Formerly French

Billboard for Virgin Mobile

Famous former French actor flees the socialists, and flies straight into the arms of the former communists.

Smokin Bébé ! The Update

Rude, selfish, and dangerous!
Caution

Fernand Khnoff
France, Belgium 1900

In France the many smokers, are clueless and selfish!  Besides being about the rudest people on the planet they are also bad for your health. Walking on the streets of Paris  is full of peril,  you seriously risk exposing your lungs the air is cigarette-saturated.
New evidence
Will they ever change?

France 2012

A billionaire philosopher has endorsed a parenting technique that allows generous time for smoking, drinking wine and having sex.  Elisabeth Badinter, a 68-year-old mother of three who is the 13th richest French citizen according to Forbes,with a reported net worth of $1.1billion. She has served as the chair of the board for PublicisGroupe since 1996.

Oh Baby

I see so many parents in cafes smoking with their babies in strollers next to them.  Dads walking and smoking with young children, and adults smoking with kids in the car. This is common in France.

This butt's for you

France 1976

SMOKING is deeply imbedded in the French Psyche.

In Paris at least 1 out of 3 people will be smoking as they pass you by on the street.

The French work ethic

 If you walk by a school (middle school -university) or a  government office building there will be  herds of them smoking together. 

In Spain in the airports they put them in a BOX

This is a great idea then they can mutually annihilate each other.

In the UK the guardian reported  Class divide in health widens, says thinktank

King's Fund thinktank finds those with no qualifications are five times more likely to smoke, drink, and neglect diet and exercise here

Not so in France The fashion press still styles shots like this.
Here they start very young and keep on smoking!

They have kids, and keep on smoking.

Outmoded

 It takes that unique Gallic cluelessness  to blow toxic waste in the face of strangers or a baby with total abandon and in utter oblivion.

Sadly I have seen more than a few people with tubes up their noses dragging  their oxygen tanks with them  in my neighborhood.
As the population is aging the burden on the State  must be unbearable.

Please, France 2012
Maybe the stylist thinks it's uber-cool because it's
pas tres "politically correct"... so French.

This image is  supposedly celebrating the French Jeweler DINH VAN  

photo by Olivia da Costa, styling by Adele Samani here

1941

Photo circa 1937

The esthetics have not evolved.

Clueless 

 More pictures 

A Very Vertés Christmas!

Vogue 1949

Marcel Vertès  (10 August 1895 – 31 October 1961) was a Hungarian  illustrator and costume designer. He won two Academy Awards (Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design) for his work on the 1952 film Moulin Rouge.

Vertès is also responsible for the fabulous murals in the Café Carlyle in the Carlyle Hotel in New York City, New York.

Zesty Literary Scandal Peirre Louys, Illustrated by Georges Barbier

GeorgeBarbier 

Les Chansons de Bilitis,1922

George Barbier was a master of scintillating illustration.

One book in particular Les Chansons de Bilitis,, 1922. Written in 1894 by Pierre Louys who claimed to have discovered and translated the work of the ancient poetess Bilitis a, contemporary of Sappho. It contains 143 prose poems, Songs of Bilitis.  

The courtesan poet Bilitis was supposed to have  been to the daughter of A Greek father and 

a Phoenician mother.   The pretense that Louys was the translator of an ancient text did not last very long, and "translator" Louÿs was soon outed as Bilitis herself. 

This only enhanced interest in the book. 

The Songs of Bilitis was praised as a fount of elegant sensuality and refined style, even more extraordinary for the time was the author's compassionate portrayal of lesbian and female sexuality. 

Dover republished the 1926 edition of the English translation of this book

with illustrations by Willy Pogany 

From my collection of illustrations by George Barbier

Paris As Seen By Hollywood

Exhibition catalog cover

Audrey Hepburn in Charade,1963.  Directed by Stanley Donen.

This gorgeous exhibition at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, September 18- December 15, 2012,  explores the American film industrie's continuing fascination with Paris.
It is very well documented with running films, stills, original designs, and costumes.

Gigi (Leslie Caron) the young courtesan-in-training is being instructed to identify
jewels of high intrinsic value by  Aunt Alicia, (Isabel Jeans, 1891-1985)

 "What Is this?"
Gigi hesitates " A topaz"

 A topaz!, amongst my jewels are you mad!? This is a yellow diamond of the first quality.

A still from my 1992 book Hollywood Jewels.

Greta Garbo plays Marguerite Gauthier in Camille, 1939.
Adapted from the 1852 novel by Alexandre Dumas
La Dame aux Camélias

We will never be the same after Sofia Coppola's delicious Marie Antoinette  2006

This luscious film is a confection, it is so beautifully designed.

So This is Paris 1926
From silent films, with the supreme sophistication of
Ernst Lubitsch.

to John Huston's 1952 film Moulin Rouge

Costumes by  Marcel Vertes

 by Vertes

Zsa Zsa Gabor

 Brooch design from the Mauboussin Archives
I have handled the realized brooch, the stocking are black enamel, oh la la.

Miss Gabor's costumes by the fabulous Elsa Schiaparelli.

 Paris influenced Hollywood and Hollywood influenced Paris in return.

We never tire of  the tales of courtesans, the Can Can
of the gilded Fin de Siècle!

 Cheri, Bel Ami!
the prostitutes of Pigalle

 

 Irma La Douce 1963

Shirley Maclaine, from Pigalle to the dueling dowagers of Downton Abbey

The brilliant comedic genius of Blake Edwards.
The Pink Panther 1963

Disney

Ratatouille, 2008
Disney Pixar

 Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris 2011

Martin Scorsese's Hugo 2011

We will always have Paris.  The Paris of our dreams, and collective imaginings.

The exhibition highlights the many many talents involved in bringing a film to the screen. 

Acting,writing, adapting, designing, art direction, directing, 

sound, music lighting, set location to name just a few.

Come to Paris, go see the exhibition.