Laura Talks Back; To be Style Guru, Maybe

October 13, 2006

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3

I had a feeling I might hear something from Laura Bennett after my interview with Santino last week, in which he called our elegant Park Avenue finalist a "hobbyist," among other things.... Sure enough, I got a message from an amused Laura the other morning saying that Uli was over at her place and that they were picking up their eyeballs off the floor after reading Santino's comments about them in this space. Since I am known internationally as Andy "Scoop" Cohen, I called Laura back to see if she had anything she wanted to say.

SO YOU'VE READ THE SANTINO BLOG?
Well first of all I didn't read the whole thing in detail, so don't ask me about other parts of it -- we read the Laura part and the Uli part.

HE REALLY THREW SOME DARTS AT YOU. WHAT DID YOU THINK?
I think that he wasn't actually throwing darts at me personally because he does acknowledge that he thinks I have taste and talent. But what I thought was irresponsible about his comment is that he threw darts at a huge sector of his potential market. Just because people are you know, 32, it doesn't mean that they're not viable, productive members of the business community. A lot of times it takes the maturity of a 30-year-old or a 40-year-old to understand who their market is, who their customer is, where they're going to go, especially in an industry like fashion. So I just think that for his own purposes moving forward in business that you can't just discount a whole sector of people because of a 10 year age difference.

BUT, HE ALSO CALLED YOU A HOBBYIST...
Right, and that's fair, because when I came on the show, I was. But my challenge to Santino is this: Let's talk in one year, a calendar year from now, and see where he is in business as opposed to where I am in business. And I'm even giving him the year head start. But a year from now, let's talk and we'll see what a 40-year-old hobbyist can do....

THE LINE HAS BEEN DRAWN!
Yeah!

SINCE HE HAS COMMENTED ON YOUR PROWESS ON THE SHOW, WHAT DID YOU THINK OF HIS DESIGN CAPABILITIES LAST SEASON?
I think that his aesthetic is very different from mine and I didn't pay a lot of attention to it at first, but I do understand it and it’s similar to the way I feel about Jeffrey’s work. I do understand his aesthetic and I do think he has something to say about design and a direction to go in and a particular voice of some sort, but being a great artist is not all there is -- this is a business and you have to translate your design vision into a business or it just doesn't matter. And from what I’ve seen lately, I know he's done a red carpet dress for an actress in this past year, but you know at this point it's, "Where do I buy a Santino dress? Oh, I have a MySpace page... " You know, then you shouldn't be dissing amateur 40-year-olds if you haven't really used your year to productively set up a business and move forward, because ultimately that's what it's about. But design-wise I have no problem, I think he does have a voice.

READ MORE > >