horsing around at hermes

October 24, 2008

Kelly Klein took a break from signing copies of her new book, Horse, last night at the Hermès store on Madison Avenue to flex her fingers. She had on a pair of fingerless, knitted woolen hand warmers, reminiscent of the gloves jockeys wear. “I wore the gloves because I thought they were kind of a sexy, horsey addition to my outfit, to my Hermès dress,” she said. The book, a collection of fashion images and vintage photography, is of equine proportions—so massive, in fact, that some guests had to have their copies carried up the stairs and out to the car for them. “I said, ‘You know, Kelly, I really think the size is so spectacular, let’s use that space in the design,’” said the book’s creative director, Sam Shahid. “You really feel like you’re riding that horse.”


Well-wishers included Tory Burch and Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer. “I always went to the Hampton Classic,” said the latter. “And I rode for a very, very short period of time, but not the way Kelly does!” Calvin Klein reminded us that at one time he himself had joined Kelly in her equestrian pastime, but suffered that terrible fall. “I was in a cast for about seven months on my back,” he recalled. “I just gave up riding. I thought, ‘I’m not going to push my luck.’ So that was that.”