AN INTERVIEW I DID WITH MS. FABULOUS FINDS...

http://fabulousfindsandco.blogspot.com/2009/07/pin-up-poet-book-by-author-andrea-grant.html

Candid, yes.

She asked some great questions...

VALENTINO RED

...so that everyone knows exactly what it is, it's such a great shade...

I LOVE LAGERFELD

I think he is one of the most interesting, talented, eccentric icons in history. And he dresses only in black and white. And he works in different mediums.

So, because work is busy (Haute Couture in Paris and my assistant is on vacation!) I am going to excerpt an article from my writer, Sharon. I don't really like this collection this season, or any of the collections for that matter, but I love him. You can view all the pictures via this link.

* * *

CHANEL HAUTE COUTURE F/W 2009
by Sharon Feiereisen

Lagerfeld always excels when he works with black and white, but it was great to see the master throw some color into the mix

Did the Karl Lagerfeld-designed Fall/Winter 2009 Chanel collection top the designer's Spring/Summer all-white collection for the house? Probably not - that collection with its incredible paper head pieces was one for the books, and arguably the most show-stopping of the couture shows last season.

That said, Lagerfeld presented some gorgeous dresses - both full length as well as minis (included a tiered, ruffle-accented white mini wedding dress with a jaw dropping cascade of ruffles running down the back), while the more casual daytime looks were paired with black lace tights and heeled booties which helped give the looks a mix of young and old. Yes, even Chanel's hosiery is utterly covetable.

Lagerfeld always excels when he works with black and white, but it was great to see the master throw some color into the mix. A gray daytime dress with wide pockets and red accents woven through a floor length black dress were particularly show-stopping.

I was most impressed, however, by the collection's vivid embroidery. Who knew that so much ornamentation could look so incredibly chic and modern? Also, the draping details on the backs of some of the dresses gave them an almost goddess-like feel, while others had touches of Indian saris.

The collection did a wonderful job at playing with proportions. Some dresses were hyper body conscious on the top and then appeared loosely tied at the waist, creating a bohemian, sleek, and feminine look.

Lagerfeld is one of the few designers that can always be counted on for an impressive collection, and this couture season was no different. No wonder that, according to Cathy Horyn, Alain Wertheimer, whose family owns Chanel, said he would sell the house when the designer leaves.

POSTSCRIPT II

Nothing is more tedious than editing the transcripts of telephone interviews...

When they are finished, it's worth it, but how does 20 minutes of tape equal six pages of text?!?

POSTSCRIPT

I cannot sleep.

It looks like another rare blue-sky day.

This is not a blog. I need to state this clearly. This is just something I can update easily, without vexing my web designer.

LET US COMPARE MYTHOLOGIES

This is a picture I took of a fairy tale version of Beauty and the Beast I had appropriated for a story assignment around the age of ten... yes, my mother saved every piece of memorabilia. And I found it while moving things around last week.

* * *

Mirror

by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful --
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

HAPPY 4th OF JULY WEEKEND...

Have a safe, wonderful weekend, dear ones.

I leave you with some Anne Sexton, continuing the fairy tale them...

* * *

Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)

by Anne Sexton

Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She's on a voyage.
She is swimming
further and further back,
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother's pocketbook.
Little doll child,
come here to Papa.
Sit on my knee.
I have kisses for the back of your neck.
A penny for your thoughts, Princess.
I will hunt them like an emerald.

Come be my snooky
and I will give you a root.
That kind of voyage,
rank as a honeysuckle.
Once
a king had a christening
for his daughter Briar Rose
and because he had only twelve gold plates
he asked only twelve fairies
to the grand event.
The thirteenth fairy,
her fingers as long and thing as straws,
her eyes burnt by cigarettes,
her uterus an empty teacup,
arrived with an evil gift.
She made this prophecy:
The princess shall prick herself
on a spinning wheel in her fifteenth year
and then fall down dead.
Kaputt!
The court fell silent.
The king looked like Munch's Scream
Fairies' prophecies,
in times like those,
held water.
However the twelfth fairy
had a certain kind of eraser
and thus she mitigated the curse
changing that death
into a hundred-year sleep.

The king ordered every spinning wheel
exterminated and exorcised.
Briar Rose grew to be a goddess
and each night the king
bit the hem of her gown
to keep her safe.
He fastened the moon up
with a safety pin
to give her perpetual light
He forced every male in the court
to scour his tongue with Bab-o
lest they poison the air she dwelt in.
Thus she dwelt in his odor.
Rank as honeysuckle.

On her fifteenth birthday
she pricked her finger
on a charred spinning wheel
and the clocks stopped.
Yes indeed. She went to sleep.
The king and queen went to sleep,
the courtiers, the flies on the wall.
The fire in the hearth grew still
and the roast meat stopped crackling.
The trees turned into metal
and the dog became china.
They all lay in a trance,
each a catatonic
stuck in a time machine.
Even the frogs were zombies.
Only a bunch of briar roses grew
forming a great wall of tacks
around the castle.
Many princes
tried to get through the brambles
for they had heard much of Briar Rose
but they had not scoured their tongues
so they were held by the thorns
and thus were crucified.
In due time
a hundred years passed
and a prince got through.
The briars parted as if for Moses
and the prince found the tableau intact.
He kissed Briar Rose
and she woke up crying:
Daddy! Daddy!
Presto! She's out of prison!
She married the prince
and all went well
except for the fear -
the fear of sleep.

Briar Rose
was an insomniac...
She could not nap
or lie in sleep
without the court chemist
mixing her some knock-out drops
and never in the prince's presence.
If if is to come, she said,
sleep must take me unawares
while I am laughing or dancing
so that I do not know that brutal place
where I lie down with cattle prods,
the hole in my cheek open.
Further, I must not dream
for when I do I see the table set
and a faltering crone at my place,
her eyes burnt by cigarettes
as she eats betrayal like a slice of meat.

I must not sleep
for while I'm asleep I'm ninety
and think I'm dying.
Death rattles in my throat
like a marble.
I wear tubes like earrings.
I lie as still as a bar of iron.
You can stick a needle
through my kneecap and I won't flinch.
I'm all shot up with Novocain.
This trance girl
is yours to do with.
You could lay her in a grave,
an awful package,
and shovel dirt on her face
and she'd never call back: Hello there!
But if you kissed her on the mouth
her eyes would spring open
and she'd call out: Daddy! Daddy!
Presto!
She's out of prison.

There was a theft
.
That much I am told.
I was abandoned.
That much I know.
I was forced backward.
I was forced forward.
I was passed hand to hand
like a bowl of fruit.
Each night I am nailed into place
and forget who I am.
Daddy?
That's another kind of prison.
It's not the prince at all,
but my father
drunkeningly bends over my bed,
circling the abyss like a shark,
my father thick upon me
like some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage is this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help -
this life after death?

I'M GOOD AT LOVE, I'M GOOD AT HATE, IT'S IN BETWEEN I FREEZE...

That's a line that Leonard recited at his concert, which is also part of the 'Recitation' track on the 'Live in London album.

I had one of the worst evenings ever last night.

The day started out sunny and amazing. I got to see Ms. Ciarla, who was in town for a rare appearance. Then of course it began to rain (as it seems to every damn day this summer) but I was working on Fashion Spot editing anyhow so I didn't worry too much.

Then I went to this gallery opening in an obscure part of the LES/Chinatown.

The gentleman caller who invited me ended up being an hour late, without the requisite polite text message, and that was incongruous because, who does that?!? Then the show was unremarkable, one of those pretentious pseudo-intellectual openings that attracts every fake downtown 'magazine party whore' who is only there to stand outside in white pants or black skinny jeans, glaring at everyone except the 5 androgynous people they know and pretend to love.

When I was a kid, dreaming of NYC, I imagined myself going to gallery openings. I did not imagine people who acted like they were still in high school would be there too.

The Chelsea scene is a bit less irritating, because at least if you hate one gallery scene, you can go to another down the street. In Chinatown, all you have are dumplings and locals staring at you like you don't belong in their 'hood.

The night went from bad to worse.

I was in heels, and a corset (which seemed like a good idea since I thought the night would be so much better than it was) and I was so sick with disgust I ended up retreating indoors by 1 a.m.

And all day I have been thinking about who I choose to surround myself with versus the people I can't even stand to talk to, because that vicious, shallow attitude goes against everything I believe in. And it's so boring....