It's All About Style

“Look, if your tire breaks down, don’t call me. I can’t be your man,” TV personality & Style guru Paul Wharton told Hollywood on the Potomac on the terrace of Kingbird Restaurant at The Watergate Hotel in between dinner and the lemon souffle. Wharton is more than just a personality, he’s a brand. From now on, he should just go by “Wharton” like Usher, Iman, Ludacris or Wilhelmina – as in the Wilhelmina Agency where he worked as a model, actor and stylist at the onset of his career in NYC. We’ll explain the tire thing in a minute. First, we’ll take a spin through his life.

Life began in Cleveland, Ohio …… then on to Columbia, Maryland followed by Laurel, Md. He remembers his Laurel home fondly. His dad is a builder so they lived in “a really nice house…. a Tudor thing on a hill …. really nice. Our dining room was an elevated kind of wood floor and then you step down and go to the living room, and that was my stage.” He was four when he invented his stage. “The house was full of music (Patti LaBelle) and my mom was a great cook so she loved having friends over; everyone was welcome. Whenever people came to our house, there was music that was always playing. The kitchen smelled wonderful. She was always drinking champagne or wine and it just felt like a great time. The holidays were amazing. It wasn’t until I went to some of my friends’ homes that I realized that not everybody lives like this. I would go into their homes and their moms would be walking around; it would be quiet, and I would hear the news on. There would be nothing cooking in the kitchen, and they all did self serve. They would go into the cabinets and get cereal or Twix or something. We never had any of that stuff. When it was time to eat, my mom made a fabulous meal.”