SCOTT FORMBY
HIGH MINDED DESIGN – AND DINNER/November 19th 2023
Best recipe for a great dinner party? Chemistry, of course: who’s invited, what presumably sparkly personalities will combine with more or less sparkling one. Next, food. Then drinks. (Okay, maybe the other way round.)
But certain dinner parties can be – well, a form of art. Or rather, creative hosts construct them like building a work of art: entertaining as aesthetics. Chemistry’s the desired outcome: a fusion of eclectic guests, conversation, food, wine, flowers, visuals, sparkle, that, strung together via some magical osmosis, actually raises one’s consciousness. The combination of elements, under the right ad lib and studied circumstances, creates a kind of mercurial high.
Wait a minute. Kind of high? Sure, we’re familiar with most of kinds. But as an adult, an experience high may be the best kind: lifting your spirits, your consciousness, without the headache of munchies or migraines.
Our friend and high jewelry dealer Lionel Geneste is quite simply the best L.A. dinner party host we know. The food and wine, always exceptional. But the combos of personae and conversation are at a whole other level. I’ve made and kept real friends from his many soigne’ soirees: art photographers, actresses, designers, architects, jewelers, furniture builders, interior designers. Not just creatives in myriad fields – but people who can also raise dialogue to the level of aesthetics. It’s called stimulation.
Speaking of aesthetics – I was lucky enough to be seated adjacent to the evening’s co-host, designer/creative director Scott Formby; the party was in his unique Hollywood Hills home, twisting and winding up narrow streets filled with vertical homes in hills built for spectacular vistas. This house is all about ascension: myriad stone staircases, each floor offering various takes on the same astounding view.
We partook of a feast by Patina out at the multi levelled pool area – which also led into Scott’s design studio, where one of Lionel’s unique jewelers, Vishal Anil Kothari of VAK from Mumbai, was displaying his wares (to Jennifer Tilly’s delight): it’s here I learned about flat clear “portrait cut diamonds” – the oldest diamond cut, with roots in ancient India. It’s apparently the cut of Rooney Mara’s engagement ring. Divine – subtly divine.
The rest of the multi-level 1927 Hollywood Dell house and its history piqued my interest as much those diamonds. It once belonged to Stevie Nicks in the mid-seventies, was originally owned by silent film star Vilma Banky in the 1920’s. There’s nothing like some old Hollywood provenance to beef up a bedroom or two.Scott totally redid the 1927 house when he purchased it in 2017. You could claim it’s in the Hollywood Regency style décor, the style a connection to art deco and mid-century modern – with opulence, and cheeky eclecticism. Call it unapologetic maximalism, with high contrast patterns, richly layered textures. But Scott doesn’t refer to it as that. “It’s originally Spanish with Moorish influences,” he describes.A few days later, I got a tour of the historical house from the best possible guide: the owner. The two story atrium of the entry hall/living room bowls you over on arrival with its mega sized hand-painted beams. Smoky toned walls play off tan and black fabric covered chairs, leather chairs are balanced by a pale blue L shaped sectional sofa. High overhead is an imposing Gothic Revival wrought iron chandelier.“I buy a lot with live auctioneers,” Scott confides. “You can buy anything – those auctions will kill you! You can watch any auction in the world! I have to edit myself.”
Dramatic design? Bien Sur! Upstairs, the kitchen and formal dining and breakfast rooms open to the pool and outdoor terrace – again, amazing views.. “I installed this island in the kitchen,” he explained of his kitchen modernization. “I even put in some of the archways.” The tile designs are from Ann Sachs. His refrigerator is dark charcoal colored. There are old Mexican pieces, a Murano glass chandelier. One of many standout small items – some humorous – is a collection of little porcelain pigs’ heads. One room features green and orange wide horizontal strips. Scott has a unique sense of color, mixing prints and unexpected hues that wind up complementing each other. The four bedrooms on the third floor, natch. come with amazing views. The master has an ante-room with a gold couch. Some of the bedrooms have that coziest of fixtures: fireplaces.
Scott’s aesthetic sense as a decorator comes with a deep background, both in home design and fashion. If you’ve got a curious eye, makes sense it would be drawn to many disciplines. After growing up in small town Texas, he attended Brown University, then Parsons in NY, then classes at RISD. Along the way, the fashion bug bit – hard. After working for Ralph Lauren in the home division for a few years, “I moved into the women’s design studio, was there for three years.” It was then he met the founders of J.Crew – Emily Cinader and her father Arthur. “Let’s say they were heavily influenced by RL! I ended up as creative director from 1987 to 2002. We started opening stores – the first was New York’s South Street Seaport. I was there for the opening of thirty five stores. J.Crew did $38 million a year when I got there – it did $980 annually when I left. We’d started by shipping pocket t’s in the mail! Nothing like it existed at the time.”
It was Formby who hired (notorious) J. Crew designer Jenna Lyons, who brought polka dots, pink and leopard to the formerly-preppy line. But he took off to get an MBA at NYU. (How many fashion designers get MBA’s? Or could handle the course load?) Next stop: a design stint with iconic designer Geoffrey Beene. “I got to work with Mr. Beene and Alber Elbaz when he was there (the late Elbaz was the master who recreated Lanvin starting in 2001). It was great experience, but Beene’s customer was a rarefied woman. I missed designing things people got to experience; I loved seeing people walking down NY streets in J.Crew.”
His next chapter took him to L.A., where Angela Ahrendts, then president of Liz Claiborne at the time (since she’s run Apple and Burberry), hired him (where he worked from 2003 to 2007) to design for Lucky Jeans, which they’d bought. “They had jeans and t-shirts; they needed sweaters and outerwear for New York weather. “We worked in Santa Barbara; that’s when I started spending real time in California and thought, ‘Maybe I could do this here.’ I started to think ‘I can do this. I want a home and a garden. And I was starting to burn out on fashion after a number of years.”
But instead of L.A., he wound up moving to Milan to design for Frette, (2007 to 2011, then again, consulting from 2010 to 2014), the famed house for luxury linens and blankets. “I’d dabbled in interiors on the side, had done a few showhouses. I ended up being the creative director – overseeing everything down to jacquard sheets. I still went back and forth to New York. And I still have those very nice sheets! I even got a thousand dollar blanket I still have that had a tiny flaw for a deal.”
After five years in Milan, he moved to Canada and worked for Canadian billion dollar book company Indigo, with a hundred and twenty stores across the border. “I created all their non book products: wellness products, cookware, home décor, pillows, fragrances.” He got to spend time in Asia, China and Thailand. “That’s where I met (now business partner) Jennifer de Klaver, she also worked for Indigo. I was commuting from New York to Toronto every week. We were both exhausted, decided to do something more creative to feed our souls. We were both living a kind of corporate life.”
The duo decided to cut loose and start their own wellness brand: Figaro Apothecary, a line of wellness and bathing products. He’d already chose L.A. as home before he purchased “the Stevie Nicks house” in 2016. That’s also the year he plummeted fulltime into decorating homes. “I had designed the Frette shop in Milan, and a huge store in New Jersey. I learned from the architects. I started getting home projects, then commercial ones.”
He describes Figaro’s skincare brand vibe as light and healthy. “It’s botanical, but we also use science, work with a doctor in New York. It’s science meets wellness. I have a garden, grow figs, so we have fig oil in our new bodywash (www.figaroapothecary.com). Everything out there is so clinical, white, clean – we wanted something more romantic. I find culture healing – culture like the symphony, art. We’re trying to let people understand a product can change your emotions. We’re still new – we have nine products – just launched shower gel and bath soak. We’re already in three spas, two SLS hotels, some beauty bars and direct to consumer. It’s also sensorial, transporting. All the senses get engaged. “
And so, the dinner party comes full circle. No wonder it was so artful. And uplifting.
Merle Ginsberg is a fashion writer and television personality who was one of the judges on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in the first two seasons of the show. She is also an award winning journalist and writer, and a NY Times bestselling author. She started her long media career in NY at the Village Voice, MTV and Rolling Stone. Then, moving to L.A., she wrote for People, Us, L.A. Times and W Magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, where she presided over the West Coast bureau for 12 years, also contributing to L.A. Magazine, Jane and Details. She also served as Senior Style Editor of The Hollywood Reporter.
