source: www.tmz.com

Senator McCain Shows Fiesta Style

Architectural Digest Visits Senator and Mrs. John McCain

Southwestern Style for their Phoenix Family Home

Architecture by Sheiner Day & Associates
Text by Paul Theroux/Photography by Robert Reck Published July 2005

Not every United States senator would consider volunteering his private house—its interior and all its grounds—to casual sightseers, but just before Christmas 2003, Senator John McCain did just that, with the encouragement of his wife, Cindy. Round about a thousand people paid $10 apiece to gain entrance and to gape at family photos and pat the family dogs and idle by the burbling stone fountain that Cindy McCain’s parents (previous occupants of the house) bought in Guadalajara in 1966. It was all for a good cause, not political but to raise money for a local school.

Behind a wrought iron fence and a long row of orange trees on a shady street in north-central Phoenix, the house is unspectacular but supremely comfortable, that enduring symbol of American life and contentment, a family home. The house contains the accumulated memories and heirlooms of four generations, from naval artifacts belonging to Senator McCain’s heroic grandfather and curios from Cindy McCain’s childhood trips to Mexico, to the framed scribbles of the McCains’ seven adored children: Doug, Andy, Sidney, Meghan, Jack, Jimmy and Bridget. Surveying its large rooms, Cindy McCain says, “This house is well used.”

“We were on the open- house tour of the neighborhood two days and nights, to allow people to come in and see it,” Senator McCain explains with a smile. “I showed people around.” Then, lapsing into his characteristic deadpan, he adds, “I kind of got into being a tour guide. ‘Here’s a picture of my father on Midway Island, with Nixon. And look at this rug. And here are some dolls from Mexico.’”

“No one expected to see him,” Cindy McCain responds, laughing. “But he answered the door! He invited the people in. They raised a lot of money.”

The money was for the Catholic school attended by one of their children. Senator McCain did not regard any of it as intrusive—in fact, he was welcoming. “They’re fundamentally nice people,” he reasoned, “because they’re supporting the school.”

“This was Cindy’s childhood home, so that makes it special,” the senator explains. Cindy McCain grew up in this house at a time when Phoenix was a relatively small town and the neighborhood was zoned for agriculture. She rode horses that were then stabled behind the house. In her golden girlhood, she was the Junior Rodeo Queen, and she still has the winsome commemorative photo to prove it. “The rodeo was such a big deal it was a holiday,” she says. She was a student at Central High just down the street. The house was smaller then, constructed of Arkansas brick with a shake roof. In the mid-’80s, when her parents moved elsewhere, the McCains made the decision to move in and hired Neal Sheiner, of Sheiner Day & Associates, to renovate it in stucco and tile.

“We envisioned a Southwest style,” the senator says. “We went down to the foundations.” After many months he decided that their moving in might prove an incentive for the builders to finish. “I got home on a Friday night, as I usually do, and we went to bed. Next morning about 6:30 I heard a loud noise. And there’s this worker looking through the window at us.”

“Almost every memory I have of childhood is in this house—very happy memories,” Cindy McCain says. “I want my children to know this house and have these memories.”

Until Senator McCain developed roots in Arizona, his life had been peripatetic. Born in the Canal Zone in 1936, where his father had been posted as a naval officer, he moved with the family that same year to New London, Connecticut. These were the more serene years for the senator. As he detailed in his eloquent memoir Faith of My Fathers, published in 1999, John McCain suffered more than five years of harsh imprisonment in North Vietnam. He was tortured, endlessly interrogated, bound hand and foot, and clapped into solitary confinement; he endured mental and physical punishment. At last, when it was discovered by his captors that his father was an important officer in the U.S. Navy, he was given permission to leave; yet he refused to go while his fellow prisoners remained behind bars. Because of this stern refusal, his punishment became more severe. Yet the book’s theme is forgiveness and faith.

“By your father’s calling, you are born into an exclusive noble tradition,” Senator McCain writes of a typical serviceman’s children in his book. In his case, his ancestors have been military men, serving with distinction since the time of the American Revolution.

The McCain house is not merely a repository of family memories but a gathering place where, on the recent spring break, no fewer than eight young men—fellow students of Jack McCain’s—were billeted, some of them sleeping off their exertions on a Sunday morning and others looking bleary-eyed at their hosts. The McCains are delighted to have their sons’ friends on board and enjoy traveling with their children. “We snorkel, we hike, we sit and talk by the creek at our house up north. We try to go on a family trip twice a year and do something different. For example, the Christmas before last we went to Vietnam, then to Bangkok, and took the train from there to Singapore. We had four of the seven children.”

Because of his prison injuries, the senator is not a golfer (“And I agree with Mark Twain that golf is a good walk wasted”). The McCains value their family time, realizing that children eventually have their own lives and travels.

The house is also a showcase of the senator’s enthusiasm for buying exotic carpets. “I’m a terrible shopper, but I buy these rugs when I travel. I was recently in Afghanistan and bought this,” he says, pointing out a large, finely made carpet in russet and brown. There are others from Turkey and Georgia, as well as the Native American carpets from his wife’s family.

Cindy McCain is also responsible for much of the memorabilia on view. “Cindy has a picture fetish,” the senator says, gesturing to a bank of framed photographs—family pictures, photos of pets, of landscapes, of the senator himself on the day of his release from his Hanoi prison, of his father, of the late pope visiting Arizona, of a poignant gathering near Sedona, “the day I dropped out of the race.”

Asked whether he will run for president again, the senator chooses his words carefully. “If I talk seriously about it, my activities in the Senate will be viewed through the prism of presidential candidate rather than a senator who’s trying to do good work.” After a judicious pause he adds, “And there’s no need. We don’t have to make a decision on that for a few more years.”

“My best friends are those I was in the Navy with and especially those I was in prison with,” the senator says. Describing one of them, he says, “He is one of those people for whom everything is either black or white. It’s wonderful to go through life like that. I wish I could.” Reminded of his independent and subtler views, he remarks, “That’s one of the reasons [my candidacy] is so attractive,” and with his signature deadpan, “and one of the reasons it’s so difficult.”

Check out the pictures of the McCain home    http://www.architecturaldigest.com/homes/features/archive/mccain_slideshow_072005?showall=true

Gucci At Home

Check out the lookbook for this fashion forward woman with edgie home style.  The black murano glass chandelier in her dining room adds drama without defined formal. This woman's home style fits her and that is what we should all aim to do.  Surround Yourself With The Things You Love! 

Frida Giannini's Personal Style

Gucci's creative director puts an eclectic spin on her Florence home

By J.J. Martin

Frida Giannini, creative director at Gucci and maker of all things smoldering and sexy, wouldn't be caught dead showing her bare midriff. That's fine for Gucci's corporally adventurous clientele, should they be so inclined, but not for this 36-year-old designer. "You're never going to see this part of my body exposed," she says, motioning vigorously to the forbidden midsection while at home in her striking new city retreat in Florence. The Gucci runway has always been a prude-free zone, but who says the smoke wafting from the models' spike heels has to perfectly correspond to its maker's own wardrobe, itself a steady flow of basic blacks, practical pants, and sharp men's-style shirts, with no skirts?

SEE LOOKBOOOK: FRIDA GIANNINI

"That's like saying Valentino always needs to wear red," says the Roman-born designer as she surveys the high-end lineup in one of her dark glass-lined closets. But the fact that Giannini beat out two other designers to take the reins at Gucci proves she's not lacking for brains or talent. "Even if I feel terrible wearing something supertight," she allows, "I've got to cover the other half of the world's female population, which really wants to look sexy [in my designs]."

Truthfully, the sex quotient at the luxury powerhouse has been taken down a notch since Giannini's ascension - and rightly so, given today's more moderate mood. The bright flowers and bold prints she employs reflect a lighter, softer touch that won't be going away anytime soon. "That's absolutely my vision for Gucci," she says.

For the source of the brand's feminine recalibration, search no further than the designer herself. "I'm a ponytail girl," she assesses. "That's how I see myself." For evening, Giannini prefers a romantic look, like the sweet floral and printed dresses that dotted Gucci's spring runway and that have now become something of a signature for her. For day, it's no-nonsense loose dresses worn with turtlenecks or the low-slung, skinny Frida trouser worn with shirts and cuff links and one of her many vintage watches. The origin of Giannini's practical personal style owes much to her job function, which precludes extraneous frills and flounces. "When I'm down on the ground laying out designs, in the middle of a mess, it's pretty useless if I show up in crepe de chine," she says.

A top job usually means a new I-am-the-decider look, even for Giannini, who admits to adopting a few style tweaks of her own. She now rarely wears other designers' merch, even if her closet does boast vintage Balenciaga and Helmut Lang. "It doesn't really seem right," she says. "It would seem as if I didn't believe in what I was doing." Once, she ventured into the outer orbit of cheap fashion, donning a red-and-black-printed dress from H&M. "My colleagues gave me so much grief when I wore it to the office," she recalls. "I was so mortified that I gave it to a girlfriend." She does, however, indulge in one naughty little habit. "I'm a maniac for French shoemakers," she says with a smile, pointing out the Louboutins and Hardys peeking out from between the rows of Gucci riding boots and heels.

But her Converse All Stars, her old preferred footwear, have completely vanished (replaced by Gucci stilettos, natch), and she's become something of a stickler for the antislacker look. "If one of my design kids comes in wearing Birkenstocks, I tell them to go home and put on a pair of suede loafers," she says with impatience. "We're working for one of the most important luxury brands in the world. There should be a minimum amount of decorum and respect."

If Giannini is toughening up, it's only natural, given the immense amount of pressure on her thin shoulders to constantly outperform Gucci's already stratospheric sales figures. Back in 2004, she was already living her dream by overseeing Gucci's whopping accessories department. "It's something that happened to me," she says of nabbing the all-encompassing creative-director job, which first passed from Tom Ford to Alessandra Facchinetti for womenswear and John Ray for menswear and then, in rather quick succession, all landed with a thud in Giannini's lap. "It's not something I sought out." Now she's living with the consequences, as fulfilling as they are challenging, of having said yes.

"I don't do anything else," she says matter-of-factly of her work-only lifestyle. "I don't have a social life. It's not healthy. I have stomach problems, back problems." She married Italian Web designer Giovanni Battista Guidi in 2005 and is currently mulling the possibility of having children. Her husband wants to, but she's not sure yet. "All of my oldest friends - even the weirdest and most antiestablishment ones - have had kids, and my mom's like, 'Just do it!'" she says. "But sometimes I think, how on earth could I manage that?"

She has, however, made enormous inroads in setting up house. Her sprawling three-bedroom home, tucked into the green hills overlooking Florence, took a year to restructure under the watchful eye of her architect father. "We fought about everything," she says, laughing. The interiors have been decorated by Giannini herself, who sourced her '30s and '40s art-deco pieces from dealers in Paris, Florence, and Rome.

The house has an indoor pool ("I hardly ever use it," she laments) and a music room with 7,000-plus records (a gift from a DJ uncle), but these domestic conceits belie Giannini's normality. "It's about finding a good internal balance and having good values," says the designer of staying grounded, "and not saying stuff like 'I want a private jet because I'm creative director at Gucci.' That just makes me laugh." Initial talk of her having a bodyguard was also scoffed at. "I fought like mad not to have one," she says, again trumping expectations. "I would've felt ridiculous. Can you imagine?" she ponders, swirling her glass of white wine. "Me and my bodyguard?"

source: www.harpersbazaar.com