Photo Credit: Kelly E. Carter
What doesn’t Randi Zuckerberg do? For starters, she’s the founder of a media company, has her own talk show on Sirius XM, writes books, is a musician, actress and highly-sought after speaker. Whatever she does, you can best believe she looks stylish doing it—as she did on May 1 when she hosted Westfield Valley Fair’s spring Cocktail & Couture event, featuring the Santa Clara mall’s growing Luxury Collection of high-end fashion retailers and a special wearable fashion tech exhibition. As guests nibbled on small bites and sipped cocktails and champagne in the Luxury Wing of the mall, we chatted with Zuckerberg about the event, the haute wearables on display and, of course, what she was wearing.
Is this the second or third time you’ve hosted this event?
This is my second time. I was going to be involved last year, but I was in the hospital having my baby. Unfortunately that is one of the only times that fashion doesn’t win out. I love this event because I think Westfield does an amazing job being ahead of the trends and thinking about combining tech, fashion and art in a lot of ways that people aren’t thinking about yet.
What wearable products do you use?
i helped curate the wearable section based on products that I use. The Rebecca Minkoff line with the bracelets that charge your phones have studs and are beautiful. I even spoke with Rebecca while she was designing that line to give her some of my thoughts. I thought she did an amazing job. I have the Tory Burch for Fitbit bracelet also that I use because I love my Fitbit! Who wants to wear a black plastic thing on your hand? [I had] the bellabeat and the Ringly [people] on my Sirius XM radio show because I love featuring women entrepreneurs. The bellabeat is a beautiful smart jewelry. It’s a new kind of fitness tracker. It measures your stress and how much sleep you’ve had. The Ringly saves the problem of being with friends and everyone has their phone on the table. It’s just a discreet cocktail ring that blinks different colors if you’re getting [for example] a Facebook message [or] a text. You can see oh, I getting a text from my husband—I should maybe check that; or OK, just a Facebook message. I don’t have to pull my phone out. I’m really passionate about this area. That’s just at the tip of the iceberg of some of the exciting things.
What else are you excited about here?
I’m also really obsessed with 3D printing. I was really excited to see that they have a demo. They’re 3D printing jewelry. 3D printing is amazing. I can envision a world where hotels have 3D printers and maybe if you forgot an item in your luggage, you just email it to yourself and can go print it out
at a machine. In China they’re 3D printing houses. They have giant 3D printers that in a day do a house—and 3D printing food. I’ve had 3D printed candy. It’s really amazing when you start to think about what you can do for the world in curing homelessness and poverty with technology. That’s why I love this intersection of the arts and fashion and tech so much.
Are you, being the tech-savvy fashionista you are, the perfect choice to host this event?
[When] I first arrived in Silicon Valley, i didn’t own a pair of jeans because I came from New York City. I came out here and I was just shocked; I was like “Wow, people just wear sweatshirts and jeans all of the time.” I felt that when I dressed up, the engineers got nervous. They thought that investors were coming in. I learned (to) dress down a little. I’m excited to see that there are more than ever as entrepreneurs in tech. Also I think it’s becoming more and more OK to have a sense of fashion and style and still be a woman leader, which is something I’m excited about. I’m seeing a lot of women not afraid to wear designers and run a tech company; or not afraid to start creating a signature look. When Marissa Mayer posed for the cover of Vogue that was really a big turning moment of that. She’s like, you know what, I’m a bad-ass CEO running a public company and I’m in a pink dress on the cover of Vogue.
Who did you hair?
Farzana, who specializes in hair art. She has a salon in Los Altos. She always does the most creative things. She has amazing things that she dreams up. She creates a lot of her own hairpieces and jewels. (It took) about an hour. She didn’t want me to look at it until it was done.
Who are you wearing?
Ted Baker (dress). My earrings are from Syd boutique in Los Altos; the owner designs all of her own jewelry. I was wearing Vera Wang shoes [until she stepped out of them to rest her feet]. I just got a limited edition Chanel bag from Las Vegas. It was my gift for having my second son on October 10. I have two boys. My mom and I had gone for a jog. You know Vegas is boiling hot. We’re like, let’s just stop into the Bellagio and look at the Chanel store. We saw the bag in the window. We were disgusting, dripping with sweat. i was like, we have to go in there. You should have seen the horrified look on their face for us to walk into the Chanel store. It felt so good. It felt like the Pretty Woman moment to whip out my credit card and be like, “I’m getting that purse.” Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Photos by Kelly E. Carter
