Fashion Wire Daily March 24, 2005 - NEW YORK - Lauren Ezersky is surprisingly small for someone who's so much larger than life. Physically, the woman is tiny, hovering as she does between a birdlike size 2 and 4.
In all other ways, however, the fashion-obsessed "Behind the Velvet Ropes" hostess with the mostest is big, bigger, biggest: From the head-to-toe designer looks she favors (on-air and off-) to her dramatically kohl-rimmed eyes to her signature raven mane with its Bride of Frankenstein white stripe.
And then there's that voice. That wonderful, inimitable, rapid-fire drawl-cum-honk that marks her as the most native of Noo Yawkers the minute she opens her lipsticked mouth, when the word 'all' becomes 'a-wall' and 'forget about it' becomes, yes, 'fuggedaboudit.'
The lifelong glamour puss was, in fact, raised in Yonkers ("Yaw n-kerrs" in Ezersky parlance) just North of Manhattan, though she escaped as soon as she graduated high school.
"I didn't want to stay anywhere near where I came from," she confided to Fashion Wire Daily when we met her at Jean Shop (435 W. 14th Street; 212-366-JEAN; www.worldjeanshop.com), our first stop of the day, and Ezersky's current favorite store. "People would hang out in a parking lot and drink beer. I'm, like, 'let's take the train and go to the city,' and they would be smoking pot and cigarettes. I thought, there has gotto be something better than this."
After earning her degree in — what else? — fashion from Garland Junior College in Boston, Ezersky hightailed it back to New York City, where she toiled in a succession of low-level jobs (receptionist, sales person) for a succession of low-level companies that, while in the Garment District, where not at all to her taste.
"I liked being in fashion, but they weren't really high end," she said. "My very first job I started at the top of 1407 Broadway [home to hundreds of mass market clothing companies] and I asked every person in there if they needed somebody. After the first 20 floors, somebody said, 'Yea, we need a receptionist,' and I started the next week. I was 22."
Fast forward to 1989, when Ezersky was tapped to co-host "Behind the Velvet Ropes" (then a local cable access show), after the producers saw her and her then-husband on an Oprah Winfrey special about shopaholics.
"Francesco Scavullo was my very first interview because I knew his stylist," she recalled. "I walked in there so nervous. I was sitting about a mile away [from him] and my first question was: 'Do you like your job?' How lame! But he was very gracious and answered all my stupid, ignorant questions. You have to start somewhere..."
Since then, Ezersky has polished her interview skills and had memorable on-air tete-a-tetes with everyone from Miuccia Prada to John Galliano to Calvin Klein to Donna Karan to Marc Jacobs.
"People seem to like getting interviewed by me," she said of her success. "They say yes more than once. So I enjoy it. It's fun. When I was a little girl I would read magazines like Vogue and see that Francesco Scavullo did pictures and Harry King did hair and Way Bandy did makeup with him. I guess I turned my passion into a job. I think I'm pretty lucky that I get up every day and do what I do."
She declined to name a favorite designer or interview ("That is really hard because they are all great and very individual and they all have something completely different to say about their influences and inspirations"), though she did admit to being "in awe" of Galliano, McQueen and Prada. "But not when I'm working," she clarified. "I'm really comfortable with what I do. I'm probably more comfortable doing an interview with someone than actually chatting with them, because it's, like, my jawwb."
Although she is always dressed to the nines when taping her segments — and has gone through periods where she's worn nothing but head-to-toe Galliano, Chanel or Prada, usually in two-year cycles — on the day we met Ezersky was representin' for Ralph (aka, the other Lauren).
Because her "ass is freezing" on this early March day, she was rocking the designer's shearling coat, long denim prairie dress and ivory slip, accessorized with a Louis Vuitton waist pouch, Jean Shop brown leather knapsack and her trademark earrings (which she designed herself) and vintage knuckle-duster rings. She was also wearing uncharacteristically flat leather boots.
"I'm in this really casual mode," she explained, gesturing to her Ralph Lauren footwear. "I'm in comfort mode. I'm getting older and can't run around on the subway wearing Manolo Blahnik stilettos. Reality has set in. I used to wear six inch heels and walk ten hours all day long, but I just don't feel the need to do that anymore. I still have good style, though. I never look shabby. My makeup is always done. I'm always groomed well."
That would be an understatement, coming from this poster girl for glam-o-rama chic. Ezersky may have traded in her Manolos for mukluks, but was noon on Wednesday and she was sporting full maquillage, complete with smoky eyeshadow (lots of it) and Nefertiti-style gray glitter eyeliner.
"Can we shop now?," she pleaded. Can and will.
"I love this place," she announced, bypassing the racks of denim and suede clothing — some pieces stiff at Sears Toughskins, others distressed to within an inch of their lives — as she headed toward the back of the store. "This is really the way I'm feeling now, and I've been wearing their jeans every day for, like, three months. They fit amazing and are really comfortable, but they are not cheap and are washed to your specifications, so you feel like you're getting something that is individual."
Indeed, Jean Shop carries just two styles of straight, unadorned unisex jeans — low and super-low waisted — which can be bought "raw" or washed and doctored (ripped, patched, decorated) any way the wearer wants. If the wearer feels like spending $240 to $450 on a single pair of jeans, that is. And every pair of Jean Shop jeans is marked with the date they were "born" or washed.
"Even though everyone and their mother has a pair of jeans, I want to wear something a little more distinctive," Ezersky continued. "This is more organic, ethnic-y, urban. I just love the whole vibe here, it's so cool. I was waking down the street one day on my way to Jeffrey or Pastis and the door was open because it was summer. I came in and fell in love with the stuff. I bought the jeans, then I came back and bought a jacket and then I came back again and bought the backpack."
She examined a thin leather bracelet that could be embossed with letters or customized with silver studs ($18).
"I need a makeup bag," Ezersky announced, putting down the bracelet and walking over to a glass-topped wooden case full of small leather zip top bags. "Because I wear lots of makeup, as you can see."
Does she have a favorite brand?
"Everything is M.A.C., because their product is amazing and they've been supporting my TV show for a long time," she replied. "Plus, they are really politically correct and I love what they stand for. Today I'm wearing their shadow, base, lip liner — everything."
So how long had she been working the smoldering-eye look?
"Forever," she laughed.
We suggested that she would be unrecognizable if she went out with a lighter eye and darker lipstick combo.
"I could never be unrecagniwable," she retorted with an "as if" snort while opening the top of the display. "I'm breaking into their case here. I didn't even know they had these. How cute."
She lifted a tan, untreated leather bag out by its wrist strap. "It's $150 and I get my little discount," she said. "It's about getting a deal. Someone told me 'always come home with more what you left [with],' and I'm going to have to take that to heart because I also wanted to look in Prada."
We discussed the recent New York Fashion Week shows. "They all run together," she sighed wearily. "I loved Oscar de la Renta. Zac Posen was beautiful. Proenza Schouler was nice."
And what did she think of the controversial Marc Jacobs show?
"I wasn't loving it," she honked. "Usually I love his stuff, but I guess he [designs for] younger girls now, and I'm in a different generation. I loved two pieces, but the rest was not as sexy as what I was looking for this coming season. But Peter Som was beautiful, and Chaiken did a really beautiful collection, too."
The reformed impulse shopper, who now spends all her extra coin fixing up the Amagansett house she bought last year instead of splurging on clothes ("I still buy good things but instead of spending, like, $5,000 on a jacket, now I'll spend $700"), pulled a surprisingly miniscule black nylon Prada makeup bag out of her Jean Shop backpack.
"I'm going to put my makeup in here and see if it fits," she said. It did. "How chic is that?" she asked, dangling the orange-trimmed bag off her index finger by its strap. "Everyone else has the Louis Vuitton and Prada bags, but nobody is going to have that. Let's go pay for this."
We went back to the counter, where she chatted up Jean Shop's amiable owner Eric Goldstein. "Don't forget I get a discount," she said to the girl ringing her up. "I think 30 [percent]. Better be 30!" Goldstein nodded.
"I'm so happy," she trilled. "I needed this desperately. And if I'm ever going out, I can just put some money in here with my makeup. Because I do not leave home without my makeup. I would sooner leave home without my credit cards than my makeup."
