Kat’s Eye: Joseph Altuzarra at the Hedges Inn
By Katlean de Monchy
–Afternoon sun bathed the Hedges Inn as guests gathered for A Toast to Summer. It was a chance to hear insights from a 42-year-old fashion designer who had been born in Paris, and was famous for dressing Michelle Obama. Iced rosé and sparkling water were offered at the Hedges, now under the careful eye of Sarah Wetenhall, who also presides over the Colony in Palm Beach.
Fern Mallis, fashion expert, and Joseph Altuzarra, fashion designer (Photo credit: Sonia Moskowitz)
It was a relaxed and refined outdoor setting, perfect for a small group of people interested in fashion. Proceeds from the event benefited the Fashion Group Foundation, which provides education, grants, resources and mentorship for emerging talent in the fashion industry. It is associated with Fashion Group International.
A salon of 50 or so creates a sense of intimacy. Introductions are effortless; conversation flows naturally. The host was Maryanne Grisz, president of Fashion Group International; Fern Mallis, the founder of New York Fashion Week, was the interlocutor with the designer Joseph Altuzarra. He was born to a French father with Spanish/Basque heritage and a Chinese-American mother. Having grown up bilingual, it was easy for him to imagine going to college in the United States. Still, the choice of school was a leap, he said, based on his identification with a character in the 1999 movie “10 Things I Hate About You.”
Sarah Wetenhall, proprietress of the Hedges, and the designer Andy Yu (Photo credit: Sonia Moskowitz)
The character went to Sarah Lawrence so Altuzarra thought, Ok, I’ll go to Sarah Lawrence. He turned on his family computer, to a site called Collegequest.com. When he typed in Sarah Lawrence, he says, “there was this blurb that said, if you like Sarah Lawrence, you’ll like Swarthmore, Haverford, Amherst. And I applied to all of those colleges.”
Maryanne Grisz and Diego Binetti of Love Binetti in Sag Harbor (Photo Credit: Sonia Moskowitz)
He was accepted at all of them. On the advice of a family friend he chose Swarthmore, where the acceptance rate is 7 percent. He loved it there, and graduated with a degree in art and art history. But New York beckoned.
Alyce Panico, Fern Mallis, Deborah Frank and Maryanne Grisz (Photo credit: Sonia Moskowitz)
When he applied for a job at Marc Jacobs, he found out they did their interviews alphabetically. Alphabetically advantaged, Altuzarra was hired. Next he went to work for Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, young designers just starting out who had met at the Pratt Institute.
Sarah Wetenhall, Candace Bushnell (Photo credit: Sonia Moskowitz)
They named their new company for their mothers’ maiden names. What he loved about working there, he said, was the can-do spirit. toiling together to try to make something happen and eating lunch on the floor. That spirit worked out pretty well. Their mothers’ maiden names were Proenza and Schouler.
It was the pattern cutter at Proenza Schouler who urged Altuzarra to go to work in Paris, at a couture atelier. Thus he worked at Givenchy before returning to the United States in 2008 and starting his own label. At the age of 28. Among his clients: Meghan Markle (starting before she met Harry), Emma Stone, Claire Danes, Zoë Saldana and a number of older women. He says he designs for women, not girls. Now that he is the age of the customers who can afford his clothes, he says, he realizes that “you know, at 42, maybe you like really need to wear a bra and you can’t wear like a backless dress or that you don’t want to be showing your arms.”
His Cole dress of European flax has a Fair Isle pattern that resolves into ribbed columns. Originally $1,495 now $520, in sizes up to XL (12).
During the chat he talked longingly about some of the old crafts that he fears are being lost, like working with wax, not just for dying in making batiques but in making beautiful designs. “And you can create these amazing artworks that can be incredibly intricate. It’s actually an art form that is slowly sort of dying off, like a lot of different crafts in fashion and that I feel really attached to.”
Meghan Markle wears an off-the-shoulder Altuzarra pants suit for a 2023 Archwell event with her husband.
Joseph has a home in the Hamptons and said that books and horses are central to his life here. Front-row guests at his fashion shows received novels wrapped in Altuzarra fabrics, including sketches and swatches—collectible artifacts of this season’s inspiration.
Next month, a Japanese novel will shape his new collection. The horse he has here is named Enzo, and he got it during the Corona virus, as something he could do with his daughter.
Most families got a dog. They got a horse. It’s the Hamptons.
Joseph Altuzarra and Katlean de Monchy (Photo credit: Sonia Moskowitz @soniafotog)
I felt a kinship with Joseph. I too have French roots and, in fact, have a Chinese daughter. I’m in sympathy with the bridging of cultures that have gone into his creative gifts.
The setting for the gathering, too, had its story. Sarah Wetenhall is restoring the Hedges and giving it relevance. The salons (or readings) that she sponsors on her property are just one of the many new delights. Swifty’s—already the most impossible reservation in town—has emerged as the social heartbeat of East Hampton.
The event was sponsored by Bal Harbour Shops, tying Palm Beach, the Hamptons, Madison Avenue — the entire sophisticated design and cultured world together for one afternoon at the Hedges.
