Long overdue

Michael Clark by Michael Bracewell and Suzanne Cotter

Violette Editions 7th June, 2010


Notorious for his continually subversive takes on classical dance, Michael Clark is without doubt one of the most important dancers and choreographers of our time. He has created some of contemporary dances finest productions, often using leftfield rock music (most famously in his fantastic collaboration with The Fall, I Am Kurious, Oranj). Situated at the heart of the British post-punk art scene, Clark is much admired for his judicious choice of collaborators, such as designers Bodymap and Hussein Chalayan, artists Cerith Wyn Evans, Leigh Bowery, Charles Atlas and Sarah Lucas, film director Peter Greenaway (Clark played Caliban in Prosperos Books) and bands The Fall, Laibach and Wire. This monograph, the first on this major artist, celebrates the whole of Michael Clark's career to date, from the late 1970s to the present. Rich in visual and archival material, it contains new essays on Clark's work, reprints of key texts and journalism, photography by Nick Knight, David LaChappelle and others, plus interviews with many of Clark's collaborators from the worlds of dance, art, fashion and music. A protege of Richard Alston and Karol Armitage, Michael Clark set up his own dance company in 1984, at the age of 22. He immediately won the admiration of Rudolf Nureyev, who commissioned ballets from Clark for the repertoire at the Paris Opera. Clark has also been the subject of numerous films and documentaries, including the fictional biography Hail the New Puritans by Charles Atlas and The Late Michael Clark, directed by Sophie Fiennes. Michael Clark's new ballet opens in June at the Biennale in Venice, and travels to Edinburgh, Stockholm, Paris and, in late October, to the Barbican in London.










Michael Clark in collaboration with Leigh Bowery


Now playing: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - More News From Nowhere

Like Alice, through the looking glass

Boissiere House
Port of Spain, Trinidad

In Trinidad, a Painted Lady in Distress
The New York Times




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Now playing: Sade - In Another Time
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Le japonais

Self portrait, Paul Jacoulet


Paul Jacoulet (1896-1960) the French born artist best known for his Japanese woodblock portraits. Following in the tradition of ukiyo-e printmaking, Jacoulet was able to reproduce, and transform, his delicate line drawings and watercolours.




Trois Coreen, Seoul, Coree



Le Bonze Errant, Coree




La Mariee, Seoul, Coree



Le Marie, Seoul, Coree




Le Tabouret de Porcelaine, Mandochoukuo



Les Paradisiers, Mendo, Celebes





Ryuichi Sakamoto - Forbidden Colours

Easily said...

Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical. - Sophia Loren



White lie:
A white lie would cause only relatively minor discord if it were uncovered, and typically offers some benefit to the hearer. White lies are often used to avoid offense, such as complimenting something one finds unattractive. In this case, the lie is told to avoid the harmful realistic implications of the truth.



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Now playing: Grace Jones - Hollywood Liar
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Bijoux

632. A Pair of 18k Gold and Jade Earrings with Diamonds and Pink Sapphires

Perfect for an autumn ensemble of olive tweed, aubergine wool and amethyst silk.





501. A Pair of Spanish Colonial 18k Gold and Pearl Earrings

A black column of wool or cashmere jersey would do nicely for these.





582. A Pair of 18k Diamond and Ruby Cufflinks

Far too louche for a man, but perfect for a woman in a man's Sulka silk dress shirt with a set of ruby dress studs.





415. An 18k Gold and Diamond Bamboo Design Bangle Bracelet

One would be nice, but three would be better.



Jewelry should always have a little oomph.



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Now playing: Queen - Bijou
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Dresser of souls

Lady Duff Gordon




Lucile: London, Paris, New York and Chicago








Stage costume by Lucile, circa 1915



For me there was a positive intoxication in taking yards of shimmering silks, laces as airy as gossamer and lengths of ribbons, delicate and rainbow-coloured, and fashioning of them garments so lovely that they might have been worn by a princess in a fairy-tale. - Lucile


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Now playing: Claude Debussy - Clouds
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Winter requisites

Gucci laced up creeper styled boot with zippered side closure.




DSquared ankle boots.





Ambre Russe by Parfums d'Empire
A blend of leather, birch wood and amber. With top notes of vodka, champagne and Asian pepper. Available from London's Les Senteurs.

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Now playing: Ocean Colour Scene - The Riverboat Song
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Au revoir salonnière

Pierre Balmain and Ruth Ford, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, November 1947


Ruth Elizabeth Ford (1911-2009)

When Cecil Beaton's biographer Hugo Vickers visited her at the Dakota in 1981, she detained him at the door of her apartment. "Now, there's something I must tell you which embarrasses me very much," she said. "Cecil once described me as one of the 10 most beautiful women in the world." She then slipped back into her apartment and the door closed behind her.

Taken from her obituary as it appeared in The Daily Telegraph on August 17, 2009.




Portrait of Charles Henri Ford in Poppy Field painted by his lover Pavel Tchelitchew, 1933


The Brookhaven, Mississippi native had originally followed her brother, the artist Charles Henri Ford, to New York in the 1930s.

After I saw New York, what the hell was I going to do in Mississippi? Marry a shoe salesman?, she once asked.

Aside from her numerous modeling, film, and stage credits Ruth Ford was better known for the salon that she created in her apartment in the famed Dakota building. It was here that she entertained literary greats such as Faulkner, Albee, and McNally to name but a few. It was also here that a chance meeting between Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents would lead to their collaboration with Leonard Bernstein on West Side Story. And finally, it was here she would become a recluse - speaking to friends only by telephone. It's easier this way, she said. I don't bother to dress.




Trailer for Adventure in Iraq (1943) with Ruth Ford as Tess Torrence



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Now playing: The Beauty Room - Shades of Yesterday
via FoxyTunes

Precious

Green Tourmaline and 18K Gold Box
By Manfred Wild
Idar-Oberstein, Germany
Of Baroque design, mounted with broad borders of 18K yellow gold, the hinged lid and body of the box each formed of a single piece of Brazilian green tourmaline of the finest quality having a brilliant saturation of color and a high degree of transparency, with a sizeable weight of approximately 438.0 carats, signed M. Wild, length 2 ¾ in.

Bonhams


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Now playing: Annie Lennox - Precious
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Preaching to the choir

In the matter of furnishing, I find a certain absence of ugliness far worse than ugliness. - Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

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Now playing: Jason Mraz - The Beauty In Ugly
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More ways to waste time

Arabesque (1966) - Trailer


Arabesque (1966), the stylish romantic thriller starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren.

An American hieroglyphics expert, Professor David Pollock (Peck), is hired by a mysterious oil magnate by the name of Beshraavi (played by Alan Badel) to decipher a secret message. When the hidden meaning is revealed, the chase is on as he and the oil magnate's exotic yet unpredictable companion, Yasmin Azir (Loren), find themselves caught in the middle of a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister.



Scene with Sophia Loren and Alan Badel


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Before the fall

Where, oh where Imelda, did it all go so terribly, terribly wrong?

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Now playing on iTunes: Mark Knopfler - Imelda
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Algo más

Something more of Ruven Alfanador, matillas, and Spain.

These large scaled photographs were part of the of the exhibition Mil besos by Ruven Alfanador promoting the 2008 XV Bienal del Flamenco. A total of sixty-four images lined the streets of Seville.

Images from El País and Holas Crayolas

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Now playing on iTunes: Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Dancing in the Street
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Goddess

Tilda Swinton wearing Lanvin at the 81st Annual Academy Awards.
Note, it is not Lanvin wearing Tilda Swinton. A lesson a good many of the Hollywood set (and those who take their cues from them) should heed. Neither over styled, nor over dressed for the occasion.

If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?
- Edith Sitwell


Image from fabsugar


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Now playing on iTunes: The Beauty Room - Soul Horizon
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The mononym

Capucine

In our house there was a rumor that Capucine had once been male. After a while, true or not, it became accepted as fact. It seemed the most logical way to explain away such perfection. And, she was perfect.

Men look at me like I'm a suspicious-looking trunk, and they're customs agents.





Walk on the Wild Side (1962) - Capucine in her role as the disillusioned prostitute, Hallie Gerard, with Barbara Stanwyck as her Madam, Jo Courtney.





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Now playing: Pet Shop Boys - Always on My Mind
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On my mind

Georgia O' Keeffe House In New Mexico photographed by Eliot Elisofon

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Now playing: Ray Charles - Georgia on My Mind
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Similar, but not quite the same

The founders of the beauty business were three self-styled czarinas who built their castles in New York City. Here, each professed to be very different from (and, of course, far superior to) her rivals. Actually, they bore such an extraordinary resemblance to one another that they might have emerged from a modern gothic novel, concocted by a singularly imaginative author. - taken from The Czarinas of Beauty by Stefan Kanfer.

The three were Helena Rubinstein, Elizabeth Arden, and Estée Lauder. And, they were very similar in many respects. As Kanfer states, each was a short, hyper-ambitious, social-climbing saleswoman who loved wealth, invented her past, dumped her husband when he seemed a drag on her career, peddled emollients and powders that promised eternal youth, and dined out on her aphorisms.

Of the three, it was Madame Rubinstein (December 25, 1871 – April 1, 1965) who possessed the most flair. Not only in business, but in every expression of her personal style. From her magnificent collection of jewels to her choice of interior decoration, she had that something extra the other two ladies lacked - an innate sense of grandeur.

She famously said, There are no ugly women, only lazy ones.
She was half right.




Graham Sutherland
Helena Rubinstein in a red-brocade Balenciaga gown, 1957
Helena Rubinstein Foundation




The foyer of Madame Rubinstein's salubrious apartment at 635 Park Avenue, designed by J. E. R. Carpenter.
The New York Apartment Houses of Rosario Candela and James Carpenter




Dining Room with Dali Mural
The image ran in the April 1948 House & Garden.
Conde Nast




Marie Laurencin
Helena Rubinstein wearing a yellow shawl, 1934
Helena Rubinstein Foundation




Helena Rubinstein: Over the Top

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Now playing: Rufus Wainwright - Beauty Mark
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Fuego Del Ande

Yma Sumac in her role of Kori-Tica sings Ataypura in the 1954 film Secret of the Incas .






Pachamama






Tumpa


Yma Sumac (nee Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo) the Peruvian born beauty famous for her wide ranging vocal.

Her albums Mambo and Voice of the Xtabay are brilliant.