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Grace Kelly
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scriptgirl
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abaca
scriptgirl
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I feel the same way and re your quote, I know Andre could not have been serious when he said that.
mptv
mptv
scriptgirl
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Princess Grace perfume by Faberge
ebay
ebay
scriptgirl
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Princess Grace lipstick by Estee Lauder
ebay
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scriptgirl
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Herald.ie
any come and go in the world of fashion, but only a tiny number become iconic figures who are able to create classic looks for future generations to imitate. So what separates a style icon from a run-of-the-mill fashionista?
GRACE KELLY Held up as a paragon of elegance and dignity, Grace Kelly was so polished, so coiffed, so impeccably groomed that she almost seemed untouchable. It was this imperious persona that led to her being dubbed ‘the ice queen’. But she also knew how to bring it down a notch in style, teaming simple white shirts and safari pants with elegant turbans in her later years.
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD Attributed with pioneering the punk look of the 70s when the Sex Pistols wore clothes from her and partner Malcolm McLaren's shop -- the look of bondage gear, spiked dog collars and safety pins still provides an iconic snapshot of the era. Nowadays, her aesthetic borrows from the 17th and 18th centuries, with the corset being a mainstay in most designs. A true trailblazer, she is the only high-end designer to consistently celebrate curves (no matter what trends are on the catwalk).
LAUREN BACALL With her penetrating gaze and trademark husky voice, Lauren Bacall's image was unique. Even today the actress has an intrinsic understanding of what works for her, blurring the line between androgyny -- via structured shoulders and pant suits -- and femininity, courtesy of deep V-necks and nipped-in waists. A compelling look that somehow says 'come-hither' and 'clear-off' at the very same time.
JEAN HARLOW She was platinum-blonde bombshell of the 30s with a penchant for figure-hugging silks and satins, fur stoles and eye-popping jewels. It was a pioneering look at the time, and one that would eventually be copied by Marilyn Monroe and Madonna (who both cited her as inspiration). Interestingly, she often refused to wear underwear (providing inspiration for Paris, Britney, et al), to the point that her wedding photos, in which she wore a flimsy white dress, had to be retouched.
BIANCA JAGGER Mick Jagger's erstwhile missus practically defined the 'Studio 54' look of the 70s when she made plunging Halston dresses and oversized chunky jewels her signature style. But she'll be forever remembered for her white Yves Saint Laurent smoking jacket teamed with low-slung pants (which she some how made look sexy), and accessorised with a wide-brimmed hat with veil when she married Old Rubber Lips (she was always the cooler one).
AUDREY HEPBURN She played up on her gamine features and pixie crop at a time when undulating bombshells were dominating the silver screen. The understated elegance of capri pants, ballet flats, trenches and neck scarves became her signature style. "My look is attainable," she once said. "Women can look like Audrey Hepburn by flipping out their hair, buying the large glasses and the little sleeveless dresses."
EDIE SEDGWICK Society girl, model and muse to Andy Warhol during the infamous Factory period, waifish Edie Sedgwick's look was utterly unique. She paired leotards and black opaque tights with clingy dresses and sweaters. Dripping antique chandelier earrings and heavily kohled eyes provided the finishing touch. Some say she was one of the pioneers of what became known as 'beatnik' fashion.
COCO CHANEL The originator of the 'little black dress' is remembered not just for her prolific design aesthetic but also for her compendium of quotable quotes on matters of style, most notably: "Fashion fades, only style remains the same." She was inspired by the aristocratic clothes worn by her lover, the Duke of Westminster -- ruffled collars were a common motif in her collections -- and has also been attributed with spearheading women's trousers.
EDIE BOUVIER Jackie O's cousin, Edie Bouvier was an unsung fashion hero whose idiosyncratic style only gained the kudos it deserved when documentary makers, the Maysles' brothers, chronicled the life of her and her mother during the 70s in the film Grey Gardens. The eccentric one-time model's look was all about innovation: she would transform jumpers into skirts, vests into capes and swimwear into daywear. Marc Jacobs named a handbag after her.
JACKIE O While some women are saluted for stepping out of the confines of fashion, others are given the nod for working within them. As the wife of John F Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy was revered for dressing 'appropriately' no matter the occasion. Her trademark clothes included sleeveless shirts and pillbox hats, and, following her marriage to Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, her wide-framed sunglasses became known simply as 'Jackie Os'. HQ
- Katie Byrne
any come and go in the world of fashion, but only a tiny number become iconic figures who are able to create classic looks for future generations to imitate. So what separates a style icon from a run-of-the-mill fashionista?
GRACE KELLY Held up as a paragon of elegance and dignity, Grace Kelly was so polished, so coiffed, so impeccably groomed that she almost seemed untouchable. It was this imperious persona that led to her being dubbed ‘the ice queen’. But she also knew how to bring it down a notch in style, teaming simple white shirts and safari pants with elegant turbans in her later years.
VIVIENNE WESTWOOD Attributed with pioneering the punk look of the 70s when the Sex Pistols wore clothes from her and partner Malcolm McLaren's shop -- the look of bondage gear, spiked dog collars and safety pins still provides an iconic snapshot of the era. Nowadays, her aesthetic borrows from the 17th and 18th centuries, with the corset being a mainstay in most designs. A true trailblazer, she is the only high-end designer to consistently celebrate curves (no matter what trends are on the catwalk).
LAUREN BACALL With her penetrating gaze and trademark husky voice, Lauren Bacall's image was unique. Even today the actress has an intrinsic understanding of what works for her, blurring the line between androgyny -- via structured shoulders and pant suits -- and femininity, courtesy of deep V-necks and nipped-in waists. A compelling look that somehow says 'come-hither' and 'clear-off' at the very same time.
JEAN HARLOW She was platinum-blonde bombshell of the 30s with a penchant for figure-hugging silks and satins, fur stoles and eye-popping jewels. It was a pioneering look at the time, and one that would eventually be copied by Marilyn Monroe and Madonna (who both cited her as inspiration). Interestingly, she often refused to wear underwear (providing inspiration for Paris, Britney, et al), to the point that her wedding photos, in which she wore a flimsy white dress, had to be retouched.
BIANCA JAGGER Mick Jagger's erstwhile missus practically defined the 'Studio 54' look of the 70s when she made plunging Halston dresses and oversized chunky jewels her signature style. But she'll be forever remembered for her white Yves Saint Laurent smoking jacket teamed with low-slung pants (which she some how made look sexy), and accessorised with a wide-brimmed hat with veil when she married Old Rubber Lips (she was always the cooler one).
AUDREY HEPBURN She played up on her gamine features and pixie crop at a time when undulating bombshells were dominating the silver screen. The understated elegance of capri pants, ballet flats, trenches and neck scarves became her signature style. "My look is attainable," she once said. "Women can look like Audrey Hepburn by flipping out their hair, buying the large glasses and the little sleeveless dresses."
EDIE SEDGWICK Society girl, model and muse to Andy Warhol during the infamous Factory period, waifish Edie Sedgwick's look was utterly unique. She paired leotards and black opaque tights with clingy dresses and sweaters. Dripping antique chandelier earrings and heavily kohled eyes provided the finishing touch. Some say she was one of the pioneers of what became known as 'beatnik' fashion.
COCO CHANEL The originator of the 'little black dress' is remembered not just for her prolific design aesthetic but also for her compendium of quotable quotes on matters of style, most notably: "Fashion fades, only style remains the same." She was inspired by the aristocratic clothes worn by her lover, the Duke of Westminster -- ruffled collars were a common motif in her collections -- and has also been attributed with spearheading women's trousers.
EDIE BOUVIER Jackie O's cousin, Edie Bouvier was an unsung fashion hero whose idiosyncratic style only gained the kudos it deserved when documentary makers, the Maysles' brothers, chronicled the life of her and her mother during the 70s in the film Grey Gardens. The eccentric one-time model's look was all about innovation: she would transform jumpers into skirts, vests into capes and swimwear into daywear. Marc Jacobs named a handbag after her.
JACKIE O While some women are saluted for stepping out of the confines of fashion, others are given the nod for working within them. As the wife of John F Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy was revered for dressing 'appropriately' no matter the occasion. Her trademark clothes included sleeveless shirts and pillbox hats, and, following her marriage to Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, her wide-framed sunglasses became known simply as 'Jackie Os'. HQ
- Katie Byrne
scriptgirl
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Herald.ie
lack is the new gay
SHAREPRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
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By Michael O'Doherty
Thursday November 06 2008
If avoiding colour altogether still leaves you open to questions about your sexuality, what do you wear? asks michael o'doherty
I always thought that dressing in black was safe. Firstly, it’s a colour which disguises burger stains, beer spillages and the occasional bit of blood — always a plus sign for a man. Secondly, it’s slimming, meaning that however much burger actually made it down your throat, you could still imagine yourself to look a picture of health. Thirdly, black is not really a colour at all.
Taupe is a colour. As are cerise, fuscia and teal. They are statements that you're 'dressing up', and when you have to describe your outfit, you always begin by stating the colour. But when you're wearing a black shirt or trousers, you can just say that you're wearing a shirt and pants. Because black is just there. It says: "I'm wearing these clothes because they keep me warm, dry and free from screaming female admirers scratching at my bare torso."
This is why men are obliged to wear dinner suits to what are proverbially known as 'black-tie balls'. We are not supposed to stand out, so by dressing us in uniform black and white, all attention can be on the women present in their peacockian glory. We're like the string quartet playing at the champagne reception -- you're vaguely aware of us, but no-one can quite remember who asked us to turn up or why.
So there I was last week, having my picture taken to publicise our new women's magazine, Stellar. Kind of an Irish version of Cosmo/Glamour. In all good shops, with Cameron Diaz on the cover. Where was I? Oh yes, changing into a black shirt for the photograph. So it had a tiny bit of white cotton piping. And maybe it was quite 'fitted', ie too small. And it was by Versace. But it was definitely black, and, as I settled into my sofa for the main shot, I asked the female model present what she thought, meaning would it photograph okay? "Mmm," she mused. "Not really my style. A bit too... gay."
And so the last refuge of a heterosexual man who has tried to look after himself was torn apart. I've always been aware of knowing slightly too much about fashion for a straight man, a by-product of pouring over photographs for VIP before we go to press. I could tell my devoré from my diamanté; my asymetric dress from one that was cut on the bias. But that's just an occupational hazard. I used to like wearing nice clothes. That is, until now.
Women always accuse men of not looking after themselves -- well, now you know why. If I'm going to have my sexuality questioned because my shirt isn't from Guineys, then why bother? Grace Kelly may get revered for wearing a pearl necklace, and Audrey Hepburn immortalised for fitting into a LBD. Style, fashion, dressing up, whatever you want to call it, obviously suits women. But I've finally realised that it doesn't suit men.
So, as this paper celebrates female style icons with yet another round-up of Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Jackie O, consider this. Men define their icons not by how they dressed, but who they were. Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Sean Connery, George Best... sure, they all scrubbed up, but we admire them not because they just looked good, but because they lived great lives. While women want to look like someone, men want to be like someone.
Fashion may be temporary and style permanent, but I'm heading back to Guineys.
lack is the new gay
SHAREPRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
ALSO IN HQ
Role models
Feel The Payne
Hair raising - why the moustache is making a brief comeback
Home By A Nose
Chic And Cheerful
HQ HOME
By Michael O'Doherty
Thursday November 06 2008
If avoiding colour altogether still leaves you open to questions about your sexuality, what do you wear? asks michael o'doherty
I always thought that dressing in black was safe. Firstly, it’s a colour which disguises burger stains, beer spillages and the occasional bit of blood — always a plus sign for a man. Secondly, it’s slimming, meaning that however much burger actually made it down your throat, you could still imagine yourself to look a picture of health. Thirdly, black is not really a colour at all.
Taupe is a colour. As are cerise, fuscia and teal. They are statements that you're 'dressing up', and when you have to describe your outfit, you always begin by stating the colour. But when you're wearing a black shirt or trousers, you can just say that you're wearing a shirt and pants. Because black is just there. It says: "I'm wearing these clothes because they keep me warm, dry and free from screaming female admirers scratching at my bare torso."
This is why men are obliged to wear dinner suits to what are proverbially known as 'black-tie balls'. We are not supposed to stand out, so by dressing us in uniform black and white, all attention can be on the women present in their peacockian glory. We're like the string quartet playing at the champagne reception -- you're vaguely aware of us, but no-one can quite remember who asked us to turn up or why.
So there I was last week, having my picture taken to publicise our new women's magazine, Stellar. Kind of an Irish version of Cosmo/Glamour. In all good shops, with Cameron Diaz on the cover. Where was I? Oh yes, changing into a black shirt for the photograph. So it had a tiny bit of white cotton piping. And maybe it was quite 'fitted', ie too small. And it was by Versace. But it was definitely black, and, as I settled into my sofa for the main shot, I asked the female model present what she thought, meaning would it photograph okay? "Mmm," she mused. "Not really my style. A bit too... gay."
And so the last refuge of a heterosexual man who has tried to look after himself was torn apart. I've always been aware of knowing slightly too much about fashion for a straight man, a by-product of pouring over photographs for VIP before we go to press. I could tell my devoré from my diamanté; my asymetric dress from one that was cut on the bias. But that's just an occupational hazard. I used to like wearing nice clothes. That is, until now.
Women always accuse men of not looking after themselves -- well, now you know why. If I'm going to have my sexuality questioned because my shirt isn't from Guineys, then why bother? Grace Kelly may get revered for wearing a pearl necklace, and Audrey Hepburn immortalised for fitting into a LBD. Style, fashion, dressing up, whatever you want to call it, obviously suits women. But I've finally realised that it doesn't suit men.
So, as this paper celebrates female style icons with yet another round-up of Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Jackie O, consider this. Men define their icons not by how they dressed, but who they were. Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Sean Connery, George Best... sure, they all scrubbed up, but we admire them not because they just looked good, but because they lived great lives. While women want to look like someone, men want to be like someone.
Fashion may be temporary and style permanent, but I'm heading back to Guineys.
scriptgirl
Active Member
- Joined
- May 1, 2006
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- 12,226
- Reaction score
- 5
iafrica
Celebrities and fashion
Article By: Robyn Cooke, Personal Stylist
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:53
Celebrities and fashion have been inextricably linked for many years. You only have to think of classics, like the Hermes Kelly Bag to conjure up crystal clear images of a blonde and beautiful Grace Kelly, for example.
And so it has come to pass that these days any major fashion brand worth its salt, places its product with influential and beautiful well-known people from industries outside of fashion in order to compel ordinary punters to buy these products, fuelled by the celebrity endorsement.
Across the globe you have icons like David Beckham (sport), new US first lady in waiting Michelle Obama (politics/law), Dita von Teese (entertainer/stripper), Scarlett Johansson (actor) and Kanye West (rapper) able to shift hundreds of thousands of units of a fashion item simply because they have been seen to wear it.
Here in SA, the fashion designers are starting to move in a similar direction, with varying degrees of success. This week I take a look at the hits and the misses, as well as some suggested tie ups that I think would make a difference for both fashion and the celebrity, moving forward.
Celebrity fashion that works
There are many winners and losers in this game, but I'm going to select the two of each that interest me the most. First, let's cast our eyes northwards to the leafy suburb of Rosebank where a store called Ama Kip Kip spawned a generation of t-shirts that have become iconic among the entrepreneurial black youth of South Africa. And a few aspiring white ones too.
With almost no advertising at all, this store became a brand thanks to the cult status of their stark black t-shirts with their brand emblazoned on the front in glittering metallic colours. Although you can buy them now, the initial run of t-shirts was designed simply to promote the shop.
A great deal of the success of the brand can be attributed, therefore, to the people who they chose to give the t-shirts to in the first instance as promotional items.
Lesley Mampe from the music group Jozi and the three brothers from pennywhistle group Kewla Tebse are all great looking, talented and cool blokes from the world of music. They chose to identify themselves with the brand so closely, that they are now brand ambassadors for the two guys who started Ama Kip Kip in the first place, Siyabonga Ngwekazi and Nkosana Modise.
This is a great combination of style, music and celebrity, one that has seen all parties raise their profile as a result. And now Ama Kip Kip t-shirts have become collectors' items and are soon to spread their wings out of Joburg and head down to the coast.
The second combination that I think is almost perfect is another musical pairing. African jazz maestro Jimmy Dludlu has leant his considerable cool to the old-school SA-Italian label, Fabiani.
Not only does he wear the clothes, but he walks out for them at the fashion shows and features in their collateral and window displays.
This all-in relationship is based on a genuine love for the label as well as a mutual respect between the parties. This is definitely when arrangements such as these are at their most successful. And as Jimmy is one of GQ South Africa's 50 best dressed men of the year for 2008, there is no doubt that this partnership is a successful one.
And those that don't
For every partnership that works, there are a whole lot that don't for a variety of reasons. Mostly this is either down to the mismatch between the celebrity and the label or because the celebrity loses their status as an influence among the target customers (Lindsay Lohan, anyone?)
In South Africa we have a habit of making celebrities out of TV presenters and previous winners of Miss South Africa. What works so well with the two relationships detailed above is the increasing development and enjoyment of the music these celebrities produce each year, combined with the twice yearly collections of clothing people want to wear. When you have an absence of a defined career trajectory that will last for more than a year, when the person becomes famous simply for being famous, the relationship can become unsuccessful very quickly.
In addition, these types of celebrities are generally styled from head to foot for their public appearances. What this can result in is an absence of authentic personal style, one that can resonate with a target customer for the clothing. There are definitely exceptions to this, but for the most part, these are not partnerships with built in longevity and broad appeal.
The other combination that I want to challenge is the relationship between Carducci and its brand ambassadors. I am such a fan of their latest collection. I think that it is exciting, vibrant, stylish, timeless, challenging and great fun, as well as being beautifully crafted and poised to allow the brand to stage a resurgence with the stylish of South Africa.
So, with all respect to the ambassadors themselves, why would Carducci choose soap actors and news readers to promote the brand? How exciting and charismatic should you be as a prime time news reader? It is when there's a disconnect like this, that all the effort made to build the brand, can ultimately hurt it in the end. This, particularly with a brand like Carducci with so much current possibility, is a very sad occurrence.
So smarty pants, what would you suggest?
Being a big mouth means that I need to make some constructive suggestions, so I'll start with some pointers for the great Carducci folks.
For the guys, you need to look to the best looking South African comedian you can find. Someone with profile and personality would be perfect — think Trevor Noah or Mark Lottering to start with. These are astute men with bags of style and great talent. They are brave enough to take the most vibrant of your collection, and carry it off with aplomb.
For the ladies, there is more of a timeless elegance to the collection and so I would look at ladies with old-world carriage and charm, like actress Jenna Dover or singer Louise Carver. The ladies have impeccable manners and deportment, as well as a rocking sense of humour that shows up in their eyes.
There's no question that young emerging men's wear labels should be looking to dress the rock ‘n roll kings of the SA music scene. With Stiaan Louw and Ben Sherman already having snapped up the all-new styled and now very sharp Jeremy De Tolly, singer of the Dirty Skirts, I would love to see Greg Carlin from Zebra and Giraffe become more refined. Hugo Boss Red Label would be ideal for an edgy yet razor sharp look for him.
The gorgeous Nicky Greenwall would be my first choice for Heni Este Hijzen as she is a classic beauty but with a fiercely ambitious rebel undertone.
Terry Pheto looked amazing in Thula Sindi recently, but I would push it further and introduce more intelligent and talented ladies from the acting world — possibly looking exclusively at the over 30 age group for his gorgeous creations.
I see Randall Abrahams in Hugo Boss Black Label — classic and austere, with a hint of money about it.
I see Inge Beckmann in Abigail Betz for day and Gavin Rajah for evening functions — all mixed up with her own brand of vintage and quirky.
And I see Shaun Morgan from Seether cleaning it up just a bit and rocking out in good old fashioned Cape Union Mart and Levis for his off-stage day look. Wouldn't that be fun to see?
Celebrities and fashion
Article By: Robyn Cooke, Personal Stylist
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:53
Celebrities and fashion have been inextricably linked for many years. You only have to think of classics, like the Hermes Kelly Bag to conjure up crystal clear images of a blonde and beautiful Grace Kelly, for example.
And so it has come to pass that these days any major fashion brand worth its salt, places its product with influential and beautiful well-known people from industries outside of fashion in order to compel ordinary punters to buy these products, fuelled by the celebrity endorsement.
Across the globe you have icons like David Beckham (sport), new US first lady in waiting Michelle Obama (politics/law), Dita von Teese (entertainer/stripper), Scarlett Johansson (actor) and Kanye West (rapper) able to shift hundreds of thousands of units of a fashion item simply because they have been seen to wear it.
Here in SA, the fashion designers are starting to move in a similar direction, with varying degrees of success. This week I take a look at the hits and the misses, as well as some suggested tie ups that I think would make a difference for both fashion and the celebrity, moving forward.
Celebrity fashion that works
There are many winners and losers in this game, but I'm going to select the two of each that interest me the most. First, let's cast our eyes northwards to the leafy suburb of Rosebank where a store called Ama Kip Kip spawned a generation of t-shirts that have become iconic among the entrepreneurial black youth of South Africa. And a few aspiring white ones too.
With almost no advertising at all, this store became a brand thanks to the cult status of their stark black t-shirts with their brand emblazoned on the front in glittering metallic colours. Although you can buy them now, the initial run of t-shirts was designed simply to promote the shop.
A great deal of the success of the brand can be attributed, therefore, to the people who they chose to give the t-shirts to in the first instance as promotional items.
Lesley Mampe from the music group Jozi and the three brothers from pennywhistle group Kewla Tebse are all great looking, talented and cool blokes from the world of music. They chose to identify themselves with the brand so closely, that they are now brand ambassadors for the two guys who started Ama Kip Kip in the first place, Siyabonga Ngwekazi and Nkosana Modise.
This is a great combination of style, music and celebrity, one that has seen all parties raise their profile as a result. And now Ama Kip Kip t-shirts have become collectors' items and are soon to spread their wings out of Joburg and head down to the coast.
The second combination that I think is almost perfect is another musical pairing. African jazz maestro Jimmy Dludlu has leant his considerable cool to the old-school SA-Italian label, Fabiani.
Not only does he wear the clothes, but he walks out for them at the fashion shows and features in their collateral and window displays.
This all-in relationship is based on a genuine love for the label as well as a mutual respect between the parties. This is definitely when arrangements such as these are at their most successful. And as Jimmy is one of GQ South Africa's 50 best dressed men of the year for 2008, there is no doubt that this partnership is a successful one.
And those that don't
For every partnership that works, there are a whole lot that don't for a variety of reasons. Mostly this is either down to the mismatch between the celebrity and the label or because the celebrity loses their status as an influence among the target customers (Lindsay Lohan, anyone?)
In South Africa we have a habit of making celebrities out of TV presenters and previous winners of Miss South Africa. What works so well with the two relationships detailed above is the increasing development and enjoyment of the music these celebrities produce each year, combined with the twice yearly collections of clothing people want to wear. When you have an absence of a defined career trajectory that will last for more than a year, when the person becomes famous simply for being famous, the relationship can become unsuccessful very quickly.
In addition, these types of celebrities are generally styled from head to foot for their public appearances. What this can result in is an absence of authentic personal style, one that can resonate with a target customer for the clothing. There are definitely exceptions to this, but for the most part, these are not partnerships with built in longevity and broad appeal.
The other combination that I want to challenge is the relationship between Carducci and its brand ambassadors. I am such a fan of their latest collection. I think that it is exciting, vibrant, stylish, timeless, challenging and great fun, as well as being beautifully crafted and poised to allow the brand to stage a resurgence with the stylish of South Africa.
So, with all respect to the ambassadors themselves, why would Carducci choose soap actors and news readers to promote the brand? How exciting and charismatic should you be as a prime time news reader? It is when there's a disconnect like this, that all the effort made to build the brand, can ultimately hurt it in the end. This, particularly with a brand like Carducci with so much current possibility, is a very sad occurrence.
So smarty pants, what would you suggest?
Being a big mouth means that I need to make some constructive suggestions, so I'll start with some pointers for the great Carducci folks.
For the guys, you need to look to the best looking South African comedian you can find. Someone with profile and personality would be perfect — think Trevor Noah or Mark Lottering to start with. These are astute men with bags of style and great talent. They are brave enough to take the most vibrant of your collection, and carry it off with aplomb.
For the ladies, there is more of a timeless elegance to the collection and so I would look at ladies with old-world carriage and charm, like actress Jenna Dover or singer Louise Carver. The ladies have impeccable manners and deportment, as well as a rocking sense of humour that shows up in their eyes.
There's no question that young emerging men's wear labels should be looking to dress the rock ‘n roll kings of the SA music scene. With Stiaan Louw and Ben Sherman already having snapped up the all-new styled and now very sharp Jeremy De Tolly, singer of the Dirty Skirts, I would love to see Greg Carlin from Zebra and Giraffe become more refined. Hugo Boss Red Label would be ideal for an edgy yet razor sharp look for him.
The gorgeous Nicky Greenwall would be my first choice for Heni Este Hijzen as she is a classic beauty but with a fiercely ambitious rebel undertone.
Terry Pheto looked amazing in Thula Sindi recently, but I would push it further and introduce more intelligent and talented ladies from the acting world — possibly looking exclusively at the over 30 age group for his gorgeous creations.
I see Randall Abrahams in Hugo Boss Black Label — classic and austere, with a hint of money about it.
I see Inge Beckmann in Abigail Betz for day and Gavin Rajah for evening functions — all mixed up with her own brand of vintage and quirky.
And I see Shaun Morgan from Seether cleaning it up just a bit and rocking out in good old fashioned Cape Union Mart and Levis for his off-stage day look. Wouldn't that be fun to see?
scriptgirl
Active Member
- Joined
- May 1, 2006
- Messages
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Portsmouth News
Escape it all at the library
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By Kathleen Whalin
Children's Librarian
November 05, 2008 6:00 AM
It can be a scary world out there — politics, science, the economy, local events or world news. There comes a time when I say, "Enough."
For me, that is when libraries are perfect institutions for taking a break from hard realities.
While we certainly have information on those subjects and more, we also have books of rare beauty. I consider myself fortunate to have a job that lets me focus on the positive in our universe. Introducing readers, whatever their ages, to beautiful illustrations and good stories keeps me working (relatively sanely) as a librarian.
There is much I can't do about the way the world turns, but each day I can introduce people to books and characters that I love — Maurice Sendak's "Little Bear and Uncle Elephant," Russell Hoban's "Frances," Cynthia Rylant's "Poppleton," Beverly Cleary's "Ramona," the Melendy family books by Elizabeth Enright, A. A. Milne's "Pooh" and his friends, and so many more.
I talk about books and organize story hours and tell tales because I think sharing stories keeps us all linked.
During the summer reading program, I asked kids to give us titles of books they'd particularly loved. Again and again, they selected titles with strong characters and plots (the Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling, the picture books of Olivia pig by Ian Falconer, the chapter books starring Fudge by Judy Blume, the Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne, the Melendy family adventures, Mo Willems' books about pigeon).
Sharing good books unites us with a common experience, whether we're from different places or from different generations.
But as we face a contentious autumn on the world scene, I would argue that books do more than tie us together. Reading is also a way to escape into a world far from "the madding crowd." When I need to get away from it all, I read humorous novels. You may prefer suspense or romance or ingenious mysteries or something entirely different. Consider the library and the books on its shelves as your passport to a fine, calm place.
Some favorite books for reading-induced getaways:
"David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens. David Copperfield struggles to find his place in the often-heartless world of Victorian England.
"Death by Sheer Torture" by Robert Barnard. What's a detective to do when his father is found murdered in extremely unusual circumstances?
"The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde. Literary detective, Thursday Next, struggles to save both a literary masterpiece and life as we know it.
"Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett. Lord Vetinari assigns an arch-criminal the task of modernizing the post office.
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent never imagined a new highway interchange would be life transforming.
"One for the Money" by Janet Evanovich. Stephanie Plum is desperate for a job, even if it means working for her bail bondsman cousin Vinnie. The first novel in a very funny series.
"Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen. Marianne Dashwood longs for romance; her practical sisters knows the world is quite different.
"Wobble to Death" by Peter Lovesey
Endurance racing is all the rage in the 1880s. When a racer dies, Inspector Cribb has much to unravel.
COMING UP
Annual Literacy Fair will be held at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 7. The theme for the eighth annual event this year, York Public Library and the York Schools, is "More than Just Me — Giving to School, Community and the World." Award-winning children's musician Sammie Haynes will perform at 6 p.m. There will be family literacy activities, storytelling and a reading by author Jane Cowan Fletcher. The evening will conclude with a sing-a-long with Haynes. Don't miss this event with activities and information for all families.
Sunday Afternoon at the Movies begin at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 9, and will feature "To Catch A Thief"(1955). The second of three Alfred Hitchcock classics to be shown this fall, this stylish drama is about John Robie, a retired jewel thief living on the French Riviera. Masterful direction, Oscar-nominated cinematography and nuanced performances by two Hollywood legends (Cary Grant and Grace Kelly) elevate this glamorous thriller as it accelerates to a satisfying resolution. Rated G. 106 minutes.
Escape it all at the library
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By Kathleen Whalin
Children's Librarian
November 05, 2008 6:00 AM
It can be a scary world out there — politics, science, the economy, local events or world news. There comes a time when I say, "Enough."
For me, that is when libraries are perfect institutions for taking a break from hard realities.
While we certainly have information on those subjects and more, we also have books of rare beauty. I consider myself fortunate to have a job that lets me focus on the positive in our universe. Introducing readers, whatever their ages, to beautiful illustrations and good stories keeps me working (relatively sanely) as a librarian.
There is much I can't do about the way the world turns, but each day I can introduce people to books and characters that I love — Maurice Sendak's "Little Bear and Uncle Elephant," Russell Hoban's "Frances," Cynthia Rylant's "Poppleton," Beverly Cleary's "Ramona," the Melendy family books by Elizabeth Enright, A. A. Milne's "Pooh" and his friends, and so many more.
I talk about books and organize story hours and tell tales because I think sharing stories keeps us all linked.
During the summer reading program, I asked kids to give us titles of books they'd particularly loved. Again and again, they selected titles with strong characters and plots (the Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling, the picture books of Olivia pig by Ian Falconer, the chapter books starring Fudge by Judy Blume, the Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne, the Melendy family adventures, Mo Willems' books about pigeon).
Sharing good books unites us with a common experience, whether we're from different places or from different generations.
But as we face a contentious autumn on the world scene, I would argue that books do more than tie us together. Reading is also a way to escape into a world far from "the madding crowd." When I need to get away from it all, I read humorous novels. You may prefer suspense or romance or ingenious mysteries or something entirely different. Consider the library and the books on its shelves as your passport to a fine, calm place.
Some favorite books for reading-induced getaways:
"David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens. David Copperfield struggles to find his place in the often-heartless world of Victorian England.
"Death by Sheer Torture" by Robert Barnard. What's a detective to do when his father is found murdered in extremely unusual circumstances?
"The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde. Literary detective, Thursday Next, struggles to save both a literary masterpiece and life as we know it.
"Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett. Lord Vetinari assigns an arch-criminal the task of modernizing the post office.
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent never imagined a new highway interchange would be life transforming.
"One for the Money" by Janet Evanovich. Stephanie Plum is desperate for a job, even if it means working for her bail bondsman cousin Vinnie. The first novel in a very funny series.
"Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen. Marianne Dashwood longs for romance; her practical sisters knows the world is quite different.
"Wobble to Death" by Peter Lovesey
Endurance racing is all the rage in the 1880s. When a racer dies, Inspector Cribb has much to unravel.
COMING UP
Annual Literacy Fair will be held at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 7. The theme for the eighth annual event this year, York Public Library and the York Schools, is "More than Just Me — Giving to School, Community and the World." Award-winning children's musician Sammie Haynes will perform at 6 p.m. There will be family literacy activities, storytelling and a reading by author Jane Cowan Fletcher. The evening will conclude with a sing-a-long with Haynes. Don't miss this event with activities and information for all families.
Sunday Afternoon at the Movies begin at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 9, and will feature "To Catch A Thief"(1955). The second of three Alfred Hitchcock classics to be shown this fall, this stylish drama is about John Robie, a retired jewel thief living on the French Riviera. Masterful direction, Oscar-nominated cinematography and nuanced performances by two Hollywood legends (Cary Grant and Grace Kelly) elevate this glamorous thriller as it accelerates to a satisfying resolution. Rated G. 106 minutes.
scriptgirl
Active Member
- Joined
- May 1, 2006
- Messages
- 12,226
- Reaction score
- 5
brightlights film
When Being Blonde and Soulless Is Not Enough
"Mother ... my mother ... um, what's the phrase?
She isn't quite herself today."
— Anthony Perkins, making a colossal understatement in Psycho
BY JOHN CALENDO
It was like looking into a Fabergé egg last February when Vanity Fair published its loving but completely disturbing recreations of famous Hitchcock movies.
Here on beautiful, perfume-scented pages were carefully wrought miniatures — a photo tribute in which present-day movie stars had been inserted into instantly recognizable stills from Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window, each tableau a bit terrifying in its minute exactness.
The reader of these present pages (a soulmate, I feel, with many hours communing with silver shadows in the dark) will understand my sense of — is violation too strong a word, or titillation too frivolous? — confusion then, confusions plural, when I saw film moments I grew up on, eerie Hitchcockian mise-en-scenes whose hypnotic power can still grab me today, even after a lifetime of multiple viewings, reimagined into something rich and strange, a Mashup for the ReMix Generation, a sort of race-record cover version, with very pretty, very clean personnel — and no soul.
Take the photo of Jodie Foster, at top, impersonating Tippi Hedren in The Birds. It neatly conveys the blasphemous charm of Vanity Fair's born-again confections, disquieting as much for the things they get "wrong" as for the things they get "right." (You can view the entire spread here.)
On the plus side, there is the technical bravura in the shot, as in almost all the Vanity Fair photos, that demonstrates how much diligence and reverence was taken with these modern reproductions: The weathered look of the surroundings, the steel-toned palette, the pink flesh stark against the blues — all bring mid-century Hitchcock thrillingly back to life. What is wrong, so instructively wrong, is the pleading, warmly human face of Jodie Foster.
This is not mid-century Hitchcock.
Though Tippi Hedren looks just as fully engaged in the original shot at right, you need to see her in action to realize how exquisitely arch, how posed and contrived her performance is. And this is exactly what Hitchcock wanted.
After Grace Kelly deserted him (as he surely saw it) for marriage to a minor princeling (Hitchcock was notorious for unhealthy infatuations with his leading ladies), the great director decided he wanted nothing more to do with stars if he could help it. Stars came with built-in associations, the baggage of past roles. They were vibrant personas that connected with audiences. Hitchcock, however, was picking up something new in the air. He wanted something radical: stars who didn't connect, stars who conveyed a modern isolation.
The director now pointedly chose actresses who had a tendency to appear wooden and uninflected on the screen — limited actresses whose hollow resonances helped define his particular kind of morally vague blonde: Soulless, blank-eyed (think of Janet Leigh driving in Psycho), they were embodiments of modern anomie, of existential emptiness.
And so we come to the superior vacancy of Tippi Hedren that the much-too-Oscared Jodie can't quite touch. Hedren is Hitchcock's most minimalist actress, one who conveyed emotions by her rate of blinking. When she is under massive attack in The Birds, she simply blinks more fiercely.
One of the persistent questions in the film is why the birds attack the humans in the first place. Hitchcock gives no reason, allowing audiences to shift uneasily in their seats as the screen is clawed into chaos. The film's finale, with Tippi and company inching gingerly toward a gull-covered convertible with its fragile canvas roof, captures the jittery tempo of the paranoid, post-atomic 1960s, a touch that remains so endurably modern that the film is just as radical today — and yet as right-on — as the "unsatisfying" nowhere ending of No Country for Old Men: Things happen. For no reason. Deal with it.
And I, after many viewings, have dealt with it. You see I do know the reason why the birds attack: And her name is Tippi. Beautiful, blond, envelope thin, Tippi Hedren in The Birds is a creature of high-fashion artifice, of the elegant long neck and uncomfortable twisted positions favored by the Vogue photographer. An artifice so thorough that nature is thrown into an uproar, a rage, and rises to attack her.
As a smug, soulless playgirl, the Hedren character is the alien invader, a threat and a competitor, who with her contrived angularity vies for the mantle of ultimate beauty, offering something more polished and machine-made than the organic, messy circles of nature.
And so she must be stopped, and the gulls swoop down, in a famous sky-high shot, to rip her apart with talon and beak, banging with maddened frenzy into the glass phone booth where she has taken shelter, cracking the glass and setting off gasoline fires and exploding cars and wild runaway horses: a sly and never-to-be-forgotten Hitchcockian tableau of the Biblical Apocalypse.
Like I say, I go a little off my nut for Hitchcock movies. When I look at the Vanity Fair reproductions — Jodie Foster is the one closest at hand — I think of Gus Vant Sant's laborious scene-by-scene remake of Psycho, a noble experiment that simply didn't fly, much like the absurd Dodo bird, which the film resembled.
In that film Anne Heche did what Jodie is doing, what good actresses are supposed to do. She warmed up the role Janet Leigh played, showing thoughts and emotions crossing her face — and it was a disaster.
The shell-shocked Janet was much more provocative. Leigh's motivations were simply left out of the original until much later when, almost in a script afterthought, we learn she stole the money to run away with the beyond-beautiful John Gavin (a reason to rob any bank at any time).
Under Hitchcock's direction the actress never tips us to the fact that she might be something more complex than an automaton. The numb starey Janet, the icy Tippi (in both The Birds and particularly Marnie, where she is not only an automaton and compulsive thief but sexually frigid as well), the sleekly distant Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest (available but so fashionably uninvolved) added the right note of blank-eyed post-atomic existentialism — and this coolness is the crucial ingredient that is missing in all the Vanity Fair recreations.
All except one.
But before I get to it, I must acknowledge the Marnie of Naomi Watts, who impersonates less a still from a Hitchcock film than a glam publicity shot of Tippi Hedren in all her high-haired, high-gowned Camelot-era splendor. Also superb is Charlize Theron's spot-on Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder, the most technically accurate impersonation in the bunch.
Theron's warmth is not an error here, for Hitchcock had not yet made the turn. In Hitchcock's Grace Kelly trilogy, his women are still women and not disturbed ideas about women. And Theron, like Kelly, conveys a warmly simmering sexuality that is loaded with '50s propriety and sensual authenticity: it's all happening just below the skin.
Still, good as the verisimilitude is, it's an easy job. The Dial M heroine is not jammed up like — and here is my grand exception — Kim Novak in Vertigo, magically and against all odds conjured up — no other word for it — by Renee Zellweger (see below).
I am not alone in treasuring Vertigo as Hitchcock's most profound and unintentionally personal film. Hitchcock, a mannered director of great high style, steps out from behind the black humor and droll cleverness — almost by accident, it would seem — to create a passionate woman and a male lead who has an unhealthy attraction to her.
Perhaps it was because the director detested working with Kim Novak, felt she was pushed on him by her boyfriend, the studio chief at Universal, that he couldn't see what his left hand was doing. Here in Vertigo was Hitchcock's own convoluted sexual history on full Technicolor display: his cloying, suffocating infatuations with leading ladies past. And he showed this infatuation without sympathy, as the unhealthy — literally morbid — thing it was. I won't be giving anything away but fans of the film will know what I mean when I say: James Stewart can only love Kim Novak when he believes she is a dead woman, whether by ghostly possession or painstaking imitation.
In fact, Kim Novak is fantastic in the role. With the snowy whiteness of her skin and dreamy, somnambulant way of exhaling her role, she gives a beautiful, melancholy performance, all soft and bosomy and troubled. In the middle of Hitchcock's Ice Age, his era of the shell-shocked albino blond with the blanked-out soul, Kim emerges as a full-blown neurotic, spending the first 20 minutes sleep-walking around a quaintly romantic San Francisco as a woman under a trance. And then in the second half waking from that trance in all her vulgar, broken humanity. (I can never visit that city without picking up a heavy Vertigo vibe from its Old California streets and strangely malevolent doll-house trappings.)
And it is exactly Kim Novak's otherworldly essence that Renee Zellweger has captured and distilled in — most amazing of all — a still photo.
Though Zellweger looks nothing like Kim Novak — in fact, in this picture, feature for feature, she reminds me of a leaner Simone Signoret — I feel Vertigo, I feel Kim.
The amazing thing about Renee Zellweger is that she is not, in fact, beautiful. At rest, her face — well, it reminds me of a boiled potato. Yet she has, through some alchemy of the actor's will, conjured the essence of beauty without really delivering the content. (The only time I can remember this being done before is by the brilliant but staggeringly plain Kim Stanley in The Goddess.)
Renee with a Z serves up the platonic idea of Kim Novak. Just as in Chicago, during a dream sequence when she appears in a spangly gown on a black set, she served up the platonic idea of Marilyn Monroe.
Platonic ideas are what the Vanity Fair spread is really about, conjuring up a sense of the films without doing broad burlesques of them. And for the most part, the photos succeed. Even paunchy Seth Rogan finds an unexpected — one would have thought impossible — point of contact with the sublimely elegant Cary Grant, whom he impersonates running from the cropduster in that famous cornfield from North by Northwest. Certainly, the most avant-garde image of the lot, bold in its risk, transcendent in its victory.
The only major stinker in the bunch is the Strangers on a Train recreation. James McAvoy, who was so attuned to the submerged sorrows of his role in Atonement, is here off the mark, his oiled-back hair doing nothing to help conjure up the special twinkly-eyed madness of Robert Walker.
Much worse is the actor who has stepped into the Farley Granger role. His face is too sensual, too virile to invoke the lush, high-strung Granger, who fit so comfortably into the role of beautiful boy love-object, complete with a certain pre-Stonewall, bottled-up neurosis that was forever leaping, unbidden, from his beautifully lidded but churningly alarmed eyes. (I can never remember Farley Granger smiling in a film or being anything but admired and desired and at the mercy of other people's — usually sick — dreams. Rope, anyone?) None of the roaring energy of Walker's top dominating Granger's importuning bottom comes though in this anemic translation of Strangers on a Train.
That's the funny thing about platonic ideas: they always promise more than they deliver. And while foreplay is always fun, a little goes a long way. Time to break out the DVDs and watch the originals.
Kim, Jimmy, and particularly Farley, I'm coming
When Being Blonde and Soulless Is Not Enough
"Mother ... my mother ... um, what's the phrase?
She isn't quite herself today."
— Anthony Perkins, making a colossal understatement in Psycho
BY JOHN CALENDO
It was like looking into a Fabergé egg last February when Vanity Fair published its loving but completely disturbing recreations of famous Hitchcock movies.
Here on beautiful, perfume-scented pages were carefully wrought miniatures — a photo tribute in which present-day movie stars had been inserted into instantly recognizable stills from Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window, each tableau a bit terrifying in its minute exactness.
The reader of these present pages (a soulmate, I feel, with many hours communing with silver shadows in the dark) will understand my sense of — is violation too strong a word, or titillation too frivolous? — confusion then, confusions plural, when I saw film moments I grew up on, eerie Hitchcockian mise-en-scenes whose hypnotic power can still grab me today, even after a lifetime of multiple viewings, reimagined into something rich and strange, a Mashup for the ReMix Generation, a sort of race-record cover version, with very pretty, very clean personnel — and no soul.
Take the photo of Jodie Foster, at top, impersonating Tippi Hedren in The Birds. It neatly conveys the blasphemous charm of Vanity Fair's born-again confections, disquieting as much for the things they get "wrong" as for the things they get "right." (You can view the entire spread here.)
On the plus side, there is the technical bravura in the shot, as in almost all the Vanity Fair photos, that demonstrates how much diligence and reverence was taken with these modern reproductions: The weathered look of the surroundings, the steel-toned palette, the pink flesh stark against the blues — all bring mid-century Hitchcock thrillingly back to life. What is wrong, so instructively wrong, is the pleading, warmly human face of Jodie Foster.
This is not mid-century Hitchcock.
Though Tippi Hedren looks just as fully engaged in the original shot at right, you need to see her in action to realize how exquisitely arch, how posed and contrived her performance is. And this is exactly what Hitchcock wanted.
After Grace Kelly deserted him (as he surely saw it) for marriage to a minor princeling (Hitchcock was notorious for unhealthy infatuations with his leading ladies), the great director decided he wanted nothing more to do with stars if he could help it. Stars came with built-in associations, the baggage of past roles. They were vibrant personas that connected with audiences. Hitchcock, however, was picking up something new in the air. He wanted something radical: stars who didn't connect, stars who conveyed a modern isolation.
The director now pointedly chose actresses who had a tendency to appear wooden and uninflected on the screen — limited actresses whose hollow resonances helped define his particular kind of morally vague blonde: Soulless, blank-eyed (think of Janet Leigh driving in Psycho), they were embodiments of modern anomie, of existential emptiness.
And so we come to the superior vacancy of Tippi Hedren that the much-too-Oscared Jodie can't quite touch. Hedren is Hitchcock's most minimalist actress, one who conveyed emotions by her rate of blinking. When she is under massive attack in The Birds, she simply blinks more fiercely.
One of the persistent questions in the film is why the birds attack the humans in the first place. Hitchcock gives no reason, allowing audiences to shift uneasily in their seats as the screen is clawed into chaos. The film's finale, with Tippi and company inching gingerly toward a gull-covered convertible with its fragile canvas roof, captures the jittery tempo of the paranoid, post-atomic 1960s, a touch that remains so endurably modern that the film is just as radical today — and yet as right-on — as the "unsatisfying" nowhere ending of No Country for Old Men: Things happen. For no reason. Deal with it.
And I, after many viewings, have dealt with it. You see I do know the reason why the birds attack: And her name is Tippi. Beautiful, blond, envelope thin, Tippi Hedren in The Birds is a creature of high-fashion artifice, of the elegant long neck and uncomfortable twisted positions favored by the Vogue photographer. An artifice so thorough that nature is thrown into an uproar, a rage, and rises to attack her.
As a smug, soulless playgirl, the Hedren character is the alien invader, a threat and a competitor, who with her contrived angularity vies for the mantle of ultimate beauty, offering something more polished and machine-made than the organic, messy circles of nature.
And so she must be stopped, and the gulls swoop down, in a famous sky-high shot, to rip her apart with talon and beak, banging with maddened frenzy into the glass phone booth where she has taken shelter, cracking the glass and setting off gasoline fires and exploding cars and wild runaway horses: a sly and never-to-be-forgotten Hitchcockian tableau of the Biblical Apocalypse.
Like I say, I go a little off my nut for Hitchcock movies. When I look at the Vanity Fair reproductions — Jodie Foster is the one closest at hand — I think of Gus Vant Sant's laborious scene-by-scene remake of Psycho, a noble experiment that simply didn't fly, much like the absurd Dodo bird, which the film resembled.
In that film Anne Heche did what Jodie is doing, what good actresses are supposed to do. She warmed up the role Janet Leigh played, showing thoughts and emotions crossing her face — and it was a disaster.
The shell-shocked Janet was much more provocative. Leigh's motivations were simply left out of the original until much later when, almost in a script afterthought, we learn she stole the money to run away with the beyond-beautiful John Gavin (a reason to rob any bank at any time).
Under Hitchcock's direction the actress never tips us to the fact that she might be something more complex than an automaton. The numb starey Janet, the icy Tippi (in both The Birds and particularly Marnie, where she is not only an automaton and compulsive thief but sexually frigid as well), the sleekly distant Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest (available but so fashionably uninvolved) added the right note of blank-eyed post-atomic existentialism — and this coolness is the crucial ingredient that is missing in all the Vanity Fair recreations.
All except one.
But before I get to it, I must acknowledge the Marnie of Naomi Watts, who impersonates less a still from a Hitchcock film than a glam publicity shot of Tippi Hedren in all her high-haired, high-gowned Camelot-era splendor. Also superb is Charlize Theron's spot-on Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder, the most technically accurate impersonation in the bunch.
Theron's warmth is not an error here, for Hitchcock had not yet made the turn. In Hitchcock's Grace Kelly trilogy, his women are still women and not disturbed ideas about women. And Theron, like Kelly, conveys a warmly simmering sexuality that is loaded with '50s propriety and sensual authenticity: it's all happening just below the skin.
Still, good as the verisimilitude is, it's an easy job. The Dial M heroine is not jammed up like — and here is my grand exception — Kim Novak in Vertigo, magically and against all odds conjured up — no other word for it — by Renee Zellweger (see below).
I am not alone in treasuring Vertigo as Hitchcock's most profound and unintentionally personal film. Hitchcock, a mannered director of great high style, steps out from behind the black humor and droll cleverness — almost by accident, it would seem — to create a passionate woman and a male lead who has an unhealthy attraction to her.
Perhaps it was because the director detested working with Kim Novak, felt she was pushed on him by her boyfriend, the studio chief at Universal, that he couldn't see what his left hand was doing. Here in Vertigo was Hitchcock's own convoluted sexual history on full Technicolor display: his cloying, suffocating infatuations with leading ladies past. And he showed this infatuation without sympathy, as the unhealthy — literally morbid — thing it was. I won't be giving anything away but fans of the film will know what I mean when I say: James Stewart can only love Kim Novak when he believes she is a dead woman, whether by ghostly possession or painstaking imitation.
In fact, Kim Novak is fantastic in the role. With the snowy whiteness of her skin and dreamy, somnambulant way of exhaling her role, she gives a beautiful, melancholy performance, all soft and bosomy and troubled. In the middle of Hitchcock's Ice Age, his era of the shell-shocked albino blond with the blanked-out soul, Kim emerges as a full-blown neurotic, spending the first 20 minutes sleep-walking around a quaintly romantic San Francisco as a woman under a trance. And then in the second half waking from that trance in all her vulgar, broken humanity. (I can never visit that city without picking up a heavy Vertigo vibe from its Old California streets and strangely malevolent doll-house trappings.)
And it is exactly Kim Novak's otherworldly essence that Renee Zellweger has captured and distilled in — most amazing of all — a still photo.
Though Zellweger looks nothing like Kim Novak — in fact, in this picture, feature for feature, she reminds me of a leaner Simone Signoret — I feel Vertigo, I feel Kim.
The amazing thing about Renee Zellweger is that she is not, in fact, beautiful. At rest, her face — well, it reminds me of a boiled potato. Yet she has, through some alchemy of the actor's will, conjured the essence of beauty without really delivering the content. (The only time I can remember this being done before is by the brilliant but staggeringly plain Kim Stanley in The Goddess.)
Renee with a Z serves up the platonic idea of Kim Novak. Just as in Chicago, during a dream sequence when she appears in a spangly gown on a black set, she served up the platonic idea of Marilyn Monroe.
Platonic ideas are what the Vanity Fair spread is really about, conjuring up a sense of the films without doing broad burlesques of them. And for the most part, the photos succeed. Even paunchy Seth Rogan finds an unexpected — one would have thought impossible — point of contact with the sublimely elegant Cary Grant, whom he impersonates running from the cropduster in that famous cornfield from North by Northwest. Certainly, the most avant-garde image of the lot, bold in its risk, transcendent in its victory.
The only major stinker in the bunch is the Strangers on a Train recreation. James McAvoy, who was so attuned to the submerged sorrows of his role in Atonement, is here off the mark, his oiled-back hair doing nothing to help conjure up the special twinkly-eyed madness of Robert Walker.
Much worse is the actor who has stepped into the Farley Granger role. His face is too sensual, too virile to invoke the lush, high-strung Granger, who fit so comfortably into the role of beautiful boy love-object, complete with a certain pre-Stonewall, bottled-up neurosis that was forever leaping, unbidden, from his beautifully lidded but churningly alarmed eyes. (I can never remember Farley Granger smiling in a film or being anything but admired and desired and at the mercy of other people's — usually sick — dreams. Rope, anyone?) None of the roaring energy of Walker's top dominating Granger's importuning bottom comes though in this anemic translation of Strangers on a Train.
That's the funny thing about platonic ideas: they always promise more than they deliver. And while foreplay is always fun, a little goes a long way. Time to break out the DVDs and watch the originals.
Kim, Jimmy, and particularly Farley, I'm coming
scriptgirl
Active Member
- Joined
- May 1, 2006
- Messages
- 12,226
- Reaction score
- 5
nytimes
ce Kelly, the movie star who became a real-life princess when she married Prince Rainier in 1956, and the tragic victim of a car crash in 1982, revisits the French Riviera this summer when the Grimaldi Forum Monaco pays tribute to her in an exhibition from July 12 through Sept. 23.
The exhibit, “The Grace Kelly Years, Princess of Monaco,” uses 15 walk-through rooms to reflect different eras of her life, including “New York,” which covers her early theatrical career; “Hitchcock,” which explores her work with the celebrated director and was designed to replicate the set from the 1954 movie “Rear Window”; “Wedding,” where her wedding dress — a gift from the MGM designer Helen Rose — is on display; and “Official,” which contains the princess’s belt and diadem.
Several Société des Bains de Mer hotels, including Hôtel de Paris and Hôtel Mirabeau, are offering packages that include two tickets to the exhibition (10 euros each, $13.70 at $1.37 to the dollar). Rates range from $540 to $985 a night; other packages are available by bidding at www.monacoauction.com.
ce Kelly, the movie star who became a real-life princess when she married Prince Rainier in 1956, and the tragic victim of a car crash in 1982, revisits the French Riviera this summer when the Grimaldi Forum Monaco pays tribute to her in an exhibition from July 12 through Sept. 23.
The exhibit, “The Grace Kelly Years, Princess of Monaco,” uses 15 walk-through rooms to reflect different eras of her life, including “New York,” which covers her early theatrical career; “Hitchcock,” which explores her work with the celebrated director and was designed to replicate the set from the 1954 movie “Rear Window”; “Wedding,” where her wedding dress — a gift from the MGM designer Helen Rose — is on display; and “Official,” which contains the princess’s belt and diadem.
Several Société des Bains de Mer hotels, including Hôtel de Paris and Hôtel Mirabeau, are offering packages that include two tickets to the exhibition (10 euros each, $13.70 at $1.37 to the dollar). Rates range from $540 to $985 a night; other packages are available by bidding at www.monacoauction.com.
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ct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Lipstick in her favorite coral color. Her 10.47-carat diamond engagement ring. A Givenchy sleeveless dress and matching bolero jacket that she wore while visiting John and Jackie Kennedy at the White House.
They're among the Princess Grace items on display or on sale this month, one of many tributes in New York marking the 25th anniversary of her death. In addition, the Princess Grace Foundation-USA is awarding $600,000 in grants to 22 young artists.
The classy Oscar-winning beauty once known as Grace Kelly would have hated all the attention, according to the foundation's chairman, her cousin John Lehman.
``She was such a caring person and she helped a lot of people, but she abhorred people knowing about it,'' said Lehman, chairman of the J.F. Lehman & Co. investment firm and former Secretary of the U.S. Navy. ``She didn't want to appear to be Lady Bountiful doing good works. It was done very quietly.''
There's nothing subdued about the events honoring Princess Grace, who died Sept. 14, 1982, in a car crash near her home in Monte Carlo at the age of 52. She had lived in the tiny principality of Monaco since leaving Hollywood and marrying Prince Rainier III in a spectacular 1956 ceremony.
A Sotheby's exhibition, which runs today through Oct. 26, includes the blue satin dress and cloak that Grace wore when she accepted the best-actress Oscar for ``The Country Girl'' in 1955 and a floral taffeta dress she wore during her first meeting with Prince Rainier at the Cannes Film Festival that same year.
Sinatra Letter
Her engagement ring -- an emerald-cut diamond -- is also on display along with photographs, letters from Hollywood friends like Frank Sinatra, handwritten speeches and other official correspondence.
Two of her outfits will be auctioned at an Oct. 25 benefit dinner at Sotheby's: the dress and jacket she wore to the White House in 1961, and a chiffon ball gown appliqued with rhinestones and pink-and-white embroidered flowers that she wore in the 1956 musical comedy ``High Society.''
Bids can be made in person, on line or by phone, and proceeds will go to the foundation. The outfits were selected by two of Grace's children, Prince Albert and Princess Caroline, who are both expected to attend the dinner where ``Star Wars'' director George Lucas will be honored for his contributions to movies and his efforts to help young artists.
Coral Lipstick
Estee Lauder Cos. is selling a $19.50 limited edition lipstick called Princess Grace Coral that is available only at Saks Fifth Avenue. The color is inspired by the lipstick she wore on her wedding day.
``Many celebrities today don't look at their role as an inspiration; she was completely different,'' Maguy Maccario- Doyle, consul general of Monaco, said in a phone interview. ``She had a career. She moved to a new country. She was a princess and a mother and she did it all with grace and generosity at a young age.''
Lehman founded the Princess Grace Foundation-USA shortly after her death, at the request of Prince Rainier.
``She had been talking to friends about wanting to set up a foundation to help people who had talent but not the means,'' Lehman said.
The foundation is financed by corporations, individuals and other foundations, Executive Director Toby Boshak said. The family has given the nonprofit the right to use Princess Grace's name and royalties from licensing deals.
The night before the gala, Sotheby's will host a casino event to benefit the foundation. Fashion designers Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera, Ralph Lauren, Zac Posen, Ralph Rucci and Vera Wang have created Princess Grace-inspired outfits that will be sold in a silent auction for a minimum bid of $2,000.
Casino mogul Steve Wynn and his wife, Elaine, are sponsoring the event with the Societe des Bains de Mer, a luxury hotel, casino and entertainment complex in Monte Carlo, and the Consulate General of Monaco in New York.
To contact the writer on this story: Mary Romano in New York at [email protected].
ct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Lipstick in her favorite coral color. Her 10.47-carat diamond engagement ring. A Givenchy sleeveless dress and matching bolero jacket that she wore while visiting John and Jackie Kennedy at the White House.
They're among the Princess Grace items on display or on sale this month, one of many tributes in New York marking the 25th anniversary of her death. In addition, the Princess Grace Foundation-USA is awarding $600,000 in grants to 22 young artists.
The classy Oscar-winning beauty once known as Grace Kelly would have hated all the attention, according to the foundation's chairman, her cousin John Lehman.
``She was such a caring person and she helped a lot of people, but she abhorred people knowing about it,'' said Lehman, chairman of the J.F. Lehman & Co. investment firm and former Secretary of the U.S. Navy. ``She didn't want to appear to be Lady Bountiful doing good works. It was done very quietly.''
There's nothing subdued about the events honoring Princess Grace, who died Sept. 14, 1982, in a car crash near her home in Monte Carlo at the age of 52. She had lived in the tiny principality of Monaco since leaving Hollywood and marrying Prince Rainier III in a spectacular 1956 ceremony.
A Sotheby's exhibition, which runs today through Oct. 26, includes the blue satin dress and cloak that Grace wore when she accepted the best-actress Oscar for ``The Country Girl'' in 1955 and a floral taffeta dress she wore during her first meeting with Prince Rainier at the Cannes Film Festival that same year.
Sinatra Letter
Her engagement ring -- an emerald-cut diamond -- is also on display along with photographs, letters from Hollywood friends like Frank Sinatra, handwritten speeches and other official correspondence.
Two of her outfits will be auctioned at an Oct. 25 benefit dinner at Sotheby's: the dress and jacket she wore to the White House in 1961, and a chiffon ball gown appliqued with rhinestones and pink-and-white embroidered flowers that she wore in the 1956 musical comedy ``High Society.''
Bids can be made in person, on line or by phone, and proceeds will go to the foundation. The outfits were selected by two of Grace's children, Prince Albert and Princess Caroline, who are both expected to attend the dinner where ``Star Wars'' director George Lucas will be honored for his contributions to movies and his efforts to help young artists.
Coral Lipstick
Estee Lauder Cos. is selling a $19.50 limited edition lipstick called Princess Grace Coral that is available only at Saks Fifth Avenue. The color is inspired by the lipstick she wore on her wedding day.
``Many celebrities today don't look at their role as an inspiration; she was completely different,'' Maguy Maccario- Doyle, consul general of Monaco, said in a phone interview. ``She had a career. She moved to a new country. She was a princess and a mother and she did it all with grace and generosity at a young age.''
Lehman founded the Princess Grace Foundation-USA shortly after her death, at the request of Prince Rainier.
``She had been talking to friends about wanting to set up a foundation to help people who had talent but not the means,'' Lehman said.
The foundation is financed by corporations, individuals and other foundations, Executive Director Toby Boshak said. The family has given the nonprofit the right to use Princess Grace's name and royalties from licensing deals.
The night before the gala, Sotheby's will host a casino event to benefit the foundation. Fashion designers Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera, Ralph Lauren, Zac Posen, Ralph Rucci and Vera Wang have created Princess Grace-inspired outfits that will be sold in a silent auction for a minimum bid of $2,000.
Casino mogul Steve Wynn and his wife, Elaine, are sponsoring the event with the Societe des Bains de Mer, a luxury hotel, casino and entertainment complex in Monte Carlo, and the Consulate General of Monaco in New York.
To contact the writer on this story: Mary Romano in New York at [email protected].
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HE ARTS; Albert's a Prince. Just Ask Cinderella.
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By KARI HASKELL
Published: November 17, 2003
IT might be hard to find two television shows that differ more than ''SpongeBob SquarePants,'' the Nickelodeon cartoon, and ''Six Feet Under,'' HBO's mordant comedy. But they do have a link: His Serene Highness, Prince Albert of Monaco.
On a recent visit to New York, Prince Albert sat in the Midtown offices of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA and talked about the link the organization plays for him, to his mother, Princess Grace, the former Grace Kelly, and her love of the arts.
The American branch of the foundation was created in 1984, two years after the death of Princess Grace. ''She helped struggling artists -- by giving advice and, anonymously, financially,'' Prince Albert said.
The financial help that the foundation gives is more public: $3 million in grants to more than 400 young Americans in film, dance and theater. Recipients have included the playwright Tony Kushner; Steven Hillenburg, ''SpongeBob's'' creator; and Kate Robin, a writer and producer of ''Six Feet Under.''
Mr. Hillenburg said that the $10,000 he received led to his big break, being hired by Nickelodeon after a showing of the short film he had made with the grant.
The foundation recently gave out 18 new awards at a dinner in the Grand Ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria.
It may not be possible to be more excited than one of the recipients, Christine Shevchenko, was that night -- or prettier, in her long pink gown. Now 15, the Ukranian-born dancer has been studying ballet since she was 5. The $7,000 grant she won will pay for master class ballet classes and toe shoes.
Though she has danced the ballet ''Cinderella'' many times, meeting Prince Albert made her feel ''like a real princess,'' she said.
HE ARTS; Albert's a Prince. Just Ask Cinderella.
REPRINTS
SAVE
SHARE
By KARI HASKELL
Published: November 17, 2003
IT might be hard to find two television shows that differ more than ''SpongeBob SquarePants,'' the Nickelodeon cartoon, and ''Six Feet Under,'' HBO's mordant comedy. But they do have a link: His Serene Highness, Prince Albert of Monaco.
On a recent visit to New York, Prince Albert sat in the Midtown offices of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA and talked about the link the organization plays for him, to his mother, Princess Grace, the former Grace Kelly, and her love of the arts.
The American branch of the foundation was created in 1984, two years after the death of Princess Grace. ''She helped struggling artists -- by giving advice and, anonymously, financially,'' Prince Albert said.
The financial help that the foundation gives is more public: $3 million in grants to more than 400 young Americans in film, dance and theater. Recipients have included the playwright Tony Kushner; Steven Hillenburg, ''SpongeBob's'' creator; and Kate Robin, a writer and producer of ''Six Feet Under.''
Mr. Hillenburg said that the $10,000 he received led to his big break, being hired by Nickelodeon after a showing of the short film he had made with the grant.
The foundation recently gave out 18 new awards at a dinner in the Grand Ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria.
It may not be possible to be more excited than one of the recipients, Christine Shevchenko, was that night -- or prettier, in her long pink gown. Now 15, the Ukranian-born dancer has been studying ballet since she was 5. The $7,000 grant she won will pay for master class ballet classes and toe shoes.
Though she has danced the ballet ''Cinderella'' many times, meeting Prince Albert made her feel ''like a real princess,'' she said.
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