Happy Birthday St Joan

Joan of Arc turned 600 last week if the sketchy records are to be believed. She was purportedly born on Jan 6th 1412. Even if this date is out by a day or decade or two, the enduring interest in her is quite remarkable.

Is it because she was so young when she died - 19? Or because she was burned at the stake as a witch, later became a martyr and finally a saint? Or perhaps because she was a lone woman in a time of men? Maybe it was due to her total conviction in the celestial voices urging her to become a virgin warrior, shave off her hair, don armor and lead the crusade against England to save France? An illiterate peasant girl defying noblemen and priests? How amazing that a female teenager had the ability to unite an army of men and persuade them to not only go to war, but to win! And all this in the 15th century!

Whatever the reason, she has been immortalised over the centuries in all art forms. In painting,

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882)

Ingres (1780 - 1867)

in photography

in music

in sculpture (nearly every town in France has one),

in literature

and in film.  Who can forget the incredible performance of Renee Falconetti in Dreyer's 1928 masterpiece, The Passion of Joan of Arc? Based on actual court records (that is amazing in itself given she was tried in the 1400s), the silent film focuses on Joan's trial, using the transcript as subtitles. It is excruciating to watch yet unforgettable, as nearly every frame features Joan's face close up, full of anguish and despair as she faces her accusers. I saw it again last year at the White Light Festival, this time with a live score by Portishead's Adrian Utley and Goldfrapp's Will Gregory. It was a sellout, testament to the film's enduring appeal.

Joan became a pinup girl for American women during WWI. And she even made it into Esquire Magazine's 2010 list of the greatest 75 women in history! 

I became obsessed with her at school after studying Shaw's play "St Joan". I even chose a monologue from Shaw's St Joan as my drama college audition when I was determined to be the next Meryl Streep  (Cate Blanchett had not yet come to prominence. But for what it's worth, she would have been my acting heroine then.)

JOAN.  Where would you all have been now if I had heeded that sort

of truth?  There is no help, no counsel, in any of you.  Yes: I am

alone on earth: I have always been alone.  My father told my

brothers to drown me if I would not stay to mind his sheep while

France was bleeding to death: France might perish if only our lambs

were safe.  I thought France would have friends at the court of the

king of France; and I find only wolves fighting for pieces of her

poor torn body.  I thought God would have friends everywhere,

because He is the friend of everyone; and in my innocence I

believed that you who now cast me out would be like strong towers

to keep harm from me.  But I am wiser now; and nobody is any the

worse for being wiser.  Do not think you can frighten me by telling

me that I am alone.  France is alone; and God is alone; and what is

my loneliness before the loneliness of my country and my God?  I

see now that the loneliness of God is His strength: what would He

be if He listened to your jealous little counsels?  Well, my

loneliness shall be my strength too; it is better to be alone with

God; His friendship will not fail me, nor His counsel, nor His

love.  In His strength I will dare, and dare, and dare, until I

die.  I will go out now to the common people, and let the love in

their eyes comfort me for the hate in yours.  You will all be glad

to see me burnt; but if I go through the fire I shall go through it

to their hearts for ever and ever.  And so, God be with me!
- From Penguin Classics, St Joan, George Bernard Shaw

The cult of St Joan shows no signs of abating - not this year anyway. We have new biographies to look forward to and a year-long calendar of commemorative events in France if you happen to be there in 2012. And the debates will continue to rage. But for me, I don't care if she is seen as a feminist, or religious freak or saint or warmonger. I just think of her as a young chick with a hell of a lot of spunk who followed her conscience in the face of adversity. I would have her as a dinner guest any day - armor and spiritual voices welcome.

images: wikipedia, corbis, canvas replicas, solve sandsbo/ art+commerce,  amazon, ruslania, colorbox, barnes & noble, amazon,   film sufi, the final take, fine art america

Daphne Guinness

I must admit I have never been that "in" to Daphne Guinness. She's always been on my peripheral vision here in New York - tottering around on heel-less shoes at the same art exhibition as me,  dining at the same restaurant, getting ready for the Met gala in the window of Barney's - but I have never actively followed her exploits or had a fashion crush on her. I always dismissed her as some poor lost spoilt english heiress who was undernourished and overwrought and had nothing to do except try and look eccentric.

But recently, all that has changed. There's a "Daphne Air" at the moment. She has pervaded my space but in a good way.  It started with a fantastic article on her in the New Yorker, followed by a trip to the Fashion Institute Museum's exhibition of her wardrobe.  And after watching various videos about her, I actually think she is quite a fantastically (still) eccentric, interesting,  humorous-as-only-the-Brits-can-be and rare creature.  For those who are not intimately acquainted with her, here are some 101's:

• Heir to the Guinness beer fortune
• Granddaughter of Diana Mosley, one of the Mitford sisters
• had 3 kids with her first husband (how they emerged from her teeny pelvis belies belief)
• Was besties with Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow
• Bought all of Blow's clothing after she died to save them from going to auction and being plundered by "souvenir-seekers"
• Has a fantastically interesting wardrobe collecting vintage Chanel, McQueen, Alaia, Givenchy and Valentino as well as a jewelry collection to die for
• Wears a badger stripe through her hair and gets away with it
• Involved with Bernard Henri-Levi the French philosopher who remains married to a chanteuse
• Famous for wearing staggeringly high platform shoes without heels and not falling over
• Prefers to think of herself as a "bee, flitting from one designer to the next" rather than a muse
• Has done collaborations with MAC, Barneys and Comme de Garcons
• One of today's most original fashion icons

Here is her tribute to Mcqueen that is showing at the FIT exhibition.

The Forgotten American Style Icon

Think of the great American style icons and names like Jackie O, Grace Kelly, C.Z. Guest and Babe Paley all come to mind quickly. But Ann Bonfoey Taylor? Never heard of her - until I read the WSJ last weekend. My, what a wardrobe! And what a woman! Born in 1910, Taylor became a fashion legend and extraordinarily accomplished woman. She was an Olympic skier who never made it to the Games because of the outbreak of WWII, so she became a flight instructor for the navy instead. She was an accomplished equestrian, fox hunter and tennis player, she married a man called 'Moose,' was a member of the social elite and built one of the first houses in Vail before dying there in 2007.

She graced the pages of Vogue, Town & Country and Harpers Bazaar through the 50's and 60's, was photographed by the likes of Edward Steichen, Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Toni Frissell, and her wardrobe included pieces from legendary designers such as Balenciaga, Givenchy, Mme Gres and  Fortuny. In 2008, Taylor's family gifted her wardrobe to the Phoenix Art Museum, where it was recently seen in an exhibition entitled, "Fashion Independent: The original style of Ann Bonfoey Taylor." Here are some photos chronicling her fashionable life.

images: wall street journal, artbook

An Australian Rose and the Big Apple

I was flicking through an old Vogue Living the other day and came across an article about Australian interior decorator Rose Cumming and her rise to fame in New York in the early 20th century. Whilst Florence Broadhurst might be well known both in and outside of Oz, this name was new to me. But apparently her name will be well known soon, as her great-niece Sarah Cumming Cecil, also a New York-based designer, is working on a book to be published this year. And some of Rose's classic fabric designs have also been re-launched.

Rose Cumming's entrance into the design field was unexpected. She grew up on a sheep farm outside of Sydney. Fiercely independent, she left the pastures of Oz for the avenues of Paris to find a husband, but wound up in New York, single. She fell in love with the fashion crowd of the 1920's and sought career advice from her friend Frank Crowninshield, the then editor of Vanity Fair, who asked if she wanted to be a decorator. “Perhaps I would, but first tell me what it is,” she reportedly answered.


According to the Rose Cumming website, Cummings revolutionized the decorating business when she opened her New York store on the corner of 59th Street and Park Ave. Her work was eclectic and bizarre, often with a nod to surrealism. She loved everything from Gothic, Venetian and Austrian Baroque to early Oriental furniture. But her most enduring legacy was her love of mixing bold colors. “Parrots are blue and green,” she remarked. “Why shouldn’t fabrics be?"


She brought color to chintz and purportedly invented metallic wallpaper. She also designed her own furniture and by the 1930's, her store was a favorite of the well-heeled, including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Andy Warhol, Rudolph Nureyev, Jacqueline Onassis and Babe Paley. With her purple hair, enormous hats, wit and outspokenness, Cummings became a darling of New York society and a legendary eccentric figure.
Her own townhouse was an eclectic mix of fabrics, colors and furniture styles.

Probably her most enduring fabric was the Delphinium chintz which has now been re-leased through Design Founir Companies in Kansas of all places. 

And for a more modern look, you could try "Zebrine," a blue and white zebra print as seen in the house of designer Ashley Whittaker.

Cummings even gets a nod in Mark Hampton's book, Legendary Decorators of the Twentieth Century. 

I look forward to uncovering more eccentric Aussies who "made it" in this town.




Images: Architectural Digest, The Peak of Chic, Little Augury, Amazon

Grey Gardens

"Raccoons and cats become a little bit boring, I mean for too long a time."

- Edie Beale -

A portrayal of one of the strangest and most riveting local, true-life stories won deserved recognition last night at the Golden Globes. Drew Barrymore won for her portrayal of "Little" Edie Beale in HBO's Grey Gardens, which also won for best mini series/movie. 

I had never heard of the Beales or Grey Gardens until I moved to New York. But it was a mother and daughter story so complex and sad and wonderful that I had to find out more.

Edith "Big Edie" Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale were the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Big Edie bought Grey Gardens of East Hampton in 1924 and together with her daughter lived here for over 50 years. Most of that time, they lived in utter squalor and total isolation. When the house was built in 1915 it looked like this:

By the time the Beales left it looked like this:

Thankfully due to the much-needed restoration by the new owners in 1979, it now looks like this:

The Beales were infamous in East Hampton well before the general public learned of them, due to the total disrepair of the house and the stench that emanated from it. In the fall of 1971 and throughout 1972, their living conditions were brought to light in an article from the National Enquirer and a cover story in New York magazine after a series of inspections (which the Beales classified as "raids") by the Suffolk County Health Department.

With the Beales facing eviction, Jacqueline Onassis and her sister, Lee Radziwill, stepped in - quietly - to provide the necessary funds to repair the dilapidated house so that it would meet Village codes. 

The Edies' story and living conditions became the subject of a mesmerizing now-cult documentary, filmed in 1976 by the Maysles Brothers. Shot in a house overrun by cats, mice and raccoons, with junk and rubbish piled so high in the garden it is hard to find the house, the two Edies seem to live in a fantasy world completely oblivious to their surroundings. The documentary has fascinated and horrified audiences for nearly thirty-five years. How could two women related to American aristocracy have fallen so far, with such little regard for their living conditions? 

One of the most remarkable aspects of the documentary is the naked vulnerability of its subjects, the blithe openness of people living in a fantasy world. With Little Edie doing most of the talking, you cobble together the life of a privileged woman who was once a singer and dancer, feted by society and pursued by many men, until her mother pulled her away from life in New York to come and look after the cats at Grey Gardens. From there, life became a series of memories in an increasingly squalid way of life. The constant struggle between artistic mother and flamboyant daughter is certainly based on a dysfunctional relationship, but it is underpinned by a strong love and need for each other.

This is an early image of Edie from a beauty contest:

And this is Edie at Grey Gardens

 

This story and its characters have become legendary. Little Edie's kookie fashion (she lost all her hair throught either stress or a self immolation action, depending on what you read) including a jumper wrapped around her head or leotards and a long silk scarf to go swimming in, was updated and seen on the catwalk to coincide with the launch of the Grey Gardens mini series. Her philosophical sound bites from the documentary - "I had my cake, loved it, masticated it, chewed it and had everything I wanted" - show there is more to this woman than a bitter and strange eccentric. Whatever the reason, the Beales and Grey Gardens add a texture and color to an otherwise sometimes bland world.

"Big Edie" died in 1977 and "Little Edie" sold the house in 1979. She died in 2002 at 84 of a heart attack in Florida. She wasn't found for five days.

If you want to read a first hand account of the Beales, there is a wonderful story in the 1972 edition of New York magazine. It is written by a neighbor who became a regular visitor of Grey gardens.

 http://nymag.com/news/features/56102/  

In 2008, Little Edie's niece published a book on her life. Edith Bouvier Beale of Grey Gardens: A Life in Pictures is full of letters, photos, drawings and scrapbook pieces, putting together the life of a fascinating, privileged and once beautiful woman.

Images: USA Today, Grey Gardens,  Duke Magazine, HBO, East Hampton History, Amazon