Beryl Markham

On my way home from a BBQ (Labor's day) I found a cardboard box full of books and magazines. Books are my obsession, and so are magazines so i stopped dead to take a look.

I found three things of my liking: a US Vogue from 2005 with Salma Hayek on the cover, a book on Art and modern culture and a biography of female pilot Beryl Markham: Straight On Till Morning, the biography of Beryl Markham.

Beryl was born in the town of Ashwell, England, but spent most of her life in Kenya where her father moved the family when Markham was 4 years old.

She pursued a career on her own as a breeder and trainer of race horses (one of her horses won the most prestigious racing prizes in Kenya when she was just 24) and later as a bush pilot, which is quite something; Bush flying is a term for air operations carried out in remote, inhospitable regions of the world.

Beryl Markham, as opposed to Amelia Earhart, made to cross the Atlantic West/East in a solo flight, a trip that wouldn't take her where she wanted to finish, New York, but Nova Scotia, due to an engine failure. While she's pointed as being the first person to fly the Atlantic, such tittle belongs to Scottish Jim Mollison.

The love of Markham for flying was born thanks to pilot Denys Finch Hatton, who you might remember for both the movie and the book Out of Africa and with who Beryl had an affair when his relation with Karen Blixen was loosing up. Beryl was the outspoken "Felicity" in the movie.

Beryl Markham wrote about her childhood in Kenya in an book tittled West with the Night. The book was highly acclaimed by different authors including Ernest Hemingway, who found the writer not as appealing though: [...] this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers ... it really is a bloody wonderful book. (source)

According to her biographer Errol Trzebinski, the book's real author was her third husband, the ghost writer and journalist Raoul Schumacher, fact that didn't stop the pilot to enjoy the success.

Men Are Just As Vain

I thought it was very funny when Jennine from The Coveted commented in my post about "the Wondercup" that men are just as vain as us...
I totally agree and I remembered the book Manworks.- A Guide to Style that I recently bought following the advice of my dear hubby who knows that I like everything that's men-related (as i said so many times before).

The book was written in 1980 by make-up artist and journalist Stan Place (I wonder if he's the same Stan Place from Maybelline), and it's a men's guide to style (hair cuts, scents, exercise, shaving...). It can be quite hilarious sometimes (80's style) but in general it would be a perfect bed-book for The Sartorialist.
I only miss real images in the book as everything in it is illustration except for the cover; wouldn't be awesome to have some men styles from the 80's?
Some tips from the book...

" Should men color their hair? Yes, if they want to"

" Don't let the word style throw you. Good, bad, or indifferent, a hairstyle is something every man does have --even Yul Bryner and Telly Savalas, who have no hair"

" Scents can be used to create an atmosphere or a mood, to enhance sexual attraction, and to become a part of a person's total image."





/// Este post es en honor al comentario que Jennine de The Coveted hizo respecto al post que publiqué sobre el "Wondercup". Ella, muy sabia dijo que "los hombres son tan vanidosos como lo podamos ser las mujeres...".
Me recordó el libro que me compré hace poco siguiendo el consejo de alguien bien cercano me dió sabiendo el vicio que tengo con todo lo relacionado con la moda de hombre titulado Manworks.- A Guide To Style.
Es un llibro para hombres y cómo mejorar o desarrollar su estilo... Fué escrito en los años 80' así que a veces peca de "pasado", pero en general es una maravilla.
El único "pero" es la ausencia total de fotos... todo es ilustración excepto la portada... y siendo un libro de los 80' no estaria nada mal ver algun que otro modelito de los de entonces...

A Flower Child

Marilyn Monroe played in movies for the first time in 1947 with tittles such Dangerous Years, Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!, Green Grass of Wyoming and Ladies of the Chorus.
But it wouldn't be until 1950 that her name would start to be known thanks to Joseph Leo Mankiewicz's All About Eve.

For the following 10 years Marilyn would become a star thanks to movies such Niagara, The Seven Year Itch or Some Like It Hot, until her terrible death in 1962 when she was just 36 years old and working in the "most notorious unfinished film in Hollywood history" Something Got To Give.

She lived and become the symbol we all know today during the 50's, and hers is the typical figure of a 50's sex-symbol, or the three B's; Bosom, Belly and Bottom.

We seem to know her body to the inch, thanks to dresses that would become part of our fashion history collective memory: has anyone forgotten the sheer gold lame dress that Billy Travilla designed for her to go and claim her award for Hollywood's "Fastest Rising Star" of 1952? Anyone?

Marilyn has always been a 50's symbol, obviously we never had the chance to know her otherwise. But, what if she lived through the 60's? How would the new fashions affect the star?

New Yorker photographer Bert Stern took pictures of Marilyn Monroe in 1962 for Vogue magazine, just six weeks before her death. These pictures show a very different woman, more relaxed, free and somewhat vulnerable, adjectives that would describe a woman in the 60's decade more than in the 50's where all women were supposed to be perfectly groomed, energetic and happy.
Edith Head, who was never able to dress Monroe but was a good friend of the actress, wrote a beautiful comment on her in her autobiography:


" Every designer who worked with her cinched her and harnessed her. Marilyn was a free spirit who should have been dressed in such a way that she would be able to forget about her clothes. When a woman is sexy, she knows it and she doesn't need clothes that constantly remind her. Marilyn should have been a star in the late 1960's -- she should have been devastating as a sensual flower child. I hated the hippie look, but Marilyn would have love it. "

Edith Head's Hollywood
page 106

// Aunque Marilyn Monroe apareció en la gran pantalla por primera vez en 1947 en un total de cuatro peoliculas: Dangerous Years, Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!, Green Grass of Wyoming y Ladies of the Chorus, no sería hasta 1950 y gracias a su papel en la pelicula de Joseph Leo Mankiewicz, All About Eve, que se convertiria en la gran sensación del momento.
Durante los siguientes 10 años Marilyn se convirtiría de la noche a la mañana en una gran estrella, gracias a peliculas como Niagara, La Tentación Vive Arriba o Con Faldas y A Lo Loco, hasta su fatal muerte en 1962 con tan solo 36 años de edad, mientras rodaba la que pasará a la historia como la pelicula no acabada más famosa de Hollywood; Something Got To Give.
Marilyn se consagró como sex-symbol durante la decada de los años 50, de ahí que su cuerpo pasase a ser el epítome de esa década: una mujer con pecho, tripa y culo (las tres B's en inglés= bosom+belly+bottom).
Su cuerpo es probablemente uno de los cuerpos más emblemáticos de Hollywood, gracias a los miticos vestidos que la actriz vestiria a lo largo de su carrera, cómo olvidar el vestido dorado que Billy Travilla diseñó para ella para la recogida de su premio a "La carrera cinemátográfica más precoz"?
De cualquier forma la muerte de Marilyn nunca nos permitió saber qué hubiese sido de ella durante los 60's, qué hubiese vestido la actriz en una época en la que libertad corporal significó tanto.
En 1962, justo seis semanas antes de la muerte de la actriz, el fotografo Newyorkino Bert Stern fotografió a la actriz para Vogue. Marilyn poso desnuda para el fotografo y el resultado fueron una fotos mas intimas de lo que el publico en general estaba acostumbrado, Marilyn aparece como una mujer totalmente libre, fuera de prejuicios, sensual y frágil al mismo tiempo, más en la línea de lo que sería la actitud de la mujer en los 60' que en los 50'.
Edith Head, gran amiga de la actriz que por desgracia nunca tuvo la oportunidad de vestirla, escribió en su autobiografia algo al respecto:

" Todo diseñador que trabajó con ella se empeñó en ceñir su cuerpo y atarlo. Pero Marilyn tenia un espiritu libre y tuvo que haber sido vestida de tal manera que hubiese podido olvidar la ropa que llevaba. Una mujer sexy lo sabe y no necesita de la ropa para ser recordada continuamente. Marilyn debió haber sido una estrella durante los ultimos años 60.-- hubiese sido arrebatadora como una sensual "hija de las flores" (hippie). Personalmente odio el look hippie pero Marilyn lo hubiese adorado"

Edith Head's Hollywood

pagina 106

A Punk Lady in 1944

And this lady is not other than the great Edith Head ...

I'm writing about this woman quite a bit in my latest posts without really explaining who she was. And maybe she is not as known as I might think, as not everyone has read the whole lot I have about her. (Actually I'm currently reading Edith Head's Hollywood by the designer herself and Paddy Calistro)

Some of you might "know" her face thanks to Disney's cartoon movie The Incredibles where she "played" the character Edna Mode.

Edith was the head designer at Paramount (although she would work for other studios as Universal or United Artists later in her career) for about 60 years and the first woman to succeed in a man's world: Costume Design. She is probably one of the most important costume designers in Hollywood's history together with MGM Gilbert Adrian, and the woman with more Oscars in her house (8 total).

She created Hollywood mythical outfits as Mae West's in She Done Him Wrong (this movie meant the beginning of Edith 's successful career), Audrey Hepburn's in Funny Face or Paul Newman and Robert Redford's in The Sting (this movie would give her the 8th and last Oscar in her career). She claimed to have worked on 1,131 films (Edith Head's Hollywood, page 163) in a time where costumes were actually designed and made, not bought as often happens nowadays. That's quite something!.

During World War II she was (and this is the point of my post's tittle), frequently quoted in magazines to advice women how to economize by sewing and designing their own clothing (those were rationing times ladies).
To support her own words she modeled in one of her DIY creations: she hand-painted safety-pins in a plain white blouse and used safety pins instead of buttons for the closing.

A : safety pins instead of buttons
B: hand-painted safety pins
C: you can't really see in my scan but she's wearing safety pins in her ears...

D: a safety pin keeps blouse and skirt safe in place

Hard times are hard and we wish they don't happen to us but we can't deny they are the ones to make our brains work...

Men Are Aware of a Woman's Clothing Too

Many things are delighting me while reading Edith Head's autobiography The Dress Doctor, but any more than the vision of a man, Jerry Lewis, on women's clothing... very insightful and interesting ladies.

" If you are playing a scene with a girl who is supposed to be sweet, simple and sympathetic, and she looks like a witch in clothes too tight, too low and too siren -no matter how good an actress is, you feel a psychological barrier. You can't think of her as a grown-up Girl Scout. If this is true in comedy, how much more true in serious drama, and how much more true in real life. What a woman wears creates, subconsciously, your idea of what she is. In every scene I'm aware, as an actor, of the impact the actress is making on me and at the same time I'm aware, as a producer, of what the audience is going to think"

The Dress Doctor (1959) page 151

Cecil Beaton: Memoirs of the 40's. Part III

This is the las post on Cecil Beaton: Memoirs of the 40's, basically because I need to return the book to the library (this would be the third time i would renew it) and because i don't want you to think, oh please, Beaton again no ... !

Part I - Part II

* Cecil on Bébé (French artist Christian Bérard) and his theory of fashion as anti-art.

" Bébé, inspired, proceeded to illustrate with his pencil the fashions of the new dressmaker Dior. These, he says, have the same new sense of sex appeal as Chanel created after the First World War. A theory was put forward that fashion was anti-art, that "chic" was to art the same as sex appeal is to love. "

Cecil Beaton: Memoirs of the 40's. page 41

* Cecil on photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Harper's Bazaar Editor Carmel Snow, and their attempt to create "reality pictures", 50 years before grunge and Juergen Teller.


" She [Louis Dahl-Wolfe] was speaking from her New York studio, but had cancelled the sitting for which she had specially come in from the country ("Where we live it's where all the cows and things are -oh, it's quite rural.") because she felt a cold coming on. She didn't feel like taking pictures: she had to look after herself. It gave me the thought that over here people know better than those in my country how to take care of themselves: that old heroine Gertrude Pidout in the London Vogue office continued to hold the fort even while suffering from 'flu till eventually she fainted in a bus trying to reach home one night. [...]

Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Carmel Snow during a Harper's Bazaar photo shoot

Louise told me of the aftermath of the dinner given by Carmel Snow, chief editor of Harper's Bazaar, at which Frances McFadden, another Bazaar editor, had asked me in what direction I thought fashion in photography were going. It seems I had answered that it was time to give up all this "piss elegance" and to get more reality into pictures. Two days later the "Editorial Beauty Conference" took place.
The suggestion for the next cover came from Frances McFadden, who wanted a woman to be photographed with her hair all wet and set with pins before going under the dryer. Louise did not think that would be photogenic. Mrs. Snow said: "Oh, no!" And McFadden said wistfully: "Well, after all it is reality we're after!" "

Cecil Beaton: Memoirs of the 40's. page 97

On Costume Designers and Wardrobe Masters

Before being fashion stylist I started my career in the media business (TV, Films, Magazines) as a costume/wardrobe designer, alas, I decided the clothing that the actors would wear in a movie.
In big budget films the costume designer not only decides the clothing an actor would wear, but designs it too, so it does the job of a fashion designer plus his/her own.
Movies has been, and still are, my biggest passion as you might guessed, so working in the Seventh Art as a costume designer was a dream come true.
For over four years I was in and out of a set every one day and sometimes months in a row. Unfortunately watching movies is not as working in them so after years of no sleep and creativity frustration, I started to switch to styling jobs and now is becoming rare to see me in a feature set. Nevertheless, I follow in awe and still love with all my heart costume design and good Costume/Wardrobe designers are my truly ever love, with Milena Canonero in the top top.

There are many books about Costume Design but the best I've found and the one that really tells what's going on is Deborah Nadoolman's Screencraft: Costume Desing.
Naddolman, a costume designer herself, (Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Blues Brothers (1980) and director of the Costume Designers Guild, collected interviews with 14 of the best Costume Designers of today, including Milena Canonero (A Clockwork Orange, Marie Antoniette), Eiko Ishioka (Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Cell), Piero Tosi (Il Gattopardo, La Caduta Degli Dei aka The Damned) and Sandy Powell (Shakespeare in Love, Orlando).
The book is an exquisite journey through the work of these incredible designers, their views, their sketches, anecdotes and knowledge. It is such a gem of a book thanks to the extraordinary selection of the best costume designers nowadays and their own personal voice in the telling of their work.
Reading Milena Canonero's experience while filming Out of Africa when she discovered that one of the costume truck drivers was selling the wardrobe pieces to the native prostitutes in exchange of their "services" is priceless...

>>> the edition I have is in Spanish but it is published in English too

Cecil Beaton: Memoirs of the 40's. Part II

part I

This post is the second part of my review on British photographer Cecil Beaton's diaries from the 40's. (The third one will be the last).

Even though I chose only extracts in which the author writes about fashion related people, it doesn't mean the book is about fashion, because it is not quite exactly.
The book is a wonderful window on Western culture and history during the 40's, and because many of those people were artists, therefore some of those people were fashion related.

I've had problems finding images for the post, what really surprised me, as I thought being key in our current fashion culture would help them to have a place in google images or the like, but it seems it didn't.
I hope this little review brings them back to memory, i think they really deserve it.

[please note that the images have been taken from internet and had nothing to do with the book. I just wanted to support the text with pictures that recreate the story]

* Cecil on Madame Dilés, manager of Paris Vogue studio at the time and before the II World War:

" [...] Then a great contrast: to the Vogue studio for my first shot at Paris fashion photographs for many years. Here again was Madame Dilés to give one a hug of welcome. Madame Dilés, a small birdlike woman with raven's-wing hair and huge thrush's eyes, has managed the Paris Vogue studio and its often difficult "star" photographers through untold phases of fashion. When I first came to Paris on assignments for the magazine I was unable to understand the language and proved inadequate in dealing with both technicians and my illustrious sitters.

But Madame Dirés at once became my friend, and no matter how difficult an editor might be to please she always had an encouraging word. As the years progressed, and my knowledge of French improved and my style of photography became ever more elaborate, Madame Dilé's task increased in difficulties. Yet at a moment's notice, and on a last-minute whim of mine, she would produce fishnets, statues, waxwork figures, cemetery wreaths, and any imaginable assortment of objects as part of my neo-romantic or surrealistic compositions. She did not quail at the thought of going out at midnight to bring back to the studio and old seller of violets from the Madeleine or lobster in pots from the market. Nothing ever surprised or daunted her."

Cecil Beaton: Memoirs of the 40's. page 27

* Cecil on Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas and their friendship with a "simple young man named Pierre Balmain"

" During the years of cold and shortages, Gertrude and Alice became friends with a neighbor at Aix, a simple young man named Pierre Balmain, who had a taste for antiques and a natural bent for designing women's clothes. In fact he made with his own hands heavy tweeds and warm garments for Gertrude and Alice to wear during the hard winters.

Now he has opened a shop in Paris. At his first showing to the press Gertrude and Alice arrived with their huge dog, Basket. Gertrude in a tweed skirt, an old cinnamon-colored sack, and Panama hat, looked like Corot's self-portrait.
Alice, in a long Chinese garment of bright colors with a funny flowered toque, had overtones of the "Widow Twankey", a comic transvestite from the vaudeville stage. Gertrude, seeing the world of fashion assembled, whispered: "Little do they know that we are the only people here dressed by Balmain, and it's just as well for him that they don't!" "

Cecil Beaton: Memoirs of the 40's. page 37

A Book About Us

Back in the days when i started to move around the Globe in search of the perfect job, I decided I wouldn't buy any book until I would settle, avoiding any extra overload in my life. (i forgot magazines could be as heavy though)

I thought that moment would arrive earlier, and I thank the Providence that I live in a city like NY which Public Library is such I've never needed to buy any book to be well informed in terms of fashion going ons.

Now there's the dilemma... Tomorrow is the released of Stylist: The Interpreters of Fashion from the people at style.com and introduction by Anna Wintour, one of those rare books one waits years to see released, how can I say no?.
I must admit that the price is not helping to make a decision: $75 in stores, $48 in Amazon, (I never understood such differences...).

The image of Paul Cavaco (one of the stylists featured in the book) with his copy during the launch party that style.com hosted at Skylight Studios in NY made me want it even more: this is a BIG book, in every sense.

The book documents the work and contributions of each stylist (a total of 16) through photographs of their creative output and inspirations, and illustrates their distinctive taste, individual flair, and talent for igniting global fashion fervor.

All times favourites stylists of mine like Carine Roitfeld, Lori Goldstein or Polly Mellen are among these pages so that's reason enough for me to buy the book.

As a stylist myself, is such a pleasure to finally being able to enjoy a book about us.
Ours is a very strange profession due to the frivolous connotations it implies, so it's quite rare to find anything that talks about it in a professional way.
When someone asks me, "what do you do?" and I answer, "I'm a fashion stylist", no one understands what I'm talking about and if they do, they just rise one eyebrow and say, "I see...". "No one thinks styling is a real job, but it is. Not one person profiled in the book isn't a workhorse." in words of Paul Cavaco, so there we go.

Every time they ask, I try to find a good explanation, but it's kind of difficult because there's too many things involved.
The closer I got to what I really wanted to say is that a stylist is to clothing what an artist is to ideas: it doesn't really matter what you do, it matters how you do it and the meaning you give to what you're doing.
Stylists show the designer's clothing to the public, they "put" it out there to be enjoyed, and the way they do it will affect the way that that designer or that garment will sell in the market.

For this reason labels are so picky in the choosing of stylists that will work with their clothing, as are magazines (the books of fashion) to hire this or that one, because they know how important is a stylist to interpret the look of a certain moment, and how bad it can be in terms of sales and reputation if the interpretation made is wrong.

So the decision is made, I will end up purchasing this book because I know myself and my soft spots and I won't be able to live the rest of my days thinking about the content of what I was missing. So weight overload, there we go!.