Supermodel: The Originals

They don't make photos like these anymore; They don't make girls like these anymore...

He Said She Said

"The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper." - Aristotle (BC 384-322)

Weekend Reading List

I have tonnes of stuff to read as kind friends have been gifting me books for Christmas, but that's not what I'm reading now. All that will have to wait till later, as I need to clear (obsessively) the backlog of my reading. One week day (BG has the most leave/off days of anyone I know who is gainfully employed), I went to BG's and along with four Hugo shirts, he gave me a huge bag of magazines to read and share. He would otherwise have thrown them all away (imagine BG's carbon footprint - HUGE, I'm telling you), seeing as how he hates the growing stack collecting dust on his washing machine. Dust, and now cat hairs: BG keeps a stray kitten called Charlie in the dark, glassed in kitchen.
The Time magazines I zip through quickly and then leave on the marble side table for Father. Time really has lost any urgency, and seems irrelevant now (doesn't one get all this sort of reading online?), and reminds me of waiting - in lounges and planes. Its time has come, surely? The UK Vogues I also skimmed and gave away immediately. The Men's Health sits in the toilet, and seems full of useful diet tips and motivational exercise stories - the mainstay of this magazine are how-to-get-killer-abs features and every issue has a few. Washboard abs (how banal right?) are the Holy Grail for butch girls today; It's not about health, it's about looks, and there's something drag about this. Men's Health is the Allure for men. I also share this with Father, although neither of us are likely to have those abs in this lifetime. That leaves Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia: I really enjoy this well put-together magazine (I think I've said this before) and I find it very useful for my travel column. Once I comb through one, I put it outside on top of the shoe cupboard and wait for Uncle Rubbish to take it away.

Finished

Like the year, my hand cream is finished.
Every last drop of Caudalie's Creme Gourmande Mains et Ongles was squeezed from the tube last night, which is completely flattened and wonderfully gnarled: I do hate waste, and I do love the feeling of the finally exhausting something (so I can start on something new!). It was a great, nourishing cream, satisfyingly heavy going on, but quickly absorbed, immediately effective, and smelled wonderfully of oranges, not grapes, even though it's from Caudalie's Vinotherapie line. Or maybe grapes smell like oranges in France. I'm also done with the bottle of Rosengarten Rosenbluten Tagescreme (its companion, Rosenbluten Nachtcreme, continues to languish in the closet, barely used). I bought this because Air France lost my luggage when I went to Berlin in the Fall of 2007, and I had to buy stuff untill they sent my bag on from London, from a shop called Breathe in Rochstrabe. All this before AS met me the next day. The campy Yorkshire doorman (he chatted nineteen to the dozen) at the Hotel de Rome pointed me there in a taxi, in the rain. It rained and rained, and AS and I spent our days in adorable Art Nouveau museums and had coffee in organic coffeeshops in little streets, and then drinks in posh bars with crackling fireplaces, talking and talking. Berlin is relaxed, easy, masculine.
One day, as I was going down to the basement spa (in my bathrobe!) to get a massage, I met Ellen Von Unwerth waiting for the lift. She seemed shy and weathered and smiled at me kindly, like a maiden aunt with crooked teeth.

I'd Fuck You

I'd fuck you because you are famous
I'd fuck you for your money
I'd fuck you to control you
I'd fuck you so someday I can have half of everything you own
I'd fuck you to fuck you over
I'd fuck you until I find someone better
And fuck you in secret
I'd fuck you because I can't remember if I'd already fucked you before
I'd fuck you out of boredom
I'd fuck you because I can't feel anything anyways
I'd fuck you to make the pain go away
I'd fuck you so I could feel something instead of nothing at all
I'd fuck you because you are beautiful
I'd fuck you because you are my nigger
I'd fuck you because I am your whore
I'd fuck you because you are a whore
I'd fuck you for fun
I'd fuck you because I can't
I'd fuck you so you will protect me
- Adam of London

On The Prowl: 8 Ways To Love

Newly single, my friend Munster has started dating (I use this word euphemistically) with a vengeance (this is an understatement). He has also started blogging. Here, an entry about the many guys on the net who are endlessly seeking... something or other. Munster surveys the field (from a very busy iphone) and concludes "one of them that you meet would fall into one of these constructions".
They are:

1. Just Give Me Sex
This group is functional and practical. Be ready for a litany of questions such as your preferred position, your likes, dislikes and preferences, organ length and girth, usage of chemical enhancements and if you have a place ready for the feats of pleasure.
In this group, (almost) everyone is in pursuit of the shared body ideal.

2. Chronic Singles
These folks have either faced a devastating breakup from their last relationship and/or they have remained single for some time and are unwilling or have no desire to be jolted from their routine, routine that has protected them from the travails of having to date, court, pursue and establish a relationship. Some have psychic scars that have trapped them in a rut, unable or unwilling to climb out.

3. Friendships Are Best
These are in relationships who are out to make friends and expand their social network. Many are happy to remain cyber-friends chatting on msn and texting, their spouses unaware of their need to form bridges out of their islands. There are also singles who privilege their work and do not want to complicate their already complex lives.

4. Friendships Are Best But I Want Sex
Some of these singles claim that they want to be friends but they also desire sex. Their motive for friendship is to have a romp in bed.

5. Monogamy Is Dead
Many already in relationships salvage their love by declaring that their relationship "open". They refuse to be trapped by the norms of monogamy, declaring that love is beyond the body, these guys venture into the bodies of others.

6. I Love U
Some form instantaneous connections and believing in "love at first sight", privileging love over the physical.

7. Let's Date
Everyone in this group would claim that they are no longer desire the body but value personality and character. These traditionalists believe in the proper stages of a courtship - first exchange pic, then msn, followed by handphone, maybe a cuppa or dinner, etc ...

8. Nothing
Lastly, some just do not know what they want, acting in a blase manner or in the other extreme, full of hyperactivity.

Source: http://munster-everythingtobehappyabout.blogspot.com/

Lanvin's Fab Ads

Lanvin men’s Spring 2010 campaign, shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, who are married, feature them as models as well. Alber Elbaz says: “To see him through the eyes of his wife and to see the love story between them — it’s a very emotional campaign.” Van Lamsweerde left all the fashion to her husband and appears nude, and in one image, her body painted in mottled swirls, like a phallic salami. She's definitely wearing the pants in this relationship. Top!

For Christmas: The Annunciation

The Annunciation, Leonardo da Vinci, 1475

Annunciation, Sandro Boticelli, 1489

Annunciation, Simone Martini, 1344

The Annunciation to the Virgin, Fra Angelico, 1446

Me, at Christmas, waiting for my very own angel Gabriel.

Of all Christian iconography, this is my favourite. I love the whole idea of the virgin conception (the holy virgin remained intact after Jesus's birth); the angel Gabriel fluttering in with parrot wings (his words, the seed); the virgin always reading. Sometimes, startled, the open book tumbles to the marble floor. I've always wanted to do a fashion shoot based on this tableau, someone quick do it!

Gringe and Bear It

This just about sums up my feelings about Christmas... The (always) lovely LaToya Jackson filling out a polyester stocking.

Keeping and Chucking

Strangely invigorated after more than an hour of being pulled, thumped, pinched, ground, elbowed and beaten beaten to a pulp by a 23 year old Shenyang boy at my local Wan Yang (maybe he transferred all his angry energy to me?), I decided to start a spring clean exercise, one closet at a time. First, the lower left, two-shelf commode where I store my modest CD collection (yes, whoever heard of CDs anymore? I haven't played one since... six months ago?). Let's see what lurks there shall we?
1. Greasy almost full bottle of Clarins Eau Dynamisante Huile Satinee Body Oil. Missing cap. Oh, so this is where you've been hiding. And I thought BG had stolen it. What is it doing in my CD closet? (Shampoo and store in shoe closet, can mist over legs when I wear sandals.)
2. Nokia phone warranty booklet and instruction manual (Chuck. I haven't used the phone since 2006)
3. Ipod earphone sponge covers, not in a pair. One in black, one in orange. (Chuck. Both disintegrate when I tried to get it out of tiny plastic pocket.)
4. Nicholas Tse VCD (Chuck. Have not watched it ever; Lay Leng gave it to me in 2001.)
5. Two Breakfast at Tiffany's DVDs. Why do I have two? Mysteries never cease chez moi. (Keep one, give one to Blake, so he can give to horrid actress girlfriend.)
6. Audio book of Jane Austen's Persuasion (read by Geraldine McEwan). I bought this hurriedly from Borders ages ago, by mistake: I thought it said read by Ewan McGregor. (Give to Jacq)
7. 1999 verte Tiffany & Co calfskin diary, contains many gems. Sample: "Coconut Lagoon for curry lunch (what else?). Wonderful feeling of being amongst nice people. Boys playing football in a inner courtyard. Think saw Maggie Cheung in villa. Think architecture has something to do with it." I went to Kerala that year. (Can't possibly chuck this!)
8. Formula 17 VCD. (Chuck!)
9. Keeping Mum DVD: It's got my faves Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas - how can two such brilliant women end up in this slack movie? (Chuck!)
10. Tony Bennett CD The Art of Romance. (Chuck - someone must have given it to me - don't believe I've even ever played it. Do not like Tony Bennett.)
11. Can of OFF! half empty. (Chuck. Smells disgusting.)
12. Classical CD Poeme. (Can give to P)
13. Mad post-massage rubbish buy - Oriental Wisdom from the Mandarin Oriental Spa, 12 track CD. (Give to P)
14. Gwen Stefani CD Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Must have bought it in fit of trying to be hip and young. Never played. Disgusting waste of money, very unhip. (Give to B)
15. 'Lost' DVDs: Penelope and Innocence. (Watch when free, then recycle)
16. One Duchy Originals teabag (chamomile) in a CD book. (Use immediately)
There. Much better...

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen

"Dear sister,
You have doubtless been for some time in expectation of hearing from Hampshire, and perhaps wondered a little we were in our old age grown such bad reckoners, but so it was, for Cassy certainly expected to have been brought to bed a month ago; however, last night the time came, and without a great deal of warning, everything was soon happily over. We have now another girl, a present plaything for her sister Cassy, and a future companion." - George Austen on December 17, 1775, on the birth of Jane Austen

Weekend Reading List

Since I started freelancing, I have been going to the old office, and I've been taking home stacks of the weeklies 8 Days and i-Weekly. They certainly add cheer and gloss, and while I can't say I've been reading them religiously, I love looking at the pictures of celebs doing stupid things, or in period costumes looking very silly. Flip, flip, flip and then chuck. i-Weekly also comes with a lifestyle supplement (I only just discovered) which Mother finds useful: Lots of recipes, gardening tips, astrological readings. Alas, my Chinese really is limited.

Quite on a different note, I'm reading The Spell, the 1998 novel by Alan Hollinghurst, all over again. It's been such a while since he has come out with a book, and I really miss him. I have all his books, every last one of them read several times, dreamily: The lush, erotic The Swimming Pool Library (1988); The Folding Star, 1994; And one of my all-time faves, The Line of Beauty, 2004, for which he won the Booker Prize. Incidentally, Hollinghurst, like Mother, is a Gemini, born 26 May.

Who's That Girl?

Fill 'er up!
This is allegedly Madonna in the Spring 2010 ad campaign for Dolce & Gabbana's Sicilian-inspired Spring 2010 collection. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, longtime fans of the (real) Madonna said: “To have Madonna in our campaign is a dream come true. She loved the collection and she is passionate and impressively knowledgeable about Italian cinema."
Steven Klein (why not Meisel? This shoot is a copy of stuff Meisel did decades ago!)captured the alleged 'Madonna' in New York last month in the Italian cinama-influenced shootwashing dishes, eating spaghetti; The real Madonna would never eat spaghetti, as you all know.

Wants

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:
However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards
However we follow the printed directions of sex
However the family is photographed under the flagstaff—
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs:
Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,
The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,
The costly aversion of the eyes from death—
Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.

Philip Larkin [1922-1985]

Aunty Kate

Here's Kate in Paris with her LV bag. I must say she's not ageing very well, is she?

Concision

I grew up looking at Mats Gustafson’s fashion drawings, which have decorated the pages of top magazines since the late 1970s. By 1997, the artist began shifting his focus to the natural world, with pastel landscape studies. Mr Gustafson, a Swede, began drawing swans in the same minimalist style that had defined his work in the fashion industry. “I picked the most fashionable parts of nature,” Gustafson said. “The swan is very much the supermodel among birds, and they’re very elegant. I was still looking for beautiful lines, but just in the natural world. I wanted to reduce, simplify, and get to the essence of things,” Gustafson said of his stark, romantic works. I love, love, love the concision of his work.

It's the complete opposite of what fashion is now.

He Said She Said

"To look good and to dress up isn’t just a favour you are doing for yourself — it’s a favor you are doing for the people around you." - Paloma Picasso

(For Ms NG on her birthday: This is so you!)

Vincent van Gogh: The Letters

If any of you kind readers of the blog want to buy me a Christmas prezzie, I would very much like Vincent van Gogh: The Letters, a six-volume hardcover edition of the artist’s complete surviving correspondence, edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker. Van Gogh was a prolific, eloquent, unguarded writer, as the more than 900 letters here demonstrate. He also drew in the middle of letters and in the margins: Sketches of people, landscapes and interiors, many of which appeared again in his paintings. They are all reproduced in the six volumes, along with family photographs, maps of the artist’s whereabouts from year to year, and reproductions of art, by himself and others, that he refers to in the letters. Published by Thames & Hudson.

Eye Roll Entry

How drag can you get?

This week yet another Barbie 'collectible' hits stores with the Rei Kawakubo/ Comme des Garçons Barbie (rolls eyes). Kabuki Barbie's in a sleeveless silk dress with a full skirt printed in photo-style graphic of Kawakubo's Jingle Flowers line (rolls eyes). This limited edition Barbie forms part of the Barbie Collector Platinum Label Collection, and comes in a new box featuring the Jingle Flowers print (rolls eyes even while typing). Sold out in Tokyo last week (rolls eyes again - the Japanese would buy anything won't they?), Barbie by Comme des Garçons is now in all other Comme des Garçons stores including London's Dover Street Market, priced £225 (rolls eyes). The Jingle Flowers floral pattern also makes it onto limited edition Comme des Garçons products, including wallets, tees, the DSM flower bottle perfume, Artek chairs, and is CdG's holiday print (roll eyes untill only whites show).
The best part is...the dress actually looks Prada.

If you need to roll eyes further (while reading - quite a feat) please click on http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/12/06/2009-12-06_design_intervention_bx_priest_is_fashion_hit_with_his_green_creations.html

Another Day, Another Collaboration

More things for your closet: Another day, another sneaker collaboration. Nike has co-opted Maharam, the leading supplier of textiles for architects and interior designers, for a line of restrained opulence. The USD 250 sneaks are made in the underused fabric, horsehair. Horsehair is clipped painlessly from the horse’s tail, then woven on arcane Victorian-era looms, and costs a fortune. The Nike x Maharam collection features three classic weaves — basket, check, and striae — on two of Nike’s easily recognizable sneaker silhouettes, the high-top Blazer and the low-top Oregon Waffle.

Old Ads

Samantha Jones, 1967, in the No5 ad, and Alain Delon, 1966; Oldies but goodies... I don't think they do it better now.

Christmas, 1999

R invited me to go to the circus with H and him, as they've been back together (again) for a spell and thier relationship seemed stable - for the moment. H's interest in the circus is easily explained - he once worked in a travelling circus in Japan. H told me this without irony once, but I can't recall now what exactly he did for the circus, but it wasn't anything exciting like flying on the trapeze or taming lions; I think he sold tickets or swept up the sawdust. Something like that. The Japanese are such an inscrutable race.
P told me that B had actually called H to tell him to stay away from R: "Don't make use of R," he'd said. P said B said this to H quite a few times, and not only on the phone. It's the sort of thing B always said, especially after a few beers. B always thought people were making use of them, and suspicious.
But R is not talking to B anymore; The times I asked R about B, R won't look me in the eye, and all I got was stony silence.
So B is out of the picture - for now, anyway: Neither P nor I think that B can be out of R's life for any considerable period; Thier relationship seemed such a long-drawn out affair, quite as old as the stars, like in some Stephen Hawking type time-frame.
I'm tired of this, I don't want to know; I want to go out with them and enjoy the night, and not have to think I can't mention this, I can't say such and such. It's not my drama, I don't want to deal with it.

Mes Stars Et Moi (2008)

As I'm hardly the Zoukout type, I decided to pop the DVD Mes Stars Et Moi in, drop into bed and drink iced Milo in the aircon, for some effortless entertainment. It's a French comedy, so really quite brainless, perfectly suited to what seems like the hottest night ever. With my faves Catherine Deneuve and Emmanuelle Beart playing movie stars (together with a Mélanie Bernier - who dat?), taking revenge on a rabid fan, it sounded pure drag joy. Well, yes... and no. Kad Merad is absolutely wonderful as a misbegotten fan (a down-and-out cleaner) who wastes all his time and energy on following - and somehow controlling - his favorite stars' lives, neglecting family, pet and self. He's a joy to watch, and unexpectedly, outshines the divas. Working together on the same film, his three favorite actresses discover that they have the same problem--with the same fan and decide to join forces and settle their score with him. They were his idols, but they become his worst nightmare. It's a light as souffle plot, and not as stylish or stylized as it can be, and feels somehow low-budget. The stars feel under-exploited and one wants to see more of Beart and Deneuve having a catfight or three. Pedro Almodovar would have made something major out of this material.
This is one of the "show business and me" type of films, a genre which includes one of my all-time faves Notting Hill(1999). The script feels too glibly-formulated, and contains too few surprises, but has its moments nonetheless.

An Immaculate Eye

These are images are from the new David Bailey book Eye: A selection of Bailey's photographs which span (1962 and 2008) the breadth of Bailey's career. His egalitarian stance is indicated by an absence of props and a minimal approach to lighting. Mr Bailey's eye surveys the gamut of humankind, including (here), Yves Saint Laurent (1970), Pedro Almadover (2001), David Hockney (1969) and Helmut Newton (1981).

With cover art (a painted eye) by Damien Hirst (yes, a bit pretentious, I know)...

He Said She Said

"I am interested in communicating with the world by selling to many people. It's much more challenging. And so it's about having to deal with opposites: with sophistication because, of course, I like it and it's part of my story, but also with being in contact with the world." - Miuccia Prada

Weekend Reading List

Ms X turned up at the Four Seasons that rainy day bearing me an armful of books. Everytime I meet Ms X, it rains. The first time I met Ms X, she had to buy an umbrella from those bargain bins in Takashimaya and rescue me from a thunderstorm, as I stood drenched at the front of Singtel across the road. It's very dark at the Four Seasons always, and hushed, and the air con is always deliciously cold, set so low, I feel I can breathe. This is not as common as it sounds. These are some of the treasures she thought I might enjoy: The children's classic Timmy The Tugboat, a new Thames & Hudson release, a facsimile of a book written by Ted Hughes back in the '50s, accompanied by Jim Downer’s original drawings; Rainer Maria Rilke's Selected Poems - Ms X is, has always been, a closet intellectual after all; Ms X's new interest in photography is reflected in the unlikely but marvellous book Scrapbook, a collection of unpublished and personal work by the master Henri Cartier Bresson; Lastly, The Proust Questionnaire the new book by Assouline, which brought back those glossy memories of shopping in the glamourous Assouline boutique in St Germain de Pres. I was there this time last year, how I miss Paris! Merci, Ms X, and bon voyage...

Lara For Louis Vuitton

On the right track: Louis Vuitton chose model Lara Stone for its Spring 2010 ads, rather than bring Madonna back for her third consecutive season. Steven Meisel shoots, having taken over the Vuitton campaign three seasons ago from Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

Bigotry and Faggotry

Everything you read about Ms Tyler Brule makes you understand the meaning of old-school queen-ship and bigotry alot more. His latest rant is the apogee of such. Read and weep: "European luxury brands are risking their cachet and alienating Western shoppers by changing designs to appeal to the Chinese market. Many brands added a little bit of jingle-jangle to their bags and a few shiny zippers and buckles to their shoes, which was not core to their aesthetic before. Some of these companies now are putting out products that Europeans wouldn’t touch." -- Tyler Brule, the creator of Monocle (Source: Bloomberg).

I think what Ms Brule is trying to say here is that Chinese people have inherantly vulgar taste, and Europeans are inherantly superior. You must remember this the next time you are tempted to pick up a copy of that very dull magazine she publishes. She should pack up and go live in Hong Kong where the colonial mentality thrives. How old-school is that?

Good Thing: Leica M7 Hermes Edition

The truly limited Leica M7 Hermes Edition, only 200 made.

100 in that Hermes orange calfskin (flashy), 100 in etoupe calfskin (classic); The platonic ideal of a 35mm camera comes with strap which makes it a total fashion accessory.

The price exclusivity plus authenticity? USD $14,300.

Long Live The Queen

The new Kehinde Wiley painting Equestrian Portrait of King Philip II, 2009 (in the manner of Rubens)

Copy Cat

Left: DVF Spring 2009
Right: Mercy (Canada) Spring 2008
Diane Von Furstenberg has been known to haul high street labels to court for copying her designs, so I'm left wondering what she might be thinking here...

He Said She Said

1887, Lemons on a Plate

1888, Oleander and Books

1890, Vase with Irises

1888, Almond Flower Branch

1899, Blossoming Chestnut Branches

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." - Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890)

Dec/Jan Vogue Paris

The guest editor for the festive issue of Vogue Paris is... Laetitia Casta. She's acting as Brigitte Bardot in the Serge Gainsbourg biopic, out 2010; Not an exciting choice for me but very French. Ms Casta was the 1999 Face of Marianne, the allegorical face of the French Republic. She suceeded Ines de la Fressange to be tus honoured. She is in good company, as Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot were both former Mariannes.