American fashion designer Jackie Rogers has lived a most fabulous life – and continues to do so as the head honcho of her eponymous luxury apparel line, headquartered in New York City. With her always-chic, show-dog-bred Daschund Miss Lily by her side, Rogers has become one of the most prolific, respected names in fashion.
Escaping from the outskirts of Boston to Paris and Milan, and then, finally, to Manhattan in the Sixties and Seventies, Rogers’s resume boasts appearances in some of the most influential films of her time (including Fellini’s 8 ½), and as a model on one of the most impressive fashion runways in the world, Coco Chanel’s.
After strutting the catwalk for “the” Mademoiselle, Rogers remained at the House of Chanel and took in everything she could about design, celebrity and the element of style, befriending other fashion greats like Bill Blass and Giorgio Armani, who Rogers actually introduced to the U.S. She absorbed Chanel’s aesthetic and classic approach to beauty, and eventually utilized this knowledge to design couture for some of the biggest names in Hollywood: Nicole Kidman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Salma Hayek, to name a few. “There isn’t anyone who was worth knowing that I didn’t know,” smiles Rogers.
As for her take on style, Rogers keeps away from what’s “hot” and always sticks to what’s classic. “I think it’s pretty simple and clean; I’m not really influenced too much of what goes on in trends at all, because I think trends come and go,” Rogers says. “I think that it’s really about style, not fashion. I don’t believe in fashion.”
Rogers’s home is filled with artsy remnants from her early madcap days, including paintings from Lichtenstein, Richard Lim, Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly. The version of the famous Warhol Campbell’s Soup can that hangs on Rogers’s wall was actually given to Miss Lily’s Daschund predecessor, Hans, as a birthday present.
“I loved Andy very much,” says Rogers. “He was very gentle…And on the back of the tomato can it said, ‘To Hans’. He had two Daschund, Andy, so that’s how that came about. We had a big birthday party, everybody brought their dogs, everybody came here with their doggies!”
An enthusiastic donor of time and money to the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons in New York (ARFHamptons.org), Rogers’s love for pups has remained solid throughout the years of glitz and glamour.
“I love them. I’d like to have a half a dozen! There’s something about them, they’re very smart, very independent, and very devoted. They’re like little baby girls and boys!”
As she has always done in her sensational life, Rogers has surrounded herself with the important classic pieces – her favorites being her inimitable canine counterparts.
For more info please visit: JackieRogers.com
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