……………..In the 80s “TAXI” was a very hip, edgy magazine, so you can imagine how excited I was when they chose me to do an article on…….Donna had just left to do her own thing, and now I was completely at the helm of Anne Klein….it was enormous pressure. I’m sitting at my huge, square, white desk sketching away for the camera…….I had many pin up boards…..Some were for the current collection I was working on, and some were just random photos of friends or whatever caught my eye that interested me. The gentleman with his hands on his hips was Andrea Pfister one of my best friends and collaborators. He was a fabulous and brilliant shoe designer, and sold his fantastical shoes all over the world. He was based out of Italy, and had the most splendid villa in Praiano, which is the next village down from Positiano…..literally 10 to 15 minutes away. I have posted many pictures in the past of his villa where I often stayed. I was lucky enough to work with him there twice a year for two weeks developing the Couture Anne Klein Collection of shoes. He had a fabulous pool over looking the Mediterranean with a view of Capri off in the distance. It was Paradise. Jac would come during my summer trip to Andrea’s and we would have a mini vacation, often taking off afterwards to some other sunny beautiful place…….Andrea passed away four months after Jac, and his ashes were spread from his terrace into the sea. If you would like to see his villa it has been bought and turned into a luxury rental villa. Just google “Villa Lily, Praiano Italy”. Why they gave it that name I have no idea. Andrea had named the villa after an ancient tower that was on the property at the edge of the pool. He converted the tower into a marvelous bedroom on the second floor with a bathroom below….It was much more appropriate than “Villa Lily”….He was also my best man at Jac and my marriage…….I miss him very much……..There is also a picture of me and Linda Evans, and a picture of me and Patti Labelle sitting in first class on our way back to NYC from Paris. She was introduced to me by a mutual friend, Shelly, who was traveling with her. Shelly was a buyer from a very cool boutique in Philly. I used to love to sit with her in the showroom when she was buying the collection, because she was mainly interested in the cream of the collection…..Basics, thought she bought some. were just fillers…..Shelly wanted FASHION!!!……There is also a candid picture of Jac at the lower right. She was on the streets of NY going from apt to apt when Bill Cunningham spotted her, took the picture, and published it in the Fashion of the Time Sunday section. It was a surprise…..Bill was very sly! This was my first big spread in a fashion magazine……..the first of many to come over the next ten years I was on my own.
Wow Louis! I too googled Villa Lily and it is perfection. What views!!!! I loved the waterfall into the pool at the base. What a lucky lad you were to have friends/business associates with such a fabulous home. The villa appears blissfully tranquil. I think even I could design fabulous things in such a place.
Oh my goodness. I just googled searched Villa Lilly
and I literally gasped at the photos. It is an absolute paradise – like something out of a dream.
How I would love to escape to that magnificent place! What amazing memories you must have of your time there.
And what a poignant and appropriate place to serve as your friend’s final resting destination.
Paradise is the word. When Andrea and Jean Pierre, his partner, bought the villa it was pretty run down. There wasn’t a pool or many of the terraces. They did an enormous amount of work to get it to look the way it does. The new owners kept it almost the same, with a few changes. Andrea’s studio was the almost the whole second floor with arch windows facing the water. The new owners divided it in half. They made another bedroom and a play room out of the other half. They also added the hot tub which wasn’t there and the gym…..The rest looks exactly the same except for some of the furnishings. The pool and terrace furniture is exactly the same. It was one of the most beautiful villas on the Amalfi coast…..a magical place