Hollywood’s Top Stylist Shares the Travel Rules She Lives By | Elizabeth Saltzman

24:16You know, and I went to, where did I go? In Kenya. I was at in Kewaew or Kalifi somewhere. I can't remember. And, and I ran into someone who said, oh, you know, Polymelan at Vogue. She was here 20 years ago shooting. I have something for her. And it was just a return because she had written to him, but he couldn't figure out how to find her. And it was just, it was, and I thought, that's inspirational.

24:48Tanya Rose:That's lovely. And so, um, Jefferson and I... So you gave it to her? Yeah, absolutely. And Jefferson and I had started that for our friends and just kept leaving notes for people, you know. I did mine handwritten because I can't type. But I... And you did that at the Hemingway Bar? Yeah, absolutely. So is Colin your favorite barman around the world? Being that I've yet to have any alcohol, but I spent so much time in bars and clubs, I think Colin was the one who welcomed me and allowed me to create a drink. And, oh, my God, I can't say the name because it's so embarrassing, but I did create...

25:29We created a drink called the Slick Willy. Because it was... We thought it was really dirty and naughty to say it, like a dirty martini, but I wasn't even thinking what a slick willy could mean.

25:41Tanya Rose:I'm so stupid, but it was really about a cucumber drink, this fun cucumber, my version of a drink. So I didn't look like a moron when everyone was having fun drinking. I looked like I wasn't drinking just water. I was having the best time drinking my drink that became a drink. And did you just used to say, I'll have one of my drinks so that you didn't have to say, I will have a slick willy, Well, I definitely, definitely don't think I ever use the terms like Willie, but I'm quite proud of it. Now I would not be embarrassed at all. That's so funny. Where else do you like eating or drinking around the world?

26:15You know, I think that there's, again, your spots. You know, when you go to Venice, everybody wants to go on the first night to Harry Cipriani because it's the original. But, you know, Dom Berto or, you know. Absolutely. You know, you find your holes in the walls that are great. You know, most Americans would go in Paris to Lamy-Louis. Well, I wouldn't. I would much rather go to Voltaire or to like the tiniest six-seat sushi place, you know, finding. Where the locals go. Somewhat locals or just.

26:55Tanya Rose:Smaller. It doesn't need to be gilded. Yeah. You know, I'd rather go to grandma's. Like one of my favorite places in New York is a place where grandmas cook. Nanas of the world is one of those funny discoveries. And it was much funnier before it became famous, but really it gave... You always want someone's home-cooked meal without having to put anybody under pressure. So someone bought a restaurant, and now I think there's even a film about it. Yeah, but many moons ago, it was great. But I like smaller places where I can hear myself think. Yeah, me too. And then, of course, I fall prey to all the traps as well, because if it's that good, it must be that good.

27:44But I'm really simple. I want fresh food. Yeah. I don't want fancy. I want to feel... It's like going to the River Cafe. Yeah, my favorite in London. I mean, there is no better situation in the world.

27:59Tanya Rose:Ruthie's been on the podcast, and I love her. And she just makes everyone feel welcome, I think. It's astounding. Ruthie is, I mean, we wake up and we call each other, and then at the end of the night, we'll call each other. And she is the definition of goodness. She really is so kind. And I love the fact she comes to say hello to people, but she doesn't linger. She's a great hostess. It's so much more. She's also raised so, not just her own family. And she's been through so much. Yeah, she has. And she has always found a positive when things were just shite. Yeah. And I just, I learned a lot from her.

28:49She's one of my favorite people And that is one of my favorite restaurants in the world.

28:54Tanya Rose:Yeah, me too. I just had my 60th birthday there. I had the best time. I had my 60th birthday there. Yeah, it's a wonderful place to do it. Yeah, I didn't tell anybody. It was a table of six of us and I didn't tell anybody. Oh, I had a great time. It was wonderful. So let's go on to the next travel secret. What is your top travel tip? Pack less. Pack less. Pack nothing. You don't need it. To me, it's figuring out what will make, what's the most stressful thing about travel. It's loss of a suitcase. It's what am I going to wear? It's what if I lose something? What if I lose my passport? So my biggest travel tips, I really should have read these questions before you asked me things, didn't do my homework.

29:42But first of all, make sure you have three ways to get your identification. And I'm not joking about this. Everybody loses a passport at some point in their life. Have the information handy somewhere. Give it to a phone a friend. Have their number written down somewhere. So that's number one. Travel on only. I don't care if you're going for six weeks or six months or six climates. Travel on only. When there's a will, there's a way. Wear your heaviest coat, even if it's 34 degrees out. Wear your heaviest shoe. Don't bring a heavy shoe. There's no need. Think about what you actually need and how you can change it by just throwing on an earring or what can you do to go all the way from morning till night and always have your sunscreen?

30:40My goodness, why did my mother not tell me to pack sunscreen wherever I went? The amount of sunburns while traveling, that's no bueno. But honestly, biggest travel tip is have all of your information and pack less. Also, you always want to buy something. You want a memento from where you're going. and it might as well be something useful. So don't buy that flowery lei or that ridiculous hat that doesn't make sense in London, but go ahead and buy a shoe or a T-shirt. That every time you wear it,

31:17Tanya Rose:you'll remember that that's when you were in Mexico. Absolutely. That's such a funny tip though for you to give because as a stylist, I would have thought you would have taken so many clothes. I'm the worst packer, by the way. I cannot do hand luggage. I've tried many times, I could do it for you please do come over and teach me by the way it's not that I'm traveling with one dress I am traveling with six dresses minimum but I will only travel with two pairs of shoes plus the one on my feet so because no one's really looking down well I don't want them to look down that's one of my theories in life look up you know and so I think whatever light you can bring to your face, builds confidence.

32:01Wear your hair three different ways. No one's, I did a test at Fashion Week. No one caught it. Oh, really? What was that? It was two years. I wore the exact same outfit every single day. Yeah. No one figured it out. Right? So I had three white silk tops and I had one Belafroid velvet tuxedo. And all I did was change my jewelry, change my hair. Maybe I threw on some makeup once in a blue moon. Maybe I put on a heel. And every day people go, oh, I love what you're wearing. I'm like, really? I wore it yesterday. I wore the same thing to the Academy Awards for 17 years. One Calvin Klein strapless dress made in three different colors.

32:48so you don't always have to have more but you have to have better better and also change it up with the jewelry

33:00Tanya Rose:or the accessories or the hair or the smile or the eye makeup absolutely however you do your clients in incredible outfits and they always do look just sensational it's fun I'm working with Julia Garner this week and we're having such a good time. And Asa Gonzalez last week, and we had a good time. And you just, it's exciting to build females' confidence because I know when the difference between feeling like, oh, I feel confident from the inside, that means I've gotten eight hours of sleep, which has never happened once. But, you know, at least six or seven hours, it means that I've probably done Pilates.

33:45I've gone swimming and I've eaten well. I know from then I could wear anything and I'm okay. Because you feel good. Because I feel good. But I also know that the likelihood is I've had five hours or less of sleep. I am trying to balance too much. I'm trying to show up for everyone that matters. And I'm forgetting about myself. And when I don't feel like I look good or that I'm representing my brand, not a brand that's for sale, by the way. There is no brand. But if I don't feel like I look, like I would like to show people, I don't feel confident. And I can say that building people's confidence on a carpet of all places, the most unnatural place, it's all fantasy.

34:36It's what Las Vegas was supposed to be in my mind.

34:40Tanya Rose:Yeah. You know, but making them feel good and having fun out there in the most like criticized, repulsive, judgmental, anything. Rather than saying, wow, you look great. You look great. People are just ready to shred people to bits. And by the way, I think those thoughts sometimes too. Why? Why? Why don't we build people up? Yeah. It's more exciting. But I think when I look at somebody like Jodie Comer or Gwyneth Paltrow, they always look lovely, but they look comfortable. And in their own skin, and I'm sure that that's very much with your help as well. No, I think Gwyneth and I have a great understanding.

35:24We've worked together for a very long time. And I think that it's still an unnatural, frustrating thing. and you want to feel good. And I respect Gwyneth so much because she allows me and her to take risks and she's the one who's going to get the kick in the pants publicly. I'm not. Most people, I can hide. I'm not the boldface name. She's the boldface name and people love to hate on people. And so the first time I did a dress that was sideless, meaning knicker-free, it was just... It was Roland Marais. And I just remember getting a call from another designer and another brand owner saying, why did you do that to her?

36:22You're gonna ruin her. And meanwhile, I don't think anyone's wearing any clothes anymore. No. She started it and she was able to take the risk. And look fabulous. Yeah. Or going to the Met Ball and deciding to wear half of her outfit, not the bottom half. So she literally wore the top of a Prada dress. And I said to Mrs. Prada, I was like, she's not going to wear the whole look. I'm so sorry. She's like, she's great. She's 40 and she's got her legs out. How exciting. Fantastic. And that was someone who could see future and like, let her be herself. And so I really respect Gwyneth for putting herself on the line and taking risks because she feels confident.

37:04She looks good. She does. And Jodie Comer looks brilliant too.

37:07Tanya Rose:Well, Jodie's in a, I mean, Jodie's one of the finest talents in the world. She's such a great actress. We have stopped working together as stylists and I had to take some time off from styling this year because I was in Costa Rica trying to build a house. and watching Jodi grow and move on from me is so exciting to me because she is just epic. Yeah, she was incredible as Villanelle. But also, did you see her one woman play here? Of course, Prima Fessy. It was incredible. So while she was working on that, I sensed this different woman and I thought something was wrong Oh, really? Because I wasn't hearing her, and I wasn't hearing from her, and she wasn't laughing, and things weren't light, and I hadn't read the script.

38:02And I decided to surprise her, and I flew back for one of the preview nights, the first preview night, and I just stood in line to get my ticket. I didn't tell her, yeah, absolutely. You've got to do things like everyone else, because then I can say to my sons, go get a ticket, go wait online. You can do that. If I'm not willing to do that, I can't tell someone else to go do that. You go fly economy and see how comfortable that is for 12 hours and then get off a plane and work. If I'm asking an assistant to do that, now I'm saying, okay, we have to fly an economy or you have to fly an economy, but I'm going to give you 24 hours to recover, before we start to work because prices are too high and airlines don't understand that we're working and studios don't understand that we're working.

38:56And you got to just figure it out. But Jodi, when she was doing that play, when I saw that play. It was unbelievable, wasn't it? It was, wow. And now, and then I understood. And what a change she's making for all women and men of the world to speak up and not behave so poorly.

39:17Tanya Rose:Tell us about your house in Costa Rica. Please let it be finished soon. It's not grand. We really wanted a place where we could get together as a family without having to wear too many clothes and just be with nature and trees and animals and insects and scary insects and scary animals. But really just a place that's a little bit more healthy without it being forest health, natural health. I have never been, but everyone that has been says it's incredible. And we have some clients called Nayara. Yes, of course you do. Which are amazing, apparently. Costa Rica is a very special place with very special people and you don't need much again to live there.

40:15You have to think about the climate. It is both horrific rains and wild heat. And so what you want to think is how can I not use air conditioning? How can I think about dynamics of, oh, if I have windows open on three sides, the airflow will work without AC or, you know, I'm trying.

40:38Tanya Rose:I mean, they're much more conscious. And the owners of Nyara have built a whole mountain. I mean, they've given it all back. They've planted it. They've given jobs. They've built schools. I mean, it's really wonderful. It's super important. Yeah. And it's, it's, um, look, we are, there's very few people that I know that are not guilty of hurting our planet and saying, oh, just this once, or I'm just going to do this. But I really think a lot of companies are waking up. And even when I listen to the radio in the morning, I love to listen to music. And sometimes I like the radio because it lets me know where I am.

41:15Yeah. Because I often forget where I am. And then you hear the local news and it's quite fun, but I hear them saying, hey, while you're brushing your teeth, turn off the water. Or, hey, when you leave the house, does it matter if you keep the lights on or not anymore? Does that really conserve energy? And so I hear these ad campaigns on the radio often saying like, turn off the water.

41:42Tanya Rose:No, and actually my husband said that to me the other day. He said, why are you leaving that while you're brushing your teeth? I hadn't even thought about it. So, yeah, we are all guilty. Yeah, but we are all waking up finally. Finally, which takes us beautifully onto our next topic, which is what's your most poignant travel memory? I think it's wherever my emotions have come out most deeply. So I have a passion for Maui. I thought that was my forever home because it was the only place that had a very developed side of an island, which was all hotels and still all the wonderful... I'm saying it sarcastically, but if you're someone who goes on vacation and wants to shop at some of my favorite places like Tiffany or whatever, great.

42:39That's not what I want to do. I want to find locals who are making things. I find that so much more thrilling. But for tourism, it's very important to have upscale, wonderful luxury. For me, time is luxury. But I thought that Maui offered it all. So the first few times I went to Maui, I didn't know there was another side to the island. so I'd only been on the barefoot side, you know, so happy that, you know, it was just so groovy and so different than New York City. And one day, my then boyfriend, now husband, said, I'm going to go play golf. Will you pick me up in a couple of hours? Because we only had one car.

43:25And he said, it's about an hour away. I said, sure. I didn't know there was a golf course. And then there was a Four Seasons Hotel and every store, Louis Vuitton was there and Prada was there. And this, I was like, what just happened? What just, I felt like, I felt like it was a joke because I thought I was like so umshaka laka, you know, like just, I thought I was so groovy and I felt like such a jackass because I had no idea that this developed part of the island existed. But then I really started studying Maui and understood that only 70 % of it is, I mean, 70 % of it is still green. 30 % of it is developed.

44:06Oh, okay. And I thought, that's quite cool. That's the right way around. Yeah, that's the right way. And my favorite, there is a hike there that my friend, Buzzy Kerbox, just sent me a picture of him. His son flew him in his helicopter. His son's a helicopter pilot. Oh, cool. And Buzzy's this incredible big wave surfer. And he sent me a picture, because he always leads us on this hike. You cannot go hiking alone there. Oh, really? And this is one of the scariest hikes I've ever done in my life. But it took me to deep, emotional, happy place of struggling to get through a hike, fear of croaking, you know, really, and then euphoric at the end when you jump off this cliff into this magical cave and swim.

45:00And then you have to do it all in reverse to go home. Little did I know, I thought that someone would pick me up, but it's where I understood nature for the first time. And if you're a woman or a man, a person growing up in a box in New York City, you really think that's your world. That's what you know. It's no different than anyone else growing up anywhere else. Your world is what you know. And you don't realize that there's other worlds out there until you travel, which is why I like it when hotels treat each place individually, but sometimes have the luxuries that are familiar. So if you're staying in a peninsula, you know X will be there.

45:46But you also know that the colors will be different or the food will be different.

45:50Tanya Rose:Yeah, so there's a sense of place wherever you are in the world. So if you're in London, it's more London. If you're Paris, if it's Shanghai, it's a totally different vibe. And you want that. But you still want the familiarity of service or familiarity of bed's going to be really comfortable. I will get a great night's sleep. Did you, do you surf? I am a body surfer. So you do that when you go to Maui? Every day. But Maui and Costa Rica, every morning I'm in the water by 5, 5.30. I like to see moons set. Amazing. Not sunrise. I like to be in way before sunrise. Wow. Yeah, it's really important to me.

46:30Swimming, I think, has changed my life. Water is very important.

46:33Tanya Rose:So wherever you are in the world, you do a swim. Wherever I am, I will always swim. I swam today. I swam when I was in Paris two days ago. I swim. I love it. Water means everything and preferably not in a pool. So if you're in a city, you have to do it in a pool. You don't have to. I mean, in London, you don't have to. I mean, you could do the one in the Serpentine. I'm not doing the Serpentine, but I know my husband swims a little bit farther out, maybe in Hampstead. Yeah, Hampstead ponds are really great. Yeah, and I think you can always find things. I'm grateful to certain hotels that have pools.

47:15But I'm not a huge fan of swimming in a pool. I like the noise of being under and hearing the crashing wave. How wonderful.

47:25Tanya Rose:I love swimming. So I asked you to bring a photograph or tell me about a photograph and then we'll show the photograph that sort of sums up travel to you. Can you? So we've already discussed this, so I know what the picture is, but I love you to describe it. So if it's a picture of me traveling for myself, it's me not spending one extra minute in an airport. There is only ever carry-on. So it's me doing a mad dash and me being happy wherever it is. It would be a pair of fins. I always travel with flippers. I do. Yeah, so I can think of that picture because they're everywhere of me holding them up saying, landed.

48:05If it's me traveling for work, there's a lot of suitcases with everyone's initials on them and me usually trying to struggle by myself because I'm determined that I can do this on my own with some goofy colorful coat or something so that I'm easily findable to the poor person that I've asked to pick me up with my seven to 12 cases of fashion show stuff.

48:30Tanya Rose:That's brilliant to show the juxtaposition between the two. That's just so wonderful. Where are you going next? And what is next for you? Oh, well, I guess on Tuesday, I head to Los Angeles. That's next. And then on Thursday or Friday, it will be Costa Rica. And then on Sunday, it'll be Wisconsin. Is that for work, Wisconsin? Or is that holiday? That one's actually a family reunion on my husband's side, and then it'll be New York City for a campaign shoot. And then, who knows? You are on a plane more than I am. I am on a plane, but with respect to the environment. You have to give back. I really, I can't stress that enough to people to not, to think about our environment and figure out ways to give back.

49:30because I'm, again, guilt-ridden with that. It's painful. But again, there will be three weeks when I won't be on a plane at all.

49:39Tanya Rose:Will you be going to the Hamptons, to your house there, or is that a different time of year? I prefer to go to places not in season. My favorite times to travel, I wish I could take October off. I think that is the single greatest time of the year to travel because you can experience all of the best places with the best weather. Same as May, like going to Hedra in May, you know, before it opens. I like pregame and post. Yeah. No, I think those two months are actually my favorite months to travel too, because you don't have the crowds. The weather's usually nice in everywhere you go. well most places and it's just charming to see everything coming alive i went tost bart's which i loved actually but as it first opened just before thanksgiving yeah so there was nobody there literally just the first day the hotels were opening the first day the restaurants were opening the first day that the shops were opening and then apparently two weeks later it's absolutely mobbed you can't get anywhere the traffic's terrible but honestly that one week that i was I was charming.

50:51Tanya Rose:I loved it. Having been going there since you were a wee little person when there was no restaurant, just one rotisserie, there was one shop, not ten, and there were no cars. When we were growing up, there was no cars there. I stopped going there about 25 years ago, and my kids are very angry that that's not in my place anymore, but I think it's a wonderful place. I think there's so many wonderful places. I just, I long to be away from people because I love being with people. I love being with them. But then on my time, I want to be swinging with monkeys and swimming with the dolphins. Well, you are with people all the time.

51:37Tanya Rose:It's great. How lucky am I? I know. So that other time is definitely your time to be away. So Costa Rica, here you come. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. It has been such a joy and a delight to go around the world with you and to meet you finally after we have so many mutual friends. We have so many friends and good ones. And good ones. You've got solid good girls. As you do. Which is why we have the same friends. We're very lucky. It's been so lovely to meet you. Thank you so much for having me. I hope I made any sense. I'm exhausted. Thank you so much.

52:18Thank you.