Please Note: This may not be the perfect introductory letter but done is better than perfect.
“Please Note” is a polite phrase used to draw attention to important information or a key point within a communication.
Cassandra Grey was once described as “a polarizing figure not only in the beauty industry but also on Olympus, where she holds court.”
This is Cassandra Grey’s Substack.
Biography
Cassandra Grey is the Founder of VIOLET GREY and MADAME GREY, mother of Jules Grey, and widow of Brad Grey.
A bunch of other things too: Beauty Editor, Curator of Nice Things, Creative Director, Angel Investor, world-builder, plastic surgery advisor, recovering addict with a mild case of OCD, double Aries with Libra rising, @caroleradzilwill’s best friend and most trusted confidante, Cat Lady with Cat Moss, writer, White Luggage Traveler, stylist, interior designer, farmer, Robert Evans’ goddaughter, master manifestor, discerning consumer, art collector, book publisher, injectable peptide, NAD, and HRT expert, and a best-selling Substacker, Editor-in-Chief of Please Note by Cassandra Grey.
Please Note: This may not be the perfect introductory letter but done is better than perfect.
I’ve always struggled with wanting—almost desperately—to make a name for myself, while at the same time never wanting anyone to know my name.
The first time I appeared in a magazine I was twenty two. The publication was 7x7—one of only two glossies in San Francisco, which made it feel more important than it was. The feature was “What’s in My Bag.” I wasn’t picked because I was somebody’s daughter, or someone’s girlfriend, or even because I had a job worth mentioning. I suspect it was the cropped leather jacket. Or that I could be found most nights in the back room at Tosca, playing pool and fraternizing with vaguely glamorous—but more often questionable—characters.
When the inquiry landed in my Dot.Kaufman@Hotmail.com inbox, I was equal parts excited and embarrassed.
Please Note: Dorothy Kaufman is my fake assistant established in 1997 and she is still on my team and can be reached at dot.kaufman@violetlabinc.com should you want to send me an inquiry, an invoice or an invitation to your chic dinner party.
The headline read: “Meet San Francisco’s mysterious It Girl, Cassandra Huysentruyt.” Mortifying. “Cringe” is the word now, and it’s a feeling I would come to know well. I hated the photo. Hated my hair. My too-shiny lipstick. My shoes. I was convinced I looked ill-shaped and over-produced—neither “It Girl” nor “mysterious.” For weeks I carried a pit in my stomach, talking to myself about myself: too uncool to be in a magazine, too uncool to list the contents of a bag that weren’t even in my bag. As if anyone cared what I carried—especially someone with bad shoes, bad hair, and worse: too shiny lipstick.
At that age, I had already decided: I would be a writer. A New York Times best-selling novelist. On the level of Danielle Steel—who, by the way, also lived in San Francisco. I’d publish under a pseudonym, of course, and every book would be optioned for film or television.
I haven’t published a single book yet. But I did move to New York City to make a name for myself. And still, every time I see my name in print—or, more often now, glaring on a phone screen—I feel that gnawing embarrassment. I’m not naive, though. I know what a headline can do for one’s bank account.
And while I am rich, I am also a Single Girl With Bills (podcast coming soon). Bills born of a taste for quaint country houses with twenty-nine acres of lush farmland, summers at the Hotel du Cap, doctors who don’t take insurance, shopping sprees at Hirshleifers, Hästens mattresses, biweekly peptides and NAD injections, Animal Farm Creamery butter and, yes, designer produce.
I am, in fact, a single mom with bills. A child with an extravagant Roblox habit, private school on the Upper East Side, and the firm belief that it’s perfectly normal to order Nobu on a Tuesday that isn’t his birthday.
So yes, I am grateful for my headlines. Proud of them, even. Mysterious It Girl introduced me to San Francisco society—which meant I was both loved and hated, or, more politely, destined to be misunderstood. Since 7x7, there have been headlines that served me well. A few uncomfortable blind items in Page Six. A handful of DeuxMoi mentions that kept the mystique alive.
Consider my headlines as my About page: already edited for time, loosely based on a true story, and carefully reshaped for dramatic effect.
You like my letter, gee thanks, I just wrote it, Upgrade, put your paid subscription in the bag. And If you were my founding subscriber I just might shower you with gifts.
My Headlines
“Meet San Francisco’s Mysterious It Girl, Cassandra Huysentruyt
7X7 magazine
“Cassandra Grey, L.A.’s high priestess of beauty, is doing just fine"
Los Angeles Times
VOGUE, September Issue
“Don’t Call Her A Trophy Wife”
The New York Times
“The Many Lives of Cassandra Grey"
AIR MAIL
“Cassandra Grey Launches Perfume Label With $1,100 Fragrance”
The Business of Fashion
“Hollywood knows who Cassandra Grey is, do you?”
Elle
“The Loves and Losses of Cassandra Grey”
Town & Country
“A Day and in the Life of Cassandra Grey”
The Wall Street Journal
"Cassandra Grey is Nothing Short of Iconic"
The Love List
“Violet Grey founder buys business back from Farfetch”
Vogue Business
“Just Browsing: Violet Grey Brings California Cool to the Upper East Side”
Vogue
“What Cassandra Grey Can’t Live Without”
New York Magazine
“The Beauty Products Cassandra Grey Uses to the Last Drop”
The Cut
“Cassandra Grey Talks Vibrator Sales in Quarantine”
Us Weekly
“How Cassandra Grey Built Violet Grey Without Going To Business School”
Forbes
Vanity Fair
“We Finally Have The Full Backstory Behind Bethenny & Carole's "RHONY" Feud”
Refinery 29
“Please Note” is a polite phrase used to draw attention to important information or a key point within a communication.
Cassandra Grey was once described as “a polarizing figure not only in the beauty industry but also on Olympus, where she holds court.”
This is Cassandra Grey’s Substack
