A dieu

Alexander McQueen CBE (1969-2010)






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Winter wonderland

Alexander McQueen Autumn/Winter 2009-10





And by the looks of it the coming Spring is going to be glorious. Glorious in an American abstract expressionist way, that is.















GQ.COM















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It is all connected

Mondrian's close friend, Maude van Loon, describes the painter's studio:

The front door was nothing special; just a wooden door. Between the front door and the studio there was a little vestibule and a dark corridor. Then you went through his door and suddenly there was a marvelous white studio with a colour plane here and there. It was like stepping into paradise….



Mondrian’s Paris studio, restored to colour ( Berlin, 1995)
Frans Postma and Cees Boekraad, with the assistance of Hans de Herder, RKD
National Gallery of Art





Piet Mondrian's Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930




Yves Saint Laurent's Mondrian day dress, autumn 1965
The Metropolitan Museum of Art





Architects Titina Ammanati and Giampiero Vitelli's Mobile Totale living unit, 1965
Phillips de Pury



See?



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The opposite of hate

Love.















The house of Chrisian Astuguevieille as it appeared in Maison Francaise. Highly individual and impossible to mindlessly imitate.


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Lyric of the modern

Easy Chair, c. 1935
Made by Fritz Henningsen. Leather and stained oak



Chair, c. 1935
Made by Fritz Henningsen. Leather and mahogany



Sofa, c. 1930
Made by Fritz Henningsen. Leather and mahogany

Fritz Henningsen
1902-1971

While quite possibly the least famous of the internationally recognised Scandinavian designers, Fritz Henningsen may very well be the most coveted.


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The man who brought downtown uptown

The Stephen Sprouse Book










Uber antimodel Tony Ward, wearing Stephen Sprouse, photographed by Paul Gobel for Blitz, April 1988.


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Brave new world

Alexander McQueen
Ready to Wear
Fall 2009

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Up close and personal

Detail of Richard Avedon's 1961 portrait of Rudolph Nureyev. Taken in Paris a month after Nureyev had defected.


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The Italian

That was how Coco Channel referred to her contemporary, and rival, Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973). Schiaparelli's initial success came with her tromp l'oeil knitted necktie sweater. Such was its popularity, it enabled her to open her first shop in 1927 at 4, rue de la Paix - one of the most fashionable streets in Paris.



It was the manifestation of her belief that it was more important to be creative, outrageous, and fun rather than tasteful that kept the public enthralled. That is, until those qualities were no longer fashionable. Facing financial ruin, Schiaparelli closed her doors in 1954.



The dining room of Schiaparelli's apartment on the boulevard Saint Germain in 1931. The interior having been renovated by Jean-Michel Frank. His design (which illustrated both Schiaparelli's love of colour and her influence with him) was based on the colours of white, yellow, orange, green, and black. White being used for the walls, Tunisian rugs, and the rubberised fabric used for the curtains and the chairs. The divans were done in the same fabric, but in a brilliant green. The small dining tables were of black lacquer with grey streaks.


Schiaparelli's apartment on the rue Barbet-de-Jouy was also decorated by Jean-Michel Frank in 1934.


The living room was furnished with an orange leather sofa and occasional chairs slip-covered in canary and milk-white quilted chintz. The walls were white and almond green.


In the bedroom is the same blistered rayon bark fabric that Schiaparelli used for dresses. White walls and a polar bear rug set off the lavender-blue fabric.




22, rue de Berri an eighteen-room hotel particulier that Schiaparelli purchased in 1937. Both Jean-Michel Frank and Maison Jansen helped with the decoration. The arrangement of Schiaparelli's eclectic furnishings is indicative of the more personal style of the 1930s.


Birth is not the beginning
Death is not the end.




Images from Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli

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Paradise lost

I decided to sell everything because the collection doesn’t exist if he doesn’t exist, said Pierre Bergé regarding the sale of the collection that he and Yves Saint Laurent had amassed over the course of their long relationship.



On a telephone table in the library of the Rue de Babylone apartment: the couture house’s original logo, hand-lettered by graphic artist Cassandre, from 1961 (not for sale). The bleached-oak bookcases are by Jacques Grange.

The Treasures of Yves, Vanity Fair.




Yves Saint Laurent in the grand salon of his apartment on Rue de Babylone with model Sibyl Buck, October 27, 1995. They are surrounded by the Surrealist-period Léger painting The Black Profile (1928), sold by the artist’s widow, and Jean Dunand’s 1925 Art Deco brass-and-lacquer vase, among the treasures to be auctioned at the Grand Palais, in Paris, February 23 to 25.

The Things Yves Loved by Amy Fine Collins for Vanity Fair, January 2009.

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When Halsman met Dali

Philippe Halsman self portrait.



Dali Atomicus, 1947 - the unretouched version showing the suspension devices.


Dali Atomicus, 1947 - the retouched version.



Salvador Dali portrait, In Voluptas Mors ,1951.



Dali and Rhinoceros, 1960.


Noted photographer Philippe Halsman (1906 -1979) met Dali on assignment in 1941, and over the next three decades they collaborated on many projects, including a series of bizarre tableaux embodying the philosophies of the surrealists. Their most notable production was Dali Atomicus, in which the artist, his canvas, furniture, cats, and water all appear to be suspended in midair.

In 1999 the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery held an exhibition, Philippe Halsman: A Retrospective. Many of these photographs have proven to be the definitive image of his subjects.


HALSMAN: A Retrospective
Photographs from the Halsman Family Collection

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The future that was

Rudi Gernreich , the designer who was credited with liberating women from clothes that constrained the body, and with authoring the first unisex looks, but his profile as agent provocateur often threatened to overshadow the artistry, the intellectual potency and the sheer beauty of his work. - ICA:Fashion Will Go Out of Fashion


The Rudi Gernreich Book


Peggy Moffitt in one of the Georges Rouault inspired bathing suits.



Beachwear (bikini), 1970–71

This bikini of brown wool knit with black wool banded edges is an amalgamation of angles. The top is composed of four triangles with all edges traced by wide, flat strips of black knit. The bottom, also traced in black, has additional black bands attached at the low-slung waistline that criss-cross once around the midriff. With this collection, Gernreich pays homage to Georges Rouault (1871–1958), a French Expressionist painter known for bordering his images with thick black lines.


Beachwear (bathing suit), 1964

Though swimwear always extends the possibility of a view to the body, the monokini caused quite a stir when it debuted in 1964. Gernreich's paradox is that the bottom of the topless suit is very conservative, with ample coverage and made in the same wool material that had been used for Victorian bathing apparel. As a gesture akin to Conceptual Art, this suit merges an avant-garde sensibility with a nod to tradition.


Peggy Moffit modeling the monokini, which was not only seen at the beaches, it was also seen making the rounds at smart cocktail parties. Where, the ladies were suitably shocked and the gentlemen were titillated.




Animal print ensembles, 1966
Photograph by William Claxton






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