Paul Cavaco and Cayli Cavaco Reck Want to Humanize ‘Scary’ Fashion People

The ephemeral nature of the digital magazine cover and the flimsy fame of social media has sent us looking for icons from the real-life era. Paul Cavaco (erstwhile fashion director of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue and longtime creative director of Allure) and his daughter Cayli Cavaco Reck ( founder of Knockout Beauty ) are hoping to tap into that wave of nostalgia with a new podcast set to debut Thursday.

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“Under the Cover,” which is produced by Rococo Punch (“The Turning,” “Welcome to Provincetown”), will have the Cavacos in conversation with friends and industry stalwarts including Christy Turlington , Cindy Crawford, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui , Molly Sims, legendary hairstylist Garren, and Allure founder Linda Wells.

Tune in for the insider dish: why Michael Kors chose the numbers of 5 ^th Ave and 57 ^th Street for his ATM code; when 17-year-old Tonne Goodman ran away with a Dutch sailor; the true origin of Cher Horowitz’s yellow plaid skirt suit from “Clueless”; and the time Cindy Crawford refused to let Kevyn Aucoin put tape on her face for a Harper’s Bazaar shoot. Stay for the aspirational stories of agency and empowerment.

The premiere installment features Paul and Cayli’s chat with Crawford. The conversation veers from Crawford’s persona as the “intellectual supermodel” (she was the valedictorian at her high school and earned an academic scholarship to study chemical engineering at Northwestern University) to her controversial decision to pose nude for Playboy (a topic she covered in the Apple documentary series “The Super Models”). There is a brief interlude about Crawford’s skin care line, Meaningful Beauty. But the story that is likely to resonate with listeners is about how Crawford refused to alter her face with tape at the behest of Aucoin, the late, pioneering makeup artist. It was circa 1990; the editorial about sweaters — shot by Patrick Demarchelier — also included Claudia Schiffer and Karen Mulder. Aucoin decided to use tape to alter the faces of the models. “So everyone looked like a severe version of themselves, with their faces pulled back and cat eyes,” recalls Paul on the podcast. “I look at the pictures now and I think, oh my god, what was I thinking?” he says.

Crawford told Aucoin she wouldn’t do it. “I’m [in my 20s], I think it’s weird to look like I’ve had a face-lift. I think it’s not a good message to give to young women,” she said.

Paul told her the editor in him was annoyed with her because “you should just do what I say and do what the team wants.” But as the father of a daughter, he respected her ability to speak up for herself.

“The only time as a model I’ve regretted something I’ve done is when I didn’t sign up for it and I got talked into doing it,” said Crawford. “There are several times where that happened in my career early on. You slowly find your ability to say ‘no.’ And I think I was doing it that day. And fortunately for me Paul didn’t excommunicate me and Kevyn didn’t excommunicate me.”

“It was the first time where I had to really think about things and take into consideration the humanity of the person who was actually in front of me,” added Paul. “It changed something for me, in a good way.”

These behind-the-scenes-anecdotes-as-lessons are part of what the Cavacos are striving for. And Paul’s tenure in the fashion industry, and Cayli’s front row seat beginning literally when she was in diapers, spans a period of significant change as legacy magazines’ status as arbiters and supreme platforms has been dismantled by social channels. Today, influencers can move more product than magazine editors and stylists can become as famous as their clients.

Asked for his view of Law Roach’s assertion that he’s not a mere stylist but an “image architect,” Paul smiles. “When I first read it, I thought it was a funny expression. I think people are trying to find their identities within this market,” he told WWD during a recent joint interview with Cayli.

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“We come from a different time period, everyone just wanted to be editors or stylists. It was a much simpler time. It’s much more complicated now; people have to wear many more hats. I love what he does. So it’s kind of brilliant to me.”

The idea for “Under the Cover” has been gestating in various forms in the Cavaco orbit for several years. “It was actually the title for my dad’s book, which he absolutely said we would not write,” said Cayli. “Because he was not looking for an ode to Paul Cavaco.”

And that is not what the Cavacos are going for with the podcast.

“It’s not about doing a vanity piece. We are not doing this because my dad needs a renaissance in his career. We was not looking for a project. I definitely convinced him to do it.”

Paul Cavaco’s career has spanned nearly half a century, since founding an eponymous public relations firm in 1976 with his wife Kezia Keeble. (The company became Keeble, Cavaco & Duka in 1983, when former New York Times fashion writer John Duka joined. Paul and Kezia divorced in 1985, and she married Duka, who died in 1989. Kezia died in 1990, at the age of 48, from breast cancer.) His work as a stylist, when he was freelance, and later at Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Allure, includes a surfeit of iconic covers including Annie Leibovitz’s 1981 Rolling Stone cover of Meryl Streep with her face painted white; Oprah Winfrey’s 1998 American Vogue cover, shot by Steven Meisel (and for which Oprah shed 20 pounds); Kate Moss’ 1992 career-altering Harper’s Bazaar editorial shot by Demarchelier. He has helmed campaigns for Dior, Calvin Klein, Michale Kors and Versace among others. And he collaborated with Madonna in her infamous “Sex” book. Cayli grew up going to shoots and runway shows with her parents. “Garren remembers the first fashion show we did together, and Cayli was strapped to my back,” said Paul. In 2016, Cayli founded Knockout Beauty.

“Fashion people are kind of scary to people,” observed Paul. “They think they’re judgmental, superficial, it’s all about the stuff you have. But when you speak to them, you get to know them, and there’s an adorableness that comes out. And we had such a great community, it was always great to go to work, even if it was high pressure. Garren and I did the Oprah cover for Vogue together, it was so high pressure, but it was so exhilarating, and so much fun to do.”

The podcast will later introduce a video component because, as Cayli puts it, “when we’re talking about a picture, you want to see that picture.” They have several interviews in the can: Christy Turlington, Anna Sui, Garren, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, Molly Sims, Tonne Goodman, Linda Wells, Linda Evangelista, Kate Moss. They’re in touch with Naomi Campbell. “We have very close relationships to the supers,” says Cayli. “So once all the supers are on, I think we’ll feel better.”

Many of the people Paul worked with in the early days of his career have died (photographers Demarchelier and Peter Lindbergh, hair stylist Oribe Canales), and so the Cavacos are unselfconscious about the healthy dose of nostalgia in which they’re trafficking.

“These people have traveled around the world together, they’ve spent years and years working together, you feel the depth of their relationship in the conversation,” said Cayli. “I think there’s an interest in hearing about people’s connections, people who are genuinely analog connected to each other with these shared experiences. People don’t even call you on the phone anymore, they just text. To hear someone’s voice, to see them, for the listener to feel like they get to have a visit with that person through us is kind of cool. I think that’s why the time is right for something like this.”

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