THE GOLDEN AGE OF COUTURE: PARIS AND LONDON 1947-1957

‘A golden age seemed to have come again’. Christian Dior, 1948
The V&A’s autumn exhibition, The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947-1957, is set to be one of the most beautiful exhibitions in London this year. It will also host London's answer to The Met's Costume Institute Gala. It's always been surprising that the V&A didn't exploit for fundraising its truly world class fashion and costume archive in the same manner that The Met has for years.

The London Gala, chaired by Alex Shulman, editor of British Vogue, has a commitee derived from the usual fashion world suspects: magazine editors: Anna Wintour, Carine Roitfeld; designers: Karl Lagerfeld, Valentino, Donatella Versace, Comte Hubert de Givenchy; socialites: Lady Helen Taylor, Jemima Khan; entertainment: Kylie Minogue & Sienna Miller, and a few wild cards including Becca Cason Thrash, the Texan oil billionaire’s wife, whose support has no doubt been elicited to attract international fiscal support.

The exhibition itself will explore one of the most glamorous and remarkable decades in fashion history. Starting with the impact of Christian Dior’s New Look after the Second World War, it will look at the work of Dior and his contemporaries during the period when haute couture was at its height.

Coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the launch of the New Look in 1947, it will examine the world of couture, highlighting the work of Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Hubert de Givenchy and Pierre Balmain in Paris and their London counterparts Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies. Other successful designers of the time - such as Fath, Griffe, Stiebel, and Michael of London - will feature in a broad survey of the decade.


More than 100 dresses will be on display alongside photographs by Cecil Beaton and Richard Avedon and original Hollywood and documentary film. More than 95 per cent of the dresses are from the V&A’s own fashion collections. A section will focus on handcraft and techniques, with undergarments and the insides of dresses on display.

The exhibition will finish with a small selection of pieces of contemporary haute couture taken from the Autumn/Winter 2005/06 collection of designer John Galliano for Christian Dior in Paris.

The exhibition runs from 22 September 2007 – 6 January 2008

Dress by Balenciaga. Dress by Givenchy.
Both dresses from the V&A archive. Images reproduced from the V&A.

More nuptial bliss

Arctic Monkeys arrive in Manhattan

Off to see The Arctic Monkeys tomorrow at the Hammerstein Ballroom. It's completely sold out and there's a lot of buzz about them in Manhattan. Altho, like The Kaiser Chiefs, I suspect that it will be ramma with the English.

You read it here first!!

Just a little bit of personal flag waving: The Sunday Times and then WGSN today ran a piece on Sir Philip Green confirming TopShop's move to the US.... which I ran early last week.

Casa Mono: A perfect take on modern tapas in New York

After a pah! at the Gordon Matta-Clark retrospective at the Whitney, H & I trundled over to Gramercy to find a place to eat before The Kooks. Having rejected Pete's Tavern and its serving platter size plates of fried food, we took a cancelled reservation at Casa Mono, owned by Mario Batali, & billed as a modern tapas restaurant. The tiny space, with tables & chairs rammed up against each other speaks of an operation which care more about revenue than an eater's comfort.

Still pleasant, rapid service always helps, and the menu reads well. H ordered fried sardines, & we shared utterly scrumptious steamed asparagus with fried shitake & a truffle butter reduction, a new take on patatas bravas with chilli spiked oil and spring onions, very good bread and olives, and clever tiny croquetas of pumpkin with a melted goats cheese centre, which could have done with a shot of chilli, tomato or perhaps something citrus-y.

The wine list is comprehensive & wholly Spanish, but seems designed, like the space, to squeeze the diner. There are no wines available by the glass, bar cava & sherry, although a few wines can be ordered in cuartos, baby carafes which are about a couple of glasses. Was also somewhat surprised to discover bottles of Manzanilla & Amontillado on the list. Who in their right mind orders an entire bottle of sherry?

My current theory is that tapas are wholly unsuited to the American belief that restaurant food must be served in ginormous portions. Casa Mono gets around this problem by calling the dishes tapas, but actually serving raciones, the larger plates of food desgned to be shared by a group of people, and priced accordingly.

In a way, it's a shame, because the combination of portion size and high pricing restricts a thorough roam around the menu. Still, as I generally want to eat my way through most menus, I applaud any restaurant where I can eat more than two dishes in any one sitting without doing a Mr Creosote. Jason Atherton at Maze and Gordon Ramsey's The London Bar at The London Hotel in Manhattan (spot the connection) are speaheading this grazing approach to fine dining, and I wholly approve.

The Met's Costume Institute Benefit Gala - Christopher Kane & Givenchy

I've avoided commenting on The Met's Costume Ball as I am sure any fashion minded person is thoroughly sick of the pics by now. However, whilst I was on the 'phone last night, I did scroll through the 156, yes you read that right, 156 pics on style.com to see what all the non A list were wearing too, and the two following pics struck me as worthy of comment.

First up: Christopher Kane's work partner & sister Tammy, looking utterly splendid in Christopher Kane AW07. And proving that you don't need to be a teeny tiny stick to wear his designs, just sexy, grown up and glamorous.



And then this:




I've been thinking hard how best to describe this. A classic case of the dress wearing her, rather than the other way around. It's reminiscent of my grandmother's old loo roll cover, but then there's also a hint of those ruched curtains that everyone had back in the '80's. Most of all it reminds me of those balls of fur around a shaved French poodle's legs.

The woman wearing this Givenchy Haute Couture frock is a celebutard* called Fabiola Beracasa who is known here in NY for being rich and social. Beyond that I have failed to discover a reason for her existence. I am at a loss as to why Givenchy could have possibly thought putting this dress on a woman who is not the shape for which it was designed was a good idea. I am sure she could have looked charming in something a little less frou frou. Bottom line: this is a runway look, designed to show off the talent of both the designer & les petits mains, not a real life look. It was borderline ludicrous on Natasha Poly (see below), it does not work on Fabiola who, bless her, will not be gracing a runway any time soon (unless at some celebutard benefit).



* Celebutard: Celebrity/debutante=celebritante. Celebrity/debutante/very stupid person = celebutard

Photos via style.com

Radioactive me

Goodness gracious me. I am orange. Furnished & burnished by EZ Tan's sun. I bloody well hope the bronzer part of my spray tan washes off tomorrow else I'll be glowing like Cat Deeley. I am off to see The Kooks in the evening with H. Am jumping up & down and emitting small squeaks of excitement in anticipation. About The Kooks, that is, not lovely H. Altho it's always extremely nice to see him too. I shall be bereft when he returns to London on Saturday morning. It's difficult to find male kindred spirits, especially in a strange city where one never really knows whether men are trying to get into your knickers, or just being nice....

A question about dating etiquette in New York

If, when pottering around the food porn merchant that is my local Whole Foods emporium on Houston, happily plugged into my iPod and dancing a little bit to The Jesus & Mary Chain when I get carried away by the bass line, a rather attractive man comes up to me and initiates conversation, does this mean he is trying to pick me up? Or is it because he really WAS offended that I was surreptitiously sampling my way through the 50 or so salads on offer? I was so embarrassed that my surreptitiousness wasn't surreptitious at all that I mumbled something & legged it. Honestly I do think that it would be so much easier if men just asked you for your number instead of, I think, trying to be all cute about it.

Target signs Temperley for new line

Is it just me or does this seem like a somewhat bizarre pairing? I know it's not exactly a secret that Alice Temperley's husband and CEO Lars von Bennigsen will be satisfied with nothing less than world domination for the brand, but is Target really the way to go? For a label whose reputation is built on textiles, beading and intricate embroidery rather than cut or tailoring - whether or not Alice likes that reputation, how can they produce mass market pieces without compromising the inherent Temperley ethos?

Of course it’s easy to argue against Temperley, a brand that causes much sniffiness in fashion circles, with Colin McDowell being famously dismissive of it as not being fashion, but perhaps Middle America will appreciate pretty dresses and tops more than the directional vision of Proenza Schouler, Target’s last designer signing.

Still from a world domination point of view, it feels like the brand is trying to run before it can walk in America. Proenza Schouler may be a younger label than Temperley but they already have a strong media presence in the US, and it certainly helps being protégés of La Wintour. Temperley, although they had high hopes of some stellar names on the red carpets during awards season, didn't live up to expectation in that arena, and it could be argued that they need a higher profile to build upon before they attempt collaboration with a behemoth like Target.

The departure, after not much more than a year, of Elaine Sullivan, previously at Gucci and brought in as a star signing to guide the global expansion of Temperley, to head up the new London offices of Roger Vivier and Tods raised eyebrows in the industry, and suggests that there is not total agreement as to the direction in which the brand should move.

TopShop - Sir Philip Green confirms permanent presence in US

“We are one hundred percent coming to America. It’s not if but when,” Sir Phillip Green told me Tuesday night. Rumour has been rife concerning a possible TopShop opening in the US, with some commentators speculating that the Kate Moss collection collaboration with upscale department store Barneys signalled the end of parent company Arcadia’s independent US expansion plans. Not so, said Sir Phillip, when I asked him, “In fact we were looking at sites today.”

It has always been presumed by business commentators that TopShop would be unlikely to open first in New York, as the city is not thought to be reflective of retail trends in America as a whole. This would make it difficult for a Manhattan TopShop store to provide a reliable barometer for the success of the brand elsewhere in the country. Prior to the launch with Barneys, the only places to buy TopShop in America have been at Opening Ceremony in Downtown Manhattan & in LA, which stocks a very small range in its upstairs gallery.

And that is my very last word on TopShop for quite some time.

Rant du jour - The TopShop Press Office

Up their own arses beyond belief. It’s TopShop for Christ’s sake, not Balenciaga. I emailed different people at the office four times, and called seven times over two days to get ONE lousy press release, which never appeared. And this problem is not germane to the Kate Moss collection, it's always been like this.

I suppose one could grudgingly admire their across-the-board incompetence crossed with a certain fuck off insouciance (ignoring both the poor interns toiling at the coal face of the fashion cupboard AND editors), but personallyI do expect a little help to enable me to do my job accurately & professionally. (When I'm speaking on the BBC World Service to over 25 million people, I want to know that I've got my facts right.)

Needless to say I was invited by the lovely people at Barneys to the Kate Moss party last night. I doubt the UK Topshop press office even note which journalists file to the UK from abroad. That would be FAR too intelligent a concept for their tiny little minds to process.*

It really gets my goat that the British fashion press are so scared of losing their TopShop 250 cards (40% press discount) that they hardly ever criticise ToSho in print. Sure, TopShop can be good, brilliant even, but it’s not consistently so, as the Kate Moss collection neatly encapsulates, so the press office might like to consider keeping the press onside by being efficient rather than by bribing them.

* Nov 07 ADDENDUM: Unlike the UK Banana Republic Press Office who do exactly that, for example.

Chickpea, red onion, chili & avocado salad - A delicious summer lunch

I am obsessed with this salad that I made yesterday from the contents of my fridge, & inspired by something similar that Miss P made me on my trip to London. I think it's the perfect summer lunch: the parsley makes it smell as good as it tastes, & the Tabasco adds a hefty kick to the metabolism. It's also good with some goat's cheese crumbled through it.

Put the following ingredients in a bowl and mix with your hands - it feels so much more satisfying.
Half a can of organic unsalted chickpeas.
(Soak dried ones 24hrs ahead by all means but I'm a fan of the here & now)
large handful cherry tomatoes, halved, make sure the juices don't escape
handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped
half a red onion minced
Juice of one lime
glug of olive oil - I like Greek, for its peppery green-ness
very good shake of Tabasco
Maldon salt & fresh ground black pepper

Eat (it all) with pitta.

Kate Moss TopShop collection launch party at Barneys New York. Yawn

To Barneys last night for the launch of Kate Moss' thoroughly unexciting TopShop collection in the US. The pocket sized model turned up - on time - looking decidedly low key in a city where grooming is a given not an option. After the blonde 30's vamp of the Oxford Circus store, this time we got a scraped back knot (they aren't called Croydon face lifts for nothing), a blousy off the shoulder print smock dress cinched with a black belt, accessorized with a yellow clutch and rather unappealing zebra print ankle strap heels. If she was trying to convince New Yorkers that she was stylish, this so wasn’t the way to go.

Even though Mairead and Tabitha from the Queens of Noize did their best to get the room moving (their fave track of the evening: the Headman remix of Virginia Plain by Roxy Music), the party, to be honest, was less of a knees up, and more of a press feeding frenzy. The list had been kept super tight, which in reality always means a half empty room. La Moss and Sir Philip (with a protective arm twined around her waist), circled the room for 45 minutes chatting with reporters & TV crews, whilst everyone stood, gawped & snaffled the truffle, caviar and smoked salmon canapés.

Interestingly, bugger all A list turned up. Suzy Menkes told me that in her opinion the Yanks see Kate as a latter day Marianne Faithful, a rock chick rather than as the cultural & style icon that she is perceived to be in England. I bumped into Naomi Campbell getting into the lift on the way out in some truly bizarre ballerina get up; her habits haven't changed with age - she was arriving as everyone else was leaving, Kate having left the main room 40 minutes before. Christopher Kane was on excellent form, especially after having spotted the excellent forms of the extremely hot waiters. Sister Tammy wore his designs as normal and looked ineffably chic, whilst Agnyess Deyn jumped around in a Kane frock in a corner with the Queens of Noize (looking they were having their own private party).

Apart from that I spotted Jonathan Newhouse lurking on his own looking saturnine, Hilary Alexander looking more and more like Mrs Tiggywinkle each day and um, well, that was about it. Oh and Harvey Weinstein & girlfriend Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman. Yawn.

Death of a fashion maverick: Isabella Blow

Picture: vogue.com

A friend in London has written to tell me that the influential stylist Isabella Blow died this morning. A spokesman says it was cancer. One of London’s true fashion eccentrics, she was part of a select crew of fashion’s grande dames: Anna Piaggi, Suzy Menkes and Hilary Alexander. Issy had her own unique style which caused heads to turn whether she was entering a tent for the shows, attending a product launch or just going through the revolving doors at Vogue House.

Frequently captured in the press wearing truly extraordinary Philip Treacy hats: a face covering mantilla, a Spanish galleon with full rigging & a lobster were amongst the most notable. With her hats perched upon her severe black Louise Brooks bob, along with a kabuki white face, and a slash of red lipstick her beauty was jolie laide, never pretty.

Most recently fashion director of Tatler, she had resigned following a series of depressive episodes in the wake of her separation from and reconciliation with her husband, art dealer Detmar Blow, and a serious accident resulting in damage to her legs, which had meant she could never wear heels again. She was a contributing fashion editor to the title at the time of her death.

Born Isabella Delves-Broughton in 1958, her first major job in fashion came about when she was introduced to Anna Wintour by Bryan Ferry in 1981. Becoming Anna’s assistant, and working with Andre Leon Talley on fashion shoots, she went onto assist Michael Roberts at Tatler in London where she eventually become Style Editor. After four years as Fashion Director of The Sunday Times, she returned to Tatler.

Her two defining relationships in the industry were with Alexander McQueen, who she discovered, and with Philip Treacy. Upon attending McQueen’s graduation show St Martin’s in London, she approached him to buy his entire graduate collection, which he sold to her for £5000, and which she paid off in monthly instalments for years. Probably the best advertisement for Phillip Treacy’s glorious hats, their fruitful collaboration resulted in an exhibition at the Design Museum in 2002, When Phillip Met Isabella, and an accompanying coffee table book.

She was responsible for discovering the models Sophie Dahl, Honor Fraser and her cousin Stella Tennant: all of whom were posh, beautiful, quintessentially English girls, not unlike Isabella herself.

Impossible to miss, sometimes impossible to work with, Issy’s was a throwback to an era where fashion in the twentieth century was guided by maverick aristocratic Englishwomen.

Picture:Vogue.com

The Met's Costume Institute Benefit Gala

Oh my goodness. Take your sunglasses if you are one of the lucky few to have stumped up £100k for a table or are a designer/model/actress in La Wintour's pocket. The American wing of The Met is closed whilst they decorate the large hall for Monday's party. We peeked through the windows to see the most horrific neon/black/primary splashy/squiggly hangings being prepped: kind of like the bastard art love children of African/Tribal & Keith Haring. Added to which the centre of the hall has what looks like raised squares edged with troughs of pale pink rose bushes. Nice combo. A colour blind interior designer perchance?

The gala may be celebrating the opening of the Paul Poiret exhibit and, as any fule kno, Poiret was known for introducing the vivid colors of the Fauvists and the exotic references of the Ballets Russes to the haute couture but, really, these hangings are VILE. Less of an homage and more of an insult, I'd say.

A perfect day

Today I shall mostly be eating & sleeping. Since I left for London on the 17th April I haven't had a moment of downtime, bar sitting in Heathrow waiting for my delayed flight. (I don't count flying as downtime, because sitting in goat with my knees around my ears for seven hours is not a relaxing experience, especially when you have a fat man hogging the arm rest, and letting his blubber encroach on my seat.)

J the ebullient actor is staying here in JD's room 'till Monday evening, so I've scrubbed the apt, bought flowers (all the flower stands are full of fresh lilac for $6 a bunch) and generally tried not to scatter my possessions around the place.

H & I had a quintessential NY day yesterday in the 22C sunshine: a stroll through the East Village, brunch & Bloody Marys at Life Café in Alphabet City, a spot of bike shopping in the flea market on East 11th, and then up to the UES for culture. The Cooper Hewitt, again for me, then three hours in the Met, roaming through four millennia. Plus a detour to see the Frank Stella scupltures perched on the Met's Roof Garden. One of my new favourite places: 360 views over Central Park and Manhattan, plus the acme of civilisation - a daytime martini bar. Genius.

Cocktails at The Bowery Hotel (not as hip as it would like to be) and yakitori & Japanese tapas at Village Yokocho on Stuyvesant St in the East Village just about finished me off. Poor H: I was so thoroughly tired by this point that I clung onto his arm for support as he walked me home. Hopefully I will have revived and be able to function by the time we meet for supper at The Lovely Day this evening.

Picture: The view over Central Park from the Metropolitan Museum's Rooftop bar

To the Soho Grand for cocktails with H. The bartender makes a mean passionfruit Cosmo in a glass big enough to hold a couple of goldfish. H was in fine form, especially after a very large Manhattan. We meandered over to the Lower East Side to drink beer in The Magician and then to Schiller's for red wine, frites and the rest.

This morning my right elbow is causing me considerable pain - I can't lift my arm high enough to brush my hair. Tomorrow I am buying a new bike with better brakes and possibly some gears too. As for today, I think I might museum hop with H, altho I am knackered with jet lag, having awoken at 6am, and starving hungry. I need to find a proper diner ratehr than just legging it to The Bean on 1st (think Central Perk without the wankers).

Ouch! &*@#*£$

I fell off my bike on E13th, just past Strand Books. Fuck. My elbow hurts. Potholes - four in a row, unavoidable - I swerved all over the place before finally keeling over and falling with my dress rucked up around my waist. My purple lace knickers must have been quite a sight to the six (very) cute construction workers who rushed over to rescue me. Don't tell my mother.

Meanwhile, back in the East Village...

I'm home! And it really feels like home. London is my place, my mother ship, but Manhattan is where I live for now. It's 22c outside, my friend H is flying in tonight & taking me out for dinner, & I'm off on my bike to get my nails painted and my skin spray tanned.

J is staying in JD's room in the apt all week, so it's not too lonely without her - she's stayed in London as she is flying off to LA tomorrow to shoot a famous model/singer/designer for the cover of an English mag. In fact, she's away all month, so if anyone knows anyone else who'd like to keep me company over here for May let me know....

I found an invitation to the Kate Moss party at Barney's on Tuesday in my mail box last night, which should be...interesting....

!!!!Breaking fashion news!!! Luella to show in London

Ok - I know that this means absolutely bugger all to the 99.9% of you who don't work in fashion but, to those of us who have a vested interest in London's waning position on the world fashion map, it can only be a good thing when one of London's fashion diaspora returns to the mother ship.

Luella started showing in London: her debut fashion week show ‘Daddy, Who Were the Clash?’ was part of LFW February 2000. The next year, in September 01, she moved the show to New York Fashion Week and has continued to showe there.

Of course Club 21 (her London-based distributor, owned by Mrs Ong) isn't just showing the Luella spring/summer 2008 collection at London Fashion Week for purely philanthropic reasons. Oh no, it's because Luella will open the world’s first standalone Luella store at 25 Brook Street, London W1 this winter, a la Marc.

It would also explain why the lovely Miss Diane Crook recently upsticked from Miu Miu to head up the Luella London press office - after all, Luella has hardly been big on the editorial radar of late.