Surely, you all know of designer Raven Kauffman's spectacular couture
'Metamorphosis' evening-bag collection in homage to the Marchesa Casati? If not,
follow this link to the original posting on it here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marchesacasati/message/654

To see these drop-dead-stunning bags, visit Raven's site and check them out
under the 'Past Collections' section:
http://ravenkauffmancouture.com/

Earlier today, the Los Angeles Times (23 August 2009) featured an article on Ms.
Kauffman's newest collection. In it, the Los Angeles-based Raven notes how
Casati biography 'Infinite Variety' actually lead her to become a designer.

'Raven Kauffman: Evolution of an Evening-bag Designer'

She used to shop for a living -- at the highest end of the market. Now the
former 'luxury lifestyle consultant' is letting her creativity fly.

Raven Kauffman makes a smooth segue from 'luxury lifestyle consultant' to
evening bag designer.

By Booth Moore (Fashion Critic)

Imagine buying so many outfits at Neiman Marcus that you need a moving truck to
get them all home. Or ringing up 20 pairs of Christian Louboutin stilettos at a
clip.

The only catch? None of it is for you.

That's just another day at the office for "luxury lifestyle consultant" Raven
Kauffman. The former wardrobe stylist and fashion publicist came by the job
accidentally in 2001 when a hotel concierge asked if she could take a guest
shopping. That turned into a permanent personal shopping gig, and other clients
soon came calling.

For the last few years, Kauffman has spent millions on art, cars and gifts for a
handful of Southern California's wealthiest people, who did not have the time
(or sometimes the taste) to spend it themselves. Spending for a living has
showed her the pleasures that money can bring, as well as the pain. And now that
the economy is forcing everyone to rethink, she is shopping less and dreaming
more.

Not that she is renouncing fashion exactly, but rather designing it herself.
Because if there is anything Kauffman has learned from having her finger on the
pulse of the luxury lifestyle, it's what makes something desirable. She recently
launched her own line of evening bags. Less "it" accessories than timeless
objets d'art, they're so striking you don't know whether to carry them or to
display them on your mantle. They are made with exquisite materials, including
beetle wings, pheasant feathers, semi-precious stones and Art Nouveau laser-cut
metal plates depicting flowers and birds.

They're the sort of pieces she might have sought out for her clients -- all
people outside the entertainment industry. There is the multi-billionaire with a
penchant for collecting everything from Bakelite jewelry to Dior Couture.
Kauffman has amassed 1,000 distinct collections for her, cataloging, preserving,
storing and caring for them, as well as creating accompanying reference
libraries.

And the executive who handed Kauffman his black American Express card and said,
"Make my life beautiful." It was a task that involved custom designing his
suits, decorating his houses and the interior of his plane, selecting his cars
-- everything down to choosing the photos of his wife and children to go on his
desk.

Then there is the housewife who wanted an unforgettable birthday present for her
husband -- 50 extraordinary gifts for 50 extraordinary years. The goodies
Kauffman came up with included a Picasso, a new wardrobe, a vintage Patek
Philippe clock and a trip to Las Vegas on a private plane with $25,000 worth of
poker chips inside.

She developed a style questionnaire to help get to know her clients, but has
used it only once -- just seeing them is usually enough. "If I got a visual on
them, I pretty much knew by the end of the meeting what to do," she says. "And
being allowed into their personal space helped."

In the beginning, Kauffman remembers, it was difficult having so many pretty
things around her. She would buy something for a client and something for
herself.

"I won't say I was jealous; I was envious. Sometimes just having it in my house
for 24 hours, because I would bring things home and then deliver them to
clients, I was able to say, 'OK, I'm done with it.' But it definitely fueled my
desire for more stuff, and I definitely amassed more stuff than any person needs
in the eight years I did this level of personal shopping." At the height of her
business, she employed three full-time assistants, more during the holidays when
she was in charge of gift-giving for her 11 clients.

It's easy to see how her business got rolling. There is something intoxicating
about Kauffman's personal style -- she's a more eccentric version of Martha
Stewart. In her house, she transformed a basic IKEA mirror into a showpiece with
a glue gun and some seashells, and an IKEA desk into an Art Deco accessory with
a little glitter, paint and a traced Erté design. She strung the coral
chandelier in her dining room herself and put a disco ball in her fireplace.

Her closet is full of high-drama clothes -- jeweled Tory Burch tunics, a vintage
1920s gown that makes her look as if she were "tattooed in gold," she says, and
a gorilla fur jacket bought from a showgirl in Las Vegas for $200.

The daughter of a knitwear designer and an interior decorator, Kauffman, who
grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, is inspired by history's rare birds ( Diana
Vreeland, Peggy Guggenheim, Elsie de Wolfe), and could just be one herself. It
was "Infinite Variety," a book by Scot D. Ryersson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino
about Marchesa Luisa Casati, the Italian aristocrat who kept cheetahs for pets,
and whose former home is now the Guggenheim Museum in Venice, that inspired
Kauffman to become a designer.

While reading it for the sixth or seventh time, she had a dream of a woman's
hands holding a notebook and turning the pages. On each page was a different
handbag. After she woke up, Kauffman used every scrap of paper she could find to
sketch the designs, 16 total, which became her first collection.

Her "Rara Avis" fall collection, $1,195 to $2,290, is her third. It is sold at
the Church and Des Kohan boutiques in L.A., Tender Birmingham in Michigan and
Kirna Zabete in New York, and can be seen at her website, www.ravenkauffman.com.
Demi Moore, Dita Von Teese and Lake Bell are fans of Kauffman's creations, which
are hand-crafted by artisans in Italy, where the designer oversees every detail,
even pointing out the exact cuts she wants made in a stone.

Naturally, her personal shopping clients have been supporters too. "It's getting
hard to find something they haven't seen before," Kauffman says. "Everything is
so homogenized, it's splashed over a million magazine pages or so-and-so has
worn it so they don't want it. But there are still people out there who want
something unique. And luxury to me is uniqueness."


LINKS
Los Angeles Times article:
http://www.latimes.com/features/image/la-ig-diary23-2009aug23,0,7243458.story

Raven's Official Site
http://ravenkauffmancouture.com/

Earlier Postings on Raven Kauffman:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marchesacasati/message/656

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marchesacasati/message/662

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marchesacasati/message/671