2010 - NEW YORK CITY
Around the time we launched Charlie, I met Phillip Duncan, who was working for Vogue at the time. He was kind enough to introduce me to Mark Holgate, who I believe was the head of news at Vogue at that time. Mark was a tall slim Englishman that had an angular face and dark rimmed glasses. He had beautiful hair and dressed how I would expect a respected journalist would dress. Nothing fussy or showy, sort of elegant in an intellectual way. (Sounds like nonsense... but makes sense to me.) He asked if I would meet him at the Vogue offices to show him the collection.
So off I went to Vogue with our first 20(ish) piece swimwear collection, complete with two coverups silhouettes. One silk habotai tunic and one silk habotai jumpsuit, to which Lisa called “the flying squirrel suit.”
The offices were located at Bryant Park. I signed in at the front desk and elevatored up with my heart racing. I was wearing my signature look that I continued to work for the next 10 years. It was a light blue chambray shirt, worn in dark denim jeans, Stan Smiths, and a thin caramel colored belt from that terrific Marc by Marc Jacobs store in the west village.
Possibly untrue fact: At that time, you didn’t get to go into the offices. The elevators opened up to a sort of waiting area that was long and narrow. As the elevator doors opened, you saw “VOGUE” on the wall above a sofa flanked with side tables, two side chairs, and a coffee table. At each end of the elongated waiting area to the right and left of the sofa were a set of glass doors to enter the office.
Mark was lovely and expressed interest in featuring the collection. He said that he ideally would like to feature it in the March Issue. (The OTHER September Issue) I was elated. It was a surreal. As we discussed what he needed from me and Vogue’s exclusivity to be the first to cover our launch, the elevator doors opened and there she was.
The Queen of Skirts.
She walked past us and took a glimpse of me and the collection without ever slowing her pace. She quickly makes it to the glass doors opposite of the chair I’m sitting in. But then, she stops at the doors and turns around and begins to walk toward us. (Its a good 20 feet from the sofa setup to the glass doors)
“This is it!” I thought. She has passed the collection, she’s obviously dumbfounded by its beauty, she simply needs to personally come speak to me and experience it for herself. She’s getting closer. Compose yourself.
As she arrives at the sofa setup she reaches down for a phone on the side table. Oh man... she’s calling for reinforcements. She is probably is asking Tonne and Grace to join her. Or maybe she’s demanding printing be stopped on the current issue because they need to reshoot the cover! She says a few words into the telephone receiver in what sounded like a whisper. She hangs up the phone and walks back to the door where a young woman opens the doors for her.
Anna Wintour had forgotten her badge.
Regardless, the story featuring Charlie ran in the March 2011 issue of Vogue: The Power Issue. ($4.99 USD) The story was in Mark Holgate’s VIEW section on page 410 of a total of 574 glorious pages. The feature was called: “Different Strokes. Two new swimwear designers - one male, onefemale - on how they’re making waves.” The photo featured two models. One beautiful model wore our Citrine Deco Foil Bikini and the other lovely model wore our Red Paulina Twist Back Bikini against a tropical leaf and orchid backdrop.
It read: “Charlie by Matthew Zink. For me a string bikini is like a perfect single sole pump: undeniably iconic, timeless, and the epitome of sexy. Whatever new silhouettes I develop for my line, a triangle top and string bottom will always be my favorite because they celebrate a woman’s body in the most simple way. I’m obsessed with getting the proportions right, so I make all my girlfriends try them on: a bathing suit should fit more than one girl. As a man, I think designing women’s swimwear gives me objectivity, and I work with several muses in mind. The red bandeau in my new collection, for example is a nod to Brigitte Bardot in her heyday; it’s shaped like a pair of lips. Right now on my inspiration board there’s a Norman Parkinson picture from 1975 of Jerry Hall in a bikini. People say the seventies are coming back, but for me they never left, and I think the name Charlie embodies the sensual androgyny of the time. I may have been born in the eighties, but there is a confidence and joy about that era that I find endlessly alluring.”
Admittedly indulgent from a 28 year old, but that was my story at the time.
Lady Gaga was on the cover with the headline “Lady Gaga Born This Way.” I was a huge fan of Lady Gaga at that time and the first image that we ever made was of our x-foil bikini. The bikini and image were a tribute to Lady Gaga’s heroic New York story and Barbara Hulanicki’s BIBA. I had loved seeing Lady Gaga emerge as an artist. She had been photographed around that time in a black sheer shirt with black tape “x”s across her nipples. The x-foil suit was a black triangle bikini with solid gold x’s across each triangle cup and a single gold strip the same width along the center of the bikini bottom front.
Our model, Adriana (A Slovakian angel) was hair and makeup-ed by Luis’ childhood friends and couple at the time from Puerto Rico: Janeiro (make up) and Alberto (hair). She had a vintage black and white Vera scarf that started at the base of her head up then up over her ears towards her hairline into a tight twist around each other at the top of her forehead then returning back to be tied at the base of her head where it started. Her hair behind the scarf was parted in the center into two almost cocker spaniel ears. A rounded 70’s bob. I based this off of a BIBA image of twiggy against a black background.
It also reminded me of one of my favorite runway moments from Tom Ford’s Diana Ross collection for Yves Saint Laurent - Rive Gauche. Karen Elson wore a red head piece and her glorious ginger hair in a loose bob . Red lips, jewel teal strapless dress with a halter tie that had tiered ruffles cascading from her breastbone. She glided the runway in a perfect pair of black velvet heeled sandals and black netted stockings. HEAVEN.