Short Biography

Among the 80s and 90s top models, the Dutch model Marpessa plays a particular role, thanks to her extrovert personality and her unusual beauty If it is true that the name of a person holds part of his destiny, then to be called Marpessa, like the nymph disputed between the god Apollo and the warrior Idas, or like the Afro-American actress turned by Marcel Camus into the carioca Eurydice of the Black Orpheus, means having an aura of beauty that is almost mythic. This is the case of Marpessa Hennink, which entered the Olympus of the top models between the middle 80s and the early 90s. She was born in Amsterdam from Dutch parents, and her father had origins from Suriname; at 16 years old she decided to begin her career as a model. Her strong will and her daredevil personality, that mirrored her unique way of walking, don’t let her give up when Eileen Ford, pioneer of the model management that passed by the Dutch city for some castings, rejects her.

Before there was Cindy and Christy and Naomi – and for a while, during – there was Marpessa. An olive-eyed, gravel-voiced Amsterdammer whose mixed-race lineage left her feeling an outsider among her strapping, fair classmates but also made her endlessly versatile for fashion shoots, and one of the great catwalk prowlers. “Modelling made me so much happier about myself. Before that, I was like a black sheep and then all of a sudden in Milan it was ‘Ooh bella’.” For a time, she was ubiquitous.

Then, in 1993, she bowed out. “Grunge killed it for me,” she says, waving her cigarette as if to brush away a pesky fly. “I wanted to be in fashion to be beautiful and elegant, not to walk around looking like a junkie.

“ You can feel her agent’s anguish even now – walking away just as the big money began to cascade down the model chain. “Don’t worry, I made plenty,” she cackles.

I get the impression she made plenty more “in retirement” in Ibiza, where she had her daughter Ariel, now 10, and established an idyllic-sounding life of haute hippiedom and lucrative property development.

Doing up homes for affluent would-be bohos is sweet revenge for a model who for 12 years never had time to unpack, let alone hang a picture. Her life seems to have been a constant process of balancing and amendments. “My mum was quite a hippie and into sewing things and studying homoeopathy – and this was Holland in the Seventies, we weren’t exactly at the vanguard of fashion. So when I got to Paris I really went for it, clothes-wise.

“ She reckons she was the first model to dress the part off duty. Not that they were ever really off. By the late Eighties the supermodel culture was fomenting nicely; theirs was the fame that only requires a first name. She and Linda (Evangelista) were fashion-obsessed, trotting around in their Alaïa leggings and Chanel jackets. “We wanted to look as good off the catwalk as we did on. Before us models didn’t dress nicely at all,” she reports disapprovingly. “It’s not supporting the business is it? I won’t mention names but some, especially the American girls, wore the ugliest cotton knickers even to their fittings.

“ Marpessa, for the record, wore La Perla and Hermès. “I invented the It bag,” she laughs. She almost had an Hermès bag named after her – there was a collaboration in the offing but Ibiza got in the way.

She is an intriguing contradiction of laid-back and fastidious. But so is her parentage: her mother, the world’s “strictest hippie”, her father, a tailor “who used to go mad if he saw me up a ladder paint-stripping a wall in a Chanel jacket”.

Which would have been quite likely. She has around 17, at least two couture. She had “a particular relationship with Karl” when she was modelling. She doesn’t mean anything romantic, unless you count the creative connection that flourished between the big models of the Eighties and Nineties and the designers. She was in at the beginning, when Versace escalated the fee wars by paying models $50,000 to do one show and Dolce & Gabbana paid the models in clothes. “Models had much more input then than now,” she says. “The designers would listen to what we had to say during the fittings and sometimes they’d change the clothes because of it.” And sometimes they wouldn’t. “Then you’d have to wear something hideous on the catwalk and just pretend it was fabulous.

“ Apart from her hair, which she says she can never get right herself, she’s abnormally low-maintenance – no exercise, no special beauty tips, apart from total sunblock 364 days a year and one intriguing exercise she shows me to lift your boobs (smile downwards, flex your cheeks upwards, ladies, and feel the burn). She’s a compelling argument for not messing around with injectibles. In Ibiza she floated around in sun dresses (by her friend Yvonne Sporre who also decamped to the island) and lots of antique gold jewellery.

She’s wonderful at making things look effortless and as if they don’t matter very much – it’s the Chanel jacket-up-a-ladder philosophy. Secretly I think she worked quite hard in Ibiza, buying and selling real estate, as she calls it, engaging in the odd spot of modelling (she’s been in Vogue more this year than at any other time in her career) and ensuring friends like Valentino and Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana had a good time whenever they came to visit.

And then, last year, when Dolce & Gabbana launched its Alta Moda (haute couture) line, it offered her a job in Milan. When I ask her title she looks at me pityingly. “We don’t have titles.” If they did, hers would be something like “Person Who Takes Care Of Clients And Makes Wearing Alta Moda Look Easy”. Because amazingly, wearing lace dresses worth tens of thousands of pounds without looking like a museum piece can be quite tricky. So can those clients, even though she diplomatically insists they’re a breeze. Perhaps they’re simply in awe.

(By Lisa Armstrong | 06 August 2013)

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG10224775/Lessons-from-the-Stylish-Marpessa-Hennink.html

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Collaboration with Ferdinando Scianna and Dolce & Gabbana

The long collaboration with Magnum photographer Ferdinando Scianna, with whom she shot the first D&G catalogues and campaigns and various editorial spreads, resulted in the publication of the book Marpessa, in 1993.

The first time Ferdinando Scianna has seen the top-model Marpessa, it was in photography, a small photography issued from the collection fall-winter 87, showed by the two italian designers Dolce & Gabbana. They asked him to work for them. Scianna knew nothing about fashion. It was his first experience. Like Scianna, Domenico Dolce was born in Sicilia. And for this collection, the clothes were inspired by Sicilia. As a photographer, Scianna was looking for the virtue of his earlier books on Sicilia to shoot Marpessa. The book surpasses the classic definition of fashion photographs. It’s simply like an sensual italian movie in black & white, as a long time ago…

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Young Dolce & Gabbana waiting in a car during the photo shoot on Sicilia

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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marpessa-R%C3%A9cit-Ferdinando-Scianna/dp/2859491503

(all pictures above by Ferdinando Scianna)

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DOLCE AND GABBANA ALTA MODA

April 27, 2013

The last post of this year is a tribute to Lara Stone, the sexiest, funniest and most beautiful model at the moment.

The last time I worked with Lara was for Dutch Glamour Magazine 
ph. Andrea Lennon, styling Ellen Hoste   2007
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Short biography

Lara Stone was born (December 20,1983) to a Dutch mother and an English  father in the town of Geldrop, (the Netherlands) and  grew up in Mierlo. She was first discovered in the  Paris Metro when she was 12, she then went on to  participate in the Elite Model Look competition at age  15. She became the primary choice for editorials and  advertising campaigns after signing with IMG in 2006. Lara is not a fan of the runway because of her  unusually small feet of someone of her size. Because  the shoes are usually too big for her, she sometimes  goes down the runway thinking “Do not fall, do not  fall!” (from Vogue Paris interview Feb 09). Lara Stone  was made Models.com #1 on the Top 50 List in  February 2010. In October 2013, joined L’Oreal as  their latest ambassador.

Magazine covers

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Editorial stories 

On the catwalk and backstage

And other great photographs

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Lara and her husband David Walliams 
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 Biography from Models.com

The “One (or Two) of a Kind” Collection for Men is a unique series of handmade clothes.  Only one or two items of the same fabric and/or colour are available within the collection, which contains trousers, shirts, jackets and coats.

The collection is inspired by the clothes worn in the 20′s to 40′s of the last century, but with a nowadays touch. Almost every item is made in wool, cotton, linen or viscose, pure or blends. Some of the fabrics are woven with very fine metal to secure a creased look.

All fabrics are pre-washed and after finishing an item, washed again. Some clothes get an extra treatment. All shirts, jackets, coats and most of the trousers are finished by visible hand stitching.

The online shop regularly gets new supplies!

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Years ago I got a the book about Francesca Woodman‘s work as a present from a friend. I’d never heard of Francesca Woodman, but I was immediately intrigued by her photographs. Her short life was intense and full of passion , as was her work.

In 2010 a documentary by director C. Scott Willis about the artistic family Francesca came from, called The Woodmans, won an award at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Francesca & her father George Woodman
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Francesca Woodman Bio

Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) only lived to be 22 years old, but her remarkable body of work has continued to increase attention in the world of contemporary art since her suicide in 1981.

She was born to an artistic family in Denver, her mother, Betty Woodman, is a sculptor and ceramicist and her father, George Woodman, is a photographer and painter. Her older brother Charles later became an associate professor of electronic art.

Beginning in 1975, Francesca attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She studied in Rome between 1977 and 1978 in a RISD
honors program. A year later Francesca moved to New York “to make a career in photography”.  She sent portfolios of her work to fashion photographers, but “her solicitations did not lead anywhere”.

Francesca was also deeply interested in the Surrealist movement and neo-Pictorialism—as seen in the work of fashion photographer Deborah Turbeville—and both movements are evident in the abstraction, motifs, and ghostly air of her work.

While her work would remain unknown for the entirety of her life, today she is widely celebrated for her black-and-white depictions of young women, frequently in the nude and blurred by slow shutter speed and long exposure. Many of her photographs are self-portraits—though you rarely can see Woodman’s face unobstructed—and men are an infrequent presence. Francesca made a number of short films as well, along the same aesthetics of her photographs.

Sometimes she dressed up like the heroine of a Victorian novel – she collected vintage clothes long before it was fashionable – or as Alice about to disappear through the looking-glass. In one famous image, she stands alongside two other naked women, each of them concealing their face behind a photograph of her face, while a different Francesca Woodman face, in a self-portrait pinned to the wall, gazes out at us too.

Her nudes often recall Bellocq‘s haunting Storyville portraits of New Orleans prostitutes. One startling photograph of her legs bound tightly in ribbon or tape, her hand holding a striped glove that rests between her legs, has traces of the disturbing doll photographers of the German surrealist photographer Hans Bellmer.

In late 1980 Francesca became depressed due to the failure of her work to attract attention and to a broken relationship. Her life ended when she threw herself off a building in New York in January 1981. She was just 22, but left an archive of some 800 images.

Francesca’s photography was first exhibited at Wellesley College in 1986 after it was discovered by Ann Gabhart, the director of the Wellesley Art Museum, in the Woodmans’ family home in Colorado. Her first retrospective opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2011 and traveled to the Guggenheim in 2012. The photographs are in the permanent collections of both the Whitney Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and prominent artists such as Cindy Sherman continue to cite her as an inspiration for their work.

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Documentary:  The Woodmans

The tragic story of Francesca Woodman, a young photographer renowned for her extraordinary nude self-portraits, is also the story of her brilliantly artistic family.  With THE WOODMANS, director C. Scott Willis shows how the struggle for fame in the high-stakes world of art resulted in tragedy, and then in healing and redemption.  As a family, the Woodmans are noted for their talent.  Betty Woodman, in particular, is an internationally renowned ceramicist whose work has been shown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  But it is the fate of Francesca, the youngest Woodman, that will haunt them over the years.  By piecing together Francesca’s photos, never-before-seen experimental videos and personal journals, and through candid conversations with George and Betty Woodman, Charlie Woodman and a host of friends, Willis depicts four lives committed to art.  And whose art lives through them.  It is an extraordinary debut film that explores what it truly means to create.

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http://www.amazon.com/The-Woodmans-Francesca-Woodman/dp/B007IHH4H0

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Books

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Jean Patchett’s features, delightful as they were, were not responsible for making her the most sought after, the busiest, and the most successful photographic model in New York in the 40′s & 50′s. Jean was a highly paid models because of a blemish. She had a mole next to her right eye which she darkened with an eyebrow pencil to make it more prominent. For the mole became her trademark. Manufacturers of every product from toothpaste to fashions, and jewelry to luxury cars insisted on having the girl with the mole in their advertisements. The same happened to Cindy Crawford in the 90′s.

“Photographers used to retouch the pictures they made of me very carefully, to remove the mole,” Jean said. “It used to make me angry, so out of defiance, I began to darken it with eyebrow pencil. Then one photographer left it alone and the
advertising people started asking for me. That’s how it all began.”

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Jean Patchett’s pictures are encyclopedic.

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In 1951 Jean married boyfriend/fiancé Louis Auer, a Yale-educated banker, whom she had met in 1948. She didn’t stop working, what married women did mostly in those days, but she refused to work before 10 am or after 4:30 pm because she liked to cook meals for herself and her husband. She worked 3 ½ days a week.

Jean Patchett & Louis Auer
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Jean is seen in eighteen of Vogue’s 20 issues in 1953 and constantly in the advertisements (for Bergdorf Goodman, Henri Bendel, Hattie Carnegie, and Revlon, among others). The next year she appears on the cover of Popular Photography magazine alongside “The Four Most Expensive Models in the World!”—Dovima, Evelyn Tripp, and Barbara Mullen.

In 1960 she retires to raise son Bart and daughter Amy. After they left home, Jean occasionally modelled again.

Jean Patchett dies from emphysema at 75, in 2002. In her New York Times obituary, she is remembered by Irving Penn as “a young American goddess in Paris couture.”

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The story behind a famous photograph

For the April 1, 1950 issue of Vogue, Jean travelled to Cuba. She met Ernest Hemingway, sat with him, and talked for hours. During their time, Hemingway kept her wine glass full. In proper etiquette, Patchett could not refuse her host. By the end of their interview, Jean reported: I could barely walk and had a headache the next day. No need to be precious, dear.

They met at his Cuban ranch and the shot was captured by fashion photographer Clifford Coffin. At Hemingway’s feet lays his beloved Black Dog and his hand rests on Ecstacy, one of his eleven cats. Jean sits, reserved, holding Boise. Hemingway elected to go shirtless and shoeless for the interview and photo shoot and Jean commented that Mr. Hemingway smelled bad.

We’re guessing Hemingway was enjoying a daiquiri, a favorite of Papa’s (his rumored go-to, the mojito, was not his drink of choice according to Philip Greene’s recent book). The tension between the two is palpable and Hemingway appears completely in control of his domain. Although Hemingway is iconic in many realms, this shot captures the essence of summer—craft cocktails, casual conversation, international models, slow days, Cuban ranches.

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The Television Braodcast

Jean was featured on CBS Television on Edward R. Murrow’s show Person to Person on January 28, 1955. In Mr. Murrow’s introduction he said: “Jean Patchett has been the most sought after model for nearly seven years now.”  Jean and husband Louis Auer V were broadcast live from their home in the relaxed style of Mr. Murrow’s TV journalism.

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The Critic

by Weegee

Originally titled The Fashionable People, this photograph is not the  journalistic coup it appears to be, but rather a setup planned in advance by the  photographer, Arthur H. Fellig, nicknamed Weegee.

On opening night at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1943 — the 60th  anniversary of the company and thus its Diamond Jubilee — Weegee sent an  assistant to Sammy’s Bar in the Bowery to pick up the drunken woman shown at  right. Weegee positioned himself for the picture as the woman encountered Mrs.  George Washington Kavanaugh and Lady Decies, two well-known art patrons often  featured in New York society pages. The setup is typical of the photographer,  who was enamored with stark juxtapositions of rich and poor, young and old, dead  and living.

The original photograph which was cropped later.

The picture, bearing the title The Fashionable People, was first published in Life magazine on December 03, 1943. It was renamed The  Critic in Weegee’s book The Naked City (1945).

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Yves Saint-Lauren Outside Church Where Dior’s Funeral Was Held

by Loomis Dean, 1957

A young man with the weight of the world on his shoulders

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Dovima with Elephants

by Richard Avedon, 1955

Richard Avedon, selfportrait

Mainbocher Corset

by Horst P. Horst, 1939

Lucile Brokaw on Long Island Beach' by Martin Munkácsi, 1933

Portrait of Horst P. Horst, by Cecil Beaton
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Resting on a Girder by Charles C. Ebbets/ unknown
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New in the online shop

Cropped pants made of grey striped linen (No.1105 & No,1106)

The coat is now also available in dark , ‘workman’ blue (No.605), lining green.

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Different ways to wear the Workman’s Pants & the Cropped Pants

In the series of mood photo’s of the collection the Workman’s pants are worn extra high-waisted, with a belt, but of course they can also be worn low waisted or with a belt through the loopholes….

To show the fitting of the pants a series of photo’s………

The cropped pants can also be worn in different ways; high-waisted like the pictures below…..

Or low waisted, like the 2 pictures underneath….

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

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

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

Designer Fong Leng & Mathilde Willink
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Studio Fong Leng

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

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

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

Fong Leng in one of her own designs

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

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

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

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Viktor & Rolf  s/s collection 2003 

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

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

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

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

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Muji

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

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

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

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MannenYa

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

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

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Tokyu Hands

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

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Shimokitazawa / Shimokita

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

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

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

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Naka-Megura / Daikan-Yama

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

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

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Mori Art Museum / Art & Design Store

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

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

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Good Design Shop by Comme Des Garçons

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

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

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

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

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

Wallis Simpson

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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info: VoguePedia and Wikipedia.

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Pictures of Garments & Accessoires by Paul Poiret

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

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Le Bal shoes, 1924

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

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

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

Elsa Schiaparelli Trompe l’oeil sweaters, 1927

Martin Margiela  trompe l’oeil wardrobe 

Maison Martin Margiela s/s 2014

Comme Des Garçons trompe l’oeil

Moschino  Trompe l’oeil

Hermes Trompe l’oeil designed by Herbert Sondheim, 1952

Vintage Trompe L’oeil

 Trompe l’oeil divers

Paul Smith Trompe l’oeil Duffle coat print tee dress

 Trompe l’oeil in body painting

Introduction

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

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

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

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

Backstage Dior

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

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Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent & Karl Lagerfeld

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

Roxanne Lowit

Book description

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

The book will be out in Fall of 2014.

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

Ungaro, Vogue 1984

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Diane Vreeland

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Casa No Name/ Mexico

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Valentino Haute Couture, Vogue Italia

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Charlotte Gainsbourg

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Portrets

Victoria Guinness, 1983

Portrait of Carmen Freidberg, Mexico, 1997

Corenlia and Bianca Brandolini D’adda- vogue italia

Chloe Sevigny

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And other Amazing Pictures by Deborah Turbeville

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Edith Sitwell multiple exposure, Cecil Beaton, 1962

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“The two greatest mannequins of the century were Gertrude Stein and Edith Sitwell – unquestionably.  You just couldn’t take a bad picture of those two old girls” 

A quote by Diana Vreeland 

Short Biography

Edith Sitwell (1887 – 1964) was born in a very wealthy, aristocratic family. She got two younger brothers (also authors), Osbert and Sacheverell, who, like Edith, had a hard time growing up with their eccentric, unloving parents. 

When still a teenager, Edith’s father made her undertake a “cure” for her supposed spinal deformation, involving locking her into an iron frame.

Edith, Sacheverell and Osbert Sitwell, 1930’s

At 23, she began publishing poetry and three years later she moved to a shabby flat in London, which she shared with her governess, Helen Rootham. In 1932 together they moved to Paris to live with Helen’s younger sister. Helen Rootham died six years later of spinal cancer. This was a tragedy for Edith, for she had never lived alone before.

Although she spent her life unmarried, Edith was passionately in love with the homosexual Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew. This love was Edith’s most important, yet most unfulfilling, relationship of her long life. For her the spark was definitely there and it did not matter that she was almost eleven years Pavlik’s senior, initially the relationship was one of great intimacy. 

In the beginning, Pavlik was captivated by Edith’s extraordinary presence and later painted her portrait several times. Sadly, he only offered “Sitvouka” friendship and with no other choice, Edith accepted. Pavel’s interest in her seemed purely intellectual and quite possibly financial, the thought of Edith laying her hands on him in an intimate way appalled him. 

Edith In front of a Pavel Tchelitchew Portrait of her

Pavel started to design her clothes and her signature look was born. Edith always tried to be somewhere near Pavel, who once said to her: “Nobody has ever understood you better, or come closer to you than I have and nobody ever will!”

Edith went to New York after the war, where the friendship almost ended as the result of a wild scene that Pavel made in a New York restaurant. Apparently, “white-faced with anger,”  he denounced Edith for being “self-obsessed” and for letting herself be corrupted by the “vulgar social figures that surrounded her.” Pavel further accused her of betraying the poet in her, the part he cherished, and “crudest of all, he coldly told her that everything that had ever been between them now was over.” 

Pavel Tchelitchew, Edith Sitwell and Pavel’s partner Allen Tanner

Crushed, Edith sailed for home the next day and spent the entire Atlantic crossing in bed. 

Although, it was possible for her to eventually forgive him the friendship barely survived.  It was a disaster of failed nerves and disappointed expectations on the sides of both.

During the WWII Edith had retired to Renishaw with her brother Osbert and his lover David Horner. She wrote under the light of oil lamps as the house had no electricity. She was lucky that during her lifetime she was surrounded by people who appreciated her and her two brothers as central to the artistic life of the times.

Edith Sitwell by Jane Brown, 1959

Edith Sitwell provoked many critics in conservative Great Britain because of her dramatic work, but also because of her unusual appearance. She resembled Queen Elizabeth I (they also shared the same birthday) dressed in exotic costumes, brocade and velvet gowns, adorned with gold turbans and huge colourful rings that reflected what she claimed: ‘good taste is the worst vice ever invented.’

She was created Dame of the British Empire in 1954. Three years later Edith got ill and ended up in a wheelchair. She passed away in 1964.

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“I am not eccentric. It is just that I am more alive than most people are. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish”.

Edith Sitwell, 1962

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 Edith Sitwell (and brothers) by Cecil Beaton

1927

1928

Edith Sitwell first met Cecil Beaton on 7 December 1926 at the home of Allannah Hooper.  It was a fateful meeting because the photographs that Beaton made of Sitwell later in 1926, then in 1927 and 1931, brought them both much fame. 

The portraits that he took in 1926 and 1927 were all prefabricated set-ups prepared in dimly lit interiors. 

In 1962, wearing her black ostrich feather turban faced with sheer organza, she welcomed Beaton into her apartment at Greenhill in Hampstead. She had commissioned portraits from him to mark her 75th birthday. She knew that they would be published internationally and would create an instant sensation. They did and you can see why. She is performing her eccentric fame for the camera and is much more beautiful at 75 than she was at 25.

Her style was an essential part of her character. But she had also had teasing sense of humour. Early on, Cecil Beaton noted ‘the twinkle in her eye’.

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The trouble with most Englishwomen is that they will dress as if they had been a mouse in a previous incarnation, they do not want to attract attention.

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Edith Sitwell by Horst P. Horst

Horst photographed Edith in 1948 for Vogue in New York. Here-along with her aquamarines-Edith wears two massive brooches. Horst says “Edith Sitwell wore extravagant clothes and Jewels; usually the clothes did not fit at all they just hung. She did it exactly her own way and got away with it.” “She was considered an Improbable and anachronistic fashion icon frequently photographed bristling with gigantic aquamarine rings– at least two to a finger, and plastered with vast brooches of semi-precious stones”

The ‘Aztec’ necklace

‘This gold collar was made for me by an American woman called Millicent Rogers. She was one of my greatest friends, though I only met her once. She sent it to me and the British Museum kept it four days and thought it was pre-Columban, undoubtedly from the tomb of an Inca-though they couldn’t make out how the gold could be stiffened in a way that wasn’t in existence in those days. But I have to be careful of the clanking when I am reciting and don’t often wear it for that.’ 

The rings

Ph. Philippe Halsman, 1937

‘I feel undressed without my rings. These aquamarines I love, but I’ve got a beautiful topaz like a sunflower–and when I’ve worn these too much I feel it’s being neglected….I’ve got red and green and black amber bracelets, and a ring I call tiger into grape. Its yellow, veined with blue and red, but when it snows it turns blue.’ 

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Edith Sitwell & Marilyn Monroe

Edith Sitwell & Marilyn Monroe

People were expecting the two women to dislike each other. Instead of giving the waiting photographers a good scandal, Edith and Marilyn hit it off immediately. Edith described Marilyn in her autobiographyTaken Care Of:

In repose her face was at moments strangely, prophetically tragic, like the face of a beautiful ghost – a little spring-ghost, an innocent fertility daemon, the vegetation spirit that was Ophelia.

Marilyn was an autodidact but her intellectual curiosity and love of books were not considered consistent with her sex symbol image. Marilyn and Edith sat together chatting happily about Austrian philosopher, esoteric spiritual writer, and founder of anthroposophy Rudolf Steiner, whose books Marilyn had recently been reading.

Pavel Tchelitchew Portrait of Edith Sitwell

info:

wikipedia

http://theesotericcuriosa.blogspot.nl/2010/02/unrequited-love-broken-heart-edith.html

http://aucklandartgallery.blogspot.nl/2010/08/1962-portraits-of-dame-edith-sitwell-by.html

After decades Marianne Faithfull is still a Fashion Icon 

Back in 1971, Yves Saint Laurent was foundational in celebrity stylish as he dressed Mick and Bianca Jagger for their wedding in St. Tropez. By doing so, he built on the already solid platform that saw the brand adjoined closely with rock and roll culture in the houses infant years. Decades later, last year to be exact, that connection was restored as the brand launched their Saint Laurent Music Project. A growing portraiture campaign of musicians styling themselves in iconic and permanent pieces of the Saint Laurent collection, continues this year with contributions from Marianne Faithfull.

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Marianne Faithfull about Kate Bush

“On the phone from Paris, famous fan Marianne Faithfull notes that Bush’s four-octave range should be regarded as a “national treasure.” “My favorite instrument in the whole world is the human female voice, and Kate Bush is one of the reasons why. It is, by far, a Stradivarius,” Faithfull says. “Which is why she rarely deals with the press or isn’t in a rush to record. She’s one of the few who can be above all that.”

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They all wanted to photograph her

David Bailey, 1964

Marianne Faithfull & Kate Moss 

In 2009 Marianne Faithfull launched an extraordinary attack in The Daily Mail on former friend Kate Moss, calling the supermodel a ‘vampire’ who stole her style. The (now) 68-year-old singer said that, although she and Kate were once close, they are no longer on speaking terms.

‘She’s not really my friend. I thought she was, but she’s very clever,’ she said. ‘She wanted to read me like a Braille book. And she did. It’s a vampirical thing.’

Marianne, who famously had a relationship with Mick Jagger in the late 1960s, even accuses the 40-year-old of imitating her choice of men, comparing the Rolling Stone to Kate’s husband Jamie Hince. ‘Now I see pictures of her with a boy who looks like Mick Jagger, and her looking like me. So there was a reason. It’s one of her gigs to do me,’ she told The Times.

Kate and Marianne, apparently drawn to each other by a shared love of fashion and rock stars, were once a regular night-time fixture in Central London and even holidayed together in the Bahamas. At the time the iconic star said that she and Kate, who is almost thirty years her junior, were kindred spirits.

‘She’s very complex – she’s very like me. She’s a Capricorn. I think she’s great,’ she has said. ‘You know, it’s OK. I don’t give a s***. But I was quite offended at the time. We were very fond of each other. And then it suddenly soured,’ she added.

‘She’s very clever, but she isn’t at all educated. We don’t have any [common] references. Except music.”

A  year later, Marianne Faithfull apologizes to Kate Moss…… 

In the Guardian of 16 February 2013, Marianne says she’s keeping her distance: “Except from Kate [Moss] – she’s an exception, because she’s clever and interesting, which is rare. Also, she’s clean now, which is great. It makes things much easier. She’s almost 40, which is a good time to stop. It’s when I stopped.”

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Story in W magazine by Bruce weber

The story was called “High Camp” and was published in W magazine November 1997. Models in this series:- Lucie de la Falaise, Kate Moss, Stella McCartney, Marianne Faithfull.  Photographed by Bruce Weber,  styled by Giovanna Battaglia

Only the pictures with Marrianne Faithfull:

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New Album

‘Sparrows Will Sing’ was written by Roger Waters for Marianne Faithfull and is the first single from Marianne’s 20th album ‘Give My Love To London’.

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Sometimes I have to ‘disappear’ a day and lose myself in another world to get inspired. Yesterday was one of those days and this time I choose the world of Kate Bush. I read a lot about her, watched many of her music video’s and found a BBC documentary I’d like to share. 

The first time I saw the Wuthering Heights video in 1978 was a mesmerizing moment. What I didn’t realise then, was the genius of Kate Bush, who wrote the beautiful song The Man With The Child In His Eyes when she was 13 and recorded it at the age of 16! She became famous at 19 and was solely responsable for her music, her way of dancing and her looks…… 

Very young Kate Bush, stylish already

Kate Bush became one of music’s most influential women. Her tales of dashing heroes & heroines, sung in her trademark voice, marked Kate out as very different from the rest of the pop crowd.

Her appearance was another trademark, the wild auburn hair was bohemian, always curly or crimped, her wide-eyed expression was achieved with black liner around her eyes, piles of mascara and heavy grey and green eyeshadow, also Kate loved red lipstick. It all added to her status as a style icon.

Kate wearing Fong Leng, ph. Claude Vanheye 

Her background in dance led her to mixing floaty chiffons and silks with spandex leggings and dancewear.  The ivory, floaty Cathy-dress she wore in the video for Wuthering Heights was /is a classic piece of loveliness, punk meets the Pre-Raphaelites.  

Kate Bush has always electrified fashion. Part Stanislavski, part sex-kitten, she influenced many fashion designers with her style and but few artists are played more often at runway shows.

Kate Bush, a true original.

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Watch the documentary and get inspired by this phenomenal icon

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Kate Bush, Sarah Lund acant-la-lettre

Anita Pallenberg (born 6 April 1944) ) is an Italian-born actress, model, and fashion designer, who is mostly known for being a Muse the Rolling Stones.

Short Biography

Young Anita became fluent in four languages, studied medicine, picture restoration and graphic design. At 21 she met Brian Jones (an original Rolling Stone) in Munich, where she was working on a modelling assignment. After a relationship of only two years Anita could no longer deal with his drug abuse. She had become Brian’s ‘full-time geisha, flatterer, punchbag – whatever he imagined, including partaker in orgies, which Anita always resolutely refused to do. 

Anita & Brian

Brian & Anita had become almost identical in style of hair and clothes

Keith Richards later said he had to rescue Anita from Brian, because they were both on a very destructive course. It happened  during a road trip to Morocco. Brian sensed something had happened between Anita and Keith and became violent to his girlfriend again. In the end she and Keith fled from Morocco and set up home in St John’s Wood, North London.

Anita and Keith together had three children: son Marlon Leon Sundeep (born 10 August 1969), daughter Angela (her middle name, which she chose to go by after initially being named and called Dandelion by her parents), born 17 April 1972), and a second son, Tara Jo Jo Gunne (26 March – 6 June 1976), who died in his cot 10 weeks after birth.

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Anita & Keith

 In 1979, a 17-year-old boy, Scott Cantrell, shot himself in the head with a gun owned by Keith, while in Anita’s bed, at the New York house shared by Keith and her. The boy had been employed as a part-time groundskeeper at the estate and was involved in a sexual relationship with Anita. Keith was in Paris recording with the Rolling Stones, but his son was at the house when the teen killed himself. Anita was arrested; however, the death was ruled a suicide in 1980, despite rumours that she and Scott had been playing a game of Russian roulette. The police investigation stated that she was not in the room or on the same floor of the house at the time the fatal shot was fired.

Keith later declared she shared his addiction to heroin and he wanted to clean up, but had to do it without Anita. Therefore he couldn’t stay with her, she would be a huge trigger for him. In 1981, after they had split up, Keith stated that he still loved Anita and saw her as much as he ever did, although he had already met his future wife Patti Hansen.

Anita Pallenberg, Bohemian Style

 Anita studied fashion design as a mature student at Central Saint Martins in London; she graduated in 1994. After she divided her time between New York City and Europe, and sporadically appeared in public as a party DJ. She also had a clothes collection.

Anita, now 70, has retired and shares a farmhouse in Sussex with son Marlon and acts as caretaker to Keith Richards’s Redlands estate while he is out of the country in tax exile.

Marlon & Anita

Interview  

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 Movies

Anita Pallenberg appeared in more than a dozen films over a forty-year span. Most notably, she appeared as The Great Tyrant in Roger Vadim’s cult-classic sci-fi film Barbarella, and as the sleeper wife of Michel Piccoli in the film Dillinger Is Dead, directed by Marco Ferreri. She had a small part in Volker Schlöndorff’s Michael Kohlhaas – der Rebell which was filmed in Slovakia in 1969 and the 1970 avant-garde Performance in which she played the role of Pherber (actually filmed in 1968 but not released for two years). She co-wrote the script to  with Donald Cammell, but had no intention of playing in the movie. She ended up replacing the original actress at the last-minute due to a medical emergency.

Barbarella

Anita Pallenberg as the Great Tyrant in Barbarella : ‘Hello Pretty, Pretty…..’

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Performance 

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Anita Pallenberg, Fashion Icon

Maddie Daisy Dixon as Anita Pallenberg, Lovecat Magazine 

photography: Sybil Steele / styling: Marisa Sidoti

leigh Bowery, ph. Fergus Greer, Novenber 1988

My friend Eddy (De Clercq) has shared many memories with me about his famous club RoXY in Amsterdam, my favorite hangout for years. Some of the memories involve Leigh Bowery, artist, dancer, designer, creator of nightclub Taboo  and professional provocateur.

Curious about this man, his amazing creations and stage performances, I found a documentary called The Legend of Leigh Bowery, which contains footage Eddy told me about, like the act The Birth and the weird wigs Leigh wore as daywear…

Leigh Bowery with assistant Nicola Bateman, ph. Fergus Greer

Short Biography

Leigh Bowery  was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, actor, pop star, model, and fashion designer, based in London. Bowery is considered one of the more influential figures in the 1980s and 1990s London and New York City art and fashion circles influencing a generation of artists and designers. His influence reached through the fashion, club and art worlds to impact, amongst others, Meadham Kirchhoff, Alexander McQueen, Lucian Freud, Vivienne Westwood, Boy George, Antony and the Johnsons,  John Galliano, the Scissor Sisters, David LaChapelle, Lady Bunny plus numerous Nu-Rave bands and nightclubs in London and New York City which arguably perpetuated his avant-garde ideas.

From a young age, Leigh Bowery (born 26 March 1961) felt alienated from his conservative surroundings. He first learned about London and the New Romantic scene through British fashion magazines. 

Leigh Bowery in I-D magazine

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Leigh moved to London for good in 1980, after taking a fashion course in high school. He became a known fixture at local clubs, in part for wearing outlandish outfits of his own design. 

In London, he soon befriended fellow clubbers Guy Barnes (known as Trojan) and David Walls. The three men moved in together, and Leigh outfitted his friends in his creative designs. The trio became known on the London club scene as the “Three Kings.”

Leigh found some success as a designer, showing several collections at the London Fashion Week show, as well as in New York and Tokyo. He was best known, however, as a club promoter and London nightlife fixture. In 1985, he opened the disco club nightclub Taboo. Originally an underground party, Taboo quickly became London’s answer to Studio 54. Taboo was known for its defiance of sexual convention, and its embrace of what Leigh called “polysexual” identities.

Leigh Bowery in Face magazine, ph. Nick Knight

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In addition to his club activities, Leigh participated in performance art and was well-connected within the art and theater circles of London. He often performed in face paint, lurex clothing and masks, relishing the opportunity to shock and flout convention whenever possible. He also served as a model, posing nude for some of Lucien Freud’s later portraits.

Leigh Bowery, who had identified as gay for many years, married his friend, Nicola Bateman (something to do with papers he needed), in May 1994. Only a few close friends were aware that Leigh had contracted AIDS before his death from AIDS-related illness, which occurred in London on New Year’s Eve in 1994, seven months after his marriage.

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 Leigh Bowery Series by Fergus Greer

 

THE LEGEND OF LEIGH BOWERY (2002)

Leigh Bowery: indisputably an embodiment of the 1980′s club scene in London and a provocative influence for a generation of artists.  The creator of Taboo – in more ways than the infamous nightclub – injects an outrageousness that inspired Boy George, Damien Hirst, Rifat Ozbek… the list goes on. The list is topped off with Charles Atlas, the man behind the camera for this amazing documentary

The documentary is also named in the Top Ten Cult Fashion Documentaries of Dazed & Confused magazine…. (http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/16863/1/top-ten-cult-fashion-documentaries)

 

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Info: http://www.biography.com/people/leigh-bowery-20943343#early-life