Saturday Musings

Greetings folks! Having spent a day doing what feels like a lot, all of which is generally useless, I am resolved to come and post something on my blog.
This morning, I was from half past nine until three o'clock at my Drama Club where I managed to drive myself hoarse for a moment or two while trying to be sufficiently angry for one of my pieces, realised my skirt was a little too short for dancing and failed at mimicking a south african accent.

Having returned home in one piece, I proceeded to emptying the fridge and making my way through a collection of Powell and Pressburger films while simultaneously working on the actual script for one of the plays I am writing (Result! After months of writing out my detailed plan, I have finally gotten down to the actual script: stage directions, semi-witty comments and all. Take that Procastination!)

^^^ The above expression is one I have very much experience of, especially during Mathematics Tests and when being asked what my phone number is.  

So... Powell and Pressburger? Honestly brilliant, though I have not let myself watch more than two of the films since I do not actually wish to have finished the whole boxset of eleven films by the end of this weekend. So far, I have 'A matter of Life and Death' and 'Black Narcissus' under my belt, and I think both are really beautiful. 'Black Narcissus' involves nuns going mad, and 'A matter of Life and Death' involved heaven, WW2 pilots, switches between b&w and technicolour before ending with a quote from Sir Walter Scott. What more could you want?

"In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above;
For Love is heaven, and heaven is Love."

 Onto my outfit for the day. Here I have donned a coat thrifted from ebay and originally bought fot £3, my sister's skirt from John Lewis, a white blouse bought in France at Monoprix while I was in Fontainebleau visiting family. I am not sure how this sort of brooch is called, although I am quite sure it has a specific name. The hair and face are my own.

Underneath the coat, I actually have a jacket of practically the same sort of colour, so you do not notice it  very well apart from in the last photo where I had taken off my coat.

The satchel is a new find of mine, bought while I was in Cambridge last week, and from the Cambridge Satchel Company, which do gorgeous satchels like this in every colour - classical black and brown as well as metallic and fluorescent.

They are not very cheap, but made in Britain out of leather and, by the looks of things, hardwearing and quite practical. I believe they come in two sizes, 13" and 11" though to metric people like myself, that basically means the bigger one and the smaller one.

The weather has actually been rather mild this past week, especially in comparison to the beginning of the week, otherwise I would not have worn something so light. There is very little I detest more than being cold.

 Having now ruled out watching any more powell and pressburger films, I have been spending the last hour playing at being Nostalgic on Youtube, including playing certain artists repeatedly: Juliette Greco, Suzanne Vega, Louis Armstrong and the usual songs from musicals. I shall just post two of these videos. I think they are both particularly poignant, and it was the sort of music I was in the mood to listen to.

 

"Si tu t'imagines..."



Thank you for reading my Saturday Musings, which should probably have been named my 'Saturday Ramblings'

Do leave a comment, and please follow. :)

I was dreaming of sparkling red gowns...

Greetings! Fresh from watching 'You Can't Take It With You' with James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore and Jean Arthur, directed by Frank Capra, and feeling stupidly happy. I am going to buy a harmonica.

On that note, do any of you remember way back to the 8th February and the beginning of New York Fashion Week, debuting with the Heart Truth's Red Dress Fashion Show? (The Heart Truth Campaign has as goal to raise awareness of women’s heart health educational programs)
Well, whether you do or do not, or have never heard or come across this in your life, feast your eyes on Minka Kelly in this glittering Diane von Furstenberg Dress.
I had not realised it at the time, but this picture had fed a growing seed, at the time still subconscious. However, it has now come to the point that I am not simply randomnly daydreaming of sparkling red gowns... I am obsessing over perhaps eventually owning one.

So we all know what red symbolises. We know when looking at a tap that the red is hot. It is the colour most widely chosen by extroverts and can mean temper or anger. In China, on the other hand, red is the colour of happiness and prosperity, which is why brides wear red and doors are often painted red.  

Red is the color of blood, which in turn symbolises life and vitality. Oh, and red is also the colour of passion, love and lust.

There you go. Although I know it is impractical and well, there may be connotations, I am still going to state quite clearly "I want a floor-length sparkling red gown!"

After all, they look like they can be a lot of fun - as these fantastic videos prove:

Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorleac in 'Les Demoiselles de Rochefort' - an absolutely beautiful film, beautifully shot and not one to be missed. Watch it in English if you must, but it is better in French.

In terms of the dresses, this shows a different option. Without sleeves and thigh-high slit at the side... which could easily be adapted as a a three-inch-above-the-knee-high slit for practicality. :)

"Chantez la vie!

Chantez la pluie!

Chantez le soleil!

Chantez les villes et les champs!"

 

 

Of course, where would the world of sparkling red dresses be without the inimitable Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe? We're just two little girls from little rock... and although this film (Gentlemen prefer blondes) has a much more famous number in the form of Marilyn Monroe singing 'Diamond's are a girls best friend' (Which I love too!) for some reason it has always been this one that has tune which I hum obsessively for a couple of days everytime I see it.

And because I wanted to show even more variety, I included the wonderful Jessica Rabbit. Though this is the point when this dress is a cartoon and therefore serves to illustrate a point about the character and, in doing so, about sparkling red dresses. A point I will probably consider if ever I get the chance to buy a sparkly red gown... well, for a moment or two. My Brother might not be happy of course, but it takes a lot to keep him happy.

On a last note, it might - after all - be this wonderful photo of Graham Norton in a London Production of 'La Cage aux Folles' that really set me off. I think that is the most likely explanation.

....

(To clear up any possible misunderstandings, I do want to make sure that everyone knows that was a joke. I don't mean the fact that Graham Norton looks surprisingly at home in a sparkly red dress, but the fact it was my prime inspiration. In all honesty, it was probably fourth on the list of inspiration)

Well, thank you for reading and apologies for the minimal amount of writing accompanying this post. I need to go and I am too tired out to think of anything witty to say.

Comment and do follow if you like.

Ciao! 

The Genius of Guy Bourdin

Salutations! Having spent a week doing too little revision for too long and watching Capra films, I realised with a jolt that I had not posted since last Monday and, since I did not wish to do the whole Monday-Monday (whoops! I have not posted for a week) thing, I felt I should post this sooner than I otherwise intended to. Anyway, the caffeine and bruise on my head is keeping me awake so I came to the conclusion that posting would be a more valuable use of my time than surfing BBC iPlayer or Youtube in order to find a random video or programme that I would be happy to watch until I felt ready to curl up into a ball and sleep.

I am here to present those of you who do not know to Guy Bourdin. Photographer - one of the greatest fashion photographer's of all time.

Guy Bourdin was born in Paris on the 2nd December 1928. When his parents separated, and his mother left approximately a year after giving birth to him, he went to live in Normandy with his paternal grandparents who owned a brasserie. When his Father remarried, he moved back in with his father, stepmother and stepsiblings. By all accounts, he only met his mother once and his only abiding memory was of a sophisticated parisian woman, with pale skin and red hair, an image that was recurring in many of his photos. Abandonment became a personal and professional motif. At the age of eighteen he went on a tour of Provence and met Lucien Henry, an art dealer. He stayed with Lucien for six months where he seriously applied himself to drawing and painting and initially decided to become an artist. When it was time for his military service he ended up in Dakar as an aerial photographer in the Air Force.

After his military service he returned to Paris. He still drew and painted and started taking pictures for himself. He was influenced by Surrealism and of all the Surrealists. His greatest influence was Man Ray (a notable work is the Violon d'Ingres) with whom he became friends. Man Ray  even wrote the catalogue text to Bourdin's first exhibition in 1952.

It was two years later that, at the age of twenty-seven, he was offered a job at French Vogue. His debut was four pages of hats. One of the pictures featured a woman standing below three skinned calves' heads. It was a statement that marked out the direction of his style as a photographer.

He was best known for his work for French Vogue from the mid fifties to the mid eighties.... and it was typically dark, theatrical and even disturbing. In fact, I'm going to set this straight, to a relatively innocent 1970s audience, some of it was perversely shocking (for general appearance in a Fashion Magazine) and much of it was macabre. Guy Bourdin's advertisement for Charles Jourdan shoes showed the chalked outline of a woman on an apparently blood spattered pavement, her gorgeous red shoes and red sunglasses abandoned near where her body had fallen. A lot of the darker pictures that Bourdin did take were never even published. One such unpublished photograph, taken in 1978, showed a naked woman draped across a desk, her throat cut, surrounded by blood. So yes, there is something more than a little strange about his obsession with death and desire. People have called him a misogynistic puppet master, which is perfectly fair considering - Guy Bourdin was a short man with an apparently whiny voice, and had a reputation of being incredibly demanding. Dark rumours (which were not really rumours, more unpleasant truths) surrounded him: his mother abandoning him as an infant, the suicides of his wife and two of his girlfriends, and the cruelty in which he treated his models.

Whatever can be said about Guy as a person, (and obviously, a lot of controversial things could easily be said) his photos are incredibly striking and incredibly recognisable. He shattered taboos (though I think the made-up ten year old is still something rather disturbing to anybody)
In many ways he was like Warhol and Hitchcock, using photography in a more psychological way and using the personal understanding of an outsider looking in.

He died of Cancer in 1991.

His son Samuel Bourdin released a book with the finest prints of his father's work, called "Exhibit A" in 2001. His first retrospective exhibition was held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London 2003, and then toured the National gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, and Jeu de Paume in Paris.

In 2003, Madonna's music video for Hollywood (which I have posted here, purely for the purpose of illustrating my point than any great love of this song) was greatly influenced by the photography of Bourdin, so much so that a lawsuit was brought on against her by Bourdin's son for copyright infringement.

Anyway, thank you for reading - if you did indeed read, and did not simply glance up and down the pictures. Please comment and feel free to follow (Really. Do so.)
I should be back with something lighter next time because, after a post in which I listed forms of human sacrifice then this one, in which I discussed someone who very much thought of himself as 'un poete damne' whose emotional pain was self-inflicted, I think something lighter would clear the air.

Ciao.