Thursday, 6 Nov 2003

LOS ANGELES, Calif.

I don’t know how Rebecca does it. Yesterday I tackled the fullest to-do list I’ve had in a long time, and by the end of it all, I was pretty tuckered out. With her company, les Egoistes, which specializes in creative services (event production, styling, personal shopping, etc.), she does this all the time. I have to say that it required a lot more energy than any fieldwork I’ve had to do, including coming down out of the Himalayas after the snow leopard project I did. I got home last night and full-on collapsed on the bed. But … it was all worth it!

So the day started, or was supposed to start, at 9:00 a.m. with a trip to Venice Beach to check out the Johnny B. Wood store for vintage modern furniture. Turns out they didn’t open until noon. So we went to check out the Paper Bag Princess for vintage designer dresses for the models to wear at the Business for Social Responsibility event. Also not open till noon. So after a bit of coffee we thought we could at least check out the Fred Siegel store nearby. Turns out they have a bunch of great vintage stuff that has been refashioned and one of the salespeople was a guy we knew from Seattle. Crazy. He gave us a good tip on some other vintage furniture stores, Modernica and Modern Objects, so we did end up with a few great finds to rent for our event. After all the furniture stops, we went back to the Paper Bag Princess where Rebecca loved the designer stuff and their bulldog loved me. Yes, I spent most of the time at PBP trying to keep Luciano, the bulldog, off my leg. He was sweet … he was just a little too sweet on me.

Next it was off to Venice Beach for Johnny B. Wood. We ended up with all kinds of great finds for the registration areas and reception we’re styling for BSR. And the owner, John, was a really great guy, really into SSF, and ended up giving us a great deal on rentals. We also hooked up with a friend of a friend down here in L.A. who does set design for a lot of the studios. Needless to say, he had all kinds of great leads for us on prop houses. The “CSR Savvy Lounge” (CSR stands for corporate social responsibility) that we’re cooking up is going to be so cool!

With the sourcing done for the day, it was time to get all dolled up for the Environmental Media Association (EMA) Awards. The moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. What did Sean and Rebecca wear? Here goes: I wore some cool Donald J Pliner shoes, some really cool gray pants, and a black three-button sport coat I found at Value Village. My white shirt was one that I’ve had for a long time and my cufflinks were by Lois Hill, a jewelry designer out of New York and Thailand who is 100-percent committed to social and environmental responsibility. She uses all women-owned companies in Thailand to produce her jewelry, which is really cool. Rebecca was the eye-catcher, though. Her piece de resistance was a long skirt by Seattle designer Andrew Dyrdahl made out of recycled parachute material. It was beautiful and everyone was asking about it.

A funny thing happened on the way to the EMAs … As I was waiting for Rebecca outside the hotel, all of the valets wanted to know more about our rented Honda Civic Hybrid. A couple of them had already driven it and others said they wanted to try it out, including the bellhop. It was the first one they’d seen. Caused quite a buzz in front of the Century Plaza Hotel with our little “Holly Golightly.”

As far as the EMA Awards go, they were incredible — even better than last year. We, of course, arrived in Holly Golightly (although the Toyota Prius was by far the star of the show, with Toyota being the premier sponsor and all). Rob Schneider was the MC and didn’t hold back a bit on his jokes. The standard celebs were there: Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her husband Brad Hall, Wendy Malick, Soleil Moon Frye, David Spade, Amy Smart, etc.

Lots of incredible nominees this year and even more amazing projects going on that EMA is spearheading. The one that really surprised me was the BP Solar Neighbors program, which Edward Norton helped to establish, in which a celeb buys a solar system for their house and then BP Solar matches it by outfitting a house in a low-income area with solar, both to provide more clean power and to reduce the electricity bills of low-income families. Pretty cool. Norton also was awarded the EMA Futures award. The EMA’s Mission in Music Award went to Alanis Morissette in recognition of all of her social and environmental efforts.

The post party is always incredible with all sorts of free gifts — organic cheese, Aveda products, and other great environmentally friendly goodies. The food is always outstanding, put together by a collection of chefs and other food producers (Organic Valley Farms, Whole Foods Market, etc.), so we were completely spoiled. And, of course, a lot of schmoozing going on. Ran into Danny Seo and the Organic Style staff, and folks from Under the Canopy (an organic clothing line), and I made a special point of finding the BP Solar folks to talk about their project.

All in all, a really great event for EMA, for us, and most of all for the environment. With this kind of thing going on it can only serve to effect even more change in the TV, film, and music industries and continue to inspire many current and future environmentalists going forward.

A huge thank you to Warner Brothers and Aveda for providing us with tickets. Rebecca and I took lots of notes and thought up a ton of ideas for our first annual Outstanding Sustainable Style Achievement (OSSA) Awards that we’ll be organizing for April 10, 2004.