I was catching up with my parents in North Monmouth, Maine, and got to take a walk through the woods which is one of my favorite things to do. Its amazing what a bit of country can do for the soul. I also noticed an array of mushrooms growing in the wild. Their colors and shapes juxtaposed with the foliage made my camera clicking hands come alive!

Here’s a picture of the back of my parents house. My Dad built the place out of an old water tower from NYC.

A lake in Maine where my parents live.

Most people during fashion week write about the celebrities and fashion that comes down the runway. To start off fashion week, I wanted to write about the people who are actually making the fashion.

Meet Angchung Angchung.

She was born in Rongshar Tibet. Angchung came to work for me 12 years ago after she escaped Tibet. She is now the head sample maker for the Lucite collection and is charge of doing all the finishing touches in the line. She has one of the most positive attitudes I know, which seems to be a common Tibetan trait.  She’s been one of my favorite people to work with. She is incredibly diligent and caring in her craft .

I asked her what she misses most from Tibet and she said her  family and Tibetan food. Since being in the US she’s had 2 children and created a family. When I asked her what she loves about the US she said she likes that she can go to the movies with her kids, take her son to the park in Elmhurst, Queens and have a life that she is in control of away from China. Her favorite food is MoMo, which is a Tibetan dumpling with meat, onions and masala.

When working on designs she always voices her opinion. Recently we were working on a design for Lady Gaga’s new video and Angchung said…”That’s crazy!!”

She is a bright spot in my day and for that I’m grateful.

Equally as sweet is Michelle’s Mom wearing Alexis Bittar too… I feel like one of the family!

Michelle wore the Leger Mauve pin last night at the Democratic National Convention to accessorize a Laura Smalls’ dress… Looking very lovely!

A week after Franny passed I had the itch to get a kitten. I was never a cat person before taking in Franny and if I hadn’t taken her in, I probably would never have been.

I was always slightly proud of being a dog person and thought it sounded more butch. I would take pride in my lack of feline love but now I left that by the wayside and I’m in danger of becoming that character at home reading and knitting on a Sunday with 1 dog, 5 cats, and the NY Times.

I’ve never had a kitten and was not sure of what to do when I got one. I adopted a grey Persian and have named her Winnie after my grandmother, Winifred. She is 5 months old and super shy but also confident. I have heard that it takes awhile for the shyness to go so I’ve let her acclimate in her own room for a week.

She was potty trained instantly which seems like a miracle compared to a puppy.

Habibi is itching to play with her but  we will see how it goes. He is still trying to wrap his head around the fact that she doesn’t want to play with his toys.

Growing up half Syrian in the US was strange in the 1970s. My mom is Irish and my dad is Syrian. I remember going to school and my mom would pack babbaghanoush and pita with falafel for lunch when I was 10 years old. The kids in the school cafeteria would be eating their school lunches of pizza and burgers and I would pull my lunch out… slightly embarrassed. There was always some kid who would say “What is that?”, in that tone that is slightly accusatory. I would try to explain it but could tell that I lost them when I got to the eggplant. Then I would say I’m Arabic and my dad is Syrian. At that time no kids I knew recognized what Syrian was. They would look at me like, “huh?”

When I was at Bronx High School of Science or my year-long stint at SUNY Albany, I never met one kid who knew where Syria was on the globe… and I’m not sure if I knew where it was either.

Even though I’m 3rd generation American, some members of my Syrian family, every now and then, act as though they had just moved to the states. There is a sense of great pride in being Syrian and American coupled with an insecurity of being both and an ‘other’ and a ‘typical American’.

When I was 28 I decided to take a trip to Damascus to see what Syria was about. I went alone and I was the first in my family for 3 generations to be on those streets.

I had been to Egypt and Turkey and those were the countries I thought I could compare it to. Neither was a good comparison.

Damascus is the oldest city in the world and feels like it. The alleys and markets were winding and ancient. There were murals of Assad all over and in a weird way the population seemed innocent because they were so isolated from the rest of the world.

I can’t say it was a beautiful city but it was one that was steeped in an old culture. I vividly remember the remnants of Russia’s involvement with Syria, with some tanks and military tributes and a few blonde Syrian children running around amidst a pack of dark haired kids. A sign of Russian soldiers leaving their mark.

I was also struck by how I did not see one gay man in all of Syria…. except for this one guy with over plucked eye brows in the bazaar selling fabrics.  Not surprising since Muslims are not fans of the gays.

Anyway… it does hurt to see the population of Syria being beaten down with no end in sight. I think for many Americans there is a sense of danger that’s attached to any Arabic country and to what goes on in it, but at the end of the day they are people with families, children, and complicated lives now much more complicated by violence and war.

Possibly in our lives we will see peace in the Middle East but it will take a lot of empathy and openness to get there. We can only hope.

I turned 44 on Saturday.

Usually the days leading up to my birthday can feel like a demoralizing vortex of self assessment, with images of my “Christmas Future” passing before my eyes. This last week though, I didn’t have too much time to think about it. Which ended up being a good strategy.

Iris Apfel once shamed me for even discussing getting old and reminded me she was twice my age, plus some. I have held on to that scolding ever since.

I spent the day hanging out with my boyfriend in Brooklyn, walking around Vinegar Hill and looking at the old Navy Yard. We went to the end of the Afro Funk Festival and watched Some Like it Hot at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

I love watching a classic film at an old movie theater.  It should happen more often.

I think some of my favorite birthdays are the ones where it’s relaxing, no hoopla or need to entertain.

I did get my own peanut butter pie with candles to blow out, which was very yummy indeed.

Franny passed away last week. I had to put her down. She had a non malignant tumor on her tail, which caused her tail to be amputated. Because of a heart murmur and kidney failure she was too weak, and too old really, to go through surgery.

I had never had to put a pet to sleep before and it was more upsetting than I had anticipated.

It’s difficult because the pet has no idea what you’re discussing with the vet. They are oblivious to the fact that you are discussing the end of their life.

Overall, I feel good about the fact that I had her for the last few years of her life and she lived to the ripe old age of (approximately) 18 years old. It definitely is a nod to adopting elder pets from kennels and giving them a great life and love in their last years. Usually, they are the last ones to get adopted.

She was a sweet cat, very feisty, but sweet.

Looks like Gucci is tapping into the Muslim market…

Since the next run of our Ab Fab girls is now currently out, I wanted to show some more clips from their show.  I was recently showing my boyfriend some of the shows since he had never seen them before. After watching them again , I couldn’t believe how funny and irreverent they are. The way they can make fun of so many facets of society such as fashion, celebrities, racism etc but still somehow draw the viewer into their world is amazing.   After watching them again I think they could not be a better fit for the brand.

For Elements I fixed on panthers, leopards and reliquaries.  I’ve been going to the Metropolitan Museum since I was 3 years old and always remembered the reliquaries on the first floor. I love the idea of looking into their miniature protected and preserved worlds.

We hand carved 2 pieces of Lucite to protect the reliquary and polished it to transparency.  Inside is a gunmetal and crystal encrusted panther resting on a tree. The piece is 3d so it can be viewed from all sides, adding to the illusion of a microcosm captured in glass.

The panther necklace and bracelets have more of a 1920′s feel.  I wanted the panther to be leaning off the bracelet from both sides to really give the sense of motion.

On the panther necklace I used red tigers eye,  and the leopard is running down the necklace chasing a large faceted topaz tear.

The opulent Etruscan revival jewelry from the late 1800′s has always been one of my favorites.

For Fall we created cameos out of Lucite for the first time and set them into gilded metal that’s encrusted with crystal vines and moss agate.  I was able to capture a real 3d sense — the woman’s face emerges from the  piece and is lightly shaded by delicate painting of the cameo.

I used a Victorian coral pin from the late 1800′s as my model.

(Click images for more information and to purchase.)

After working with Lucite as a material for over 20 years its always a challenge to reinterpret in different ways.

I took the classic sensibility of the 1930′s  and added it with this effect of malachite. Each “ring”  is painted with different shades of emerald green by hand.

Afterwards each piece of Lucite was hand sculpted.

(Click on the images for more information and to purchase.)

Here are some more images from the lookbook: