The hostess, who is slender and tall, with large, dark brown eyes, wore a high-waisted gray pencil skirt and snakeskin heels. After the party, she didn’t stick around to catch the end of the debates; she was running off to catch Madonna’s Sticky Sweet Tour at Madison Square Garden.
“I went last night, too, but I want to go again, and Elie is coming with me!” Ms. Tahari told The Observer that evening.
Madonna has several mentions in the book. In the introduction, where Ms. Tahari defends her “compulsive” list-making: “Some detractors might suggest the word obsessive, but I like to think I am highly functional and efficient. Other list-obsessed women I’m aware of (Madonna) seem to back up my claim.” And in the alphabetized acknowledgements section: “Madonna—Thank you for telling me to get back on the horse.”
Was that a reference to reclaiming her career? No, turns out it was about an actual horse.
TWO YEARS AGO, Ms. Tahari, who has been riding since she was 6 years old, fell off her steed at the Topping Riding Club in the Hamptons and broke her back. If she had fallen a little differently, the doctors said, she would have been paralyzed. After six months of wearing a back brace, Ms. Tahari wanted to ride again but developed a debilitating fear of another, worse accident. Calvin Klein, a friend who broke his back riding at that exact same stable, told her his biggest regret was never getting back on the horse. Still, Ms. Tahari was anxious. And then …”I was at a charity event for Unicef, and Madonna was there. We started talking and I said to her, ‘Listen, I know you fell off your horse and broke your back. Like, what did you do? How did you get back on?’” Madonna, who broke ribs back in 2005 after a fall from the saddle, looked at her and said, “You know, Rory, I just did it.”
“I just did it!” repeated Ms. Tahari. “It was four simple words, but it was suddenly so clear. There is nothing to think about, you just do it. And then obviously we had a conversation about physical therapy and she really basically got me back on the horse. I’ve been riding since!”
Speaking of accidents, the book has a chapter titled Emergencies, which include earthquakes, hurricanes, and, curiously, chemical or biological attacks and nuclear threats. “My son was born one month after 9/11,” Ms. Tahari explained. “Nothing happened to us, but I’m a New Yorker, and it was a major experience in my life. Then, during the blackout, I was stuck in the Grace Building and had to walk down 48 flights in my flip-flops and had no way to get in touch with my children. I had a friend turn to me and say, ‘Man, if this ever happened again, what’s your plan?’ I thought, ‘My God! You would have thought that after 9/11, it would have occurred to me.” So she made more lists.
“People challenged me: ‘Why do you have this chapter in there; it’s not like if there’s an earthquake, you’re going to go grab a book.’ And my answer is simple: ‘Listen, the point of that chapter is not for you to get the book during the earthquake, it’s so that you think about it, and to give you some time to decide whether this is something you want to worry about and prepare for.’”
Ms. Tahari said she will not leave her post at her husband’s company to pursue the lifestyle-adviser tack taken by Martha and Gwynnie, but she alluded to this being an additional career path for her. Does her husband mind this time? “One can argue it’s another brand extension, but to be honest with you, I didn’t write anything about fashion because I didn’t want it to be a brand extension,” she said, trying to be tactful.
And then: “Listen, did he mind? Yeah. He didn’t like it when I was up till 3 o’clock in the morning and wouldn’t sleep and then would be tired at work the next day. It definitely took some of my attention away from certain things in the company, but I think I found a way to balance it. I think for every woman it’s important to maintain her own identity, and what was really exciting for me with this book was that it was something that was completely me and just totally Rory.”
