'We Used to Never Acknowledge Them, Today They're Our Badges of Success'

Editor’s Note: Featuring special guest Joni Evans, CEO of wowOwow.

JONI: How is it that hairdressers and decorators and divorce lawyers and Reiki masters are the gurus that we all aspire to have at our dinner tables, when only 20 years ago, or maybe even 10 years ago, we never even mentioned their names? But now, “Oh, so-and-so is coming to our table, or will be at our party.” It seems that we revere the help.

LILY: Well, certain help, I guess. I mean, I don’t. I think we’re all so fragile and insecure that they give us some kind of a validation. We aspire to fulfill their vision of us.

JULIA: I think you’re right. Like in the case of my aunt, who is now dead: She was fairly lonely and a sort of manipulative person and her friends, the ones that she knew she could control — she would buy these people as her friends by buying major amounts of clothes from her dressers. They’d come down and make all her stuff. And so the more she bought, the more, of course, this guy kowtowed to her and they became “friends.” But, of course, it didn’t have anything like a friendship that I would like to have. Same thing with this jewelry designer that would come and do trunk shows in Nashville where she lived. I mean, if you buy a billion dollars worth of baubles from people, all of the sudden they’re going to be your best friend. I think that’s part of it.

And all these women need walkers still. You know, a lot of these socialites — their husbands don’t want to go to the kinds of parties they like to go to. So their hairdresser, especially if he’s good looking … I mean, that’s one way that Frédéric Fekkai sort of made it. All these women whose hair he did sort of fell for him. And then, of course, these guys get really rich and it’s like every other sphere of influence. How do you best break into society since the time well before Edith Wharton? Make a lot of money and you muscle your way into it and people are tantalized by money. Hairdressers and all those kinds of guys are richer than a lot of people I know these days.

JONI: But isn’t it also true that they become our gurus? I mean, this has been happening for a while. There have been the Billy Baldwins. But then there were the Calvin Kleins and then suddenly there was the plastic surgeon that everybody thought was the most extraordinary person.

SHEILA: Who? Which one? I said I wouldn’t enter this conversation, but I’m getting —

JONI: Baker. Baker became —

JULIA: Dan Baker. Yeah, and he married —

JONI: Dan Baker became part of society and then — who was the one on Park Avenue? But, I mean, he’s high society now. You should have Sherrell Aston grace your table. I mean, you would never think to be out with your plastic surgeon, but these people have become the same as decorators. The same is true of life coaches.

SHEILA: Oh, I know. I have people whose trainers are like their best friends and have them over for dinner all the time.

JULIA: No, I agree with you about the trend and I think, in some ways, it’s because of a lack of spirituality, or just some kind of hole in these people’s lives. Maybe they should be reading the Book. But instead they are going to their yogis and their this and their that. And these guys become sort of hyper-important in their lives. But I think that’s like … you know, even larger than … that these guys are getting to be the elite. I think they have all kinds of control over women.

SHEILA: But I think the trainer and plastic surgeon and all that — they become the sort of keys to immortality for people.

JULIA: There you go.

SHEILA: And you have them to dinner because they have that kind of magic touch. I mean, if you invite your plastic surgeon, he won’t make a mistake. If you invite your exercise teacher, you won’t have flabby arms. If you invite your hairdresser, he’ll do the dye job twice. I think there’s a kind of immortal connection you get to these people; that they’ll keep you on the sort of youth track. Because it doesn’t make any sense, these are just, you know, hairdressers and gymnasts.