Tulip Fields
Category Archives: Beauty
Candid Land: BRIGITTE BARDOT AND THE ORIGINAL PAPARAZZI
Coinciding with the 75th Birthday of Brigitte Bardot on 28th September 2009, the James Hyman Gallery in London presents an exhibition of vintage photographs by some of the most famous paparazzi photographers of the 1960s. The collection of Bardot snaps is enough to make my head spin. Here’s to the grande dame of JROBS (Just-Rolled-Out-of-Bed-Sexy)
BRIGITTE BARDOT AND THE ORIGINAL PAPARAZZI.
AN EXHIBITION OF RARE ORIGINAL VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS
03.09.2009 – 03.10.2009
AT THE JAMES HYMAN GALLERY
Uncommon Scents… Coming Soon!!!
We fell in love with these incredible perfume and potion bottles handmade by arabic artisans in Fez and have decided to use these same artists to create the custom bottles for the Dar Cap fragrance line.
An amazing selection of aromatic oil concoctions inspired by our recent trip will include blends like Ramage, Hortensia, Tourmaline, Alligatore, and Buste. As gorgeous as these little vials are they are no match for what’s inside. The oils we brought home are like nothing we’ve smelled before – ancient, organic, and beyond sexy, we cannot wait to bottle these up.
Hot Couture
Spent a good bit of time in a Turkish Hamam recently. While I’m quite partial to a dry sauna I have to say the Swedes lose this particular design face-off hands down. Modern or ancient, the Turkish Baths are pretty easy on the eyes.
Apparently, at one time the “backscrubbers” who worked in the baths were young boys who doubled as sex workers… and the punishment for a man entering the women’s bathing rooms was death. Slightly more civilized today, you can still get your rocks off looking at some of these arches. The Turks cut a mean ogee.
Underrated Female #8: France Gall
Syrupy sixties chanteuse France Gall was the quintessential face of Sixties French pop. The Serge Gainsbourg and Michel Berger collaborator released over 65 singles and twenty albums during her singing career. Though many see Gall as a purveyor of fast-food audio fare, Gall was actually the innocent vehicle for Gainsbourg-written lyrical practical jokes, resulting in a string of hit singles with hidden meanings that tarnished her image. Songs like “Les Sucettes” (about a girl eating lollipops) and Bonsoir John John (written to a deceased JFK and tinged with hints of necrophelia) caught her unawares and hurt the success of subsequent releases.
I love her voice, her dress, and of course that hair only French chicks can pull.
My favorite song of hers was the Gainsbourg collaboration, “Laisse Tomber les Filles” (“Forget the girls”)… Get the whole story
Underrated Female #7: Florinda Bolkan
Florinda Bolkan (né Florinda Soares Bulcao) was born in northeastern Brazil in 1941. Her father, Josè Pedro, was over 60 at the time. Widower and state deputy, his second marriage to Maria Hosana, an 18 year old Indios girl who barely knew how to write, gave him three wonderful children: Alina, Josè Maria and the youngest, Florinda. After graduation from secondary school, she managed to secure a job as Executive Hostess for Brazil’s national airline, Varig. Dissatisfied, she moved to Paris at 18, attended the Sorbonne, yet failed to find her place in her new city. After modestly turning down many modeling offers she returned to Brazil to find her way. Get the whole story
Underrated Female #7: Florinda Bolkan
Florinda Bolkan (né Florinda Soares Bulcao) was born in northeastern Brazil in 1941. Her father, Josè Pedro, was over 60 at the time. Widower and state deputy, his second marriage to Maria Hosana, an 18 year old Indios girl who barely knew how to write, gave him three wonderful children: Alina, Josè Maria and the youngest, Florinda. After graduation from secondary school, she managed to secure a job as Executive Hostess for Brazil’s national airline, Varig. Dissatisfied, she moved to Paris at 18, attended the Sorbonne, yet failed to find her place in her new city. After modestly turning down many modeling offers she returned to Brazil to find her way. Get the whole story
Who is Diane Pernet
I spent a long weekend in the French countryside with this wonderfully veiled woman in 1992, after the death of my friend Clovis Pennington’s brother, Gary Lee. We slept in the cottage of Gary’s lover’s (Franck’s) parents who graciously hosted Diane, his son’s lover’s brother (Clovis) and myself, an American stranger. It was a bizarre and wonderful and surreal time, but for some reason the memory of Diane stayed with me most of all. Eternally veiled and dressed in black after being widowed by her husband in the eighties, she is an unforgettable presence. Apparently she was Gary’s best friend and his death was a huge, life-changing blow to her.
Recently I discovered her website, A Shaded View of Fashion, and realize she’s still making headlines for her singular and prophetic take on the worlds of art and fashion.
Underrated Female #6: Claudia Cardinale
The brilliantly talented Tunisian Italian Claudia Cardinale has to be one of the most physically perfect human beings ever created. She was born Claude Joséphine Rose Cardin in 1938 and had her break into films after winning a Tunisian beauty contest in 1957. Despite her very voluptuously feminine appearance, she had a very deep voice and had her voice dubbed in her early films. Cardinale made her film debut in Goha (1958) and later appeared in over seventy Italian and French films including a slew of Fellini films, most notable of which might be silver screen phenomenon 8 1/2.
Cardinale never made a real attempt to break into the American market since she was not interested in leaving Europe for extended periods of time. Her Hollywood films include Circus World (1964), The Pink Panther (1964) Blindfold (1965) and The Hell With Heroes (1968).
Bob Dylan obviously found her as perfect a creature as I do – her photograph appeared on his album Blonde On Blonde in 1966, but since the photo was used without Cardinale’s permission, it was removed from the cover art in later pressings. Keep Reading!!! Get the whole story
Backstage Babes
I am obsessed with the Folies Bergère in Paris, circa 1890-1920. Located on Rue Richer in the 9th Arrondissement it was built as an opera house by the architect Plumeret and was patterned after the Alhambra music hall in London. What was the height of popular entertainemtn at the time and was the original “vegas” revue. The shows featured outrageously elaborate (and revealing) costumes, a good dose of almost-nudity, and played up the “exoticness” of persons and objects from other cultures, obliging the Parisian fascination with the négritude of the 1920s. This obsession led to the overnight sensationalism of Joséphine Baker in 1926 – an African-American expatriate singer, dancer, and entertainer, who made internaitonal headlines with her suggestive “banana dance”, in which she wore a skirt made of bananas and little else.
I’ve been collecting backstage photos of the performers at the Folies. Here are some of my favorites. Get the whole story
