Power Hour With People's Revolution Head Honcho Kelly Cutrone

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A small crowd of editorial interns, fashionistas, and PR and entrepreneurial hopefuls gathered in Bryant Park this morning to get a glimpse of their favorite PR CEO Kelly Cutrone as she talked about her career, book, relationships and life in general. Cutrone showed up on time, at 12:30 pm, dressed in a black ensemble, sunglasses, and $90 Aldo high-heeled boots that she was very proud of purchasing over the weekend. The Bryant Park Reading Room Series staff invited the star of Bravo's Kell on Earth and bestselling self-help author of If You Have To Cry, Go Outside to talk about her debut book, but the conversation covered everything, up to and including the key to stardom. Says Kelly: Follow your inner voice, get the lowest entry job in the field of your dreams, and "work like you own the place...with pride and grace."

Cutrone was more spiritual and helpful than tough and demanding as she is portrayed on The Hills and The City, as she talked about her guru, karma, and bliss through mediation. She talked about her past—how she came to NYC in the eighties looking to find herself after coming from a middle-class, conservative home in Syracuse. She spoke about her busy life now as a mother as well as a working women whose personal day-to-day successes include have the same nail polish on her fingers and toes. And she talked about waking up this morning, and in between a million things to do before her talk in Bryant Park, having to bottle-feed her daughter Ava's new puppy who is sick with pneumonia.

There were lot of laughs and much discussion about the current state of the fashion world and media. After one girl asked where she should look for a career in fashion, Kelly gave the following answer:

Here is what I think is the future: Street life and life style. Style is in; fashion luxury, forget it. It's over. Gucci, Vuitton, Hermes...all those places are really great, go for it. That business exists in a city called Paris, France. That's where that is. Those businesses will continue. Retail business, pretty much over. I think people who sell to retail companies are people who can't afford their own stores. The poor boys—Old Navy, J.Crew, Gap...they already knew that and aren't wholesaling. Editorial, magazine, we are going to say buh-bye to them as we know them. They will still exist but everything is on the internet.

Afterward, she stayed late to sign books and converse with everyone on line.—Joann Pan
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Bryant Park

40 West 40th Street, New York, NY