Pictures of Lagerfeld and Valentino, torn from pages of magazines, are tacked to the wall above Gela Taylor's desk, while Pam gazes up at Yohji; pictures of Galliano frocks are everywhere. For some time now, the girls have been sending specially made t-shirts to their fashion heroes--call it Juicy Couture couture--in the hope of making a connection between the dingy industrial parks and Taco Bells of their San Fernando Valley headquarters and the City of Light. To Galliano they sent a KING OF THE FUCKING UNIVERSE tee, and to McQueen, MCQUEEN OF THE FUCKING UNIVERSE. Although these offerings have never been acknowledged, they have received word of Galliano jogging along the Seine in said top. Nothing could be more thrilling to the Juicys; these are women who love fashion, wear fashion, dream fashion. When I called to invite them to the Paris collections, unfeigned screams of joy (Pam: "I have to call my husband!") and the clatter of high heels jumping for joy (really) sound ed in my ear. "You are our Ed McMahon!" said Gela. "We've won the golden ticket." A craze is upon us, one that validates the lifestyle of the yoga-practicing, self-employed, cheerful, rock-'n'-roll soccer mom. It's Madonna and Lourdes in Regent's Park. It's Gwyneth with a Starbucks coffee on the way to Jivamukti. It's Jenny from the block--"Don't be fooled by the sweats that I got"--with Ben, still wearing Juicy instead of J.Lo. It also seems to be the garment of choice for the woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown: Mariah Carey wore Juicy on her way to the loony bin, Lizzie Grubman on her way to jail, and the Gucci murderess a white Juicy sweatsuit at the victim's funeral. More innocently, and quintessentially, it's Gela and her husband, John Taylor--the good-looking, reflective one from Duran Duran--watching their daughters play soccer at Fairfax High and looking parental and fabulous in orange cashmere hoodie, flared jeans, glittered t-shirt, Herms belt, new-season Ba lenciaga bag, and Ugg boots (her); and brown velour Juicy men's track top, dark-gray baggy Juicy pants, and tweed newsboy cap (him). It's nonfashion at its most fashionable, and it may be a moment, or it may be the future of the way we dress. Pam wears the gloves in Paris, with matching Herms muffler and hat, not to mention alligator Birkin, to shop at the flea market. Gela accompanies her, in exactly the same gear, even down to the gloves, even down to the Birkin. Pam buys a bunch of chandeliers, but Gela, in a rare moment of non-twindom, resists. Her home, also in the Hollywood Hills, is lit by Verner Panton "Fun" lamps from the sixties, ethereal mother-of-pearl clusters that she found in Italy. Vintage shopping is one area in which the Juicys are forced to go their separate ways purchase-wise. At a St.-Germain depot de vente called Ragtime, Gela snaps up a white fox mini coat (the Juicys love a fur!) and a delicate ivory twenties nightgown ("so pretty for the summer"). Pa m grabs a stack of Gosford Park-esque frocks ("great for the office with a tee or over jeans"), a fur cloche from Patou, and unblocked straw-hat forms from the thirties. The pair are real thrifters--in the pre-Juicy years, both spent their days doctoring $6 sundresses from L.A's Jet Rag--with no particular interest in collectible designer pieces. A trip to Didier Ludot, Paris's premier boutique for vintage couture, leaves both cold. "Six thousand dollars for a YSL coat from the seventies?" sniffs Pam as she tears out of the cramped treasure trove. "I'm sorry, but I wasn't born yesterday." This is how she appeared to her husband of seventeen years, Jeff Levy, now a film director/producer, then a member of Johnson, the rock band. Although Pam now wears Valentino and there is a baby seat strapped in the back of the family Ferrari (the fastest automatic in the world) and their Hollywood Hills home is full of original Barcelona daybeds stacked high with Herms blankets, Pam's irr epressible punk tendencies still surface. When her local video store wouldn't sell her favorite X (the band, not the rating) video, she borrowed it permanently, steamed the label off, and attached the label to a blank video. She's now banned. ("Why didn't you make a copy of it?" asks a puzzled Bryan Adams over dinner in Paris. "It's a video.") She's also banned from eBay because she reneged on a purchase of a vintage Pac-Man machine after she realized that it would prevent her either from working or from ever speaking again to her two-year-old boy, Noah. Now she steals friends' passwords and computers to bid for art glass. Pam has not been banned from shopping at Herms, at least not yet: at the London store recently, she bought a pair of gloves, then asked for a pair of scissors, then, in full view of the horrified staff, snipped off the fingers. "Aren't they cooler?" she demands.
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