By Nandita Khanna
Street-style starlet Olivia Palermo and her model boyfriend retreat to Paris’s Le Meurice for respite from the paparazzi—and indulgences both sartorial and sweet.
Even if you don’t know her by name, it’s hard not to recognize the petite Olivia Palermo’s enviable, ladylike style, which is documented on countless street-style blogs. “It’s so important to take trends that you see on the runway and blend them with your own personal style,” says New York–based Palermo from her perch in Paris’s Le Meurice hotel, where she decamped after taking in the fall 2012 shows alongside longtime model boyfriend Johannes Huebl. She’ll soon return to New York and share her show notes, favorite haunts, and most recent finds with the editorial team of her fashion and lifestyle website, OliviaPalermo.com, of which she serves as executive editor.


Palermo epitomizes the idea that you don’t need to wear head-to-toe high-priced clothes to be considered a fashion icon. She’s quick to combine, say, a pair of print pants from Topshop, a jacket from Carven, and a Mulberry bag. Her loftiest purchases are investment pieces she treasures and is photographed wearing—a dress from Dior (“The fabrics have beautiful movement”), items from Giambattista Valli (“He cuts a feminine silhouette”) and a Miss Dior bag (“It’s very wearable; you just throw it on and go”). She continues, “the trick is taking a runway trend and incorporating it into your wardrobe in a way that doesn’t break the bank. I love supporting younger, London-based designers like Matthew Williamson and Markus Lufper. I’ll wear them, as well as some bigger names from time to time, but it’s that mix that is important.”


While the couple is rarely out of the public eye, they treasure the quiet moments alone on their travels—Huebl, with his Leica camera in tow, taking snapshots of Olivia’s much-documented clothing choices—and stealing kisses and adoring gazes when they think no one is looking. “Olivia is really the one with the interest in fashion—mine isn’t nearly as strong as hers,” says Huebl, whose modeling jobs take him all over the world. One can’t blame the couple for carving out time alone, considering a typical week is chock-full of black-tie events, store openings, and screenings.


Yet it’s Palermo’s expertise at striking that high-low balance of dress that makes her a style subject worth studying. Her secret weapon is in the accessories. “It’s a way for me to feel creative,” says Palermo, who just signed on as the face of Rochas’s upcoming fragrance campaign. “Accessories add the finishing touch,” she explains, holding up an all-black jumpsuit from British label Reiss. “Here, I’d create a ’70s-inspired look and add heavy jewelry.” It should be noted that Palermo is just as democratic about her love of costume jewelry as she is about her finds from Topshop: “It’s not about how much a piece of jewelry costs—if it’s $2, well then that’s even more exciting.”

Olivia Palermo & boyfriend Johannes Huebl attend the Gala Spa Awards at Brenner's Park Hotel on March 17, 2012 in Baden-Baden, Germany. Olivia is wearing a Tibi Arabella V-Neck dress.

By Annabel Rivkin
"It can be thrilling to meet a phenomenon. To put a personality to a face that has become part of life’s wallpaper. To observe and dissect and appreciate what has sent the entire world into a spin. And Olivia Palermo is today’s big fashion news. Every day. A rather tired moniker is ‘The Real-Life Gossip Girl’ and one who shrugged off Manhattan social scandal to go global – she is a one-woman campaign for her own photogenic brand of fashion fantasy. Glossy, canny, commercial, but classy to the point of seeming middle-aged, she found her spotlight on MTV’s structured reality show The City in which she was loved and hated, admired and reviled, like all phenomenons. Alexa Chung had to spend a couple of years proving she was smart and grafty before she hit the front rows, but Olivia has been welcomed – nay, lured – by every big fashion name. She is flown from party to show to premiere to benefit with ne’er a crease or a frown to mar her perfection. What does she actually do? Well, she gets dressed in the morning and that is enough when you are this thin and this famous.
But when the time comes to meet her, things are not so thrilling. So let’s start with what she’s wearing. She is framed in a window at The Berkeley hotel in a shimmering, monochrome Armani evening dress: exquisite, tawny; her frame even slighter and her jawline even sharper than they appear in the tsunami of photographs wired round the web on a daily basis. A vulnerable little bird with a determined little mouth. As she twinkles, she gazes into the eyes of her fellow model, her boyfriend Johannes Huebl, who is doing an admirable job of working his wonderful suit. ‘Mr Armani is a very sweet gentleman and such a generous, friendly personality,’ he says later. ‘There is a handful of people like that in fashion. Maybe less.’ White of tooth, preppy of hair, blue of eye, Johannes, too, is more slender than he appears in his many campaigns (they starred together in the autumn 2010 Mango campaign).
Soon it is time for Olivia to change into her civvies: a beige lace Moschino blazer, a silk Tibi T-shirt, pale grey skinny jeans and Mulberry heels. She looks very nice. But she doesn’t want to start talking until her agent arrives to tell me that she will only talk about her latest projects, namely her new blog. She does not want to talk about the past. Or the future. She also does not want to tell me that she doesn’t want to talk about the past or the future. She wants someone else to tell me that.
Time is ticking on but she will not start. ‘Don’t worry,’ she sing-songs. ‘We’ll get it done. I’ll answer your questions.’ At very nearly 26, she is without a doubt the most patronising person I have ever attempted to interview. We sit in separate rooms, pink with fury. Eventually she manages to say, steely as you like, ‘I want to concentrate on my current projects because that’s what my readers are interested in.’ But this seems more about what Olivia Palermo is interested in: namely, building a brand; a process that begins with whitewashing, personality bypassing and exceedingly, almost oppressively, good manners.
Olivia is in London for Fashion Week. ‘I have been coming to London Fashion Week for many years,’ she says, going all authoritative and seasoned. ‘I think that the British Fashion Council has done a really nice job and there is so much young talent. When Erdem first showed his collection, you can see how well he’s done and the inspiring women who wear his clothes...’ she tails off, having lost her way in the quagmire of her own press release. In grand, fashion-maven style she doesn’t talk about British designers she likes so much as those she ‘supports’, who include Matthew Williamson, Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders, Anya Hindmarch and Mulberry. ‘I am also supportive of the high street. Who doesn’t like Topshop?’

There is no where better to be pictured in romantic poses with your model boyfriend than the city of love.
Olivia Palermo looked like an elegant Parisian as she and her man wandered around Paris in their Sunday best, yesterday afternoon.
The hot young couple were not out in the city for a leisurely break, however, they were there for work and were taking part in a photo shoot in Tuileries Park.
This is not the first time the loved-up pair have modeled together, as they have previously starred in campaigns for Mango and Hogan.
The modelling job was good timing for Olivia as she was already in the area for Paris Fashion Week.