(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 4 APRIL 2008)
There’s not much you can talk about over a 20-minute coffee break, but over coffee at the Peninsula Manila with Robert Duffy, who has been described by Fortune as “the man behind fashion’s $5 billion man,” 20 minutes was more than enough to acquaint yourself with all the forces that make Marc Jacobs tick, whether or not you are aware that the Damier Azur Spring 2008 you are lusting for from Louis Vuitton’s latest trove is his creation. It’s also because having been the other half of the twenty-five-year-old duo that has caused a big stir in global fashion, reinventing the image and quadrupling the sales of a heritage yet inert brand like Louis Vuitton in the late ’90s, Robert could speak volumes per minute—and with nothing to hide—not only about the business but also about all the drama behind Marc Jacobs, the brand and the person.
BLURB
In the fashion world, it seems, behind every successful designer, there’s a Robert Duffy… —Mark Borden, Fortune
But Robert was not in town for Louis Vuitton, but for Marc Jacobs International (MJI), with which, our very own Anton Huang of Stores Specialists, Inc. has collaborated on the long-awaited opening of the Marc by Marc Jacobs standalone at Greenbelt 5, one of the few things to look forward to this summer. In fact, over the last week or so, the “other half” of Marc Jacobs, who is president of MJI, vice chairman of its partnership with the international conglomerate LVMH that owns 96 percent of it (but hardly has—“or wants”—any say in its creative direction), and director at Louis Vuitton, has been jetsetting through Asia, hopping from Tokyo to Shanghai, Hong Kong to Hanoi, Saigon to Bangkok. Manila was his last stop in Asia before tackling South America.
Robert is no stranger to Manila, where he has been before to visit a friend’s family, but he is leaving it all to Anton and Stores Specialists to grow Marc by Marc Jacobs here. Asked whether or not there was enough awareness of the brand in this country, he answered with no marketing pretensions, “Oh, I don’t know. You just have to trust your partner here. That’s all we do—and that’s all we can do—with our partners on our 140 stores all over the world.”
But in New York, where both Marc and Robert are based, it’s a different story and Robert practically micro-manages every aspect of the operation. In fact, at the Marc by Marc Jacobs store on Bleecker Street in New York, Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour has been quoted as saying, “So many times I see Robert in there folding pants and stocking shelves.” More than a business partner, he is, after all, the creative “manager,” providing the commercial impetus Marc Jacobs needs to make his work a successful, enduring enterprise. Even more important, Robert is a personal friend, whose role in Marc’s life includes helping pick him up when things are falling apart, such as when his drug problem began to put his life and his work at stake. “In the end,” said Robert, who himself escorted his friend to rehab in the wake of his worsening addiction first in 1999 and then again last year, “You just have to love the person and show them that they are loved.”
The two have been working ever so closely together since 1984. But even their duties as partners overlap. Because Marc, for instance, is not too keen on menswear, which, as Robert estimates, forms no more than 15 percent of MJI, it falls on his shoulders to work on some of it together with the design team, especially for Marc by Marc Jacobs. “But again, it’s always Marc and me,” he quickly clarified. Indeed, while Marc Jacobs is perceived as the genius behind all the labels that represent his work, it is Robert that fuels it, nurtures it, manages it, and brings it to higher levels. What’s more, Robert is a genius himself not only on the business side of things but the creative aspects as well.
There’s no doubt how crucial Robert Duffy is to Marc Jacobs. As Marc himself has put it in his Fortune interview, “Marc Jacobs is Marc Jacobs and Robert Duffy or Robert Duffy and Marc Jacobs, whichever way you want to put it.”
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
In an upcoming issue of Style Weekend, Robert Duffy on fashion, on business, on art and demons, on friendship, and on Marc Jacobs, all in his own words.
Friday, April 4, 2008
SUNDAY BRUNCH WITH BLOODY MARY
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S NOTE IN MANILA BULLETIN, PUBLISHED EVERY DAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 28 MARCH 2008)
I spent last Sunday free from all worries, waking up only for Chef Ruediger Lurz’s champagne brunch at Red at the Makati Shangri-La. It would have been perfect if I had myself wasted on Saturday night. After all, more than anything else, I was looking forward most of all to fixing myself a Bloody Mary, which, they say, is a hangover cure.
As I leaned over to offer some of my brew, I lost my balance and spilled the drink all over her dress. Seeing her splashed all over in crimson, I was positively inspired. ‘Well,’ I cried out. ‘If you aren’t bloody Mary!’ —George Jessel, The Chronicle Telegram
I don’t know why Bloody Mary has always appealed to me. As a young man, while watching a middle-aged CEO type pouring vodka, along with tomato juice, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, and celery salt, into a rock glass at an airport lounge just after the break of dawn, I decided it was very sophisticated to make a good Bloody Mary the morning after a night on the town.
In the early 2000, when I had the rare privilege to take a crash course on mixing drinks at the Absolut Akademi in Ahus, Sweden, I was so much more interested in concocting the perfect Bloody Mary than in any of the so-called drinks du jour on the bar list, so that back in Manila, bearing an Absolut Akademi diploma, I threw a mixing party for 50, in which my featured drink was, you guessed it, a Bloody Mary. Of course, I should have thrown a Sunday brunch instead because, although Bloody Mary was the raison d’etre of the cocktail party, how could it have possibly stolen the night from the Cosmopolitans and the ever-reliable vodka and Sprite?
In the Official Preppy Handbook by Lisa Birnbach, published in 1980, Bloody Mary is listed as “the official alcoholic beverage of the preppy lifestyle,” so I guess I am just acting my age every time I crave for this classic cocktail. Nobody knows exactly how it came about, but some say it was first mentioned in a hedonistic column in The New York Herald Tribune in 1939, where it was considered “the newest pick-me-up [that] is receiving attention from the town’s paragraphers…” Identified back then as a creation of songwriter and Smirnoff endorser George Jessel, it was later claimed to have been reinvented by Fernand Petiot, a bartender at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, who described Jessel’s cocktail invention as “nothing but vodka and tomato juice.” In 1964, in The New Yorker, Petiot revealed how he raised the bar on the famous drink: “I cover the bottom with four large dashes of salt, two dashes of black pepper, two dashes of cayenne pepper, and a layer of Worcestershire sauce; I then add a dash of lemon juice and some cracked ice, put in two ounces of vodka and two ounces of thick tomato juice, shake, strain, pour.”
Last Sunday at Red, I enjoyed my Bloody Mary immensely. It was perfect as served, with room for me to tweak it to my satisfaction. Ordering Tabasco and a teaspoon of horseradish on the side, I built up the spiciness to a level that brought a delicious buzz to my head and a flame to my tongue, which, in turn, gave me more reason to go for more helpings at the buffet table groaning under the weight of supreme indulgence: a platter of exotic French cheeses, Alaskan king prawns, lobster tails, saffron risotto, organic egg omelet with wild mushrooms, and cup after cup of coffee. Just as exciting as the Bloody Mary, if only because they, too, allowed me to have a say in how best to enjoy them, whether with a little or a lot of lime juice, a pinch or more of horseradish, a sprinkling of vinegar or a shower of rock salt, were Red’s exquisite oysters. My favorite was the Belon, the prized flat-shelled ones from Brittany, but the creuses from elsewhere in France were just as delightful and so were the New Zealand oysters and fin-de-claires from the Philippines.
There is nothing so complex about the preparation of Bloody Mary. An extremely versatile, “buildable” drink, you can garnish it with anything, from olives and pickles to shrimp or lobster and even cheese to make it extra special. More than a drink, I suppose it is a dish in liquid form, like a soup with a kick, although, I must admit, it’s not so kosher to call it so.
But, without a doubt, you get more than a buzz from Bloody Mary. Each order is a glass full of antioxidants. I would also recommend the one at Ascott, but at Chef Ruediger’s champagne brunch, which runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Sunday at Red, you can drink your fill, in proportion to the free radicals you may have accumulated over the week before and the ones you are likely to accumulate in the week ahead.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
I spent last Sunday free from all worries, waking up only for Chef Ruediger Lurz’s champagne brunch at Red at the Makati Shangri-La. It would have been perfect if I had myself wasted on Saturday night. After all, more than anything else, I was looking forward most of all to fixing myself a Bloody Mary, which, they say, is a hangover cure.
As I leaned over to offer some of my brew, I lost my balance and spilled the drink all over her dress. Seeing her splashed all over in crimson, I was positively inspired. ‘Well,’ I cried out. ‘If you aren’t bloody Mary!’ —George Jessel, The Chronicle Telegram
I don’t know why Bloody Mary has always appealed to me. As a young man, while watching a middle-aged CEO type pouring vodka, along with tomato juice, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, and celery salt, into a rock glass at an airport lounge just after the break of dawn, I decided it was very sophisticated to make a good Bloody Mary the morning after a night on the town.
In the early 2000, when I had the rare privilege to take a crash course on mixing drinks at the Absolut Akademi in Ahus, Sweden, I was so much more interested in concocting the perfect Bloody Mary than in any of the so-called drinks du jour on the bar list, so that back in Manila, bearing an Absolut Akademi diploma, I threw a mixing party for 50, in which my featured drink was, you guessed it, a Bloody Mary. Of course, I should have thrown a Sunday brunch instead because, although Bloody Mary was the raison d’etre of the cocktail party, how could it have possibly stolen the night from the Cosmopolitans and the ever-reliable vodka and Sprite?
In the Official Preppy Handbook by Lisa Birnbach, published in 1980, Bloody Mary is listed as “the official alcoholic beverage of the preppy lifestyle,” so I guess I am just acting my age every time I crave for this classic cocktail. Nobody knows exactly how it came about, but some say it was first mentioned in a hedonistic column in The New York Herald Tribune in 1939, where it was considered “the newest pick-me-up [that] is receiving attention from the town’s paragraphers…” Identified back then as a creation of songwriter and Smirnoff endorser George Jessel, it was later claimed to have been reinvented by Fernand Petiot, a bartender at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, who described Jessel’s cocktail invention as “nothing but vodka and tomato juice.” In 1964, in The New Yorker, Petiot revealed how he raised the bar on the famous drink: “I cover the bottom with four large dashes of salt, two dashes of black pepper, two dashes of cayenne pepper, and a layer of Worcestershire sauce; I then add a dash of lemon juice and some cracked ice, put in two ounces of vodka and two ounces of thick tomato juice, shake, strain, pour.”
Last Sunday at Red, I enjoyed my Bloody Mary immensely. It was perfect as served, with room for me to tweak it to my satisfaction. Ordering Tabasco and a teaspoon of horseradish on the side, I built up the spiciness to a level that brought a delicious buzz to my head and a flame to my tongue, which, in turn, gave me more reason to go for more helpings at the buffet table groaning under the weight of supreme indulgence: a platter of exotic French cheeses, Alaskan king prawns, lobster tails, saffron risotto, organic egg omelet with wild mushrooms, and cup after cup of coffee. Just as exciting as the Bloody Mary, if only because they, too, allowed me to have a say in how best to enjoy them, whether with a little or a lot of lime juice, a pinch or more of horseradish, a sprinkling of vinegar or a shower of rock salt, were Red’s exquisite oysters. My favorite was the Belon, the prized flat-shelled ones from Brittany, but the creuses from elsewhere in France were just as delightful and so were the New Zealand oysters and fin-de-claires from the Philippines.
There is nothing so complex about the preparation of Bloody Mary. An extremely versatile, “buildable” drink, you can garnish it with anything, from olives and pickles to shrimp or lobster and even cheese to make it extra special. More than a drink, I suppose it is a dish in liquid form, like a soup with a kick, although, I must admit, it’s not so kosher to call it so.
But, without a doubt, you get more than a buzz from Bloody Mary. Each order is a glass full of antioxidants. I would also recommend the one at Ascott, but at Chef Ruediger’s champagne brunch, which runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Sunday at Red, you can drink your fill, in proportion to the free radicals you may have accumulated over the week before and the ones you are likely to accumulate in the week ahead.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
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