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02/03/2023

Hard truth. Sometimes agency life means having everybody’s back, even when it seems nobody has yours. It means telling yourself pretty much daily to suck it up, take your ego out of it, shut up and get on with it, rub some spit on it and walk it off. You might be a creative, but, you can’t lose sight of the reality that you chose this profession where 100% of your creative expression is in service of someone else’s vision. Your job is to illustrate, illuminate and communicate that vision.

You have to consciously set aside your innate human desire to be “right” 100 times a day, because the client is always right. You agreed to that from the start. There’s no integrity in fighting it.

Your clients pay for your ideas and so ultimately they literally own your ideas and if you’re not comfortable with that you shouldn’t be in an agency job. Your job is to stand for others, so if they don’t like your work you may feel that added guilt and shame and remorse and regret for letting them down, but you have to keep that drama to yourself because it’s not about you and it never was. As long as your heart was in the right place in doing the work you can carry on and learn from it. Quite literally - you must go back to the drawing board.

We help other people shine, nudging them gently into the spotlight from our place in the shadows. It’s not for the faint of heart but it’s not demoralizing or even particularly difficult most days unless you let your own pride defeat you. It’s the work we chose. It’s the life we chose. And when it’s good, it’s the absolute best. So, let’s get on with it.

26/02/2023

Sunday evening in Chelsea. Grateful for a calm moment.

18/02/2023

1 million years ago, with a team of other young publicists, I had the opportunity to launch this fragrance, Angel by Thierry Mugler, in the US. Mugler came over from Paris. We launched in NYC at Saks, THE Saks Fifth Avenue that’s across from Rockefeller Center and next door to St. Patrick’s cathedral. It was Mecca for beauty/fragrance. The guy running the beauty department there went on to create Sephora. But Mugler was a fashion designer, so -fashion. We took over all of the windows of the store and mounted a retrospective of his fashions elevated above all the beauty counters throughout that whole ground floor of the store. We set up a stage with a huge video wall live streaming the stage show. We had Diana Ross, Miss Ross to me lol. We had the entire cast of Angels in America, which at the time was the “it” Broadway ticket. We had a red carpet, rope line, a “paparazzi pen” and klieg lights. We had the society caterer, the society florist, and tv crews, beauty editors, fashion editors and editors in chief - it was the ultimate 90s rich-bitch bash. It benefitted two nonprofit AIDS organizations. I had a team of about 20 PRs working the event, all with clipboards and walkies, there were no iPads yet. After, we had a private dinner at Elaine’s. So New Yorky. I sat across from a famous gossip columnist who is still a famous gossip columnist. It was a real snark-fest. The next morning we flew to San Francisco for the West Coast launch. It was at an art gallery in SoMa that was impossibly cool. We had a bunch of TV crews there so Mr. Mugler decided to be deliberately outrageous and refused to take his interviews anywhere but in the ladies room. So, oui, Monsieur, we did them in there. After, I took the red-eye back to New York and went straight over to 30 Rock where we’d booked a client on the Today Show. That fragrance, with its unique notes of chocolate and caramel, became for some time the best selling fragrance in the world. And I just grabbed this pic from my IG feed, so it’s clearly still going strong. To this day if anyone in any room is wearing it, I clock it immediately. Always will.

14/02/2023

This Valentine for everyone is from Mother Nature. Australian pink robin. 💕

28/01/2023

Saturday. Little things brighten up a winter’s day. A great cup of coffee. The luxurious stillness of the city when it’s absent its rush-hour. Knowing that I can work today when inspiration strikes, but also knowing, not a single zoom or Google meet will be popping up today. I can just enjoy the particular slant of the morning light. These roses and tulips that smell like Spring and look like like harbingers of hope. They’re by my latest floral obsession/discovery, in the flower district. And a good book, of course. Like the bright, beautiful cloth bound coffee table tome Casa Cabana, from by the impossibly tasteful with foreword by filled with brilliant and journalistically legit text, so MANY luscious and impeccably lit images and even a few recipes, including a very authentic risotto. If you’re a designer and you don’t have this book rush to get it, along with a subscription to Martina’s incomparable which also arrives in cloth cover. I can’t oversell it. My copy was gifted to me by my friend and luxury publishing superstar and I and my coffee table and my Saturday mornings are forever grateful. What’s your favorite Saturday ritual?🌷🌸🌹

20/01/2023

So far 2023 has been not marvelous. I rang in the New Year with a wicked bout of COVID, and complications ensued. During this wretched illness the heat failed in my apartment (which is also my office) twice, for 48 hours each time amid the deep bone chill of a New York January. Tech glitches have been daily occurrences thanks to Mercury in retrograde for the first 18 days of January. So, I’m trying again for a fresh start with the arrival of the lunar New Year. I’ve always liked bunnies (I think this tuxedo bunny is particularly fun) so I’m embracing the - why not? I’m on a healing journey, so a year that celebrates a soft, cuddly critter seems apropos. Maybe my luck will change. Here’s “hopping”!🐇

02/12/2022

With all of the trade shows and work chaos during November, it was just not time for the holiday mood. Suddenly it’s December 1 and everything sounds like sleigh bells, church bells, silver bells, jingle bells and - Meanwhile, I keep seeing all of these online article round ups of holiday decor ideas. And so much of it is shockingly uninspired and frankly unnecessary. There was one that purported to have 25 inspiring ideas but fully six of them were the “idea” of putting three wreaths together on a wall. Ok. You don’t need decor hacks and hackneyed hoopla. So much of the lusciousness of this season comes from bringing the best of nature indoors and placing it in and around treasures you already own. Look at this outrageous yet restrained magnolia display. Find the perfect vessel and the holiday branches of your choice and voila! It screams holiday without a trace of sparkle, which is left for a prized antique silver tea service, which YES should come out for holiday entertaining! If not now, when? Leave it to one of our favorite tastemakers, Eric Goujou, of Paris’ own to bring us this return to simple, abundant beauty. By the way, has anyone else noticed the amazing thing that happens when you’re trimming the base of your magnolia branches? They have this miraculous, transportive smell of: nutmeg!! It’s always a little reward when I’m arranging magnolia branches. That nutmeg smell. It will forever remind me of my father shaving those wrinkly, rock-hard ovals with our faithful old nutmeg grater - wisps of it tumbled onto the frothy surface of the eggnog, which was served always in my grandmother’s footed Victorian punchbowl. “Never use pre-grated nutmeg, Missie,” he’d say. It was the final flourish right before the first guests arrived. The holidays are for indulging these sense-memories. Tradition. Beauty. Nature. Generosity. Spice. May your season be filled with all of it. And all the bells, too.

06/10/2022

This is Annie Ernaux, who today was awarded the Nobel prize in literature. This is particularly remarkable because her body of work consists of memoirs. She takes facts and truths about her life and makes them into compelling and imaginative prose that’s been capturing and resonating with broad audiences for decades. She is the 17th woman to receive it out of 119 awards. She’s 82 years old, and her reaction to receiving the prize was that it gives her a great reason to continue writing. She feels it’s a responsibility. According to the New York Times, Mats Malm, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy which decides the prize, in the announcement speech lauded “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.” I’m not sure if she’s fearless or if she’s courageous but either way she addresses topics that are both uncomfortable and necessary. She has the ability to powerfully reveal social inequity including that of women. Like another fabulous French woman I know () she’s direct, she’s a straight talker she’s not afraid to touch on things that are painful or shameful. And not in a creative writing 101 way, but in her own way. My mother, whose work was turned down more than once by the New Yorker and lesser publications for not having enough of an edge, would probably have found Annie Ernaux’s work obscene. Her edge maybe razor sharp but what she writes is thought provoking and creates much-needed catharsis for so many. Here’s a quote from the press conference: “For me, writing was and remains a way to shed light on things that one feels but are unclear. Writing is a path to knowledge.” Amen, to that. Writer, let’s forge ahead. On y va!!!

Photo: Isabelle Ashraghi for The New York Times

25/09/2022

My idol. The irrepressible .apfel - a global style icon - now has a capsule collection with one my fave cosmetic brands - but the real pièce de résistance in this is for me the names of the eyeshadow pallets which are accidental icon and more is more, less is a bore. It’s perfect. Perfect!

i’ve had the chance to name so many things during my career, starting with pantyhose colors for Wayback in the day and continuing on to name probably thousands of products, colors, patterns styles, collections and entire brands in fashion, home furnishings, culinary/hospitality and beauty. Most recently I had the privilege of naming the flavors of the original recipes by for his and DeAndre DeVane’s Well-Designed “Energy Spheres”. More on that another day. Anyway naming things is without a doubt one of the most fun parts of this career. So I’m always looking out for clever product names and of course, OF COURSE these popped out - anything Iris touches turns to brilliant!

12/09/2022

Day one.

These two beautiful souls have created one extraordinary intention. A happier, healthier more harmonious design community. Thus fortified, they believe (and I concur) we can have a positive impact on the future of design. And we all know that Design has a huge impact on the planet and on people. Their point of view on wellness is entirely holistic and encompasses all areas of the human experience. Anyone who knows me knows that nothing gets me more inspired than people who are up to big things. People who believe in the power of community. People who hold other people in the light. I am so grateful to be in the orbit of these two extraordinary humans, as well as the team they’ve built around them of like-minded and unbelievably talented and devoted professionals. Here at JanMacBrands we’ve been fortunate to work with so many great people. Several of them in fact are lining up to support Caleb and DeAndre in this effort, and I’m sure more will follow. On behalf of my amazing colleague, Megan Hotze, Who took time away from her own practice to help me with this, and the whole JanMacBrands extended family, we congratulate our friends on a spectacular first day for Well- Designed.

10/11/2021

Talk about an experiential brand strategy!! Just learned from that (in a brilliant marketing scheme by the producers of the upcoming SATC sequel) you can rent the Carrie Bradshaw apartment. And they have it all filled up with tons of fashion and Manolo And all the things so you can play dress up. 😂 Went to to check it out - turns out it is literally two doors down from me right here on West 22!!! Here’s what Vogue says: And just like that...you can live out your fantasy. Carrie Bradshaw’s fictional apartment is now available to rent in reality, in honor of the upcoming sequel, . Oh, and it costs $23 dollars a night—a numeric ode to S*x and the City’s premiere date twenty-three years ago—and is located in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood.

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Loving clients Michael Tavano Design and Darrin Varden Design in this The Editor at Large video for Lenox and Bilotta Kitchens with Traditional Home's Tori Mellott.

From our video archives, we heart these two Michaels: Boodro and Tavano!

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It’s Not Our Story, It’s Your Story

Come to our page to find trends and tips you can use to further your brand's goals. Discover why we live by this mantra and why we apply it to the strategy for every JanMacBrand on our roster: BE BOLD. OWN YOUR STORY. DELIGHT PEOPLE.

Also you can catch up on the latest JanMacBrands news and events, catch our clients’ latest press clippings, videos and gorgeous design-y things.