Photo courtesy of Interview Magazine
Lauren Hutton on Moving to New York to Buy LSD and Breaking into the Fashion Biz
Style.com | May 2014
“People say you’re either born with style or you’re not—that’s complete hooey,” declared Lauren Hutton last night. Dressed the all-American part in a navy blazer and denim, the longtime supermodel had plenty more choice words on style and her life and career at the 92Y Fashion Icons talk with Fern Mallis.
At 70, Hutton appeared just as spritely as she did jumping in fashion editorials for Richard Avedon and on welldocumented adventures to visit farflung African tribes. Gesturing enthusiastically and even sucking her thumb, the grinning model responded to most of Mallis’ questions. “So you moved to New York to get to Africa and to buy LSD?” asked Mallis. After some roundabout storytelling, Hutton conceded, “Yeah, that’s what I came here for.” Hutton broke into the fashion industry in a similar manner. A fated meeting inside the spectacular red editorial offices of Diana Vreeland (or “DV,” as Hutton called her) paved the way for twentyeight future Vogue covers, an exclusive Revlon deal, and fortyfour films including American Gigolo.
Yet Hutton, who is soon to release a memoir, still remained aloof when it came to discussing her fashion icon status. Hutton much preferred to boast of her ability to catch “bad” snakes and skin catfish—all of which she learned to do early on as a child growing up in the South. But in between jokes and rounds of applause from the audience, the supermodel did have one last thing to say about style: “It’s what you pick out of fashion—that’s what style is. Develop your own, because all of us are pretty different.”