Monthly Archives: November 2023

……………………..It’s hard to believe this picture was taken one year shy of…….FIFTY YEARS AGO!!!!!!………It was taken in the Anne Klein showroom of Donna and myself….for what I don’t remember? It was a time of mixed emotions…..Donna and I had known each other since our senior year in high school…..We were BFF in Parsons School of Design, and then as faith would have it we worked together for ten years at Anne Klein before Donna went on her own, and developed a powerhouse brand…….I continued at Anne Klein for another 10 years on my own, and built the company from a $250,000 company to a $1,000,ooo company before I left……We the photo we were showing our last collection……Spring 1974…….We were sort of in limbo not knowing what was ahead of us…..We were attached at the hip for so long from such a young age that separating was terrifying, and yet exciting….This was the end of the road for us, and the beginning of a new one………..As the saying goes……………..NEXT!

……………….For my 40th Birthday Jac planned a somewhat surprise! I knew something was going on because there was a lot of action behind closed doors at my office….Jac was having her meetings with Connie Francis, my right arm assistant, and Mark Bower, one of my design assistants…..Mark made the invitation at the upper left….Inside it said “You are invited to Captain Lou’s 40th Birthday Party”, and gave all the details…….I knew my BIG 40th was coming up, and Jac was planning something, but what it was I had no idea!…..That particular July we had a spell of rainy thunderstorms one after the other!……..On the day of my party, Jac all dressed in her nautical best, took me to a restaurant on the East River near 30th Street……”The River Club” which was owned by a friend of ours…..but it was a decoy……We walked right passed the restaurant to a waiting three story boat filled with my friends and family!…..Was I surprised….you bet!…….The picture, at the upper left shows Jac and I looking up at the clouds rolling in……On the main deck were round tables with chairs, and white table cloths with lovely flowers on each table…..It looked beautiful, and I knew Jac left no stone unturned…..Just as we were pulling away from the dock a gust of wind came up and knocked over every vase with flowers!….OHOH was this a harbinger of things to come!??….My brother Mauro made me a wonderful tape of my life from when I was born to my most recent photos, movies and videos he and my dad had taken through the years….It was fabulous!….Connie had arranged a TV to be set up on the deck on a stand, with the video player underneath…..When the boat made a turn around the Statue of Liberty the stand went rolling and the TV went OVERBOARD!…..but my tape was SAFE on the lower shelf!!!….I knew we were in for a bumpy ride……The planned trip was down the East River, around the Statue of Liberty, and up the Hudson River past the George Washington Bridge……..that was the plan…..Then it started RAINING, and we all started DRINKING!!!! Thank God it was a warm evening in July, and after a point we all said screw it, and we were all standing in the rain drinking, and soaked to the skin….but very happy!!!….I know at some point we did eat…A large array of food was set up indoors on the second deck…..My mother , father, Jac’s mom and sister sat in the large cabin for the whole trip! Everyone else was all over the ship drinking, laughing, and getting very wet……At the top photo next to me and my balloon is a photo of my Brother Mauro his wife Kathy, my SIL Carol and my brother John. They are still dry so it must have been an early photo…LOL… Just below me and my balloon is a photo of me with Ellen Harth who ran the ELITE Modeling Agency, which Jac belonged to….Next to that is a picture of Richard Assatly, Ed Diamond and Leo Narducci….good good friends. I’m in the background looking as if I feel no pain! Richard and Ed are no longer with us, but Leo is 90 something!…Below the picture of Ellen is me with Donna, drinking away….Her 40th would be coming soon……At the far left, under the invitation, is Joe Stafiniak, my showroom manager and friend, and Hannah Khoury, my fabric developer and buyer, and dear friend. We all at AK were one big family…..Next to us is me and my dear friend and AK sales person Ralph Perillo….We both look very wet and very drunk, and very happy. The three young women are my assistants at AK……Then the storm got really bad with lightning and thunder. I remember Stephen Weiss, Donna’s husband, got very excited, because he was on an upper deck and saw lightning hit the Empire State Building! He though that was so cool……However, as we approached the GW Bridge the water got very rough, and the captain thought it was time to turn the boat around and head back to base. We were all pretty drunk and unruly, and the captain was fearful someone might get hurt or fall overboard!……We all gathered in the cabin, and it was time for me to open presents!. Jac and Connie organized the opening of the presents…..It was 35 years ago!!! so I don’t recall what I got, but I still have the gold cufflink set from Cartier that Frank Mori, the president of Anne Klein gave me. I don’t think I had ever seen Frank drunker or wetter! All in all there were about 50 people on the boat, and everyone had a great time…..They are still talking about it all these years later!…..Jac pulled off a fabulous, and memorable party for me, and it was the best party I ever had!

………………….I was recently asked if I had a favorite picture. I knew what my answer was, but I did have to give it some thought….there are so many “favorite pictures”…..If my house were burning to the ground, and I could only take one picture…..I would probably burn with the house trying to make up my mind…..However……this is the picture I know I would save, for many reasons……This was the evening we let everyone know we were together as a couple….We certainly had our ups and downs before our relationship got to this point……but this was it when we declared our love for each other to the world, and never looked back….We look like we are in the Garden of Eden…….I don’t remember a happier time for either of us…..That evening the weight of the world was lifted, and we could just be us…………..YES…….this is definitely my favorite picture!

………………”Promises Kept”………….Since the very day that Jac’s Mom passed away Jac sat in her mother’s room in our home, in a wicker chair, looking out at the Long Island Sound and wrote on legal pads to her mother….EVERY DAY with out fail…years and years of them piling up…..Not only were there these legal pads, but she and her mother saved EVERY card and letter they had given to each other, and every card I gave to her mother and to Jac…..boxes of them. The cards were from her child hood up until she passed. The letters were mostly from when Jac traveled to Europe for work…..They even saved the envelopes!………When Jac became sick, and she was thinking about EVERYTHING…..she made me PROMISE that I would BURN every pad, every letter, every photo I didn’t want to keep and every card……She said she couldn’t bare the thought of any of these ending up in the garbage in some land fill…..She said it would break her heart….I promised her I would do this……It’s been almost six years since Jac’s passing and I haven’t touched a one of them………but…….when Chris and I sat by the firepit with the beautiful full moon that Jac and I looked at, and talked about a million times….I thought this was the perfect time to start……..I really didn’t make an impact, and it will take many sittings at the fire to burn everything, but it was a start….Christopher is aware of this promise, and knows what has to be done…..Now, what to do with these ashes?……Some I will spread in the garden, and some will go into the Long Island Sound with Jac’s ashes and all of my fur babies….and eventually me……….It feels good to to keep this promise.

…………………The SET OF THREE BIKINI BRACELETS…….J412951…… are back in EVERY COLOR, and EVERY SIZE!!!!!!…..If you love the look of fine chains than these are for you…….They sold out but now they are back…..Each chain is a different design so light sparkles and reflects off of them differently………They are UNISEX!!!! I wear mine every day. I have two sets on….the Sterling Silver, and the Sterling with the 18 Karat Gold Plate…….They make a terrific STOCKING STUFFER!