The International Best Dressed List - Hall of Fame’s Paul Wilmot: How to be a “Best-Dressed”

TEXT, VIVIAN KELLY

I was interviewing Paul Wilmot in his Calvin Klein-esque chic all white office to get some insight into how he’s come to be known as “Fashion Pr’s spin master” when I remembered that he was on the International Best Dressed List. As he spoke, steepling his well-manicured hands, I admired his pristine cuffs and heavy gold statement watch. This very well dressed Fashion PR guru looked bandbox perfect, despite the fact that he had been at work for 10 hours before we started chatting. That Monday, he’d kicked off yet another power day with a GMA [Good Morning America] interview around 7a.m., and here we were, around 5:00p.m., with the sun starting to set. Paul didn’t look at all tired and he sat with not a blonde hair out of place or a single wrinkle in his white cotton shirt. He made the International Best Dressed List in 1993, and figuratively sits alongside other fashion greats such as the Countess Mona Von Bismark, Eliza Bolen, Cece Cord, Cosmina Von Bulow Pavoncelli, Tom Wolfe, and Michael York.
True, it’s easy to dress in expensive clothes if you have the access and the budget, but that in itself is akin to baking bread and forgetting to put the yeast in. Like the doomed bread, your look will fall flat because it’s missing a key ingredient – STYLE.
So, just what does that mean? Fashion Designer, Yigal Azrouel, referred to it backstage during NYFW when he spoke of the element of self-confidence and how essential that was when you are wearing whatever it is you put on, even if it was just a humble “I Love NY” tee.
Maybe the old-fashioned word for this concept is “carriage” and Paul has that in spades. Before I read that he was a “Best-Dressed”, I remember all the times I’d seen him at Fashion events and noticed him first, and then the clothes as opposed to some of the colorful combinations the Japanese editors put together and display like peacocks, while at NYFW. That, to me, is costume, whereas Paul’s look is about easy yet traditional elegance.

There hasn’t been a single occasion in which Paul didn’t look “right”, whether it was in a beautiful suit [I’m guessing, Prada}, at client Prabal Gurung’s presentation, or a black ski jacket, as pre-show at Christian Siriano, also a client. The old saw, “birds of a feather flock together” applies here. Paul was a close personal friend
to some of the most stylish women on the planet – Nan Kempner, and C.Z. Guest. While in their company, he says he “observed” and over the years learned a thing or two from these impeccable ladies.
Being impeccable does not mean looking over-coiffed or lacquered into place, or old fashioned, for that matter. Traditional elegance is something that is always stylish, and each generation of “best-dressers” just add their unique take on it, which modernizes the look. Not to digress too much, I must mention the wonderful space I visited last Monday at 524 Broadway. We’d driven in from the country to attend a roundtable discussion there. I attended because my friend, John Tiffany had invited me and I’d have the opportunity to maybe meet two other “Best Dresseds” Iris Apfel and Carolyn Roehm. The New tradionalists space, I randomly thought to myself, “is so Paul”. The definition in the elegant take-home catalogue said it best. Their design firm is “influenced by classic silhouettes, objects, history, and you. We design for today’s eclectic personality. We think traditional can be cool.”
Paul thinks so too, as he reminisced fondly about Nan
and her over-the-top travel luggage, and super outsize personality. While he was speaking, I felt a little tug at my heart, wishing I’d had the fortune to have also have spent some time with this living life to the fullest woman.
As Paul spoke of Nan, he cited consistent details as a key part of the style equation. In Nan’s case, one of these consistent details was the large diamond ring she always wore on her pinkie ring.
A NAN ANECDOTE
“We were sharing a suite at the Crillon in Paris and this thing arrives. You would’ve thought it was a refrigerator, but it was a blouse and a skirt. It took up a whole closet in the Crillon.”

To read the rest of the article, ‘From the Well-Stuffed Closets of Mrs. Thomas L. Kempner", visit www.nymag.com

Below, some of the tips he’s gleaned over the years that helped put him make The List.
Some of these may sound rather obvious, but admit it, when you see a beautiful woman dressed to the nines and spot cracking toe nail polish, I have the same reaction Eddie Murphy did in the 1988 flick, ‘Coming To America’. His love interest, the perfect woman, had feet that hadn’t seen a pedicure in months, complete with dark chipping polish EEEK!!! Run!



PAUL’S TIPS ON HOW TO BE ON YOUR OWN BEST DRESSED LIST
*Invest in a great watch. He’s had his gold Rolex since the eighties.
*Maintain Your Investments: get those shoes shined; buy wooden forms for your shoes and boots. Ladies, the same goes for your handbags. No scuffs allowed!
* Make a statement with a consistent item [Like Nan did with her diamond pinkie ring]: Paul collects gold cufflinks that pop on his

heavily black and white color palette.
* Don’t Ever Forget Grooming – it all counts. Being well maintained includes: regular haircuts, mani and pedi, proper skincare.
In case you’re reading over this list and start thinking, ‘I don’t have time to do all this, and why got through all of this trouble?’ think about what Cybill Sheppard so famously stated for L’Oreal – “Because I’m Worth It”.



To read more about the International Best Dressed List and its creator, Eleanor Lambert, visit www.empressoffashion.blogspot.com

Swankini’s Vargas Girl Swim Suits

TEXT, VIVIAN KELLY
I’ve already packed the most important item for our Thanksgiving weekend get-away to somewhere warm and sunny: the bathing suit. I’m not usually that ahead of the game when it comes to matters such as packing, but I liked my new Swankini Suit[www.swankini.com], so much that it was a definite “yes” on my vacation wardrobe list. In my quest to be as the late C.Z. Guest
so aptly said, “well turned-out”, I’ve worked-out some of the matching accessories, using the suit as my anchor.
Packed-away In my Pucci-patterned cosmetic roll: a giant paste green and purple ring that looks like Verdura’s classic three stone ring, but on steroids, and butter London’s ‘British Racing Green’, [www.butterlondon.com], which perfectly matches the Swankini Suit.

I’m not usually this excited to pack for a trip to Miami. No woman really enjoys bathing suit shopping, with the possible exception of the glamazons my former boss, Michael Kors, tagged as “beautiful freaks of nature”. On the list: Naomi Campbell, Giselle Bundchen,
Karmen Cass.
That leaves the rest of us. American women’s sizing has polarized into the super tiny [sizes 0 and 20] to the zaftig size 12/14 and up. Retailers have finally gotten it through their skulls that “big girls” want to look good and so have fashion designers. There are now swim suits that flatter the woman with a size D bust, who’s a size 12/14. Last winter, I helped just such a friend put together a Caribbean get-away wardrobe. There were options galore on the floor at Macy’s. We went home with some nice one pieces that really did “take 10 lbs. Off”. I wish I’d known about Swankini when I went on this shopping expedition. I was strangely jealous. Where were the flattering suits for tiny women my size, with absolutely no chest?
Nine months later, I connected with Lois McCourt, through a friend of hers, Helen Miller, of Clarisonic, [www.clarisonic.com], whom I met and enjoyed sea breezes with while learning about the the skin care system at Mercedes-Benz Miami Swim. Lois and I started a Face book dialogue. I liked what I saw on the line sheets and told her that I wished there were something like this for girls like me, who are size 0-2 and with a size AA bust, who want to wear a one-piece - and look glamorous, minus the usual cheesy padding. Yes, I can and do, as the late Nan Kempner
did, wear tiny bikinis, but I longed for the ease of a tankini. Lois said she had a friend who had the same problem, and that the "twisted" Swankini model looked great on her. When the package from Lois arrived, I immediately picked-out the hunter green twist front halter-top and bikini brief. I chose it over the black, for two reasons. Firstly, green is a hot color in RTW, and secondly, it matches “British Racing Green”.
The fabric is of a far greater quality than what’s used for the run of the mill designer swimsuit. It was of the same caliber as the ones Gideon Oberson and Amir Slama
design, ie: well constructed and versatile enough to wear as a top with RTW pieces I owned and ones I’d seen at the NYFW s/s2011 collections. Many Miami Swim fashion weeks ago, after Amir showed me an incredible bustier he’d created for Rosa Cha, I realized the styling potential these pieces had. The next day, I wore my black and white Missoni knit wave print tankini top over a white tee shirt with white cotton trousers, to stroll down Lincoln Road on my way to the Oribe Salon.

Taking it back to the present, I set about using my new Swankini suit as the anchor to my Miami wardrobe, and started researching what else to pack in my small carry-on bag. I consulted a stylish friend, Sarah Barton King, over lunch at an uptown French Bistro, Pascalou. Sarah
resembles the late Audrey Hepburn, in voice and manner She makes a Petit Bateau navy and blue sailor tee and skinny black capris and Supergas look incredibly chic. We were in the midst of a catch-up session and inspired, I whipped the Swankini suit out of my L.L. Bean Boat and Tote bag and told her in reminded me of old Hollywood glamour, and of the wonderful black and white photographs in the lobby bar
at the Raleigh. I was stuck on coming up with a more specific reference, though. She immediately came-up with Betty Grable and Vargas Girls, and maybe a little Marilyn [Monroe]. Vargas Girls - bingo! After a quick mental inventory of my walk in closet, I decided on my black vintage jersey Michael Kors palazzo pants. Sarah Okayed that, and suggested taking it further, and playing on the popular jewel tones in the recent RTW collections. On my wish list, the royal purple pant Diane Von Furstenberg showed at s/s2011 NYFW.
Lois, Diane, and Michael have really scored a home run, in that these two outfits would look good on a woman whether she’s a size 0 or 12. With the right accessories - I just added a vial of Pink Room Eau de Parfum,
'Pour Toi' Sarah gifted me to my travel bag.The shoes and sunglasses - still to be determined, [suggestions are welcome!]. Once I get those sorted, I will be “well turned-out” for this Miami trip.


Endnotes & Resources:
Sniffapalooza takes place in NYC, the weekend of October 23rd. Sarah will be lecturing and revealing her exciting new Pink Room UK fragrance then.
The Pink Room UK fragrances are available on www.luckyscent.com