Vanity Fair and Meryl Gordon's diatribe of "John Fairchild - Fashion's Most Angry Fella."

 Letter to Meryl Gordon.

Dear Meryl,

By chance I came across your Vanity Fair article on John Burr Fairchild, better known as Vain Unfairchild.  An interesting lovable roast/diatribe of which I read every word.  Why? You ask.  Surprises me as well but I had my day with him, you might say, that lasted about seven years from 1962 until 1968.

Not he, directly at the beginning in 1962, unless in the background of his editors and illustrators who discovered me and continuously supported me until 1968.  I never met the man, however, I might have seen him from a distance at one of the Met Museum's "Party of the Year" or the Coty Awards when I received a first time Special Coty for fabric design.  WWD was very kind to me in those first couple of years especially with their coverage of my first Spring/Summer fashion collection by writing:  "The Launching of Luksus." February 1966.

It was after this that I believe John started editing or writing about me anonymously or using the name of one of his editors I had grown to respect.  It started with "Will Success Spoil Tzaims Luksus?"  It puzzled me why suddenly for no rason WWD would introduce this idea. Well by early December of that same year, 1966, indeed success did almost ruin me but not by John, though perhaps by him contacting one of my backers on my board of directors, most likely John Griffith McCullough or his 2nd wife Jane Fiske McCullough, by planting doubt's in their minds about trusting me.  Jane, whose husband created her honorary chair of my board, came down on me like a bull in a china shop at our December board meeting at the historic McCullough Mansion in North Bennington, Vermont.  The details of her behavior would curdle the milk in a mother's breast!  Their demand was to reorganize both my two corporations in my name as acting President, distributing powers over me and my vice president, Miriam Kellogg Fredenthal, head of textile engineering and production, to their favorite political candidates and reduce my non-par stock promised when we broke even, which happened that year, from 50% to 20%.

It led me to withdrawing and dissolving both my corporations blocking them from trading under my name and letting them have all the corporate physical property which they thrilled to take possession of.  Operating on their own they went bankrupt in 6 months.  John Fairchild must have been laughing his jocky shorts off drinking champagne, had he arranged this coup d'tat of my corporations.

After considering seriously my position I felt better off without this board that were devious and meeting behind my back and delaying the production of orders for three years.  It made more sense to dismiss them though I had to give up all I had strenuously worked to achieve.  Yet in truth I was better off without it or them trying to control my life. Of course they stripped me of most everything insisting I sign an agreement not to reveal anything about the reason I separated from them.  Only they were allowed to make a press release to the world press which resulted in the NY Times headline:  "Luksus is Out in Dispute." which was far from the truth.  My board of directors were out since without me they had nothing! Not me since now I was free!

I was left to suffer in silence:at first but my natural creativity and positive nature led me to greater and freer opportunities.  C'est la vie!

I didn't associate John Fairchild had any hand in this coup at the time.  It wasn't until February 1968, after I partnered with Rebekka Harness and took my haute couture collection to the Hotel Crillon, engaging Percival Savage as my public relations manager in Paris, to show along side Dior, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and other great houses, that I suspected John Fairchild, through Pierre Berge, who actually wrote the article in WWD, choosing the most unflattering photo of me, and rather than covering my Paris collection, wrote a character assassination diatribe about my personal life under Eugenia Sheppard's name and in her column since now she worked for him.

Eugenia wouldn't have written this kind of put down. if any at all, or at least not that way since she had a sense of humor in her condemnations of designers.  This was brutal untruth!  Yes she was upset sitting through my collection having left her eye glasses in her hotel room screaming for Joe Eula, who was her eyes at collections, but also Eleanor Lambert didn't show at her side having been angry that I hired Persival Savage instead of her for my PR in Paris.  Eleanor giving the excuse she was poisoned by Lobster at the Plaza Athene Hotel and returning to NYC., but it was Bill Cunningham's ornery plot to advise me to hire Percy Savage in Paris.  A great suggestion of course but Bill knew it would infuriate Eleanor.  Of course Bill didn't show or report on my Paris collection either and distanced himself from me after though among my closest friends before hand.  Halston, still making hats for me that I designed and acted as a minor assistant always hanging around with me, remained loyal until he was backed by DiDi and John Ryan in his own RTW operation on Madison Avenue.  He became distant after moving into the Olympic Tower and becoming a Cocaine addict frequenting Rubel's Studio 54 with Liza Minelli.

As far as my Paris put down by the US fashion press is concerned I was now certain it first came from Pierre Berge of Saint Laurent, not Yves himself since I knew him as kind and friendly, though perhaps not so since I having been publicized as being American of Russian origin, Yves named his Pug dog, Muzik, the Russian word for peasant and created his Russian collection immediately after my presentation, but John Fairchild and Pierre Berge obviously plotted to destroy my career.  Why?  The fashion press in NYC hated Rebekka Harness so I assumed to further destroy her they attacked me not only being financed by her but also by the fact she chose to back me over her snobbing every fashion designer on Seventh Avenue and only favoring Mainboche in NYC and Balenciaga in Paris before me.  Now I was her favorite haute couturier that seventh Avenue and Paris tried to destroy, she places me on top of world fashion.  

Fortunately for me Rebekka fulfilled my dream to be on top over Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, I had at the end of those seven years realized how vicious some fashion editors, store executive, buyers, and fashion designers could be and didn't even offer to sell anything from my collection in Paris, so I easily walked out at the height of my career having taken that last step to the top of the Paris Haute Couture.  I knew staying up there could be dangerous and the only way out was to be pushed down so I just stepped off the top smiling and walking on ratified air like the young Fool on a Tarot card but also taking the imagined spiritual form as the young Magician also on a Tarot card.

I needed a break and no longer needed to prove my worth or to continue creating collections to please the fashion press.  My Paris collection was my thank you to them for awarding me a Coty Award.  They panned it.  Their loss.  Not mine. I continued designing fabrics having seven offices throughout Europe, finally made some money for my efforts, and never stepped foot on Seventh Avenue again. I decided I would return like Balenciaga did after several years or decades but this time as the White Raven King. My incognito name a/k/a Uskglass-Luksus!

It has been about 54 years when 15 September 2022 Megan Mayhew Bergman, a fiction writer, submitted a story about me to be published in Harper's Bazaar that finally included photos taken of me and my models at the Hotel Carillon in Paris in 1968, courtesy of Getty and Keystone-France, based on her collected gossip about me including amusing psychological notions for my artistic ability and tragedies in my personal family life.  C'est la vie.

Now googling all those characters long dead in the fashion world that I knew and know so well I decided to google John Fairchild not really knowing much about him other than seeing a clip of him in a Halston video at the Olympic Tower dancing on Halston's brand new delicate black Chinese lacquered cocktail table, drinking Champagne from a flute glass, dressed in black tie wearing, black patent leather shoes.  It was from this I realized what a total xxx xxxx he really was.

Then voila!  I find your Vanity Fair "tongue in cheek diatribe lovable roast" about him.  Thank you!  Just what I needed to finally have closure on that period in my life.  To finally know the truth about him and to confirm my theories and suspicions about him.  

You wrote that in 2012 and I hoped he was dead but reading that must have been super cool for him.  Then I found his obituary from 2015.  Being a devout Catholic he must have gone to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory suffering an exorcism by his favorite priest.  Hell would be too good for him.  He would have loved it.  Purgatory would be boring but somewhat comforting.  His Hell would be in Heaven meeting up with all the innocent spirits he condemned and brutalized.

I am now going on 92 years of age living in Rangoon and as in life I trust I will never meet up with him again anywhere in the spirit world.  His Heavenly Hell is simple, a single cell where he can ponder his achievements.  AMEN!

You may wish to google my name, probably never having heard of me before.  I am not aware of ever hearing about you until now.  I have two blogspots.  One as Tzaims' blogspot and one under my Russian name: Yusupov Luksiev blogspot.  Be sure to check the Luksiev one under Tzaims Luksus blogger.

I copied this long message to you from my original email draft not yet sent.  I felt sending it exclusively to you it might end up deleted or discarded in your circular file at Conde Nast or Vanity Fair.  Remember I also knew Si and Mitzy Newhouse having sat with them at many a "Party ofvthe Year.  Anna "Medusa" Wintour is also somewhere lurking in the shadows of Conde Nast.  Never knew about you or Jonathon before.

Those dedicated fashion editors to me were Diana Vreeland, Virginia Pope and Ernestine Carter, loyal and faithful friends to me until their lives ended on earth. May they rest in peace!