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By Kathleen S. Carr ’96
“Pink Is So Three Years Ago”
Carolyn Risoli ’86: President, Marc Jacobs Fashion Design
When I interviewed Carolyn Risoli ’86, I was wearing a hot pink sweater. By the end of the interview, I’d thrown the sweater in the trash and vowed to add more neutrals to my wardrobe.
Carolyn Risoli has coffee with Sofia Coppola. She veers away from synthetics. A history major at Holy Cross, she has traded her room in Alumni Hall for the presidential suite at fashion design dynasty, Marc Jacobs, based in New York City. Marc Jacobs has been dubbed one of today’s hippest designers.
I call Carolyn to ask her about “Fashion Week,” which was held in New York City on Feb. 4-11.
I ask Carolyn what Fashion Week is like.
“It’s exciting,” she says. “It’s loud music. It’s a social scene. It’s all about who is sitting in the front row. Typically that means J-Lo, Marc Anthony, those twins, Beyoncé and Hilary Swank. To the normal person, it’s wacky, but it’s meant to evoke an image and to mimic the emotion of what’s happening in the world.
“Our show was a little late this year, and we got some bad press,” Risoli continues. “People thought we were holding the show for Beyoncé, because we didn’t start until she came and sat down. But she’s not what we were waiting for—she was having a cocktail, we were waiting for a dress—it all got blown out of proportion.”
Finish this sentence, I ask her: “I wouldn’t be caught dead in …”
“Acid wash jeans,” she responds, “and probably a lot of what I wore when I was at Holy Cross.”
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Golijov Arrives at Lincoln Center
Music prof to be subject of prestigious festival
I call Osvaldo Golijov—who has taught in the Holy Cross music department since 1991—to discuss what it means to him to have a festival of his compositions debuting at the Lincoln Center next January. And I ask if he considers this his crowning achievement.
Golijov: It’s a scary highlight. It’s not just one concert, it’s many. It’s not that you are sharing the program with other composers, it’s just you. I hope the music has enough variety to sustain the audience.
Off-Campus: What brought you to Holy Cross? And why have you stayed so long?
Golijov: When I was a student at Tanglewood, I loved Massachusetts. My wife and I have family here, and I thought it’d be a beautiful thing to be surrounded by family. But I also felt that Holy Cross would be a great challenge for me, to teach in a Catholic college. To get to know Christianity in another country. It’s a different manifestation of Catholicism than I knew in Argentina. For me, that’s a personal challenge.
O-C: What do you listen to?
Golijov: I listen to a lot of music. Popular Latin American music. I don’t have good enough English to understand rap. I’m the old deaf uncle in the corner, yelling to my kids, “Hey, what did he say?” I’m always looking for something in music, and it’s not just what everyone else is looking for. This week, I’m fascinated by jazz, big band—like Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. All these big band guys have an incredible optimism and a joy that is so American. But ask me next week, and I’ll be listening to something different.
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50 Million Square Miles of Responsibility
Barry Costello ’73 gets set to lead the Navy’s 3rd Fleet
Training aircraft carrier strike groups, protecting homeland security and planning the Navy of the future—it’s all in a day’s work for Vice Adm. Barry Costello ‘73.
Costello has recently been named to command the Navy’s 3rd Fleet.
“There are five fleets in the Navy,” he explains to me. “And the 3rd is responsible for 50 million square miles of ocean in the Pacific. On any given day this equates to: five aircraft carriers, four amphibious large deck ships, 73 ships at sea, 32,000 people and 1,400 aircraft.”
O-C: What does this nomination mean to you?
Costello: It’s a great honor. It’s an opportunity to make a difference. I came up through the NROTC program at Holy Cross. I’m based in San Diego, and there are a number of Crusaders out here.
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She Teaches, She Coaches, She’s in Sports Illustrated!
Former women’s basketball star, Katie O’Keefe ’03, is more than “A face in the Crowd”
Katie O’Keefe was in Sports Illustrated’s “Faces in the Crowd” section of the March 7, 2005 issue. When I contact SI to inquire how many Crusaders have graced their pages, I get no response. However, when I ask Rebecca Hurley Rabbett, a fellow ’96 grad—who also happens to be a research librarian at McKinsey & Co. in Waltham, Mass.—she responds immediately. Between 1996-2002 Holy Cross was mentioned in SI 12 times. And, of those 12 mentions, only three reference women.
I’m impressed, and I don’t hide that from O’Keefe when we chat.
O-C: If it were me, I’d have photos of this issue posted all around my apartment. Do you have it prominently displayed?
O’Keefe: No, but I might have a copy at work.
She’s more concerned with using her Spanish skills to teach in Bolivia every summer or finding downtime to build basketball courts for kids who’ve never held a ball before.
O-C: How did you get into Sports Illustrated?
O’Keefe: I’m a Spanish and humanities teacher, and a high school basketball coach. The Manchester Union Leader wrote a story about former college basketball players who are now coaching. A Sports Illustrated regional reporter in Maine saw the article and submitted it to “Faces in the Crowd.”
O-C: Did former classmates or players contact you after seeing the article?
O’Keefe: I was at the Holy Cross women’s semifinal basketball game the day the article came out. Coach Gibbons saw it, and some local newscasters at the game showed it on TV. My teammates got a hoot out of that.
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“I Owe It All to Holy Cross”
William Mostyn III ’69 named Deputy General Counsel for Bank of America
Perhaps it’s the love of Shakespeare in him that makes talking to William Mostyn ’69 feel as if I’ve just awoken from a midsummer night’s dream. In a word, he’s calming. Which is interesting, because his job as deputy counsel for Bank of America is surely a bit chaotic at times.
Mostyn, who graduated from Holy Cross with an English degree, was immediately drafted to serve in the Navy during the Vietnam War. He got an early discharge, and headed to Northeastern law school a year later. I ask if Holy Cross helped prepare him for the world of corporate law. He replies that not only did it help him get into every law school he applied to, but it also helped him get his first job at Gillette—where he worked for 31 years.
“When I interviewed at Gillette,” he explains, “another grad, Joe Mullaney, was there. He admitted that it was my Holy Cross affiliation that pushed my resume to the top.”
Kathleen S. Carr ’96 is a freelance writer based in Melrose, Mass. She can be reached via e-mail at kath.carr@gmail.com.
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