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WWD has learned that Diane von Furstenberg is one of the investors in a company.
Billie Lourd and her stepfather, Bruce Bozzi, look like a pair when they walk into their party. They are both wearing baby blue.” It wasn’t planned, but we’re on the same page!” exclaimed Lourd, who was wearing a dress by Autumn Adeigbo. “It tends to happen.”
“It really wasn’t on purpose,” said Bozzi, who was wearing a suit made to look like it was from the 1970s. It was based on the “tacky tuxedos” of the time and John Travolta’s outfit in the first scene of “Saturday Night Fever. It was made by “Mario in Beverly Hills,” the family tailor.
When I walked in, I said, “Look at what I’m wearing!”,” he said. “She’s like, ‘Look at what I’m wearing.’ We share a home. “It does happen a lot of weird things,” Lourd said. “We even matched the bottles by accident.”
That is Bozzi’s new Shochu company, Mujen “Ai” (“ai” in Japanese means “love,” and “mujen” means “infinite”). The Palm, the former co-owner of The Palm and the husband of CAA talent agent Bryan Lourd, and business partner Sondra Baker started selling the distilled spirit (made in Japan for more than 500 years) in November, but this was their official launch party, and Lourd was asked to be the hostess.
The 29-year-old actress, daughter of Lourd and the late Carrie Fisher, said, “I was so excited to host this because Bruce has worked so hard to build this amazing brand, and I’ve been wanting to help him as much as I can.” ” COVID-19 has made things so hard. We haven’t been able to do things like this or go to events. And when this chance came up, I grabbed it with both hands and was so happy. We really like this brand. We really are doing everything together. A lot of my friends and his friends are here.
On the guest list were Billie Lourd’s husband, Austen Rydell; rising actors Nico Hiraga and Austin Crute; former freestyle skier and actor Gus Kenworthy; Jamie Schneider Mizrahi and Nico Mizrahi; a Sony Pictures executive named Andre Caraco; film producer Jon Berg; and guitarist Tim Reynolds.
“In the end, Sondra Baker was the one who got me involved,” Bozzi of Mujen said. “She was the one who had this idea.”
In the 1990s, they met at a gym in Los Angeles called Sports Connection. They were running on treadmills next to each other.
Baker said, “Funny story, right?” Years later, when their kids were in first grade, they ran into each other in the schoolyard (Bozzi is the father of a pre-teen, Ava).
Baker, who has a background in technology, learned about Shochu from her husband. When she found out that when made with rice, the liquor is free of sugar, carbs, and gluten, she saw an opportunity for a “healthier” spirit.
Baker said of Bozzi, “I told my husband I wanted to start this business, and if I did, I wanted to do it with him.” “He was involved even before he realized it.”
They went to distilleries in the Kumamoto area of Japan. They ended up at a place that has been in the same family for 119 years and is run by the founder’s great-granddaughter. They have three kinds of Mujen bottles: “Ai Lite,” which has 23% alcohol; “Original,” which has 35% alcohol and is meant to be mixed in cocktails like “Tokyo Lemonade” and “Rosé Spritz,” which were served at the party; and “X,” which is a brown bottle with 42% alcohol that has been aged for 10 years. Diane von Furstenberg is among the investors.
Bozzi said, “She’s a very close and very old friend of mine.” “I brought it to her and her husband, Barry Diller’s, house for dinner, and she said, ‘This is amazing. How can I take part? “
Mujen can be bought online in 45 states through direct-to-consumer sales, and it is also sold in a few places in New York and Los Angeles. In L.A., you can find it at Alexander Wilmot’s Gigi’s, Jeff Klein’s The Tower Bar, and the private members’ club San Vicente Bungalows, as well as at Monsieur Marcel on The Grove and The Little Door on Third Street.
“Anderson had never tried it, and Andy loves the Ai,” Baker said, referring to Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen’s entertaining and booze-filled live CNN “New Year’s Eve” show, where they were seen drinking Mujen (Cohen is a friend of Bozzi’s).
“We didn’t know they were going to have a four-hour ad for Mujen on there.” Baker joked. ” Anderson said the best thing ever said by a person. “It’s like a beautiful siren kissing you from the sea of Odysseus,” he said.
She laughed and said, “I’m going to put that on T-shirts.”
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