There was this wonderful lunch Anna gave for Polly at Mortimer’s restaurant—oh, I don’t remember what year that was. We all got there early to surprise her, and were given Polly Mellen masks drawn by the celebrated humorist artist Robert Risko. A room filled with Polly manqués! Fabulous…
Polly performs in the truest meaning of the word, which means to accomplish an action, a task, creating great work. One of my all-time favorite performances of Polly was when she presented a CFDA award to Helmut Lang in 1998. Back in the day, a very hot topic in fashion was which designers were original in their work, and which were basically just copying others. (Now, in the post-post-modernist factory of ideas, copying is called referencing and it’s as expected as it is forgiven, almost.) Well, Helmut Lang, who ushered in a very cool minimalist aesthetic after a long-lasting period of 1980s excess, bells, whistles, and bows, was the designer to follow. So much so that in her remarks, in a video about Helmut made by filmmaker Douglas Keeve, Polly described Helmut as a monarchal lemming, ‘a little animal that jumps off a cliff, and all the others jump off after it.’ The audience went wild with appreciation. She’d just defined fashion, and she also might have been describing herself. Where Polly goes, we not only have followed, we have rushed. Cliffs and obstacles be damned.”— William Norwich
“She is the Pollyonaire of moments and memories. If I had to pick one of the most personal significance, it would be the video Douglas Keeve made with her for my International Designer of the Year Award in 1997. Iconic Polly. Straightforward. No filter.”— Helmut Lang
Polly is my mentor and a big part of my life—there’s no one like her. Polly honed me, she taught me what fashion is all about. It all began in 1975/76. We worked together for over four decades to create images that will remain in time, they’re iconic. And, it’s not just about the hair, it’s about the whole look. The last shoot we did was for Interview Magazine with Steven Meisel. Polly was the subject, and I got to style her. Not only her hair, but the robe and everything. That day she swam about 20 lengths of the pool so she could be photographed underwater! She was in her 80s at the time. Polly always said to me, ‘We live with our memories and we move forward.’ Take what you’ve learned and what you’ve done, and build on it.— Garren