Yearly Archives: 2024

……………..Since Spring is quickly transitioning to summer, only days away, I thought it would be fun to post a retrospective of my second to last Spring collection I did for Anne Klein…This Spring 1992 collection was especially fun to do……Developing the special tweeds in France was like working in a candy store……Tissage Des Chaumes opened their business in 1908, and were known for their fancy tweeds. Chanel was one of their main customers. The main buildings were two stories tall, long and made entirely of wood. I remember thinking it was like a set from “Taming of the Shrew”, when Burton was chasing Liz from room to room in these old wooden building. There were rows and rows of different types and colors of yarn in tall wooden bins. It was a rainbow of yarns….They had rows of large OLD wooden hand looms that they made many of their fabrics upon. I would select a combination of yarns and they had them quickly put on a small loom to give me an idea of what the combination would look like. We worked on many ideas, patterns and weaves….If I liked it we would continue with other color combinations. They then made “blankets” like a patch work of different combinations for me to choose from. Each patch work was numbered and these blankets were sent to NY for me to select from. I built most of the 1992 Spring collection around these tweeds…..I even did a denim and leather group in these colors.  The factory was on the border of France and Belgium and we had to fly there…..I also remember thinking it looked more Flemish than French……..like an old master’s painting……The following posts to come are from my “1992 ANNE KLEIN LOOK BOOK”.

……………….Happy Father’s Day in Heaven Dad…………..I love the picture of my Dad on the far left when he was in his 20s. I never saw my father with hair on his head!…..and he had a lot of it!!….When I was in my 20s I had the same head of hair!…Knowing my father, and what a dandy he was, losing his hair must have been hard for him…….The three photos on the right are of my dad, my mother and my two older brothers…..Mauro the oldest, and John…The two photos on the left are  of me and my dad….what geek!……My mother was the love of his life, and he pursued her and pursued her until she said YES!…..My father loved music, and had an enormous record collection, which no one seems to know what happened to? He had well over 1000 albums……Every night, after dinner, he would go down to our finished basement, and listen to his music and have a drink…….Sometimes I would join him, and he would give me a cordial glass of Raspberry Liquor! I loved it, and still do…..My father wasn’t a very huggy kissy type of person, which was strange, because his father was the opposite. My grandfather would always give us bear hugs and smother us in kisses………but………the important thing was that I always knew he loved me, and when I got older and was on my own……I knew he respected me……He had a long good life, and passed away at the age of 95….less than two weeks after my mom passed away…..Have a wonderful Father’s Day in Heaven Dad!!! I’m sure you are giving Mom lots of bear hugs and smothering her in kisses.

………………I started going to Florence, Italy to design my sweater collections when I was 21 years old, and designing for my very first design position at “GIORGINI”…..I continued going to Florence from then in 1970, and right through the 20 years I designed at Anne Klein which ended in 1993….so you could say I grew up in Florence. I knew Florence like the back of my hand, and my first Florentine friends were college students my age…..We had a great time, and almost got arrested on the Ponte de Vecchio one evening for drinking bottles of wine and carrying on, but when the police found out I was an “Americano” they left us alone and told us to leave…I guess it was too much trouble , and too much paper work to arrest an American…..We went on to one of their apartments in Santa Croce where we continued to party until the sun came up…..I worked with a wonderful woman named Giovanna Pestelli Ciampini who’s office was in the heart of the city near the Arno River, and across the street from Ferragamo, and down the block from Gucci and Armani…..The very old building, that housed the French consulate, was right in front of an ancient obelisk in the square… It was so exciting! It was because of Giovanna that I went to Florence. On one of her trips to NY I met her at a cocktail party given by my boss, Alan Duddle at his beautiful apartment on Sutton Place. She convinced Alan that it would be better for me to come to Italy and work directly with the sweater factories, and he said YES. When Giovanna left NY to go back to Italy I went with her! Beginning with that trip I continued going to Florence 4 to 5 times a year working with her until I left AK in 1993. She is like a sister to me, and we are still very close. I spent many an evening at her villa in the hills overlooking Florence….with her husband Marcello and their two little boys, Lorenzo and Leonardo….eating the most delicious food…until I would burst! She also lived with her wonderful parents Enzo and Gina….On each visit Giovanna would give me a bottle of Olive oil from the olive orchards on her property….or a bottle of Limoncello, again made from the many lemon trees that grew on the property…..I learned everything I know about every detail of designing sweaters from Giovanna and the factories I worked with. We drove all over Italy visiting the different factories who would be making the sweaters. They all specialized it different types of sweaters, and they all had specialized machinery…..The sketches above were done in Giovanna’s office, and I made the “speck” sheets with all of the necessary measurements and details……It was an invaluable education….ON THE JOB TRAINING! I couldn’t speak much Italian, but I knew all of the lingo when it came to knitwear!….and Marcello taught me all of “THE DIRTY WORDS!….Giovanna would exclaim…”MARCELLO what are you teaching Luigino!”….When I went on to do my Linea collection for QVC, I still designed the knitwear and did the speck measurements for the first samples…Unfortunately, I could no longer work with Giovanna, because the prices out of Italy were too expensive for my QVC line…..What I learned was incredible!………KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!……………I think I will send Giovanna an email to see how she and the family are doing!

………………This is my first attempt at making a………..”PISTACHIO CHEESECAKE”……….and the vote is in! Everyone loved it including me. I got the receipt from STANLEY TUCCI on Facebook…..Most of the ingredients are basic….except for the UNSALTED PISTACHIOS…..and……PISTACHIO PASTE…….NONE of the grocers where I live had either….They have plenty of salted pistachios, but none unsalted…..What about people who love pistachios, but have to limit their salt intake…..Amazon came through, they always do! I got both the unsalted Pistachios, and the Pistachio Paste…no problem. The only problem I had was which to choose from out of the many options……Now that I have mastered the Pistachio Cheesecake I will go back to Amazon and get a supply…..I only have one question for Stanley….His photos look like he doubled the batter and had a layer of Pistachios in the center. There was no way I could do that with the amount of batter I had and the amount of pistachios the receipt called for….Maybe next time I will double everything….even make the crust a little thicker like his photo……My next cheese cake will be my Chocolate Cheesecake that George asked me for his birthday on the 22nd, and a new LEMON CHEESEDCAKE that my nephew Chris asked me for when he comes for the weekend!……I will soon change the name of my house from….CHEZ LOUIE…….to……….LOUIE’S PATISSERIE!

………………Check out the LINEA JEWELRY SALE!!!……..Cathy and I were going to have a FACE BOOK LIVE SHOW in honor of the SALE, but unfortunately Cathy got sick and we had to cancel our plans….People on Cruise ships and airplanes can sometimes spread an illness without even knowing it. The good news is the SALE IS STILL GOING ON!!!! Lots of new items, and customer favorites are part of the sale …not everything, but the great majority of styles are on SALE! Give it a peek!