Pat in the City: My Life of Fashion, Style and Breaking All the Rules by Patricia Field

Author:Patricia Field [Patricia Field]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008598723
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2023-02-14T05:00:00+00:00

Club Kids outside the shop in 1994

PHOTOGRAPH © TINA PAUL

Beyoncé was a good client, wearing House of Field clothes for her performances. For one concert, the cultural icon chose a one-of-a-kind House of Field bodysuit made with a deconstructed vintage Bob Marley T-shirt David found somewhere, maybe even a friend’s house. David—wild for T-shirts as a particularly miraculous American invention—lined the shirt that he had cut into a camisole with the same girdle fabric that we used to make the leggings. That was the trick: it fit like a corset but looked like a T-shirt. Or, as David liked to quip, “Looks like a pump, feels like a sneaker.” He complemented the bodysuit with a short, pleated tennis skirt made out of the Jamaican flag, over which he printed my name in red.

The Marley bodysuit was haute House of Field, but we really entered the cultural conversation when Beyoncé wore a House of Field tank top and hot pants for her “Crazy in Love” video in 2003. Her official solo debut single, featuring rapping by her future husband, Jay-Z, from her first solo album, Dangerously in Love, was the song of the summer. So many of the fall fashion shows that season blasted the power anthem while the models walked the runway. In the video, Beyoncé’s outfit looks simple enough: a white tank with stretchy jean short shorts that she pulled off in all her fierceness with red high heels and a delicate gold body necklace. A lot of skill went into the appearance of simplicity. Not only was the tank girdle-fabric reinforced, but her stylist, Lysa Cooper, asked David to design a pair of hot pants that would cover her butt while the singer did all her acrobatic dance moves on camera. Those tiny shorts took a lot of expert engineering on David’s part.

Almost every celebrity story in my shop, of which there were many, ended happily—a minor miracle considering the volatility of such big personalities (employees included) in such a small space. Take Foxy Brown, who started shopping with us after she signed to Def Jam in 1996. Not exactly known for her even temperament, the rapper almost threw down with Dana, who had the misfortune that day to be working on the floor and not in the salon as usual.

Foxy had come to Eighth Street to find a look for a video shoot, but she didn’t even need to come inside because she saw exactly what she wanted in the window: a chiffon jumpsuit with a brown velvet collar, trim down the front, and cuffs. Designed by David for House of Field, the jumpsuit was paired with a seventies-style floppy hat for the full Iceberg Slim look.

“I want that outfit in the window,” Foxy said. And what Foxy wanted, Foxy got.

The last jumpsuit of its kind, it had to be taken off the mannequin. Paul, as the window dresser, handled removing the garment from the mannequin. When he handed it to Dana, however, she realized a button was missing.

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