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YSL

Yves Saint Laurent was the only fellow couturier that Gabrielle Chanel “approved” of.  She hated Dior for putting women in clothes that set them back 100 years-the tight jackets and corsets, the spike heels.  The freedoms of movement and independence for a new day that Dior took away.  She hated all the other male designers who came before or were her contemporaries and she tolerated Elsa Schiaparelli.  But in Monsieur Saint-Laurent she recognized a kindred soul (even though she wouldn’t have admitted it) in dressing women in clothing that was beautiful and elegant but gave them independence and power.  His work could have almost been a continuation if hers. 

YSL reached his apex at a time when women were beginning to become truly important and successful in the world of business giving us elegant and exciting clothes to wear each day.    And pants were instrumental to that success.  

The fashion lexicon that YSL gave us has seeped into the rich language of our clothes in a similar to Shakespeare’s language still present in our language today-sometimes it’s so subtle you don’t even realize it.  Certainly the obvious references of chic and severe pants suits and the safari looks but also all the interesting sleeves we have today, the jewel colors, the way women can be successful in business but wear gorgeous over the top clothes, really tall boots, using street fashion to inspire the couture. 

Poetry Weekend: The Sun Also Rises

Sunrise on the water

The fingers of one pink hand

Lace

With the fingers of another other blue hand

And the sun rises in the sky

----------

Beautiful Blue

The late summer sun shines upon the bay

Creating a water so intensely blue

It belies the softness of the light

The light and the breeze envelops me in its glory

---------

Driving to the Ferry

As night turns into day

Orange fire mixes

with the sparkle of silver

As Manhattan blends into Staten Island

The sparkle of silver changes

into the softness of grey

--------

Clouds

Soft swirls of grey and pink

Makes me think

Of an apartment in Chelsea

Circa 1983

More Clouds

Smoky grey layers of clouds

Like the ruffles on a Ralph Lauren skirt

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A nighttime series

A bright diamond day

Descends

Into the mysterious sapphire night

A Sapphire night

Set with

A round Diamond moon

- Jennifer

Irreplacable... and Different: Chanel vs. Lanvin

A few months ago I went to fascinating lecture at FIT on Jeanne Lanvin given by, Dean L. Merceron an FIT graduate who had quite simply fallen in love with her. The book he wrote and spoke about that evening was beautiful ands worships at the altar of Jeanne Lanvin. I’m slowly reading it but since it’s so big and heavy I can’t carry it around with me to/from work and I keep it open on my dining room table (until either my cleaning lady or guests come in) which helps when I can snatch a few minutes to read another page. Turning the pages is a great joy because each turn shows me new pictures which are breathtaking.

Before the lecture I knew the basics of Jeanne Lanvin’s story though not with much depth. The evening at FIT and the book changed my perception of 1920’s fashion-giving me a better understanding of it and forcing me to accept that not every chic young socialite looked like the sleek long flapper in pearls and fringes that we see when we see 20’s fashion today (and which I resisted accepting for years). If I were a flapper I would not have been influence byLanvin's soft, fluttery, wide pieces (which pull very heavily from the 18^th century). The irony of this is how much I adore the 18^th century and today’s Lanvin - the Lanvin of Alber Elbaz - and collect as many pieces as I can. I have no real interest in finding the originals, the pieces that Jeanne herself designed.

You see, I am firmly in the Coco Chanel camp. She was the original flapper-she lived the life and created much of it. She was beautiful and chic, young and ultra hip. Her pieces were the long slim look we think of when we think of the 20’s. The other truth the lecture gave me was that Chanel and Lanvin were not contemporaries. Lanvin was older than Chanel and their design houses only overlapped in the beginning of Chanel’s career and towards the end of Lanvin’s. And there should be no real comparison between the 2 women except that they were successful in business and single at a time when most women weren’t either. Although the years between the two World Wars were a time of freedom and encouragement for women I don’t believe that lasted long enough for women to have a permanent successful business history thanks to the backlash after WWII. Today things are different, but then, the fact that the most sought after successful designers of couture in Paris were women was extraordinary and it remains one of the most important times for women in the history of the fashion industry and business history. And enter the old attitudes…