Opening on March 26th, Mr. Hamish Bowles' new exhibition Balenciaga and Spain brings over 100 pieces of priceless haute couture to the de Young museum. Expanding the retrospective from its showing at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in New York (that exhibit offered only 50 pieces), the exhibition will highlight the master couturier's work through traditional Spanish themes.

As Mr. Bowles' was in town this week to prepare for the exhibition, I was lucky enough to sit down with him and learn more about the inscrutable designer and Mr. Bowles himself.

P&C: Allow me to begin by reading you this quote from Francine du Plessix Gray's novel October Blood, which is overall an enteraining satire on Carmel Snow…

"In the center of the living room there sometimes sat Cristobal Balenciaga, Mother’s best friend in Paris, dolorously sipping chamomile tea. Infrequently exposed to clothes other than his own, he mostly came to curse at the vulgarity of the costumes being paraded in Mother’s suite. He was a thin, depressed, nomadic Spaniard with perennial dark glasses and some twelve houses spread over the map of Europe, all of which he hated. He would spend a few days at his hacienda in Seville and leave it, complaining of the noise, go to his chalet in Switzerland to cure his sinuses and sell it the following morning, complaining of the insects. His only passion besides his work was looking for antiques, and he could spend a month piling up Renaissance tables and Persian rugs to furnish a flat in Barcelona which he’d leave after a night because he disliked the Gaudi building across the street. He traveled everywhere with a long-haired dachshund called Zurbarán and carried in his pocket several immaculate linen handkerchiefs with which he wiped the dog’s bottom after each sidewalk performance. When he and my mother greeted each other every summer he would scrutinize her dress with a tragic air, hands on her shoulders, to be sure that she was wearing one of his originals, and then tug at different parts of her collar, sleeves, waistline to show that she was not wearing it properly.”

Is this an accurate description?

Hamish Bowles: (Laughs) Bettina Ballard does describe him as obsessed with antiqueing, piling up antique rugs... yes, that he was constantly working on apartments in Madrid, and then not being able to sleep there because of the noise… It is very true to say that he could not understand the clothes produced by his contemporaries. By extension, couldn’t understand why his friends & clients would choose to wear them.

There is a story in Bettina Ballard['s autobiography In My Fashion] – about an occasion where Balenciaga was accompanying Ballard to an event and she asked him to do up the back of her Dior dress, which had 30 buttons up the back… He kept muttering "Christian est complétement fou!"- "he's completely mad!" So, there are some very funny resonances. But he (Balenciaga) disdained from involving himself in the public side of the house, focusing on the technical, behind the scenes work & producing the clothes themselves… For special friends he would be involved in the fittings.

In fact, it was sort of a nightmare! He shared with Chanel this obsession with the way a sleeve was set. He would sort of torment his tailors – they would have to take sleeves in and out time & time again. Bettina Ballard has a funny story about this suit that she was having made, [it] was so battered & bruised by his constant thing, that she ended up wearing the perfectly made, line for line copy that was made by Ben Zuckerman – one of the very high end 7th Avenue copyists – she wore HIS suit, and Balenciaga never noticed.... He was a fastidious technician.

From your description in the intro, it was more about how reclusive he was; I find that’s so common when you read about Yves Saint Laurent, or Chanel, - these people were sort of crotchety, and known for being in their own bubble of a world. Is that a factor for being a design genius in a way?

I don’t think so. I think a lot of Balenciaga’s contemporaries were extremely… they flourished in social situations. Jacques Fath gave endless parties, Dior even. I certainly think that Chanel in her day was extraordinarily social, and sort of a lynch-pin of a certain kind of artistic society in Paris in the old days. (I mean she did become sort of a crotchety old woman late in life,)… Saint Laurent had his own demons to contend with.

Balenciaga was naturally quite shy. He had an intimate circle of friends, mostly people he was involved with through his work. He just didn’t have time for a mundane life really, or the inclination for it. His great partner in life – D’Attainville, died in 1948, and Balenciaga became sort of increasingly retiring after that. But I think his focus was just on his work, perfecting & honing his craft.

I loved what you said about how he would use his client’s physical quirks to develop a specific design detail…shortening the sleeves, doing a special collar. Today, when you see designers work on Project Runway for instance, they’re stumped when faced with a "real" body type. Do you think that that is something that can be learned, or did Balenciaga have a natural talent for it? Can you practice at that and learn how to design for your clients in a more specific way, using not the standard stick-figure model?

I think that Balenciaga’s whole apprenticeship and training was as a tailor and then as a dressmaker. In that capacity, his entire working life would have been one-on-one interactions with clients. Day-in, day-out he would be making clothes to fix specific body types, and you know for clients that would each have strong opinions about what their physical assets (and debits) were, and they would conspire together to enhance or minimize those as the case might be. That was his whole training.

When he opened his own couture house in Spain, he would go to Paris to buy the sample garments of the designers whom he admired, and he would bring those back to his couture establishments in San Sebastian and Barcelona and Madrid, and he would adapt those to the needs & demands of his clients. So I think that he’s constantly aware of different body types, and I think that in his collections he was careful to put in things that would suit, that would be adaptable to clients with different needs and looks and body types.

It’s a different world today. He was making – he was doing couture. Each garment that he made was made specifically for a client. So, it’s like made-to-measure. In ready to wear, it’s not so easy to do that. And I think also body types have changed in a way, but it’s just a different craft; it’s bespoke and ready-to-wear and they’re just worlds apart.

What do you think about the end of couture? Do you think it will ever disappear? There’s a lot of fear about that today, I know that Chanel has been buying up a lot of the different craft houses like Lesage and opening the schools…Do you think that there will always be a couture market?

I think there will always be clients that want very special pieces and can afford to acquire them. I think that couture, like everything, will mutate. I think there are a lot of younger designers who wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves to be couturiers per se, who’re certainly using couture techniques and maybe a couture approach in their work. And, I certainly think that, now more than ever there’s a real interest in embroidery and embellishment and the possibilities of pleating and all those kinds of techniques that are very very couture-based. I think there are lots of young people who are very keen to learn those crafts. It’s very striking to me, going into couture workrooms now, and going to Lesage and those great couture suppliers and seeing how many young people there are there that really want to learn those crafts, and that might not have been the case a decade or two ago. So that kind of gives one hope for the future.

And I think just the general kind of global engagement and fascination with fashion now that’s come thru the kind of television programs you’ve spoken to – and just the instantaneous dissemination of information through the internet I think has really widened the world of fashion and I think made people more intrigued by all kinds of different areas of fashion. I certainly think haute couture and special pieces are very much a part of that.

Even with the expense of those kind of details? I remember in the Valentino documentary where he was going through his archive and he found this beautiful piece that had been done by Lesage and he said “You’d have to sell the bank of Italy to make that now”! The expense of it is getting astronomical, it seems.

Yes, it is. But there will always be women who just want that special thing and can afford to pay for it. You know, it’s like a custom sports car, or a rich-person’s toy…or art. So, I think there’s always a place for it, yes.

It is of course a very costly thing to do. Despite the cost of these garments, it’s a major loss-leader for any house. I think there are new ways of doing embroidery. I think there are incredible embroideries coming out of India that will change some of the pricing levels of that particular craft. And China, and so on. There are all kinds of approaches. And the wonderful thing about fashion is that it constantly mutates and reinvents itself – that’s the point of it. I think an approach to couture is something that will change like that too.

With that in mind, I was thinking about what you said about how long the shows were for Balenciaga. There were 200 models and they would take about 2 hours. Whereas today, there’s a maximum (usually in ready-to-wear only) but a maximum of 35 – 40 looks, they’re on and off the runway in 15 or 20 minutes, and then the line gets edited further before it ever goes to market. So, what do you think about that? Is there room for these designers to create and develop given the constraints of the season?

You have to think that in a Balenciaga show like that he’s basically showing his collection, his pre-collection, he’s showing everything that would be today in a designer’s showroom. It would be the options for the buyers that exist in the showroom off the runway, but he’s just showing the entire collection.

It’s so funny watching the videos of some of those shows, which luckily exist from the 1960s – I think 1960 – 1968, because clients get up in the middle of a show. You know, they have a hair appointment or a lunch at the Plaza D’Athénée, they leave and then sometimes come back…you know, for evening dresses or something. Or they’re just there because they need a coat or something, so they don’t need to stay for the cocktail dresses. It’s really funny – they sort of come & go. But you know there was no music. It was very austere, certainly couldn’t take photographs, you couldn’t sketch. You could just write down the number of the dress the mannequin was holding in her hand.

I was thinking about the sketching and fashion illustration…I’m a big fan of Gruau, and he did a lot of wonderful images of Balenciaga; I feel like fashion illustration is something you don’t really see any more. It’s still taught, and it’s something that people dabble in, but it’s not really the art form used the way it was 50 years ago - as a commercial art form. Everything is photography-based now. So do you think that could ever come back – the fashion illustration?

Ah…I think it’s unlikely myself. I think great fashion illustrators will emerge and hopefully their work will be showcased in an appropriate way. I think that in the 20s & 30s often a detailed line drawing was a much more exact and precise way of describing an outfit than a photograph that might have had indeterminate reproduction in a magazine. So, informationally it had a different weight. We just live in a different world. I love illustration, fashion illustration myself – I’m very excited to see it.

I come out of the luxury fashion world, and I wondered what you think of this new world of the corporate fashion of LVMH and PPR group, and would a brand like Balenciaga have survived that?

Well, Balenciaga always resisted any kind of licensing agreement. Where Dior, Balmain, Jacques Fath all had licensees in America doing sort of high-end American ready-to-wear lines, he refused ever to do that. He refused any kind of endorsement. But still, his business was run along remarkably sound lines, so he just didn’t feel the need to do it. So I can’t imagine that he would want to be involved in the kind of corporate structures that now exisit, but he certainly had a very keen business sense and his business was very very well run and very profitable.

He had a hard-scrabble background, he was very pragmatic in the way he set up his companies. You know, clearly careful and scrupulous with money, to where it managed the way his businesses were run. He had business partners early on. The histories of those relationships are not that well documented…

I was recently watching The Pink Panther, and I found out that Yves Saint Laurent did the costumes for the principal characters.

Only for Claudia Cardinale. I think Givenchy did Capucine, and Saint Laurent did Claudia Cardinale…

I was wondering if Balenciaga he had ever received movie offers? Because you’d think he would be ripe for partnering with Luis Bunuel, or …

He did the costumes for Arletty in a 40s movie called Boléro, and...a couple of his actress-clients wore his clothes in their movies rather than him actually costuming them. It just wasn’t something it seems to have interested him. It was something Dior and Balmain did, Jacques Fath did, Chanel did. I think he just wasn’t interested, really.

So, what film do you go back to over & over for inspiration that you find interesting each time?

The Leopard – I love The Leopard. As sort of fashion movies, I really like The Red Shoes – it has great costuming. L’Année Dernière à Marienbad… I could always watch The Women…

Do you have more film projects yourself coming up? I know you were in Marie Antoinette, and Gossip Girl most recently…

And Wall Street 2… I don’t have any plans, but it’s always fun to be asked.

Do you ever think about writing or directing?

That would be intriguing, yes. Both of those options would be intriguing, yes.

And what about Oscars? Do you watch them, at home, or do you go?

I certainly watched the Golden Globes, I was much engaged. I’ve never been no, but I enjoy watching them.

What about the Royal Wedding coming up in April? Any thoughts on Kate Middleton? Are you a fan…?

I think she’s played it all very well, indeed. She’s stayed inscrutable which is a great challenge this day and age.

Do you think she’ll go with the Emmanuel’s?

No. I can’t imagine she would want to associate herself that closely with her late future mother in law. You know, it will be interesting to see. I think she’s made very sensible choices so far. So it will be intriguing. I wait with breath baited.

As we close, what do you recommend for any kind of a young designer, or even a writer, who writes about fashion & culture and things like that…What’s a good way to develop your visual sense, or your aesthetic sense? What’s a good way to gain exposure?

I think it’s just sort of saturating yourself in what’s going on in contemporary culture and going to museums and art galleries, and going to the theatre if you can, and certainly going to the cinema. I think it’s just being open to all kinds of cultural influences and zeitgeist – that’s how the zeitgeist is created. So, just being sensitive to that.

And what was your first exposure to Balenciaga?

My first exposure, well, I was aware of him, and then the first piece I bought for my collection I was about 11 or 12 I think, was an early 60s Balenciaga suit at a charity sale. And, at the same sale there was a bolero – it was for a ballet company. A bolero had been donated by Margot Fonteyn, the great prima ballerina, and it was auctioned and sold for 60 pounds which was far more; it was 120 weeks worth of pocket money – so I couldn’t afford that.

But, incredibly enough, about 5 or 6 years ago I went to a vintage store in Los Angeles and found the same – I found the jacket there, and it’s going to be in the exhibition. It’s a wonderful matador-inspired bolero and a detail of the embroidery is the dust-jacket for the catalog. So you’re going to see it in all its glory!

Balenciaga and Spain opens at the de Young museum on March 26th.

(Originally published in Genesis Magazine.)

I know. Poetic & Chic has a long-standing "no celebrity" policy, but when the celebrity in question is a fellow alumni not just of high school (St. Ignatius College Prep), but of grammar school too (Schools of the Sacred Heart), I had to bend the rules.

After a few weeks of missed connections, I finally got a phone call from Darren Criss. "Hi, it's Darren..." he began, "I’ll tell you right now, I’m rather long winded. So, brace yourself for that." Indeed. Our long and insightful conversation covered everything from his new Chicago play Starship, his love of high school theatre, thoughts on one day hosting Saturday Night Live, and the controlled chaos that is the cultural phenomenon called Glee.

So let’s just start with the obvious: You guys were at the Golden Globes last Sunday. (Glee won for best TV series, Musical or Comedy), and today you’re on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. What has this week been like?

It’s funny – I’ve been so inundated with work for this company that I’m a part of in Chicago – our show opens in 3 weeks, so I’ve been supervising that and just putting every atom of my being into it. So all this great stuff is happening that I haven’t properly soaked it in as much as I should.

But it’s been fun – the Golden Globes and the photo shoot and then the magazine coming out today, it’s been my reprieve from all that work, so it’s certainly been a lovely reminder that once Starship is open I have something fun and promising on the other side. I’m very lucky.

Tell me about Starship. Are you starring in it, or are you doing the music?

Yes, I’m writing the music. It’s an idea that I had developed for a while, and the wheels were already heavily turning on it and then I got cast in Glee. So I knew that while I probably couldn’t be in it, I could still write the music and be involved on the creative side. The music for me is almost like me being there in person. I’ve put a lot of my own soul and quirks into the music.

You know, it’s been very hard but it’s been fun and I’m just trying to make it work. I hope we can open it up in 3 weeks – I hope we can pull it off!

I have no doubt it will be successful, especially in Chicago, which is such a great city for that type of theatre.

Which is why we moved the show to Chicago. We came to a crossroads and we were deciding what it was we wanted to be doing with this entity “Starkid” – this brand, this production thing. We figured that if (much further down the line), if there was a television production we figured we would do it after we had our enjoyment in theatre, and the place for theatre is not really LA, so we decided to go back to Chicago. That was literally a month right before all this stuff happened.

So television’s not really your thing, you really want to be back in theatre?

I don’t really think it’s a matter of what my “thing” is; as an actor you’re inherently kind of a mercenary. Glee has certainly opened up the opportunity door a bit as far as maybe having a little more say in what I want to be doing. I’m still in a position where I’m watching things play out. Obviously I’m happy to be on Glee – I love the show, I love working on it, and that show happens to be on TV, but had this opportunity manifested itself into a feature film then I would be doing that. My heart will always be in theatre – I come from theatre. As an actor, there are many joys of the theatre that you just won’t find anywhere else.

Despite the fact that Starkid is a theatre entity, it is something that is completely made from scratch and made with love. It’s something I care a great deal about. So it’s something I’m extremely, personally passionate about and invested in. But you know, if the door opened up and someone wanted it to be a new Broadway play, I mean..hell yeah. I’d love to be a part of it – that would be tremendous.

We’re very flexible – we’re not so rigidly in the theatre world. If we [Starkid] were approached (and we have been), to develop screenplays then that’s something that we’re very capable of doing. We just like to incubate things in the theatre. That’s the best place to really find a lot of stuff. The work can find its body a lot better.

Are you guys planning to take Starship to New York?

We’re doing the show because we’ve always wanted to do it, and we’ll see what kind of attention we get. You know, if somebody says they want to pick it up for a TV series, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Broadway is certainly an option and we’re open to all things. It could go in a lot of different directions. It was kind of written that way actually. We did plan for it to have some kind of future embodiment.

So you guys started by doing these online videos. I know that a lot of people in the past couple of years have really been discovered that way. Do you think this is a genre that is going to be getting bigger and bigger in terms of talent discovery?

No question. The cool thing about YouTube is that it gives everybody a chance. There’s kind of this “do-it-yourself” mentality now, and if you’ve got it, it’s relatively inexpensive to put something out there on the internet for the world. People’s palettes are changing in a sense that they’re open and really receptive to reality, and to the “realness” of things.

I think people respond to kind of this relate-ability and non-polished quality, which is really cool for me because I was terrified when we had this reaction to A Very Potter Musical. I was really afraid because there’s kind of this unfair finality about the internet. No one thinks about context – it’s just very unfair. I was worried because we put it [A Very Potter Musical] out on the internet just for our friends. When people started watching it, I thought “oh no!” because there was no kind of production quality control, but I think that is why people like it. It’s not polished, there’s not a whole lot of hands in this pot, it’s just a few kids having fun.

It [the internet]’s definitely made the audience. The “fan world” has become a little more democratic. The views speak for themselves and then they get passed around virally. It’s a really interesting time to be involved in the entertainment business.

I think that’s also one of the contributing factors to the popularity of Glee. People are sharing the song parts of the show much more on YouTube, than people that are actually watching it when it airs.

And they’ve been really good about their online media. They’re making things more interactive. Also, because of the internet, because of things like YouTube and Twitter…fan connectivity is a lot easier than it was just a few years ago. People really feel like they’re part of people’s lives. The time was right for something like Glee. The mileage that it’s gotten (via the internet) has always helped.

One number in particular, “Teenage Dream”, I saw today on YouTube has almost 10 million views for that one song. When you watch this song, the chemistry between Kurt and Blaine is so clear which is why I think that song is so compelling. It’s a fantasy moment – Kurt walks in the door and it’s all love, popularity, friendship, acceptance, and in this beautiful room, and the enthusiasm comes across so clearly. How was that scene directed and how many takes did you do for that? I feel like it’s such a beautiful, lighthearted moment, but there’s so much more going on there.

You know it’s funny – and I don’t want to deny you the magic you feel watching that. I can watch something like that objectively, (but obviously I’m a little biased), but in the moment, you don’t think about it, you’re kind of just doing work. What you guys see is not what I see. I see about a million lights, I’m sweating my butt off, it’s completely silent, or maybe the music is playing but you don’t have kids cheering, and you have a bunch of cameras in your face, a lot of people running around, a lot of wires, and you’re just hoping you can hit your marks and you’re singing the right words, you’re trying to stay in the moment as an actor… there’s a lot of things that kind of get in the way of your focus. I’m just trying my best to be present, basically, and try and serve this character.

Sometimes Kurt isn’t even there. Sometimes he’s sitting down, or there’s a camera in front of me - it depends on the shot. It is work. And you do your best to just do your job. And then you hope that as a result of that that there will be this kind of extra x-factor that’s added.

I have to ask you – you went to Stuart Hall, right? Because, I also went to Convent.

Oh, great, so you get it! Can you imagine? Can you imagine being me, showing up to the set and seeing the blazer and seeing the staircase and those rooms? I was like oh my god, how did they know?

The uniform (of Dalton Academy) is very eerily similar. The only thing different is the edging on the blazer.

Exactly. That’s so funny. They have the marble staircase like in the Flood Mansion, especially the interior – the wood, the moldings, are all like Stuart Hall. It’s unbelievable.

So is that a set, or is that a home?

That’s a beautiful home [The Cravens Estate] in Pasadena. The Red Cross owns it and they usually rent it out for weddings. It’s beautiful in there.

So what do you think about this character, Blaine? To me there’s nothing wrong with him. So, when is the dark side going to come out?

Oh yeah, totally. Here’s the thing: there’s no better way to introduce a character in any story than to introduce him as seemingly perfect. Then, that’s where the drama lies: you await the fall of the king. Also, like any great story, you can’t do it overnight. It takes time. I look at a guy like Mad Men’s Don Draper being this kind of classic anti-hero; when you meet him he seems so great, or at least he’s got this exterior, and then you peel back the layers and you see the weakness.

So, not to compare Blaine to Don Draper, but I’ve been excited to see what would happen. You know Ryan (Murphy) has said to me that’s he’s not interested (and I’m not interested either) in Blaine being this kind of knight in shining armor character. As fun as it is, when we meet him and introduce him that way I think that’s not going to do anybody a lick of good. There’s only so much knowledge you can get out of that. I think it will be very important to explore the dark regions. When we meet him, he does immediately admit to this kind of cowardice and to this background – that he did in fact run away from his problems. He certainly has a lot of regrets there, which is the reason why he immediately gravitates towards Kurt. Yeah, I think things are going to start to shake up a little bit with Blaine. The character definitely has a lot of potential to go there.

How does the song selection process happen? Do the cast members have input? Is there a song that you’d like to sing on the show?

I’m still the new guy, but I feel little bit more comfortable now. I used to feel very wary about saying anything. As it gets friendlier, Ryan will ask: “Is there a song you want to do?” I’m like, “you know what man, you’ve given me such incredible songs that beggars can’t be choosers… I’m just happy to be here!...Can I get you coffee? Anything you want…you guys have changed my life…”

I don’t know what the process is - they keep an eye out for things. The cool thing about the songs that I sing with The Warblers is that they get The Beelzebubs from Tufts University to rearrange them, so even if it’s a song that I wasn’t crazy about, which has never happened, they change it up into a very unique vocal arrangement and make it something new and fresh and different anyway. The Beelzebubs have really done a knock-out job with the songs. Dalton is reminiscent of a lot of East Coast, all-male schools where there’s a lot of traditional and rather famous groups in the acapella world. These all-male groups have been around for a very long time in the Ivy League world, The Beelzebubs are one of the oldest. They do all The Warblers songs – that’s their voices on the track.

It’s only recently that I’ll tell him (Ryan Murphy) songs that I think are kind of cool. I’ve told Ryan a song and… I won’t tell you what song it is but there’s a song coming up that I kind of put in as a suggestion. (Whether or not he listened to me, I’m not going to make any claims) …but I remember mentioning the song and now it’s showing up and that’s kind of cool. He’s very open to work things off the cast.

The Hollywood momentum is crazy. Are there any special cameos that you can share?

I have no idea. I don’t know anything until the last minute.

Do they hold back on telling you guys?

No, they’re just busy. Glee is incredibly chaotic, it’s a really hard show to do, I mean you’re shooting like four or five music videos a week. Plus, writing the new ones, casting the new ones, doing production and editing the new ones, and you’re doing 22 a year. You know, they’re not twisting their mustache like “he he he, we’re not going to tell them, it’ll be great”, it’s more like “we’re working as fast as we can and we’ll get it to you when we can.”

I saw your red carpet interview at the American Music Awards where you mentioned that you wanted Christopher Walken to be on the show?

Yes. That would be mine. I would love Chris Walken to be my kooky uncle or kooky grandfather, I guess, or anybody in Blaine’s family. He’s just one of my favorite people on the planet.

Have you met him?

Oh God, no. I’ve never met Christopher Walken – good lord, I would die. He’s just a legend. He comes from a Vaudeville, practical theatre background. He’s a great dancer, he’s a great singer… God, I’d love to have Chris Walken on the show.

So if you ever got to host Saturday Night Live, would you want it to be as an actor/comedian or as a musician?

I’ve seen JT [Justin Timberlake] pull it off, so I’d like to do both. I don’t know if I’d do it as well as JT, but I’d love to. I’ve been really blessed in a number of ways, but the cool thing about me… It’s a comedy show, it’s a dramatic character or a serious character at least, and people get to see that side of me. But I do come from comedy and theatre, so it’s nice to know that I don’t think I’ll be pigeon-holed in one way or the other…

But yeah, I’d love to do both. Saturday Night Live…that would be…phew!

Do you have any favorite memories of theatre at St Ignatius?

Oh my God, a ton! High school theatre is super-special. That’s when it’s all about fun; all the really wonderful sincerity that can be in theatre is still a learning process. Quite often I’ll go see high school productions of things, or I’ll find out some high school is doing a play and I’ll see it. It kind of reminds me of where I come from and why I’m doing all of this. You know, before contracts and being an adult, really…it’s nice to be in touch with this time in one’s life where it’s about having fun with your friends.

One of my many mantras in life is that I take my work very seriously, however I don’t take myself seriously at all - that was what high school theatre was about. Theatre at SI was super-special because of its really well-rooted tradition, there’s a lot of great theatre traditions that anyone who’s gone through SI will know about. It was really special for me and I’ll always have that connection with my friends at SI who did theatre because it was this little club of crazies.

The cool thing about SI is that once you get into the Ignatian side of it and you get into the Jesuit side of things, and you start delving into the realm of spirituality – tying that into young people and theatre is something really unique & special. I’m careful of my words because I don’t want to make this religious, but just in general, tying in that notion of spirituality interlaced with artistic expression is a really cool thing to be exposed to and a really cool way of evaluating the arts at a really young age. Because for me, I don’t do what I do for myself. I do it for other people. There’s a certain shared experience there (in performance) and that’s what makes things special.

What would you advise to some kid at SI in the theatre group? Or not in the theatre group, but a writer or musician – something that’s otherwise creative. How do they take that next step?

SI is a place where a lot is expected of you, obviously to whom much is given much is expected. Going the artistic/bohemian route isn’t necessarily what they always want us to do, and yet you can do it and be successful. But I think there’s a lot of fear inherent in making that choice.

Yeah, as you know, there are no rules. There’s no one path for anybody. I think…I was going to say be true to yourself, but there’s a balance between being true to yourself and being realistic. Knowing your limits. As bohemian & romantic as it sounds – is that who you are? Do you come from a background where that makes sense to you? I think it’s important to keep taking that which is on your plate and utilize it toward what you want to do. Don’t look at what’s on your plate as an obstacle to what you want to do. Going back to the internet, there’s so many different paths now to do so many different things. The important thing is if you’re a writer, an artist, anything is just do it. You can just create.

Nothing happens overnight. People think it does. People tell me “you’re an overnight success with Glee”, and I guess that’s so in the public eye. But, I went to college, I did this in high school, I went to conservatory as a kid, I’ve worked a long time as an actor. Yes, I know I’m young, but there’s a process here. It’s important to recognize that when you’re young. Things don’t happen over night. The journey is okay, in fact it’s the best part.

I had a huge dry spell before Glee. I was really struggling. I was going to move to Chicago, I couldn’t get any work as an actor, so I was really going to pursue being a musician. I was an hour away from calling my acting team and saying “we need to take some time off from this”, and I was gonna go that way, so you never know. Be open to all avenues. I’ve always had my goals, but by no means have I had my blinders on, which has made me happy. It’s good to have dreams, but it’s good to not alienate yourself from the endless possibilities. You know, it’s always being gracious and grateful for the things that you do have until it needles its way into the future path of what you do want to do. I’m so glad I went to college; I’m so glad I grew up. (Well, I haven’t really grown up, but on paper I’ve grown up.) There are parts of me that I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t finished college. But that was really for me. I enjoy school, I enjoy academia, and it’s something that I think has been really important to my development as a human being and I’ve always been that person that wanted to go back to school and I fully intend on doing that in my later years.

Before I let you go, any insight into the Super Bowl Sunday episode?

Yeah. It’s going to be 1.21 jiggawatts of pure grade-A entertainment. It won’t take you back in time, but it’s just a lot of big, adrenaline-filled entertainment. It’s going to be like an hour-long half time show. Because there’s an audience that may not necessarily watch the show, the first ten minutes of it is like…bonkers. A lot of bells & whistles for sure.

Is that the episode that “Bills Bills Bills” is going to be on?

That’s the one. I love that song. I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know what it’s going to look like, but I’m excited too…

(Originally printed in Genesis Magazine.)

Did you know that Derek Lam and I went to the same high school? Yes, it's true. A few years apart, but the same school. St. Ignatius College Preparatory launched both of us on paths of creativity, fame, and stardom. (Okay, clearly one more than the other, but you get it.) So when the St. Ignatius alumni magazine Genesis asked me to interview Derek Lam for an upcoming issue, you can imagine that I got a little starstruck at this idea. Like...would he even talk to me? Well, he did.

How did I do it? I emailed someone and asked very very very nicely, and kept following-up. You know that adage about the squeaky wheel? It works. But be sure to squeak very softly and sweetly. Then, a lovely PR person will email you with the message that you get 20 minutes TODAY at 5PM Eastern.

And that, boys and girls, is all there is to it. Like Conan O'Brien said: "If you work really really hard and you're kind to people, amazing things will happen." Actually, it probably came together because Derek Lam is just a genuinely sweet person, full of fun, ideas, a love of fashion, fashion people, and his hometown of San Francisco. I send a thousand thanks to everyone at Derek Lam, and my good friend Jill Lynch for thinking of the whole project in the first place!

Part of your development began in your grandparents’ garment factory here in San Francisco. Was it understood that you would enter the family business from the get-go, or did your family try to encourage you into other directions?

I was only about 5 – I was a child. So there was no opinion about that. I just liked the familial atmosphere of the place. I knew it was great to be in a place surrounded by relatives working together. It was very comforting.

So when did you really begin to learn about garment construction?

When I went to Parsons.

Did you go to Parsons right from SI?

I went to Boston College for a year and a half and then transferred to Parsons.

High school is usually a time best forgotten for most of us (myself included.) But, is there something about your years at SI that you think helped to shape who you are today? Was there an experience there that really helped to shape your creative side, or was there an activity you were a part of that helped move you in the design direction?

There were two classes. The first was what was then called “Social Studies” – about people, what makes them do what they do, culture, defining who you are, with analysis and history. The second were my art classes. I had one teacher – Ms. Wolf? – Yes, Katie Wolf, she’s still there. – She is? Wow that’s amazing. I loved her classes. The last time I came home, my Mom asked me if I wanted my SI yearbook and I started flipping through it; I was like “I remember this person, and this person…”

I also really loved my English classes. They gave me a great love of literature and writing, and all of that contributes to the arts. (Notice I didn’t say science?) I enjoyed the experience there because while SI is very academically motivated, they’re very good about educating “the whole person”.

If there are high school students at St. Ignatius, or anywhere, who are interested in fashion design, what suggestions do you have for them? Is there anything they can do at a young age to help cultivate their eye for design? Or anything they can do to get into the practice of design?

I’m not sure how you could cultivate it - I didn’t know what a fashion designer was at that age. I went to Parsons in New York City to study art. I had a curiosity about art and culture which then led me to fashion design.

Being in a place like San Francisco, there’s so much culture that gives people curiosity, the city reveals culture everywhere, which is all a part of art and design.

I know that film has inspired your collections in the past, such as In the Mood for Love in 2004, and Ascenseur pour l’Echafaud in the Fall of 2009. One of my efforts here in San Francisco is organizing a bi-monthly film screening called Style Cinema SF. We screen fashion films, or films that have some sort of a strong aesthetic. Do you have other favorite films that you return to again and again for inspiration?

Barry Lyndon – that’s amazing…The Shining…I love Chinatown. For me it’s about the cinematic quality, the story told with costume and atmosphere. I like to think of my collection as a movie with no parts. I want to create mood, desire, and fantasy - that same cinematic quality, and also prompt people to think “I can have that in my life as well.”

I also know that a lot of your collections are influenced by place; I wondered if you had a San Francisco collection cooking in your brain somewhere. And, what era of San Francisco history really speaks to you?

That’s an interesting question because my collection for Fall [2010] I called “The Myth of the West”. I was thinking about the people who settled in San Francisco, who created a European city in the wilderness of the West. They were from the East, bringing their culture, values, etc., and created the mythology of “The West”. Cowboys, gold mining – our western legends. It’s clearly not an eastern, pilgrim culture in that setting.

I know that you worked for Michael Kors for years and you both are the capital-S in American sportswear. How do you see sportswear responding to the times right now? Is there still a place for luxury in American sportswear?

That’s interesting because a lot of Europeans say “why do you call it “American Sportswear?” because to them sportswear is what we would call “activewear”. Sportswear is made up of items that are easy to mix, and yes, have a basis in sports. (Riding, hunting, etc.) When you explain that there’s suiting, sportswear, and evening, then the Europeans begin to understand what it is. For me, it’s the most valid point of view on how to dress. Ultimately it’s the consumer who makes it work for them – how they use it in their wardrobes.

How do you incorporate the luxury? Is it in a design detail, the material, the fabrication…?

Yes, all of those things. I’m always looking for ways to incorporate luxury into items. I love to incorporate hand-work into pieces. I love working with modern mills - those who make bonded, technical fabrics. But I also love working with the couture mills. For me, luxury is a new point of view with a taste of the past.

Name one garment that you will never get tired of designing/interpreting.

Trench coats – I do a trench coat every season. They’re sexy, mysterious, and in New York, or I guess San Francisco too - you can throw on a coat and you’re dressed.

How do you define or compare the “Derek Lam girl” and the “Tod’s girl”? Are they the same person or is it a different personality, a different style?

Derek Lam is personal, it’s what I want to say – a dialogue with my customer. For Tod’s, it’s thinking about their brand. Tod’s is modern classic with Italian flare and a modern “pep”. I suppose the customer for both is looking for my signature. How is Derek interpreting something, what is perspective is Derek offering? (By the way, I’m saying this as one of my customers, I’m not talking about myself in the third person.) I design for both brands but filtered from within my own point of view.

Do you feel the pressure to create a popular “It” bag every season, such as a YSL Muse or Balenciaga Le Dix?

No…no, that’s a lot of marketing. Every season is a fresh start. I’m trying to determine what intrigues, what’s desirable to the customer. I think about what’s missing in their wardrobe. This is much more important than any commercial endeavor.

Plus, there’s really no science to it.

No there isn’t, or, that’s not my role. There probably is a science to it, but it’s someone in marketing who determines that.

I read in Women’s Wear Daily last fall that when you came to San Francisco for a visit, you asked your Mom to cook up some abalone with shitake mushrooms. What are some of your other favorite San Francisco flavors? Which places or neighborhoods do you always love to visit when you come here?

I ask my Mom for a “usual” home meal – whatever we would usually eat at home. So, while I really don’t have a specific request, I just leave it up to her. I love to visit the Ferry Building; I’ll go down there and have some oysters or just walk around. I love to see what’s going on down there.

The last time I came to San Francisco Vanessa Getty hosted a party for me at something Cinema?Foreign Cinema, yes, it’s one of my favorites.I had never been there and it was great. When I visit, I’m kind of like a tourist, rediscovering the city I grew up in. I also like the place that has California cuisine – up on Market Street and I can’t think of the name.

Zuni?

Yes, the Zuni Café. They have the best chicken!

Yes, the chicken with croutons?

Yes! Their food is so good! It’s always my first lunch or first dinner when I arrive in San Francisco.

The next time you visit you should try NOPA – it was founded by some of the people from Zuni.

What’s it called? NOPA?

N O P A – their roast chicken is amazing too.

Where is it?

It’s at Hayes & Divisadero.

Oh – it’s close to Zuni, sort of.

Yes, Hayes Valley-ish. Their chicken is divine – I sort of embarrass myself I enjoy it so much.

That’s how Zuni is for me!...

Madonna for Louis Vuitton, Spring 2009

I've been asked by a number of people to chime in on the latest advertising imagery produced by the house of Vuitton. I kept avoiding making my answer public because I was really hoping the hype would just go away. Sadly, I can run but I can't hide.

When I initially heard that Madonna would be gracing the new Vuitton marketing I thought it was a great idea. Her images for Versace were glamorous, elegant, and very on-brand. Then, I started to hear that the ad was set to be shot at a cafe in Los Angeles that merely looked Parisian, and that they would be photographed by Steven Meisel instead of Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot (the pair of photographers that, in my opinion, are the only ones who truly captured the proper balance of glamour and product for Vuitton,) and I started to get a little wary.

And then there's Madonna. We love Madonna, we've always loved Madonna, the prospect of Madonna collaborating with the revered Marc Jacobs made us giddy in apprehension. Divorce aside, Madge has been on good behavior lately; rather than ignoring her middle-age, she's accepted it and seems to understand that over-the-top, sexed-up, and skimpy starts to look cheap instead of provocative. Her new ladylike style reinforced by friendships with Isabella Rosselini and Gweneth Paltrow seemed down-to-earth and irreproachable. This down-to-earth motherhood of Madge made us love her even more - she became one of us, and was finally a bit normal.

Enter the new Vuitton images: skimpy, tight, elaborate and burlesque (and not in a Dita Von Teese way,) and all in an inexplicable smoky sepia-tint. Nothing makes a woman look fifty and far-too-thin than being photographed in not enough clothing. And the crotch shot? Please, we've had Madonna exposing her coochie to cameras for thirty years. Why is this new?

Of course, aesthetics aside, one can see why Vuitton chose using Madonna: pure economics. Yes, I do believe that Marc Jacobs thought of calling her after seeing her Hard Candy concert, but it would be naive to assume this is all there is to the story. Vuitton executives probably leapt at the idea because if Madonna can do anything, she can create notoriety; notoriety drives traffic, and traffic drives sales.

Sprouse Speedy Bag, $1310

The same theory applies to the new Stephen Sprouse collection. The popular Graffiti collection was initially launched in 2001 and quickly became one of the first of the modern "It" bags. Ever since, the original pieces have generated a cult status, saying: "you shoulda been there, shoulda bought it, shoulda been so lucky..." With this release of new Sprouse colors, surface designs and accessories, Vuitton is leveraging its previous success by reviving an old favorite that they know will sell. Not exactly innovative design, nor risky business.

True, now is not the time for risky business, but I do find it interesting that Vuitton is betting the bank on such high-profile efforts. I suppose both the Madonna ads and the Sprouse collection leave me with such distaste is because they so blatantly run counter to the current climate. Vuitton is still going day-glo, over-the-top, and high profile in a time when people are tightening belts and shopping the closet. They are making safe business decisions, but still asking their customers to be daring and extravagant.

Sprouse Neverfull Bag

Today's New York Times article by Elaine Sciolino entitled "In the Lap of Luxury, Paris Squirms" cites how other French luxury houses are understanding this climate and making appropriate changes. Sciolino even went so far as to mention the class and social issues that are at the background of the luxury industry - an inherent point that many have overlooked during the past decade of luxury mass-marketing.

"Paradoxically, that sentiment may not be all that difficult for the French to accept. France’s national identity may seem wrapped up tight in the aura of luxury — elegant dress, sophisticated perfume, good food and wine, and no shortage of Champagne for the flimsiest of celebrations. But even though the French more than most Europeans appreciate the finest quality they can afford, they pride themselves on balance. France remains a deeply conservative country, one in which it traditionally has been unacceptable to show off material possessions. Most French use debit cards, not credit cards, which means they tend not to spend more than they have in their bank accounts. Getting a mortgage is a torturous process.

And so, many see in the closing of an era of free and easy spending on luxury goods — when luxury became associated with flash and ostentation around the world — the potential for a restoration of the classic French virtues of restraint and modesty. Even a bit of suffering and sacrifice might be in order."

How about a global restoration of the classic virtues of restraint and modesty? While a cultural understanding and respect of luxury products is at the core of French culture, I think we are all heading into restrained, modest times. For Vuitton to offer such unrestrained products and marketing at this time makes me wonder who's taking the temperature over on the Pont Neuf. After all, timing is everything!

One of my favorite stories of young professional girls is the classic soapy novel The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe. (Trust me, if you’re someone working your way up in a company, it’s right there with Valley of the Dolls.) What made me fall hopelessly in love with the story was the author’s description of the young ladies of the typing pool carrying their lunches in defunct Bonwit Teller shopping bags...

Don’t we all do this? I love buying just a little something (usually a cosmetic) in order to get a small shopping bag to take for lunches! What I love more is spying the girls on bus and seeing their lunchbags in turn. The whisper of a Neiman’s butterfly, the stately lettering of Marc by Marc Jacobs, the mod ovals of Jonathan Adler, the white-on-black of Barneys, or the elegance of Diptyque – I’ve carried them all for lunches at one time or another. It’s the air of “purchase mystery” that everyone loves to play up for another day, even if the bag holds nothing more exciting than tuna salad with a side of grapes.

Of course, these little paper gems convey a lot more than one’s purchase power; they’re a walking passport of one’s shopping travels. The chocolate-ivory stripe of Henri Bendel or the whimsical blue-and-red of Fred Segal show that one has gone coast to coast in the pursuit of style. Then there’s the famous bags of Fauchon, the Paris gourmet shop whose re-usable bags have been gifted and carried for decades. More than a shopping memory, all these little bags have been resused and recycled into fashion caché for years! In the case of Fauchon, carrying their tote meant you'd travelled to Paris (or 5th Avenue,) knew the non-touristy neighborhoods there, and probably had a sophisticated palette - not to mention a tin of fois gras at close hand...

Now we have our “eco-tote” craze... In the name of eco-chic, designers are now bringing us coveted bags to carry within our bags, just so we have something handy and equally chic to carry home mundane items from the neighborhood grocery or Walgreens. Still, the simple canvas totes are rife with implications of status, location, and income, as they serve as a walking billboard of a person’s demographic.

Yesterday, my Dad dropped off something I’d forgotten on a recent visit to my parents’ house. My Mom had packed it up in a canvas tote, and I didn’t even notice what it said during the hectic few seconds of getting it from my Dad’s car and running back into the office… No sooner had I returned to my desk than my colleague (a native New Yorker) made a comment…

Colleague: “Oh, what did you get from Clyde’s?”

Me: “What?”

Colleague: “Your bag – it’s from Clyde’s…”

Me: “Oh – it’s my Mom’s. What’s Clyde’s?”

Colleague: (turning away with a raised eyebrow) “It’s a pharmacy on Madison at 74th…”

Me: “Oh…yeah, I think my Mom likes that place.”

Within five seconds, my borrowed eco-tote conveyed a message that someone (me, ostensibly,) had been to New York and shopped at a very exclusive (and expensive) pharmacy shop on the Upper East Side.

Just like the witty upside-down logo totes being given out for free at the upcoming Yves Saint Laurent fashion show (Eric Wilson's NY Times article), the tote conveys a message of being an insider, being exclusive, being in the right place at the right time to get the right eco-tote. So much more exclusive than a mere Muse bag, don’t you think?

Last year, Anya Hindmarch’s “I am Not a Plastic Bag” totes flew off of store shelves and became a hotly-bidded eBay commodity thereafter. According to The Bag Snob, Hindmarch stated at the beginning of this effort: “Our aim with this project has been to use our influence to make it fashionable not to use plastic bas. 'I'm Not A Plastic Bag' was designed to be a stylish, practical, reusable bag that would raise awareness of this issue and spark debate." I would venture to guess that everyone that bought the Hindmarch bag knew about the pitfalls of plastic long ago, but they simply wanted the latest must-have item. Personally, I hate it when someone says they're "raising awareness" - who is some designer to say I'm not aware? The rhetoric just smacks of smug superiority, especially as it concerns something as simple as "plastic is bad for you." Duh! The reason the bags sold out wasn't because of their enlightening abilities, but because everyone wanted to convey that they too cared about the environment while looking exclusive doing it.

At Whole Foods, you have one of two branded options to purchase there: the standard reusable green bag, or the famous Lauren Bush “Feed” bag – the proceeds of which go to feeding children in Rwanda. Now this is an effort whose awareness needs raising. For just $29.99, you can feed 100 children. Talk about a great product: affordable, well-designed, results-driven, and coveted. Everyone’s happy with this bit of brilliance, and it even zips up into a compact carrying case so your bag isn’t floating around in your handbag causing traffic jams among the wallet, cell phone, and eyeglass case.

But charity aside, what does the “souvenir” of your munificence say? This “Feed” tote tells the world that not only do you a) shop at a rather expensive grocery store (Whole Foods), but b) are a conscious, philanthropic being, who c) cares about the needs of children in under-developed countries. Now that is quite the message to send!

As with any trend that starts at the street, designers are now capitalizing on these eco-chic totes by designing into the trend and creating new “It” bags. A search for “canvas tote” on Etsy yields over 4,000 items, all made by small-production crafters and artisans. Not one to be late to any party, Target has an entire section on their website entitled “Reusable Shopping Bags” with totes priced from $9.99. Other retailers start out in the market inexpensively, such as the $20 “Use Me” bag from Kenneth Cole, or the $38 “Be Chic Buy Green” tote from BCBG last spring. But now, Marc by Marc Jacobs is putting out screened bags upwards of $100! Other designers are making limited editions, using the classic luxury brand method of creating a must-have item. Luxury branding in a canvas tote? Does that even make sense? Isn’t accessibility the whole point of this trend?

Continuing the thought, aren't designers setting themselves up in competition with themselves by creating low-end carry-all totes and high-end luxury handbags? Which bag will attract more attention and draw more covetous envy?

Applying Beaudrillard’s thoughts on semiotics, this trend in eco-totes is really just another way for us to express ourselves. They’re our outward representation of what we stand for, where we shop, and what we want to support. By being conscious of our ecology and ridding ourselves of plastic bags, we have generated a replacement that is literally a blank canvas waiting for expression – preferably a designer one.

Of course, if I really want to carry an eco-chic tote with a label, I’ll keep packing lunch in a stylish paper shopping bag like I have for years. Those babies are chic, and free with the purchase of something you're buying anyway!

Louis Vuitton's Richard Prince Motard Firebird Bag from the Spring 2008 Runway.

So we all know that I have some history with the house of Vuitton. My emotions surrounding the brand are in equal measure love and hate. Since we’ve parted ways I have continued to watch LV with mild interest and respect of a certain kind; respect for the creativity and quality that is still at the forefront of the product offering. In the past few months, however, I am sad to see the mighty house embarassing itself in more ways than even my jaded spleen could imagine. The Luxe Chronicles posted a similar essay on this subject last month, but with even more mea culpas in recent weeks, I am glad I delayed in writing a response...er, agreement.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the world can tell that the heyday of luxury must-haves has cooled off considerably, especially given the current economic and social climate. What is the use of a $2500 or even $500 handbad these days when it costs a fifth of that amount just to fill up a gas tank? Isn’t it a little gross to have something like that on your arm when millions of people have been displaced due to the earthquake in China, and not to mention America’s own mid-west? I don’t know any metrics off hand, but I would venture to guess that luxury sales are probably NOT comping against last year, never mind five years ago.

Bernard Arnault seems to be having a difficult time closing a deal these days, and Dana Thomas’ book Deluxe has probably blown the roof off for the true fashion insiders – the ones that actually care. For those that aren’t inside, it’s hard to see what the brands are doing to draw in that mass market like they did before. The notion of hip-hop stars blinging it up with labels seems incredibly stale. The same stars are wearing the same leggings and tops in every gossip magazine, and the latest crop of tastemakers isn’t appearing and everyone seems to be waiting around for the next luxury trend. Will it be of the Fendi Baguette or Jimmy Choo variety? No one knows. But if there is one house that is trying a bit too hard to make it happen for themselves it’s Louis Vuitton.

To be clear, I think Marc Jacobs’ continual creative leadership of the brand remains strong and exciting. It’s what the Vuitton executives are doing with it that is becoming an embarassment.

This April, Vuitton debuted the “Monogramoflage” – a new collaboration between Marc Jacobs and Takashi Murakami. While the collaboration is always fun and proved very successful for the house in the past (especially in its first edition in 2003,) this pattern proved to be a bit of a let-down. Where was the vivid whimsy of the usual Murakami humor? Apparently it’s time to get serious. Meant to be a symbol of the “war against counterfeiting,” the “Monogramoflage” was shown at the Brooklyn Museum of Art with an installation of very real-looking counterfeit shops that “sold” actual authentic bags. The concept sounded interesting, but after the initial novelty wore off it just seemed very smug. Here’s this big, fancy, luxury brand fabricating a dirty, illicit scene for the elite art patrons to gain a sense of street. Aren’t we witty, clever and funny? Um…no.

As imagined, the monogramoflage has gone over like a lead balloon. No one’s really mentioned it since.

The Coppolas for Louis Vuitton's "Core Values"The brand did create a beautiful, well-received film advertisement that took the arthouse cinema world by storm, and followed it up with some new print images. Equally beautiful, one can easily see that Vuitton is trying very hard to get back to its classic “goods for the luxury traveler” image that has been lost recently. The campaign is rightly called "Core Values." While I do enjoy and appreciate these images, the attempt feels incredibly self-conscious. The fresh riskiness that used to abound in older campaigns isn’t apparent here. Choosing such artistic icons as Keith Richards and the Coppolas doesn’t make the brand edgy, it just brings it back to where it should have been in the first place: the true luxury market. Just as a "core values" campaign ought to do! (ThreadTrend and StyleFrizz)

The Sex and the City Movie was yet another debacle, with the most over-the-top Vuitton bags gracing practically every frame – even gratuitously. Granted, the whole film was really nothing but one big product-placement storm, but no one could overlook the prominence of Louis Vuitton. The brilliant and spot-on New York Times review by Manohla Dargis even went on to say “Louis Vuitton co-stars.” She finished her review by saying: “There is something depressingly stunted about this movie; something desperate too. It isn’t that Carrie has grown older or overly familiar. It’s that awash in materialism and narcissism, a cloth flower pinned to her dress where cool chicks wear their Obama buttons, this It Girl has become totally Ick.” Right in the middle of the Ick? Louis Vuitton’s Motard Firebird Bag – probably the most memorable moment in the film, for better or worse.

This week’s latest is yet another dose of the proverbial omelette in the face of LV. The brand was forced to close its flagship in Hangzhou, China since “its products did not meet quality standards.” (New York Magazine, and StyleFrizz) Apparently this has something to do with swatching or some other technicality, but still. Something shady is going on here. Surely the Chinese government could have worked out an arrangement with the house to fix the problem rather than all the public embarassment? Better question: Didn't Louis Vuitton know about these technicalities? I guess not, or maybe it was beneath them to comply? The government seized all of the handbags in the store, forcing the company to close its doors there temporarily.

I have to wonder what everyone’s thinking over at the Pont Neuf headquarters in Paris. Is Vuitton’s current stream of misses making up for its many years of hits? Is this just an indication of the market’s growing impatience with the gimmicks of luxury brands? Or, is it Jean Beaudrillard’s fourth order of similacra wherein the copy has come to replace the original?

Could this be the beginning a teutonic shift in luxury fashion? Or is it just slipping?

It's funny how things are like kismet in the blogosphere...I was just finishing my post about this subject when Chic & Charming scooped me! Regardless, we both agree: Dana Thomas' book Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster is required reading for anyone with even a passing interest in fashion. If you have more than a passing interest (and you probably do if you're reading this,) then it's a prerequisite. Then there are all of those interested in business, modern economy, product sourcing, power politics, hostile takeovers, history, style, and juicy gossip, then this is a book for you too.

I loved every moment of Dana Thomas' Deluxe, finding so many passages resonating with my personal experience in the fashion industry. My copy is now dog-eared and underlined - there's wisdom in these pages! In fact, I've become a little bit obsessed, telling everyone I know how much they need to read it. It surprises me though because it seems that a lot of people in the blogosphere still haven't given this work the time of day. Sure, they might mention it in passing, but have they read it? (I always find it so funny when people cite references that they haven't read. It didn't work in college, and it doesn't work now.)

Ms. Thomas has entree to interviews most fashion writers could not imagine. She asks Miuccia Prada directly about how many times she's filed for IPO, she asks Fred Hayman about his sales per square foot totals at Giorgio Beverly Hills in the mid-80s, she talks with Elaine Wynn about how Las Vegas has changed the luxury and retail industries forever. She also talks directly to LVMH's Bernard Arnault and Louis Vuitton CEO Yves Carcelle, who, it is rumored, "uninvited" her to the Fall 2008 Louis Vuitton fashion show because of her candid remarks about the brand in Deluxe.

I loved the passages about visiting the one rose grower in Grasse who harvests the Centifolia rose exclusively for Chanel No. 5, the part about the history of the iconic Hermès handbags, and the chapter about shopping at Daslu in São Paolo (which sounds like heaven...an expensive heaven.) Dana Thomas' intrepid candor comes throughout the work, providing first-hand glimpses of the "fashion gods" that are usually kept so high on their pedestals. For instance, this is her description of Miuccia Prada:

"She had moral objections to taking over the business: she was a feminist and a communist, albeit an Yves Saint Laurent-wearing, haute bourgeois feminist communist who had never worked a day in her life."

I laughed out loud reading this, and appreciated that even with this background, Miuccia Prada does "get it" when it comes to the inherent essence of luxury. This is how Ms. Miuccia puts it:

"To fake luxury today is easy. You put some details from the brand's past, you put a little bit of gold, and that's it. I can't bear that...Real luxurious people hate status. You don't look rich because you have a rich dress. When you look at a person, do you see the spirit or the sexiness or the creativity? Just to see a big diamond, what does it mean? It's all about satisfaction. I think it's horrible, this judgment based on money. It's all an illusion that you look better because you have a symbol of luxury. Really, it doesn't bring you anything. It's so banal."

I think banal is the perfect word for the state of "luxury" today. I think that's the word I was after when I wrote my post on the ridiculous notion of "Affordable Luxury" a few months ago - the post that brought Dana Thomas' new book to my attention via the flurry of discussion that followed.

Ms. Thomas' book cooled my own fires of disappointment about the industry which was indeed a relief. I'm not going crazy, it seems, it truly is the brands that are doing it to themselves. The moment fashion changed into the beast we know it today was when the large conglomerates took over from the families of designers and craftspeople, and decided they had to satisfy shareholders and boost stock prices. The easiest way to do this, as we've seen, is by catering to the indiscriminate middle-market, which has now been stretched into a true mass market. The luxury industry has now become it's own worst enemy, a source of its own demise.

Ms. Thomas concludes Deluxe with a hopeful note, however, by alluding that the true luxury customer will always exist, will always buy the true product. Cristiane Saddi, a Daslu customer confides to Thomas:

"Daslu clients don't need the logo entry-level handbag or to wear labels or logos. We buy from luxury brands, but not ordinary products. Special items. There's always something special. You can see what is mass and what is special. Luxury is not how much you can buy. Luxury is the knowledge of how to do it right, how to take the time to understand and choose well. Luxury is buying the right thing."

I'm not sure that the luxury brands know what the right thing is any longer, even if their better customers do, but Dana Thomas' book certainly leaves that optimistic idea open. Perhaps things will again get back to what they once were: exclusive items, small productions, hand-craftsmanship, and the true customer...not merely the mass buyer.

“The prettiest sight in this fine, pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges.” - James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story

Affordable luxury: two words that really don’t belong in the same description. In sixth-grade English class we would have learnt that this was an oxymoron – a paradox of two words, or the bringing together of two opposites. Sometimes oxymorons are successful, such as in the case of “eloquent silence” or “eccentric elegance,” however “affordable luxury” just doesn’t work.

Luxury is also the opposite of “necessity” – no one really needs a $2000 handbag when the free paper sacks from Whole Foods have convenient handles and lots of cargo space. Our modern consumerism has us brainwashed into thinking that the “It Bag” featured in Vogue actually is a necessity, but that’s just the magazines and marketing people getting into bed together to the detriment of our bank accounts. Once we turn the page and breathe normally again the intelligent person realizes that said “It Bag” falls under the “nice to have” category rather than the “need to have.”

True, no intelligent, style-minded, self-respecting person would actually use a paper bag to carry their everyday items, but the notion is worth considering.

During my tenure within LVMH, I learnt what luxury really meant, both concretely and abstractly. Concretely, the term has to do with design, craftsmanship, and quality. Abstractly, “luxury” is ethereal, aspirational for 99% of the population, and a semantic carrying the caché of exclusivity. I appreciate both sides of the coin: I understand the incredible beauty endowed in these products, while I also know the thrill of possession.

Ownership of luxury products should always be a privilege. By creating an “affordable luxury” market, the privilege becomes less thrilling, less exciting, less luxurious. Luxury brands used to be limited to the rarified air of Fifth Avenue, Rodeo Drive, Post Street, Worth Avenue, and the like. Everything inherent in a "luxury brand" connotes something that is hard-to-get, limited, and rare; today, luxury houses are popping up everywhere, even secondary and tertiary markets like suburban malls. This then begs the question: if it’s so easy to get, is it really luxury?

Yes, the internet and ecommerce has widened the market – average Jane housewife in northern Minnesota can order up some expensive confection and have it delivered to her door, but what is this kind if accessibility doing to the brands? Some would say that due to the expense the items really aren't accessible, which therefore leads to the counterfeit industry. It's nice to know that for the sake of crappy knock-offs (ie: "affordable luxury") people are supporting child labor and terrorism. Doesn't that make you all warm inside?

During my time in luxury fashion I also saw the dangers of the maddening “must-have” mentality of consumers. I witnessed customers splitting the cost of a handbag across three and four credit cards, counseled the sobs of teenagers who were thought “uncool” because they didn’t have the bag that all their friends had, and heard the frustration of time-honored customers who vowed to never buy the brand again because they were sick of seeing it on every girl in the country. You see, to them the brand once meant “something” – it meant that they were privileged, that they were the “haves” and the others were the “have-nots”.

Sorry to make this a class issue, but when you get right down to it, that’s what luxury is all about – it simply isn’t mass-market, it’s exclusive. Let’s go back to the 1% of the population for whom luxury is NOT an aspiration, it’s a way of life. They have multiple homes, private planes, Bentleys and Maseratis. These people know luxury inside and out – they have the best of everything: clothing, hotels, toys, vacations, services… THIS is the luxury demographic, and it’s not for everyone.

If the luxury brands want to preserve their power and caché, I suggest that this is the group they target. Stop opening so many stores, stop targeting teenagers, stop dressing pop stars, stop being affordable. Already, some luxury brands are so watered-down that they are losing the affluent customer base that made them so aspirational in the first place. Is this what the brands want to happen?

“Watered-down aspirational” – now that’s an oxymoron!

A post about coming out with the truth, a new documentary, changing jobs, changing one's perspective, and the neologism of the great Marc Jacobs...

I’m a very loyal person. Once I find that I love something there’s very little that can steer me off course. I will admit one caveat to this however, and that would be the root-down fickleness I feel concerning Mr. Marc Jacobs. One day I love him, the next I'm crying foul. Let's face it, if he we were dating I'd break up with him...but how can one break with the proverbial master of the fashion universe? You can't. You just have to sit back and wear it.

I know, I know… I’m going to get an ear-full from tweens and self-proclaimed “fashion insiders” coast-to-coast who will petulantly take me to task for even questioning the demagogue, but I shall press on. It is this very kind of blind adoration that pushes my philosophical buttons to ask more and more questions. However, like every true philosopher, I am not disinclined to change my perspective and appreciate opposing viewpoints. I’m big enough to admit that I too am under the Marc Jacobs spell; I find myself captivated by his concepts, his unabashed exploration at the fringes of fashion, his joy and humor. I whole-heartedly appreciate all of this, but will not always buy into it without hesitation.

Luckily, a new touchstone has been produced to help heathen non-believers like myself to see the MJ God-light. I just picked up Loïc Prigent’s wonderful documentary Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton at the Marc by Marc Jacobs store in my neighborhood. (That’s Fillmore Street kiddies – not Bleecker.) I’ve watched it and all of the extras twice already and I’m truly beginning to understand the man. In fact, I find Mr. Jacobs to be funny, caring, sweet, overwhelmingly creative, and a sharp visionary. All this while wearing a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups t-shirt and Stan Smith sneakers featuring Kermit the Frog. How I wish he were a friend of mine.

Watching the film has made me appreciate the roots of his inspiration and the thousands of meditative choices that go into each detail of his designs. The design team at Vuitton jokingly attribute these design days and their tiny eurekas as the “good fairies” – the spirits that are really designing everything. Seeing this creative process reminded me of the hours of critiques I participated in during art and design school – asking the creators about every facet of their choices and concepts. Oh, how I miss those days! The ideas, the training of the eye, the discussions, the research…

In fact, the film did make me more than a little sad, but in a bitter-sweet way. Why? Well, here comes the big reveal: my previous job was in the corporate offices at Louis Vuitton. Yes, for five years and eleven seasons I whittled down the nuances of the Marc Jacobs designs into selling points and features for associates. (It was such a long time and such an insider viewpoint that I used to feel like I knew the designer, and therefore could openly call “bullshit” on the more avant-garde design ideas. When you’re that entrenched, you need to do this kind of thing to keep your perspective.) Fashion is truly my first love, and I loved every moment of working there…until I didn’t any more. The design had nothing to do with it – I still love and appreciate the Jacobs-Vuitton partnership as a driving force of luxury and trends, but it was simply time for me to move on. If only Loïc Prigent’s film had debuted a few years ago! I might still be in love with the place professionally. The film is especially poignant for me because it follows Jacobs during the creation of his Spring 2007 collection – my final collection with the house.

In any industry there is usually a disconnect between the glamorous creative factions and the hard-working, dollar-generating, grass-roots salespeople. This was certainly a truth at Vuitton. I found that the mystery and excitement of the design process (which would have helped to motivate employees) was largely missing – or never trickled down past regional merchant teams. This is sad, because as anyone knows, companies like this make money from the bottom up. It’s the little creative details, insights into the process that both employees and customers alike want to hear about; yes, the handbags will sell themselves, but everyone likes to be clued in to the cult of the tastemaker.

As Cathy Horyn wrote in her review “The Handbag Gets the Last Word” in The New York Times earlier this week:

“The handbag increasingly occupies a curious place in the hierarchy of fashion, at once kingpin and jokester. It drives sales and elicits contempt from those who believe it is responsible for a creative dumbing-down within the fashion industry. Nonetheless, as a visual form, the handbag keeps evolving and surprising us, and Mr. Jacobs has done more to influence that than anyone else.”

And who is Marc Jacobs? You don’t really get to learn much about the man as a person in this film, except for two things: his new diet regimen is utterly insane, and that he doesn’t own much except for an amazing art collection. During the few moments of leisure time depicted in the film you see him considering a Picabia painting, while he admits to an art dealer that his most recent purchases were from Ed Ruscha and Richard Prince. Ah, Richard Prince. Yes, that makes the recent Spring 2008 collection come into an entirely new light!

Carrying on the tradition (one I know intimately) of Stephen Sprouse, Julie Verhoeven and Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince has stepped in for a new collaboration with Marc Jacobs for a line of handbags. From the images already available, the colorful screen prints appear to be sublimely beautiful as well as whimsical. Vuitton certainly has another hit on its hands.

Loïc Prigent was able to chronicle the development of one such show-stopping handbag in the film – the “Tribute” bag from Spring 2007. This was a high point of the film for me as the creation of this piece was no laughing matter. The gigantic beast broke a number of machines and tested the patience of more than a few master craftsmen in the Vuitton ateliers. But, it proved itself to be a true work of art, regardless of how it looks. (If you remember, this bag brought up all kinds of questions earlier this year about Beaudrillard, semiotics, and downright madness among the consumer class. It was nice to have the film bring it all full circle.)

Here is another point of discovery: the film calls it Marc Jacobs’ “neologism” but this isn’t quite right. He doesn’t invent a new word at all, not even a new concept, it’s just that he’s so consistent with its exploration that he’s beginning to own it. What concept? The idea of “ugly-beautiful.” The film frequently shows Jacobs asking “is it good, or is it horrible? Or is it so horrible that it’s good? Or maybe it’s just horrible…” In one scene he says to his longtime business partner Patrick Duffy: “It’s really good but it’s really ugly. I know that and I like that – don’t worry.”

Why should anyone worry? After all, if it carries the label of Marc Jacobs it’s sure to sell. I’m a little sold myself. After all this time and experience I feel like I’m only just beginning to know Marc Jacobs. I’ll always question his design if I find it too far out in his ugly-beautiful realm, but I appreciate the concept much more after seeing his process. It’s part of his humor, his push, his pursuit of something other in an industry that is increasingly “everyday.” Loïc Prigent’s film shows this to be inherent in the man – it’s no bullshit at all. While this won’t make me stop questioning things, I will say my perspective has changed for the better. I’ve found that where I once thought I knew everything, I really don’t know much at all – and that’s always good to know.

I am often asked where I get the inspiration or ideas for my posts. I'm never organized enough to keep a notebook or anything, so I rely memory, and this is usually fine because my ideas come together in layers. I think about one thing, see something else, and then another thing comes along and all three of them seem to just come together in a (more or less) good way. Of course, sometimes things get sent to me too, and then by the mystical powers of the universe something else comes along almost immediately and the two marry perfectly...hence this posting.

This morning my friend Randall forwarded me a car crash of an article from the London Daily Mail, (I say "car crash" only because it was altogether fascinating, funny, messy, and disgusting at the same time...and I just couldn't look away) entitled "The £23,500 Handbag". The article concerns the obscene amounts of money designer handbags are costing these days, and how having enough money to actually collect them seems to mean one loses all reason in the bargain. Discretionary incomes and intelligence quotients seem inversely proportional where "It" bags are concerned. It is indeed a frightening state of affairs.

This afternoon, I read Julie Fredrickson's latest (and totally brilliant) post honoring the death of Jean Beaudrillard - the French philosopher best known for his work on semiotics, and Western culture's "procession of simulacra". (Don't worry - I looked this up...Julie is way out of my league on this type of thing! No wonder she's my blog-crush...) I don't pretend to have a fluent comprehension of post modernist philosophy, but from my limited knowledge of Beaudrillard, the irony of his passing during the season of our most expensive arm candy trend cannot be overlooked.

Just what does a £23,500 handbag looklike? View the Louis Vuitton "Tribute" bag - a patchwork hodge-podge of different handbag pieces from other Louis Vuitton collections. Looking at it, it doesn't really seem that much design was involved in this item at all, that the pieces were merely thrown together and a chain attached. The Bag Snob wrote a post about this very bag this past February, stating: "Is this a joke?...Tribute to what? Marc (Jacobs)'s insanity?" I love it. Finally, someone other than me thinks that Marc Jacobs is the sometime equivalent to the Emperor's tailor. Twice-yearly, I am convinced that Mr. Jacobs knowingly sends unflattering, unwearable designs down his runways because he knows that no matter what he sends out, people will buy it in bulk and call him "a GEEEENious...", and he can then laugh about our consumerist myopia in the privacy of his Paris apartment. And now we have a Tribute Bag costing, as the Daily Mail article stated: "nearly £3,000 more than a Mercedes C180 Coupe SE."

Because what kind of status symbol is a fancy car these days anyway?

Enter Monsieur Beaudrillard. Our fashion objects (mainly handbags, shoes, and other accessories,) are more invested in symbolic communication than ever before. Past societies relied mostly on costume to define the social distinctions, yet in our era where ready-to-wear and contemporary brands are affordable by all, (and designers have lines at Target,) it is left to the accessory items to carry the weight of symbolism. Today we call someone "well dressed" if they have an important handbag and shoes - never mind the bespoke. Even still, most people can scratch together enough funds for your less-expensive designer pieces such as your basic Louis Vuitton Monogram bag, so those that can afford the more exclusive items pay a pretty penny to acquire them - just because they can. Then they buy another, and another, and another. Consumptive society isn't just consuming, it's acquiring. If you buy one of what I have, I'll buy five others in different colors.

If you push this far enough, the fashion trend trickles down to the late adapters who cannot get the must-have item, either because it's too expensive for them, or it's no longer available. Enter the counterfeiters, and Beaudrillard's four orders of similacra:

the era of the original

to the counterfeit

to the produced, mechanical copy, and through

to the simulated "third order of simulacra" whereby the copy has come to replace the original.

Of course, by the time we get to the fourth order, the fashion is generally two seasons ahead and no one notices that much. It's like street fashion becoming high fashion, and vice versa. The whole thing creates that wonderful creative soup known as style, individuality, and trend - don't think Marc Jacobs doesn't know this!

I believe in the original; call me a Luddite, but as an artist I firmly believe in the beauty of hand craftsmanship. As someone who knows luxury goods inside and out, I know they are worth their high prices, especially if one appreciates this kind of beauty. The Daily Mail article was upsetting to me (and to the seventy-odd people that left comments) because it was about people acquiring these objects not for their beauty, but because of their symbolism as compared to their fellow consumer. It's as though the handbag is talking, saying, "My owner must be doing something right if they can afford me...and yours? Well...best of luck!" The inherent communication is brutally frank, and comes across with little appreciation for the object - just appreciation for the acquisition.

What can one do? This seems to be the way business gets done in this industry - and this isn't exactly new. Costume and adornment have always been the way society divides itself, it's just that now the division is a little murky due to the indiscriminate power of the almighty dollar, or Pound, or Euro... But there it is, the internationally stinky semiotics of modern fashion.

(Originally published on the Poetic & Chic Instagram.)

On the morning of the 23rd I was in my parents’ guest room in Napa reading the headlines when I saw the news. I went into the kitchen and told my Mom in her pink bathrobe: “Mama, Joan Didion died this morning.” I heard her sigh. On the morning of the 26th I was in an Uber heading home to San Francisco when art collector Stefan Simchowitz posted one of Wayne Thiebaud’s paintings to his Instagram with an “RIP”. I started crying behind my sunglasses and hoped the driver wouldn’t think I was having a crisis.

Didion, Sacramento-born, and Thiebaud, Sacramento-settled, crafted in different mediums, but with similarities. Both created indelible images — one in words, one in paintings and drawings. Economical, simple, clear — like the bright, hot central valley sunlight that flattens every image but leaves subtle contours. There is a coldness or even sadness to their work that most don’t notice because they don’t look past the image: the overly-clean glass case housing Thiebaud’s frosted cakes, or the way Didion talks about a “new dress” and you know the story will end in a disappointment. They were serious and controlled, both in their presentation of themselves and in their work. Behind their reserve, both were witty, kind, loving people who enjoyed a laugh. Both thought and over-thought and planned and fretted over minutiae, but the results were always fresh and contemplative.

Growing up in San Francisco it wasn’t uncommon to go into someone’s house and see a Thiebaud painting or sketch on a wall - usually in his favorite sanguine pastel. So it seemed natural to go to UC Davis and try to learn from him since I wanted to study art. An early color theory class showed us work from Thiebaud and it changed everything. How a pair of black shoes read as black but there are touches of bright red and yellow on their edges. Or how a white bunny rabbit in pastel is made up of pale lavender, yellow, and even dark purple in the coral pink of the ear. How a shadow is not merely gray, but a darker shade of the color it is. There are hot colors where there should be cool colors, and cool colors in exactly the place where the light hits. This made me laugh with delight at first, and then I realized it was brilliant and frightening to see this way. Didion’s writing, which I’d first discovered in a California literature class at Davis, left the same impression of frightening brilliance. How simple, how lovely, how perfect, how terrible.

Both impressed upon me the habit of keeping a notebook. Thiebaud insisted on it when I finally got to take his class, Art 148 - Theory & Criticism. We were to keep an unlined notebook of class notes and papers, all hand-written; unlined so we could make thumbnail sketches of the lecture slides, and practice quick sketching. Thiebaud also suggested we start collecting postcards of different art works and different cultures, because “more things from different cultures make us understand anatomy of human beings.” At least that’s what I have written down in said notebook. I have never stopped my habit of writing in unlined notebooks. Likewise, I have never stopped my habit of collecting postcards, especially art postcards. I know the internet makes image searches easy, but there is nothing like a perfectly photographed and reproduced art postcard you can keep. They are all over my house - framed, kept in boxes, shoved into books.

Wayne’s class was mind-blowing. He would arrive in a navy blazer and bow tie most days, and would spout all kinds of contemplative ideas. “Visual power sustains joy,” “aesthetic experience is apart from function; [there is an] eternal relationship in forms,” “paintings are flat, still and silent - animated only by you and your physical empathy,” and when discussing art: “know why you like it - specifics of engagement encourage a kind of dialogue”. When I read through this class notebook from 1996 for the first time today I couldn’t believe it. (I also couldn’t believe I’d hand-written 4 ½ pages for my final paper on modernist theory, comparing Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. I’d even thrown in a bit of Samuel Johnson’s dialogue from “Rasselas”. What an insufferable 19-year-old jerk I was.) Wayne would sometimes rush through slides of art to test us on how quickly we could sketch them, or other times would just play recordings of Fats Waller, The Beatles, or Mel Brooks’ “2000 Year Old Man”. Even looking at an image upside down was encouraged. It all could generate the kernel of some kind of something.

At one point I asked Wayne to sign an SFMOMA poster I had from the reopening in 1996. He drew a small heart and signed his name. I asked him about the heart and he said “well, a heart is really just an upside-down W…”

Joan Didion’s kernels come to me all the time, and every so often I’ll pull down “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” or “The White Album” and bring the images back to me. I always come back to her paragraph about the Manson killings and ponder the terrible irony of her perfect sentence: “I remember all of the day’s misinformation very clearly…” Misinformation very clearly. Her husband John writing D-U-S-T in the plentiful dust of her parents’ Sacramento home, or going to buy Linda Kasabian a dress at I.Magnin, or getting off the plane at Idlewild and realizing once touching down in New York that the dress you thought was chic in California was decidedly not in New York. (I feel this way every time I go to New York, even now.) That, of course is how her essay “Goodbye to All That” begins. An essay about New York and living there when you’re young. “I began to cherish the loneliness of it, the sense that at any given time no one need know where I was or what I was doing.” That, for me, is the best part of New York, but I have never had much desire to live there. Whenever I have a friend who is considering a move to New York, I scan a copy of “Goodbye to All That” and send it to them. One friend laughed and decided not to go. I mentioned it to another friend recently but forgot to send it her way. She came over for dinner and I pulled it down and handed it to her to look over. “Can I take this home?” I wanted to say yes, but insisted she should have her own copy to keep. “Sorry - I love you, but Joan Didion does not leave this house.”

Pablo Picasso, Paul as Harlequin, 1924. Musée National Picasso, Paris

One of the highlights of my Spring reading included Amanda Vaill’s Everybody was So Young, a fantastic biography of Sara & Gerald Murphy. Their presence is at the very core of the Occidental art world after World War I. They supported the artists that created the “Lost Generation” culture not only financially, but also with their loyal friendship. The Hemingways, Dos Passoses, Picassos, Porters, MacLeishes, and Fitzgeralds all met together around the Murphy family. As it usually happens, this book was just the beginning of this year’s fascination with this time period in art, writing, and culture. It seems Woody Allen is also obsessed with this time period, and luckily a few San Francisco art museums are too.

The only glaring flaw I found in Woody Allen’s charming new Midnight in Paris, was that of the omission of the Murphys. How could all of these other wonderful artists and writers come to life without a mention of them? (It is thought that Picasso even may have had an affair with Sara Murphy, having drawn her a number of times on the beach in the south of France. Hemingway was also known to have a crush.) Personal criticism aside, the film provides a lovely glimpse into the Parisian art world of the 1920s and gives lively form to the relationship between Pablo Picasso & Gertrude Stein. If you’re even awake in San Francisco this month, you’ll surely be aware of two major art exhibitions involving these two. Picasso – Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris is now open at the de Young Museum, while The Steins Collect graces the walls at the SFMOMA.

Just as Balenciaga & Spain was heightened by its neighboring “fashion” exhibit, Pulp Fashion – The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave, we now have an entirely new dialogue between masterpieces, collections, museums, and even between one singular artist. The fact that the two museums showing these exhibits are only a few miles apart makes it all the more wonderful for the city of San Francisco.

Both shows provide a unique perspective on Picasso, but it is when the shows are taken together that the artist becomes even more complete.

The Picasso exhibit at the de Young draws from the Musée National Picasso in Paris. In 1968, France passed a law that allows inheritance tax to be paid in works of art – as long as the art is important to the French national heritage. This law, called dation, was perfectly timed for the death of Picasso in 1973. The bulk of the collection was amassed in 1986, upon the death of Jacqueline Picasso. It was then that Picasso’s heirs – Paolo, Maya, Claude, and Paloma (the jewelry designer) – made a new dation to the French state from their father’s own collection.

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Dora Maar, 1937. Musée National Picasso, Paris.

Because the collection from the Musée National Picasso is comprised of the artist’s own personal collection, it is vast but also a little overwhelming. As anyone who’s studied Picasso knows, his great works are so momentous that it’s difficult to see anything else in the room. However, when his works are mere attempts or not pushed far enough, they show their battle wounds right at the surface. While some of the great Picassos are among the collection of the Musée National Picasso, the collection shows the artist’s preferences for smaller, quieter, more personal work. Some of the works are even unfinished sketches, or mere gestures made by the artist’s hand. Is this why he kept them? Was there something in a line, a form, a figure, or a sketch that though only hinted at, it was enough for Picasso to want to hold onto it his entire life?

In this regard, I think the exhibit is the perfect classroom for art students and lovers of the creative process. It shows how Picasso worked, how he developed ideas, and how he experimented. It also provides an overall timeline of his career, showing how his work changed while it still remained inherently Picasso.

Two of the best paintings shown are presented in a genius pairing right next to each other. The famous Portrait of Dora Maar is hung with Seated Woman in Front of a Window. The two women appear to be talking to each other, from their respective chairs but each shows an incredible difference in style - remarkable given that both were painted in the same year, 1937. Here are two paintings in which Picasso is fully realized.

Apart from these, I also loved the examples of Picasso’s Analytic Cubism with Sacré-Coeur from 1909-1910, as well as Man with a Guitar and Man with a Mandolin, both from 1911.

Although I understand the exhibition’s curators wanting to focus exclusively on Picasso, the Musée National Picasso’s collection also includes works that the artist collected from colleagues such as Cézanne, Degas, de Chirico, and Matisse, among others. It would have been nice to see some of these pieces included in order to give the collection greater context.

Of course, The Steins Collect at the SFMOMA is the perfect opportunity to gain such a perspective. Showcasing the collections of Gertrude, Leo, Michael & Sarah Stein, and tracing their roots directly to the SFMOMA, The Steins Collect is not only grand, but also moving in its intimacy.

This exhibition not only shows the works the Steins gathered during their years among the Parisian avant-garde, but also their own paintings, drawings, letters, and family snapshots. It is truly mind-boggling how many major works passed through the Stein family over the years. As collectors, they purchased the best of what they could afford, creating a collection of remarkable and daring pieces for their time. This makes the exhibition less of a jumble and more of a tightly focused journey through early modern art. Works include Renoir's Study, Torso Effect of Sunlight from 1876, a minor, but charming Manet entitled Ball Scene from 1873, Matisse's Joy of Life from 1905-06 now at The Barnes Foundation, as well as his remarkable Blue Nude: Memory of Biskra from 1907. Other artists in the collection include Gauguin, Cézanne, Manguin, Weber, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Vallotton, and of course, Picasso.

Henri Matisse, Woman with a Hat, 1905. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The Steins' early support of Henri Matisse and his Woman with a Hat from 1905 (now the darling of the SFMOMA’s permanent collection,) made the Steins the center of modern artistic circles at the time. So many people came to see the scandalous Matisse that they had to hold open houses on Saturday evenings for years to accommodate requests. The Steins' support of Matisse was loyal and steadfast, carrying on for decades. I was particularly charmed by a series of lithographed Matisse nudes from the mid-1920s, shown in a series.

Here too is Picasso’s portrait of Gertrude Stein from 1905-1906 (which features prominently in Midnight in Paris,) as well as some truly remarkable works from his blue and rose periods. Indeed, Strolling Player and Child from 1905 from Sarah & Michael Stein’s collection is considered to be the transitional work between Picasso’s blue and rose periods. Young Acrobat on a Ball and Boy Leading a Horse, both from 1905 also show this exceptionally beautiful time in Picasso’s oeuvre, and echo back to sketches seen at the de Young exhibition. It is also in The Steins Collect that one sees a series of heads Picasso created after seeing an African mask Matisse brought to the Steins one afternoon. These heads then found their way into the masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon from 1907, Three Women from 1908 (at the SFMOMA), and Three Figures Beneath a Tree from 1907-1908 on display at the de Young. The Stein collection also includes work from Georges Braque - Picasso's significant counterpart in the development of Cubism.

Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, 1905-06. The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York

The beauty of The Steins Collect is also in the way its curators re-created the Steins' spaces. Lfe-sized images of their apartments show exactly how the family hung their collection, while the associated exhibition room has those very works on the walls. It’s a simple presentation, but it makes perfect, cohesive sense.

Between these two exhibitions San Franciscans currently have a rare treat to experience some exceptional artwork. Indeed, I think that the shows are made even better by their juxtaposition to each other. Taken together, there is an even more intense dialogue created about art, society, family, and the creative process, and from some of the most important figures in the 20th Century’s cultural history.

In other words, do not miss these!

Picasso, Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris is at the de Young museum until October 9, 2011. Tickets are $25 for adults; advanced reservations required.

Pendant, Josef Hoffmann c. 1905, silver, gilt & semi-precious stones

To quote the great Shirley Bassey: "It's all just a little bit of history repeating..."

One of the reasons I left the luxury goods industry a few years ago had to do with the way it made me feel overall. After years of excitement in the fashion fast lane, I found myself overwhelmed by its shallowness that left me increasingly empty. Even the "luxury" brands were losing their core of craftsmanship and selling out to the mass-market, driven by the need to satisfy stockholders. In the storm of marketing, messaging, editorials, and bling, I started to feel sick. When you witness someone splitting an "it" bag across three credit cards for the hundreth time, it starts to get to you. I asked myself: "How long can a brand remain "aspirational" and "white hot" before it burns iself out?"

The question still hangs over me when I take a look at the luxury fashion world these days - from a lot further out, happily, which usually gives some great perspective. Perspective, or common sense?

Consider the current unpleasantness of the economic world; there are a lot of people in big, expensive homes all over the country, homes full of clothes, electronics, cars, shoes, and it bags, who are wondering if they're going to have jobs next week. This, is a big portion of the "new" luxury market, and the rose-colored glasses have been lifted recently. Now comes the dawn of perspective: is any of that stuff really lasting and fulfilling, or is it just stuff?

Belt Buckle, Kolo Moser, 1903, silver, opal & ruby

Last week, The Cut by New York Magazine published a post entitled " 'It' Bags ARe About to Be So Embarrassing". In it, there is a quote from Claire Kent, a former luxury analyst from Morgan Stanley who now works as an industry consultant, from a speech at the recent London Luxury Briefing conference. Kent mentioned a "luxury fatique", that people were afraid of debt and that customers would be steering clear of aspirational brands. She also said "An 'It' handbag will become an embarassment - a clear sign that you don't have your own view of fashion." Well, we all knew that was the case...

Today, Jezebel published a post about "Luxury Shame" - the phenomenon of rich people feeling bad about throwing money around. They cite certain luxury shoppers telling others that their gown is an "old Phillip Lim" as opposed to a new Balenciaga - because that makes it okay. (I say, if you have the good stuff, wear it proudly! Don't lie to people, just maybe...buy a little less?) Jezebel also cites ecommerce sites like Gilt Groupe whose big appeal is the discretion of anonymous delivery boxes - so no one will know you're dropping your now-diminished 401K on Jimmy Choos. Yes, assuage your shopping guilt and extravagance in a nice brown wrapper...it's shopping porn!

Brooch, Josef Hoffmann c. 1910, silver & semi-precious stones

Brooch, Josef Hoffmann, 1908, silver, partly gilt & semi-precious stones

Brooch, Josef Hoffmann, 1910, silver, gilt & semi-precious stones

All of this guilt about shopping and high-priced products has put me in mind of one of my favorite periods of art and design: the Wiener Werkstätte. Also known as the Vienna Succession, this brief period of design began at the beginning of the 20th Century and continued until just before World War II. Vienna was the epicenter of the arts, being led by a group of artists that wanted to fuse graphic and applied arts - seeking a union of form and function in design. The Werkstätte was formed in response to increased mass production of products and overall industrialization. They sought to return art and design to fine craftsmanship, logic, beauty, and usefulness. The most famous Werkstätte artists are likely to be Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann, but the group included hundreds of artists across all aesthetics.

Left - Emilie Floge in 'reform' dress & necklace by Kolo Moser c. 1910,

Right - Necklace, Kolo Moser, 1903, silver, white chalcedony & carnelian (This necklace was given to Emilie Floge by Gustav Klimt.)

I have been thinking of the Werkstätte lately because of their jewelry; it perfectly suits our current climate and I'm sure it will be only a matter of time before we return to this kind of aesthetic. Simple, elegant, modern, colorful, and beautifully crafted.

The most significant Werkstätte jewelry was designed by Josef Hoffman and Kolo Moser. While most worked with silver and gold, the focus of the work was on the metal designs and the unique arrangements of semi-precious stones. You see, during the early part of the 20th Century in Europe, times were tough. Economic depression, wars and revolutions... It was all pretty unsettling, and it was considered to be in bad taste to wear real gems. (Remember, this was also the time when CoCo Chanel invented costume jewelry too.)

Does any of this sound familiar?

Luckily for the patrons of the Werkstätte, their pieces were usually custom-made by hand as individual art pieces, which made them beautiful, tasteful, and lasting. Luckily for us, they are still as modern and wearable today as they were then! Perhaps with all of this luxury guilt going on, designers will take some cues from the Wiener Werkstätte and make things that move away from mass-market bling and into hand-crafted, wearable art... After all, history is repeating these days.

All images scanned from "Wiener Werkstätte - Design in Vienna 1903-1932" by Christian Brandstätter

It's here! The 40-year retrospective of Yves Saint Laurent is now happily and beautifully displayed at the M.H. de Young museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. I have been looking forward to today's press preview for months, and the whole morning was well worth waiting for!

I learned a few days ago that not only would the international curators of this exhibit be attending, but also some of Saint Laurent's best couture clients, close friend Betty Catroux, and one-time love and long-time business partner, Pierre Bergé. This was going to be quite the preview - as it should be! The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts collaborated with the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint-Laurent to create this comprehensive gathering of Saint Laurent's most iconic fashion ensembles, direct from the company archives.

Of course, the passing of Monsieur Saint Laurent earlier this year puts all of this into much higher relief, making the show not merely a simple a retrospective, but a celebration of the life and vision of this singular designer. Speaking so softly as to barely be heard above the snapping cameras, Monsieur Bergé opened his remarks by saying he wanted "to talk about Yves." It is clear that his own sadness at the passing of his friend and companion is still very close to the surface, with this gathering being especially poignant for him. Bergé and Saint-Laurent met in 1958 and opened the Maison Yves Saint-Laurent in 1961, with Bergé managing the business and operations end of the company. While the pair's personal relationship has sometimes been called "rocky", Bergé and Saint-Laurent remained in close for fifty years, with their mutual fondness and solidarity remaining steadfast.

Bergé said "Is fashion art? I don't know. I doubt [it]. What I know is to create fashion, you must be an artist."

The exhibition is arranged within four themes that truly celebrate Saint-Laurent the artist: Masterful Pencil Strokes, The YSL Revolution, The Palette, and Lyrical Sources. The arrangements show the different facets of his design and its far-reaching influences. Ensembles are grouped by similarity, not in chronological order. This allows the visitor to see how Saint-Laurent returned to the same inspirations throughout his forty years of design. The different themes could be called out to the viewer more clearly in the exhibition space, but the essences of color, shape, texture, and art are easily seen.

When I spoke with Jill D'Alessandro, associate curator of textiles at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, she said that her "favorite" part was difficult to define, but that she was most fascinated by the contrasts and dichotomies he always explored. "Masculine/feminine, black/white, or how he took a painting - something flat and static - and put it onto something that moved." Certainly the three Mondrian dresses that are shown look as fresh and fabulous as the first time they appeared on the cover of Paris Vogue in 1965.

In a measure of true classics, truly timeless haute couture, there were many pieces that were many decades old but would still be very chic today. I spoke with Diane Charbonneau, exhibition co-curator and curator of contemporary decorative arts at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, while standing in front of two gorgeous evening gowns that were designed in tribute to Henri Matisse. We both agreed that while the ensembles were at least 25 years old, both of us could wear them this evening and be the chicest women in town. It was this visionary design that made Saint Laurent a master, and all of this is on display from the cheetah prints to the stacks of bangles - the trends are still with us today.

Diane Charbonneau and I also agreed that the next greatest thing to see in person is the incredible craftsmanship. The opulent textiles and embellishments such as Lesage embroidery are a feast for the eyes. If anything, the exhibition could be seen as a celebration of fading handcrafts and subindustries of the world of haute couture. Houses like Lesage have been creating embroidery with thread, beads, riboons and sequins since the Belle Epoque, but are now among a dying breed of artisans that serve a clientele that is getting more and more rare. It is on the clothing of Yves Saint-Laurent that one can see this craft up close: an evening gown with appliques of Schiaparelli-inspired lips shows that no two sets of lips are identical - they are each shaped differently, with individual silhouettes and materials. It is this type of detail and collaboration between designer and craftsman that brings the greatness to this oeuvre.

As we visited the final group of literary ensembles, (a velvet tuxedo in tribute to Oscar Wilde would look perfect on Blair Waldorf if she were trying to dress like Chuck Bass...) I was introduced to Monsieur Bergé. I began by saying "Bonjour Monsieur!" and then quickly became tongue-tied as I realized that I should probably NOT embarrass myself by trying to speak French in that moment. So, I got nervous and sputtered something about enjoying his stay in San Francisco. I had always heard that he was ruthless in business and more than intimidating to his underlings - so who was this cute smiling man in front of me? He was warm, kind, and when he squeezed my wrist in farewell the gesture was unexpected, gentlemanly, and affectionate. I was completely flummoxed. It's not every day that I meet a living legend, and certainly not every day that they're actually nice about your being nervous around them.

Fans of Saint-Laurent can be fanatical, talking of the designer with a bit of a frenzied adoration and almost proprietary love. Once a devotee, always a devotee. My mother has always loved Yves Saint Laurent, which is why, as I've mentioned before, this was the first designer I ever knew. She still talks with fondness of her trousers, skirt and sweater purchased at the Boutique in Dallas years ago, and how she wished she'd had that odd $300 then to buy the peacoat too. I felt it was only appropriate then that I bring my Mom with me to this preview. Her favorite ensembles were from the 1976 Ballet Russes collection; when approaching a full-skirted mannequin with a fur vest and hat she said: "THIS was the one I always wanted..." This is definitely a show to feed everyone's closet dreams.

In a final note of cleverness: I loved that the museum put the entire press kit onto individual memory sticks, packaged into cute boxes with pink labels. They looked like slices of cake on a tray - delightful and smart. I also loved that we were each given the museum's own edition of the "Yves Saint Laurent Couture Coloring Book" - a very fun party favor for kids young and old. A very special thank-you to Jill Lynch at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and a huge congratulations to everyone involved in bringing this very special exhibit to our beautiful new museum - the exclusive venue for this exhibit in the United States. Do not miss this show - you will regret it!

Yves Saint Laurent at the de Young Museum

November 1st, 2008 - April 5, 2009

It is October, and bookstores are beginning to stock their collections of next year’s calendars. I try to change up my calendar each year to keep things new and get new images to ponder one month at a time. Some people swear by the travel calendars so they can get a dose of "tropical isles," or perhaps celebrate their allegiance to a particular dog breed. I typically choose something artistic, inviting, and something I can look at every day for a year and still find something new in the images. I typically mix different images between the wall and the desk, so that I don't get bored. For 2006, however, I actually broke my rules of variety, and purchased the same wall calendar and desk calendar, but with good reason: René Gruau. I have gazed wistfully at his heroines of chic fashion illustration for nearly a year, and I am thinking I may just have to re-buy the same calendar for 2007. What can I say? The images just make me happy.

I have always loved the media of poster art and graphic illustration. The simplicity and economy of design communicates so much with so little. It is the perfect example of designing effectively within constraints. Fashion illustration in particular is becoming a lost art form, with companies relying almost entirely on photography to communicate their branding. One of the last of the genre was Gruau, who illustrated well into his nineties, finally passing away in 2004, after creating iconic imagery for Dior, Balenciaga, Ortalion, Air France, and International Textiles. His later work for Moulin Rouge and the Lido de Paris helped to promote the classic Parisian cabarets to a new generation of tourists, yet with an old-world aesthetic. Gruau was the son of a French socialite (whose surname of Gruau he later adopted,) and an Italian Count. His real name & title?: Count Renato Zavagli Ricciardelli delle Camminate.

Miss October is this image for Ortalion stockings which I adore. I want her sexy ostrich chubby, and above all her legs that are ten miles long. (Truth be told, this is how you’re taught to illustrate fashion, as taught in fashion school. The average human proportions are “eight heads” high, but a fashion croqui is meant to be stretched to nine heads. The stretching most elegantly manifests in the legs. If only I could be proportioned to nine heads high!)

Aside from their incredible height, Gruau women are flirtatious, sensuous, saucy, and innocently invite the voyeuristic gaze – that is, when they aren’t confronting the gaze directly. They are beautifully dressed, their smiles are knowing, and their limbs, like their eyelashes, are long and luxurious.

The lingerie advertisements for Christian Dior are particularly voyeuristic, but are frothy enough to remain adorably appealing, rather than tawdry and “through-a-keyhole.” Every so often, you can find original lithographs of these graphics being sold in some of the bouquinistes along the Seine. One summer my sister and I spotted some, but she prevented me from buying them due to their expense. Coulda shoulda woulda.

One of the more iconic images includes the “straw hat” girl for Air France’s ad for travel to the Côte D’Azur in 1963. This is the one my friend Emi loves the most. It instantly conveys the simple romance of a summer on the beaches of France.

Other than Miss October, my other favorite Gruau images are from his cabaret advertisements. This sketch for a Lido poster from the early 1950s conveys the classic glamour of the can-cans, while it celebrates the traditional poster-art graphics of Bonnard and Toulouse-Lautrec, who created this form of illustration during the Belle Epoque. Yet this art derives its hard-line aesthetic from the influence of Japonisme, and it’s flattened, cartoon-ish forms. His use of diagonals and vertical compositions, as well as empty spaces to contrast with thick lines, create an illusion of movement and lightness rooted in Japanese wood-block prints. Gruau mixes both Bonnard and Toulouse-Lautrec’s images in this sketch, with the single black line delineating a crowd of onlookers, while the froth of the dancer’s feathers trails away like champagne foam.

Gruau also illustrated textile advertisements, and captured pattern and texture with a few strokes of the brush. Always, his same economy in bright colors and rhythms that are compelling and unforgettable.

With the exception of Michael Roberts, fashion illustration has hit an all-time low. Of course, The New Yorker still leads the way in classical illustration, with only a few periodicals reaching for creative graphics every now and again. Advertisements are hard, dark, and more often than not, a bit vulgar and difficult to look at for any length of time. Gruau created images that you wanted to hang on your wall - their sheer simple genious and elegant draughtsmanship served to transport you to other eras and other moods. It is with a heavy heart that I will relinquish my Gruau calendars at the end of the year - what other images could I possibly find that will take me so far away from my daily grind with just a brief glance? Where to find the same freshness, the exuberance, the bubbly enthusiasm that carries me on an effervescent wave of chic? Who but Gruau offers this kind of happiness with just a paper calendar?

Two posters for Last Year at Marienbad, 1961

As we approach the final list of films for the FashFilmFest, I’ve been screening and re-screening a number of different films to hopefully narrow some selections. One film I’ve always had in mind is Alain Resnais’ 1961 film, Last Year at Marienbad. It’s under consideration, but I’m hesitant. Certain films you love without question; this is a film I’m always forced to question. What is happening here? Do I understand anything that’s happening? What is this place? Why am I so uncomfortable? Do I even like it? When it comes to Last Year at Marienbad, at any given time the answer could be either yes or no. Even when considering writing about this film (which I have many times in the past) I've also hesitated. Is there anything new to say that hasn't already been said? Perhaps not, but I can still state the facts of this film as a significant influencer of style, film, and fashion.

Delphine Seyrig in Chanel in Last Year at Marienbad

One of the more obscure French New Wave films of the early 1960s, Last Year at Marienbad has none of the color or humor of a Godard film, nor the youthful angst of a Truffaut, but it’s a film that designers and cinemaphiles come back to again and again for its style and unconventional narrative. It’s lengthy hallway shots, endless interiors, strange landscapes, and languorous story line have influenced everyone from Stanley Kubrick (especially in The Shining) to David Lynch (especially in Inland Empire). Peter Greenaway cites Marienbad as the film that had the most important influence on his body of work. In the fashion world, everyone from Marc Jacobs to Diane von Furstenberg have expressed their love of film, and as recently as Spring 2011, Karl Lagerfeld used the film as the theme for his collection for Chanel.

For his Spring 2011 show, Karl Lagerfeld re-created the black & white gardens of Last Year at Marienbad in the Grand Palais, Paris.

Stella Tennant in Chanel, Spring 2011. Inspired by Last Year at Marienbad.

Of course this is fitting because it was Mademoiselle Chanel who dressed Delphine Seyrig in the character of the woman, apart from two feathered gowns by production designer Bernard Evein. The clothing is impeccable. Alternating between light and dark, the dresses are either ephemeral or funereal. Resnais looked to the style of Louise Brooks in G.W. Pabst’s 1929 film Pandora’s Box for the woman, and even sought a special “silent film” film stock from Kodak in order to enchance the look of 1920s silent cinema. The look of the 1920s mixes well with the contemporary 1960s (both heydays of Chanel), or the 1960s looks are suited to the 1920s – either way, the seamless transition between eras creates some of the disorientation.

The famous mirror shot from Last Year at Marienbad.

Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box.

When re-watching this film, I gave myself over to the uneasiness that begins almost immediately. The whining organ music, empty hallways, sonorous voice-overs that fade in and out – the effect is like being drawn into someone nightmare from moment one, and in moment two you’re already looking for a way to wake up. The setting is elaborate and labyrinthine and the people posed here and there make them seem like bas relief figures on the side of a temple. People are silent or intensely focused, gossiping or watching. There seems to be a love triangle, but no one's actually very loving. There has always been a lot of discussion about a "rape" scene, and possibly a murder, but it's still difficult to tell what's really happening between the three main characters. Everyone else is socializing but no one’s really interacting. Drinks are imbibed, games are played, but it all has a menacing quality to it. There seems to be a lot of money around, but no one is happy and everyone is bored. Indeed, Last Year at Marienbad has been called one of the “most boring films ever made”, even as others hail it as a masterpiece for those very same reasons.

Seyrig in the white feather gown by Bernard Evein.

Carmen Kass in a blush-colored feathered dress from Chanel, Spring 2011. (Image from Style.com)

Beyond the time-warp-surrealist narrative and down-the-rabbit-hole-and-into-Hotel-California feel, this is a beautiful film to simply look at. Every frame is considered and composed, almost like paintings in their stillness and precision. A recent editorial spread by Outumuro in Spanish Marie Claire magazine capitalized on the look of Last Year at Marienbad in a gorgeous homage to the film. It's no stretch to see how the famous "broken shoe" scene translates to our modern love of footwear...

The famous "broken shoe" scene from Last Year at Marienbad, and…

...recreated in Spanish Marie Claire by Outumuro.

Outumuro images from Spanish Marie Claire

I think it is this visual appeal that keeps drawing designers, photographers, art directors, and yes, film directors, back to Last Year at Marienbad. Strange and misunderstood, it’s confusing mix of narratives keep generations of people conjuring their own opinions, while its eternal Gothic style provides its own frisson that’s difficult to ignore…no matter how much you may want to.

So will it be showing at the San Francisco Fashion Film Festival? I'm still unsure. As much as it's influential and intriguing, my vote is still undecided.

Over the past few weeks I've been deeply immersed in Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. Having finished its detailed, dense, and scholarly 300 pages, I'm intrigued by this powerful Egyptian queen, who wasn't really Egyptian but Greek. Not merely a seductress, as Schiff demonstrates beautifully, Cleopatra was a politician, a living goddess, a mother, a diplomat, a generous patron, a scholar, a strategist, a lady, and yes, a passionate lover. What is even more intriguing is her lasting influence over the millenia. From Plutarch to Shakespeare to Cecil B. DeMille, this woman's political savvy, allure, and style have inspired art, film, music, dance, and fashion.

I don't care for Colbert's Cleopatra - she's entirely too smiling and too saucy to really be right for the role. Indeed, as one of the last pre-code films, Colbert plays up the "Cleopatra as sex vixen" aspect. However, her costumes are spectacular.

As Chip Brown mentions in his National Geographic article "The Search for Cleopatra" from July, 2011: "When not serving as a Rorschach test of male fixations, Cleopatra is an inexhaustible muse. To a recent best-selling biography add—from 1540 to 1905—five ballets, 45 operas, and 77 plays. She starred in at least seven films; an upcoming version will feature Angelina Jolie." Along with all of this are the many paintings and drawings of the queen, many of which date from the academic period of the late 19th Century, when all things ancient came back into vogue. The most famous film depictions of Cleopatra are of course the Elizabeth Taylor version from 1964, but also the Claudette Colbert version from 1934. Before filming, DeMille reportedly asked Colbert "How would you like to be wickedest woman in history?" It is this myth of wickedness that Schiff's book helps to dispel. Rather than relying on her feminine wiles, one can see that Cleopatra had true intelligence and an inherent diplomacy needed to calculate political risk, assert herself as a world leader, and protect her kingdom. The long-lauded affairs with Julis Caesar and Mark Antony are in truth, merely sidenotes to the real political intrigues.

The coveted Pegasus Necklace from Stella & Dot. $198

Cleopatra was also a calculated image-maker. She knew how to orchestrate opulence in order to woo a crowd, or even a Roman general. She knew what to wear, how to speak, and she spoke multiple languages. Her image as a wealthy queen, and as the living embodiment of the Goddess Isis, was part of her power, and one that was carefully maintained. Even the city of Alexandria maintained the standard with its libraries, technological advances, golden statuary, marble walkways, perfumes, and lavish meals. Schiff describes her dress as being bedecked with "plenty of pearls, the diamonds of the day."

She coiled long ropes of pearls around her neck and braided more into her hair. She wore others sewn into the fabric of her tunics. Those were ankle-length and lavishly colored, of fine Chinese silk or gauzy linen, traditionally worn belted, or with a brooch or ribbon. Over the tunic went an often transparent mantle, through which the bright folds of fabric were clearly visible. On her feet Cleopatra wore jeweled sandals with patterned soles.

But other than this, what Cleopatra looked like remains a mystery. The cover of Schiff's book shows a woman with her face turned away - perfectly appropriate considering there are no frontal views of Cleopatra's likeness. All of her portraits are in profile, showing a somewhat large nose and prominent features. It is understood that while Cleopatra was not beautiful, her allure, charisma, and intelligence developed enough attraction to hold many in her thrall.

Louis Vuitton's "Desert Goddesses" ad campaign from 2004, featuring Naomi Campbell and shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

Perhaps it is this alluring mystery that has inspired so many for so long. That, and the luxury of ancient Alexandria whose gold, silver, and pearls seemed to flow through the streets. Indeed, luxury fashion designers often return to Cleopatra and Egyptian iconography for inspiration. In 2004, Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton developed his "Desert Goddesses" collection, with an array of black, gold, and turquoise looking like warm sands meeting the Meditterranean. In more recent seasons, Gareth Pugh sent gold and black striped looks down his runway for Fall 2011, offering a tough, almost robotic take on Egyptian motifs and headdresses.

Gareth Pugh, Fall 2011 collection.

Even more than mere fashion, the history of the age of Cleopatra lives on. HBO's series Rome offered a lush take on the relationships between the Egyptian queen and both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, while also showing a vivid portrayal of Octavian - the man destined to end the Ptolemaic Empire forever. Through many marriages and inter-marriages, both Octavian and Mark Antony's descendants were future Roman emperors including Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula, and Nero. The histories of these emperors are celebrated in all their gory machinations in I, Claudius from 1976. Mark Antony's Roman wife, Octavia - sister to Octavian, comes out as the kindest and most generous of all, taking guardianship of not only her own children (3 by a first marriage), and her two children with Mark Antony, but also of the three children Mark Antony and Cleopatra had together.

At the end of Schiff's account of Cleopatra, she dispels the notion that the queen committed suicide by being bitten by an asp. Instead, she suggests that it was poisoned figs that did the job, killing Cleopatra and her two attendants almost immediately. Poisoned figs serve as a leitmotif for Octavian, who, 40 years later, after securing his empire and launching the Pax Romana, was rumored to be killed by his own wife Livia Drusilla with poisoned figs. (Peter Greenaway picked up on the poisoned figs in the 1980s in one of my favorite films, The Belly of an Architect. Apart from the main character Storley Kracklite's obsession with Octavian Augustus' tomb, he shows his growing insanity by accusing his wife of poisoning some figs.)

The famous Cleopatra Earrings by Wendy Brandes. 18K gold with 1.36 carats of diamonds. $9,000

So what can we expect as a trend response from Schiff's wonderful biography and the upcoming film with Angelina Jolie? Probably a lot of gold, pearls, and Grecian sandals, but perhaps with even more regal jewels. As with all bio-pics, there is usually a strong fascination that results in the general public. It was the same with Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, and it will likely be the same here, with designers adapting classic Grecian draping to modern tastes. One of the best parts of the Cecil B. DeMille-Claudette Colbert version of Cleopatra was the way the film's designers adapted the look for the sleek shapes of the Art Deco period of the 1930s. Not exactly historically accurate, but really great style.

One thing that will certainly change with upcoming depictions of Cleopatra is the charge that she was merely a seductress, not a leader. As Schiff concludes: "It has always been preferable to attribute a woman's success to her beauty rather than to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life...Cleopatra unsettles more as sage than as seductress; it is less threatening to believe her fatally attractive than fatally intelligent."

I know that everyone has been thinking of Elizabeth Taylor since her death last spring, so I suppose an expectation for Taylor-flavored styles this fashion week isn’t too surprising. The fashion world loves an icon, and a recently-deceased icon surely needs her homage. But having just finished reading Sam Kashner & Nancy Schoenberger’s biography of the Taylor-Burton romance, Furious Love, I find the rumors of a Taylor-flavored influence a little interesting.

It began with Vanessa Friedman’s piece for the FT two weeks ago entitled "Liz Taylor's Gift of Glamour", calling out the particular brand of Elizabeth Taylor’s style & glamour as a likely fashion influence for this Fall. Even V Magazine is sending out its September issue (on newsstands this coming Thursday,) with an homage to Taylor in over 70 pages of images styled by Carine Roitfeld. It seems the Elizabethan moment is verified, so I wonder if the predictions for this week’s runways will be true. I also wonder if these fashion insiders will get it right.

Cathy Horyn’s piece "An Alluring Beauty Exempt from Fashion’s Rules", from the New York Times last March 23rd - the day Taylor died, is the best (and truest) summation of Taylor’s relationship to fashion.

"Because of Ms. Taylor’s physical effect, which audiences surely registered in “Butterfield 8” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” when she appeared at her most dangerous, in a slip or a stolen fur coat or an unchaste white sheath dress, you tended not to notice the particulars of her wardrobe.

Instead you noticed the heavily penciled brows, the lipsticked mouth, the riot of hair crowned with fresh flowers or jewels (typically the work of Alexandre of Paris) or the head scarf when she was on a beach or relaxing with her family, oblivious of the chaos her star presence was causing."

Given this, I found it odd that while discussing the V Magazine spread, Carine Roitfeld is quoted as saying “She [Taylor] had the kind of elegance that went far beyond clothes.” Elegance? I don’t think that’s correct. That is so like the French to call everyone "elegant", even when they don't deserve it.

Elegance is a “refined quality of gracefulness and good taste” whereas glamour is “an attractive or exciting quality that makes certain people seem appealing.” I don’t know that anyone has ever described Elizabeth Taylor as having good taste in anything but jewelry.

While Taylor truly enjoyed the finer things, excess, food, drink, and a general fun frolic, she didn’t put much in mind for clothing. She did take a lot of chances (for better or worse), but between the furs and jewelry and extravagant hairstyles, the end result was mostly loud, distracting frivolity. It is almost as though she pursued a vulgarity in her look so that people would no longer see her ever-present beauty. This was certainly the case in her private language and manner. According to Furious Love, Taylor loved to swig beer, belch, and swear with the best of them, thereby downplaying her beauty and femininity by pointedly not acting like a lady.

She was consciously vulgar; she tried to be, and succeeded. She knew that flaunting millions of dollars in jewelry was a bit outré, but she appreciated their beauty for themselves and wanted to share it with the world. According to Furious Love, she wrote: "One day somebody else will have them...and I hope that new person will love the jewelry and respect it as much as I do...I've never, never thought of my jewelry as trophies. I'm here to take care of them and to love them."

As Vanessa Friedman said in her article:

“…She was the id unleashed, with an unapologetic joy in consumption that those tired of today’s hair-shirted mea culpas may find truly thrilling…Her sense that fashion and sparkles are for fun, and that there is value in that fun, helped make her so compelling as a style icon, then and now. She didn’t ask for anyone’s approval and she wore her diamonds with great joy, even in her hair.”

This earthiness contributed to her allure, because instead of being ephemeral and untouchable (and elegant) like her contemporary Grace Kelly, Taylor was firmly planted on solid ground; it was just the looks that were goddess-like. (According to Furious Love, Burton “usually felt awkward around Princess Grace, whom he described as rather dull and in the class of people who are ‘in a somewhat false position and know it…’”)

Taylor’s fiery glamour and passion is what is more appropriate than any “elegance” she may have shown. Her love of jewelry far outweighed any love for fashion. In fact, I would go so far as to say that fashion maybe made her feel a bit insecure. Taylor always reverted to classic designers such as Halston, but for her red-carpet events she usually asked Edith Head to design something for her. Other than a designer, she chose a costume designer – she was dressing to fit the part of a movie star and went right to the top. But a costume is not fashion.

Vanessa Friedman asserts that the Taylor influence will translate into jewel tones, belts, metallics, and touches of tweed and fur. To me, this doesn’t sound too far away from what's normal, but we’ll see what happens. Aren't we already expecting an emerald-green trend for Fall?

An Elizabeth Taylor trend in beauty, makeup, and styling is one thing, but fashion? Beyond an increase in furs and bosomy-necklines (which we’ve already seen swelling, ahem, in the past few seasons,) I’m not sure that a true style influence that translates to the runway is entirely apt. If it can be done creatively and with Taylor's own brand of shock and humor (and even a touch of vulgarity?) then perhaps it will be correct. But designers are so very conscious of what's in good taste that I think it will be stretch for them to let loose and take a cue from La Taylor.

Cathy Horyn said it best at the conclusion of her piece on Taylor, saying “this kind of style had nothing to do with luxury or imprisoning taste, but it had a great deal to do with living.”

Jimmy Choo Kevan Sandal, $2495 at Saks

Earlier this week, Susan Joy wrote a short piece in the New York Times about the trend of be-feathered, be-furred footwear that's just arriving for Fall. While the piece was a jaunty bit of topical "how to wear it", I kept thinking about these luxurious delights for the feet and their implications.

At the surface these shoes are just fancy (and fanciful) designs. A touch of frou for the feet. Since we're all wearing tighter belts and shopping the closet, why not go over-the-top with some fantasy somewhere? Indeed, these little flights will set you back a pretty penny; those feathers don't come cheap. But considering how valuable the first pair of winged footwear was, I'd say we're getting them at a bargain.

The first pair of Talaria or "winged sandals", were forged from imperishible gold by the God Hephaestus, the son of Zeus & Hera and the blacksmith of the Gods. In other legends the sandals are said to be made from palm and myrtle, with no wings at all. When Hermes was born to the Pleiade Maia by Zeus, he immediately became a precocious trickster, deft musician, agile athlete, and cunning thief. He was fast, faster than any of the other Gods, so Zeus gave him the enchanted sandals for his role as messenger.

Brian Atwood, Sanchez sandal - $1100.00

In the fourth book of the Aeneid, the Gods are upset that Aeneas has been distracted from his duty by a love affair with Dido, so Hermes is sent to him with a gentle reminder...

Hermes obeys; with golden pinions binds

His flying feet, and mounts the western winds:

And, whether o’er the seas or earth he flies,

With rapid force they bear him down the skies.

Hermes was also one of the few Gods who could move between the mortal and immortal worlds, sometimes guiding the dead through the underworld and across the river Styx. Since he moved so easily between realms and people, the sandals could only have been his.

Winged Mercury detail, from the Capitoline Hill, Rome

In the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, it is Hermes who guides Eurydice out of the underworld, only to have her remain there because Orpheus turns to look for her. In the poem Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes, Rike describes him:

"the god of errands and far messages,

the travelling-hood above his shining eyes,

the slender wand held out before his body,

the beating wings at his ankle joints;

and on his left hand, as entrusted: her."

In Marcel Camus' gorgeous film Black Orpheus from 1959, Hermes is a streetcar conductor (fitting, considering that a streetcar takes travelers where they need to go) and friend to Orpheus. Later on, it is Hermes who tries to help Eurydice, and who also guides Orpheus to contacting her once she dies.

Diego Docini, Feather-Heel Pump $1220

As with all of the Gods, Hermes (also known as Mercury in the Roman tradition) can be your best ally or your worst enemy. Sometimes his tricky nature comes out, making things a general mess as he sits back and laughs. Thus, when "Mercury is in retrograde" we all need to be on our guard! So, while Hermes and his winged sandals continues to symbolize speed, travel, agility, athleticism, commerce, and communication, when he's in a bad mood he can mean just the opposite.

All of this symbolism makes the implications of this new flock of shoes even more interesting. The changeable nature of fashion, commerce, communication, etcetera? Yes, I'd say we're all familiar with that in spades. There's also the implication of femininity being equated to birds, as in "birds" - the slang term for a woman - and all of its ideas of exoticism, delicacy, and freedom.

The original winged sandals also wielded tremendous power. Perhaps the gods of fashion are giving us some extra oomph to get through our daily duties? Alright, so that's a stretch even for me. My first instinct regarding these shoes is to say "YES", and then back off a bit to hear myself say..."those are kinda silly".

Nicholas Kirkwood

Then what is going on here? Do the designers really think we're willing to spend $1000-plus on a little bit of feathered detail? Forget about the practicality issues, will these feathers and pelts even survive after one wear?

If they were trying to capture the essence of the friend/foe that is the Winged Messenger, I'd say: mission accomplished. These shoes are sexy, exotic, delectable, whimsical luxury at its best, and they'd surely garner a lot of attention. But would anyone take you seriously?

Don't look now, but I think the Gods are laughing.

I came across this image of actress Phyllis Gordon out shopping with her pet cheetah a number of months ago, but it's been on my mind ever since. I'm enchanted by the inherent insouciance of it all. Imagine trotting out to do a few errands in the neighborhood and bringing along your favorite big cat just for kicks! This is the essence of luxury and chic.

I'm not at all what one would term a "cat person". I'm cool with cats, but wouldn't choose to have one over a feisty and funny terrier. I've been known to cat-sit here and there which isn't altogether unpleasant, although I'd prefer a cold wet nose over a sandpaper-tongue. So it is interesting that I find myself completely jealous of those eternally-stylish women who through history have sported cats as an accessory. Not just any cat, but a full-grown cheetah or leopard. Hands down, this is beyond stylish and everyone knows it - no Yorkie in a Louis Vuitton bag could compete.

As Jessica Kerwin Jenkins writes in Encyclopedia of the Exquisite, "by the twentieth century the cat's sexy, slinky reputation was appreciated by bohemians, intellectuals, and some extremely glamorous women, who upped the ante by taking in leopards as pets...As they proved, no animal makes a more stunning sidekick than a glowering great cat."

Women casually strolling with a cheetah on a leash sounds like something out of an old Hollywood urban legend. You know the scene: fur coat to the floor with a sharp cloche hat and five big cats on a chain, preferably while walking briskly down a train platform with the steam rising and a porter trailing with a mountain of trunks. My whole life I've longed to be this woman.

When I first started reading about the Marchesa Casati, I became enchanted with her pet cheetahs. According to legend, the Marchesa would take her private gondola across the Grand Canal late at night just to walk her pets through the Piazza San Marco. True to form, she would perform this ritual while completely naked but for a fur coat. Imagine running into that after too many Bellinis at Harry's Bar!

Josephine Baker was also known to sport a leopard named Chiquita around Paris in the 1920s when she was the most flamboyant act in town. Diana Vreeland saw the pair out at the movies once and loved how Chiquita pulled Baker into her white Rolls Royce in a single bound: "Ah! What a gesture!...I've never seen anything like it. It was speed at its best, and style."

Gloria Swanson also seems like the type who would have had cheetahs close at hand. In Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond seems to be surrounded by leopard skins in one way or another. Even the seats of her Isota-Fraschini are upholstered in leopard skins. This detail in the production lends itself to the once-glorious past of Norma Desmond, recalling glamorous days of dancing the tango with Valentino.

Desmond's character probably had some basis on one of the original movie starlets, the great Pola Negri. Although she made her mark in early silent film in Europe, Negri signed a contract with Paramount and came to Hollywood in 1922. (It was she, not the fictional Norma Desmond, who met Valentino at a classic Davies-Hearst costume party at San Simeon a few years later. The two became lovers until Valentino's death in 1926.) Like the Marchesa Casati, Negri also had a weakness for cheetahs and walked hers frequently down the real Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood's heyday.

Negri's love of cheetahs came full circle much later on when in 1964, Negri starred with Hayley Mills in Disney's The Moon Spinners as Mrs. Habib, a character with a pet cheetah named Shalimar. While filming this teenage caper flick in London, it is said that Negri caused a sensation walking the cheetah nonchalantly through a hotel lobby. It sounds as though Negri not only knew the essence of glamour, but that she also had a true sense of humor too.

To seal Hollywood's fascination with the luxury of keeping a big cat, there's also Bringing Up Baby - an entire screwball comedy devoted to the antics surrounding a rich woman's pet cheetah.

Film stars with cheetahs seems to be a classic combination. If they didn't keep them as pets they were certainly photographed with the cats as props; I would guess it is because of the wild, exotic, and animalistic connotations. You can't really argue with that. Indeed, the earliest Hollywood stars seem to have been photographed with cheetahs time and again in their ultra-glamorous, fantasy-driven publicity stills.

I suppose that it isn't entirely practical to aspire to keeping a cheetah in this day and age. But was it ever practical? No. It's their impracticality that makes them so very stylish. All of these women seem to have been a bit "unleashed" while accompanied by a big cat on a leash. The sexy, outrageous, glamorous, diva-ish behavior just seems to go hand in hand with this type of indulgence. Anything that's so truly luxurious as a pet cheetah could only be utterly, exuberantly beautiful in itself.

A shuffling, bumbling, mustachioed prankster in a too-tight hat and jacket, and too-big pants and shoes – we all know him because Charlie Chaplin’s dandified hobo is part of our visual lexicon. A genius character for sure, but The Little Tramp as fashion icon? Only the talent of John Galliano could make this work. Galliano’s menswear collection runway for spring 2011 was filled with facsimiles of The Tramp, as well as nods to another silent cinema great: Buster Keaton, including his famous porkpie hat. Another influence on the collection was Visconti’s Death in Venice, set around the same time as the silent cinema era. Somehow, the threads of each of these were drawn together in a dandified version of modern menswear.

Galliano’s choice to create a collection based on these influences is the most interesting part.

In a motif surely borrowed from Chaplin’s final silent film, Modern Times, the models emerged fromthe shadowy gears of a large clock. Released in 1936, and known as the final film of Chaplin’s Little Tramp, Modern Times is a timeless commentary on the battle between man and machine. Chaplin never intended his iconic character to transition into “talkies”, so he instead walks off toward an unknown horizon at the very end. Historically, the film marks the end of the silent era and the beginning of modern Hollywood.

Meanwhile, Death in Venice considers a similar theme, depending upon your perspective. For me, I have always thought that Aschenbach’s obsession with Tadzio was not lustful, but merely a metaphor for a love of beauty. Tadzio’s youth, grace, athleticism and handsomeness are all on the brink of manhood; Aschenbach knows he is doomed to die before these will come into maturity. As the composer has already lost everything he holds dear, this one shining point of purity seems to be everything for him. Set on the Lido of Venice – the world’s most famous “dead city” – the entire story is told during that delicate time between the Belle Époque and the modern 20th Century. (Although these motifs are much more abstract in Thomas Mann’s novella, Visconti’s film interpretation is exquisitely detailed perfection.)

So why does Galliano seem to think that we’re at the end of an era? Is classic menswear meeting its doom? Despite this premonition, or maybe because of it, the designer presented classic suits and sportswear, but with unique quirks throughout. Indeed, the designer claimed he wanted to play with the proportions of menswear, turning the usual notions of fit and tailoring literally upside down. The “old fashioned” cuts were refreshed with an unorthodox mixing of pieces and layers, pulled together by buttons and straps. The Tramp’s baggy pants alternated with slim trousers, either straight to the ankle or cuffed just above it. The palette of greys, deep blues, blacks, creams, and whites was punctuated by a few checks and stripes – reinforcing the look of old film.

While these ensembles may not make sense at first glance, Galliano is offering a concise collection of wearable separates that will fit seamlessly into a man’s wardrobe. Once the matinee idol makeup is gone, one sees that the lines are simple and the fit is clean. Once again, Galliano's theatricality creates a point, but his design provides the function.

So perhaps this show was just an elaborate way of Galliano to move ahead while looking backward? Or is the designer sounding a death knell for menswear as we know it? What do you think?

When is a Bang Envy post an Influences post too? When it concerns Danish-born actress of the French New Wave cinema, Anna Karina. (I should note that while I've been cooking this post along for weeks, re-watching her films and gathering some images, The Impossible Cool beat me to the punch this week by posting one of her pictures as well. But it's a really good pic, so you should all go over there and pay it a visit. Great minds think alike!)

I've been thinking a lot about Anna, her first husband Jean-Luc Godard, the colorful films they made, and how that whole time and look of the cinema has influenced fashion for decades. Most recently, Michelle Smith of Milly sent a number of mini Anna Karinas down the Fall 2010 runway, with peacoats, striped tops, and red tights to beat the band. If that proves anything it's just that Ms. Karina's colorful, kooky style is just as fresh and wearable today as it was in the 1960s.

Born in Denmark in 1940, Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer had a pretty rough childhood. Eventually she'd had enough of her mother and hitchiked to Paris in 1958 where she quickly became a fashion and commercial model. It is said that Coco Chanel was the one who helped her refine her professional name to Anna Karina. After seeing her in a Palmolive commerical, Jean-Luc Godard offered her a bit part in Au Bout de Souffle, which she refused. However when he asked her to join him in his 1960 film Le Petit Soldat, she agreed. The two married in 1961 when she starred in one of her most iconic films Une Femme est Une Femme.

Anna Karina with Jean-Luc Godard

That film, plus 1965's Pierrot le Fou are among Godard's most famous of the New Wave genre, offering wildly colorful photography, odd and adventurous story lines, and his idiosyncratic take on modern romance. It is through Anna Karina, like Jean Seberg in Au Bout de Souffle or Brigitte Bardot in Le Mepris, that Godard presents his own brand of modern woman: an angelic face hiding the soul of a thrill-seeking, manipulative, and even tawdry demon within.

Images from Pierrot le Fou with Jean-Paul Belmondo.

I believe that it is the vibrant color palette (usually centered around red, white, and blue hues,) and the simple styles of Anna Karina in these films that fashion designers come back to again and again. The whiff of the ingènue schoolgirl gone bad and sexy all in one - it's a heady combination and one that certainly sells fashion. The Fall 2010 collection from Milly captured this to a T, even a little heavy-handedly with the berets, but it still works.

Milly Fall 2010. Images from Style.com

It's not just Milly who's looked to Godard for inspiration - I think Marc Jacobs comes back to him time and again, especially for the Marc by Marc Jacobs collection. It's nice to know that designers still take their cues from the French New Wave of almost 50 years ago and still make it work. Or perhaps Jean-Luc Godard and his muse Anna Karina defined effortless chic in such a way that it always bears repeating?

To close, I had to post this little film re-mix created by Dimitri from Paris. A fantastic re-dux of Une Femme est Une Femme, the DJ has pulled together the playfulness, color, and mod New Wave essence in a fun little music video. (Plus, you can see how Anna Karina sported her red tights!)

Even more interesting than the presence of the Arts & Crafts movement on the runways for Fall 2010, is the presence of one of its contemporary aesthetic movements: Bauhaus. Long a favorite and familiar influence across all tenets of design, The Bauhaus has been seducing fashion designers for decades. Most notably (to call out the obvious) in 1965 with Yves Saint Laurent's Mondrian collection. So what more is there to say in 2010?

Meaning "House of Building", The Bauhaus was a German design school that pursued a unification of art, craft, and technology just after World War I.

Founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany in 1919, the school drew parallels to the Arts & Crafts Movement, expanding on William Morris' adage that "form follows function". It differed from Arts & Crafts however, in that The Bauhaus considered the machine to be a positive element, making industrial and product design important parts of the school. Likewise, the aesthetic of The Bauhaus style (also known as The International Style,) was a complete departure from that of Arts & Crafts; here the stylized details and natural materials gave way to clean lines and a complete absence of ornamentation.

Two designers on the Fall 2010 runways claimed influences drawn from The Bauhaus: Donna Karan for DKNY and Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy. Done in different ways, both designers have created crisp, modern collections that seem to celebrate The Bauhaus in its efficiency and practicality.

DKNY utilized warm neutral shades and colorblocking to showcase The Bauhaus influence, creating glamorous and breezy pieces that look very wearable for all types of bodies. True, colorblocking in fashion is not new especially not colorblocked dresses with tendencies toward Mondrian. However this group looks sufficiently refreshed and kicky for this year's party girl.

(As a side note, I want to mention that Piet Mondrian was not, in fact, a "Bauhaus" artist per se. He did lecture at The Bauhaus, but his own artistic theory was Neo-Plasticism, more commonly known as the Dutch artistic movement of De Stijl - a contemporary of The Bauhaus.)

The collection offered by Givenchy turned up the Mondrian element even more with a stark mix of black, white, and bright red throughout. Riccardo Tisci specifically cited the Bauhaus palette, characterized by neutral grounds with pops of primaries, as his inspiration. While I didn't care for this interpreted in Fair Isle knits and oddly-cut lace, I believe the collection held together best when the strong colors were paired with strong, architectural silhouettes.

While The Bauhaus' influence on Fall 2010 isn't nearly as whimsical and lush as the influence of the Arts & Crafts movement, it does offer some interesting ideas. Perhaps in our world of fast fashion and new media we can incorporate more art and craftsmanship? I'm not sure what the exact lesson is, or why designers have come back to The Bauhaus again for this year.

It is ironic though, that The Bauhaus school never provided design history courses to its students. It was thought that everything should be designed according to principles rather than precedent.

Fashion, like art, repeats itself over and over. A cultural thermometer of sorts, the fashion world reflects and responds to the social climate faster than any other produced consumable product. Designers reflect our own fears and uncertainties and mix these with a heady cocktail of beauty, luxury, and desire.

It’s clear that with the current economic and social outlook, the era of bling and the gaudy counterfeit it created have faded away (thankfully). In its place there seems to be an inherent appreciation of craftsmanship and creativity. At its most obvious, this appreciation is found in the collections of Anna Sui and Duro Olowu, both of whom found inspiration in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 19th & early 20th Centuries.

A reaction against the Victorian era’s penchant for “reviving” historical styles and the soulless production of the Industrial Revolution, the Arts & Crafts Movement sought artistic reform, both in its process and product. Aesthetically, the movement sought simplicity of form without superfluous decoration, often exposing the construction of an item. As many of the studios were in rural areas, Arts and Crafts motifs were inspired by the flora and fauna found out of doors. Seeking an “equality of arts”, the movement revived traditional crafts, and created the role of the “master craftsman” at the heart of production and design. Ironically, by placing greater importance on handicraft, the resulting products were too expensive to be purchased by anyone but the very rich.

Perhaps designers’ looking to this era and design philosophy portends a resurgence of true luxury goods? I doubt that this idealism will trickle down to the Canal Street shoppers, but it’s nice to know that it’s there.

“If you cannot learn to love real art at least learn to hate sham art.” – William Morris

For her part, Anna Sui took her inspiration in the design motifs and crafts of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Citing the artistic furniture of Charles Rohlfs, her Fall collection was adorned in architectural, but colorful, floral prints and geometrics. Small Roycroft tiles mixed with natural wood to create simple necklaces, all designed by Erickson Beamon. The result was classic Anna Sui hippy girl, but with a dash of sophisticated craft.

With a more modern take, Duro Olowu drew inspiration from Hidcote Manor, home of England’s great Arts & Crafts garden, which is now part of the British National Trust. Hidcote’s lavish topiaries and outdoor rooms led to cozy knitwear, mod geometrics, and just a whiff of floral print.

I realize that these are but two designers among hundreds, and while fashion is always looking to the aesthetic movements of the past, I found it interesting that the Arts & Crafts Movement in particular found its way onto the runways at just this time. Going by the fashion thermometer, it seems we need more simple luxury, beauty, and craftsmanship in our lives. What do you think?

I finished Scot D. Ryersson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino's book Infinite Variety - The Life and Legend of the Marchesa Casatilast evening and, true to form, I've spent this morning furiously questing for additional imagery and information on the fascinating Marchesa and all of her far-reaching influences. Luisa Casati Stampa di Soncino, Marchesa di Roma is truly a non-pareil that could hardly be summed up here, but I did want to celebrate her miasmic life in art and fashion.

I mentioned this book a few posts ago in the Lit Tag, but now that I've read the entire book I have to say that I'm really haunted. I cannot tell if I even like the Marchesa as a person, but I am completely enthralled by her ceaseless devotion to art and creativity - both in herself and others. So, the whole snakes and monkeys thing sort of creeped me out, but how shockingly fabulous would it be to wear a little coiled snake as a dramatic necklace at a dinner party? Or to walk a pet cheetah or alligator like they were the family Jack Russell? As the authors did state, the Marchesa's quest to always out-do herself got a bit stale over the years; her profligate lifestyle becoming almost insulting during political and economic crises, while her overbearing eccentricity hid an ever-growing personal insecurity. As a quote from Maurice Druon said in the book: "Eccentricity is tolerable only in its first freshness. Cherished until it has gone stale, it becomes unbearably pathetic and at the same time alarming."

Eccentricities aside, the Marchesa did accomplish exactly what she set out to do: become a living work of art. Her personal style of medusa-like curls dyed bright red, large black-rimmed eyes, sleek gowns, and hats swathed in veils have influenced many fashion designers, writers, and film directors. Even toward the end of the Marchesa's life when she was forced to live in poverty, her tattered elegance recalls everyone from Dickens' Miss Havisham through to Big and Little Edie from Grey Gardens. While one cannot help but feel sorry for one of Europe's former glitterati in her late-life squalor, looking at the reach of her influence you can see this is not how she is remembered.

In 1998, John Galliano for Christian Dior Haute Couture created a masterpiece of runway theatre when he presented an entire collection honoring the Marchesa Casati. Shown at the Paris Opera Garnier, the show was said to be surreal, haunting, and overwhelmingly elaborate. After trolling through the internet, I was able to find this news clip covering the show from so long ago...

Following-up on some of Luisa Casati's portraits, I learnt more about Augustus John and Giovanni Boldini, both of whom painted significant images of the enigmatic woman. In 2003, London's Royal Academy of Arts held an exhibition Pre-Raphaelite and Other Masters: The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, which included Boldini's 1908 portrait of the Marchesa with her Greyhound. Art historian Christopher Wood stated: "The staggering Boldini portrait of the legendary Marchesa Casati is surely the greatest portrait of the Belle Epoque." Augustus John's 1919 portrait is considered a twentieth-century masterpiece, and was purchased by the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1934, while the tripe-eye photograph of the Marchesa taken by Man Ray in her hotel suite at the Paris Ritz is considered the first and most important of Surrealist photographs. Even the Marchesa's famous ruin of a home in Venice, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal, was purchased in 1949 by Peggy Guggenheim and now houses the prestigious Guggenheim Museum.

Thought to be lost, another major portrait by Romaine Brooks has recently been recovered and is in a private collection. Hopefully an image will become available sometime soon! Having never seen any of Brooks' work, (now impossible to believe) I have enjoyed looking at her paintings, finding them incredibly odd, yet beautiful, and certainly very modern for their time. Likewise, the work of Giovanni Boldini is now among my favorites for its romantic yet impressionistic style. I've learnt that a handful of Boldini's pieces even reside in San Francisco!

Her influence is not limited to art and fashion, however. Vosges Haut Chocolat created a special collection of Marchesa Truffles which are available only in December. "Black sea salt caramel ensconced in 85% bittersweet dark chocolate and real freshwater pearl dust." A very fitting tribute.

My friend Michael Mattis wrote a piece about this book and La Casati on Dandyism.net a few years ago, wondering if the Marchesa could be considered "a dandy"; if she were a man then no doubt the term would apply, but as a woman? According to Mr. Mattis, even if the Marchesa were a dandy, being androgynous, masculine, and beautifully dressed as she was, she wasn't elegant enough for the term to apply. True, the Marchesa was heavy-handed with everything from eyeliner to pearls to gold lamé, but I would hold off on the dandy label anyway. To me, the Marchesa's androgyny and aggressive extravagances set off her distinct womanhood, I don't find her masculine at all. This, like Marlene Dietrich or an Yves Saint Laurent Smoking, make the true woman. The Marchesa's style was all about NOT being manly, but being every bit the independent, entitled woman that she was born to be in this world.

As another fashion designer, Elsa Schiaparelli, stated about La Casati: "Tall and gaunt with heavily made-up eyes, she represented a past age of splendor when a few beautiful and wealthy women adopted an almost brutally individualistic way of living and presenting themselves to the public."

The rest of us should be so brave...

Can one woman’s personal style actually change a generation? In the case of Astrid Kirchherr, it did. Yesterday’s episode of Fresh Air on NPR featured an interview with Ms. Kirchherr which should not be missed.

In 1960, Astrid Kirchherr met a group of young (some even underage) boys who were playing in a rock band on the Ripperbaum in Hamburg, Germany. According to Kirchherr, this was not an area of town where nice girls went out at night, but she went with her then boyfriend Klaus Voormann. The band she saw was The Beatles – popular culture and fashion has never been the same.

Kirchherr was attending art school at the time and was practicing as a photographer. The story goes that she gathered up The Beatles one morning, took them out to an abandoned fun fair and took the famous iconic images of the band in its early days. The Beatles then featured Harrison, McCartney, and Lennon of course, as well as Pete Best on drums, and “the fifth Beatle” – Stuart Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe was a painter by trade and talent, but sold a painting to buy a bass guitar at the request of John Lennon who really wanted Sutcliffe as part of the band.

After a few weeks in Hamburg, Sutcliffe and Kirchherr fell in love and became engaged. Sutcliffe left The Beatles, McCartney moved over to the bass, and a few years later Pete Best was replaced by Ringo Starr.

Kirchherr is credited as giving The Beatles their “mop top” hair styles, which she insists wasn’t so unusual in Hamburg at the time. She states that she originally gave Klaus Voormann the haircut to cover his protruding ears. Stuart Sutcliffe liked the style and was the first of the group to adopt it – Kirchherr says that the cut was relatively easy for him as his hair was already long to accommodate the Elvis-style rocker pompadour. It was simply a matter of washing out the brylcreem and even-ing things up. The next Beatle to get the style was George Harrison, who had such “beautiful hair that it turned out great and he was very pleased.”

Kirchherr states that Stuart Sutcliffe matched her in height and build; when he moved in with her he began to wear her clothes and adopt her style. She states that at the time in Hamburg there were many different youth subcultures designated by their different uniforms – “the rockers, the exis, the mods…” Influenced by Jean Paul Sartre and Jean Cocteau, she and Klaus Voormann were a part of “the exis” – short for existentialists – styling themselves after Parisian university students with capes, berets, long scarves and lots of black. Kirchherr recalls “we had to do our own clothes if we had weird ideas,” - knitting the long maxi-scarves herself since no one sold them, and stealing an over-sized sweater from one's father to try and look like “the Sartre people in France or Juliette Greco.” Kirchherr states: “we looked a bit weird, but we all thought it was great to be different.”

Sutcliffe went on to borrow a collar-less corduroy suit from his girlfriend which she had made herself after seeing a high-fashion version by Pierre Cardin in a magazine. John Lennon initially made fun of the look, but later on adopted it along with the band to create one of their signature styles.

After leaving The Beatles, Stuart Sutcliffe went back to art school in Hamburg. In 1962, Sutcliffe collapsed and died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 21. Astrid Kirchherr states that he was, and is, the love of her life. She says that she still wears black, cuts her hair short, wears long scarves and leather pants, and is looking forward to her 70th birthday this year.

Imagine it: the contents of your closet, your personal style, one day gets “borrowed” and blown up by some close friends who become mega-stars. How would your style change the world?

Listen to the full interview between Terry Gross & Astrid Kirchherr on NPR. The story of Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliffe and The Beatles is captured in the 1994 film Backbeat with Stephen Dorff as Sutcliffe and Sheryl Lee as Kirchherr.

(Originally posted to the Poetic & Chic Instagram account, on the occasion of the all-black dress code for the Golden Globe Awards in the wake of the Me Too movement.)

If you’ve ever worked in any kind of service industry (food, event, retail (sometimes), performance, production, etc…) then you know a bit about the all-black thing. It’s a uniform, It’s normal life. It’s habit.It gets to be something so ingrained that you don’t know how to shop for any other color even years later (much to your own dismay.) It makes things easy, relaxed (in a way) and breaks you down to essentials: teamwork, craft, creativity, and service. It equalizes, and puts focus on the output rather than appearance.

In design school you learn how design with constraints makes the work better, tighter, more focused. Tonight we saw such design with constraints: every shade of black on every type of gloriously beautiful, talented goddess that Hollywood has in store, and the fashion was not only interesting but just as (if not more)glamorous than usual. It also saved a lot of people from the typical fashion mistakes that generally happen on red carpets by giving them a simple, equalizing constraint, and allowing them to expand within it.

The black dialed back the voices, the judgments, the bullshit, and got everyone to focus. In my opinion all of those goddesses seemed a lot more relaxed and happier in their own skin. I know this is about a lot more than a mere color or mere fashion, but the message was clear: we’re here for the work.

It's graduation time again, and a lot of shiny new people will be emerging from the collegiate bubble into the "real" world. That is, the world of the work-a-day week, timecards, lunches at the desk, sneakers to commute and heels in the bag, and rows and rows of cubes. Okay, so maybe it's not so bad as all that, but when the real world hits for the first time, it hits pretty hard.

I was surprised to learn that one of my recent co-workers (who had recently graduated from college) had never seen the film Working Girl by Mike Nichols from 1988. I cannot conceive of someone NOT having seen this film when I watch it at least once a year, if not more often than that. From the moment the snare drum snaps to a shot of the Statue of Liberty, this film has me. The anthemic, soaring voice of Carly Simon on "Let the River Run" almost brings tears to my eyes in anticipation. From the first second, this movie goes right at the heart of the American spirit of capitalism and makes it exhilarating, despite its dirty backroom machinations. The writing is sharp, the cast is tremendous, and you'd be hard pressed not to love every one of these utterly flawed, delightful characters.

For me, Working Girl is sort of an I Ching of the business world. It gives lessons, makes you laugh, breaks your heart a few times, and still you come out with a happy ending. So, in my opinion, the film is an essential for anyone entering the working world.

So, here are my favorite lessons learned from Working Girl...

You don’t get ahead in this world by calling your boss a pimp.

“Never burn bridges. Today’s junior prick – tomorrow’s senior partner.”

Even if your boss is a pimp, a bitch, a pain-in-the-ass, or the company’s own dirty embarrassment, NEVER let them know that you know that. You don’t want to be the clean-up crew, but you can probably handle being a good cop to your boss’s bad cop. It’s called being nice.

People who are cavalier about burning bridges “so they’ll light my way” are just being stupid. You never ever know who can and will help you in your future career. Believe me, on day one people are already noticing your work ethic, and they aren’t likely to forget how much grace you have under pressure. They also aren’t likely to forget the good work and favors you’ve done on their behalf. You make them look good and they will always remember you, even years down the line.

They’ll also remember the nasty phone call, the shit attitude, the curt email response, and the oh-so-ferocious way you light that match and set that bridge on fire.

Never trust a bitch that has a weight machine in her office.

That’s just on principle.

Never trust a bitch that says “trust”.

Remember that guy at the frat party in your freshman year of college who wanted to take you out his window onto the roof because you could hear the band better from up there? Remember how the whole proposition didn’t seem to set quite right with you? Yeah. Hear that voice.

If your instinct tells you that someone is phony baloney (especially if it’s your boss,) then you aren’t likely too far off from the truth. Again, you don’t need to bring this to their attention, but just know where you stand and trust your instincts.

And just in case you forget: anyone who tells you to come to them with YOUR ideas should be a suspicious character no matter what. Do not trust them, ever.

Remember your first taste.

(As the chandelier lowers.) “Why does it do that?” “For cleaning.” “Are you kidding me?” “No.”

A Warhol quartet, Louis XVI desk, orchids… Your first time behind the curtain of affluence will always make an impression. Remember it well. The textures, the fragrances, the flavors, the service…the world is very different behind that curtain and that’s a good thing to know first-hand. Absorb it through your very pores so that you’ll know it when you get back there some day.

Dress like a woman.

“It’s simple, elegant; it makes a statement – says to people: confident, a risk-taker, not afraid to be noticed. Then you hit-em with your smarts.”

Dressing up always makes an impression. It’s important not to be overdressed nor intimidating, but to always be memorable. The success of the black sequined dress Tess borrows lies in its juxtaposition to every other outfit in the room. Remember, before Donna Karan, women didn’t know how to go from work to cocktails as seamlessly as they do today. It’s clear that all the women at the party have come from work, which is why they all look drab and frumpy.

“You dress like a woman, not how a woman thinks a man would dress if he was a woman.”

Today our wardrobes are much more versatile – especially when it comes to the transition between work and play. But even if you’re leaving right from work to go on to a social event, never forget the power of a quick freshen-up. New makeup, a spritz of perfume, and a quick hair re-dux will make you look and feel pretty. And pretty is always powerful.

Fringe times ARE crucial, but meet like human beings, for once.

“I promised myself that when we met we’d drink tequila. No chardonnay, no Frog water. Real drinks.”

Someday some guy will surprise the hell out of me by NOT talking about work within the first five minutes. Hopefully that same guy will know how to order a good brown liquor, and will also have a solid knowledge on the finer points of flirtation. Not everything needs to be “business cards and you must know so-and-so”, and it’s refreshing when it isn’t. The best relationships, romantic and platonic, are founded on things other than a business connection. The man that knows this is the one you want to keep.

The mantra “Don’t fuck up” is as good as any.

The point is, before heading into any important meeting, luncheon, conversation, or whatever, it’s always a good idea to visualize and prepare. Set the intention before heading into the room, conversation, whatever. The more you see yourself succeeding in a difficult situation the more likely it is to happen. Think of and process as many possible outcomes as possible, exploring the situation from every angle.

Know what to do with the surplus cash on the balance sheet – it may be the only time you’ll have to get this creative, but it will be worth considering.

Be able to play secretary AND boss…and give yourself a promotion.

“You’re up against Wharton and Harvard grads.” “Christians and lions, Tess…”

The art of being both secretary and boss is the art of the fake-out. Maybe it’s illusion, maybe it’s just plain fraud, but when handled with grace it’s just plain smart. Imitation is the highest form of flattery and observation is the best way to learn and master (and surpass) someone’s skill set.

On the flip side, I cannot tell you how many Wharton and Harvard grads I’ve known who had no idea how to set up a conference call or schedule a meeting room in Outlook. Never mind the CEOs and brand presidents I’ve known that didn’t know how to raise their hand at the curb to hail a taxi. These are important life skills that should not merely be handed off to some underling because you think yourself too important to be bothered. To quote the great song “Underdog” by Spoon – “You got no time for the messenger/got no regard for the thing that you don’t understand/ you got no fear of the underdog/that’s why you will not survive”. If you can only be a boss with no idea about the secretary part, you’ll always be missing half of the work equation.

As an underling, you can learn a lot from a boss, but chances are they won’t always take the time to learn from you. (If they do however, hang on to them and follow them anywhere because they’re clearly invested in your success!)

Know that you’re going to get burned.

“I’m not the same pathetic trusting fool I was a few days ago.”

Things fall apart. The one wonderful boss that actually believes in you may get transferred, have a baby, move half way around the world, or any number of things that will take them away from your career. As much as you may plan your own career path, life will happen and catch you up short. Maybe you’ll get laid off (I did, and I still think it was the best thing that ever happened to me,) maybe you’ll get transferred, maybe the IPO will be delayed, or maybe that next round of funding never happens. The only thing you can be sure of is that somewhere, someday, something totally unexpected will get tossed in your direction.

When it does, you have a choice: wallow in despair or make it work for you. Even on your worst day (professionally and personally) you can usually still salvage something or at least figure out a new tack to take. How you recover from these situations will test you, but will also let you show your mettle in ways you won’t even realize.

Knowing how to read a balance sheet is just as important as knowing how to crash a wedding.

“He’s here and we’re here, that makes us…” “Total idiots.” “In the right place at the right time.”

Opportunities don’t always come knocking, sometimes you have to go find them on a dance floor, awkwardly, in the middle of a society wedding at the Union Club. People chalk a lot of things up to being “in the right place at the right time,” but what about camping out in the right place because the right time is bound to happen? By developing your sixth sense – the one that anticipates opportunities – you’ll start to learn where to find them.

Know your pitch.

“I said that the man who in 1971 looked into the future and saw that it was named microwave technology, the man who applied Japanese management principles while the others were sill kowtowing to the unions, the man who saw the Ma Bell breakup coming from miles away… This man did not get to be this man, you, I mean, by shutting himself off to new ideas. Am I right or am I right?”

Research, research, research. This will help you so much more than you may actually think. If you’re heading into a pitch or proposal, be sure to have read up on everything about the person or company your’re going to be courting. What’s their current share value? How did they do last quarter, last year? What are their current plans for growth and how do they expect to do it? Most importantly, what’s the vision you’ve come up with for their grand plans? Even if you’re just the coat check girl sitting at the reception desk, this information should always be fresh in your mind. Know how to take the temperature of a company, a department, a leader… Keep your eyes open and observe: trends, attitudes, moods, the air in the lunch room. It’s all there, you just have to put all the pieces together and start your spin.

You are not steak.

“I’m not going to spend the rest of my life working my ass off and getting nowhere just because I followed rules that I had nothing to do with setting up.”

Remember that you have a voice – in business and in your relationships. Accept the times when you make mistakes (which will happen), but be practiced at the art of gracefully asserting yourself. Don’t be afraid of your own power, and don’t be afraid to break the rules when you feel that it’s the right thing to do. In fact, make your own rules!

I know this is a tricky one when you’re first starting out, especially as you’re learning. But always keep it buried in your back pocket.

Don’t let good people get buried under a little piece of tape.

Have integrity and ethics. Don’t throw people under the bus; take responsibility for things. If you’re wrong, admit it, but if you’re right then know how to back up your position in three different ways.

Business relationships can be fragile at the get-go, but once you’ve made a few partnerships you will start to feel the loyalty. Sometimes you’ll be challenged, sometimes you’ll be an ace, but either way you need a solid team on your side. When you find those talents, remember them and keep in touch no matter where you go. These are the bridges you definitely don’t want to burn.

Wise up and don’t take the whole thing so seriously.

Read the People page. It’s true, you really don’t know where the big ideas will come from, so stay open to all of them by being open to everything. Even the most ridiculous things.

Emerging markets can emerge without you on your birthday. When in doubt, go to a party on Staten Island. You may be the best-dressed person there, but you’ll probably have a very fun, memorable night. Singing and dancing around the house in your underwear won’t make you Madonna, but it will probably make you laugh.

“Power to the People.” “The little people.”

The first few years will be filled with many lessons. You’ll learn a lot and you’ll climb higher, if that’s what you really want to do. As you get higher and grow in importance, talent, and ability, never forget where you started. Chances are it’ll take a long time to become the biggest fish in the corporate pond, but after a few years you’ll no longer be the smallest either. But know that those years as a small fish may be the most important you’ll experience. They’ll give you drive, ambition, humility, wisdom, street smarts, and all those little skills that the people at the top should always be grateful for.

Gumption, Ms. McGill.

“You can bend the rules plenty once you get upstairs but not while you’re trying to get there. And, if you’re someone like me you can’t get there without bending the rules.”

If things aren’t working for you, you can always move on to something better. If you need to, you can always shake things up. When you’re young it’s a bit easier to do, but age doesn’t really matter. If you want to make something happen you can do it. It may be risky, it may be all-or-nothing, it may mean a lot of sacrifice, but it will probably be worth it in the end.

Keep good records, write down your ideas, and keep your elevator pitch polished and concise. You never know who may be riding with you or if they have a fat checkbook that needs to invest in something or someone. Namely, you.

Fran Jeffries (left) sings "Meglio Stasera" in The Pink Panther from 1964.

To honor the recent passing of Blake Edwards, TCM played a number of his most famous films earlier this week. Among them was The Pink Panther from 1964. Although this is always an entertaining film (the exploding bottle of champagne still makes me crack up!), I had never really noticed how chic it is in all of its mid-1960s glamour. Sure, the two female leads are played by Capucine and Claudia Cardinale, but did you also know that those two were dressed exclusively by Yves Saint Laurent for the film? No, I didn't either.

But there's one utterly fabulous and diverting scene that doesn't present YSL's looks front and center. Instead, it offers one Fran Jeffries singing Henry Mancini's lesser-known standard "Meglio Stasera", or "It Had Better Be Tonight" as it's known in English. While sporting a fine vocal ability, Jeffries was primarily a nightclub singer who later made a splash doing not one but two different Playboy features; one at age 35 in 1971 entitled "Frantastic!" and one at age 45 in 1981 entitled "Still Frantastic!" Watching this clip you'll understand why...

Fran Jeffries swings this song right out of the chalet. It's an amazing three minutes that captures the essences of the sexy and stylish sixties. It's a cold night in Cortina d'Ampezzo with all of the well-heeled elite having parked their sleds (and Rolls Royces) outside in order to gather around the fondue pot. Jeffries, playing the character of the "Greek Cousin" gets up to entertain. Lucky for her, a cute group of jazzy Italians in fuzzy sweaters also plays percussion (and accordeon) and they're happy to keep the beat while she does her thing around the fire.

The first minute of the song is actually a great bit of directing. The singer dominates the foreground at left, while she serves to frame the main characters (David Niven, Robert Wagner, Capucine, & Claudia Cardinale) who are all seated at a lounge table at right. While she dances around, she interacts with the more "important" members of the cast, while they're all enraptured by her fabulous performance. Indeed, I think this was done in one take so the whole sequence is pretty amazing. She's energetic, hits her marks, and spurs the comedy ever so slightly.

Then of course, there's also the clothes. Fran Jeffries' main asset, her shapely figure, is shown to perfection in a skin-tight but mostly modest set of black pants with a beaded turtleneck sweater. To be fair, the beading on this sweater is something fantastic: black and red beads form stripes from shoulder to shoulder creating an eye-catching breastplate effect. Today I'd say it was something from Prada, but back then who knows? The rest of the scene is equally well-attired. Lots of cozy-looking stretch ensembles with big sweaters - à la vintage Bogner or Moncler - but the truly chic of the group are given pops of color and the right touches of metallics and baubles. The character called "Brenda de Branzie" is given a fabulous pant ensemble in cobalt blue accented chunky jade jewelry - a very fun and sophisticated color combination if I do say so! Cardinale's character, Princess Dahla, looks appropriately regal in a purple silk pantsuit with a jeweled neckline. There's also a lady in a great taupe and gold jumpsuit that wouldn't normally attact my attention, but at the end when she gets up to dance I spotted her gold boots which absolutely won me over.

This was still the early 1960s when it was still considered a bit risqué for women to be out in the evening wearing pants of any sort. I think that the costuming in this scene shows the perfect bit of European sophistication of casual elegance. It also makes the moment authentic and fun, like the audience is invited to the party, and that's how it still feels over forty years later.

Mancini's song "Meglio Stasera" is supremely catchy and comes up over and over throughout the score of the film, but this is the only time it's actually sung in full and in Italian. However, I'm sad to say that Jeffries' interpretation is not included on the original score. Over the years it's been recorded by vocalists such as Sarah Vaughan and Michael Bublé, but I love the version recorded by London's Blue Harlem group. It's fabulous! Either way, one cannot argue that Fran Jeffries' version from The Pink Panther is one of the very best out there: an impeccably chic bit of film with style, rhythm, and fun all in one!

The German movie poster for "Bell Book & Candle", 1958

Although it's not what one would call a "traditional" holiday film, or even one on the periphery, I consider Bell, Book & Candle from 1958 to be a fantastically chic film that has the perfect layer of Christmastime glamour. It's on cold nights in December that I'm always thinking of this movie - it's exactly what I'm in the mood for at this time of year!

Telling the tale of a family of witches in New York City (a family that includes Jack Lemmon, Elsa Lanchester & Hermione Gingold), the whole film has a slightly odd, Mid-Century aura of coolness about it that is simply fabulous. The main witch in question is Gil, played by Kim Novak, who has a shop that sells exotic African masks which serves as a cover for her family's spell-casting activities throughout Greenwich Village. The plot thickens when Shep, an eligible bachelor played by Jimmy Stewart moves in upstairs. When Gil finds out that Shep is engaged to her former college rival, she casts a spell on him to make him fall in love with her instead.

African masks & textiles create an air of the witchy & exotic during the opening credits.

Gil (Kim Novak) and her cat, the very important Pyewacket, admire Gil's modern Christmas tree.

Gil's kooky and exotic little shop is backed by her apartment of streamlined and subdued Mid-Century modern furniture. Neutral shades and clean lines create a simple but comfortable space that's the perfect thing for the cool single witch in the city. In fact, the space lends itself to Gil's entire style: modern, sexy, simple, and relaxed. Kim Novak's hair is cut very short, showing an artistic, bohemian streak, and her clothes continue with this sophisticated but breezy style. As a whole, Gil's shop and apartment are a microcosm of the bohemian culture of the Village in the 1950s; it's strange and exotic, full of odd things, and run by an odd but very glamorous (and Ivy League educated) witch. And isn't every little shop in Greenwich Village the same?

Gil goes barefoot (as witches do), and poses on her modern sofa. While this isn't your typical sexy costume, who could resist this look?

Designed by the master of glamour Jean Louis, the costumes are the perfect accompaniment to Gil's personality and spooky smarts. Yet their brand of glamour is completely understated and full of an appeal that still stands up today. I love how everything Gil wears is incredibly relaxed and modest, but still overwhelmingly sexy. Novak doesn't have a lot of costumes, but what she wears is simple and versatile. The clean lines are amped up with draped hoods and modest necklines that somehow become double-take worthy on the gorgeous Ms. Novak.

For instance, Novak's rich burgundy velvet evening gown features a very high neckline and a few sparkling bangles, but the deep V-cut back brings home a saucy message that's just jaw-dropping. I love that this one gown is shown in so many different scenes, and while it's the same dress it looks entirely different every time.

Gil casts a spell on Merle Kitteridge at the Zodiac Club as Aunt Queenie (Elsa Lanchester) laughs. I love that the deep burgundy velvet of this gown is totally subdued here, only emphasized by a trio of sparkling bangles.

For the journey home in the snow, the velvet gown is paired with deep pink gloves, a pink fur muff, and a stunning full-length hooded cape.

Burgundy velvet gown...business in the front...

...party in the back.

The velvet gown goes in for the kill...

Gil also holds herself in a way that sets her apart; her poses and gestures are completely outré compared to her nemesis, Shep's intended. Merle Kitteridge, played by Janice Rule, is the perfectly prim Upper East Side-Ivy League socialite who's boring as can be. She wears the "right" clothes, goes to the "right"places, and is utterly horrible. Gil's slouchy posture and somewhat un-ladylike comportment shows you right away that of the two of them, Gil is the one you want to know for the long-term. She's chic and a little sloppy in a way, but this is exactly what makes her endearing & unforgettable. Even a simple slouchy top and capri pants shows off the nape of the neck better than any strapless gown - it's a work of genius from Jean Louis. Indeed, this is how I wish I could dress every day.

The sexy red top I wish I had in my closet. I love that this is the antithesis of a body-conscious look, but it's incredibly sexy...

Gil and her brother Nicky (Jack Lemmon). I just love this leopard cape and red sweater combo. Where can I get a leopard cape like this? Vintage maybe?

When Gil goes to see Shep to explain about being a witch, the leopard cape is reversed, showing a somber black side with hints of leopard at the edges.

The sexiest look of Bell Book & Candle - a streamlined black ensemble with a hood. I love that this is so very modest, but so incredibly va-va-voom.

Throughout the entire film, Gil's attire is in a palette of vivid reds, warm burgundies, and luscious blacks. These are the perfect counterpoint to her short blonde hair and sophisticated demeanor. Meanwhile, the palette and designs lend themselves to the mystery of her witchy-ness. It's a very exciting combination and one that shows the mastery of Jean Louis. At the end of the film when Gil realizes that she's in love with Shep and has lost her witch's powers, her costume becomes pale and demure, while her shop transitions from exotic African masks to trite seashell sculptures.

Gil is everything 1950's frumpy and "normal" in sheer white and daisy yellow.

It's an interesting comment on the mores of the time that Gil has to loose her witchy powers to find true love. It's also an interesting plot turn that an emancipated, independent, and self-sufficient woman of that age has to become ordinary and powerless to be with the man she loves. Okay, so Bell Book & Candle isn't exactly a feminist film, but the character of Gil is super stylish and fabulous as long as her witchy self lasts on the screen. I think all of us could learn a thing or two from her modern, sexy style...during Christmas and throughout the year!

I've been pondering orchids lately. Not just the phalanopsis plants I have on my desk, which I love, but the big cymbidium orchids that are much more bold and old-fashioned. You know which ones I mean: they're big like an alien bird and colored all shades of pink, magenta or mauve, with maybe a little yellow mixed in. They look like a cross between a star and a monster - lots of shapely dimension and crazy color, especially in a group.

These days you've probably seen them on the shoulder of a happy mother or grandmother-of-the-bride, because weddings are when the fancy orchids seem to emerge from the florists' back rooms. It wasn't always this way though.

Back in the 1930s - 1940s, these orchids were the epitome of glamour and exoticism. I think this comes from the Victorian-Edwardian eras when orchids were extremely exotic and coveted as a luxury item. They had to be cultivated in hot houses, and their tropical beauty were the height of extravagance. As the world moved into the 20th Century, orchids became slightly more plentiful but still just as special. They became the standard of courtships all across the land.

left to right: Dolores Del Rio, Carole Lombard, & Greta Garbo, publicity shots with orchids

Because of their exclusive connotations, orchids were the perfect accoutrement for Hollywood starlets. Beautiful and rarified, the orchid became a symbol of the unobtainable woman. This whiff of the "ever-out-of-reach" gave them a dangerous appeal too, making them the chosen prop of gangster molls and bad girls. In other words, the orchid is the Madonna-whore of the flower world, and their inherent language speaks volumes.

A Harlequin pulp novel shows the *other* type of orchid girl.

Yes, if you were a man who wanted to impress a lady, you'd send her orchids. (If you really wanted to impress her, you'd put a diamond bracelet inside the box with the orchid, but that's another story.) Got it? Orchids = Woo, at least they did about 70 years ago.

But there are ladies and there are ladies, and when it comes to giving a lady orchids there are three types of recipient: one who is starry-eyed and appreciative of their novelty and beauty, one who has received so many orchids she's immune to their charm, and one who is right in between these two. The former is usually a younger girl who is still enchanted by the gesture, while the latter is usually a wizened older lady who wears them as a mere accessory. In the middle is the girl who is most like an orchid: sexy, alluring, expensive, and grown in a hot-house - I'm sure the associations are obvious.

Carole Lombard wears orchids to marry William Powell in 1931

Sending orchids to a lady usually happened in the evening right before a date. Then, she'd wear the fresh, dewey flowers out on the town with her fella, usually pinned to her dress somewhere on the bodice. The look of a simple and slinky charmeuse gown embellished by a cluster of extravagant blooms always brings out the vamp in anyone. Later on, a gigantic cluster of cymbidiums on a fur coat showed elegance and luxury during the 1940s. Orchids weren't just for special occasions either, they'd get worn any time one needed to glam it up a little and look nice for a luncheon or day on the town. The orchids would come in a clear plastic box, nestled inside some plastic gras or paper shreds. The whole thing would be tied with an elegant ribbon and served with a little bon mot.

In 1939's The Women, Mary Haines receives a box of orchids from her husband along with a note saying "What can I say?", as an eleventh-hour gesture before their divorce. Just a few minutes later, the Comtesse de Lave wears a lavish spray of orchids while on the train to Reno, in joyful pursuit of her next legal separation.

Paulette Godard, Mary Boland, and Norma Shearer in The Women.

In the lighthearted Fred Astaire-Rita Hayworth musical, You Were Never Lovelier from 1942, Rita's character Maria starts to receive orchids from a secret admirer. Little does she know that it's really her father sending them to her to launch her on the road to romance with Astaire's Robert Davis. Once Maria discovers the ruse, she wants nothing more to do with orchids at all, but Robert keeps sending them. Ultimately, the orchids win.

Rita Hayworth is SO the type of girl you'd send orchids to, let's be honest.

At the other end of the spectrum is the saucy Jean Harlow. Her white dress and orchid ensemble worn on the red carpet for the premiere of Hell's Angels is so famous that the look was replicated by Gwen Stefani in The Aviator. This extraordinary ensemble was the embodiment of fantasy and imagination for a country that had recently plunged into the Great Depression.

Jean Harlow at the Hell's Angels premiere in 1930, Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow in The Aviator

It's interesting that while our love of orchids as house plants has increased, our love of orchids and other flowers as adornment (at least outside of weddings) has decreased. Pat Field tried to make a corsage comeback a number of years ago on Sex and the City, but I think we all got over that trend right quick. I just have to wonder why no one opts for this type of glamour any longer. Orchids are far more eye-catching and far less expensive than fine jewelry, no? Plus, they instantly give the allure of old Hollywood to any ensemble, and what's so wrong with that I'd like to know?

I am a big fan of flowers as a fashion accessory and orchids are a classic choice. It's too bad that these days the orchid corsage is relegated to the dowdier members of the wedding party. They certainly didn't start out that way!

As I see more mentions & clips of orchids I'll do more posts of this type. So, keep your eye out and let me know if you have one in mind.

When people talk of iconic Woody Allen characters, the first one that comes to mind is of course Diane Keaton as the menswear-loving Annie Hall. But digging into 1986's Hannah and Her Sisters, one finds another quirky fashion icon in Diane Wiest's character, Holly. This film is probably one of my top picks in the Woody Allen oeuvre, and I find it utterly charming every time I watch it - and the ending is just the sweetest thing ever.

But over the years I've found that the thing I love most is the character of Holly. Like the other much-adored New York Holly (Golightly), she's a kooky mixed-up mess and has a fashion sense to match. Even still, there are certain elements that are pure perfection simply because the character owns the look so completely. Like Annie, her style also incorporates menswear, but with some unexpected feminine elements that make the look much softer. Her look is sweet and airy, high and low, full of vintage, objet trouvé pieces that probably came from a boyfriend's closet or a local flea market. Even at her worst, Holly's sartorial mix shows the true New York bohemian that lies within.

When we first meet Holly at the beginning of the film, it's a family Thanksgiving at her sister Hannah's house. Although the sisters are close, it's clear that Holly is harboring a few issues deep down. Her black and white floral print dress is topped by a classic mens houndstooth blazer, cinched at the waist with a belt. A scattering of vintage brooches on the lapel softens the look, but this structured style manifests the nervous discomfort she has in the scene.

Holly is a bit of a mess, and we're shown that her frenetic self-destruction has been going on for a while. When we see Holly & Mickey's first date in a flashback, she's smoking incessantly with one hand, and snorting coke with the other. Her crisp white blazer is totally out of place at the punk show she chooses to take them too, and she is equally out of place later on during Bobby Short's show at The Carlyle. She's over-accessorized herself - a scarf here, big necklaces there, and wrists full of big bracelets - it's all too much. While Holly claims she's hip, chastising Mickey for not being fun, she's the one that's completely insecure.

While Holly makes continued attempts in the acting world, she and her friend April (played by Carrie Fisher) open the Stanislavski Catering Company to earn some money on the side. It's interesting to note that Holly asks her sister Hannah (already a successful actress) to help her to pick an outfit for her audition. Hannah (played by Mia Farrow) is a classic through and through, so it's no surprise that she would lead Holly toward this buttoned-up ensemble that resembles a suit from the 1940s. It's also no surprise that Holly bombs the audition. The vintage style does seem to suit Holly, but she's still uncomfortable in her own skin and seems small on the stage.

Immediately after her audition, April comes in and knocks her song out of the ballpark, effectively making Holly a footnote in the open call. As they walk down the street, the two friends have an argument about a man they've both been dating, and the friendship (as well as the Stanislavski Catering Company) soon comes to an end. I love this look because while April looks like the standard 1980s New Yorker, Holly shows her vintage ecclecticism to full effect. A man's topcoat is paired with a vintage cloche, bright scarves, brooches, a huge basket tote (de rigeur in the 1980s), and finally a charming pair of Fair Isle mittens.

At the next Thanksgiving, Holly has given up on acting and is trying her hand at writing. While this makes for some conflict with Hannah, you can see that she's beginning to pull herself together. Her spunky personality is beginning to come through and she seems much more relaxed and self-assured. Her kicky ensemble of trousers, baseball jacket, and dark green Jack Purcell sneakers is so fantastic that I'd wear it even today. When we see her arguing with Hannah in the next scene, she's beginning to mix her punk sensibility with her soft, vintage side. The 1940s-cut dress is perfectly embellished by another scattering of brooches (possibly the same group from the first Thanksgiving?) and a pair of punk chokers. In this scene it's clear that Holly is coming together while Hannah is coming apart.

My favorite Holly outfit (and one of my favorite film ensembles ever,) comes when Mickey and Holly reunite in a record store. Holly has clearly come into her own and is freely mixing her favorite pieces with confidence and charm. A vintage sailor's blouse is covered by a classic jean jacket and then a masculine top coat finished with her usual touch of sparkling brooches. A jaunty black beret is also given the brooch treatment, finishing the look to perfection. It's obvious that she's come full circle, is happy, ready for a real career, and even a real love.

When Holly reads Mickey her script in the next scene, she's wearing a breezy oversized plaid shirt and a black menswear vest; a pairing which is back in style again today, 24 years later. Her scarf is tied in a bow in her hair, bringing a sweet touch of femininity. She seems to have grown younger through the course of the film, even as years have passed. As we say goodbye to Holly & Mickey (for another year), they're seen in a long shot in the park, where Holly has covered this outfit with a vintage fur coat, bringing a self-assured and glamorous finish to her quirky look.

Every time I watch this film I want to go shop on Haight Street and find a vintage sailor's blouse and a few more brooches. Or, at the very least I want to find some Grandpa's closet and raid it for funky old coats and hats.

I think that Holly shows a great lesson of life: that you are what you wear, even if it takes you a long time to put together the right ensemble.

When you're home for a quiet Saturday night it's always nice to find a great old movie on the telly. Last night, KQED (our local public television station) aired two gems from the 1930s which made my eyes pop with delight. The first was 42nd Street - an adorable "understudy fills in for the lead and saves the show" story, with some fantastic numbers from Busby Berkeley. The Depression-era fantasy continued immediately afterward with a life-long favorite of mine & my sister's: Top Hat.

I remember watching this movie as a kid and being entranced by the dancing and the beauty. Also, I remember my sister's tap class did a routine to "Top Hat", so the song was something she'd sing all the time. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized how silly and transporting it is as a film. The sets are opulent, the plot is so breezy as to be non-existent, and the witty and racy dialogue is only memorable for about three scenes. Of course the comic stylings of the ensemble cast - a group that frequently joined forces for more RKO musicals - is light and enjoyable. In other words, it's the perfect bit of fantasy and humor for the down-trodden world of 1935.

Then, there's the dress. One of the most iconic dresses in all of film, the maribou-feather dress for the "Cheek to Cheek" dance sequence is a pure delight. A nice layer to the plotline concerns Beddini, a comic stereotype of an Italian dress designer, who creates the clothes for Ginger Rogers' character. So Beddini is to have designed the dress, but in fact Ginger Rogers designed it herself and it was created by RKO costumer Bernard Newman. The dress looks white, but it's actually pale blue "Monet blue" as was requested by Ms. Rogers.

When I re-watched the scene the other night, I was struck by the effortless elegance of the dance. Everything flows. The movement is graceful, light, and dramatic all at once. And the dress moves exactly the same way. The feathers contribute a lightness and movement that serves to enhance the grace of the dance. It's diaphanous and fluid at the same time - like she's dancing inside of a waterfall.

The back story was quite a bit more complicated, including over 60 takes, a stubborn Ms. Rogers, and feathers all over everything. In fact, the dress was the one thing that made the filming difficult, and Ms. Rogers' refusal to change wardrobe earned her the nickname "Feathers". In fact, the dress kept shedding so many feathers (which you can even see in the film) that there was danger of the whole thing falling apart. In the end though, it (and the scene) are the most memorable parts of the film and the dress now resides in the Smithsonian.

The complete story is summed up well in this article from the LA Times, which you should definitely check out. But in the meantime, here's the scene so you can see why this dress is so amazing. It's another great story about the creative process, working through problems to create something memorable (even if it's just a dance sequence), and how one dress can make magic happen!

A flash of red, Belle Epoque architecture, and a vintage SNCF train engine in deep green are the opening of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s masterful min-film commercial for Chanel No. 5. The filmmaker sets his favored palette immediately (red, green, black, and amber), and washes it in his signature sepia-tint, making the film appear perfectly, romantically aged.

This is the look of Jeunet. Despite his place among modern French auteurs, his mise-en-scene always shows this specific palette and elements of times gone by; and if those elements no longer exist, he re-creates them to perfection. His stories are fantasy-based, even the more realistic such as Amélie and A Very Long Engagement, allowing him the freedom to create his own complete worlds. Of course, most filmmakers do this anyway, but very few except for Wes Anderson, actually do it to the extent of Jeunet. Even in the entirely fantastic films of Delicatessen, City of Lost Children and Alien: Resurrection, Jeunet’s aesthetic remains intact. His arsenal of technicians and actors rarely changes helping with this consistency, but each story is so wholly unique that it is clearly the director’s own vision driving the style.

It is to Chanel’s credit that the firm allowed Jeunet to create their latest marketing film within his own stylistic preferences while honoring the product it showcases so completely. (They did the same for Baz Luhrmann’s version a few years ago as well, but that work was such a flagrant rip-off of Moulin Rouge that it doesn’t stand on its own as well as Jeunet’s does.) In fact, Jeunet’s style is the perfect lens for the lore and romance surrounding Chanel No. 5. Invented in 1921 as the first perfume to feature synthetic aldehydes, the scent was a complete departure from the floridly sweet scents of the era. Another change was its packaging; most perfumes at the time were encased in wildly sculptural etched glass flacons, while Chanel No. 5 emerged in a clean-lined, geometric bottle. The difference was like a spotlight on the vanity table. In 1959, the Museum of Modern Art New York inducted the bottle into its packaging exhibit.

Since its creation, Chanel No. 5 has been among the most popular scents in the world, and is certainly the best-known. The Jeunet mini-film is pitch-perfect in its reserve: since everyone already knows the product, he understands that it doesn’t need to be given a heavy hand. One of the best moments of the film is when the light shines through the bottle of No. 5, casting a gorgeous, glimmering shadow across Audrey Tautou’s train berth. The moment is doubly witty as Toutou lies in her bed nude, recalling Marilyn Monroe’s famous quote about Chanel No. 5 being the only thing she wore to bed.

Apart from the actual look of the mini-film, there are also plot elements that are classically Jeunet: romance among strangers, missed encounters, voyeurism, and irony. Yet with all its stylistic beauty, Jeunet smartly brings home the product as a fragrance of eternal modernity. The girl (Tautou) is young, hip, casually dressed, and packed for easy travel, but she still chooses a scent that is over eighty years old. (The film was released on May 5th, or 5/5 – the eighty-eight years to the date from the fragrance’s release in 1921.) This is a gentle but genius stroke of the artist successfully communicating the product in an exciting, approachable way. This is similar to Sophia Coppola’s young ye ye girls in her recent commercial for Miss Dior Cherie – youthful, fun, vintage-inspired, but entirely modern.

When Billie Holiday’s “I’m a Fool to Want You” comes over the soundtrack, Jeunet’s stylish irony comes forward. The decades-old song is romantic and mysterious, the perfect accompaniment to Toutou, but is she singing of the romance between the boy and girl, or the romance between the girl and Chanel No. 5? Or, is it saying that we (the consumers) are all fools to love such beautiful, ephemeral things of indulgence and luxury? The inclusion of this song goes a lot further than simple soundtrack.

Overall, this is an excellent bit of marketing from Chanel that unites artistry and messaging in an entirely engaging way. It is lovely that the luxury houses still spend time and expense on these types of media. It is almost a new art form entirely, limited to a select few firms such as Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel, but the cost is so well-spent. As art foundations continue to diminish and advertising gets less and less creative, the luxury brand commercials continue to excite and inspire. More please!

Visit the Chanel website devoted to Jeunet's film for a high-resolution playing. It is worth seeing this way! Special thanks to The Luxe Chronicles for suggesting that link.

Note: Personally, Chanel No. 5 is not one of my favorites, but I am especially fond of Coco... - Ms. P&C

Grey Gardens, 1975

I’ll tell you the whole thing, you might as well face it…

It’s not my favorite thing to jump into the fray of commentary whenever a topic is so fully absorbed by the quotidian, but since I’ve never written about Grey Gardens before, I thought this might be a good time to enter the palaver. In case you’ve been under a rock lately, HBO is showing its much-awaited film of Grey Gardens this coming Saturday night. This film is based upon the lives of the eccentric mother-daughter team of Bouvier Beales, whose antics were originally showcased in the Maysles’ 1975 documentary Grey Gardens. The Bouvier Beales, known commonly as Big and Little Edie, were the aunt and first cousin of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and Lee Bouvier Radziwill. So, to recap, it’s a movie named Grey Gardens based upon a documentary named Grey Gardens which was named for the house Grey Gardens which is where two women named Edie lived most of their lives. But you didn’t need me to tell you that, did you?

The HBO film will feature Drew Barrymore as Little Edie, with Jessica Lange as Big Edie, and Jeanne Tripplehorn as Jackie Onassis. This film is drawing upon the cultish popularity of the Maysles’ original documentary, and liberally filling in the blanks with gorgeous period flashbacks. Suffice it to say, I can hardly wait to see it.

So, why Grey Gardens? What is the big deal anyways? I was once told by a close friend of mine that this film was an essential for anyone remotely interested in today’s fashion. Understood to be a “fashion touch-stone”, Grey Gardens shows a real dose of the Miss Havisham-ish tattered elegance celebrated (and imitated) by Peter Som, John Galliano, and Marc Jacobs. Not sure what to expect, I first watched the documentary years ago, and almost had to turn it off I was in such a state of shock. After all this time, the film is still more than a little shocking to me – that two formerly well-to-do women of such high intelligence would allow themselves to live in such uncomfortable squalor – but I am still fascinated with each subsequent viewing.

The look is so incredible that even the most talented designer could only "interpret" such style. But, is it really style when it’s so unconsciously done? Once one gets past Little Edie’s “best costume for today…” the first visual to note is the palette. The washed out grays, greens, and faded pinks of the house are the perfect foil for Little Edie’s psychedelic floral print swimsuit, patterned knits, and vibrantly colorful ensembles. Or how about Big Edie’s famously off-kilter spectacles and striped sun hat? Then there are the real mementos shown: sepia-tinted studio portraits from bygone days, a stately painting propped in a corner, antique records, brooches, and dress clips. These glimpses of past luxury, along with moments of painted furniture, faded wicker chairs, sleeping cats, and newspapers spread on every surface, create the splendor and squalor that is so unsettling.

“It’s very difficult to keep the lines between the past and the present…You know what I mean?” – Little Edie Beale

It’s so clear that these women know, or once knew, a world of beauty, wealth, parties, society, and comfort. More than this, a world of education and discourse. Little Edie quotes poetry throughout the documentary, and even goes so far as to write some lines of Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam on a bedroom wall. Obviously, Convent of the Sacred Heart and Miss Porter’s School (called “Farmington” by Little Edie) made their mark. Why then are these women eating ice cream with plastic knives and boiling corn on a hot plate next to their bed? Is this style, or just cockeyed tragedy? Even as the viewer grows in discomfort watching this charade, the Beales adamantly defy you to pity them. They have fun: singing, dancing, sunbathing, swimming, redecorating rooms, feeding raccoons Cat Chow, and generally antagonizing each other. It seems as though they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Grey Gardens, 2009

The Maysles brothers show this counterpoint so beautifully. It is difficult to reconcile that the women in the old photographs are the same women in the film. Who were they then? What choices did they make? Who did they love? What happened? It’s a bit like finding one’s own old family photos and wondering if those long-past, never-met relatives had anything in common with who we are today. Perhaps this is the appeal? That mystery of life and its many everyday choices is common to everyone, but here it’s more genteel, more privileged, and played out to an unfortunate end with the cameras rolling.

But I’m pulverized by this latest thing: more unfortunate than the Beales is the way that the cult following of Grey Gardens has turned into a commercial free-for-all. It seems that every one of Little Edie’s idiosyncratic sayings has its own associated product, from “STAUNCH” t-shirts, to red shoe paperweights (“You know they can get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday.”), to the replica Grey Gardens brooch. While the Edies would laugh at this type of thing, the entire point of Grey Gardens was the entirely singular, unconscious look of the entire thing. The Edies weren’t trying to be anything other than themselves, and that is always the best style to have.

Of course, with the new film on HBO coming this weekend, the myth will continue to be sold off in pieces at an even faster pace.

When The Traditionalist and A Continuous Lean wrote about Bert Stern's 1960 film Jazz on a Summer's Day last summer, I immediately added it to my Netflix queue. Of course, being a bit of a movie maniac, my queue is rather long, so I only watched this film this week. I should have known better. Based upon my own experience when writing about films, when someone blogs a film, it means watch it - now.

I've made this mistake before of course, with Days of Heaven and Un Homme et Une Femme, so I hope I've learned my lesson.

Let me just say that this little documentary is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. Filmed during the 1958 Jazz Festival in Newport, RI, the film captures a weekend of American style, music, and relaxation that is just as vibrant fifty years later. In fact, I am surprised that this film isn't more of a stylistic touchstone, a la Grey Gardens, Petulia, or BlowUp. The style is just amazing, capturing a time of fresh-faced beauty and casualness that was still untouched by the Kennedy-era polish. Two days of music, sunshine, green grass, rocks, ocean, old cars, sailboats, beer, and cigarettes. If anyone has ever looked for a record of mid-century American sportswear, this is the film to watch. The hats, eyeglasses, colors, haircuts and even lipstick shades are clean and stylish, and while clearly of their own time, there is still a strong relevance today.

Indeed, Ralph Lauren's entire body of work could be based upon this film.

Bert Stern adapted his experience with fashion and advertising photography to create a film that's really "moving still pictures," as he explained in the short feature on the DVD. It certainly shows. For me it was the colors that were so vibrant - a shot of a little girl running on a lawn in red shorts with a blue innertube is just gorgeous. A panning shot of a young woman in a turquoise blue-on-blue polkadot sheath with a yellow tweed hat and straw basket takes her in from foot to head, and literally made me gasp with delight. I also loved the colorful, wavy, moving water shots at the beginning which look strikingly similar to the Abstract Expressionist paintings being created at this time. Every frame is artistic, composed, balanced, and beautiful.

But with all of this beauty, there is still a relaxed easyness that captures the pure fun and enjoyment of the festival. People were there for the music and the togetherness. There is a staged segment of film that's a bit incongruous: a "party" with people dancing on a rooftop, and while it captures the overall mood of the weekend, I'd trade this bit of staged film in for more candid shots of the musicians and the audience.

As a fan of jazz however, the musical part falls a little bit short. Anita O'Day's set is fantastic, but most of the others, including Louis Armstrong's, have been shown to better advantage elsewhere. (True, some of my favorites, like Gerry Mulligan, did not get nearly enough screen time to merit a better judgment.) But this film is much more about the look and mood of a late-1950s summer day in America, and the music is more background to the visuals.

It's wintertime now, but if you want that summertime mood, I highly suggest getting your hands on a copy of this movie! It's a lovely cure for the winter greys...

The scene: My room, fifteen minutes before I'm due to leave for a party... the chant “Ihavenothingtowear” is repeating in my head. I take the latest unsatisfying option to the mirror...

“No. No no no.” The voice is deep, throaty, and no-nonsense. I spin around in terror to see blonde curls, gigantic sunglasses, a venti cup of Starbucks, and a Birkin bag - all being held up by a pile of fur.

“Ohmigod, Rachel Zoe?”

“Hi baby.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Obv – I’m here to get you dressed.”

“Ugh. At this point I think I’m wearing this.”

“No, you’re not wearing that. That’s jeans and a t-shirt.”

“Yeah, but it’s a Marc Jacobs t-shirt.”

“I know baby, but you can’t wear it to a party. It’s the holidays, it’s festive, it’s sparkle-time. You NEED to be in full regalia. Let’s do an edit...It’ll be fast and painless. What do we have on the racks?”

“I have nothing.”

“Not true. What’s this blue knit dress?” I try on the dress in the bathroom. “Come on out baby, I want to see you.”

“It’s okay. I usually put on my black Vuitton boots with it.”

“I gasp. Very sexy, but I think that’s more for date-night.”

“I agree, I’m not feeling it tonight.”

“Let me get in there and look. I’ll see it and I’ll want it, and I’ll want you to try it.” Rachel dives into my closet. All I can see is her perfectly bouncy blonde curls. How does she see in there with those glasses on?

“HUUUUUUUUH! I diiiiiiiieeee! Where did you get this vintage Pucci from 1968?”

“Um. How did you know the year?”

“Ohmigod. It’s signed. It’s a vintage Pucci shirtdress – and look at those sleeves! I gasp for air. That. Is. Bananas.”

“I think I bought it online years ago. I’m so afraid to wear it – it’s really fragile.”

“Oh. Ohmigod I die. Okay, too fragile. Let me look....What about this one?” Rachel pulls out my new DKNY dress – short, strapless, with an empire waist, and a cute full skirt in bronze brocade.

“I love that one! It’s a little dressy though, don’t you think?”

“This is the hero dress. I love the little bow-belt at the empire line, and the fabric is so cool: metallic, but sophisticated. I’ll accessorize you for the perfect look. How have you been wearing it?”

“I wore it once with my grandmother’s fox fur stole around my neck, and a high pony tail.”

“Vintage fur? I die.”

“But that’s too much – I’m just going to a house party.”

“Okay, we’ll do the strapless dress with a crisp black tee underneath. The black will balance the metallic brocade, but it will be perfectly dressed-down for a house party. I want you to do a really deep part at your bangs and pouf up your hair in the back – very 1960s, and lots of black eyeliner. Now what shoes?”

“I have these huge black patent oxfords that are pretty awesome, oh, and black tights.”

“Huuuuuuhhh! I gasp for air. Those. Are. Bananas.” I smile. Rachel thinks my shoes are bananas. “And those tights are great - really opaque - whose are those?"

"I just found them - their my new favorite thing, from Ellen Tracy. I think they were at Bloomingdale's..."

"Okay, jewelry. What about that ring from Marc by Marc Jacobs.”

“That’s what I was thinking too – it’s really big and fun.”

“And the perfect touch of sparkle to be festive. Now let me look at you... I gasp. You’re so confident in it too, I can tell how comfortable you are. Donna will be so proud.”

“Wow, I’m dressed! I can’t believe it! Thank you!”

“Ohmigod, you’re shutting it down.” Rachel picks up her Birkin bag and her venti and starts to head for the door.

“Thank you Rachel!”

“Alright baby, give me a kiss... I’m gonna go shop like a lunatic.”

*****************

For the record, no, Rachel Zoe did not *appear* in my room to help me get dressed. This post is a work of complete fiction. That being said, I do hear Rachel Zoe's voice in my head as I get dressed sometimes..."

I must say, the darling Miss Dior "Cherie" advertisements have been the highlight of my magazine flipping lately... A girl with beret on a bicycle with be-ribboned Dior boxes - because it's so charmant to shop the Avenue Montaigne on a bike. Or, the pastelled balloon bouquet lifting Maryna Linchuk high above Paris which puts the ending of Le Ballon Rouge in mind, but for chic, grown-up, fuschia-pink bubble dress-wearing big girls.

Sigh! Le irony, le insouciance, le charm, le tongue-in-cheek...

Then, tonight I was in the middle of Gossip Girl... wait, what's that? Why is Brigitte Bardot singing one of her ye ye songs on the television? Chestnut trees, a vintage magazine, a girl with bangs, white cyclamen, and balloons...either it's my favorite era of French style or... Ohmigosh! It's the Sophia Coppola ad for Miss Dior "Cherie"!!! I was so flustered with delight I didn't know what to think. But, my first notion was: "Damn, I should have gotten that DVR box forever ago! Please rewind!"

The perfume was launched in 2005 - as a commemorative for Christian Dior's 100th birthday by John Galliano. A review of the perfume is available on the Now Smell This blog, which cites Galliano's inspirations as Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour" and a vintage Dior gown from the archives called "Cherie". However, while the scent may be reminiscent of the classic 1947 "Miss Dior" perfume, it is entirely modern. So, a modern ad campaign with the modern, simple glamour of Ms. Coppola is entirely appropriate.

Pink, pastel, soaring, and with a 1960s French girl-pop soundtrack - what's not to love? Also, as a film student, I love that this one little 30-second bit of film totally fits in with the greater body of Sophia Coppola's work. The look is very similar to the decadent pinkishness of Marie Antoinette, while the Diana-camera saturated cinematography is perfectly in tune with The Virgin Suicides. It shows a knowledge of Masculin Feminin and Un Homme et une Femme, with a little dose of Roman Coppola's CQ. The chain of aesthetic influence makes me giggle with delight!

Overall, the whole campaign is pitch-perfect, full of ladylike optimism which is sorely needed right now. Unfortunately, there's no clip yet on YouTube, but visit Fashionologie (and its fabulous OnSugar capabilities) for a taste of delicious.

In high school French class our teacher insisted on giving us “French” names for us to use during our fifty minutes under her care. The names were meant to be the French-ized version of your name, but since “Annie” is pretty distinctly Irish, I was given the name Anouk. I wasn’t very happy about this. It was like my name, but not much. Instead of the happy smile you get automatically from “Annie”, it ended in a weird “ooooh-Ka”. To me it sounded like a punch in the nose.

Years later I learnt about the incredible Anouk Aimée and changed my mind a bit. I saw her first as Marcello Mastroianni’s long-suffering wife in Fellini’s 8 ½, and while I didn’t think much of her at the time, I became completely obsessed with the film and the rest of Fellini’s work. (Fellini is sort of the “gateway drug” of arthouse films, don’t you think? He’s odd yet accessible, funny yet sophisticated, and while his themes are generally dark at the core, you end up feeling sort of light and entertained at the end. At any rate, his pictures started me on all the other auteurs in turn…) As I read up on Fellini and 8 ½, I learnt that Il Maestro purposely made the glamorous Anouk Aimée exceptionally plain for her role in the film – even to the point of forcing her to trim her famously long eyelashes.

Wow. To be known for one’s eyelashes...now that’s seriously chic.

The first time I saw a Claude Lelouch film was about five years ago. My boyfriend at the time insisted we go see it because “it’s supposed to be really romantic…” Huh. Beautiful, yes. But so slow that I felt completely stoned the entire time. Does this a romance make? Let’s just say that my boyfriend and I broke up a few weeks later, but no, I don’t blame Claude Lelouch. Thankfully, I recently learnt that his early films were the true gems.

This weekend I finally saw Un Homme et Une Femme and I’m beginning to understand what the Lelouch fuss is all about. That, and I’m now head over heels for Anouk Aimée – in fact, I might just have to start calling myself Anouk once again. At least Lelouch knew better than to humiliate a beautiful woman by making her ugly: The wide mouth, the dimples, the cheekbones, the thick clownish brows that arch just so, the gigantic brown eyes, the light dusting of freckles, the absolutely perfect hair… I have straight brown hair too, yet I’d have to sell my soul to get the effortless perfection of Anouk Aimée’s messy-but-polished coiff in this movie.

The whole thing is this incredibly simple and beautiful little French love story, as only a French film can create - the kind that sort of sets the stereotype for every romantic French film that's ever been made. If I were to explain it, I'd say that it's in black-and-white - no, it's in color, that there's these two people who meet because of their childrens' school, it's a freezing wet winter, there's a lot of driving and beautiful seascapes and sunrises, sexy jazzy music, a lot of melancholy, two cute kids, and Anouk Aimée in a really fabulous coat.

Sigh. It kills me. Let’s just drive to the beach at Deauville to chase seagulls and watch the old man walk his dog.

“Between art and life, I’d choose life.”

Seriously. Enough already. But no, let’s cue the da-ba-dabada-dabada of the cute samba music, drive back to Paris, smoke cigarettes, and tell each other stories of how we’ve loved and lost.

Anouk Aimée in Un Homme et Une FemmeAimée’s simple chic is quintessentially French and is probably what created the whole French woman's mystique in the first place. Films like this show them to be an entirely different species of style. Her fur-trimmed coat, little Chanel 2-55 bag and kitten heels for Sunday pair perfectly with that insouciant smile hidden behind a shy little hand gesture. Aimée is also the master of the French woman’s shrug. Do I love him or do I not? I don’t know. But it’s so much easier to reflect upon the predicament when I can just sit on a bench in Paris and hide inside my fur collar to think it over.

Personally, love would indeed be simpler for me if I could be this perfectly groomed and well-dressed and untroubled and in Paris while I dealt with all of it. Perhaps I would have stayed with my boyfriend longer? Who is to say? It was a summer romance and according to Lelouch, winter is the key.

The filmmaker said that the winter’s bad weather was meant to be another character in the film. The loneliness of misty Deauville - a summer resort that is deserted in winter, the brisk winds off the North Sea, the white waves, the naked trees, the rains of Paris, the snow of the Alps… The cold was supposed to be so ever-present that you would feel the warmth of the love. Lelouch also said that this story could never have happened to him (although he wrote it,) because he’s “just not that loving…”

Or maybe he is the kind of man that chooses art instead of life?

I've had this post brewing in my head for a little while now, and it seemed like actually writing it would be the best way to get back into action. Especially since it has to do with some of my favorite films and their delicious, inspiring, and ever-exciting style.

The first film that really turned me on this way (and inspired my life-long love of fashion,) was Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. This was the very first film my family rented when we unwrapped our brand new video player way back in the 1980s and it's just as fascinating to me today. This was the first time I really came to notice just how much costume could tell the story; in Rear Window it serves as another character, setting up the main characters' relationship in a film that is sparse on sets and changes.

As I've come to know the rest of the Hitchcock library, I've realized that all his films feature women who are as equally alluring and stylish as Grace Kelly playing Lisa Fremont. They're all strong, unusual, backed into difficult corners, full of flaws, and yet still able to land the overwhelmingly attractive leading man. Hitchcock always made certain his women were on an equal standing with their men, creating complex and tightly controlled characters that are all designed by the same hand, yet remain wholly unique. So, with inspiration from my friend Sophia at Chic & Charming, I've put together a little look at some of the Hitchcock dames with all of their modish victories, wacky neuroses, strengths, fragilities and foibles...

Rebecca

year: 1940

actress: Joan Fontaine

role: The 2nd Mrs. de Winter

leading behaviorism: mousyness

weakness: rich, lonely widowers with suicidal tendencies

sartorial inspiration: whatever's hanging in the gallery

iconic fashion: English country chic - tweed skirts and cardigans

favorite food: scrambled eggs

beauty tip: a new haircut and permanent will be just the thing

accessory: a priceless, but broken figurine, hidden in a drawer

essential prop: big, spooky house on the coast of Cornwall

essential atmospheric film effect: thick, low-lying fog

aversions: Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper

breakthrough moment: "I am Mrs. de Winter now."

Notorious

year: 1946

actress: Ingrid Bergman

role: Alicia Huberman

leading behaviorism: binge drinking

weakness: American agents

sartorial inspiration: lots of draped jersey

iconic fashion: Euro/Latin - black evening gown with a deep V back, accessorized with a lace fan

favorite food: chicken and champagne with a view of Buenos Aires

beauty tip: a health spa in the Andes Mountains

accessory: key to the wine cellar

essential prop: bottles full of uranium ore

essential atmospheric film effect: the extreme close-up

aversions: mother-in-laws

breakthrough moment: realizing that there's more in the coffee than cream

Dial M for Murder

year: 1954

actress: Grace Kelly

role: Margot Mary Wendice

leading behaviorism: naivete

weakness: American crime writer ex-boyfriends

sartorial inspiration: your ordinary London housewife

iconic fashion: a quietly wanton red lace cocktail dress

favorite food: just cocktails

beauty tip: going to jail can ravage a girl's looks

accessory: a silk stocking that needs mending

essential prop: missing housekey

essential atmospheric film effect: camera angles from up high and down low

aversions: High Court judges

breakthrough moment: finding the scissors on the desk

Rear Window

year: 1954

actress: Grace Kelly

role: Lisa Carol Fremont

leading behaviorism: clotheshorse

weakness: cantankerous invalid photographers

sartorial inspiration: whatever just got off the Paris plane

iconic fashion: Park Avenue perfection - cocktail gown with black bodice and embroidered tulle skirt

favorite food: lobster, french fries and a bottle of Montrachet from The 21 Club

beauty tip: "a woman going anywhere but the hospital would always bring makeup, perfume and jewelry..."

accessory: Mark Cross overnight case

essential prop: binoculars

essential atmospheric film effect: a complete Greenwich Village city block

aversions: knives wrapped in newspaper

breakthrough moment: breaking into the neighbor's apartment

To Catch a Thief

year: 1955

actress: Grace Kelly

role: Francie Stevens

leading behaviorism: being a rich, headstrong girl

weakness: retired jewel thieves

sartorial inspiration: Louis XV and a Texas oil well

iconic fashion: something icy-looking but no jewelry: "I don't like cold things touching my skin."

favorite food: picnic of chicken and beer overlooking the Mediterranean

beauty tip: light makeup but always suntan lotion

accessory: silver roadster convertible

essential prop: black cat

essential atmospheric film effect: fireworks

aversions: younger French girls

breakthrough moment: "The Cat has a new kitten."

Vertigo

year: 1958

actress: Kim Novak

role: Madeline Elster/Judy Barton

leading behaviorism: trances

weakness: retired detectives

sartorial inspiration: "You're looking for the suit that she wore for me. You want me to be dressed like her..."

iconic fashion: a plain grey suit from Ransohoff's

favorite food: dinner at Ernie's

beauty tip: get a full makeover...twice

accessory: vintage necklace

essential prop: mini bouquet of roses

essential atmospheric film effect: rapid zoom & reverse zoom: the "Vertigo" shot

aversions: California Missions

breakthrough moment: "Don't you see - it wasn't supposed to happen this way..."

North by Northwest

year: 1959

actress: Eva Marie Saint

role: Eve Kendall

leading behaviorism: flirtatiousness

weakness: advertising executives on the lam

sartorial inspiration: the quiet side of blonde bombshell

iconic fashion: little black dress and a handgun

favorite food: brook trout in the dining car

beauty tip: just be a big girl in all the right places

accessory: pearl choker

essential prop: Mount Rushmore

essential atmospheric film effect: wide open spaces

aversions: The Cold War

breakthrough moment: "I never discuss love on an empty stomach."

Psycho

year: 1960

actress: Janet Leigh

role: Marion Crane

leading behaviorism: secret sexpot with a desire for "decency"

weakness: divorced hardware store clerks

sartorial inspiration: office girl - button-up shirts and pencil skirts

iconic fashion: torpedo bras and slips

favorite food: one of Norman's sandwiches

beauty tip: long, hot showers

accessory: $40K

essential prop: getaway car

essential atmospheric film effect: a Bernard Hermann score

aversions: taxidermy

breakthrough moment: pulling off the highway to find a motel room

The Birds

year: 1963

actress: Tippi Hedren

role: Melanie Daniels

leading behaviorism: practical jokes and compulsive lying

weakness: tall, handsome lawyers

sartorial inspiration: the chic suit will take you anywhere

iconic fashion: green tweed sheath and jacket for three days straight

favorite food: martinis on a hilltop over Bodega Bay

beauty tip: toothbrush and granny gown from the general store

accessory: cigarettes

essential prop: caged lovebirds

essential atmospheric film effect: bird's eye view

aversions: crows, gulls, finches, sparrows...

breakthrough moment: Seeing the crows gathered on the jungle gym.

Marnie

year: 1964

actress: Tippi Hedren

role: Marnie Rutland

leading behaviorism: compulsive behavior derived from childhood trauma

weakness: horses

sartorial inspiration: unobtrusive, elegant

iconic fashion: what the neurotic wife of a rich man wears: dramatic white evening gown with white fur trim

favorite food: a quiet, family dinner at the country house

beauty tip: lots of hair dye: red, then blonde, then brown, then blonde...

accessory: beauty case

essential prop: a disapproving mother

essential atmospheric film effect: flashes of light and flashbacks

aversions: the color red

breakthrough moment: "You don't love me. I'm just some kind of wild animal you've trapped!"

To catch up on your Hitchcock Dames watch Turner Classic Movies tonight, April 1st, for "Hitchcock in the 60s". The lineup includes The Birds, Marnie, and Psycho...

What makes a classic? Everyone has a different answer to this question; for myself, I think of something being "classic" when you can come back to it again and again over many years and still find something exciting, enjoyable and provocative about it. Like a great romance, they never really leave your heart - the proverbial "long and winding road"... Classic literature is easy to spot. The books that were a chore to complete in high school are, as an adult, page-turners full of nuance and beauty. I grudgingly completed Madame Bovary in my AP English class, but now it is one of my favorite books that I re-read every few years. Film is the same - we all know which films are given the "classic" label and can usually see why.

But what about classics of one's own generation? Is it presumptuous to call something you grew up with a "classic"?

The case in point is John Hughes' The Breakfast Club. I watched this movie again recently after many years of avoiding it's many censored editings on cable television, and found the original to be even more compelling than when I was young.

Young? I was a child when I first saw this film. It hit the theatres in 1985, and I think I actually saw it in 1986 or 1987 during one of the first summers when I went to "overnight" camp. I was about 11 years old - 5th grade, I think. About 100 kids packed into a large rec room watching the breakfast club on a rather small TV. No one complained. For the first time I felt like I was seeing an adult movie, and it was the funniest thing I had ever seen.

Now, a bit about John Hughes before I go too far. Of course, the entire Hughes oeuvre of mid-eighties teen angst films are now over twenty years old and still just as fantastic as always. They are part of our lexicon, our zeitgeist even. Everyone of a certain age can quote entire scenes from these films and everyone has an opinion of their favorite. (While most would say Pretty in Pink or Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I'm still a big fan of Weird Science. Does that surprise you?) We watched them through high school when we had nothing else to do. In college they kept us entertained late-night when we had a belly-full of crappy beer and had to laugh it off. As adults, we still come back to them and they make us smile. Let's face it, the 1980s and 1990s would not have been the decades they were if it weren't for the films of suburban-Chicago-teenage life as explored by John Hughes.

I grant you, at that first viewing of The Breakfast Club, a lot of it was way over my head.

High school was some unimaginable continent that I never thought I'd reach at the time. I was fairly content in my world of shadow-plaid uniforms, soccer practice and piano lessons. The idea of wandering through massive hallways, answering to a bell and having a locker were beyond me. So, it is understandable that a lot of the nuance in The Breakfast Club is only just coming to me now.

Don't get me wrong, I have the film memorized - seriously, word for word. I know every detail of the thin, art-deco-1980s font in the opening credits, to the rosy-pink shade of Molly Ringwald's nail polish when she folds her diamond earring in Judd Nelson's gloved hand at the end. And don't even get me started on Don't You(Forget About Me) by Simple Minds - let's just say it was the soundtrack to an entire decade of my life. But during my recent viewing there was something I noticed that I hadn't bothered with before: the quote from David Bowie's Changes that starts the film.

"And these children that you spit on/As they try to change their worlds/Are immune to your consultations/They're quite aware of what they're going through..."

When I first saw the film I didn't know who David Bowie was, much less know the song being quoted. (We were a Henri Mancini/Burt Bachrach kind of family.) Seeing it now made my heart pound. All the times I've listened to Changes and never realized how perfectly it applies to the high school experience.

It's true that at my first viewing of The Breakfast Club I didn't understand a lot of the dialogue, but found the retorts and zingers incredibly funny and entertaining. Just what is a "neo-maxie-zoom-dweebie" anyways? I was forced to catch up on a lot of the new vocabulary though. I'd never heard of calling someone "a defective", and I was completely lost on the meaning of "tease". I didn't know what a "lobotomy" was, nor "anarchy", nor a "varsity letterman"...and as far as I knew, a "cherry" was a fruit I didn't really like. I thought Molly Ringwald's still incomprehensible line: "like this whole big monster deal - it's enless as a total drag," was the epitome of clever-coolness, and I loved it.

It wasn't until I got a little older that I began to understand what these quips and verbal slams actually were, just as I began to understand all of those incredibly racy things Judd Nelson says to Molly Ringwald. My hormones had been lying dormant until: "...Calvins in a ball on the front seat, past eleven on a school night..." Comprehension was beyond me, but I knew I wanted him to keep talking. It's an intense scene; all of their scenes together are intense - dressing each other down constantly while trying to ignore the electric chemistry between them. Her pale, rosy prettiness and his dangerously intelligent attractiveness made for a great combination that everyone wanted to come together. (While Michael Schoeffling as Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles was "the IT" when it came to fantasy boyfriends through my high school years, it is now that I see just how hot John Bender really was with all his edgy appeal. Here is a boy who knows what to do with a girl!) When she finally kisses his neck later on in the storage room it's a relief to everyone.

This dialogue was more raw and more real than anything any of us had heard before. It thoroughly exploited our teenage fears and hinted that they might never leave us. Ally Sheedy's tearful "When you grow up, your heart dies," was exactly what we all thought at the time. That, and the idea that we would eventually turn into our parents. John Hughes was intrepid in this exploration, going into areas of teen angst we'd never seen. When Anthony Michael Hall's character talked about a gun in his locker, we were all shocked into silence. Today...alas, this is always a little shocking, but no longer surprising.

The Breakfast Club is a film that I, and most of my generation, will come back to again and again over our lifetimes. When it first debuted it was simply cool and clever, but it's grown up just like we have. It's writing and nuance is just as electric today as it was upon first viewing, and like an old friend it still offers some surprises every time we hang out. Who would disagree if I dared to call it...a classic?

La Giada - Please don't look down her shirt!

There is one favorite pastime among my circle of friends that seems to come up consistently when we know we need a good laugh: imitations of Giada De Laurentiis. How it’s done? We shake out our hair, pull down the front of whatever shirt we’re wearing, and instantly work our way into the vocal cadence and pronunciation of La Giada. You know, complex Italian food word, followed by two words of description…

“No no no – it’s “spa GHEE TEEE” spaGHEETEE – tender and light…”

“Ah mah RAY tee – crunchy and sweet…”

“PAY korEEN oh – mild and flavorful…”

With this pronunciation, we add the distincting hand gesture of the finger-tips coming together and pointing upwards with emphaisis...you know what I mean.

When we’re really having fun, we go for the imitations of “Giada tasting food” which includes taking the absolutely most miniscule taste of whatever foodstuff she slavishly spent an episode creating, feigning the orgasm of a lifetime at the taste, and then listing the layers of flavor discernible on the palette for the viewers at home…

“UUUHmmmmh!!! Ohhhhh! Ummpfffh!…. … I can taste the dry white wine in the sauce, the brightness of the fresh herbs, and the salty essence of the ocean from the scallops…” Give us another eye-rolling “uuummmh-oooohhhhh”, a huge toothy smile for the camera, and then dive in for second bite with a shrug of naughty decadence.

Is anyone believing any of this?

The one thing you can’t do when imitating Giada is the soft-porn aspect of Giada in the kitchen. Never mind that the hair is flowing and that the woman has the most-perfect French manicure that ever chopped garlic, but it’s the shots of the bra cups runneth over into the kettle of sauce that are priceless.

Giada De Laurentiis is a very attractive woman; petite, stylish, and a beauty in the classic Roman way, one can certainly see the extension of the De Laurentiis movie-making glamour in this girl. However it is this very “Italian” voluptuousness that is so played-up by her producers that I venture that it has become a detriment to her talent. When one says “Giada” the next says “Boobs.” Freud? Pavlov? I’m not sure, but it’s a conditioned reaction of the most primal kind.

My friend Kat told me a little story about her sister bringing home Giada’s Everyday Italian cookbook. Her sister had left the book out, and her daughter (5) and son (3) were looking at the cover…

Giada's "Everyday Italian"

Daughter: “Mommy – you told me her name, but it’s a hard word – how do I say it again?”

Mom: “You’re right it is a hard word. Her name is Giada… Gee AH DAH”

Son: ...says something incomprehensible

Mom: “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you…”

Son: (with a shit-eating grin) “I like her boobies…”

In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that were I to be offered a show on the Food Network, the producers would most likely take one look at my own bustline and determine that this would be my best selling-point in production. So, with this in mind, I am in full support of women on television utilizing their natural assets to best advantage, however, enough is enough. It’s fairly clear to everyone by now that Giada’s producers are milking the cleavage for everything it’s worth. In fact, I found this hilarious post on the blog Foodie NYC about being Giada’s cleavage stylist. Apparently no one is fooled by Food TV’s efforts at soft-porn styling all of Giada’s shows. Hello? The whole point of soft-porn is to make things desirable in a subvert, smoke-and-mirrors, sort of way – not to put it right out there in front of you in overwhelmingly clear messaging. The key to soft-porn marketing is the “partial extreme close-up” – like those used by Apple, or Mercedes, or Budweiser Select. Mystery is the whole point; you don’t know what it is really, but it’s shiny, luscious, exciting, and you have to have it. There isn’t a lot of mystery inherent in Giada’s low-cut tops.

Even the great Anthony Bourdain mentioned this in a recent guest-post on Rhulman.com. The entire post is ruthlessly direct and side-splitting in the best Bourdain way, as it pointedly breaks down the daily lobotomy that is the Food Network. I highly recommend the full read, but here’s what he said about our girl G…

“What’s going on here!? Giada can actually cook! She was robbed in her bout versus Rachael Ray on ICA. ROBBED! And Food Net seems more interested in her enormous head (big head equals big ratings. Really!) and her cleavage--than the fact that she’s likeable, knows what she’s doing in an Italian kitchen--and makes food you’d actually want to eat. The new high concept Weekend Getaway show is a horrible, tired re-cap of the cheap-ass “Best Of” and “40 Dollar a Day” formula. Send host to empty restaurant. Watch them make crappy food for her. Have her take a few lonely, awkward stabs at the plate, then feign enjoyment with appropriately orgasmic eye-closing and moaning..Before spitting it out and rushing to the trailer. Send her to Italy and let her cook. She’s good at it.”

Bourdain knows a thing or two as we all know, and in this he is absolutely right. Giada has talent. She’s a fantastic cook, and I admire her pared-down kitchen essentials that rely on fresh ingredients and the layering of flavors. She’s classically trained, creative, charming, and loves building on her heritage to develop her own modern culinary signatures. This past January, Time Magazine offered a concise interview with the cooking star which I found admirable and honest. There is nothing to dislike about La Giada, yet why does she prompt such mocking hilarity from viewers like me and my friends?

The answer lies in the nature of food television in the new millenium overall, specifically the shows on the Food Network. There are two types of people who watch the Food Network: people who cook, and people who don't. It's universally appealing, and this is where the network is faltering. Their shows and personalities are entirely formulaic, leaving classic and modern successes in food television (Great Chefs, The Frugal Gourmet, Julia Child, Jaime Oliver, Gordon Ramsey, Two Fat Ladies...etc,) by the wayside for no viable reason. With the exception of the always entertaining Alton Brown (Feasting on Asphalt is a joy!) and practical Ina Garten, the Food Network makes one want to park it on the couch with a fistful of valium and drool the afternoon away. They've invested too much in the tagline "Much more than cooking..." - it's true, it's everything BUT cooking. It's background noise.

Food television should inspire, motivate, and teach-to-the-top. The Food Network is all about the lowest common denominator. The only thing remotely inspiring about the Food Network is Paula Deen's annoyingly-twangy absolution for using pounds of butter, breading, and lard. Even still, there is no way in hell I'm ever going to assemble a slop of bananas and cream and call it a guest-appropriate desert. If this is supposed to be the kind of dish that exemplifies the generosity of the modern hostess, then I'm afraid American hospitality may be seeing a decline. There's nothing elegant about bananas-and-cream - I don't care what they say south of the Mason-Dixon.

Giada De Laurentiis is beautiful, appealing, and popular from coast-to-coast. She's basically Italian royalty, but she's also very much the California girl. What could possibly be wrong with this package? Nothing. And the Food Network knows it. In order to maximize this money-making appeal, they have her lined up with newer, dumber shows, and an exclusive marketing campaign. Giada is a winning brand, and her bosses are working her. She's clearly being groomed to be the next lifestyle brand-product pushing machine: A few more dumb shows, a few more books, a restaurant in the latest Vegas hotel, a line of K-Mart products, and a magazine. It's so boring it gives me swift pain.

I sincerely hope that Giada De Laurentiis finds a way to the exciting future in food programming that is surely ahead of her, at least if she's ballsy enough to get out of her current contract. I envision her own production company, better cookbooks, bigger projects, a home-studio in Italy, and the list goes on. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, so when my friends and I imitate Giada we don't make fun of her, rather the formula she has become. We know there's something talented underneath the curls and low-cut tops...there's the TV star we all want to be: young, talented, and having fun.

I have an Austrian princess on the brain. She’s in my head, singing me songs, diving through my closet and crawling out of my handbag. She’s everywhere, and I might as well get used to it. I’ve been immersed in Caroline Weber’s Queen of Fashion – What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution for weeks, and now I’ve seen what all the fuss is about: Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette.

Like that other sumptuous period drama of a few years ago about a big boat meeting an iceberg, we all know how this movie is going to end. Yet who knew it would be done with this exuberance, decadence, and style? For a brief few seconds in the opening credits, you’re treated to the ultimate summation shot: la reine, in dishabille, coiffured with an extravagant pouf, having her new pink shoes put on her feet as her fingers dive into a gigantic pink cake. Cakes, coiffures, shoes, and pink. The end.

While Caroline Weber’s book paints a more realistic portrait of the misunderstood queen, the confection on film is much more fun to endure. Barring a few slip-ups in casting and cut-aways, (do we really need the fantasy shot of Count Fersen on a rearing horse? I mean, he’s hot, but that’s a bit heavy-handed Mademoiselle Coppola…) the entire thing is a gluttonous delight of striped nosegay silks, little dogs, glittering gems, ruffles, ribbons, and feathers. A whole film of not a whole lot, but when it looks this good and is set to a soundtrack of punk rock, who cares?

The crowning achievement of this film is that it was filmed at Versailles. Once one visits that indulgent place, one sees exactly what the revolution was all about. The immediate impression is that someone simply went to town on the gilding of every surface, while the slow-to-apprehend reality of Versailles is that there is practically zero private space anywhere in the entire monstrosity. This is what Coppola captured: the wedding night and later childbirth in the queen’s bedroom absolutely packed to the rafters with people. Imagine that – two of the most intimate moments of your life, and there you are on display for people you don’t even want to talk to when you have your clothes on. The procedures, the protocols, the honors of the toilette – Marie Antoinette was said to have hated all of this pomp and formality of Versailles, preferring the casual informality of her native Hapsburg household wherein she could dress herself.

And boy, could the woman dress! The panniers, the robes a la françaises, the jewelry, the chapeaux… “Which do you like, the sleeve with the ruffles, or the plain?” she asks her advisor from Austria. Every girl dreams of wearing a dress like this, just once, because after five minutes you realize its pure torture. The queen herself preferred a loose-fitted gaulle dress of simple muslin for her days in the fields at the Petit Trianon, yet eventually this attire was deemed inappropriate for the queen. How very different from her earliest days as dauphine when upon her arrival at the French court, her beauty was noted by all with more than a little envy. It seems her natural complexion was so fine that she did not need the enhancements of the usual powders and rouges. Elisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun, who painted the queen more than twenty times described her thus in her memoirs of 1835:

Marie Antoinette en Chemise, 1783 - E. Vigee-LeBrun

“But the most remarkable thing about her face was the splendour of her complexion. I never have seen one so brilliant, and brilliant is the word, for her skin was so transparent that it bore no umber in the painting. Neither could I render the real effect of it as I wished. I had no colours to paint such freshness, such delicate tints, which were hers alone, and which I had never seen in any other woman.”

This kind of youthful vitality is perfectly captured in Kirsten Dunst as the young queen, especially when presented in counterpoint to Asia Argento’s delightfully disgusting Madame du Barry. Yet, by the end of the film, the queen has barely aged, and seems overwhelmingly poised in the faced in inherent dangers and terrifying unknowns. The one time Dunst’s dauphine is allowed a well-deserved crying jag is only after the little ladies in fichus cast aspersions on her barrenness. This, on top of her mother’s complaints about her “waistline” takes her over the edge. Caroline Weber talks about Queen Maria Teresa’s harangues about this waistline issue as an ongoing one from years of correspondence between the mother and daughter. Too little a waistline shows the dauphine is still child-less, while too large a waistline is unbecoming a proper lady of the court. In other words: get yourself pregnant, but don’t stop wearing your grands corps - a highly-restrictive corset. (It is always refreshing to hear that the motherly badgering of “you’re too thin, you’re too fat” is one that’s gone on forever.)

Caroline Weber’s lengthy tome discloses all of the ins and outs of Marie Antoinette’s sartorial evolutions. Newly-invented styles turn into maddening fads among the aristocracy who ape the queen to their own financial ruin. A few years later, the queen’s fashion choices lead to her derision and downfall. It’s a familiar story to those of us who know the history of lady politicos. A later French queen (since the French can never decide if they want one or not,) Empress Eugenie, was nicknamed “Empress Crinoline” because of her clothes-horse ways, while years later women such as Eva Peron, Jackie Kennedy, Imelda Marcos, and even Nancy Regan were derided for their closets-full of excess. But Marie Antoinette is the woman whose indulgences taught everyone else how it’s done, the singular point brought home by Coppola’s film.

The film’s tagline of “The party that started a revolution,” is indeed true: much of the film is devoted the party Marie Antoinette is having while she spends years simply waiting for her husband to touch her. Once the Versailles party of the century begins to wane however, Coppola’s film accelerates and tends to overlook the ravages the queen faced late in life, not to mention the ravages of all-night parties. According to Caroline Weber, the fresh-faced girl that had arrived in France had gained a hardy amount of weight due to finally delivering three children, and had also lost the better-part of her hair. These physical manifestations of the stress of life at Versailles are glossed-over completely, and well they should be in order to keep pace with the film. However, the woman’s life was no fairy tale, so the ending pathos in the golden dawn is lost on most of the audience – we never really bought that it was all fun and games anyway.

Gentlemen be warned: this is one helluva girlie flick. Not a chick-flick per se, but girlier than girlie. The montage of Marie with her two best gal-pals the Princesse de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Polignac (viva Rose Byrne!) going shoe shopping to Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy” is absolutely visceral in its brightly-colored indulgence. I’ll just say it, the sequence is girl-porn in the best way: shoes that Manolo Blahnik would weep for, diamonds, fluffy pink pastry, you and your best girlfriends downing magnums of champagne along the way. Sofia is no fool – she knows what girls want. (Is that why Marc Jacobs loves her so much?)

Despite its little fumbles, Marie Antoinette is my new favorite film, and I’m already pre-ordering the DVD from Amazon. I’m a sucker for a costume piece, and this is one of the most enjoyable I’ve seen in years. Perhaps because real life for la reine Marie *was* such a costume-drama, the frothy interpretation in film cannot rightly be classified as a guilty pleasure. A pleasure it is, but who is guilty of enjoying it? It brings a smile to your face, quickens your pulse, and makes you want to paint the chateau pink.

Candy Stud Pump by Christian Louboutin

She wasn’t supposed to be there, in front of the bagel shop a few blocks from my house. It was ten in the morning and this was the hour for young mothers overwhelmed by large strollers, construction workers grabbing a snack, or post-workout people stopping by with their dogs. I was part of the last group – still in running tights, a ballcap, and layers of sweaty performance wicking. I also had my dog Bonnie with me, who was at that moment giving me her best (and most unseemly) sad-eyed begging routine for a bit of whole wheat bagel. It was crowded. The day was warm and blue. The kids were loud. I was happy.

No, she was definitely not supposed to be there.

And yet she entered my vision and I thought she was lovely. A tall, elegant Asian girl in a soft gray charmeuse blouse with a knotted silver scarf and crisp black trousers. A lush black leather handbag was carried daintily in one hand, while large black sunglasses hid her eyes most mysteriously. She walked with a man in business clothes – they were together, but not together – like colleagues. Clearly he had never noticed a thing about what she (or anyone else for that matter) was wearing. I thought they were bankers or real estate agents or something. They were both completely out of place. I noticed she smiled a little to herself, in a quixotic, Mona Lisa sort of way. I admired her style but thought she was rather done up for the heat of the day. Why not loose that scarf, sister? Then I looked down.

The profile of the spiked toes hit me first. Shiny, sharp, and ferocious, they looked like Medieval maces for the feet; weaponry. These shoes were not to be fucked with in any way at all. One swift kick to the nether regions and that would be the end of that, Charlie. A perfect paradox of messaging, the toes sent out a warning while the stiletto heel sent out a come-hither. And the lacy sides barely peeked out from below the perfectly tailored trousers. I couldn’t look away.

Damn. Those shoes are fucking rad. Who is this girl and why is she here?

Amid a sea of snotty-nosed neighborhood kids, mothers gossiping, and the double-wide strollers steamrolling the sidewalk, she moved like a cloud of cool success and refinement. But those shoes belied something else: something dirty, captivating, and fabulous. No wonder she was smiling. Metal, leather, and lace. Phew! I was thinking this way as a fellow woman. Jesus, what kind of affect would these have on a man? I pity the poor fools.

As she walked further on I noticed the shockingly vivid redness of the signature soles, cementing the level of fearsome that I had anticipated. Dollar amounts started to pop into my head. Do I hear $950? $1050? $1100? With that kind of detail on a Louboutin namesake, who knew how high things would go? She kept walking, and I kept watching. I marveled how daintily she stepped. She was a pro; despite my years of practice I always feel like I still lumber a bit in stilettos, but not this girl. All of her weight was forward on the ball of the foot, which came down gently first, followed closely by the fall of the heel with only the slightest pressure. She could have been in pointe shoes. True, she walked slowly and a bit mincingly, (two things my long strut will not accommodate,) but she was graceful.

She was graceful, and she had a new pair of Louboutins that probably cost close to my monthly rent. I hated this bitch on principal.

She walked like someone newly in-love, except she was clearly in love with her new shoes. She moved pretending not to notice the insane luxury going on south of her own ankles, meanwhile every step magnified the evidence. These shoes were meant for the bedroom, or if worn out of doors at all, a cocktail party. They were definitely not ten-AM appropriate, nor work-appropriate, but she still wore them like any self-respecting woman who’s just spent a small fortune on high-fashion footwear.

Outwardly I seethed with jealousy, but inwardly I applauded the action. Outwardly I was completely cowed, but inwardly I wanted to commit assault and grand larceny.

Yes, I know how it feels to be this girl, but it’s been a very long time. It's a heady feeling to walk like sex on a stick, and its power is undeniable. I too know what that Mona Lisa smile is all about. So, is it the shoes I want or the feeling they'll surely give me? It's a question for lovers - of fashion and of life. And we're all fools in love, no matter how great the cost.

Candy Stud Pumps by Christian Louboutin - $965 at Saks Fifth Avenue

I've been planning this funeral for months, years actually. Everything short of wreaths of roses and readings from the Psalms. If I had hardwood floors instead of carpeting I'd be pouring my shot of whiskey right out in honor of my fallen heroes - all six of them, in fact. To be fair, not all of these heroes are entirely fallen. Some are merely in ICU or in desperate need of hospice care just to manage the pain a bit. Is it their pain, or mine? I wonder.

I suppose I should tell you what I'm talking about here: shoes. Very beautiful, expensive, adored, and in another time frequently worn, shoes. Back when I worked in the luxury fashion industry I gathered together quite a collection. I'm not one of those people that builds a collection and then hordes it for myself alone; no, I share it with the world and display my affection (and appreciation) openly. Thus, these shoes have served me well and are now very close to death, if not entirely dead.

In all honesty, some of these do have some life left in them but I am concerned that if they emerge from the cryogenic stasis of my closet that they will disintegrate once they hit pavement. So what to do? How do you honor the life of a much-loved, once-luxurious set of footwear? Do you bury them in the shoe cemetary, burn them and scatter the ashes above Union Square, or perhaps commit sati upon their blazing pyre? I have no idea. But before I do anything, I think I should give them a mention here...

The Lou-Boos above are my very first pair from that illustrious house, and unfortunately I never wear them. This despite the fact that the style was on an episode of Sex and the City back in the day. (One of the few when Carrie was in Paris with Baryshnikov - can you imagine those stilettos on cobblestones? Me neither.) They're about a half-size too big for me and even with the anti-skid sole they are always precarious on the foot - like any second they could potentially go flying and impale the handsome head of a gentleman caller. This looseness makes them more than a little uncomfortable, and while I lament giving them up, I'm afraid they are just using up precious closet space.

These gold Celine sandals are likewise mere space-suckers in the armoire. Glittering, Grecian, shapely, sexy, and strapping, these shoes always garner compliments galore. This is a good thing that my toes appreciate because they hurt like the dickens when worn. Dickens? More like having a pair of rubber bands around your foot just below the arches, cutting off the blood-flow. Despite only having worn these all of three times, the insoles are completely unglued, rippled, and serve as a useles layer on an ultra-thin lower sole. I've been dying to throw these away, but my heart collapses at the thought of putting anything named Celine in the garbage.

Back around 2004-2005 chunky heels were in style and I definitely participated in this trend. Enter the next two pairs: a Mini-Damier Mary Jane and Mini-Monogram Cerise Pump, both by Louis Vuitton. I cannot tell you how much I adored these two in their time. The Mary Janes' straps are connected by small pieces of elastic which are now so overstretched that they could snap at any moment. Meanwhile, the pumps are scuffed, scratched, and stained with the residual damage of many many adventures, at play and at work. Both pairs are as loose as bedroom slippers (even with the heels) but are now beyond wearable. They're just embarassing. As far as disposal goes, these two are my Velveteen Rabbits.

Another oddity is this ultra-fabulous pair from Marc by Marc Jacobs. Entranced by their colorful polka-dots I had to have them so badly that I paid full-price for them, around $250, which was a LOT of money for me back then. (Hey, who am I kidding, it still is!) It wasn't until after I'd purchased them that I found that they were also in an episode of Sex and the City, but I can't remember which one. Retro, fun, and sexy, I still love the compliments I get on these shoes. They're still in really good shape, outwardly, but inwardly there's a few little issues. Okay, so I snapped one of the heels at one time; you wouldn't know it but for the six-odd angry-looking nailheads that the shoe repair drove right through the instep. I would have forgotten this myself if that shoe still had its insole, but it doesn't. They're also barely comfortable after about an hour, so they too go unworn.

Finally, remarks for the best pair of kitten heels that ever came out of the House of Dior. A saucy mini heel and a long pointy shape are paired with lush black leather, making these versatile and easy to wear. At least that used to be the case. The little "Dior" metal embellishment on the right shoe has come unhinged on one side so it starts to swing around as I walk. The overall condition is good though, but these too feel more like slippers than shoes and tend to flop on my feet. They've been re-soled and re-heeled umpteen times, but they're so lovely and adorable! It breaks my soul to conceive of stuffing these kittens into their dust bag and drowning them.

Has anyone else faced a similar predicament? How does one dispose of no-longer-wearable designer fashion? It cannot be restored or recycled or given away at this point, and belive me, no museum would want them. Apart from a sacrifice on the altar of fashion, I'm not sure what to do. Plus, I'm not sure the Gods would care - they aren't virgins after all!

Here's a drink to all my shoes, past, present, and future...

Okay, so it's my first post in a while and since I've apologized about this mysterious glitch in my wiring before (you know, the one that causes long pauses between postings,) I'm just going to press on with something I've never done before. I know that other gorgeous bloggers like Winona at Daddy Likey and Wendy Brandes (so looking forward to seeing you this week BTW!) sometimes answer reader questions on the air, as it were. I've always been entertained by this, but apart from the mountains of ridiculously ill-pitched PR releases I get, I don't get too much email.

However, I do get a lot of questions from readers I meet in person...questions, and comments.

Some comments are rather absurd, but being a nice girl I usually smile and giggle like an idiot, thereby putting everyone more at ease. I believe this is called "glossing over". So, I thought I'd turn the tables and answer a few of them in the way I'd really like if I weren't the spectacularly mindful and polite person that I am. I'm not kidding when I say these are actual questions & comments I've received. They are a bit ridiculous, so I thought I'd respond accordingly. Hence, a few reasons not to read Poetic & Chic...

You never show self-portraits. What's the matter, aren't you pretty?

Ridiculously so, but I have ADD. If I had to look at myself every day I'd probably die of boredom.

You use words I actually have to look up in the dictionary.

Yes, I'm sorry. I wrote that into my weltenschauung someplace years ago.

The movies you talk about are way old.

I know. It's a problem.

Why don't you ever talk about your boyfriend? Isn't there a Mr. P&C?

Let's just say I'm holding out for a hero - you know, a street-wise Hercules to fight the rising odds? Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat, it's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet.

Why don't you write about Michelle Obama?

Hmmm. You know when I read all of the stylistic play-by-play of the First Lady on just about every fashion blog on the internet I decided I had so much more to say that I got overwhelmed and gave up.

You don't list me on your blogroll.

You're right. I don't.

Why aren't you friends with the "famous" fashion bloggers?

Okay, well I am, actually. (And I have the hangovers to prove it too.) But, I like to run only with the best.

You talk about people I don't know, (Beaudrillard, Schopenhauer, de Botton, etc.) Who are these people?

Just some random dudes I met in a hash club in Amsterdam this one time.

Your blog isn't updated every day.

Yes, I'm a lazy unemployed slacker. I go to bed after Letterman and get up after 9. The hours in between are rife with activity whose content is so rich and complex I couldn't possibly explain it all here. Kaythanxbye.

Why can't you just see fashion, and love it, and take it like all the other bloggers?

Why indeed? I couldn't say really. Perhaps I should call on Euripedes here by saying "Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing." (That dude was in Amsterdam too.)

You don't cover the runway shows.

I know. And, I sincerely apologize for this failing since I know no one else writes about this.

What's the deal with the old music - Herb Alpert, Sergio Mendes, Henri Mancini - why don't you write about new bands?

I can't listen to them. My hand-cranked phonograph can't keep up with the guitar riffs.

No, you must be ugly, you never write about beauty products.

Okay. Here are my five favorites: sleep, water, fresh air, food, treadmill.

I think you're drunk when you write some of your posts. Please tell me it's the booze (or drugs) talking.

Didst I offend? Wow, I had no idea people could actually hear the ice cubes in my cocktail shaker via the internet. That's just frightening. I guess I'll have to switch back to wine and valium.

Like, why are you such a mega-bitch sometimes?

Because I can be. It's very refreshing. In fact you should try it...by writing your own damn blog.

The first of a guaranteed plethora of spring J.Crew catalogs arrived in my mailbox this week. I immediately paused because of the cover, screaming "America" in red and blue, across a plain black field.

I thought: "Wow, J.Crew is really brining home the Obama-economic stimulus-bring it to retail-optimism in a big way..." I mean, gorgeous couple in a vintage convertible, iconic panorama of the Golden Gate Bridge, and then... "AMERICA" - red A. The first true retail page-turner of 2009 has arrived in my mailbox and I can now breathe a little easier. Nothing has changed, we all still shop, and nothing says American happiness like classic stylings of J.Crew...right?

Nice work, J.Crew! Way to work that fading heartbeat of retail into a stylishly patriotic consumerism. Why not just light up each issue with a neon sign saying: "Spend your stimulus dollars here in red-A America...with the American brand of all-American style: J.Crew". In fact, they probably should have titled it "AMERICA*" with the asterix explained in the footnote as: "J.Crew is not a bunch of crazy right-wingers, we're just preppy, icon-loving, national retailers looking to capitalize on the current new-administration optimism. Don't blame us, we're trying..."

I dunno, I'm just sayin'.

Compelling, but not exactly original. In fact, I'd expect this kind of thing from L.L. Bean, Kenneth Cole, or even DKNY - brands that have always gone after the American heartbeat like a Big Three car company, but J.Crew? Hmmm.

What I found inside the catalog was an equally unoriginal grouping of "iconic" fashion spreads, made all the more disappointing for me because they were shot in San Francisco. Within the front cover, they try to explain the shoots by saing that San Francisco is the "all-American city" while the other spreads were equally American-themed. Unfortunately, the five-oddly disparate "stories" composing the catalog don't live up to the narrative generated by the "AMERICA" cover.

But back to the San Francisco story in particular - the reason this shoot fails is because the light, summery, tropical clothing and sherbert-hued palette is totally lost in the perpetually frosty mid-winter air of the city by the bay. March catalogs are shot in November-December, and while San Francisco doesn't have snow on the ground, the temperature isn't exactly spring-ish. So, the models look forced and uncomfortable throughout. We San Franciscans don't run around in sleeveless tops (at least not without a handy jacket nearby,) or short shorts and tank tops, especially not on the wind-swept peaks of a cable car or the Marin Headlands.

There are two shots that were particularly familiar: one below the Golden Gate Bridge, and another on Highway 1 up in Mendocino, overlooking the ocean. Both these locations have featured prominently in previous editorials over the years, in fact, they're kind of the go-to spots for ubiquitous San Fran/No-Cal imagery. These were particularly familiar because of Vogue's editorial last June featuring Pierce Brosnan and Daria Werbowy in a "James Bond-meets-Hitchcock" spread.

JCrew March 2009

Vogue June 2008

The images are so similar that even the clothing looks alike, the cars are the same, and the gestures between the figures is almost identical.

JCrew March 2009

Vogue June 2008

The inclusion of these locations and shot set-ups here begs the question: is there really nothing new to do in the catalog world other than ape the big publications? It is indeed sad that J.Crew couldn't come up with anything more uniquely attuned to their particular brand of sportswear.

The section that I did find interesting and original (and easy on the eyes) was the "Great American Road Trip" section showcasing the new menswear. (Sadly these beautiful spreads crop up after this first incongruous San Francisco one, as well as multiple pages of recycled material from previous issues.) The Route 66 landscapes and classic menswear fits perfectly with the story arc begun on the cover with the two gorgeous folks in the vintage convertible. Too bad the story got stopped and then started again so many pages later when I'd already lost interest.

J.Crew March 2009 - The road trip is the best part.

So what's my point? J.Crew began this catalog with an interesting concept: create a story and merchandise around it. Since magazines and retail are both feeling the bite of this economic downturn, I think it only makes sense that retailers start to be more editorial, while magazines start to be more product-focused. The sooner the retailers get this format correct, the sooner they can start mixing entertainment with sales, and the sooner they will get a sales lift.

Too bad J.Crew's attempt is so mixed up and ubiquitous it looses its stylistic punch.

The Anthropologie "Presents 08" Catalog

Last weekend I let myself spend some time at Anthropologie. Now, this can be a highly dangerous activity for normal women, but I've found that the danger comes when rushing through the store and buying indiscriminately. This time, I took control of the situation and recognized the cute-overload for just what it was: and evil ploy to rid me of my money. In so doing, I could take a deep breath, slow down, and take it all in.

The masterminds at Anthropologie have distinguished their brand by its sheer girlishness. A brand that exploded in the early 2000s, it popped onto the scene when the dot-com crowd was young, stylish, and had full pockets. It was the perfect product line for the "cool job" and the new economy which distinguished itself from the old by accepting casual offices, youth, and femininity. Anthropologie was the darling of the hour and hasn't quit since.

While Banana Republic says "we're mod, lean, kinda boring, and perfect for work, " and Zara says "we're Euro and cheap, but totally dashing," Anthropologie practically screams its validation for just being a girl. It says: "we're here, we're cool, we're girls." It says it so loudly that the nob must be turned to eleven.

From the "Presents 08" catalog...Anthropologie knows what we like: knitwear, floral patterns, delicacy, buttons, monograms, appliques, stripes, ribbons, flounces, embroidery, sashes, vintage, bright colors, bedding, romance, tea cups, and scented soaps. They tell us that it's okay to light candles during the day, just because, and that dressing a vintage chandelier in Spanish moss and twine is not only chic but totally normal. They tell us that we too could live life on the cusp between a World War II era kitchen and a Paris flea market. They tell us that if we were truly creative we'd recycle our old junk into clever visual props that would make everyone go gooey with delight. In fact, "gooey with delight" is really the whole point.

After twenty minutes in the store my head begins to spin. Dizzy from the sensory cute overload, or that scented candle that's meant to evoke laundry drying in a French lavender field... I'm not sure which. I notice "the boyfriend" section is completely full with obviously uncomfortable men who are trying very hard not to put their hands anywhere, while they are also trying very hard not to make eye contact with anyone. Yes, it's the look common to caged animals and those enduring torture.

The sale section is crammed to the rafters with redlines and the women who love to buy them. But what do they really buy? My theory is that everything at Anthropologie always looks better on the hanger than it does in real life. Or, as to quote this fabulous post from Decorno:

"How about something that fits? How about something that is not an empire waist? Anthro clothes are for women who no longer want to get laid, or who are already dating a boy who isn't interested in sleeping with girls anyway."

Um, yeah. (And Decorno is my new favorite thing. I also found the beautiful blog called Breakfast at Anthropologie which is just as lovely as the brand, but that blogger too frequently expresses her own frustration at the brand in her posts, despite her love.)

True, the visual merchandising is truly amazing. Opulent, clever, and pitch-perfect each season. Take a look at the gorgeous holiday windows photographed by Platinum Blonde Life at Rockefeller Center. I definitely do give props for creating the atmosphere most girls want to fall into and never leave, but still, how well does that translate to reality?

Much like the fit of the clothes, my feeling is that the Anthropologie brand doesn't quite suit the current climate, and it will probably only get worse. While this is always a store I love to visit, it's rare that I actually make a purchase; the items are too specific, too styled, too detailed - it's like they wear you instead of the other way around. They're nice to haves, not need to haves, and as we all know, the luxuries are definitely back burner these days.

So, despite overall adorable-ness, charm, and girlish appeal, can Anthropologie survive this new new economy? How does a brand founded on cute suddenly become more serious and hard-working? I guess it's time for the Anthropologie girl to grow up...

There is an old saying that goes "red shoes are only for children and whores..." Well, I'm neither one nor the other but I still love me some red footwear! In fact, the statement runs entirely contrary to the mindset of a true fashion-lover; why be so limiting and so judgmental in one single statement? This sounds like one of those mid-century fashion dogmas a la "no white after Labor Day" and "handbags and shoes must match"... Ugh.

When I browse shoe stores I am instantly drawn to the red pairs. Maybe it's because red is my favorite color, or because I'm unafraid of wear it, or because I'm kooky and use my colors as neutrals, but there it is and I can't help it. There is just something about red shoes. Is it because they're sort of childish and impractical? Or is it the taboo of being so vampish and attention-grabbing on a body part rife with fetishistic implications? Or perhaps we were just brought up to love them?

"Oh I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused. But since their wings have got rusted, you know, the angels wanna wear my red shoes." -Elvis Costello

YSL Rive Gauche, Fall 2003

Not one single woman I know would turn her nose up at the ruby slippers, for instance. Talk about the shoes that launched a thousand ships! From the moment the Wicked Witch of the East's striped legs curled up and her shoes found their way onto Dorothy's feet, we all sat up and paid attention to our shoe wardrobes. Sadly, our own collections do not transmit in such technicolor glory, but every pair of red shoes we own lends itself to this fantasy. By the way, did you know that the magical slippers in the Wizard of Oz were meant to be silver, like in the book? The legend goes that Louis B. Mayer paid a visit to the set and realizing the power of the new technicolor format, he made the slippers ruby instead. Mr. Mayer, if you only knew...

Next year will mark the 70th anniversary of this classic film and to celebrate it, twenty fashion designers have been invited by Warner Brothers and Swarovski to design recreations of the famous ruby slippers. I'm never a big fan of these kinds of "redesigns", especially where they concern something so classic and iconic - it's just never as fabulous as the original. But, when I read about this in last week's New York Times, I started to think about the far-reaching influences of the ruby slippers in particular, and red shoes in general.

Jim Fixx's Onitsuka Tigers

Of course there's blue suede and black patent, but the most iconic shoes are the red ones. It makes sense since most every culture in the world uses red for celebrations and as a symbol of luck and happiness. It is thought that as humans, the color red encourages us to action and confidence, while it protects us from fears and anxiety. Add all of this to the power and confidence inherent in a well-made, beautifully-designed pair of shoes and you come up with a heady cocktail indeed.

But it's not just "fashion" shoes that are iconic; Jim Fixx launched an athletic revolution with his cherry red Onitsuka Tigers on the cover of The Complete Book of Running- a seminal work in the world of personal fitness. Think about it, without those sleek red beauties, would there have been Jazzercise or Jane Fonda Workout or spin class or bootcamp? I grant you it's a reach, but I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the world's current health and well-being is owed to a pair of red sneakers from 1977.

And then there's The Red Shoes. This stunning Powell and Pressburger film from 1948 has probably inspired most of today's professional dancers and performing artists. Based upon a Hans Christian Andersen story about a girl who sees some red shoes in a shop window and has to have them, only to learn too late that the shoes are possessed and she will never be able to take them off again. Or, as Boris Lermontov explains in the film:

""The Ballet of The Red Shoes" is from a fairy tale by Hans Andersen. It is the story of a young girl who is devoured with an ambition to attend a dance in a pair of Red Shoes. She gets the shoes and goes to the dance. For a time, all goes well and she is very happy. At the end of the evening she is tired and wants to go home, but the Red Shoes are not tired. In fact, the Red Shoes are never tired. They dance her out into the street, they dance her over the mountains and valleys, through fields and forests, through night and day. Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the Red Shoes go on."

A metaphor for one's commitment to their art and passion, with more than a soupçon of a warning from Doctor Faustus. The story presents a choice: do you choose art, or do you choose life? As Lermontov sternly tells one of his dancers: "You cannot have it both ways. A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love can never be a great dancer. Never."

Christian Louboutin Feather Ankle-Wrap D'Orsay for Fall 2008

So what is a girl to do? On the one foot, red shoes are powerful and glamorous while on the other foot they're troubling and leading the wearer into mischief. The beauty of this connundrum is that red shoes carry both messages; they're beauty and beast in one. Totally intrepid and not for the passive wearer, they demand attention, action, and daring, even if that daring can cause some problems. Above all they require a certain amount of commitment to oneself and one's fashion prowess. You want to wear the red shoes - you don't want them to wear you.

Red shoes make me happy. It's all of the messaging and metaphor of innocence, sex, art, glamor, and life rolled into a single pair of shoes. But more than that, they seem to just smile at you from the shoe box as if to say "you know when you put me on you're going to have a fabulous day..." A box of promise just waiting to happen. Isn't it nice to know you own a pair?

I happen to be one of those rare Northern California natives that actually likes Los Angeles. (Caveat: Dodgers fans are not included in this fact.) It’s beautiful there, truly. It’s colorful, bright, kitchy, retro, warm and fun. It’s everything inherent in that notion of uncharted American expansion: the promise of the golden west, the edge of the continent, orange groves, palm trees in every backyard, sunshine, beaches, swimming pools, movie stars…The Coast.

This is the proverbial end of the line.

Descending into LAX, the Malibu beach houses start to hug the cliffs, contouring their lots to the jagged coastline. The PCH traffic is light, and I strain to see the fabled spot where Marion Davies’ fabled Ocean House once stood, although I know it’s long gone. The Getty Center comes into view as a shining white legoland at the top of a hill, as does the strange cylinder of the Hotel Angeleno at its base, hugging the 405 freeway. Then come the buildings sprouted along Wilshire – a weirdly arranged line of high towers stretching for miles; a long cut repaired with badly-sewn stitches. The famous Hollywood hills host curving, luscious streets of houses that I’ll never get to see inside of, and I begin to think of songs by Bob Seger and The Eagles. What is it like to live above the lights after all?

The plane floats downward, ever-deeper toward the Inland Empire, over Dodger Stadium, the skyscrapers of downtown, and the famous Dragnet pinnacle of City Hall. Banking right and changing direction, we parallel another plane on its way into landing. The cement-lined Los Angeles river is another scar running north-south this time, as far as can be seen. The perfect oval of Hollywood Park signals final descent. Even the runway seems to be lined with palm trees.

Our hotel, The Chamberlain, is nestled on a quiet street above Wilshire and is designed as a boutique Hollywood Regency-style chic spot. Shiny silver and ice blue are paired with black lacquer, heavy gold trim, and unusually shaped chairs. It is not until I get to my room that I realize the place must have been a former apartment house converted to hotel. Here, the palette is grey on grey, the bathroom is pokey and dark, but there’s a fireplace and a deck, and some of the most luxurious sheets I’ve ever slept on.

The morning comes too quickly (especially where those sheets are concerned,) and the early news features traffic reports that take longer than the weather and camerawork from news helicopters of police actions. As Snoop Dogg says: "Los Angeles...where the helicopters got cameras..." I pull back my curtain to see a streak of orangey-green dawn banding a navy blue night sky, punctuated by the perfect sharp silhouette of a singular palm tree.

Just another perfectly beautiful So-Cal morning.

In fact, the sky remains perfectly blue all day, not a whisper of smog, and the hilltops and snowy peaks are always in view. A walk along Robertson at lunch gets me creating wishlists at Kitson and Madison, so much so that I don’t even notice the paparazzi stalking the curb outside of The Ivy.

My sunglasses get dug out from the bottom of my bag after weeks of rest, and I point my face toward the sun with eyes closed. My bones even begin to feel warmer. Not heated, just caressed by the warm light after so many days of damp. The light is different here – the sun is lower, more golden, bright and permeating.

Perhaps it shows too much, for despite the gleaming towers and sexy billboards along Sunset, there is still that undercurrent of strangeness. There’s something sad about the odd storefronts, dying restaurants, and the harsh flaking-stucco on scary Day of the Locust apartment complexes with aluminum windows. For each pocket of glamour there’s a jar of cold cream.

Flying out is nearly the same as flying in. The PCH and its spindly palms pass under the plane as we leave land and head over the Pacific. Banking right at the Channel Islands, we pick up the coast again just north of Santa Barbara. It’s only a few minutes before the unrolled-cotton clouds of our fog bank begin to appear over the water in an even coastline of its own. San Francisco's light is misty, mysterious, fleeting at this time of year. Our wind is ever-present and chilly; my coat, stripped and forgotten in L.A. is now immediately necessary.

But I felt it – that promise of warmth on my skin, that perfect comfort of a 72-degree day, and my soul and body are somehow refreshed. There is something to be said for flying south…

Yes...these are the ones...Sheesh! I've been looking at my posts, and so many of them have been so self-indulgently...well, non-style-oriented, that I felt I needed to get back to some fashion. And while nothing current is really racing my motor, I thought I'd dig out one of my favorite old stories...

This post was originally written about a year ago, about a real evening I was having with my friend Lee... This is a true story, every word, and it's so good that I've dug it out of the archives to share with the current P&C crowd. Okay...so P&C wasn't even around a year ago, but I was doing some writing, and it was good! This one is actually about some really great shoes - the kind I can't wear lately, so it's indulgent just to think about...

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On Friday night I was sitting in Gold Alley, just outside of Bix, having a cocktail with a close friend. People were gathered for the after-work drink, and since it was a nice night for February, people stood, drinks in hand, on either side of the narrow alley. On the opposite side, a group of friends enjoyed each others company, and soon a fabulously chic couple approached and were welcomed by all.

“Look at those shoes she has on…” my friend said to me. The woman in question was wearing incredibly steep stiletto heels, very bare – just a toe strap, and for that extra bit of sex, a strap of leather circling the ankle. Either the shoes were steeper than her usual, or this woman was a bad heel-walker – she could barely make the five steps from the cab to her friends without showing her shaky, uncertain footing to the entire street.

“Well, she can hardly walk in them.”

“Yeah – but look at them!”

“Yeah, they’re hot, but someone should have told her they’re the kind of shoes one only wears at home.”

“YEAH! With NOTHING ELSE on!”

“Exactly!” We both laughed. “I have a pair of shoes like that – my first *real* high fashion shoes I bought at a sample sale when I first started with the company. A pair of John Galliano corset-pumps. Remember those? They lace up the toe? So hot.” Ah yes. My John Galliano corset-pumps in sultry soft black leather with a delicate, skinny, little sharp heel. Sex on a stick. I went on to tell my friend the story of the shoes. The John Galliano pumps were in size 9 ½ and had been worn by a model during a fashion shoot, and due to the scuffs, could not be sold. But they could be sold to me at an employee sample sale for only $40.00. I admitted that I was afraid of them at first – they were so high, such skinny little heels, so vampish, I didn’t know quite what to do with them. I was new at my company and this had been my first sample sale, and my first pair of uber-expensive shoes (albeit purchased at considerable discount.) I think I may even have blushed at the thought of not only having them in my closet, but actually putting them on and wearing them. Our in-house fashionista-shop-aholic giggled at my uncertainty about the Galliano corset-pumps.

“You know,” she whispered to me with a conspiratorial smile, “they never even need to leave the house!” At the time the idea made me blush even harder, but I was younger then, and didn’t know so much.

Somehow or other, this shoe-y anecdote led to another and another, and I fondly remember some shoes I had purchased when I was studying in France, almost ten years ago. The first was a pair of Sketchers sneakers. Yes, I will admit to owning and wearing Sketchers in my student days – I’m not above it. (I also had Airwalks when I fancied myself a “skater girl”, but let’s leave that out, shall we?) Well, these Sketchers I bought in London, somewhere on Carnaby Street but I don’t really remember. They were lavender, but opalescent lavender, and very shiny. Sneakers were huge in the late 90s, and I saw these and had to have them, my “Euro-Club Barbie” sneakers.

Obviously, being the girl that I am now, and was then, I shopped a great deal when I was a student in Paris. I knew where to find stuff, like the best selection of vintage leather jackets on Rue du Temple. The Temple area is the part of town where one shops for either vintage clothes, club clothes, or drag queen clothes. It was at this time when the trashy club girls at the Sorbonne were wearing these crazy sneaker-pumps one could purchase in the Temple area. Huge sneakers with big wedge heels. All the girls were wearing them. I thought they were the ugliest things I'd ever seen.

I met a good friend while I was there, Lora, who introduced me to all of the sophisticated Bohemian things I truly needed to learn about while living in Paris. Things like hashish, great sex, clubbing, and Miles Davis. For hours we would sit in each other’s rooms and talk about culture, politics, our friends at home, books, music, and men. All while smoking endless Marlboro Lights, drinking wine, and listening to “Ascenseur pour l’echafaud” – even to this day, I cannot listen to that album without being completely transported. Lora and I had a friendship of the kind that develops in these kind of study-abroad situations. Deep, rich, fulfilling, and intense. She knew me so well, while hardly knowing me at all. The shopping was therapy for me, she could see it, and she disapproved. Lora had also seen the sneaker-pumps in the Rue du Temple and warned me that if I ever came home with a pair, she would be slapping me on the first flight out of CDG so fast my head would spin. "If those ever start to look good to you, it's time to go home!"

It was a difficult time for me then, I was sad to be away from my friends, and I was going through a heavy-duty 20-year-old dose of “what does it all mean?” while lodging in a large, empty, old dorm room of the Cite Universitaire. (Lora dared me to pull myself out of my funks *without* going shopping…sometimes it worked.) I grant you, this dorm room was larger than my first apartment, but never so warm. It did look out on the Parc Montsouris, but it was full of drafts and street noise. I do think of it fondly though, just as I think of our fellow dorm residents from around the world. There was Mehdi – an Algerian living across the hall from me with a collection of hookas that were put to good use on the weekends, and also Lora’s neighbor Kuaku – an utterly stunning African man who nearly puts Taye Diggs to shame. Kuaku was from Central Africa, although I don’t remember his country, but he had also lived in London, and practically everywhere else. Lora also had an in-dorm boyfriend at the time who lived the coolest of cool lives: photographer by day, DJ by night. At one time on a rainy day he asked me if he could take a nude photo of me. He said he got inspired, me, the rain, he couldn’t resist. Of course, Lora would come with me for moral support. I thanked him, but demurred. It was a strong will I had to resist a charming French photographer, asking to take sexy photos of me. One of the biggest regrets of my life. Why wouldn’t I want pictures of myself, naked, in the middle of a parc in Paris at age 20? Like I said, I was much younger then, and didn’t know so much.

Anyways, back to the shoes. I visited London and of course went to Carnaby Street and got my Euro-Club Barbie Sketchers. I also went to Underground Shoes and purchased an absolutely TO DIE FOR pair of funkadelic London swinger shoes. Picture it: stacked four-inch heel with a slight flare at the bottom, a half-inch platform, and a lace-up Oxford style…and, wait for it, they’re pony leather, in a zebra print. So fabulous. (This was a good few years before Austin Powers too, so it wasn’t like everyone was buying them then.)

I still have these shoes, by the way. They’ve made it though the past years tucked safely in their original Underground Shoes box. They’re so outrageous and utterly precious (and not to mention slightly small) that I never wear them above once a year.

I returned to Paris just before flying back to the States, and quickly went to Lora’s room to show her my new shoes from London. Instead I found Kuaku. I was so excited about my new shoes I had to show him…

“Look Kuaku, I bought them on Carnaby Street!”

“Well, I could tell you bought them on Carnaby Street…”

“What do you think – aren’t they great?” I asked him, whole-heartedly and eagerly waiting for some kind of validation on the outrageous shoes from the beautiful African.

“Well, Ann Marie?” He began in his sweet accent, “Well, they’re zebra…” I waited a beat and considered what he was saying. He held one of the shoes in his hand, staring at it in semi-horror. I didn’t put two and two together to realize that he probably thought I’d killed his childhood pet from the bush and made a pair of shoes out of them. Being the oblivious and insensitive budding fashionista that I was, I replied with:

“Yeah! Aren’t they fabulous!”

I do my own repair-work; I have a set of wrenches, screwdrivers, and even a power drill with complete set of drill bits. Most of the time I simply hang pictures, make things, change light bulbs, and do whatever needs doing to keep the home in one piece, however this weekend my talents in the DIY department went to the next level: plumbing. My toilet has been doing strange things lately - running extra water, dripping and swishing in the dead of night. The float ball was out of whack and the flapper chain kept disconnecting. What’s a single gal to do when there’s no burly-but-ever-so-adept-at-fix-it-chores boyfriend in the picture? I wanted to stamp my foot and be petulant, although I knew that wasn’t going to get me anywhere. But this is plumbing! This involves water valves, and washers, and shanks, and levers, and this is serious…and in the meantime, the water kept running. Something needed to be done, but was I really the girl for the job? Straightening my shoulders I realized that no one could rescue me but myself, so I did some research.

Through the magic of the internet I was able to determine that not only are toilet repairs common, but they’re actually quite simple. Don’t bother with replacing parts, replace the entire mechanism in one go and totally improve your household plumbing experience. Luckily, there’s an amazing hardware store just around the corner from me. Hardware Unlimited is a neighborhood place, still independently-owned, where you can buy everything from a tea kettle to an elbow join. The staff is uncommonly kind and knowledgeable, and no request is beneath them – even when I need an ultra-miniscule screw to reattach a one-of-a-kind button on my Paul Smith handbag, they are happy to find just what I need. So, a-hunting I went for a complete toilet repair kit.

And voila! There they were in the center aisle. There’s the basic, old-fashioned kind, but reading the packages like I do at the grocery store, I found that the newer kind are better. What’s this? Not just plumbing, but modern plumbing? Oh yes. Don’t go with a float ball when the all-in-one float cup is a better option. It precisely regulates the water level in the tank, which is just what I need because I determined that my overflow pipe was taking in too much water. (My what is taking in what? Wow, I'm smart. And handy.) Victory! Now all I had to do was swap out the old with the new. Here’s where things got tricky.

I turned off the water well-enough, disconnected the supply, drained the tank, etc., but I thought the old valve would simply come right out on its own. Little did I know that old toilet valves are very stubborn things that don’t like to move – especially when they know they’re being replaced. Mine took a severe beating, and more than a little truck-driver-esque profanity, before giving in to the physics of its threaded shank. Make no mistake Mr. OldValve, you will be moved.

Following the overwhelming, but still somewhat readable directions of my new Fluidmaster 400/AK Complete Repair Kit, I disengaged washers, lock nuts, and couplings, and connected tubes, angle adapters, gaskets, and valves. It is more than a bit disconcerting to look at your only toilet and see it completely disemboweled, knowing that you will probably need to use it sometime soon. The trepidation inherent in this realization certainly helped to spur me forward. I was tough but gentle, improvising but precise – I was a home improvement surgeon. The whole procedure took about an hour, and no sports fans, no “plumbers crack” was shown to anyone. (Oh, and don't worry, I have since treated myself to a manicure...)

My toilet now sits silently, flushing beautifully with a simple press of the finger.

I am proud. One of my colleagues warned me to never let a man know that I can perform this task on my own – they would surely want to marry me instantly.

HOORAY! It’s Friday. The gang is coming over for cocktails after work to help me celebrate the P&C launch. Am I worried? Not at all. I’ve done this before, and it’s very easy. I know those magazines like InStyle try to encourage the hostess in everyone, but they make it so complicated! I’m here to break it down for you, impart my happy hour knowledge, and show you the brighter side of a simple get-together. With this advice in the pocket of your Sevens, everyone will wonder how you’re so relaxed, collected, and full-of-fun!

First of all, the word “Happy” is in the title of this event, so that is the very mood you are trying to create by hosting your friends for cocktails. You should be the root of the “happy,” happy to be around people you dig, happy to have them in your home, happy that it’s finally time for a Friday cocktail. The other word in the title is “Hour” – 60 minutes, maybe 90 or 120 if you stretch it into another round or two, but it’s really not that long! This is an event for minimal fuss, stress, and even effort if you follow a few guidelines…

Clean Up – Okay, you don’t need to do a white-glove check on all of your surfaces, but do a quick sweep of the kitchen floor and clear the counters of clutter. Make the bed (if you can remember how,) and run the vacuum, but don’t worry too much. Approach this like a triage unit with your highest priority on the bathroom – this is where you absolutely must have a spit-shine. Make it sparkle, and make sure there’s TP and soap. (I know it’s obvious, but you wouldn’t want to overlook it.)

Be On Time – Happy Hour should not start any later than 6:30 or 7PM (if it’s in your home.) You should be coiffed, lipsticked, and rouged by this time. You can put out chips and light candles, etc., while you wait for your fashionably-late friends. The hostess is never fashionably late.

Be Classy – Show your worldly insouciance by putting out a few books or magazines that will be conversation-worthy once people arrive. Nothing pretentious (hide your Paris Review archive,) but a mix current and classic tomes. Vanity Fair, bien sur, WWD Scoop, Blahnik by Bowman, and Michael Roberts’ monograph are all cultured, but not-so-serious choices that I currently have on the coffee table. If you’re a lit-head, don’t be too intimidating…Hey, who put that copy of War and Peace over there?

Be Classy Part II – Be a good host. My mother sometimes asks me: “do you need hostess towels?” And I never say yes, but then I find that I need them. Hostess towels are those artistically adorned rectangular paper towels that you put out in the bathroom for when people wash their hands. In vintage stores you may find some that are fabric with some fun embroidery, but these generally come out around Christmastime. Go with the hostess towels. I know this is a bit adult of me, but do you really want people wiping their hands where you wipe your face? If you don’t have any, simply put out some dinner napkins, but hang them up on the towel bar so people will know they’re supposed to use them.

Be Classy Part III – Ixnay on the lasticpay. This is Happy Hour, not a barbecue with kegs. Leave the plastic cups and paper plates in their bags for another time. In these modern times, you can buy a cocktail glass for $2.00 at Cost Plus World Market. Do so. Happy Hours don’t generally involve more food than a few nibbles, so don’t even put out plates – if you do, put out real ones. I have my grandma’s china cake plates which I love, and you could find your own set of inexpensive china at Goodwill or the same vintage store where you’re going to buy your hostess towels. Paper cocktail napkins are of course, completely fine and can be great fun if you find some odd ones.

Keep it Simple – If you sent out an email stating “cocktails” then that’s what you do. Don’t worry about buying up all kinds of beer, wine, & champagne. Folks will know what to expect. As a non-alcoholic option, go with San Pellegrino. If you’re uncertain of your mixing abilities (I know, people get snobbish about shaking up cocktails, but puhleeze,) then make them ahead and have them ready when people arrive. I have done this many times and found that guests are relieved – they see a big pitcher of a ready-made libation and they know they don’t need to think about it, just grab a glass and drink. If you are mixing, don’t do anything exotic like mojitos or sidecars. Leave the mottled mint to the experts and just go with martinis, or something equally minimal – they get the job done.

Finishing Touches – Light a candle. Or ten. We all love flowers, but they’re pricey. I recommend investing in an orchid or a potted flower (big, pink hydrangeas at Whole Foods are $16.99) that will last you a month or two. Fridays are a good flower day though, since many vendors slash their prices. One near my office sells them for $1.00 a stem and blows out two-dozen roses for only $8.99. Treat yourself if you like – it’s Friday. Put on music – like your reading choices it should be a mix of current and classic. The new Jurassic 5 album is fantastic, but since it’s a sunny day I may choose the tropics of Bossa Nova and go with Elis Regina and Toots Thielemans’ Aquarela do Brasil – one of my favorites.

Enjoy Yourself – It’s your house, your friends, your booze. Enjoy it! Don’t worry about the dishes, and don’t start to *do* dishes while your guests are still there. After an hour or two, everyone will want dinner, so leave the glasses and go eat. Happy Hour is now Friday night, is now the Weekend…go big.