I
Opposite page: "I love all things sparkly," says Lisa Freede in the office of her Houston showroom; she has additional showrooms in Los Angeles and New
York. Above: With lustrous chain-link necklaces on the wall of her studio and multi-hued pearl necklaces strewn on her desk, Freede tweaks a new mala-
bead design (like those shown, left) studded with disco balls. "I like my things luxurious, long, versatile and clean," she says. "I like to keep it special."
ike Madonna, Lisa Freede
was a hometown girl itch-
ing to get out of Michigan.
But unlike the pop superstar, whose
success has taken her away from
the Motor City for good, Freede
— designer and celebrity stylist
whose clientele includes Paris Hilton,
Mariah Carey and Cher — retains
strong ties to the Detroit area, and
may even plan an eventual return.
"I feel like I've come full circle,"
says Freede, 48, who lives in Houston
with her husband and the younger of
her two daughters (the older attends
college in San Antonio). "I'd like to
replant myself where I was planted
and blossomed."
Were she to return, she would
surely be one of the city's celebrity
stylists of choice. Her chain-link
necklace, made of fire-polished beads
and scaled like a motorcycle chain,
for example, was already on its way
to stores when other designers began
playing with a similar idea, prompting
the New York Times to name Freede
one of four fashion designers "to
watch" in 2005.
Freede's road to success began at
Oak Park High School, where she
ran with an "eclectic" crowd of funky
dressers that included Terri Herman,
L
the owner of Emery's Jewelers in
Farmington Hills, who now carries
Freede's designs.
"She was always fashion forward,
kind of bohemian, but classic, too,"
Herman recalls, adding that these
traits are manifested in Freede's twist
on the most classic of gems — pearls,
to which disco beads are added "to
give them a snap."
For her part, Freede recalls either
exasperating her teachers or heading
to the principal's office. A teacher
once told her mother, Marilynn
Dworkin (a former professional
model who ran the Wendy Ward
Charm School at Montgomery
Ward), "Lisa's a real leader. But where
she's leading, I'm not sure."
Her teachers, she says, just didn't
know what to do with Freede, who
had been embellishing everything
from pencils to clothing with crys-
tals and beads for "as long as I can
remember." Her late father, Ronald
Topper, an interior designer-turned-
builder, had a showroom in Troy.
"When I was little, I loved going
into the design-fabric room where
he had big boards on slats and fabric
swatches in little squares," Freede
remembers. "I would cut them apart
and make bracelets and patchwork
SUMMER
STYLE
Lisa Freede, a celebrity stylist whose
own designs have been featured in
People, Us Weekly and Lucky, as
well as in major advertising cam-
paigns and on the bodies of starlets
to rappers to Hollywood A-listers,
offers these insights for what's hot
this summer: Headbands of all kinds
• 90-inch necklaces that can be
wrapped three to four times
• stacked bracelets that mix materi-
als such as wood, vegetable ivory
and beads • long, loopy chains worn
around the neck • modern takes on
classic gems, such as crystals and
rosewood added to pearls.
Continued on page 26
JNPLATINUM • JULY 2006 •
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