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A.G. Nauta couture will be in Tokyo from 8 untill 17 April

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Paul Poiret was the first couturier to embrace draping over the more traditional techniques of tailoring and corsetry; in doing so he played a key role in liberating women (Madeleine Vionnet also advanced an uncorseted silhouette, but it was Poiret, largely owing to his acumen for publicity, who became most widely associated with the new look). Draping freed not just the woman but the designer as well, allowing him to develop the innovations that became his trademarks: billowing kimono coats, neoclassical Empire and lampshade dresses and hobble skirts.

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.Biography   (follow-up)

In 1911 Poiret’s house expanded to encompass furniture, decor, and fragrance in addition to clothing, the first “total lifestyle“. Rosine, a perfume and cosmetics line is named after his eldest daughter. Poiret introduced “Parfums de Rosine” becoming the first couturier to launch a signature fragrance linked to a design house. 

On 24 June 1911 Poiret unveiled “Parfums de Rosine” in a flamboyant manner. A grand soiree was held at his palatial home, a costume ball attended by the cream of Parisian society and the artistic world. Poiret fancifully christened the event “la mille et deuxième nuit,” the thousand and second night, inspired by the fantasy of sultans’ harems. Gardens were illuminated by lanterns, set with tents, and live tropical birds. Madame Poiret herself lounged in a golden cage luxuriating in opulence, waiting for her master’s arrival so that he could set her free. The bejeweled silk harem pants Poiret made for Denise (who played the part of a concubine) were said to be inspired by a production of Scheherazade by the Ballet Russes, eventually became the basis for a new kind of lampshade silhouette that was soon all the rage. Poiret was the reigning sultan, gifting each guest with a bottle of his new fragrance creation, appropriately named to befit the occasion, Nuit d’Perse. Improperly dressed guests were requested to either outfit themselves in some of Poiret’s ’Persian’ outfits or to leave! Poiret’s marketing strategy played out as entertainment became a sensation and the talk of Paris.

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“The Thousand And Second Night”party

Denise & Paul Poiret at “The Thousand and Second Night” party. Paul Poiret in an Arabian outfit for one of his parties At the end of the Thousand and Second Night partyDenise Poiret at “The Thousand And Second Night”party, by George Lepape (illustrator)

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Design by Paul Poiret made for the “thousand and second night” party

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 In 1911, publisher Lucien Vogel dared photographer Edward Steichen to promote fashion as a fine art by the use of photography. Steichen then took photos of gowns designed by Poiret. These photographs were published in the April 1911 issue of the magazine Art et Décoration. This is “…now considered to be the first ever modern fashion photography shoot..

In September 1913 Poiret travels to New York with Denise to tour department stores and give a series of lectures. The Manhattan fashion world welcomes them with noisy fanfare. The New York Times runs the excited headline, “Poiret, Creator of Fashions, Is Here.”

“My wife is the inspiration for all my creations; she is the expression of all my ideals. She was to become one of the queens of Paris” .”

During World War I, Poiret left his fashion house to serve the military by streamlining uniform production. He returns to Paris briefly to design the fall collection, but after two of his children die suddenly (first Rosine from an ear infection, then Gaspard from Spanish influenza), he abandons the idea. His house will now lay dormant until the end of the war. He does release one perfume during this time “Sang de France” (Blood of France), but the authorities ban it..

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Edward Steichen; The First Modern Fashion Photography Shoot

April 1911, Art et Décoration magazine

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Poiret returned after being discharged in 1919. He meets a young Elsa Schiaparelli. They strike up a friendship and he gives her clothes to wear to in-crowd hangouts. He encourages her to start her own line, which she will do a few years later.

Because he has failed to move on from his pre-war aesthetic, his designs start to be outshined by those of younger, more modern designers such as Coco Chanel, who were producing simple, sleek clothes that relied on excellent workmanship. In comparison, Poiret’s elaborate designs seemed dowdy and poorly manufactured. (Though Poiret’s designs were groundbreaking, his construction was not—he aimed only for his dresses to “read beautifully from afar.”) Struggling, the house was on the brink of bankruptcy, he decides to sell the rights to his business to a group of backers. His new maison du couture, however, is described by a visitor as “rich and tasteless. His struggle to be unusual has wound up making it all impossible. It’s like a sweetshop.”

After their bitter divorce in 1928 (Time reported, “M. Poiret charged that his wife’s attitude was injurious; Mme .Poiret countercharged that her husband was cruel”), Denise still held her ex-husband’s work in high esteem. She kept her spectacular wardrobe for posterity’s sake and it was passed down to her children and grandchildren.

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Parfums de Rosine bottles

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Poiret was suddenly out of fashion, in debt, and lacking support from his business partners and he soon left his fashion house. In 1929, the house itself was closed, and its leftover clothes were sold by the kilogram as rags.

When Poiret died in 1944 in German-occupied Paris, his genius had been forgotten. His road to poverty led him in odd jobs as a street painter trying to sell drawings to the customers of Paris’ cafes. and working as a bartender.

At one time it was even discussed in the ‘Chambre syndicale de la Haute Couture’ to provide a monthly allowance to help him, an idea rejected by the Worths (at that time at holding the presidency of that body). Only the help of his friend Elsa Schiaparelli prevented his name from encountering complete oblivion and it was Schiaparelli that paid for Poiret’s burial.

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.Licensing

One of the first designers to explore licensing, Poiret got burned by illegal copies and trademark infringements. He fought this in court and became the head of the Syndicat de Défense de la Grande Couture Française, an organization to protect the rights of designers.

 A warning against false labels, from Women's Wear Daily, 1913

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Info about Paul & Denise Poiret: Voguepedia & Wikipedia
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Next week: Paul Poiret, Pictures of Garments (part 3)

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Born Maria Theodora Mathilde de Doelder (1938-1977) in a province in the south of the Netherlands called Zeeland, she became famous as Mathilde Willink. Young Mathilde was an intelligent girl, who graduated cum laude from high school, after which she moved to Amsterdam to attend art school.

Mathilde had always been a shy and timid girl, but this changed in her new hometown. She adopted an exuberant lifestyle and at twenty-one she met the much older, well-known painter Carel Willink. Mathilde quit art school to become a stewardess at KLM Airlines. Two years she and Carel married and they lived a very comfortable lifestyle.

In 1972 Mathilde started wearing clothes designed by Fong Leng, an artist who had started making extravagant garments with names as exotic as the clothes itself, like Chinese roof garden, Wuthering Heights and Bird of Paradise. Carel made special ‘almost permanent’ make-up for her which she could wear day-and-night. A ‘star’ was born.

Designer Fong Leng & Mathilde Willink
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Studio Fong Leng

In 1971 Fong Leng opened ‘ Studio Fong Leng’ in the P.C. Hooftstraat  in Amsterdam, where extravagant clothes were sold. From day one Mathilde Willink was a devoted fan. She wore the fabulous creations at society parties, at media gatherings and became a known phenomenon in the streets scenes of Amsterdam. (I saw her only ones and I remember like it was yesterday! A beautiful woman who dared to be different…. I had been ‘different’ in the town I was born in and I knew how strong and determined  you had to be, to dress abundant.)

Mathilde’s excentric looks were important building the reputation, national and international, for ‘Studio Fong Leng’. Fong Leng and Mathilde Willink names were synonymous and still are.

In a five-year period Mathilde bought 37 creations by Fong Leng, which could be priced up to € 11.345,- each.

Fong Leng in one of her own designs

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Mathilde Willink was a living art object, an original and a unique person, who dared to be different.

After Carel and Mathilde divorced, her life drifted into chaos and ended with the unsolved mystery her death. It’s still unclear if she was killed or committed suicide. On her tombstone  just one word: Mathilde

“I live in a fairy-tale world made of illusions and extravagance. If people don’t notice you, it’s no use living.”

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Viktor & Rolf  s/s collection 2003 

Decades after Mathilde  Willink died, she was the inspiration for the S/S 2003 catwalk collection by Viktor & Rolf . The vivid show was based on the shows Fong Leng used to present: dancing outrageous models on ‘rocking’ music, party time backstage and on the catwalk.

International press didn’t know about Mathilde and wrote about ‘dresses out of the heyday of Zandra Rhodes and Bill Gibb‘ and ‘homage to vintage Chanel’.

  (Music at the V&R show by Eddy De Clercq)

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Last week my friend Astrid and I  went on a trip to Tokyo and in this post I like to share some of the places we liked a lot….

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Muji

In the morning, after having breakfast is a French pastry shop in the Mitsukoshimae Subway Station (a lot of great coffee shops, restaurants and shops are under ground in subways stations!), we went to the large Muji store nearby Tokyo Station.

Muji was originally known as “Mujirushi ryohin”, a Japanese expression that means ” quality product without brand”. The value of a “Muji ” product in fact is the selection of materials, the care of its production. From simplicity of the project to the packaging. In Muji you won’t find products with excessive price, but just simple products of great quality at affordable prices. Muji has opened shops in many capitals like London and Paris. 

It’s also a place where you can rent bicycles, although you have to get there at 10, when the shop opens, because there’s only a little number of bikes for rent. It is a bit adventures to cycle through Tokyo, it’s not always clear where you’re supposed to ride your bike. Sometimes you find bike lanes, but other times you have to choose between the sidewalk and the main road. Still it’s an exciting way to explore the city!

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MannenYa

MannenYa (Mannen-ya ) , is a small but unique warehouse for Japan’s construction workers in Tokyo. It’s nearby Tokyo City Hall, where you can go up to the 48th floor to get a few of the city. Outside MannenYa you’ll see many pairs of colorful overalls, exotically but practically designed workman’s pants and shirts hanging while packed inside is an assortment of various workwears.

The items of MannenYa are not exactly high fashion but basic blue-collar gears. However, that’s exactly what draws the likes of fashion designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier and Walter Van Beirendonck 
Nishi Shinjuku 3-8-1,Shinjuku, Tokyo 160-0023, Japan

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Tokyu Hands

In Tokyo you find many, many shops and stores, but one I’d like to mention specially is Tokyu Hands. The stores often take up a number of floors in large department stores or stand alone stores in their own right. Tokyu Hands opened its first store in Shibuya in 1976 and was originally a DIY and hobby shop, hence the “two hands” symbol and green color of its trade mark. The main flagship store is in Shibuya with other large stores in Ikebukuro and Shinjuku.

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Shimokitazawa / Shimokita

It used to be in Harajuku, but now is Shimokitazawa, commonly called “Shimokita” on the western side of Tokyo where  the young and trendy individuals spent their time in the many small theater halls, live houses, bars and secondhand clothes and record shops. With its many narrow alleys that are inaccessible to vehicles, you are given a real sense of adventure while exploring the town on foot.

The secondhand clothes shops and shops offering items from the 70s and old animation-themed toys are quite popular. The number of large-scale shops in the area has been increasing, but the nicest features of this area are the many shops expressing the ingenuity of their young owners, such as those combining a cafe and a record shop or an outlet for small handmade items.

Shimokito is also a great place to watch Tokyo’s trendies and Harajuku girls stroll by!

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Naka-Megura / Daikan-Yama

 Just west of Shibuya which is popular with young people, the area connecting Shibuya, Jiyugaoka and Futako-tamagawa is known as the “Triangle Area.” On one side of this triangle you’ll find Naka Megura / Daikan Yama, an area which doesn’t just have shops stocking fashionable sweatshirts , but also cafes where you can try hot chocolate fondue made by French trained chefs. 

On of those places is Le Cordon Bleu. The College of Culinary Arts is housed in this building, where you find a great restaurant / cafe on the ground-floor, with a large que in front of the counter. French food and the classic French way of dressing is a trend in Tokyo at the moment. Lots of French bakeries all around town and the subway stations and many girls wearing the striped ‘sailor’ shirt and a petite beige trench coat.

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Mori Art Museum / Art & Design Store

One of my favorite places for great finds is the Art & Design shop of the Mori Art Museum at Roppongi Hills.

Entering the Museum building you first pass the sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, Maman Spider. You have a great view from the Mori Museum Tokyo City View. On the 3rd floor in the store you’ll find beautiful items, books and dvd’s by f.i. Comme Des Garçons and Yayoi Kusama. This time also a lot of Andy Warhol memorabilia and tableware and little vases which could be straight out of a Fred Flintstone cupboard.

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Good Design Shop by Comme Des Garçons

My only disappointment was the stock in the Good Design Shop by Comme Des Garçons. Two years ago I visited the shop for the first time and loved it instantly. I bought a great ‘soccer’ scarve and saw lots of other great finds by CDG, like bags in black& white, cardigans, rain coats & jackets, wool patchwork hats & gloves and plaids. I expected to find some new items this time, but the stock stayed the same. For CDG devotees it’s a place you have to visit for sure! You can find the shop on Omotosando.

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And if you like antique and flea markets, tokyo also has some which are worth visiting!!!

check the link:   http://www.japanspecialist.co.uk/travel-tips/antique-and-flea-markets/

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When you’re resting after a day of shopping in Tokyo, try to watch the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi or the movie Lost in Translation.  

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My husband gave up everything for me. I’m not a beautiful woman. I’m nothing to look at, so the only thing I can do is dress better than anyone else. 

Wallis Simpson

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.Duchess of Windsor, by Irving Penn; this corner was a Penn trademark.

On December 11, 1936,  the King of England addressed his people: “You must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love. ”Edward’s words, solemn and delivered with obvious emotion, crackled out over the wireless in homes across the kingdom. The fledgling ruler—so new, he had not yet been crowned—had renounced his throne, all in the name of love. Across the globe, presses blazed with speculation about this very grand-scale—and, to many, quite puzzling—love story. The burning question on everyone’s lips: Who exactly was this “Wally” and what powers of mesmerization did she possess?

Bessie Wallis was a headstrong, violet-eyed child with sausage curls and a love of the pretty dresses sewn by her mother, the down-on-her-luck daughter of an old Virginia family. Swanning out in a satin-and-seed-pearl copy of a dress worn by the dancer Irene Castle, she made her society debut in Baltimore in 1914 as the all-grown-up “Wallis” (Bessie, she had decided, was a name for cows). Two years later, she was married to a dashing, alcoholic pilot named Earl Winfield Spencer, Jr., and living as a Navy wife in Pensacola, Florida. That turbulent marriage ended in divorce in 1928.

Divorce, of course, was still shocking in those years, a transgression that would stain a woman’s reputation ever after. But Wallis found a safe have, and stability, in her second husband, Ernest Simpson, an Anglo-American ship broker. The society decorator Syrie Maugham lent her flair to the Simpsons’ home in London and soon, their chic flat was overflowing with the cream of 1930s café society. Among the socialites and aristocrats who turned up for Wallis’s inventive cocktail fare—“[Her] hot dishes are famous,” noted Vogue—were the interior designer Elsie de Wolfe and Lady Thelma Furness, who introduced the witty, wisecracking Wallis (young Bessie had picked up some colorful language from a barman’s parrot) to Edward, the Prince of Wales.

 

The golden bachelor prince was a royal pin-up, a spinster’s dream from Mayfair to Milwaukee. As Vogue declared, he was “one of those people who really have glamour. ”Wallis would later record his impact on her life: “He was the open sesame to a new and glittering world. Yachts materialized; the best suites in the finest hotels were flung open; aeroplanes stood waiting. . . . It was like being Wallis in Wonderland. ”In her, Edward had found a woman as bold as the big Glenurquarhart plaids he so adored: “From the first, I looked upon her as the most independent woman I had ever met, ”he later recalled.

Three years into this acquaintance, the pair embarked on a passionate adulterous affair, which Wallis privately acknowledged in a letter to her aunt Bessie Merryman: “It requires great tact to manage both men,” she wrote. “I shall try to keep them both. ”David, as Edward was known to family and friends, would deliver his Wallis a lifetime of love notes via a most spectacular vehicle: jewelry. The Baltimore belle would one day have enough sapphires and rubies to rival a maharaja, her treasure chest stuffed with Verdura, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Cartier.

In 1936, photographs of the king and his latest mistress together on his yacht emerged. Wallis was granted a divorce from her husband, and after a waiting period of six months, was free to marry again. Wallis reportedly tried to dissuade Edward from renouncing his birthright—but to no avail.

The infamous Lobster Dress designed in collaboration with Salvador Dali, worn by Wallace Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, 1937. The placement of the lobster was considered scandalous. Ph. Cecil Beaton

On a bright spring day—shortly before she was to marry her David—Wallis posed for a series of portraits at the Château de Candé in the Loire Valley. Cecil Beaton, the society figure and Vogue photographer, captured the handsome brunette in a thicket, sunlight dappling her Schiaparelli waltz dress of floaty white organdy. But what captures the eye is not so much the face of the not-so-blushing bride but something unusual on the front of her frock: not ribbons or an orange-blossom print, but a fat red lobster, and a sprinkling of green parsley to taste—courtesy of Salvador Dalí. No members of the royal family were present for the small wedding ceremony; the union would cause a lifelong rift. Afterward, Beaton snapped the happy couple on the château balcony, Wallis in a Mainbocher crepe dress of soft gray-blue—hereafter known as “Wallis blue”—the bodice recalling “the fluted lines of a Chinese statue of an early century,” according to Vogue. A Cartier bracelet of nine gem-set crosses, each inscribed with a message in the duke’s handwriting, circled her slender wrist. “God Save the King for Wallis, 16.VII.36, ” (It refers to the apparent assassination attempt on the king on 16th July 1936, in which an Irishman calling himself George Andrew McMahon pulled a loaded revolver on the monarch, who was riding on horseback near Buckingham Palace) read one.

“And so the Duke and Duchess of Windsor went off together into that tarnished sunset of exiled royalty,” Time would later reflect. Though the duchess was denied the title of Royal Highness—a persistent thorn in her side—the Windsors soon became “the international jet-set’s de facto king and queen,” as Vanity Fair later put it. In the fifties and sixties, an invitation to dine at the Windsor Villa on Paris’s Bois de Boulogne was “like a gift from God, ” recalled one insider. Inside the stately Louis XVI-style edifice lingered the heady perfume of incense and orchids. From the Steinway came the duke’s favorites: “Mr. Wonderful” and “Love and Marriage.” Obedient in mink collars and gold Cartier leashes, Gin-seng and Black Diamond, the couple’s precious pugs, greeted guests in a cloud of Dior perfume. Crisp tablecloths (the ever-immaculate duchess was fanatic about ironing, even insisting her money be pressed), were laid with the Windsors’ Meissen Flying Tiger plates, and piled high with caviar. Dinner was followed by a game of cards; guests might even be treated to a Hula-Hoop performance by their dapper hosts.

Whether playing baccarat in Monte Carlo or sipping bellinis at Harry’s Bar in Venice, the Windsors were the toast of the town. On New Year’s Eve at El Morocco in New York—where they kept a suite at the Waldorf Towers—the duke and duchess were “crowned” at last . . . with makeshift paper hats. At every event, the svelte, superbly turned out duchess was “tirée à quatre épingles [pulled together with four pins], ”according to the Countess of Rochambeau, a onetime Vogue editor.

Although her reputation was always somewhat clouded—not just by the aspersions cast on her character as a possible gold digger, but, much more grievously, tainted by the observation that both she and Edward were overly friendly with Nazis in the thirties—the enigmatic Wallis was never less than intriguing. Perhaps the most lasting legacy of this unique woman is a somewhat withering quip attributed to her in the popular imagination: “You can never be too rich,” she supposedly said, “or too thin.” 

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info: VoguePedia and Wikipedia.

A.G. Nauta couture label

PopUp Sale A.G.Nauta couture 

“One (or Two) of a Kind” Collection

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Sunday May 4 from 11 till 17hrs

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Together with a GARAGE SALE of the clothes I made for myself over the years (dresses, skirts, petticoats, winter & summer coats),

the A,G,Nauta couture collection will be available for 15% off!

Date:    Sunday May 4

Adress: Chassestraat 26, Amsterdam

Time:    11 hrs untill 17 hrs

Style is not just about beauty, it’s about finding out what fits you well and putting it all together. Serge Gainsbourg was a french rock star with great style and always surrounded by sexy girls. Something about him that fitted his personality and life style, and it all came together and worked. That is what style is. Finding what works on you and wearing it well.

Finding his signature style is what matters here. It takes some people their entire life (and let’s face it some people never figure it out), but when you realize the absolute basics to fashion and that style has to do with how clothes fit you and how those clothes interact with your lifestyle, then you truly figured it out. Gainsbourg, who was always smoking and had a crazy party life, was always wearing a white shirt that look liked he had slept in it. He never had anything ironed or looked neat, but was always wearing a suit or a jacket. He was chic, and with purpose effortlessly cool. He was definitely trendy, but seemingly wore his clothes without care,

Short Biography

He was, by his own account, a freakishly ugly man, blessed with jug ears, narrow eyes and a huge hooter. In Joann Sfar’s biopic, he’s represented by a golem-like puppet that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Count from Sesame Street. So how was it that Serge Gainsbourg managed to seduce some of the world’s most beautiful women?

“I never actually had a relationship with him,” says Marianne Faithfull, who first met Serge in 1965. “But I sometimes wish I had. You could tell that anyone who slept with him would come away very satisfied indeed. Ha ha! He had a wonderful aura of quiet confidence around him, an odd mixture of shyness and arrogance.”

There was certainly no lack of implausibly attractive women who were more than willing. “Serge liked to surround himself with women,” says the actress and singer Jane Birkin, who was married to Gainsbourg in the 1970s. “He was insecure about his looks and felt validated by their attentions.”

 Indeed, it was women who transformed Gainsbourg’s career. None of his early records sold many copies or attracted much attention, but he started to make a name for himself when women started to cover his songs.

The stunning actress and singer Juliette Gréco was the first, releasing an EP of Gainsbourg songs in 1959. But it was the 16-year-old blonde France Gall – one of the country’s new “yé-yé singers” – who transformed his career. After initially dismissing yé-yé – a style of music popular in France and Spain in the 1960s – as “banal”, he started writing for Gall in 1965. “I am a turncoat,” he said. “I turned my coat and I now see that it is made of silk.”

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His first song for her was a chart topper; his next won the Eurovision Song Contest. Later, he got her to sing the innuendo-laden Les Sucettes, about a young girl’s fondness for sucking lollipops.

Gall’s success brought Gainsbourg celebrity, including several movie roles. His songs were covered by the likes of Françoise Hardy, Michèle Arnaud, Valérie Lagrange, Michèle Torr, Régine, Dalida, Barbara, Isabelle Aubret and Brigitte Bardot, not to mention overseas artists such as Petula Clark, Marianne Faithfull, Dionne Warwick and Nico.

The attentions of some of these women infuriated Gainsbourg’s wives. He’d actually been married twice by the mid-1960s. In 1951, aged 23, he married fellow bohemian art student Elisabeth Levitsky. Levitsky came from Russian aristocratic stock and worked as an assistant to Salvador Dalí’s friend, the poet Georges Hugnet. As a result she had access to Dalí’s Paris apartment, which the couple often used as a hurried love nest.

They split and, in 1964, Gainsbourg married the beautiful, if long-suffering, Béatrice Pancrazzi, although they lived separately. By this stage, Gainsbourg had started to stray..

Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot
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One of his affairs was with Brigitte Bardot. Bardot, aged 34, was still a huge star, but her film career appeared to be over. Gainsbourg assisted her transition from film to music, providing Bardot with some memorable psych-pop material. They had a brief, passionate affair, raising his public profile and consolidating his credentials as an unlikely sex symbol. He and Pancrazzi briefly reconciled, and even had a child together, but it wasn’t long before Gainsbourg was on to marriage number three.

Born in 1946, Jane Birkin was an upper-middle-class Englishwoman 18 years younger than Gainsbourg. They met on the set of the film Slogan, in which Serge had a small acting role. Birkin had recently split up with her first husband, the film composer John Barry, and fell for Gainsbourg. “He was mesmerising company,” she says. “His talent and odd sense of shyness seemed to demand affection.”

Their union was not without controversy after they wrote and produced the song ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’ which contained explicit lyrics and orgasmic moans. The song was banned by numerous radio stations including the BBC and the Vatican declared it was ‘offensive’..

Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin

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Together they had a daughter, Charlotte, and also brought up Jane’s earlier daughter, the photographer Kate Barry. They split in 1980, with Birkin citing Gainsbourg’s alcoholism. “He was insupportable, so drunk and so difficult,” she says. “He would come home at 4am and be so drunk he couldn’t get his key in the front door.” She left Gainsbourg for the film director Jacques Doillon.

After the divorce, Gainsbourg was rumoured to be involved with the actress Catherine Deneuve. Instead, he entered into what would end up as the longest relationship of his life, with Bambou, a Eurasian model and singer a quarter-century his junior. They were together until his death in 1991.

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Pictures of Garments & Accessoires by Paul Poiret

After writing about Paul & Denise Poiret the last two weeks, it’s time to show some of his briljant work!!!!

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Le Bal shoes, 1924

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Some pictures can be found on ‘letmefashion.blogspot’:

http://letmefashion.blogspot.nl/2012/01/paul-poiret-king-of-fashion.html

vintage Rootstein mannequin couple
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Rewind to the early 1950’s, when a young Adel Rootstein immigrated to London from South Africa (born in Warmbaths, 1930) to discover the city’s fashion scene in the midst of a glamorous post-WWII revival – a creative wave that would later make way for the likes of Mary Quant, Jean Muir, Ossie Clarke and Barbara Hulanicki’s BIBA. As a window dresser at Aquascutum, Adel grew tired of the faceless forms that stared back at her from under the label’s elegant trench coats. What use were beautiful garments, she thought, if you have only bland and featureless dummies upon which to admire them? Unbeknownst to Adel this question, born of boredom, would dictate her life’s work.

“Adel lived and died in Jean Muir and Mary Quant,” exclaims Kevin Arpino of his late employer, who he describes as a glamorous fixture of the London fashion set, a woman whose personal sense of style and panache remains embedded in the lifeblood of the company. As Adel’s successor after her death in 1992, Kevin has seen over three decades at Rootstein’s London and New York offices, and even turned down Stephen Jones for a position in the makeup department in 1979! Just as well, perhaps?

Twiggy and her mannequin by Rootstein
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“Adel started her company making wigs for windows in her Earl’s Court apartment,” explains Kevin, ushering me through a hallway of partially painted faces above the company’s sleek salon showroom. “She was really breaking boundaries in those days. Her idea was to bring to life the models that were selling clothes in the magazines”. The first model to be sculpted live by her lifelong employee John Taylor in 1968 was a girl called ‘Imogen’ – a slender, exotic figure whose significance has become somewhat lost amongst the bevy of top models Rootstein has since immortalized in fiberglass, plaster and oils. It was Twiggy who put Rootstein truly on the fashion map. “Having a mannequin made is good luck for a model,” says Kevin, “It’s slightly Dorian Gray I think. For us it is more about choosing people who epitomize the time”

Since Twiggy, countless beauties have stood before Rootstein’s sculptors (for hours and days at a time), their sizes and body shapes fluctuating with the trends – from Pat Cleveland, Violetta Sanchez and Joan Collins in the early days through to a young Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss and more recently the flame-haired Canadian beauty Coco Rocha. Their replicas form series comprised of various figures and poses, which are then dressed and displayed for sale in the New York and London showrooms twice a year.

Pat Cleveland mannequin Joan Collins mannequin Jerry Hall mannequin Linda Evangelista mannequin  (comment from JP:  the Linda Evangelista head is not by Rootstein. Linda was made by an artist/fant and placed on a Rootstein body)

Aside from their famous faces, like any savvy fashion designer Rootstein have a commercial collection too – from mannequins with various heel heights to those in reclining or seated poses, glamorous gestural mannequins and more somber styles. All must be considered when working with a solid, fixed form upon which to showcase the dynamic trends of any given era. “I think that the mannequin, when used properly, can give off a very strong image but unfortunately the people who know how to do that are a dying breed,” says Kevin, who labels the mannequin business as a ‘cottage industry’.

Even so, today Rootstein’s regular clients include designers from Tom Ford, Lanvin and Ralph Lauren to high street giants like Zara and department stores from Harvey Nichols to Bergdorf Goodman and the Galeries Lafayette. They’ve worked on exhibitions with the Costume Institute of the Met since the 70’s, including none other than Diana Vreeland’s iconic Yves Saint Laurent retrospective and her Ballets Russes show. Photographers too have entertained a veritable love affair with Rootstein’s static beauties, a fact Kevin is quick to demonstrate with a wall of black and white photographs signed by the two legends. “Helmut Newton loved mannequins, and photographed many of ours. He was obsessed with them and used to collect them. Also David Bailey. We have made mannequins of all his wives!”

Catherine Dyer, fourth and recent wife of David Bailey, with mannequin. ph. David Bailey

All well and good, you may be thinking, but where does one find Stephen Jones amidst Rootstein’s particular cave of wonders? Firstly, Kevin explains, Stephen often makes hats for Rootstein’s showrooms. “When I phone and say ‘I need four hats in two weeks’ he’ll say ‘Oh that’s nothing dear, John (Galliano) used to give me a day!’” Secondly, and despite Stephen’s failed interview back in ‘79, the answer still lies in the makeup room, just upstairs past the wigs.

“The people who work here are artists, not makeup artists,” explains Kevin, of the team of six artisans in their makeup division who, under the watchful guise of head artists John Davis & Judith Fain, apply delicate oil paints to the finished mannequins in a four-day process which includes painting, drying, over-painting and eyelash application. “You may get an order of fifty mannequins and have five artists doing the same makeup. John’s job is to make them all uniform, he’s what you call an overpainter.”

Rootstein mannequin for Biba

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In terms of styles and limitations, “We can do anything,” Kevin regales, “We’ve been inspired by Biba for decades – in fact the next season we’re doing very Biba petrol blue eyes. Actually Barbara (Hulanicki) came in here when she was working on her book recently. Adel originally did all the 1930’s heads for her shops. Barbara was fascinated, and so chuffed”.

Despite recent trends for faceless mannequins somewhat detracting from Rootstein’s demand for made-up faces, new commissions have had the division working overtime – including last year’s worldwide takeover of Louis Vuitton by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, a project that saw the luxury house’s window displays overrun with white tentacles and mannequins (including one of the artist herself) covered in red polka dots. “Every dot had to be in the right position. That was art, you know,” muses Kevin.

Yayoi Kusama mannequin for Louis Vuitton
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Stephen Jones himself commissioned a bevy of busts and heads for an installation last November, when Mrs. Prada took over the Café Royal on London’s Regent Street for her 3-day women’s club called “The Miu Miu”. Charged with decorating the halls of the 3-level interior and one window (the second was offered to another British icon, Dame Vivienne Westwood), Stephen crafted three swirling vortex headpieces that grew out of glossy pink busts, each adorned with an assortment of Miu Miu’s sunglasses, bags and shoes. For the window he turned Mrs. Prada’s skirts upside down as headdresses on the floating heads of Rootstein models like Erin O’Connor, Jade Parfitt and Yasmin Le Bon. “Three weeks before Stephen came in and said ‘You’re going to hate this dear, but what can you do?’” recalls Kevin.

 Stephen Jones for Café Royal, commissioned by Murcia Prada

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“I just love the fact that Stephen is so hands-on,” he enthuses, winding up my tour by bestowing upon Mr. Jones a compliment that clearly reflects his own ardent dedication – not to mannequins or hats, or even fashion itself – but to the weird and wonderful labyrinth and the artisans over which he presides.

 Agyness Deyn mannequin

Jade Parfitt and her mannequin

Coco Rocha and her mannequin
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“Mannequins have been around an awfully long time. They date back to the 1850s if not before. When Adel Rootstein came along in the 60’s she brought youth culture into mannequins, because before – they looked like your mum.”

Kevin Arpino
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As someone who has the desire to document, I become the stable factor in the chaos around me

Robyn Beeche

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Intro

Robyn Beeche moved from Sydney, Australia to London in the mid 1970′s. From catwalk shows to clubs, she captured the leading artists and designers of the time and works extensively with the artists and designers including Zandra Rhodes, Viviënne Westwood, Leigh Bowery and Mary Quant, collaborating with famous make-up artists Richard Sharah, Phyllis Cohen and Richard Sharples. Her Photographs explore a decade of the change in London in the 1980′s.

Since 1985, she has based herself in Northern India, documenting the festivals and culture of region known as Vraj.

make-up Phyllis Cohen, collar by Richard Sharples, courtesy of Vidal Sassoon
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About the documentary

More than seven years ago Australian Filmmaker Lesley Branagan came across Robyn Beeche’s images in a magazine profile and was immediately struck by her work and her story.

And, although Beeche was spending most of her time in India, she happened to be visiting Australia at the time, and they met.

”I instantly knew I wanted to make a film about her,” Branagan says. ”It was the life story, that leap of giving up the commercial success for something deeper in India”, but it was also the power of the images themselves.

Leigh Bowery by Robyn Beeche

Leigh Bowery (right) and Fat Gill as Miss Fuckit, swimwear, Alternative Miss World 1985 Earth

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In London in the ’80s, Beeche was drawn to people who were part of the intersecting worlds of art, music and fashion, and who were fascinated by the possibilities of physical transformation. They included Australian performance artist Leigh Bowery, fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, singer and club figure Steve Strange and artist and provocateur Andrew Logan.

Some of her most striking photographs from this time are of the painted body, the self-transformed with elaborate, detailed tromp l’oeil inventiveness – the body becomes a canvas, a site of exploration, a work of art.

Beeche’s images are often creative collaborations, but they also have a recording imperative. For Branagan, Beeche’s impulse was to put others at the centre, and to build an archive, of their work, of the scene, of the times. ”It was a very useful tendency to have by the time she came to document the festivals in India.”

Zandra Rhodes by Robyn Beeche

Vivienne Lynn for Zandra Rhodes by Robyn Beeche

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It was a collaboration with Rhodes that first led Beeche to India, and to another life and sense of purpose – but always with a camera in her hand. For the past 25 years, she has lived in an ashram at Vrindavan, a pilgrimage city in Uttar Pradesh. And part of her spiritual practice is to document the religious life around her. This can vary from serenity to ecstasy, particularly when it comes to the ancient Hindu festival of Holi, and its kinetic, uninhibited rituals.

For this kind of work, Branagan says, ”You need tenacity, a sense of roundedness, a sense of egolessness, as well as the photographic skills. It’s not about you, you have to surrender to the chaos to get what you can get.”

Beeche is also uniquely placed to understand the religious dimensions of some of the most spectacular, chaotic aspects of what she’s portraying. ”And I think she is trying to capture the transcendence she has experienced herself.”

‘Body deformation’ photographs by Robyn Beeche

At the same time, she adds, Beeche’s endeavour is backed up by hours of hard work. ”It’s incredibly pragmatic, and she has to stay very focused to achieve what she has achieved. She has been there for 25 years and created this large archive as a legacy which scholars from around the world are now accessing.”

It took time, Branagan says, for Beeche to become accustomed to being the subject. Yet she feels that Beeche was ready to have a film made about her. ”She had a couple of approaches around that time, she was starting to have a few exhibitions and retrospectives. I think she felt she was coming to a certain point when somebody could document her life and pull it all together in that way.”

Vivienne Lynn by Robyn Beeche

Japanese model Vivienne Lynn became the mannequin for Willy Brown’s Modern Classics collections, and a beautiful canvas for Richard Sharah’s make-up. 

Vivienne Lynn & make-up artist Richard Sharah

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Interview with Robyn Beeche

You made your mark while living and working in 80s London, in the very thick of the fashion world. Tell us about that era?

Robyn Beeche: There is a saying, “being in the right place at the right time” and to be in London in the 80s was just that. Remembering that there were no computers nor Photoshop and our collaborative pursuit was not for financial gain, we set the parameters to explore each and everyone’s individual talents. I ran my studio as an open house to share and achieve the best possible image and to have a good time doing it. We were propelled on by the street scene and there were no boundaries which creative directors impose, it was freedom to create.

Of course this did not pay the rent so other work had to be found and gradually after the Observer magazine put Sonia Shadows on their front cover, it was the commercial seal of approval and we began to get some advertising work. Working with designers such as Zandra Rhodes, Vivienne Westwood and artists Andrew Logan and Carol McNicoll; it was really very exciting and fulfilling on so many levels. The androgynous Divine became my best friend and what with Andrew Logan’s ‘Alternative Miss World’ events, there was never a dull moment!

Divine by Robyn Beeche

 

Who are some of your favourite designers?

Zandra Rhodes is my favourite designer as her talent is inexhaustible to this day. Her inspiration comes from her environment and her textile design comes from those impressions of landscape or whatever. I loved her 70s designs which carried no buttons or zips — free cloth, moving beautifully. Vivienne Westwood is also a great talent and I would also add Issey Miyake to that list. It is hard not to like Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen. Nowadays I like Manish Arora in India.

As part of your exhibition Fade to Grey, your documentary A Life Exposed – Robyn Beeche: A Photographer’s Transformation will be playing. What can we expect from that?

It is quite daunting to be the subject of a documentary film and to be on the other side of the camera, but Lesley Branagan has done a very good job of weaving all the strands of my life together and after my initial nerves I realise it has had such a good response from the general public and many have written to say how they have been inspired. So that makes me believe that the importance and purpose of sharing my work is for others to perhaps try a different approach to their own photographic talents.

Faces by Robyn Beeche

Mannquin designer Adel Rootstein, 1987

Anand, 1985

Art historian, curator Sir Roy Strong, 1987

Fashion designer Bill Gib, 1987

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Your work is often described as treading a line between fashion photography and art. Is that fair to say?

It is fair to say that my work is often described as treading a line between fashion and art photography. The collection of 80s photographs initially came into the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra via the fashion curator, Robyn Healy. After 30 years some of them are hanging alongside Bill Henson’s work so they have taken on a new meaning, I think, due to the fact that they have a timeless quality and are viewed in a different way. That was always uppermost in my mind when I did the shot; that it had universal appeal and remained timeless.

 

 

What’s been the biggest learning experience in your career?

Learning about myself has been the biggest learning experience in my career. I mean by that, there is so much learning to do with regards to relationships with others and in order to practice my craft this became paramount. India has taught me selfless behaviour and service and they remain the anchors in my life.

 

 

What does ‘fashion’ and ‘creativity’ mean to you?

Fashion means many things to me — a sculptor can fashion a stone into an exquisite piece, a face can be adorned by a ‘fashionable’ look, it does not mean that I should change my wardrobe every season! I believe that everybody possesses ‘creativity’ whether it be a highly priced artist or it can be a craftsman in India designing and creating the most beautiful textile. It is the anonymity which is the key — some have the opportunity of making money from it and some don’t even get exhibited, but the fashion and the creativity which lasts is that which remains so inspirational and if we seek to find it, it is all there.

Faces by Robyn Beeche

 Documentary

A life exposed

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To watch the whole documentary go to: 

http://www.npo.nl/avro-close-up-robyn-beeche-a-life-exposed/09-01-2014/AVRO_1657425

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To buy the dvd go to:  http://alifeexposed.com/

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Book 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Robyn-Beeche-Visage-Stephen-Crafti/dp/1864703121

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Steve Strange was born in 1959 in New Bridge, South Wales as Steven Harrington. He moved to London as a teenager and became active in the punk movement. He hung out in the scene known as The Bromley Contingent, which included acts such as the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie Sioux, and Billy Idol. He worked with Malcolm McLaren, former manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls. The Punk movement helped free creativity and allowed people to express their look through fashion and music.

But eventually, Steve Strange found that Punk was starting to be perceived as unoriginal and that Nazi Punk created a negative political statement. Looking for a way out in 1978, he originally created The Photons.  But he knew The Photons were not going to be a successful band and hated the bright multi-colored suits they wore. When the band The Rich Kids were splitting up and weren’t intending to use the rest of their studio time at EMI, Strange jumped at the chance to get in there and record, which is how Visage started.

The sound was new, and pioneered electronic music. “Fade to Grey” was the band’s first release and most acknowledged song.  The video was extremely low budget.  Trying to come up with a creative idea that would have lots of impact, Strange shaved his body hair and painted himself silver.  A hand-painted snake with glittering scales had the effect of coming to life and turning into Strange.  The crew worked for 36 hours straight on the video to get all the looks and changes.  When it was time to remove the make up and paint, painful Brillo pads were used.

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The first club night that Steve Strange started was a Tuesday night at Billy’s in Soho, London.  This is where the first of the New Romantics hung out, a branch of the New Wave movement.  Strange created an environment of creativity with hairdressers, art students, budding designers and eclectic club kids.

In 1979, he moved his “private party” to the shabby Blitz wine bar off Covent Garden. Outrage secured entry. Inside, precocious 19-year-olds presented an eye-stopping collage, posing away in wondrous ensembles, emphatic make-up and in-flight haircuts that made you feel normality was a sin. Hammer Horror met Rank starlet. Here was Lady Ample Eyefull, there Sir Gesting Sharpfellow, lads in breeches and frilly shirts, white stockings and ballet pumps, girls as Left Bank whores or stiletto-heeled vamps dressed for cocktails in a Berlin cabaret, wicked witches, kohl-eyed ghouls, futuristic man machines.

.“The Blitz ruled people’s lives. Exactly that,” says Stephen Jones, then making hats at St Martin’s School of Art. “A nightclub inspired absolute devotion of the kind previously reserved for a pop idol. I’d find people at the Blitz who were possible only in my imagination. But they were real.”

Shrouding any pleasure in ritual magnifies its intensity and the Blitz was all ritual. Everyone supped and danced on the same spot every week according to some invisible floorplan: downstairs near the bar stood the boys in the band (no make-up), their media and management by the stairs, credible punk legends such as Siouxsie Sioux along the bar, suburban wannabes beside the dancefloor. Deep within the club, around Rusty Egan’s DJ booth, were the dedicated dancing feet, the white-faced shock troops, the fashionista elite – either there or near the cloakroom, ruled first by Julia Fodor (still going strong as DJ Princess Julia) and later by George O’Dowd (less strong today as ex-jailbird Boy George). Downstairs, the women’s loo was hijacked, naturally, by boys who would be girls. Upstairs on the railway banquettes might be respected alumni from an earlier London: film-maker Derek Jarman, artists Brian Clarke and Kevin Whitney, designers Antony Price and Zandra Rhodes.

 George O’Dowd a.k.a. Boy George

Boy George (right) 

No longer a weekly secret society, the Blitz became a publicity machine for the pose age. Attendance became a statement of intent – to lead a life of style seven days a week. When Bowie visited the Blitz he hauled away four of the kids to strut with his pierrot through the video for Ashes to Ashes. It earned each of them £50, helped Bowie to No 1 and launched a fad for Judi Frankland’s ankle-length liturgical robes (inspired, she says, by the nuns in The Sound of Music). Steve Strange helped launch the careers of many artists in the early 80’s through The Blitz Club.  These acts included Depeche Mode, Boy George, Spandau Ballet, Soft Cell, Human League and Duran Duran.  Not since the Beatles had British pop music dominated the charts this strongly in America. With the birth of music videos, MTV brought fashion and music together for the first time in history in a 24 hour format.  . . If you recast the 80s as a subcultural timeline, the decade actually spanned six years. They began in June 1978 when David Bowie’s world tour hit the UK and ended with Do They Know It’s Christmas? in December 1984, when Band Aid confirmed rival groups who had risen on the same wave as a new pop establishment. As clubs became workplaces and nightlife the essential engine of cultural evolution, they liberated music, design and, especially, ambition. In 1978, London offered only one hip club a week; by 1984 Time Out magazine was listing 50, while the British Tourist Authority reported that dancing was a serious reason visitors gave for visiting the UK. London Transport rolled out a whole network of night buses. .

Blitz style/ Blitz kids

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John Galliano & Blitz

Fallen Angel suit

‘My fashion has been a constant evolution of ideas… All that experimental cutting led me to understand precisely how a jacket had been put together in the past; how to put it together correctly in the present and then, from that, I was led to dismantle it and reassemble it in a way that would point to the future.’ Galliano’s final year collection at St Martin’s School of Art was influenced by French revolutionary dress. But, like many art school students, Galliano also found inspiration in London’s night life. ‘The club scene fed me… Being with other creative people like Boy George was a crucial experience for me.’ .

Sketch for Levi Strauss & Co.

In 1986, BLITZ magazine commissioned 22 designers to customise denim jackets provided by Levi Strauss & Co. Fashion Editor Iain R. Webb recalled, ‘The magazine gave us a stage on which to present our version of the world, an alternative way of looking at fashion… The pages of BLITZ were intended to inspire readers to experiment with fashion rather than go shopping’.

Joseph Jumper

Joseph Ettedgui founded the chain of Joseph boutiques in London in 1977, stocking innovative designers such as Katharine Hamnett, John Galliano and BodyMap. He also created the Joseph Tricot knitwear label.

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Stay Alive in 85

Katharine Hamnett was one of the most well known designers of the 1980s. She pioneered the vogue for stylish, casual clothing made in crumpled cottons, parachute silks and stonewashed and stretch denim. Her designs were often based on utilitarian boiler suits and army fatigues. In 1984, Hamnett caused a sensation at a fashion reception hosted by Margaret Thatcher by wearing a T-shirt that read, ’58% Don’t Want Pershing’. Hamnett was protesting against the controversial siting of US Pershing missiles in the UK. Her T-shirts were a platform for her anti-war and Green politics.   .

‘BLITZ’ Denim jackets by Levi Strauss & Co

Leigh Bowery

 Viviënne Westwood

Bodymap: Shaping the 1980s

Amidst the colourful extravagance of 1980s fashion, one label in particular stood out thanks to their pioneering approach to making and showing their creations: BodyMap. 

BLITZ: A History, and the Tale of 22 Jackets

In July 1986, era-defining style magazine BLITZ published an issue featuring images of 22 Levi’s denim jackets that had been customised by some of the world’s most lauded designers – Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano and Katherine Hamnett among them. 

BLITZ founder and publisher Carey Labovitch and the magazine’s fashion editor, Iain R. Webb speak about the thrills of setting the magazine up, its unique editorial approach and give us the full story behind the designer denim jacket project.

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Book

.  “Like the lightning in its name, it struck us in 1980 and kept us spellbound the whole decade. ‘Too fast to live, too young to die’, that is BLITZ for me. Every month we would run to the news stand to be ‘BLITZed’ with irreverent, glamorous, chic and iconic images. BLITZ was Iain R. Webb’s brainchild that corresponded perfectly to the era; it was one of its best expressions. He used emblematic faces that were so inspiring, and that I used for my shows, like Martine Houghton, who later became a photographer. BLITZ, we miss you but we are ready for your attack again!” Jean Paul Gaultier In London at the start of the 1980s, three new style magazines emerged to define an era. It was a time of change: after Punk, before the digital age, and at the dawn of a hedonistic club scene that saw the birth of the New Romantics. On the pages of BLITZ, The Face and i-D, a new breed of young iconoclasts hoped to inspire revolution. As BLITZ magazine’s fashion editor from 1982-87, Iain R. Webb was at the center of this world. His images manipulated fashion to explore ideas of transformation, beauty, glamor and sex. The magazine’s arresting, subversive fashion pages, and its profiles of disparate designers and creative types, let the imagination run free. Lavishly presented here are over 100 BLITZ fashion stories, with previously-unseen archive content, original images and tear-sheets. A separate section features original BLITZ interviews with the key designers, and there is also a vast amount of completely new material: Iain R. Webb has gathered the memories of those involved into a gripping oral history of an under-documented time. Characters and contributors include: Leigh Bowery, Amanda Cazalet, Boy George, Princess Julia, Nick Knight, David LaChapelle, Paul Morley and Anna Piaggi. Featured designers include Bodymap, Judy Blame, Dean Bright, Comme Des Garçons, Jasper Conran, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Katharine Hamnett, Hermès, Pam Hogg, Marc Jacobs, Stephen Jones, Calvin Klein, Andrew Logan, Issey Miyake, Franco Moschino, Vivienne Westwood, and many more. .    

 Steve Strange and Rusty Egan, partners in the Blitz Club, (2009)

. . info: V&A museum site, http://www.theblitzclub.com,  David Johnson for The Observer &  Nancy Black  for http://www.thefashionspot.com  (STEVE STRANGE, STYLE ICON PART 1 and 2)  

Intro

In many ways Antony Price made Roxy Music the in crowd that they used to sing about. Often called the silent member, he created a look ahead of its time: fetish wear fused with fantasy, the 80s long before the 70s were over. He created the visuals for their album covers. He shaped Bryan Ferry into a style icon in shiny matinee idol suits – a little bit military, a little bit Dietrich. He designed high-waisted trousers with intriguing seams up the bottom and called them “arse pants”. 

Mr. Price also dressed Gayla Mitchell for the infamous back-cover shot of Lou Reed’s Transformer album. A decade later he created the highly stylised look of Duran Duran – Nick Rhodes had been obsessed with Roxy Music. He made Jerry Hall look like a mermaid throughout the 70s and 80s. He could deal with all sexes and shapes; he knew how to “get the best out of the flesh”. He cut to create illusion.

Antony Price & Jerry Hall
Roxy Music album cover

Brian Ferry wearing Antony Price designed suit
David Bowie wearing Antony Price designed suit
Back-cover of Transformer by Lou Reed.
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Antony Price is known as “the doctor”. He listens to women’s body problems and his clothes perform a kind of surgery. He is famous for making body doubles out of chicken wire on which to base his couture creations. “I’m the man who has spent 40 years measuring and studying women’s bodies. Not just thin women. Everyday real women. Real bosoms. Real problems. Women who have no tits and want them, and women who want them smaller. I build frocks.”

“He reinvented the suit so that it was no longer about going to the office. He made it rock’n’roll. He started at a time when British fashion didn’t have sponsors. It was the era before the superstar designer. They all came after him. Yet he was a visionary. He created that military, dandy, sexy, eclectic men’s look. He created rock’n’roll fashion.”      (stylist David Thomas)

Short biography

Antony Price (born in 1945) graduated from the Royal College of Art 40 years ago, just after David Hockney and Ossie Clark, and was a perfectionist even then. He would hide from the caretaker so he could stay in college and machine all night. When he graduated he was recruited to the Stirling Cooper group, which was at the heart of fashion in the 60s.

Prudence Glynn, fashion editor for The Times tipped him as a major new fashion talent in ‘Trendsetters’, giving him the main picture and writing that ‘Antony Price is a sensational cutter and he puts a lot of work and thought into the shaping of even the most casual clothes. His range of little bare tops in crepe and cotton, for example, are technical feats, for they all have bra sections cut into the pattern … he is undoubtedly a trendsetter and in advance of his time … his clothes have great wit and gaiety and he is certainly a name to be watched in the future’. 

Before long Mr. Price was styling the Rolling Stones, Roxy Music, David Bowie and was responsible for the controversial back cover photo of Lou Reed’s ‘Transformer’ album, featuring a model with a cucumber down his trousers.  His button trousers for Stirling Cooper were worn by Mick Jagger for The Rolling Stones’ 1969 American Gimme Shelter Tour. In addition, his bridge-crutch trousers were feat of technical skill, inventing a new construction that high-lighted the male crotch and buttocks. 

Harpers & Queen 1979, drawing of the bridge-crutch trousers

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Mr. Price has been credited as the chief illusionist of what he dubbed “the Roxy Machine” and contributed to all eight album covers – something which can be boasted by no-one besides Bryan Ferry himself. The manner in which Mr.Price dressed – or in many cases, undressed – the “Roxy girls” on the covers of their albums helped to define the band’s pop retro-futurism.

He joined the Plaza Clothing Company in 1972, which specialised in the mass production of garments in retailers in the United Kingdom and abroad. Portugal. He spent 5 years working in Portuguese factories concentrating on developing ranges of stretch garments that sold in extremely large quantities to all major fashion outlets..

Antony Price drawings

In 1979 Mr. Price and his business partner Richard Cunninghmam (Head of Sales at Plaza) began a 15 year business relationship and took over the Plaza shop launching his own label, Antony Price, with shops in SouthMolton Street and on the King’s Road, which became the centre for Rock and Roll Glamour for the stars and also involved major interest from various magazines; Vogue, Tatler and Harpers and Queen. The blue glass exterior of the shop was hailed in high esteem by retail architects and the media as it had a revolutionary method of visual merchandising, i.e. the clothes were displayed as art within the store. The window was a huge television/cinema screen displaying controversial fashion images of the clothes sold within.

He also operated a shop called ‘Ebony’ in the 1980s. And in 1982 he collaborated with the British band Duran Duran, designing electric silk tonic suits for the “Rio” video.

A few years later, in 1984, Mr. Price staged another ‘Fashion Extravaganza’ at the London’s Hippodrome, combining fashion and rock music. “I’m partly responsible for the marriage of rock and fashion,” he said in 1998, “When I started out, rock people thought fashion people were snobby and fashion people though the music industry grubby and dirty.”

Antony Price received the ‘Evening Glamour Award’ from the British Fashion Council in 1989 and the following year British Vogue published a profile on Price written by Sarah Mower. He was widely considered to be a frontrunner in the search to replace Gianni Versace in 1998, after that designer’s untimely death.

Like the rediscovery of Celia Birtwell, Topshop’s Topman brought out three Antony Price collections (s/s 2009, a/w 2009 & a/w 2010), called Priceless, which were only on sale in the UK and the US. He also assisted Daphne Guinness on her eponymous line of exquisitely tailored shirts for Dover Street Market.

He continues to design clothing for the elite, including the Duchess of Cornwall. In May 2012, he dressed actress Tilda Swinton for her appearance in drag for the cover of Candy magazine, described as “the first fashion magazine completely dedicated to celebrating transvestism, transexuality, crossdressing and androgyny in all their glory.”

The secret to his success? Antony Price is a master tailor, incredibly adept at sculpting and moulding the body to perfection. Not for him size zero waifs, his dresses are created for women who have curves – and aren’t afraid to show them off in figure hugging, eye-catching dresses. The likes of Alexander McQueen and Roland Mouret have plenty to thank him for.

Antony Price for Topman

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Antony Price has remained unfinanced through out his entire career trying to compete against his French and Italian counterparts in the glamorous couture end of the Fashion industry. It has been a notoriously difficult journey, but Price fights on.

By his own admission, “It has not been easy.”

Brian Ferry & Antony Price
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“He is one of the most remarkably gifted people I have ever met, and an authority on a bewildering range of subjects. He is a master craftsman – quite rare in this day and age – and has quietly exerted an enormous influence on so many people. Although most of his work has been associated with urban nightlife, he is surprisingly a man of nature, an expert on exotic plants and rare birds and the niceties of human behaviour. To those who know him he is a constant source of amusement. In times of adversity, an incredibly loyal friend.”    (Brian Ferry).
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Jerry Hall & her Antony Price wedding dress (marriage to Mick Jagger)

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Annie Lennox dressed by Antony Price

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The exquisite designs by Antony Price can be ordered on :  http://www.antonyprice.com

 Antony Price & Christopher Kane for Vogue 2006. Ph. by David Bailey

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 info: article by Chrissy Iley for The Guardian  & Wikipedia

Trompe l’oeil was originally used as an artistic term and literally translates from the French to mean “fools the eye”. As painting this meant photo-like drawings with proper sizing and a great amount of detail, in fashion terms it refers to something which appears to have detailing, such as a belt, a tie or a complete garment, but is actually just drawn on, knitted in or printed on.

Elsa Schiaparelli Trompe l’oeil sweaters, 1927

Martin Margiela  trompe l’oeil wardrobe 

Maison Martin Margiela s/s 2014

Comme Des Garçons trompe l’oeil

Moschino  Trompe l’oeil

Vintage Trompe l’oeil

 Trompe l’oeil divers

Paul Smith Trompe l’oeil Duffle coat print tee dress

 Trompe l’oeil in body painting

Introduction

Roxanne Lowit did not go to school to be a photographer. She graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York with a degree in art history and textile design. It was during her successful career as a textile designer that she realized something. “I paint and there were people who I wanted to sit for me but had no time, so I started taking pictures of them. I liked the gratification of getting the instant image so I traded in my paintbrushes for a camera.” 

Roxanne started making pictures in the late 70s with her 110 Instamatic, photographing her own designs at the New York fashion shows. Before long she was covering all the designers in Paris where her friends – models like Jerry Hall – would sneak her backstage. It was there that she found her place (and career) in fashion. “For me, that’s where it was happening,” she says. “No one thought there was anything going on backstage, so for years I was alone and loved it. I guess I made it look too good because now it’s so crowded with photographers. But there’s enough room for everybody.”

One of her earliest ‘memorable moments’ was that first time she went to Paris to cover the shows. Roxanne magically ended up on the top of the Eifel Tower with Yves Saint Laurent, Pat Cleveland and Andy Warhol. She felt star struck and blissed out. That could have been the moment she said to herself  ‘I want to do this all the time!’  And decided to make it her career, her metier.

In december 2009, Roxanne Lowit published the amazing ‘Backstage Dior’, a collection of photographs taken over ten years backstage the Dior runway and haute couture shows, all during the reign of John Galliano 

Backstage Dior

http://www.amazon.com/Backstage-Dior-Roxanne-Lowit/dp/3832793461

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Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent & Karl Lagerfeld

“I have been inspired by many designers in my day, but Yves Saint Laurent was the first designer who really wowed me. Not only as a designer, but as a man. He was a bit of an enigma, mysterious, a bit aloof, but always polite courteous and friendly. He had a very unique vision, his lines were unlike any other.”  

Roxanne Lowit

Book description

Yves Saint Laurent is a name synonymous with style, elegance and high fashion. When he came on the scene at Dior and then started his own line, he quickly changed the way people regarded haute couture and the world of fashion itself. He revolutionized womens eveningwear when he introduced le smoking, a womans tuxedo. He had a huge impact not only on fashion, but also on many people’s lives, including that of photographer Roxanne Lowit. Yves Saint Laurent is Lowits personal photographic history of Saint Laurent, the man and the fashion, from 1978, the year she first met him, to the last show he gave in 2002. With contributions from YSLs muses and admirers, including Catherine Deneuve, Lucie de la Falaise, Betty Catroux, Jacqueline de Ribes, Andre Leon Talley and Valerie Steele, this book represents the backstage experience at YSLs shows as Lowit experienced them. Whether surrounded by beautiful models or peeking at the catwalk from the wings, every moment was a magnificent photo opportunity. Lowit shares with the world magical moments of YSL intimate, social, absorbed in fashion and creates a unique portrait of this towering figure of postwar couture. This book will be coveted by Yves Saint Laurents many fans worldwide and by anyone interested in the very best of high fashion.

The book will be out in Fall of 2014.

Pre order:   http://www.amazon.com/Yves-Saint-Laurent-Roxanne-Lowit/dp/0500517606/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403256233&sr=1-1

Paloma Picasso (born Anne Paloma Ruiz-Picasso y Gilot in Paris on 19 April 1949)  is the youngest daughter of Pablo Picasso and painter and writer Françoise Gilot. Paloma’s older brother is Claude Picasso (born 1947). .

‘My parents always taught me that I have to be my own person. At the same time when you have such parents and such a name you don’t want people to associate the two. When I got to be 14 or 15 it started making me feel very nervous. For a number of years I wouldn’t touch a pencil for anything other than writing, I was so afraid I might become an artist.’

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Childhood photographs Paloma Picasso & Family

Françoise Gilot & Pablo Picasso

Françoise Gilot & Pablo Picasso, ph.Robert Doisneau

Paloma, Pablo & Claude Picasso

Claude, Pablo, Fran;coise & Paloma, 1953

Paloma, Claude & Pablo, 1956

Pablo & Paloma Picasso

Paloma Picasso

Paloma Picasso

Claude, Pablo & Paloma Picasso

Pablo Picasso with his daughter Paloma, 1960s

The Young Picasso’s (Paloma & Claude) by Richard Avedon, 1966

And then she became the IT girl…

Paloma Picasso had never had the luxury of escaping notice. Carrying the name of one of the most celebrated artists of the twentieth century was no small burden for a young girl coming of age. “I was very shy and having the name meant that I could never just go and be myself,” she once said. “I decided to start dressing up in a way to shift the attention from the person I was to what I was wearing. It became like a shield.”

Paloma Sphynx—her mother’s nickname for her—became the coolly confident IT girl who held her own at the center of the French art, theater, and fashion worlds. “Her dresses were copied, choices followed, appearance imitated”. Among her most ardent admirers were Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. (That she managed to straddle the divide between the warring superstars was a coup of considerable grace in and of itself—but, after all, Paloma was named after the dove her father drew for the 1949 World Peace Conference.) On her wedding day, she wore Saint Laurent’s white Spencer jacket, ruffled red silk blouse, and red gauntlet gloves. For the candlelit banquet that followed at Lagerfeld’s eighteenth-century salon, she slipped into his heart-shaped dress of scarlet satin; later, revelers headed to Le Palace to watch female wrestlers tussle to the strains of Carmen in a ring decorated like a giant wedding cake. Filled with glee and goodwill,Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent forgot their feud and danced the flamenco together.

Paloma in her vintage 40s style

Paloma Picasso & Xavier de Castelle at Le Privilege, 1983  ph.Roxanne lowit

Paloma Picasso, in YSL, and Rafael Lopez-Sanchez wed in 1978

Karl Lagerfeld, Paloma & husband Rafael Lopez-Sanchez 

Paloma & Rafael

Paloma wearing Karl Lagerfeld

Paloma Picasso & Yves Saint Laurent

Paloma Picasso & Andy Warhol, ph. Jean Paul Goude

Paloma Picasso, ph. Helmut Newton

Paloma wearing YSL & her own jewelry

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Beyond her status as a seventies fashion fascination, Picasso became an accomplished designer of jewelry and accessories. She began by creating costumes for avant-garde theatrical productions, stringing necklaces with rhinestones plucked from Folies Bergère bikinis. Soon, her sculpted wings and shooting stars—and other bijoux hand-soldered in her Paris loft—were being commissioned by Yves Saint Laurent as house exclusives.

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The Scandal Collection

Yves was very inspired by Paloma Picasso, who liked to dress from flea markets. In the 1970s young Parisian’s were reviving the fashions worn by their mothers, wearing turbans and picking up forties clothes in flea markets. Seventies Chic. At the time, people weren’t at all used to seeing vintage. 

Yves always cited “the fashion on the street” as his greatest influence; he was quick to tune in to the trends of the time and give them an aristocratic allure. “From the end of the war through the ’60s, not much changed in the world of high fashion,” said Serge Carrera (an employee of YSL) in France magazine, “then with one collection, Yves Saint Laurent upended everything and made fashion fresh by borrowing elements from the past and mixing turbans with prints. All of a sudden, fashion moved toward the realm of spectacle.”

Yves Saint Laurent, Scandal Collection


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But  a couturier was supposed to invent something new and for the French, these silhouettes evoke the Occupation as well as the gay camp aesthetic of Warhol’s drag queens and the gay liberation movement. The press was outraged. Yves openly dismissed the critics as “narrow-minded and reactionary, petty people paralysed by taboos” and denigrated couture as “a museum” that was “bogged down in a boring tradition of so-called good taste and refinement.”

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Paloma Picasso, ph.Mario Sorrenti Vogue Paris Mars 2009

Pat McGrath, ph Steven Meisel

Short Biography

Pat McGrath is born in 1970. She was raised by her mother, Jean McGrath, a Jamaican immigrant, in Northampton. Pat didn’t have a formal training as a make-up artist, but she did become one of the most influential ones in the fashion industry.

Pat says her mother, who was a keen follower of fashion, is the one who stimulated her creativity.The two made a habit of studying classic Hollywood films, which Pat cites as a key to her ultimate success . Jean would quiz her daughter on different shades of eye shadow.  “She trained me, basically, to do the shows, right there… look at the pattern, check the fabrics, look for the make-up – and begin.”   “She was always mixing up colours because there wasn’t anything out there for black skin.”

She has described her upbringing as “very religious, very conservative” and has spoken of her teenage fascination with the Blitz Kids – Boy George, Marilyn, Spandau Ballet – all of whom were famed for their outré make-up and whom she used to follow around the King’s Road. “We thought we were New Romantics, we’d get changed on the train and try to get into all those clubs,” she told the Guardian in 2008.

After leaving school, Pat completed an art foundation course at Northampton College. She had planned to undertake a fashion degree but abandoned this when she met the stylist Kim Bowen, who invited her along to watch her work on shoots for The Face and i-D. Her big break came when she received a phone call asking her to go on tour in Japan with Caron Wheeler from Soul II Soul, whose make-up she had done one afternoon three years previously as a favour for a friend. “I left my job and went to Japan for three months, scared to death. I cried all the way there because I’d never been on a plane before and I was terrified.”  This opportunity led to McGrath working with i-D magazine’s fashion director Edward Enninful and subsequently, being named beauty director for the title – a position which she holds to this day.

The drama of Pat’s work is a reflection of her larger-than-life personality. She can create fantasy at the drop of a hat and is known for arriving backstage armed with at least 20 cases of ammunition, from standard-issue mascara to sequins, doilies, and art books.

Additionally, she designed Armani’s cosmetics line in 1999 and in 2004, and in 2009 for Dolce & Gabbana, was named global creative-design director for Procter and Gamble, where she is in charge of Max Factor and Cover Girl cosmetics, among other brands.

In the 2013 Queen Elizabeth II’s New Year Honors List,Pat McGrath was “named an MBE, or Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to the fashion and beauty industry.”

“Everything goes into fashion, it isn’t just makeup. . . . It’s film, TV, history of art, books, clubs. The culture.”

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Lisbeth Salander

Pat McGrath also designed the makeup for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”,Lisbeth Salander, one of my favorite movie characters and transition: to make the porcelain-faced Rooney Mara into a stone-cold punk computer hacker, her eyebrows were bleached and her hair dyed black. It made her become this dark, androgynous, and mysterious loner.

Rooney Mara

Keeping the look minimal, as a real tomboy would, Pat focused mainly on shaping the eyes with smoky shadow and bare skin (“There was no foundation. I wanted her skin to be translucent and for it to change color in the cold. In fact, the most beautiful scene is when she was actually very cold.”) The trick was to take black and brown eye colors and add a tiny drop of red—that created a look that was vulnerable but hard and strong.

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Pat McGrath & Anna Piaggi 

info: Vogue UK & Voguepedia

Veruschka, Richard Avedon & Polly Mellen
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In 1966 Vogue did something extraordinary: a team was to Japan in the middle of winter to shoot perhaps the most epic fashion story of all time. The editorial was pre- PETA and it was dedicated to the beauty of furs. 

This editorial is often credited to Diana Vreeland, who was the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief at the time, but actually the editor on this story was Polly Mellen. It was one of her first assignments for Vogue and she set about on the five-week trip to Japan with supermodel Veruschka and legendary photographer Richard Avedon.

Fifteen trunks of clothes are hauled into the snow-covered mountains. Hairstylist Ara Gallant creates a wig eight feet long for Veruschka; Vreeland’s response when she sees the wig is, “I want 20 feet!”

“The Great Fur Caravan. A Fashion Adventure Starring the Girl in the Fabulous Furs Photographed for Vogue in the Strange Secret Snow Country of Japan…” took up a whopping 26 pages in the October 1966 issue. The Girl character was first introduced in the January 1963 issue as an idealized version of Diane Vreeland, sort of a dreamer, an adventurer. In Japan, the Girl takes a first class train to the middle of nowhere, where she explores the glorious snow mountains in her “fabulous” furs, and eventually falls in love with a gentle Japanese giant. It’s not like the story needed to make a lot of sense. It was dreamy and fantastical, and the type of travel story that Vreeland liked to entertain Vogue readers with. “The eye has to travel,” she famously said. Years later, Avedon remarked, “it’s without content. It’s without any meaning in it. It’s just this exquisite creature. Diana imagined her walking through the snows of Japan.”

The story is rumoured to have cost $1 million dollars back in the day — that would be equal to $7 million today. But that’s how legends are made.

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Polly Mellen by Richard Avedon, 2002

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Polly Mellen , today 90 years old, helped create some of the most indelible imagery in the history of fashion. Her work as a stylist and editor, first under the legendary Diana Vreeland at Harper’s Bazaar, and later under both Vreeland and Grace Mirabella at Vogue, helped define a new, more modern ethos about clothes and how women wore them.

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Short Biography

Polly Allen Mellen was born in Connecticut, in 1924. She attended Miss Porter’s School for girls,in the early ‘40s, and later work as a nurse’s aid at an Army hospital in Virginia during WWII. 

In 1949 she moved to New York and became salesgirl at Lord & Taylor and a fashion editor at Mademoiselle. Soon after she was introduced to Diana Vreeland, then a fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar and joins her at the magazine, where she will meet her future longtime creative collaborator, Richard Avedon. At first he is not keen on working with Polly, he finds her “to noisy”. She also worked with Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Arthur Elgort, and, more recently, Mario Testino, Steven Meisel, and Steven Klein.

Later Avedon stated: “From Vreeland’s rib came Polly Mellen,”  of the longtime Vogue fashion stylist, “from that day on, Eden never looked better” and “She was the most creative sittings editor I ever worked with.”

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Bathhouse by Deborah Turbeville

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Polly marries her first husband Louis Bell in 1952, moves to Philadelphia and has two children. After she and Louis divorced (1962), she meets Henry Wigglesworth Mellen, who becomes het second husband in 1965.

A year later she returns to New York to work for Diana Vreeland as a fashion editor at Vogue, and rekindles creative partnership with Avedon. There first collaboration for Vogue is a five week trip to Japan where they produce ‘The Great Fur Caravan’ ( read & see the post of last week!). When in 1971, Diane Vreeland leaves Vogue, Polly carries on under editor in chief Grace Mirabella and in 1979, she becomes fashion director of Vogue,  . .

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Nastassja Kinski 

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.In 1991 Polly joins the staff of new Condé Nast beauty magazine Allure as creative director. Two years later she receives a lifetime achievement award at age 68 from the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America, Inc.) and makes a memorable, nostalgic cameo appearance in Douglas Keeve’s fashion-industry documentary, “Unzipped.” More than ever, fans appreciated her on-air grandiosity and declarations of fashion truisms.

After a brief freelance period of two years, Polly retires from styling in 2001, 

In addition to producing unforgettable fashion stories, Polly was also inspiring young fashion talent, mentoring at-the-time-newcomers including Vera wang, Nicolas Ghesquière (whom she spotted already when he was an intern for Jean Paul Gaultier), Isaac Mizrahi, and Phoebe Philo, as well as future hair and makeup stars François Nars and Garren. Considered eccentric by some people, she was committed to never being “over it” when it came to fashion. She became known at runway shows as the editor who, when excited  by a collection, would raise her hands high above her head and clap long and loud.

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Various work by Polly Mellen

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Unzipped (1995)

Isaac Mizrahi, one of the most successful designers in high fashion, plans his fall 1994 collection. He combines inspirations such as the Hollywood Eskimo look, the Mary Tyler Moore show, and Ouija-derived advise like “dominatrix mixed with Hitchcock” into a well-received collection. A behind-the-scenes look at the creative side of fashion.

Isaac Mizrahi.

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Deborah Turbeville was born in Massachusetts and raised in New England. When she was twenty years old she moved to New York City to become a sample model and assistant for  designer Claire McCardell, who will later  introduce her to Diana Vreeland . Having a fond interest in designer clothing Deborah became a fashion editor, but not long after she realized that her heart was in photography. She has been taking amazing photographs ever since.

Unseen Versailles

She begins work on Unseen Versailles, a book dreamed up by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, an editor at Doubleday, in 1979. “I wanted her to conjure up what went on there,” Jacqueline later tells People magazine, “to evoke the feeling that there were ghosts and memories.”  Despite having encountered a beautiful restored palace when she arrived to scout it, Deborah delivers—after two years of research and work—just the haunting imagery that Jacqueline had envisioned. “I destroy the image after I’ve made it, obliterate it a little so you never have it completely there,” Deborah says. Alexander Liberman, editorial director of Condé Nast publications, calls Unseen Versailles “a pioneering breakthrough in photography.” It wins the American Book Award.

She remains consistently popular with fashion editors, working continuously with Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and W Magazine, shooting for Ungaro, Karl Lagerfield and Valentino, in the meantime receiving personal requests from personalities such as Jackie Kennedy. Taking photographs for more than 30 years, her aesthetic has never changed. Deborah divides her time between New York and Mexico and always spent a great deal of time in St. Petersburg, Russia, the city that inspires her most.

The Fashion Pictures

From internationally acclaimed photographer Deborah Turbeville comes the first book on her highly influential visionary avant-garde fashion photography. Celebrated for her poetic grace and cinematic vision, Deborah Turbeville has produced fashion tableaux that draw the viewer into her otherworldly environments. A romantic and modernist, Turbeville bridges the boundaries between commercial fashion and fine arts photography. In this remarkable presentation, Turbeville reveals her highly individualistic point of view of fashion photography and the stories behind her photographs. 

This first retrospective presentation of Turbeville’s fashion photography was selected by the artist herself. In addition, she has designed the evocative layouts to create yet another masterwork. The presentation includes Turbeville’s most famous photographs, among them the controversial Bathhouse series of 1975 for American Vogue with disturbingly isolated figures and her Woman in the Woods series of 1977 for Italian Vogue showing psychologically charged emotions, along with her numerous photography campaigns for labels like Sonia Rykiel, Valentino, Yamamonto, Ungaro, and Commes des Garçons, as well as commissions for Chanel and work that has never been seen before. Her most current project for Casa Vogue–Italian nobility dressed in special couture outfits–evokes Turbeville’s vision of everlasting beauty.

http://www.amazon.com/Deborah-Turbeville-The-Fashion-Pictures/dp/0847834794

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Info for this story: Another Magazine & Voguepedia.

Next week:  More Work by Deborah Turbeville