Scott's Christian Louboutin-shod models line up.   (Photo: Christopher Anderson)

What led Scott from a substantial but still piecemeal Hollywood existence to a cohesive, seasonal collection and an identity as A Designer was, she claims, the mere fact that she’d already started designing clothes. “I have grand ideas about things,” she says.

Scott imagines that in L.A., everyone should look glamorous all the time: to go to a premiere, sure, but to go to Whole Foods as well. When she can’t find things she considers sufficiently glamorous, she designs them herself. “I started doing it all the time,” Scott says. “I became obsessed.” Two years ago, when Scott had designed enough to make a collection, she called fifteen industry friends in Paris and invited them for blini and caviar during that city’s Fashion Week. “I felt like I was standing in front of a firing squad,” she says. “But I really wanted their opinions.” The opinion was that Barneys would like to buy it, and Maxfield, too.

Three seasons later, L’Wren Scott is gaining quite a bit of credibility for her glamazon designs; they’re still at Barneys and Maxfield, as well as Jeffrey, and online at Net-a-Porter only. Her business is tiny, like her show, but it suits her snug, zipped-up world and her A-list customers fine.

“You’re not,” she says, “going to see it everywhere.”