Could somebody please take a stand towards the return of connosseurship to fashion by bringing back Lauren’s “Behind the Velvet Ropes” and immediately rid us of the intolerable inanity of Joan Rivers and Guiliana Rancic on The Fashion Police? It’s time to raise the bar and bring back soul to the curation of “what” is taste with someone like Lauren, who wore a turban with an armful of bangles to one of her first job interviews and today has earrings running up her ear in the vein of an African queen. Lauren gets what it is to be an original and therefore has the ability to respect one. She was the first to do a cable show that delved into the true art of fashion, but it came from a sincere interest in the creativity and mind of a person and less about “who is wearing what.” She says, “I talked to everyone. I was in the cab talking to the cab driver on my way to an interview with Isaac Mizrahi.” With a true passion for individualism, Lauren’s style is prolific and anything but derivative and she is all about pieces that don’t change and become your signature, like her RRL leather pants and cordorouy equestrian blazer. If Lauren gets a pair of jeans they are the real 5-pocket ones, her moccassins are hand made and she loves the classicism of vintage lingerie. However, it is her jewelry collection and how she wears it, everything from diamond skulls to native American, mixed with Cartier bangles piled high that is of epic proportions in terms of legitimate originality. Lauren says that she is a work in progress, “no matter how old I get I am going to try something different. A different hair cut, a different hair color, different dogs….” To be comfortable and honest with one’s evolution, and to embrace “difference,” is the spirit of a true artist and worthy of being celebrated. To be frozen in face and opinion is not. Fran Lebowitz says in her recent documentary, “Public Speaking,” the level of the arbiter is as important to art as art itself.

If you love Lauren, you may also like Karen Robinovitz, Elizabeth Burns, Reece Solomon and Alessandra Calabi.