<\/p>\n
\n\tIf personality really is the gateway to success, Dennis Basso proved why he has such staying power in the field of fashion, during a 92NY appearance in Manhattan Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
\n\tReflexively funny about life, marriage, career choices and celebrities, the designer kept the crowd laughing with his candor in a Q&A with Fern Mallis. \u201cWhat I loved at 7, I still like at 71. I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s a good thing or a bad thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I like you, I love you from the beginning to the end. Whether it\u2019s a sandwich or a person, I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHere, some of Basso\u2019s reminiscences and observations.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThis was 1973 \u2014 there were clubs, discotheques. I had a Bloomingdale\u2019s credit card and I bought this cream plaid suit with an Eisenhower jacket for the first day of school. Mind you, I was never the skinniest person at the dance. I walk into the Feldman building and there is another fellow in the same suit \u2014 taller and slimmer. We became friends immediately. Every four or five days, I would say, \u2018We only have one class after lunch. Let\u2019s go uptown to have lunch and go to Bloomingdale\u2019s.\u2019 And we did. But FIT was the greatest thing, and it still is. It\u2019s the Harvard of fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt was for time served, as opposed to \u2018I\u2019ll give the school the tennis court, and you give me the doctorate.\u2019 It was such an unbelievable moment. There were 6,000 people at the ceremony at the Javits Center. Dr. [Joyce] Brown said you walk in right behind me. I had the beret and the gown on, and thought to myself, \u2018This doesn\u2019t get any better.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cMy landlord said, \u2018Yes, we\u2019ll give you $30,000.\u2019 I said, \u2018When do you get paid?\u2019 She said, \u2018Three days after you vacate.\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019ll be out Friday.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI couldn\u2019t find a job. I had a little bit of a cushion from the homestead. Some guys were talking on the beach about how Pierre Michel was opening beauty salons in Bloomingdale\u2019s. They were looking for someone who was creative with a college education. I went for an interview and \u2014 boom \u2014 they hired me. I thought I\u2019d be working in New York. They put me in Paramus [N.J.]. But they took us back and forth by a big stretch limousine from 59th Street with Bob Chavez, who became a close friend of mine. [He was also former president and chief executive officer of Herm\u00e8s Americas.] Do you know how many times I asked him over the past 40 years? No discount.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe owner of a fur company offered a salary of $400, I said $450. I suggested I work for a month and if he wasn\u2019t happy, we would part ways. I was designing, selling on the sales floor, arriving early each day \u2014 I couldn\u2019t do enough. Being involved with items that were $3,000 to $10,000 was a crazy thing. The bookkeeper told me the owner loved me. At the end of the month, I said I was going to leave and the owner said, \u2018What do you mean. I\u2019m going to give you 450.\u2019 I said, \u2018If you want me to stay, I want 500.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe said I was fired for stealing potential customers. I said, \u2018I told you two years ago to do this and you didn\u2019t want to.\u2019 I was freaked out. I\u2019m a worker. I have a very high work ethic. I said to myself, \u2018Calm down. You have a fur party tonight.\u2019 I walked into Jimmy\u2019s office [the wholesaler] and he asked if I knew anyone, who would want to a little showroom in his office for $300 a month. The guy I was with said we were going to take it to go into business. That was in June, the worst time to go into the fur business. My father agreed to give us something in dribs and drabs. He knew that I could use it to go on the QE2.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI was in a liquor store in The Pines, and this woman said to me, \u2018Hi cutie, what\u2019s your name?\u2019 She said, \u2018I\u2019m Nikki Haskell. I have a cable TV show.\u2019 I said I was in the fur business and she said she could use a furrier. She said, \u2018Come with me.\u2019 I said, \u2018But I\u2019m going to a dinner party.\u2019 She said, \u2018Trust me. Where I\u2019m going is better than where you\u2019re going. You come with me.\u2019 It was a part of The Pines I never knew existed. We walked up to this gorgeous house with yellow and white striped awnings. There was Aldo Cipullo, who designed the Love bracelet for Cartier, and Egon von Furstenberg, Calvin Klein and all of these people. Nikki put me on TV for my first fashion show. She delivered Neil Sedaka, Egon and Diane von Furstenberg, Joan Collins and Ivana and Donald Trump. They had just opened Trump Tower. The next day I had half a page of editorial in The New York Times. I\u2019d like to have that again. Ivana Trump was sitting in my office, when I got there the next morning. She bought seven fur coats. That was a defining moment in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cEarly on a friend introduced me to Ava Gabor, who introduced me to [her sister] Zsa Zsa, and through Zsa Zsa I met Liz Taylor. They wanted everything. There was no holding back. Then there was Joan Collins, who played Alexis Carrington. But the nicest one was Meryl Streep. Correct, polite, thank you note. Everybody else was rough. That was when you worked directly with the celebrity. Now you never see the celebrity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve been together for 33 years but we met five years prior to that. My whole life revolved around the world of Dennis Basso, the client and dinners at Le Cirque, Lutece, Grenouille and Hotel Du Cap. But on the weekend. I\u2019d go to Fire Island and all of that was left behind. He had a real boyfriend that summer. I had a boyfriend, who was an exchange student. He broke up [with his boyfriend]. My friend\u2019s visa was up. We started by going out in a group. [After they started hanging out together, on their own] I called a very good friend to say, \u2018I think Michael really likes me.\u2019 He said, \u201cAbsolutely not. You\u2019re everything he doesn\u2019t like.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat was a time when editors accepted really expensive gifts. [Laughs.] It\u2019s true \u2014 real gifts, not like a little trinket. My friend invited me to come with him on this 150-foot yacht for two weeks in Greece. After two days Ronnie [Rothstein, co-owner of Kleinfeld Bridal] asked me if I ever thought of going on TV. I said, \u2018Yeah, why?\u2019 \u2018I have a friend, who runs QVC. You\u2019re already dressing famous people. You\u2019re a perfect match.\u2019 I said, \u2018QVC? I don\u2019t know.\u2019 He said, \u2018Trust me. You\u2019ll like it. And in the end, you\u2019ll make plenty of dough.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThirty-two years ago it was the highest-grossing show that QVC had had at that time \u2014 $357,000, and 11 sellouts. Now if you don\u2019t do $357,000, you worry you\u2019ll get the pink slip. I love it. I\u2019ve been on TV longer than Johnny Carson or any of those [late night talk show] people. The hardest part is when you\u2019re not in the mood and you\u2019re trying to put the clothes together to get in the car to go. And it\u2019s damp and drizzling out. Then once you get there, it\u2019s [smiles broadly, widens his eyes and outstretches his arms]. I think we\u2019ve sold more than a million and half of that [faux] fur blanket. We figured it out that if you lined them up, it would go past California. It\u2019s 60 by 90, machine washable, double dry.\u201d [Laughs.]<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI would like to think that people thought of me as fun, generous, happy, caring and someone, who likes to have a good time. Over the years we\u2019ve collected, and I say this in the kindest and nicest way, all kinds of people from all walks of life. I would like people to think of me as someone who loves life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If personality really is the gateway to success, Dennis Basso proved why he has such staying power in the field of fashion, during a 92NY appearance in Manhattan Wednesday night. Reflexively funny about life, marriage, career choices and celebrities, the designer kept the crowd laughing with his candor in a Q&A with Fern Mallis. \u201cWhat I loved at 7, I still like at 71. I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s a good thing or a bad thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I like you, I love you from the beginning to the end. Whether it\u2019s a sandwich or a person, I love you.\u201d Here, some of Basso\u2019s reminiscences and observations. Fashion Institute of Technology \u201cThis was 1973 \u2014 there were clubs, discotheques. I had a Bloomingdale\u2019s credit card and I bought this cream plaid suit with an Eisenhower jacket for the first day of school. Mind you, I was never the skinniest person at the dance. I walk into the Feldman building and there is another fellow in the same suit \u2014 taller and slimmer. We became friends immediately. Every four or five days, I would say, \u2018We only have one class after lunch. Let\u2019s go uptown to have lunch and go to Bloomingdale\u2019s.\u2019 And we did. But FIT was the greatest thing, and it still is. It\u2019s the Harvard of fashion.\u201d Receiving an Honorary Doctorate From FIT \u201cIt was for time served, as opposed to \u2018I\u2019ll give the school the tennis court, and you give me the doctorate.\u2019 It was such an unbelievable moment. There were 6,000 people at the ceremony at the Javits Center. Dr. [Joyce] Brown said you walk in right behind me. I had the beret and the gown on, and thought to myself, \u2018This doesn\u2019t get any better.\u2019\u201d Getting a Red Herring Offer to Vacate His First Apartment \u201cMy landlord said, \u2018Yes, we\u2019ll give you $30,000.\u2019 I said, \u2018When do you get paid?\u2019 She said, \u2018Three days after you vacate.\u2019 I said, \u2018I\u2019ll be out Friday.\u2019\u201d Finding Work on Fire Island \u201cI couldn\u2019t find a job. I had a little bit of a cushion from the homestead. Some guys were talking on the beach about how Pierre Michel was opening beauty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seekyourlove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}