30 November 2010
29 November 2010
He Said She Said
"When I see Liz Taylor with those Harry Winston boulders hanging from her neck I get nauseated." - Doris Day
Kate Said
"I’ve worked with a lot of artists — Lucian Freud, Marc Quinn, Tracey Emin, Gary Hume, Jake and Dinos Chapman.A lot of them, really. And, you know, we’d see each other out, hang out at parties and what have you, and over the years they’d ask me to do odd projects. So yeah, I’ve worked a lot with both sides — art and fashion.
I guess I’m adaptable. I don’t know, I kind of go with whatever they want. I don’t see myself as one thing. You know, I turn up at work and they can kind of do what they want with me, really [laughs]. It’s not like there is one look that I specifically do — I’ve done a lot of different things.
When I used to do interviews a long time ago, I used to get very ill just worrying about them before they came out. I just didn’t like it. When I first started out I did press because I wasn’t really aware that they would write something really horrible but then they did, and I was like: “Oh no, I don’t want to go back there. I don’t really want to open up myself to that kind of criticism.” And I think that a lot of the time you walk in a room they already know what they want to write about you, so it doesn’t matter what you’re like. But sometimes I will do it if I like the person or the project." - Kate Moss
I guess I’m adaptable. I don’t know, I kind of go with whatever they want. I don’t see myself as one thing. You know, I turn up at work and they can kind of do what they want with me, really [laughs]. It’s not like there is one look that I specifically do — I’ve done a lot of different things.
When I used to do interviews a long time ago, I used to get very ill just worrying about them before they came out. I just didn’t like it. When I first started out I did press because I wasn’t really aware that they would write something really horrible but then they did, and I was like: “Oh no, I don’t want to go back there. I don’t really want to open up myself to that kind of criticism.” And I think that a lot of the time you walk in a room they already know what they want to write about you, so it doesn’t matter what you’re like. But sometimes I will do it if I like the person or the project." - Kate Moss
Bananas and Stripes
The new Prada ads (Steven Meisel) look a lot like Antonio's drawings, don't they? 
I've placed the ads in order of like: From delightedly-like (three girls in banana print) on top to dubious at the bottom (eyewear).
I'm not crazy about the Maria Carla one that denim bag is too truly in your face... And the spectacles one is rather practically doesn't need models. But still I admire the clarity of the ads - no soft sell here, just product, product, product!
28 November 2010
O Linda!
Iris Strubegger in a story in Vogue Paris, shot by Mert & Marcus, styled by Carine Roitfeld. It really does recall those spreads of Linda Evangelista shot be Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia in the early 1990s.
27 November 2010
26 November 2010
Weekend Reading List
Yesterday it rained: I put on my old Nike shoes, because I hate hate hate the feeling of wet toes (germs and wriggling micro bugs thrive in rain water rushing of roofs onto pavements onto streets, right?), opened my checkered Burberry umbrella and walked to the library as planned. Don't get me wrong, I love a tropical rainstorm. The greyness, the clean, oyster coloured light that gives the burnt colours of the shophouses along my street the clarity of a glossy photograph. And I love the smell of the rain, both loamy and fresh, a smell like no other. And it got cool, so walking fast felt natural, and freeing; It felt like I was having a free day in Paris in the middle of fashion week.
The rainstorm inspired me to look at Joseph Conrad's (top) collection The Eastern Stories, including The End of the Tether and The Lagoon. The introduction is written by Ban Kah Choon, who thought me English when I was in school. Dr Ban's jeans were always slipping down his back. And that was before rappers made bum cleavage de rigueur. One shelve below, I picked another book by Conrad, Victory. I had just read somewhere that Joan Didion read this book every year. It's set in Malaysia, in the year 1915.
I wanted to read a Shakspeare for the end of the year, and I picked up King Lear, (again because) I read somewhere that Ernest Hemingway (above) read this tragedy annually. I would otherwise have picked Twelve Night - more bawdy and Christmas-sy, and anyway I prefer comedies.My friend O met me at 5 o'clock sharp at my favourite McCafe, a block down from the library. He recalled that X often took him here on dates, when they were still dating, a long time ago. Now X is a body builder, and lives in New York. The rain had turned to a drizzle, but it wasn't quite dark yet, neither day nor dinner time, and so we drank iced Milo and O showed me pictures of his Mom on her birthday. And I told O that BG used to feed chickens from a red plastic pail, round about this time (dusk), when he was growing up in a farm in Chua Chu Kang. BG's chickens would flock to him when he called them "Beeek... Beeek..." and he would lead them into their wired coop, and lock them safely in for the night. And that when I was working in Bukit Merah, we would be walking to lunch and chickens would be scrabbling under the huge Casuarina trees that lined the road, for worms and such. I wonder if the chickens are still there - I haven't seen them in almost a year.
After the rain stopped, O and I went next door to Bras Basah Complex and we looked at books and magazines and I bought the new Self Service, which had such a nice (Jurgen Teller) story on Kate Moss, and some Bruce Weber pictures of a model O said was called Rob Evans wearing Philip Treacy's hats. O knew such things.
I settled in for the night. And just as the rest of Singapore was putting on their dancing shoes, and my friend B was getting safty pinned into a Marie Antoinette dress for a house warming costume party in Johor Bahru, climbed into bed, as safe as one of BG's chickens, and drifted off reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Artist of the Floating World. The rain had stopped.
25 November 2010
Troubling Trunks
Singapore's national water polo team is being rebuked for wearing swim trunks that feature symbols of the country's flag used "inappropriately". The controversial trunks, which were designed by members of the men's team currently competing in the Asian Games, show the flag's white crescent moon jutting up with the five stars to the side on a red background."Unfortunately the team did not seek our advice on the use of the crescent moon and stars when they designed their swim trunks," the Information Ministry said in a statement. "We would have told them that their design is inappropriate as we want elements of the flag to be treated with dignity."
The trunks sparked a furor in the media and on the Internet, with some offended by the use of the national flag ("disgusting", "nauseating" and "disgraceful" amongst other endearments were used to describe the phallic crescent) while others were amused at the furor("A very in-the-face-way of telling Singaporeans to have more children.").Asian Games rules stipulate that a team's uniform cannot be changed in the middle of the tournament, so the government will allow the water polo players to wear the trunks when they play Kuwait.
The team apologized and said it would retire the trunks after the Asian Games.
"We didn't have the slightest intention to do anything funny on our trunks to insult Singapore," team manager Samuel Wong, who helped design the trunks.
Uomini
Some of you may disagree: but I'm thinking - do we really need another book full of naked men? Photographer Mariano Vivanco's UOMINI (Rizzoli) published together with Dolce&Gabbana to celebrate the label's 20th Anniversary of menswear adds nothing to the genre. Preview pictures show the usual assorted models flashing their pubes - which is just more of the same. The cover, of model André Ziehe, is one of the best pictures I've seen of this model - which is all in all the best I can say about Mr Vivanco's work.
Can't Wait
The new Jane Eyre. New comer Mia Wasikowska plays the gothic governess.
Tutu thriller, Black Swan.
L'Amour Fou
A new French documentary on YSL, Yves Saint Laurent L'Amour Fou, chronicles the Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge affair (they met at Christian Dior’s funeral in 1957) all the way through Mr Berge's decision last year to sell their multimillion dollar private art collection upon the designer's death in 2008. Directed by Pierre Thoretton, the 104 minute film features rare archives footage and exclusive images — some never shown before (truly rare, as their story has been such a well documented affair, the 'crazy love' of the film's title). Saint Laurent's muses, Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise, predictably, put in appearances.
“I only saw him happy twice a year. At the end of each collection when he was acclaimed by the room.” - Pierre Bergé
“I only saw him happy twice a year. At the end of each collection when he was acclaimed by the room.” - Pierre Bergé
24 November 2010
He Said She Said
"I worked with very, very strong feelings. I photographed what I feared: aging, death, and the despair of living." - Richard Avedon
"A portrait photographer depends upon another person to complete his picture. The subject imagined, which in a sense is me, must be discovered in someone willing to become implicated in a fiction he cannot possibly know about. My concerns are not his. We have separate ambitions for the image. His need to plead his case probably goes as deep as my need to plead mine, but the control is with me." - Richard Avedon
The photographer with Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. This is one of my favourite portraits from his series, In the American West. 
23 November 2010
Jay Gatsby
In 1974, Robert Redford played Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. Mr Redford was beautifully, creamily dressed by Ralph Lauren.
Can Leonardo Dicaprio fill his shoes?
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