The Next It Thing

A SCHUR MATCH OF MUSIC AND COUTURE

They seem an unlikely pair. She's an up-and-coming fashion designer, specializing in smart, feminine looks that are prized for their aura of chic refinement. He's the music-biz whiz who gave the world such fist-pumping, heavy rock acts as Limp Bizkit and Staind, bands without a shot glass of refinement between them. She's inspired by the 1920s and the Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko; he's all about the pop-culture present. He used to book clubs; she's in a book club.

It was love at first sight.

Stephanie and Jordan Schur—the designer of the Michon Schur clothing line and the president of Geffen Records, respectively—met in 2001. The alternative-rock band Weezer was releasing a new record, in honor of which Jordan threw one of his infamous Hollywood parties— a moonlit bacchanal for some 600 guests. "I remember thinking it was horrible," says the more low-key Stephanie. "And they ran out of champagne." The night wasn't a total loss, though: she eventually met the host, who plied her with his secret stash of Dorn Perignon. Within a week, she'd moved in. "Stephanie changed my life upside down and backwards," Jordan says.

They were married in 2003 and had a son, Jake, soon after. Stephanie— who'd studied fashion in college before working as a stylist's assistant and a salesgirl at Fred Segal—pulled out her old sketchpad. "I really needed a creative outlet," she says of her first, tentative designs, which she then hired a local seamstress to translate into silk georgette and satin. Encouraged by friends, Stephanie launched Michon Schur (Michon is her middle name), with a showing of just 10 pieces at a modest get-together at the Chateau Marmont. Stylist Christina Ehrlich took a few pieces with her when she left, and within weeks Penelope Cruz was wearing the black velvet skirt and green chiffon top from the neophyte designer's debut collection, and Rosario Dawson was photographed in a cream-colored satin dress by a bedazzled international press corps at the Alexander premiere, in November 2004. Other fans now include Mischa Barton and Kirsten Dunst, and the line is carried by Intermix and Stephanie's former employer Fred Segal.

When they're not traveling for work—Stephanie to France, where she supervises the fabrication of her collection by the same company that handles manufacturing for Chanel and Rochas, and Jordan all over the place in support of Geffen's artists, from the ethereal art-rock group Sigur Ros to Ashlee Simpson—the Schurs can usually be found at their Spanish Revival villa in Santa Monica Canyon, a fourstory hillside showpiece featuring breathtaking views of the Pacific from two wraparound balconies. Under Stephanie's influence, Jordan now entertains on a gentler scale. Their intimate dinner parties are among the most coveted invitations in town.

AARON GELL