Liv Tyler Reminds Us to Say Please and Thank You

At Stella McCartney’s Soho flagship last night, guests were on their best behavior to toast  Modern Manners: Tools to Take You to the Top,  an etiquette book co-authored by Liv Tyler and her grandmother, Dorothea Johnson. Michael Stipe, Justine Koons, Charlotte Ronson, Jim Gold, and Hanneli Mustaparta nibbled on Flour Shop’s custom cookies, inscribed with the dos and don’ts Tyler was raised by: “Don’t raise your voice,” “Don’t stare,” and “Don’t gossip.”

When she was little, Liv sounded like the perfect child kind of a goody two-shoes. Johnson told the Cut: “The school that Liv went to had a lot of diplomatic children there from all over the world. She got out at 3 p.m. and [my] board meetings were at 4 p.m., so I would tell her, ‘Liv, you’re going with me to this board meeting.’ She would be the only child there and it was a one-hour-long meeting. The other women would say, ‘Oh my god, if that were my child, she would be wrecking the place!’ I think that was the key to why she was so well behaved.”

Meanwhile, Alexandra Richards (daughter of Keith) told us that, unsurprisingly, she was “definitely more of a rebel. But I did have a cousin that used to babysit us who was very big on manners. There was a lot of ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full’ and ‘Elbows off the table.” Now, she says, “I guess I could have better posture, but I do say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ I would like to stop saying ‘sorry.’ It’s such a bad habit of mine.”