It’s a rarity for us to fall in love with EVERY single item in a fashion line. But, with The Hills alum Lauren Conrad’s new collection Paper Crown, that’s exactly what happened. The spring lineup, which is priced at $69 to $400, includes covetable soft knits, silk blouses, cropped pants, tailored blazers, faux-leather shorts, flippy skirts, chiffon dresses, and floral prints. The newly minted designer set up shop at Coterie (a New York City fashion trade show where designers can meet with buyers/boutiques), and while chatting with Allure and Fashionista she revealed a few fun facts about her line…and her hair.

On The “Paper Crown” Name: “When I was little I used to go to my grandmother’s and we would always play dress-up; but when I would go there, I wouldn’t have my dress-up trunk with me, so we’d make these paper crowns. That was our way of creating our own glamour—and that’s what we wanted the line to be like.”

On Her Inspiration For The Line: “When I was designing [the collection] I wanted to do pieces that could be worn lots of different ways—I think it’s nice to invest in pieces you can wear throughout a few seasons. It’s modern but not overly trendy. I wanted an overall romance feel to the line, balanced out with a couple tailored pieces for a slight menswear feel and the leather pieces to balance out the chiffons.”

On Her Biggest Hair Regret: “I had bleached hair for awhile. It was pretty bad.”

Source: style.mtv.com

When I stopped by the Coterie yesterday to interview Lauren Conrad and check our her debut contemporary line, Paper Crown, I expected a crush of cameras, reporters and publicists. I expected that an overly protective publicist would monitor my interview to make sure I didn’t ask certain questions and that I wrapped it up after 10 minutes. So it was a pleasant surprise when I located Paper Crown’s modest booth at Pier 94 to find Conrad and her two business partners (also her two best friends–not Hills alums), just hanging out, listening to Billy Joel on an iPad, and not a paparazzo or crazed publicist in sight.

Of course, if MTV hadn’t dropped the reality show they were filming about Conrad’s new line, there would have been a 15-person camera crew crowding the space. “I was a little disappointed at first but I’m very much OK with it now,” said Conrad of her show being canceled. “[The show] was very different from The Hills–it was filmed like a documentary–it was a very different experience.” Now, she even seemed relieved there wasn’t a camera crew around to make everything crowded and chaotic. “Can you imagine if there were cameras here?” she said, looking around at Paper Crown’s small booth.

Sadly, the absence of camera crews means that there’s little hope Conrad’s show will make it to air on any network–because MTV stopped filming halfway through the design process. “It’s an incomplete story now,” Conrad said.

But back to the clothes. “We wanted the collection to look very clean and fresh–those are the pieces I gravitate towards,” Conrad told me as she walked me through Paper Crown, looking lovely in leather shorts, a blazer and blush blouse from the line. “When I was designing [the collection] I wanted to do pieces that could be worn lots of different ways–I think it’s nice to invest in pieces you can wear throughout a few seasons. It’s modern but not overly trendy. I wanted an overall romance feel to the line, balanced out with a couple tailored pieces for a slight menswear feel and the leather pieces to balance out the chiffons.”

With Paper Crown, Conrad has achieved what she set out to do: the compact collection (you can view the complete look book here) is full of on-trend basics like soft knits, silk button down blouses, tailored cropped pants and blazers, and faux-leather shorts and skirts balanced with loose airy chiffon dresses in blacks, blushes, creams, gray-blues and a few muted floral prints. It all looks like stuff Conrad would actually wear (or has already worn). “You’re keeping a customer in mind but you want to love each piece,” says Conrad. Her favorite is the tiered chiffon maxi-dress, which will retail at $400.

No word yet on where Paper Crown will be sold but Conrad and her team hope to be installed in small boutiques across the country as well as one big department store. Pricepoints range from $69 for jersey tops to $400 for dresses (like the tiered chiffon number).

Of course, we couldn’t leave without addressing one more rumor recently floating around the internet–a report from Us Magazine that Whitney Port was peeved at her former Hills co-star because “she thinks that The City was canceled to make room for Lauren’s new reality show…Whitney feels like she got the shaft.” “I don’t really know where that rumor came from,” Conrad said. “It didn’t even make sense though–why would she be jealous of that show that’s no longer happening?” It makes even less sense considering Whitney Port is the only member of the original Hills cast Conrad keeps in touch with. “I have so much respect from her–she’s amazing,” said Conrad, who had texted with Port about the rumor hours earlier.

Source: fashionista.com

While at Coterie, the fashion trade show at New York City’s Pier 94, mentally assembling our dream wardrobe this weekend (Theory pants, Elizabeth and James jacket…), we noticed a booth coming up on our left that had boutique buyers circling like sharks. It was Paper Crown, Lauren Conrad’s new (non-Kohl’s) fashion line. Conrad herself was there to explain the line, wearing high-waisted leather shorts from the collection and ’60s winged liner. We chatted with her about her favorite Paper Crown look and her all-time beauty hits and hair color misses.

Why the name Paper Crown? When I was little I used to go to my grandmother’s and we would always play dress-up; but when I would go there, I wouldn’t have my dress-up trunk with me, so we’d make these paper crowns. That was our way of creating our own glamour—and that’s what we wanted the line to be like.

Do you have a favorite piece? I love the tiered dresses. [Shown above]

How would you wear your hair and makeup with one? Well, it depends on where I’m going and how I’m accessorizing it—but I would probably wear my hair down, because it’s a chiffon dress and it’s flowy, and I’d go for a more natural makeup look.

What’s the one makeup item you have to wear everyday? If I can only put one thing on, mascara. I bet that’s everyone’s answer! I wear Maybelline New York Full ‘N Soft mascara.

You’ve been rocking darker hair recently I usually change the color a little bit, every two and half months I go in [to Chris McMillan Salon]; it’s always really subtle changes.

So you’re never going extreme—no fire engine red for you?
No! Actually, my hairdresser is a redhead and she pulls it off amazingly. But no, I tried red hair in high school and it did not look good on me. It was more a maroon.

What made you go for that at the time? Oh, when I was in high school, on Friday nights I used to dye my hair out of a box. It was something to do. I would just get bored, I guess.

And how long did the maroon hair last? Not very long! It was a red-brown that had turned into a purple-y maroon. I remember I showed up at school and we had gotten our new soccer uniforms that day, and it was the exact color of our new jerseys. Everyone said, “Oh that’s so cool.” And I was like, “I have to change this immediately! This is not intentional!”

Any other hair color regrets? I had bleached hair for awhile. It was pretty bad.

But did you like it at the time? I mean, I’m from Orange County, so it was the norm. Everybody had badly bleached hair [then]. But yeah, it’s so funny because I’ll look back at pictures and think, “Oh my God, I thought I looked so great.” It’s hysterical.

Source: allure.com

Lauren Conrad once again spent some time with this reporter, but now at NYC Fashion Coterie showing off Paper Crown, a new collection from LC herself.

Maura McManus, Lauren’s childhood friend, partner in crime, and the brains behind Paper Crown also talked with yours truly on the focus of Paper Crown.

For Lauren, it’s all about injecting her true passion into this collection, consisting of easy-breezy California style that only Lauren Conrad can bring together.

Lauren is combining modern style with solid pieces that can be utilized with all trends that come and go, Lauren wants to make sure her dresses, mini-leather jackets, blouses, skirts, and leggings come in handy for a very long time.

Since Paper Crown is funded entirely by Lauren, Lauren enjoys making decisions freely, working with her best friends, and the entire process of putting a clothing line together.

Though Lauren did have some input in the original Lauren Conrad Collection, it was just that; that line was funded by another partner and Lauren said she learned a lot from that experience.

Maura explains how Lauren has a following to where Lauren dresses for people their age but is able to do it in such a way that defines Lauren from everyone else, and Paper Crown is all about Lauren.

Though, Paper Crown strives to attract to the general market, it’s very important to invoke you into any clothing line you create, explains Lauren.

Both Lauren and Maura elaborate that this new line is a process of trial and error, it’s a matter of what’s trending in fashion while seeing what pieces work and what pieces don’t work, determining what makes it next season.

Even though Lauren wants these pieces to stay permanently in closets, Lauren emphasizes that you need to produce new pieces to keep the line updated.

Maura too stresses that with a contemporary line like Paper Crown, you always know what’s going on in the fashion industry as opposed to running a futures company where you’re always producing the future, Paper Crown is set up to be contemporary enough to go along with all the different styles, you can have fun here.

Lauren Conrad right now is solely focused on putting all her time and effort into Paper Crown; Lauren, Maura, and everyone involved are happy where the line is at and hope that everyone can appreciate the unique style Lauren put together.

And so far, Lauren says the response has been great here at NYC Fashion Coterie.

Lauren Conrad proves once again to her audience and the fashion industry that she is a fashion icon, and nothing will get in the way of her goals and dreams that will take her to success.

Source: examiner.com

On February 18 UsMagazine.com reported:

Reality rumble! Though Whitney Port, 25, and Lauren Conrad, 25, were close pals on The Hills, an insider tells the new issue of Us Weekly (on stands now) that the two have gone their separate ways.

“Whitney is upset because she thinks that The City was canceled to make room for Lauren’s new reality show,” the source tells Us. “Whitney feels like she got the shaft.”

(Ironically, Conrad’s latest MTV venture was scrapped February 4 after the network deemed it too “high brow” for its current lineup.)

Whitney later took to her blog to respond to the allegation:

Hi tootsies,
This week has been a little crazy with some funny nonsense that US Weekly has been circulating. I feel sometimes like I don’t have to justify this stuff, but I just want to clear up that everything is more than fine between Lauren and me. So to put the rumor to rest, I wanted to let you know that there are no hard feelings between us! I shared something so amazing with her and just because the show is over doesn’t mean our friendship is over!

xoxo,
Whit

Sources: usmagazine.com & whitneyport.com