Moda Operandi, the members' only e-commerce site is in my left pocket; I'm a member, but I simply cannot afford hot-off-the-runway Prabal, Erdem, or vintage $18K crocodile Hermes at the moment - despite the site's 50% down deposit policy, I am a writer. My money has to go to more important and less glamorous other places.
Lauren Santo Domingo, one of the company's founders, has an entirely fabulous and aspirational existence: she has the unique ability to have our lives (new mother, professional woman, New Yorker, thirty-six) and yet, most will never have hers (billionaire husband, 5'11/sample-sized, more supermodely than the supermodels, Vogue/Proenza/photographer's darling...) As for her apartment, I could spend a lifetime rummaging through her accessories drawers, trying on her shoes like a four-year-old in a mommy's closet, and as if that was not enough, cavort for hours with that Lalanne hippo bar of hers. But, I must say: as gorgeous and enviable as this woman is, and despite the fact that she and her business partner have provided we fashion lovers a pagan god in the form of Moda Operandi, I don't think that she is a fashion icon, which is what she is often referred to as. I see exquisite and expensive head-to-toe looks on a very pretty lady, but I don't see wow, genius, inspirational stylishness in the way that you see it on Kate Moss, or saw it on Jane Birkin, or if we want to reference a like "working girl" society swan, Jackie Kennedy.
Of course, I think she looks immaculate and insanely put-together...but with her genealogy and resources, wouldn't it be a (fashion) crime not to?
