Tumblr Love

I'm currently at Pitti in Florence steaming (real, sunny, sweaty summer at last, yay!). I'll obviously post about it all as soon as I can but right now I'm way too busy with work and eating, so in the meantime here's a little link to my new Tumblr gif diary, which you should check out right now as it's the most amazing Tumblr gif diary ever (and hey! It's not like every other person has a gif Tumblr). Let me know your thoughts!

 http://theartificialparadise.tumblr.com/

Baci from Firenze.

Kiki de Montparnasse for AnOther Magazine

My new article on AnOther Magazine's website is about the wonderful Kiki de Montparnasse!

She was the toast of Montparnasse at a time when the popular quarter in the south of Paris welcomed penniless avant-garde artists and bohemian characters. Her raven black garçonne bob, prominent nose and art deco Cupid’s bow made her recognisable to one and all. Kiki de Montparnasse was not particularly beautiful or elegant, but there was something electric about her: “she was very wonderful to look at”, said Hemingway. Soutine, Foujita, Gargallo and of course Man Ray must have agreed with him, for they all asked her to pose for them. But Kiki de Montparnasse was more than just an artist’s model.

Born Alice Ernestine Prin, a healthy country girl brought up by a kindly and unshockable grandmother, Kiki de Montparnasse first arrived in Paris in 1913, aged 12, to work as a baker’s apprentice. However, five years later, the Armistice found her down on her luck, homeless, roaming the streets of Paris and sleeping in a vagabond’s hut behind the Gare Montparnasse. Refusing to become a prostitute (she had an irrational fear of venereal disease) she would go to the Coupole and sit there all da, sipping a six-cent café-crème wearing a black silk hat, her most prized possession. It was there, beneath the mirrors that multiplied the possibilities of seeing and being seen, amid the cigarette smoke and the aromas of Pernod and hot chocolate, that she filched croissants, made scenes and got artists to buy her drinks. She would pose for them in exchange, soon building up friendships with lovely Foujita, dirty Soutine or drunken Modigliani. She didn’t belong to any clique but rather reveled in seducing everyone: surrealists, cubists, futurists, Dadaists; and rubbed elbows with drunken sailors, pimps, boxers and cocaine users on the terraces of the Dôme or the Rotonde. She was famous for her generosity with her tears, with her body, with her laughter, with her money whenever she had any.

In 1921 she met Man Ray and reluctantly accepted to pose for him, even though she was weary of photography, especially the “lewd” kind. It was love at first sight. They moved in together to a modern, luxurious building on 31 bis rue Campagne Première. For Kiki de Montparnasse this was a dream come true: perfumed with Guerlain’s L’Heure Bleue, she would entertain in her salon the greatest personalities of her time. Matisse, Picasso, Joyce and Gertrude Stein all dropped in to enjoy her excellent French cooking. She still posed for artists, always remaining silent, never judging their work. She picked up cues from the very people she modeled for and became an accomplished artist, but was devoid of artistic ambition. She could even have been a movie star when, in 1923, Paramount scheduled an appointment for her in New York. But, at the last minute, she decided to go shopping instead. She would rather stay in Paris, a city that was, in the words of Alice B. Toklas, “more beautiful, vital and inextinguishable than ever”; a city where her own life and the creating of her persona would become her works of art.

Interviewing Ari Seth Cohen and his Advanced Style Ladies

 

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated in Paris the launch of Ari Seth Cohen's book Advanced Style with a cocktail party at Didier Ludot's boutique in Palais Royal sponsored by L'Express Styles. the lovely Mathilde Laurelli, who works for L'Express Styles website, interviewed Ari about his revolutionary work, as well as one of his Advanced Style ladies, Joyce Carpati. Joyce has a rare and magical energy to her, during the whole party everyone was mesmerized by her. Not hard to see why! So for all those of you who couldn't come to the soirée, here's a sneak peek of it. Oh, and the leopard vixen holding the book is me.

Advanced Style Cocktail Party

 

 This is a really busy week at work for me, but I just feel all excited and chirpy! L'Express Styles (aka the best fashion magazine in France) is organizing a cocktail party and book launch for Ari Seth Cohen's Advanced Style after I suggested it! The party will be next week at Didier Ludot's iconic boutique in Palais Royal and it will be all about excentricity, style and old ladies. Because I was the one who proposed the idea, I got a whole lot of invites, and I thought maybe some of my Parisian readers would like to come so I'm giving away 2 invites (for 2 people each). If you want them, all you have to do (apart from being in Paris next wednesday, obviously) is post a comment with an e-mail address on this post between today and saturday (on saturday I will draw the winners). So if you would like to spend an evening drinking champagne in the gardens of Palais Royal among the most fashionable Parisians, looking at Ludot's amazing 60's couture dresses, getting to know the Advanced Style ladies and getting a book signed by Ari himself, Go ahead and comment here! 

Ps: Also, remember you can still pledge for the Advanced Style documentary on Kickstarter by CLICKING HERE! There's still time!

The Paris Diaries: Halloween

"Don't move", my own mirror reflection whispers to me as I start re-drawing my eyebrows so they'll look like Vampira's. The eye-liner pencil feels soft and a little ticklish on my skin. "I hope my costume'll look cool enough" I think to myself. "Everyone wears such fabulous clothes in this kind of parties and I hardly had any time to decide what I'm gonna wear. The dark circles under my eyes are perfect for Halloween, though. Where is my Touche Éclat? Damn. I really need to sleep more. Or maybe these things just won't go, whatever I do. Maybe I'm starting to not be so young. I'm not twenty anymore... To hell with it, I feel better now than when I was twenty. I wore denim jackets when I was twenty, for God's sake! I could pass for twenty-three. I could even pass for twenty if I didn't wear red lipstick everyday. Where is my red lipstick? There. Well. Not so bad". I look at the mirror. With my fringe pulled to the sides and my face covered in rice powder I actually kind of look like the original Vampira. The taxi is waiting downstairs. I grab a patent leather belt and tighten it until my waist measures 45 cm and I can hardly breathe;I sprinkle some Black Orchid on my décolleté. thirty seconds later I'm on my way to the hippest club in town.

I open the car's door and put both my heeled feet on the floor. My black velvet dress is so long it trails along the wet asphalt. I actually really like my costume; I bet no one else will be dressed like Maila Nurmi. I bet...
I look at the smirking people in front of me and freeze in panic. Oh no. This can't be. Why do these things keep happening to me? Trying to hide on a doorstep as some kids pass me by and scream the words "David Lynch!", I grab my phone and mark a number. "Ray" I say "get here. Now. No one here is disguised".

From my hiding doorstep, feeling a bit like a sucker version of Orson Welles in The Third Man, I can see the people queuing outside the club. Click click click, every single girl here is wearing towering Louboutins and amazingly short skirts. Luckily I don't have to wait long: soon I can see a corpse bride, an Indian chief complete with plume and all, and a silhouette in a Napoleon hat which looks very much like John Galliano. Proudly they make their way to the door among the sneers of the Loubie-wearing crowd. "Thank God you're here! Wasn't this supposed to be a Halloween party?" "oh whatever. Let's just get inside", says Ray.

We walk through glittering golden corridors and heavy red velvet curtains, turning heads as we go. Looking for our host, we accidentally step into a room with black shiny walls furnished only with several pale tree trunks. A small group of people is sipping champagne, sitting nochalantly in the twisted trunks. It looks more like a Fellini or Antonioni scene than a David Lynch movie. They look at us in bored perplexity. I hear a voice behind me: "You guys look amazing!". Our chic-looking host welcomes us. It is a Halloween party after all.

The dancefloor is a curtained stage with red and blue lights. The DJ is playing 50's rock and roll. I dance for a while before realizing the floor is getting crowded with people we don't know; the girls (is it my imagination or are they all blondes?) are wearing different types of little black dresses, stiletto heels and 2.55 bags and they do the twist with straight-looking boys in checkered shirts. I sit and stare in amazement: I haven't seen so many straight boys together in years. Matter of fact, except in menswear shows, I haven't seen more than one straight boy at a time in years. So this is what my life has come to. Oh well, who wants to be surrounded by straight boys in checkered shirts dancing "perreo" style to ska music.
Then something magical happens. Madonna's La Isla Bonita starts sounding and two friends of Ray come to say hi. One of the boys is wearing a Dracula cape embroidered with ostrich feathers, and the other one is dressed as a zombi and his hair is sprayed the colour of green candyfloss. As we sing "last night I dreamt of San Pedro", the feathered dracula whispers in my ear: "sweetheart, you are a goddess!". I feel at home again.

Brits in Paris

Fashion week isn't what it used to be. Or maybe we are starting to get old. In any case, it is clear that, as Bob Dylan would say, things have changed. It feels like it was only yesterday that we impatiently awaited the PFW craziness, crashing into every show dressed in impossible outfits (and more than impossible heels) and partying every single night like there was no tomorrow. A couple of years have gone by. Now fashion week means stress and a hella extra work. When we come back home from the daily shows and meetings (we now get invites and have seriously lost practice on crashing) we have reviews to write, e-mails to send and very little energy to party. The fact that the fashion week scene has enormously changed in the past few seasons doesn't help, either: we used to know everyone at the shows, we got snapped by Bill Cunningham or Face Hunter when we least expected it and all the excitement was about the new collections and fantastic clothes. But now suddenly it's all about people desperately wanting to get snapped (or "papped," as some pretentious EGObloggers like to call it) by the several millions of "streetstyle bloggers" following the show parade. The collections really matter very little to most people and even Lindsay Lohan is allowed to enter and spoil the coolest designer parties. And with the possibility of comfortably watching the shows live from home, I've been wondering whether the whole fashion week circus is at all useful... until I started visiting the showrooms.
Graced only by industry people (press and buyers), the many collective showrooms scattered across Paris during FW are the real deal. Once there, you can get a close-up look at the pieces, get details and press releases about the collections, see a cabin model wearing the looks on demand and even chat with the designers around a cup of coffee. For me, this means really experiencing fashion week in luxury. In the last days, I've been strolling around the city with Ray and Fréderic, visiting some of the best ones. My favourites? the Americans in Paris CFDA showroom (featuring some hot talent like Pamela Love, Prabal Gurung and Eddie Borgo) and, of course, The London Showrooms, just around the corner from "chez moi" and which showcase the cream of the crop of British talent. If you know me you know that my fashion softspot is Brit design (most of my work actually involves making English designers known to the French public through features and reports in French magazine L'Express Styles). I couldn't exactly say what gets me going about British designers, but I guess it's a mixture between their sense of humour, their pop-yet-culturally-referenced collections and their unbridled sense of creativity. For the Brits, fashion is not about clothes; it is about pushing the boundaries and experiencing beauty. I took some quick iPhone snaps on my London Showrooms trip. I hope you'll enjoy them!

Felicity Brown's fabulous ombré gowns

Mary Katrantzou's rainbow-licious prints!

In love with Mary K's fish pattern.

Mary Katrantzou's shoes, made by Louboutin

Piers Atkinson's cherries have now become iconic, but her other designs are just as kawaii

Jordan Askill makes sustainable jewellery and sculptures

Louboutin everywhere

Simone Rocha's ultrafeminine lace & plastic collection

David Koma detail

Cozette McCreery's amazing Sibling knits.

Todd Lynn's impossible heels (guess who made them)

Louise Gray made a mega cool mess out of her desk

Drawings by Holly Fulton

Holly Fulton is big on details... and I love that!

Racy harnesses at Fannie Schiavoni

Mesh and pastel shades at Mark Fast

For Louise Gray it's all about sequins

Mark Fast's Louboutin raffia wedges

Myths and Facts About Paris

September is a big month for tourists in Paris. Actually, every month is big for tourists in Paris. Every day of the year, thousands of vacationers of all kinds (sneaker-backpack-combo wearing, suspicious multimillionaires travelling in matte Ferraris and of course normal people too) land in Paris with a formed idea of what this city is supposed to be. Everybody knows Paris is the city of light, the city of love, the city of fashion, the city of art... Once one is here, there are certain things that must be done and places that must be visited. It's mandatory. Period. And that doesn't just apply to tourists: many Parisians are actually foreigners who moved here motivated by the fact that Paris is the city of fashion, the city of love and so on and so on. The other day, as I gave instructions to an exhausted-looking bunch of Spanish tourists on how to go from the Galeries Lafayette to Notre Dame, I realized that, after having lived here for 4 solid years, I can give you my own version on some of the most extended myths about Paris. And I wish someone had told me all this when I first arrived here!

MYTH: Parisian women are the most stylish and sophisticated on the planet. No matter what. 2 years after we first met, my friend Vanni confessed to me when he first moved here he hoped every woman would be dressed like Marlene Dietrich in Desire. He was obviously deceived when he realized most girls are strictly Converse-jean-trenchcoat. No renard stoles, no feathered dresses, no extravagant hats. Of course there are some outstandingly stylish girls, but so are there in Stockholm, Moscow and Tokyo. It's not easy to be sophisticated in Paris: you get funny looks, men bother you on the street and you have to take off your heels, furs and bright red lips when you go to the Metro. Not practical.

FACT: Parisian girls are big on lingerie. The variety of brands, bra shapes, styles, colours and kinky accessories here is overwhelming. Your average girl will be wearing jeans and a marinière, but you can bet underneath she's wearing some hoochy coochy Chantal Thomass silk- lace lingerie. That's what I call empowerment from within.

MYTH: Parisian men are the most charming and irresistible on God's green earth. Of course there are lovely, handsome, sexy boys here, but I regret to inform that's not the norm. It's not like Alain Delon clones invade the city.

FACT: there is an exaggerated amount of perverts. When I lived behind the Moulin Rouge with my friend Anne-Claire, I used to have to ask taxi drivers to wait at the door until I was in the house. And I still managed to get bothered in the 2 metres that separated the car from the door. If anyone could tell me why this happens in Paris I would be thankful. Meanwhile, mace or a good watch dog seem like a good idea depending on what area of the city you find yourself in.

MYTH: there are bohemian little attics perfect for penniless artists all over town. Of course! If you don't mind sharing your bathroom and living in 8 square metres without a fridge and a kitchen. I don't even know why these kind of flats (called here chambres de bonne) are legal anymore. Let's face it, if you want a cute, artsy little studio you have to pay good money for it. Period.

FACT: this city has the highest ratio of amazing interiors on earth. Contrary to the Spanish, the French hardly ever draw the blinds, so if you're walking on the street at night you can see all the fabulous interiors. In my years here I have seen more sublime apartments than in my whole life. Parisians just have a great taste and enormously enjoy interior decoration.

MYTH: Montmartre is the bohemian epicentre of the city, so arty and alternative. The days of Picasso and fauviste artists are long gone. All you will see today if you go to La Butte will be hordes of crazed tourists getting their portraits done. Please, never ever set foot on Place du Tertre during daytime. Your romantic idea of Montmartre will collapse forever.

FACT: However, there are still some magical, unspoiled spots at Montmartre. Places still not discovered by mass tourism (so let's keep this strictly petit comité): in the lower part of the hill there are some great clothes shops and restaurants frequented only by the locals. If you really really want to experience 1900's Montmartre, I suggest a you go to the Lapin Agile at dusk: it was the first cabaret built in Paris and it still looks fantastic and holds a cool act of singers. No tourists go there and when you get out you can see the vineyards at midnight!

MYTH: The Moulin Rouge is the place to be. I'm sure the Moulin Rouge was a-may-zing in the times of La Goulue and Toulouse-Lautrec, but nowadays it's basically a very expensive clichéd attraction situated in an area filled with sex shops (the seedy kind, not the glamourous kind).

FACT: The Crazy Horse is the place to be. Situated near Avenue Montaigne, this cabaret holds a thoroughly modern and exciting burlesque act, sometimes featuring Dita Von Teese. Seriously worth it.

MYTH: What with all the parties, the nice food and the champagne, life in Paris is quite relaxed. I'll never get tired of repeating it: we don't spend our lives partying and drinking champagne! Well, maybe champagne flows more than elsewhere, but I can assure you we drink less champagne than Patsy Stone. I think.

FACT: Paris is taxi hell. I could write a whole book on taxi-related misfortunes. I'll never understand why it is so damned difficult to find a taxi here! I'm going to give you the best tip ever if you come to Paris: never expect to catch a taxi on the street. Keep the number of a taxi company on your phone so you can call at any time and get picked up wherever you are. Otherwise you might find yourself at 2 am stranded on the other side of the city for 3 or 4 hours and end up having to walk all the way home in your heels escaping from the perverts (remember your mace too- and I repeat: this is a fact).

MYTH: No trip to Paris is complete without a visit to the Eiffel Tower. I've been once on top of the Eiffel Tower. I can't remember any mind-blowing views or unforgettable love scenes- just a "breeze" that blew my skirt over my head, endless queues and a very annoying girl dressed in pink Juicy Couture yelling in the elevator that she thought the French were like so weird and stuff.

FACT: You should visit the Tour Montparnasse. Yeah, that ugly black tall building. It's taller than the Eiffel Tower, there are no queues and... you get to see all of Paris including the Eiffel Tower instead of all of Paris including the Tour Montparnasse.

MYTH: Parisians are obsessed with chocolate and cakes. No, we don't all behave like Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette and spend our days shovelling chantilly cream in.

FACT: Parisians have the most refined taste for all things good in life. It's not an obsession, just a long-established taste for gourmandises, which, in my opinion, equals a taste for happiness and life.

MYTH: Parisians are the most arrogant people in the world. Not true. They just have their own way of behaving towards strangers. Granted, a bit disconcerting (when I first came here I was astonished at how they could get super mad at you and still say mademoiselle, merci and bonne journée). But hey! You've read all the previous myths and facts: by now you can see how Parisians have to cope with a lot of stuff in their everyday lives.

FACT: Parisians make great friends. They don't become your BFF's in a day, you have to work a bit and scrape under the surface. But it's worth it! Once you've done that, you'll find Parisians are genuinely funny, lovely, caring people!