The fleeting nature of the digital magazine cover and the fickle fame of social media have us in search of real-life icons. Paul Cavaco (former fashion director of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue and longtime creative director of Allure) and his daughter Cayli Cavaco Reck (founder of Knockout Beauty) hope to tap into that wave of nostalgia with a new podcast debuting Thursday.
Produced by Rococo Punch (“The Turning,” “Welcome to Provincetown”), “Under the Cover” will feature the Cavacos in conversation with friends and industry stalwarts including Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui, Molly Sims, legendary hairstylist Garren and Allure founder Linda Wells.
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Listen to the inside scoop: Why Michael Kors chose the number 5e Ave and 57e Street for his ATM code; when 17-year-old Tonne Goodman ran off with a Dutch sailor; the true origins of Cher Horowitz’s yellow plaid skirt suit from “Clueless”; and the time Cindy Crawford refused to let Kevyn Aucoin tape her face for a Harper’s Bazaar shoot. Stay for the aspirational stories of agency and empowerment.
The premiere episode features Paul and Cayli’s conversation with Crawford. The conversation veers from Crawford’s persona as the “intellectual supermodel” (she was the top student in her high school and earned a scholarship to study chemical engineering at Northwestern University) to her controversial decision to pose nude for Playboy (a subject she explored in the Apple documentary series “The Super Models”). There’s a brief interlude about Crawford’s skin-care line, Meaningful Beauty. But the story likely to resonate with listeners is how Crawford refused to alter her face with duct tape at the request of Aucoin, the late, groundbreaking makeup artist. It was circa 1990; the sweater editorial—shot by Patrick Demarchelier—also featured Claudia Schiffer and Karen Mulder. Aucoin decided to use duct tape to alter the models’ faces. “So everyone looked like a stern version of themselves, with their faces pulled back and cat eyes,” Paul recalls in the podcast. “When I look at the pictures now, I think, Oh my God, what was I thinking?” he says.
Crawford told Aucoin she wouldn’t do it. “I’m [in my 20s]”I find it weird to look like I’ve had a facelift. I don’t think it’s a good message to give to young women,” she said.
Paul told her that the editor in him was irritated by her because “you just have to do what I say and what the team wants.” But as a father of a daughter, he respected her ability to stand up for herself.
“The only time as a model that I’ve ever regretted something I’ve done is when I didn’t sign up for it and I was talked into doing it,” Crawford said. “There’s been a number of times that happened early in my career. You slowly find your ability to say ‘no.’ And I think that’s what I did that day. And luckily for me, Paul didn’t excommunicate me and Kevyn didn’t excommunicate me.”
“It was the first time I really had to think about things and consider the humanity of the person who was actually standing in front of me,” Paul added. “It changed something for me, in a good way.”
These behind-the-scenes anecdotes as lessons are part of what the Cavacos are striving for. And Paul’s time in the fashion industry, and Cayli’s front-row seat, literally starting when she was still in diapers, span a period of significant change, as the status of traditional magazines as arbiters and supreme platforms has been dismantled by social channels. Today, influencers can sell more products than magazine editors, and stylists can become as famous as their clients.
Asked for his take on Law Roach’s claim that he’s not just a stylist but an “image architect,” Paul laughs. “When I first read it, I thought it was a funny phrase. I think people are trying to find their identity within this market,” he told WWD during a recent joint interview with Cayli.
“We come from a different time, everyone just wanted to be an editor or a stylist. It was a much simpler time. It’s much more complicated now; people have to wear many more hats. I love what he does. So I think it’s brilliant.”
The idea for “Under the Cover” has been gestating in various forms in the Cavaco sphere for a number of years. “It was actually the title of my father’s book, which he absolutely said we wouldn’t write,” Cayli said. “Because he wasn’t looking for an ode to Paul Cavaco.”
And that’s not what the Cavacos intend with the podcast.
“It’s not about making a vanity piece. We’re not doing this because my father needs a career renaissance. We weren’t looking for a project. I absolutely convinced him to do it.”
Paul Cavaco’s career has spanned nearly half a century, since he founded an eponymous public relations firm with his wife, Kezia Keeble, in 1976. (The firm became Keeble, Cavaco & Duka in 1983, when former New York Times fashion writer John Duka joined the firm. Paul and Kezia divorced in 1985, and she married Duka, who died in 1989. Kezia died in 1990 at age 48 of breast cancer.) His work as a stylist, while freelancing, and later at Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Allure, includes a wealth of iconic covers, including Annie Leibovitz’s 1981 Rolling Stone cover of Meryl Streep with her face painted white; Oprah Winfrey’s 1998 American Vogue cover, photographed by Steven Meisel (and for which Oprah lost 20 pounds); Kate Moss’ career-changing 1992 Harper’s Bazaar editorial, shot by Demarchelier. He’s fronted campaigns for Dior, Calvin Klein, Michael Kors and Versace, among others. And he collaborated with Madonna on her infamous book ‘Sex’. Cayli grew up going to photoshoots and fashion shows with her parents. “Garren remembers the first fashion show we did together, and Cayli was strapped to my back,” Paul said. In 2016, Cayli founded Knockout Beauty.
“Fashion people are a little scary to people,” Paul noted. “They think they’re judgmental and superficial, it’s all about the stuff you have. But when you talk to them, you get to know them and there’s a cuteness that comes out. And we had such an amazing community, it was always great to go to work, even when it was really busy. Garren and I did the Oprah cover for Vogue together, it was really busy, but it was so exciting and so much fun to do.”
The podcast will later introduce a video component, because as Cayli puts it, “When we talk about a photo, you want to see that picture.” They have several interviews lined up: Christy Turlington, Anna Sui, Garren, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, Molly Sims, Tonne Goodman, Linda Wells, Linda Evangelista, Kate Moss. They’re in touch with Naomi Campbell. “We have really close ties with the supers,” Cayli says. “So if all the supers are on, I think we’ll feel better.”
Many of the people Paul worked with in the early days of his career are now deceased (photographers Demarchelier and Peter Lindbergh, hairstylist Oribe Canales), so the Cavacos are unaware of the healthy dose of nostalgia they traffic in.
“These people have traveled the world together, they’ve worked together for years, you can feel the depth of their relationship in the conversation,” Cayli said. “I think there’s interest in hearing about people’s connections, people who are really analogically connected by these shared experiences. People don’t even call you anymore, they just text you. Hearing someone’s voice, seeing them, that the listener feels like they’re getting to visit with that person through us, is pretty cool. I think that’s why it’s so timely.”
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