Kerri Bouvier

The Horse Whisperer

Kerri Bouvier works at Chanel, owns a horse she rides regularly and a condo in Park City. And if you were to go by those details alone, you’d get the wrong idea of what she’s all about. She’s worked the shop floor on Rodeo Drive for 10 years now, selling to the moneyed elite in Los Angeles. Her phone also buzzes constantly during the day, with clients from Europe, Australia, or Saudi Arabia calling about inventory and pieces glimpsed on the catwalks.

She loves the job for the action, and is good at reading people’s wants and desires. But she loves it even more for the quiet it affords her in the morning and on the drive home, which she often completes in silence.

“I think part of getting older is being more secure,” she says. “I like to spend time with myself. I like quiet, and I like my alone time a lot.”

Before she met her current boyfriend of 10 years, she dated almost as a form of exercise. “You have exercises that work, and some which work better,” she says. “And sometimes you change it up a bit.”

The horse, Kholton, and the condo in Park City are her respite. In love with the outdoors from a young age, she rides and skis to get away from the clutter of life. In short, she’s got life figured out. And given the job she has, she might be the coolest and most laid-back person I know.

“I like my age, and I like where I am,” she says. “I don’t want to be 20 again. I don’t want to be 30 or even want to be 40 again,” she says. “I’m old chronologically, but I don’t feel old.”

A society obsessed with youth culture is good business for spas and plastic surgeons, she says. She probably even sees a few examples walk into her store on a daily basis, though she’d be too polite to say that. In any case, she’s not worried about falling into the same trap.

“I don’t know what 58 feels like,” she says. “I don’t know how old I feel. I feel good. That’s how old I feel.”