Michèle Lamy’s longstanding role as business partner and creative collaborator to Rick Owens may have secured her status as one of the fashion world’s most beloved eccentrics. But an oft-forgotten fact is that back in the late ’90s, when the pair lived in Los Angeles, Lamy not only worked as an artist and designer but was also a successful restaurateur. (Her cult French restaurant, Les Deux Cafés, was established in 1996 on Las Palmas Avenue, and remained open until the couple moved to Paris in 2004.)
While the restaurant’s farm-to-table Provençal cuisine was a hit, it was Lamy’s knack for hospitality—as well as her distinctive approach to decor—that ensured the restaurant kept up a booming trade. “One thing not many people know is that, on my mother’s side, my grandfather was a famous chef in Lyon,” Lamy tells Vogue over the phone from Paris, where she and Owens are currently working from home. “I’ve always found that the gathering of people together is just as important as the food being served.” It’s these instincts that make up one of her many roles as a key collaborator for Owens, acting as, in her words, his “eyes and ears out in the world,” always on the hunt for interesting figures to bring into their creative orbit.
One such find is the Bronx-based culinary collective Ghetto Gastro, to whom Lamy was first introduced in the wake of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. “We were introduced through our friend Samira Cadasse, and Michèle told Samira that she wanted to do something with us in Paris,” explains Jon Gray, the collective’s CEO and cofounder. “Then, the Bataclan terrorist attacks rocked the world. Michèle had the vision to organize a gathering to promote love and uplift spirits, which is how we came together and first did ‘Thanksgiving for Peace’ at her and Rick’s home.”
The Thanksgiving dinner not only brought together a motley crew of Lamy’s neighbors and friends, but marked the beginning of a long and enduring friendship. Further collaborations with Ghetto Gastro have taken place everywhere from intimate dinners in the Bronx, to parties on a barge in Venice during the city’s Biennale art festival. “We all know Michèle’s aesthetic is A1, but I’d say we collided on a vibrational plane,” Gray continues. “From day one she’s treated us like family, and making magic is natural for her. She’s the ultimate curator.”
And while they currently find themselves on opposite sides of the world, the pair are continuing their conversation with a little help from Instagram Live, with Lamy appearing this past weekend on Ghetto Gastro’s quarantine cooking series, Gastronomical Cribs, chatting with both Gray and his collaborator Pierre Serrao. The ongoing series has featured an eclectic lineup of the team’s friends and collaborators, from Naomi Campbell to Tony Hawk to Samin Nosrat, with Gray and Serrao chatting to each of them while they cook one of their signature lockdown dishes.
On the menu for Lamy was a classic French dish of honey and mustard chicken with a tomato salad, garnished with fresh greens from the small herb garden she tends to on a terrace of their home. (You’ll have to watch until the very end to get a sneak peek of the terrace, but due to a Wi-Fi issue, you can enjoy a glimpse into both their industrial-style kitchen and the leafy garden area Lamy retreats to for a better signal.) The conversation touches on everything from why boxing is the perfect form of exercise during lockdown, to an upcoming perfume collaboration Lamy is currently working on. “I feel like we’re all more busy now than we were before,” Gray notes.
On this, Lamy agrees. “We were just constantly on the move, almost like a hamster in a wheel. It’s the first time in our 15 years of living in Paris that Rick and I are alone in this house or together for so long.” The conversation also brings to light a side of Lamy that is often overlooked—her razor-sharp sense of humor. “Do you still love each other or are you ready to kill each other?” Gray asks. “A little of both,” Lamy adds, with a laugh. “On a more serious note,” she continues, “we are always running all over the world, going here and there. But staying put, you really start to look at how the world works, and this time it’s not going back to usual—nature is a lot stronger than us, and it should be a lesson.”
It’s clear that behind the industrial, gothic-inflected glamour of Lamy’s signature aesthetic lies a deep reverence for the natural world. It’s reflected not only in the Rick Owens furniture collections, of which Lamy is producer—the use of unorthodox materials like bone or petrified wood, or even the bulbous, organic shapes of some of their more avant-garde designs—but also in her day-to-day life. It isn’t just the herbs for the meal that were grown on their terrace, but also the honey cultivated on their roof, where Lamy has been beekeeping for a number of years. “The bees have been disappearing from the countryside, but they are absolutely necessary to our world and there are no pesticides in the city, so it’s the perfect place,” Lamy explains. “Every year we have up to 50 kilos of honey, which we mostly give to our friends and collaborators.”
Clearly there’s enough left over, however, to add a little sweetness to tonight’s chicken dish, which Owens brings out to the garden for Lamy to serve and proudly presents to the camera. “Et voilà!” Lamy exclaims, to a grinning thumbs-up from Gray and Serrao. Et voilà, indeed.
