どんな人がハリウッドスターの衣装をデザインしているか？

By Harris Gaffin, Photojournalist

　今回はロサンゼルスを舞台に映画や音楽界の有名スターの衣装をつくるデザイナーの紹介です。さて、あなたはどの有名人をご存じですか？

　A gentle, delicate woman cascades down a white-painted wooden stairway from her office to her showroom like a muse descending from heaven.

　 "I like the classics and the romantic," she says. "But I'm still into rock 'n' roll."

　As fashion designer Pamela Barish wafts closer wearing a floor-length, layered black dress and long black hair parted sort of in the center, she becomes less an angel and more a flower child from the 1960s ― but without the flowers ― in her hair or in her collection.

　She designs clothes based on what she likes to wear. In fact, she designs for herself and then makes the line available for others.

　"The styles have vintage references," she says. "They have salability and are comfortable and easy to wear because I'm pretty low maintenance."

　Her style mixes black and white, nothing outrageous, nothing too trendy, just old-fashioned good taste. The styles are classic, body conscious with patterns and textures. There's never a block. There are polka dots, not black and white. It's really feminine, but never ornate.

　"I don't like making gowns," she says, though she gets numerous requests to make wedding dresses. "I don't like nonreality. I'm way more casual."

　Despite her low-key presence, Barish seems to have always associated with the rich and famous. Brought up in wealthy Beverly Hills, she married a rock star from the band Steely Dan, traveled with them and designed their outfits. She met lots of other rock stars and designed for some of them too, big names such as Ozzie Osbourne.

　She mingled with the wives, raised a son, and together they spent a lot of time backstage wearing noise-canceling headphones.

　After living a life on the road and being based out of New York for 15 years, Barish divorced and then headed back to Los Angeles.

　"I came out here to be by the beach," she says. "If I lived in downtown L.A., I might as well be in New York."

　The transition from designing for rock stars to movie stars was seamless.

　Soon, the client list included Meg Ryan, Laura Dern, Anjelica Huston, Cher, Queen Noor of Jordan, and Melissa Mathison, screenwriter of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and former wife of Harrison Ford.

　As the celebrities loved her work, so did the press. As far as her movie star clients, Barish takes that in stride. She doesn't attend galas or red-carpet events, and doesn't network in Hollywood.

　"Everyone is really nice, and I'm not friends with any of them," she says.

　In 2003, in what used to be an art gallery, Barish opened a high-end clothing boutique on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice Beach, California. This is the only place where all her handmade designs are available.

ベニス・ビーチの魔力

　The shop is a neutral, calm white, with high ceilings and huge French-style mirrors. There is one dressing room.

　Venice Beach has always enjoyed a reputation as being the most laissez-faire part of the city. It's a place where there are more bicycles than cars. It's a short walk to the beach, is much cooler than in the city and has a year-round sea breeze.

　"It was a lifestyle choice," she says. "I like having a store over on the other side of town."

　Another reason why her heart is in Venice might be because so is the studio of her new husband, a very successful artist named Laddie John Dill, one of the original artists in the area.

　The neighborhood used to be made up of artists and actors and those living on society's margins. But in recent years, it has been discovered and real estate prices, particularly on Abbot Kinney, have skyrocketed. The aspiring artists are moving out.

　"Now it's becoming writers, directors and producers," Barish says.

　 Then again, it's attracting more upscale customers.

　"The street is bringing the traffic," she says. "For a store, business on Abbot Kinney, it rocks."

　Customers, besides movie stars, include a wide range of ages, from 25 to 70 years and "ladies who do lunch."

　"This used to be a destination for customers," Barish says. "Now we get more and more walk-ins. It's fun getting people you don't know."

　Each dress has a name. "Jillian" is a dress made of four-ply silk French Chantilly lace with a bubble bottom. "Tyranny" is a high-waisted three-button jacket.

　"Rita," named after 1940s movie star sex symbol Rita Hayworth, is a black-and-beige checkered dress. Shirts average $600 (¥73,800) and coats run just under $2,000 (¥246,000).

　"I'm not very traditional," Barish says. "My clients can interpret these any way they want."

　The work style is not very traditional, either. No stress. No deadlines. No design team. No specific season dates. No advertising. In fact, no clearance sales. Well, almost none.

　At the end of July, right before the family takes a one-month vacation, whatever is left gets marked down and cleared out.

　"Then I usually put up a sign saying‘gone sailing,' but this year I might put up‘gone fishing.' "

• cascades down　〜を滑るように降りる
• like...heaven　天国から降り立つ女神のように
• wafts...dress　床に届く長さの重ね着の黒いドレスを着てふわりと近づく
• long...center　ややまん中で分けた長い黒髪
• less...1960s　天使というよりは60年代のフラワーチャイルド（ヒッピー）
• then...others　その後、自分以外に向けた商品をつくる
• have salability　よく売れる
• because...maintenance　私は気楽な性格ですから
• never ornate　決して華美ではない
• Despite...presence　目立たないが
• life...road　巡業暮らし
• transition...seamless　ロックスターから映画スターへと衣装デザインの相手を変えたのはスムーズだった
• takes...stride　冷静である
• doesn't...events　催し物や盛大な行事にはでない
• most...city　市内で最も自由放任なところ
• those...margins　社会の周辺で生きる人々
• is...traffic　にぎやかになった
• walk-ins　飛び入りの客
• four-ply　４重の
• whatever...out　残った商品はすべて値下げされ、一掃される