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obit
March 17, 2014

Remembering the Beautiful, Dynamic L’Wren Scott

By Amy Larocca

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Photo: Dominique Charriau/Getty Images

L’Wren Scott’s shows were, for a time, at the end of the 2000s, the most civilized moment in New York Fashion Week. They were always held at the very end of the week and were small and cozy affairs. Everyone had a seat, usually in a U-shaped configuration, and the room was always a special one: a gallery hung with a bunch of Basquiats, say, or a windowed sliver overlooking the river at the Standard Hotel.

It wasn’t so much a show as a luncheon, with the food as another carefully considered accessory: hot-pink dim sum one year, a single-backed potato wearing a supersize blob of caviar the next. Mick Jagger was usually there, which always sent a flutter through even that jaded crowd — the audience would sit, relax, and feel their adolescent crush surge embarrassingly forward. There were always celebrities at Scott’s shows because that was her world: Nicole Kidman, Ellen Barkin, Daphne Guinness, Rachel Feinstein. Her people were women in tight dresses and full makeup and hair like Veronica Lake, and the red carpet was her natural habitat: Once, for the Oscars, Scott designed a 1,400-carat diamond necklace for Kidman to wear.

Scott, who was found dead this morning of an apparent suicide, began as a model for Thierry Mugler in the ‘80s (“The Longest Legs in Britain,” read one headline) but quickly moved to the other side of the business, collaborating frequently as a stylist with Herb Ritts. In 2000, she was the named the official stylist of the Oscars and in 2006 she launched her collection.

She was so tall and so glamorous, so unlike anyone else you’d ever seen. She was easy in her six-foot-three skin as she’d sit down to watch the models parade their narrow pencil skirts, their snug little cardigans, and their general air of film-noir fantasy up and down the runway. Scott grew up a Mormon in a small Utah town, learning to sew because nothing out there fit, and even as she entered fashion and celebrity’s most inner ranks, she retained an outsider’s sense of what a riot the whole thing could be. Her collections often felt like fashion playing at fashion, as if even clothes that beautiful and serious could still harbor a happy bit of camp. (Her signature dress was all suck-it-all-in vamp named The Headmistress.) As she sat there next to Mick Jagger, you could feel her younger self in the Utah cinema, living through Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile.

Recently — despite having canceled her show during London Fashion Week last season — Scott was expanding beyond the innermost in crowd, with handbags sold at Barneys and a collaboration with Banana Republic that brought lipstick-printed silk pajamas to a bigger audience than she’d ever had before. She had a fragrance that came in a pretty red bottle with a silver snap. One Christmas, Lancôme released a lipstick in her favorite, particularly rich shade of Bordeaux red.

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1 / 37 Photos
1967  Photo: © www.splashnews.com
c. 1970s With her sister, Jan Photo: © www.splashnews.com
1977 Outside the family home in Roy, near Salt Lake City, Utah Photo: © www.splashnews.com
1978 On a family vacation Photo: © www.splashnews.com
1979 With her mother, Lula, and sister, Jan, outside the family home in Roy, near Salt Lake City Photo: © www.splashnews.com
1991 Skiing in Salt Lake City Photo: © www.splashnews.com
1992  Photo: Copyright (c) 1992 Rex USA. No use without permission.
1992  Photo: Copyright (c) 1992 Rex USA. No use without permission.
2005 With Karl Lagerfeld at the Chanel fall-winter 2005 to 2006 ready to wear fashion show Photo: Serge BENHAMOU/GAMMA
2005 At the Chanel haute couture fall-winter 2006 fashion show Photo: Serge BENHAMOU/GAMMA
2005 With Bryan Adams at the 11th annual AIDs Gala Benefit at the Pavillon d'Armenonville in Paris Photo: 2005 Eric Ryan
2005 With Daphne Guinness at the "Artists Independent Networks" pre-BAFTA party in London Photo: 2005 Dave M. Benett
2006 At the PPR gala dinner at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris Photo: 2006 Eric Ryan
2005 At the Dada Beaubourg dinner as part of the spring-summer Paris Fashion Week Photo: 2005 Eric Ryan
2007 With Mick Jagger at the Dior spring-summer men's collection fashion show
2007 At the Nina Ricci show during the spring-summer Paris Fashion Week Photo: 2007 Getty Images
2008 At the Valentino fashion show during the spring-summer Paris Fashion Week at the Musée Rodin Photo: 2008 Dominique Charriau
2008 With Alexi Pfeiffer and Kanye West at the Yvest Saint Laurent show during the fall-winter Paris Fashion Week Photo: 2008 Eric Ryan
2009 At her fall-winter runway show at Gagosian Gallery in New York Photo: © Corbis. All Rights Reserved.
2010 At the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala in New York Photo: © Corbis. All Rights Reserved.
2010 Backstage at her spring 2010 show in New York Photo: © Corbis. All Rights Reserved.
2011 At the 53rd-annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles
2011 At the third-annual Finch's Quarterly Review Filmmakers Dinner in Cannes Photo: 2011 Dave M. Benett
2011 With Mick Jagger at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala in New York Photo: AP2011
2011 With Sarah Jessica Parker at a dinner in her honor Photo: BFAnyc.com
2011 At Barneys New York to preview the Lula Collection   Photo: Billy Farrell Agency (BFA)
2011 At "Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones" opening night gala in New York Photo: 2011 D Dipasupil
2012 With Daphne Guinness at the Gramercy Park Hotel for a dinner celebrating the her fall 2012 collection Photo: BFA
2012 At the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Benefit Celebrating Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations in New York Phot... 2012 At the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Benefit Celebrating Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations in New York Photo: BFANYC.COM
2012 At the Christian Dior spring-summer show during Paris Fashion Week Photo: 2012 Getty Images
2012 At the premiere of Crossfire Hurricane during the 56th BFI London Film Festival Photo: 2012 Mike Marsland
2012 At a private dinner at the Carlyle Hotel in New York Photo: BFAnyc.com
2013 At a private dinner celebrating her 2013 fall-winter collection in London Photo: 2013 Dave M. Benett
2013 On the runway after her fall 2013 show in London Photo: © Corbis. All Rights Reserved.
2013 At the "Take Home A Nude" Benefit Art Auction and Party at Sotheby's in New York Photo: 2013 Mireya Acierto
2013 At the British Fashion Awards in London Photo: 2013 David M. Benett
2013 With Mick Jagger before her fall runway show during London Fashion Week Photo: © Corbis. All Rights Reserved.
1 / 37

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