KOHLE YOHANNAN
Clad in jeans, biker boots, and a leather motorcycle jacket, Kohle Yohannan immediately dashes any expectations of the stodgy, bow-tie-clad art historian. Not for him is the “holier than thou” costume of the typical Curator – no aging tweed blazer with suede elbow patches, no down-at-the–knees chinos or sensible shoes. Watching Yohannan — author, curator, and fashion world impresario — lead a horde of swanky donors and patrons through his recent exhibition (Valentina: American Couture & The Cult of Celebrity) is part theatre and part salon. With the grace of a performer and the insights of a scholar, he cuts a dazzling figure as the design world cognoscenti are drawn in by his innuendos and enchanted by his précis on his subject: the hypnotic designer Valentina and her fascinating past. This was not the typical, pedantically dull, and intellectually disdainful curator condescending to his audience. Instead, Yohannan makes everyone his private guest as he reveals an utterly beguiling moment in fashion history. His skill is the is ability to transform the complex into the fascinating comprehensible. 
With his common sense approach to even the most lofty intellectual ideas, Yohannan is the product of his deceased parents: His father was an automobile mechanic and his mother, Billie, was a fashion model “long before models made any money” he adds, smiling. Dad’s garage coveralls were monogrammed “Joe” but his given name was Jahvenez, an elegant forename of Persian Mongol emanation. Joe’s exotic but masculine good looks combined with Billie’s French-German beauty gave their only natural-born child, Kohle, a formidable physical presence that would endure. But it was their decidedly aesthetic leanings within a working-class milieu that would give him a natural balance of high/low cultural awareness and a passion that would launch him on a career to the very center stage of contemporary fashion and cultural history. Unlike many professionals within the art world, his working class background has never embarrassed the intrepid and comfortable-in-his–skin Yohannan, who is proud of his parents’ mixed heritage and admits to having grown up in a repair shop. Yohannan says, “Because my father loved racing and motorcycles, my mother learned to drive a full-dressed Harley — wearing leathers and lipstick — just so they could spend more time together.” Remembering his father’s garage, Yohannan says, “The walls were covered with Hurrell pinups and fanzine photographs but interspersed with shots of my mom. With all those stars on the walls, my father would always say ‘None of them can hold a candle to your Mother.’ He really did marry the woman of his dreams.” 
Yohannan’s high/low upbringing set him on a path to (as Kant would have it) a priori greatness, armed with a singular ability to see past the glitter and the dazzle of fashion culture’s sometimes shallow exterior and into a world of infinite interest and possibility. “I came to New York with 43 bucks in my pocket,” says Yohannan, who now resides in a 29-room stone mansion overlooking the Hudson River, “but I never felt that poverty meant a lack of power. Rather it served as an impetus to take risks. My parents’ faith in me gave me confidence,” He continues, “The people whom I have admired most in my life have all been extremely confident, and confidence is power. Beyond that, they all had an indescribable, but tangible, quality – something my mother used to call ‘sparkle.’”
And sparkle he does. A penumbra of excitement and good fun envelop Kohle Yohannan, who has attracted the fashion glitterati since he arrived in New York as a teen. Stepping right into a very private and glamorous New York, Yohannan’s first luncheon invitation was at the home of socialite John Galliher, where the 17 year-old broke bread with the toniest of Manhattan’s design and social set. Confronted with New York’s version of tableau vivant, Yohannan was seated with Tiffany’s John Loring, designers Mary McFadden and Kenneth Jay Lane, socialites Nan Kempner and Pat Buckley, and Jazz legend Bobby Short. “While I’m aware how terribly chic that sounds in retrospect, I have to admit that at the time I had no idea whatsoever of who any of these people were!” He looks back and adds, “In the 1980’s a democratizing social dynamic was afoot; uptown and downtown intermingled and there was a reemergence of Café Society where the art world, fashion, and society converged. It was a very special time to arrive in New York, which is a city that has always celebrated and promoted those who could sing for their supper. It’s a benchmark system. Sink or swim, win or be eaten alive.” He is sanguine about his own role saying, “Mine was a destiny of sordid candor, and while it seemed that everyone you met in New York during the 80’s was rich or famous or had a title, I never pretended to be anything other than what I was — a mechanic’s son with a few good ideas. But I had the incredible good luck to have met extraordinary people. In New York, all the talent and quirkiness gets brought into the theatre of society, and somehow, I felt at home amongst the madness.”
Late 20th century New York’s beau monde had Yohannan at the epicenter of an artistic and cultural camaraderie — a meritocracy where moneyed Wall Streeters clamored after their more artistic brothers. After his marriage to Mary McFadden ended in the early 1990’s, Yohannan earned several degrees in short order: a Bachelor’s in Art History, a Master’s in the History of the Decorative Art and Museum Studies, and a Doctorate in Cultural History. With such impressive credentials, he nevertheless remains hilariously self-deprecating, and in the manner of a displaced White Russian aristocrat, off-handedly says of his academic achievements, “With my Master’s degree and Ph.D., I remain well aware that my plumber is more universally useful than am I.”
But in truth, Kohle Yohannan’s world is reminiscent of Paris between the Great Wars when artists and writers intermingled with the aristocracy and such icons as Jean Cocteau, Coco Chanel, Picasso, and Christian Bérard held court in private salons and worked in collection on great cultural projects such as theater, art exhibitions, and ballets. His intellectual an academic projects have been supported and promoted by the most accomplished talents and institutions in the world: his Valentina book was published by Rizzoli and designed by Sam Shahid, with the Valentina exhibition designed by Abbott Miller at Pentagram. “The Model as Muse” exhibition, currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was co-curated with Harold Koda, with whom Yohannan also authored a book of the same title published by Yale University Press. A philosopher of the decidedly new school, Yohannan’s conversational style calls to mind an imaginary meeting of Harvard’s great minds in the 19thth century — rich with pithy epithets about our, ethos. When asked about design and commerce, Yohannan tosses off such profundities as, “We now dispatch our brightest minds to study how to sell things because as a society we have shifted our passion and focus away from the creative process. The result is a sacrificial loss — the content suffers. Why can’t we tempt and deploy raw talent to the top of the design market instead of limiting the philosophically inclined creative professionals to the role of recording the market’s demise?”
Never a demagogue or a pedantic intellectual, Yohannan reflects on Valentina’s late 1920’s Depression-era success by saying, “Today, in the midst of this recession, is a great time to be an entrepreneur. Secondary talents will fall by the wayside, and only extraordinary ideas and products will survive a full-on global paradigm shift…only true genius will make it through this economic meltdown and the victors will be those who think outside the box; the box, after all, has imploded! – with the intellectuals and entrepreneurs are emerging as the new heroes. The business world is changing; true intellectual brilliance is the new precious metal. Case in point: An out-of-work ex-hedge fund manager just prepared my tax returns. Mark my words, the specialist will soon be the servant of the creative class.”

Like a latter-day Nostradamus, he sums up the global fashion economy as “The future is hopefully not so much about product as it is ideas. We are product saturated and need to revisit how we live our lives. Fewer, but better things. Integrity in ownership. Adventurous living. A return to the extraordinary.” 
Showing up at The Carlyle in a one-off Gaultier suit jacket with an Iron Cross embroidered on the back, Yohannan tosses off a compliment about his chic appearance by mentioning that his camouflage shorts are out in the car as he had little time to change post doing some restoration work on his house — and if that weren’t enough to confirm him as the most down-to-earth man in the hoity-toity world of fashion and academe, he also works on his own cars. Beyond this, the changeling in Yohannan is apparent. When I mention his looks, he laughs, “A photographer friend of mine swears that I look like a wonky Siamese cat!” He continues, “Someone recently told me that I look like a secret agent in a spy thriller… like I could put on a mask and pull off a jewel heist in the bedroom suite upstairs, then slip back to the table with my tux still on! How hilarious is that?!” Told that he looks more ravishing model than a cunning feline, he admits to a recent ad campaign reciting, “The old horse still gets trotted out on rare occasions.”
Tonight, Yohannan will be back at the stone castle he calls home, which he describes as “a rockpile” and where tends to the slate roof himself. A massive folie on the Hudson River, formerly owned by Ballets Russe choreographer, Michel Fokine, “Greystone Court” has been photographed perhaps more times than its current owner. Of life at the mansion, Yohannan says, “It’s equal parts luxury and leaks, tarps and tapestries. Old homes are a lot of hard work, but I feel lucky to have a chance to save it from falling down. It may well bankrupt me, but I wake up grinning ear-to-ear with gratitude every day for the magical experience of living in such an extraordinary place.”
Though down time runs scarce in his life, Yohannan has remained active as an author throughout his adult life and, since 1998, has written four books and ghost-written at least as many as that. “My first book happened as a result of working for Tim Gunn almost 15 years ago. I was a master student at Cooper Hewitt at the time and Tim brought me in front of the board of the New School to propose an exhibition on the most important designer in Parsons’ history. I remember the meeting: Sitting with the board arrayed in grey suits and me, wearing a Ramones tee-shirt and jeans. I proposed Claire McCardell. They were astounded that I even knew who she was and gave Tim and me the green light. Within the year, I had my first exhibition and my first book deal.”
Fresh from his celebrated Valentina show and book (the optioned film rights were recently at the center of a bidding war involving three studios), Yohannan says, “I feel incredibly fortunate – especially as I never aimed for this career…I mean, think about it, I sell ideas. Who would ever rationally set about trying to get a job like that?” True to his nature, Yohannan modestly gives most of the credit for the success of the “Model as Muse” exhitibt to Harold Koda, saying, “He is remarkable in every way — so incredibly generous with his knowledge. I will walk away from this collaboration as a better scholar and a better teacher as a result of working closely with of Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton.”  Of the exhibition (which runs until August 9, 2009) he says, “I think women in particular realize that fashion is more than a dress, and will experience a sense of pride in seeing credit finally being given to the extraordinary contribution these women have made to the formation and transmission of the 20th century’s evolving ideals of feminine beauty.”
With his hard-won academic achievements and model looks, coupled with an elite following and the support of the world’s leading academic institutions, Kohle Yohannan appears to have his future assured by both his mass-appeal with the rarified high culture audience that just can’t seem to get enough of his unique brand of savvy pop-meets-professional intellectualism.
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