Capitol File Magazine

A Pen for Presidents' Day

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:13:00 -0500

Famed writing instrument purveyor Montblanc is celebrating Presidents’ Day with the release of its Andrew Jackson Artisan Edition Pen ($33,300). Symbolizing the number of states in the union, only 50 of the limited-edition pens have been produced. Encased in an intricate solid white gold skeleton net overlay, the pen nods to Jackson with an engraving of his signature and dates important to his legislative period. The clip is imprinted with his portrait and includes a sapphire, which references his blue eyes. Black elements on the cone, cap, and middle ring are a tribute to his celebrated military career.

Previous presidential editions released by Montblanc include George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. As in all the pieces belonging to this unique series, AMERICAN’S SIGNATURES FOR FREEDOM is engraved on each handcrafted 18-karat gold nib and showcases 13 stars to commemorate the States that adopted The Declaration of Independence. Available today, Tyson’s Galleria, 2001 International Dr., McLean, VA, 703-734-5101

Fashion Film: Gatsby Glamour

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:32:00 -0500

Photographer Bell Soto captures the romp and circumstance of the 1920s for the spring 2012 issue of Capitol File.

3 Washington Notables Open Their Closets

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Dapper chap Pepper Watkins


	An assortment of Watkins’s cuff links, shirt studs, and tie bars

	Hanging on to the cool cotton look of madras ties

	Fine-tuning the bow-tie knot—which is identical to the shoelace knot

Pepper Watkins
"You don't see madras like this anymore,” says management consultant Pepper Watkins, a thin length of cotton draped over his palm. “There was something special in the 1920s fabric and dyes.” There’s something special in Watkins’s collection, too— part of it in the history of the ties he keeps in the Kalorama home he shares with his wife, Becca Glover Watkins, part of it in the mix of reverence and offhandedness with which he regards the trove.

Madras, the former English name for the Indian city of Chennai, is the cotton associated with British colonial rule of the subcontinent. Brits of a certain class became known for sporting clothes of the lightweight material in India’s heat, and the plaid is a meme of prepsters to this day. Think of the Washingtonians known for wearing bow ties: conservative columnist George Will; in-his-image pundit Tucker Carlson (who abandoned them years ago); the late liberal Senator Paul Simon. From them we get a sense of solidity, an appreciation of the past with a whiff of hipster individuality.

While madras bow ties are the constant motif of Watkins’s collection, there are also two madras four-in-hands. Watkins has stewardship of six of the 14 ties, while his father has the rest—but no one claims actual ownership. “None of us [in the family] are really collectors,” Watkins says. “These were passed down through the generations. They came to me fully formed and have stayed constituted as a group.”

But does it truly matter? He cultivates them. He can trace their provenance. He knows how to wear them—and does so quite often in warmer months. So did great-grandfather William Bell Watkins Sr., who bred horses, hunted foxes, and built a sailboat in his barn in Clarke County, Virginia. “Like many men of his generation, he made sport of being a snappy dresser,” says Watkins. Senior acquired six of the ties (or more—some of them have no labels) decades ago at a Bermuda store named Triminghams.

Watkins recalls Senior’s son, William Bell Watkins Jr., wearing cravats, vests, and “a necktie with a giant safety pin beneath to make it stand out, as only a 90-year-old man can do and look fantastic.” There he is in a photo from his youth, hair slicked back in that Roaring Twenties style, decked out in a pin-striped suit with superwide lapels. Junior, too, hunted foxes, as well as ran a mill and bred animals of all sorts, including horses, sheep, peacocks, and guinea hens. One of the two four-in-hand ties came directly to Watkins from his grandfather. Then came William Bell Watkins III, a longtime Berryville auctioneer and amateur carpenter who passed on to his son a love of “construction, mechanical things, and neckties, so I learned a lot from him.” Father and son trade the ties back and forth, so the concept of ownership is fairly fluid.

Watkins, 29, studied urban planning and historic preservation at Columbia after graduating from the University of Virginia. “I wore [the bow ties] around [campus],” he says. To the football stadium, like gentlemen scholars of old? “I wasn’t much of a sports fan, so there was one opportunity blown.” His approach: “They’re made to be worn. They’re beautiful and interesting and rare. But you have to be judicious to avoid being typecast—so don’t wear them every time you dress up. A lot is in the attitude; I wear them without irony. Taking pride in the way you look is a family tradition.”

Perhaps a fifth Watkins generation will continue that, but for now he is happy to share his pieces and show delighted cousins and friends how to tie them. “Everyone has to put on clothes,” he says, “so why not have some fun with it?”

Thomollari wearing a Marchesa ostrich dress in her chic suite on Level Nine at the Dupont Circle Hotel


	A one-of-akind Fabrice fringe sheath from Paris

	An assortment of Thomollari’s vintage dresses

	This 1970s Oscar de la Renta dress was a birthday gift from Thomollari’s mother. The Bob Mackie behind it is another favorite

Aureta Thomollari
You may have a vintage jacket. You may have a designer dress or three. But your closets probably don’t look like any one of Aureta Thomollari’s three. Kept at a clothes-preserving 60 to 65 degrees, with pieces organized by color and length, they hold about 300 vintage dresses, 250 pairs of shoes, and nearly 100 bags—and that’s after some downsizing.

"Once a piece is quality, it remains quality always,” says Thomollari, 30, who lives in DC. “And I love continuing the story of the previous wearer, to imagine the life and experiences she had.”

As president of DNA Luxury Consulting, Thomollari advises a variety of clients on how to position themselves as luxury entities, and she says she needs to look the part. But rather than just buy contemporary designers, she works with timeless pieces as well, to merge the best of both vintage and modern.

“Every year I buy less but of better quality,” she says. Her three favorite additions from the past year: a 1970s beaded Oscar de la Renta dress with yellow, green, and pink stripes, a birthday gift from her mother; a deep-red, crushed-velvet de la Renta cape, also from the ’70s; and a short, black and green Bob Mackie dress, all sequins and beads, that “makes me smile. I feel like wearing it to the grocery store. I might have in Las Vegas.”

Born in Albania, Thomollari had an eye for fashion early: “I used to lay out what my parents should wear to parent-teacher meetings.” She started collecting during senior year of high school, with a Versace jacket and high platform shoes she bought in New York.

While on vacation in 2001, Thomollari discovered Daniel Espinosa jewelry, and upon her return found that no US stores carried the line. When she expressed interest in opening its first stateside location, the company decided their American flagship should be either in Los Angeles or New York City. She chose LA and asked her parents to invest. For years she sold to high rollers and celebrities, attended galas, and shopped the Rose Bowl flea market.

Moving to Washington three years ago, she finished her degree at Marymount University, launched her boutique consulting firm, won her pilot’s license, and started a very successful fashion blog. Hailed as a trendsetter because of her innate understanding of style, flair, and poise, she has appeared in magazines from China to Albania to the United Arab Emirates.

This past May, a blog entry mentioned an event at which “I was especially excited to wear one of the most beloved dresses in my entire collection: the Alexander McQueen butterfly dress I purchased from the Roan boutique in Richmond, Virginia. He was truly my creative inspiration.” The photos show her modeling the lovely frock with a pair of barely walkable Christian Louboutin heels, a mix of Hermès and antique bracelets, and a headdress of orange feathers that set off her raven hair.

In recent years, Washington has witnessed an influx of more stylish dressing, thanks in part to the Obamas. Naturally, Thomollari applauds that shift. As for closer to home? “I hope to have a daughter someday,” she says. “Hopefully she’ll like my sequins and bead dresses and won’t think I’m crazy.”


	Bangle bracelets in geometric, figural, and carved designs, with the “Philadelphia bracelet” in the foreground

	A 1930s Bakelite smoking set and a Monopoly charm bracelet featuring Bakelite tokens

	Bakelite and celluloid evening bags ranging from Art Nouveau to Art

Corky Davidov
It's easy to attribute Corinne “Corky” Davidov’s love of Bakelite to the few bangles her mother owned during the Great Depression. But the Chevy Chase resident has it figured out on a deeper level: Raised on Technicolor films by Little Rock radio-star parents—“I was marinated in the movies,” she says—Davidov grew up with a love of color and flair, and says that Bakelite in that era was “everywhere.”

The world's first synthetic plastic—technically, a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin— Bakelite had many industrial uses. The public knew it as the basis of toys, jewelry, and heatresistant kitchenware. Inexpensive, lightweight, and colorful, accessories by Bakelite (and other brand names) were enormously popular through the 1930s until World War II.

Davidov’s love of color led to an accomplished career as painter and a fashion illustrator. She holds a master’s in fine art from American University. She is also a writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post and Lucire magazine, and she has designed sets for The Washington Ballet. Not surprisingly, she and her husband have collected such artistic objects as pottery, furniture, and sculpture.

“When Bakelite got big in the ’80s, I called Mother and said I’d like to have her bangles,” Davidov recalls. “She said, ‘Aren’t you glad I saved them all these years?’ ”

Collecting actively from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, Davidov reveled in wearing, displaying, and color-coordinating her pieces. She bought low, before most collectors got serious. One of her favorite items is what collectors call the “Philadelphia bracelet,” so named, according to Davidov, because of the “fierce competition” the pieces generated when two appeared at the Philadelphia Art Deco show in 1984. Hinged, striped, and laminated, it closes with a satisfying snap. In addition to its distinct design, both aesthetically and mechanically, the bracelet has all five Bakelite colors (highly unusual, according to Davidov). For all these reasons, it is unique and has generally sold for more than other Bakelite jewelry.

In 1988, she cowrote The Bakelite Jewelry Book, a detailed look at the material’s history, with Ginny Redington Dawes. “I was feeling guilty about spending money on plastic. That’s why I wrote the book,” she says. “It became known as the bible on Bakelite,” she says.

Seven years ago, Davidov divested herself of more than 100 classic Bakelites, mostly bangles and brooches, but also necklaces, dress clips, round boxes, and the occasional belt buckle, manicure set, and ring.

“I saved the hottest pieces,” she confides. “And those that had special meaning to me.” Among these: her mother’s pieces, and anything her children bought for her; cuff bracelets in boxes signed by dancer-actress Josephine Baker and other European performers from between the wars; a figural of President Roosevelt’s Scottie, Fala; handbags, including a green clutch with a carved fox handle and a black ostrich bag with a translucent amber-colored handle; and a charm bracelet of Monopoly figures—“a link to the past and the present,” she calls it.

Particularly popular with collectors are later bracelets featuring polka dots or bow-tie designs. Two such bangles sold at the 2005 auction for a combined $8,225.

In another nod to her past—the natural crystals she collected at a childhood home in Little Rock, Arkansas—Davidov has now created Rock Island Jewelry, a collection of rhinestone necklaces and bracelets that retail at Saks Jandel and were featured in a music video of Grammy nominee Nadia Ali. Davidov often combines styles from her new line with Bakelite pieces. “It’s all meant to be worn and enjoyed,” she says. “If you can’t see it, what’s the point?”

Twenties Fashion Takes Hold of the Capital

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Julianne Moore Personifies Sarah Palin in HBO's Game Change

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Washed-acetate gown, Bottega Veneta. Bangles, FROM TOP: Serpente bracelet in 18k pink gold, diamonds, and onyx; Parentesi openwork bracelet in 18k yellow gold with diamonds; Spiga bracelet in 18k yellow gold; and B.Zero1 bracelet in 18k yellow gold, Bulgari


	Dress, stylist’s own. Vintage necklace, yellow gold with yellow sapphire, citrines, and diamond, Bulgari

Last year, when HBO Films announced it would be making a movie based on the tour de force best seller Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, insiders and political watchers were not particularly surprised. After all, it made sense to spin the behind-the-scenes tell-all of the roller-coaster 2008 presidential campaign into Hollywood gold. The contents were juicy, the dialogue sharp, the sourcing impeccable, and the characters ripe for portrayal. Ed Harris as Senator John McCain was plausible; although years younger, one could envision Harris as the formidable Republican candidate—a touch of hair and makeup magic, and voilà. McCain’s senior strategist Steve Schmidt would be played by Woody Harrelson; fair enough. Ron Livingston as Mark Wallace, an instrumental advisor to the McCain campaign; Peter MacNicol as Rick Davis; sprightly Sarah Paulson as Nicole Wallace—yes, those are all good fits, no raised eyebrows there.

Going Rogue
However, it was the announcement of who would play vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin that had tongues wagging. Could Julianne Moore, the flame-haired, Manhattan-based actress with liberal leanings and a penchant for portraying complex middle-aged women in the throes of personal ennui, take on Mama Grizzly, with her Alaskan accent, French-twist updos, power suits, and gesticulations with a wink? Could Moore, as Palin famously put it, go rogue? “It never crossed my mind that I’d be asked to do it; it really came out of left field,” says Moore from her West Village home on a recent weekday afternoon, recalling her initial reaction to being offered the part. “So I sort of, well, I said yes, and then I didn’t really think about it until after I’d hung up the phone. And then I thought, Holy cow, how am I going to do this? But I was really intrigued by the idea, and that’s always how I prefer to start a project.”

What followed was an intense period of preparation, perhaps more than for any of her other roles. Moore had to wrap her brain around the notion of this character, someone whose personal beliefs were not only diametrically opposed to her own, but who was also very much alive and fresh in the minds of most Americans. “It was a crazy, crazy challenge just to attempt to portray her—a living and extremely well-known and well-documented figure,” says Moore. “I basically had two months to prepare, so I cleared my schedule of everything, literally. I cleared everything that didn’t involve my family—I just let go of it and spent all of my time doing the research.” Moore spent days with a vocal coach, watching Palin footage, listening to her vocal patterns, and reading everything that had been written about her. “It was total immersion. The trickiest thing is to take all these physical and vocal characteristics and somehow filter the character’s essence through them. And then you personally have to meet them somewhere, too. There’s this melding that has to happen.” If you’re thinking this is more than mere impersonation, you’re correct; Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live it most assuredly is not.

However, for Moore, playing Palin in Game Change, which debuts on March 10, meant more than conquering Palin’s physical mannerisms. It also meant coming to understand her public persona and the impact of her meteoric rise on the political stage. “She was so electrifying as a figure,” says Moore of Palin’s emergence, which changed everything about McCain’s campaign and altered the 2008 race for the White House. “One of the main things they talk about in the book, and we also talk about it a lot in the film, is the nature of charisma and star quality—and what that means to people and why they respond to it. We expect [candidates] to lead, and we expect them to be like movie stars, and that’s a pretty tall order.” Moore’s heat-seeking intellect quickly zeroed in on Palin’s advantage and the nature of candidate popularity as a whole. “We continue to respond to people who are the most charismatic. And it seems to me, when you have a candidate like [Palin] who has a natural ability to reach people, that sometimes shoves every other quality out the door.”

As Moore delved into the book and the background maneuverings while doing her research, she developed a visceral sense of what drove Palin’s popularity. Moore says she understood implicitly the qualities Palin used to keep Americans riveted to her every move. “Here’s a woman who’s a parent, who’s an actual working mother, who worked her way up from local government, who was definitely middle working class, married to a commercial fisherman. She was incredibly relatable, she was attractive, she was young; she was speaking to a wide portion of the population that didn’t feel that they’d been noticed or seen or heard,” explains Moore, sounding every inch the political historian. “In a way, she was representing an entire swath of the public that had previously felt invisible.”

Moore Reflects on Palin and Washington
That said, when Moore is asked if she could envision a country with Palin as part of the executive branch, her response is swift and decisive. “She was not qualified to be vice president. She wasn’t a qualified candidate. I think that became quite evident during the campaign.” For Moore, Palin’s deft ability to adapt to the spotlight, once it was firmly locked upon her, showed that the governor’s real talents lay with playing the media. “It was so shocking to me when she resigned the governorship of Alaska when the presidential election was over. I was stunned. I just think that shows such an unbelievable lack of interest in the actual governing.”

While filming Game Change, directed by Jay Roach and produced by Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, and Roach, Moore also came to understand the climate of Washington, and its uncanny ability to transform heretofore unknowns into headline-grabbing political powerhouses, churning them out at a pace to satisfy our 24-hour-news-cycle obsession. “I had no idea what really goes into making a candidate,” Moore says, admitting her lack of knowledge about the inside-the-Beltway playbook and its at times cutthroat tactics. “I was actually shocked by how close it was to the way Hollywood markets an actor or a film or any idea. It’s about a very careful kind of exposure, and putting candidates on with one anchor and then another anchor, and limiting appearances and using everything very strategically.”

Personally, Moore, 51, isn’t a stranger to Washington and its outlying suburbs. She spent part of her early years here, including a couple at JEB Stuart High School in Falls Church, Virginia. Her sister still lives in the area, as does her father, a retired military judge and Army colonel. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Boston University in 1983, Moore embarked on her acting career, moving to New York City and eventually landing roles on soap operas and then in feature films. Her work has earned her accolades as one of the greatest actresses of her generation: four Oscar nominations and six Golden Globe nominations. She continues to work steadily and has the luxury of selecting from most of the industry’s choicest roles. “I just wrapped two independent films—What Maisie Knew, based on the Henry James novel of the same name, and another that’s a comedy called The English Teacher.” (Moore tries her best to limit her work to school vacations so she can be home with her two children—Caleb, 14, and Liv, nine— and her husband, director Bart Freundlich.)

As the 2012 presidential campaign roars on—a process that Moore describes as “hard to watch right now”—the actress recalls her thoughts as a spectator in 2008. “I would say, as a registered Democrat and a longtime liberal, I think that I speak for a lot of women when I say that when [Palin] burst onto the scene, the way that she did that was pretty terrifying because I really felt like, Oh my gosh, the Republicans might have this election. She was so electrifying as a figure. It kind of blew everyone away.” Despite her political leanings, Moore comes off as ambivalent about Palin’s future impact on the national landscape. “I don’t know, I really don’t know,” Moore says, her voice trailing off. “She is somebody who seems to have less of a political voice over the past few years and more of a kind of, well, pop-culture aspect to her life. I do think that if there hadn’t been a Sarah Palin, I don’t know if there would be some of the candidates we have this year.” For her part, Palin has kept relatively mum on the film and what may come of Moore’s portrayal. In March of last year, she told Sean Hannity on his Fox News program that she will “just grit my teeth and bear whatever comes what may with that movie.”

When we ask Moore for any parting thoughts about Palin, her response is measured. “That’s a really tough question to answer, because I’m not in the business of trying to slant anything one way or another with my work. I think all of us felt that way on this film. There were two chapters in a book that we were representing, so what we wanted to do was to be as accurate as we possibly could be with these people,” she says. “You have a responsibility to illuminate that person, to capture whatever their essence is, or to find their humanity—the stuff that makes them who they are. At the end of the day, I’m never going to be Sarah Palin. Thankfully, only Sarah Palin is Sarah Palin.”

Heart to Heart

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:49:00 -0500

The American Heart Association brings its black-tie Heart Ball to the District to celebrate triumphs against heart disease. With a cocktail reception, a silent and live auction, dinner and dancing to Retrospect, honor this year’s three Heart Heroes: two members of the U.S. Air Force and a cardiac surgeon who founded the Living Heart Foundation. The latter, which debuted mobile cardiovascular screening, is fundamental in helping diagnose emergency workers at Ground Zero. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, 1700 Tyson’s Boulevard

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIM JOHNSON PHTOGRAPHY/WWW.PICTURESTORYSTUDIO.COM