A Renaissance Fair: The Love Witch and George Barbier

George Barbier, A Renaissance Fair, c 1929

George Barbier’s illustration “A Renaissance Fair”, taken from the book “Vies imaginaires” which was published in 1929, reminds me of the beautiful, joyous, flowery days of spring that are awaiting for us just around the corner. I simply adore this paganism that shots through the visual arts of the Renaissance. The illustration shows some sort of a celebration in nature. In the foreground a handsome man dressed in red tights, and just how very tight they are, is leaned on the tree and playing a lute, a very Renaissance instrument, while another man is lying down in the grass with his hands are in a lap of a lady who is dreaming plucking away her little harp. She is dressed in a very dreamy, calming shade of blue and has a rich crown of roses in her hair. In the background we can see the three dancing women, dressed in the colours of flowers, bring to mind the Charites or Graces; the Greek goddesses of beauty, charm, nature, creativity and fertility. Ancient Greek poet Hesiod writes of three graces as being called Aglaea which means “shining”, Euphroyne which means “joy” and Thali which means “blooming.” They were usually depicted as companions to God and Goddesses during festivals, ceremonies, feasts and dances. They even helped Aphrodite during her bath. In Barbier’s illustration they also seem to be accompanying this little celebration in a meadow, outside the big city, seen in the background, far behind the big pink blooming tree, and its restrictions.

The illustration appeals to me instantly because of its cheerfulness and vibrancy, but the more I gazed at it the more I was reminded of a scene from the film “The Love Witch” (2016). In the film a beautiful seducer and a witch called Elaine is strolling around on a date with a police sargent called Griff and they stumble upon a Renaissance Fair which was actually organised by some of her witch-friends. On the festival people are dressed in colourful Renaissance clothes and a cheerful music is in the air. Ladies are singing of love and wine is flowing. A man dressed as jester sees the love couple and suggests they make a mock-wedding, to celebrate love. And so Elaine and Griff are also dressed in Renaissance clothes and a little ceremony is performed after which Elaine feeds him some sweets and they gaze at each other infatuated, or so it seems. Elaine really does look lovely with her hot pink lips and blush, a vibrant blue eyeshadow and a gown all in white, like a fairytale maiden indeed.

Scenes from the film.

Costume Sketches for The Young Victoria (2009)

I love period dramas and I love costumes in them! In fact, I love to gaze and admire the costumes so much that sometimes I don’t even care for the film itself; if the costumes are an eye-candy, I will probably enjoy the film as well. Aesthetic is everything. So, maybe I am not the best judge of a particular film itself, but I think it doesn’t take a genius to see that the costumes for the film “The Young Victoria” (2009) are gorgeous! The costume designer Sandy Powell won an Oscar for the costumes she designed for this film and today I wanted to share some of her, seems to be, watercolour sketches which look so vibrant and playful, and more free-flowing and sketchy than a Victorian era fashion plate would be. The film follows Victoria, played by Emily Blunt, from the times she was a Princess Victoria, through her coronation, falling in love with Albert, their marriage and ends with the birth of her first child, daughter Victoria in 1840. The time period is short, covering the 1830s and 1840, but fashion-wise subtle changes can definitely be felt, from puffy 1830s sleeves to simpler 1840s styles which I love very much.

Here is what Powell says about the process of finding inspiration and research for the costumes: “There are a lot of royal portraits of Victoria and the family, so obviously, we started with that. And written material, including her own diaries. She was very specific about her clothing and would describe in great detail what she was wearing and what she did that day, so that was very useful. And after that, I went to Kensington Palace, where there is a museum, and also some of her original pieces of clothing are archived there. We had access to look at those.” And also she emphasised the point of how simple the 1840s fashion actually is: “With the women’s clothes, I don’t think that they are complex. I think they’re quite simple for this period. The most important thing is the undergarment. A woman will have a corset and petticoats on, and that creates the silhouette — the base on top of which the dresses will go. The dresses themselves are very light. They’re made of fine fabrics– silk, mostly — and they just pop over the top of the underwear that’s already created your foundation. So in a way, once an actor has her underwear on, it becomes a question of putting another dress over it.” You can read the entire interview here. Ahhh, to be clad in those long silk gowns, with flowers in my hair, wander the lonely and cold corridors of my palace, only in a dream!

5 Dreamy, Romantic, Coming of Age Films

I have been thinking recently about a few films that I love and I’ve noticed that a similar mood, theme and aesthetic connects them all. They’re all about young girls, all five have a romantic dreamy mood with a touch of mystery, a coming of age theme, and they are all aesthetically pleasing. If a film awakens my imagination, if it gives me delightful daydreams, then I will watch it. If I love a film, I will probably watch it many times because I love to soak all the details, gaze at the costumes and surroundings, and be a part of that dreamy world at least for an hour or two.

Faustine and the beautiful summer (1971)

Now, I already wrote a review for Faustine here, and that shows just how much I loved it! The film follows Faustine’s summer stay at her grandparents countryside house. She is a dreamy sixteen year old girl who loves nature and there are many beautiful shots of her hugging the wheat, kissing a tree, swimming nude, that mingle the love for nature with sensuality. She mostly spends time in her head, but also spies on her neighbours and eventually befriends them, and falls in love with one of them. Through a beautiful and dreamy aesthetic, the film shows Faustine’s growth and explorations, and touches topics that a girl her age could understand, such as the conflicts between daydreaming and living life, innocence and awakening sensuality etc. Chopin’s music is often in the background and there are many lovely and delicate scenes with a sensuous touch; Faustine indolently lying on the bed wrapped in nothing but white lace and eating cherries and strawberries, or Faustine running through the field of golden wheat and poppies which not only brings to mind the beautiful paintings of the Impressionists, but also the verses of young Arthur Rimbaud’s poem “Sensation”:

On the blue summer evenings, I shall go down the paths,
Getting pricked by the corn, crushing the short grass:
In a dream I shall feel its coolness on my feet.
I shall let the wind bathe my bare head.

I shall not speak, I shall think about nothing:
But endless love will mount in my soul;
And I shall travel far, very far, like a gipsy,
Through the countryside – as happy as if I were with a woman.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

The latest dreamy-romantic-coming of age film I watched about a month ago and found it amazing to say the least! The film is based on the novel by Joan Lindsay and is set in girls school in Australia in 1900. A seemingly idyllic world of white lace, smiles, pressed flowers, and yellow haired girls goes horribly wrong one day in February, Valentine’s Day to be precise, when girls go to a picnic with their teachers. A mysterious mood and a gorgeous Edwardian aesthetic are not the only interesting aspects about the film, the soundtrack with some classical music pieces and the title music with panflute played by Gheorghe Zamfir is so so dreamy and really fits the mood of the wild Australian nature, hot burning sun and those red rocks, you can listen to it here. The intro, which you can watch here, is in my view the most beautiful part of the film, skip to 01:23 and you will see the dream begin. Oh how I love their white gowns, them lacing their corsets, washing their faces in water with roses, reading Valentine’s day cards, oh so romantic!

Virgin Suicides (1999)

A film based on a book by Jeffrey Eugenides, and both are really good in my view. It’s about five sisters living with strict and pious parents in a nice, clean, safe and boring suburb of Detroit in the 1970s. Their home life is sheltered and claustrophobic, plenty of things are forbidden; boys, rock music, nice clothes, and it gets stricter as the story goes on. Shielding them from the world has created numbness, decaying mood and a desire for death. Both the novel and the film are told from the point of view of a few adolescent boys who observe and admire the girls from afar. Just like us, they couldn’t unravel the mystery behind their death nor know for sure what was in their hearts, and this is the aspect that creates a lot of intrigue.

The Beguiled (2017)

Another film by Sophia Coppola . When I started watching it, I thought it’s too slow and unadventurous, but the atmosphere of secrets and claustrophobia, and the gorgeous costumes kept me intrigued. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Thomas P. Cullinan and the story is set in a turbulent era of Civil War, in 1864, and revolves around pupils of a girls school in Virginia. Only five girls are left, with one teacher and headmistress, and so the atmosphere is a bit eerie. Their isolated existence is what gives the story its flair, similar as in “Virgin Suicides”, and I loved how the theme was explored. One girl saves a wounded soldier and everything intensifies from there because those pretty angelic faces and impeccable white gowns hide a lot of secrets and desires. The film beautifully captures their isolation, the are shown dreamily conjugating French verbs, clad in their white cotton dresses, alone in that big white mansion, completely unaware of what is going on in the outside world.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970)

I put this film last on the list although it should be the first chronologically, because it is more strange than dreamy, and more surrealistic and romantic and that makes it a bit different from the previous ones. “Valerie and her Weeks of Wonders” is a Czech film based on the same-named novel written in 1935 by a Czech avant-garden writer Vítězslav Nezval, first published in 1945, and described as “part fairy-tale, part Gothic”. The film is bursting with strangeness and plenty of things don’t make sense, so you needn’t seek logic, just embrace the dream. The main character is a girl named Valerie who is thirteen years old and we follow her life in the countryside with her grandmother who looks frighteningly pale. She has a friend named Orlík and often looses her earrings, her grandma disappears and another woman comes, a local priest is a vampire-like creature with a white fan… Everything is twisted and intriguing and very dream, but I have to add that this film is a bit different, a bit more weird, to the ones I’ve talked about before so that’s why I decided to put it last in this list. Also, I have already written a review on this film here.

 

I hope you decide to watch one of these films, and if you have any to add on the list of especially dreamy films with flowers, maidens and secrets, feel free to do so in the comments.

Faustine and the Beautiful Summer (1972) – A Review

A few days ago I watched a brilliant film called “Faustine and the beautiful summer” (original title: Faustine et le bel été) directed by Nina Companeez whose mood of dreams, romance, indolence and love for nature really struck a chord with me and I found a lot of things highly relatable, particularly the character of Faustine: her reveries, her carefree nature. Also, I wish I could just take her gorgeous outfits from the screen and have them in my wardrobe.

The plot is simple: a pretty sixteen year old girl called Faustine (played by Muriel Catala) is about to spent her summer holidays with her grandparents in the countryside. While there, she spends time wandering the woods and the meadows, discovering the secrets of nature as well as spying on her neighbours who are also there on holiday. She is ocassionally flirting with a fellow teenage boy from that family called Joachim, but mostly takes delight in rejecting him because she develops an interest in his uncle. She eventually befriends the entire family and visits them often, and spends time with Joachim’s female cousins who find her fascinating.

Everything is seen trough her eyes and it is almost like reading her diary, her memories of that summer. And through her eyes everything is magical and whimsical. There isn’t much that goes on in the film and it isn’t long either, only around an hour and a half, but the slow and sensuous mood that reminds me of David Hamilton’s photography from roughly the same years makes it a delight for me. Still, there is more depth to the film than it appears on the surface. For sure it is not a sugary and naive teenage romantic drama. Many conflicts linger throughout the film and surface one by one; conflicts between sensuality and innocence, real life vs dreams, observing life vs participating in it. Those are some things that anyone could relate to, but a girl of Faustine’s age and inexperience would particularly understand it, and that is another reason I loved the film. Not only do I love the aesthetic but the themes as well. And, Chopin’s music is played throughout the film as well.

There is a sweet sensuality lingering throughout the scenes; Faustine walking through the fields of poppies and pressing the golden wheat to her soft cheek, kissing the bark of a tree, the trace of milk left on Faustine’s lips as she puts down her mug, Faustine indolently lying on the bed wrapped in nothing but white lace and eating cherries and strawberries, Faustine talking to a delicate newborn poppy flower… and an ultimate feeling of being immersed in nature when she goes skinny dipping in a nearby lake while the rain is falling romantically and announcing the arrival of autumn. I adored one scene where she is running through fields of wheat and poppies, dressed in a white gown and wearing her straw hat with a long pink ribbon, running playfully as if she were a little girl and shouting “Summer isn’t over”, then throwing herself into the grass and gazing at the play of sunlight coming through the treetops and whispering: “Sunshine fills the air. Flowers of all colours. I drink you in, you make me dizzy.”

I love the coming of age theme and I can relate to Faustine feeling that everything is possible, seeing beauty all around her, and feeling rain of sadness falling on her sun-kissed skin from time to time, which are not the dark rains of autumn but the warm and transient summer showers that stir the soul but leave no scars. Throughout the film Faustine is constantly walking the tightrope between her daydreams and the real life around her. The last scene ends the film beautifully; she is dressed in a long gown, so elegant and grown-up, in an embrace with Joachim’s uncle and says: “And finally Faustine will enter the world through the blue door. Today my first kiss and in seventy years, at best, I’ll be dead.” It sounds as if she is narrating her own life, and it is unclear whether she is talking to him, herself or the trees all around them. From the world of daydreams, through a kiss, Faustine at last enters the real world and tastes its sweetness.

And now a few verses from Derek Walcott’s poem “Bleecker Street, Summer” which I discovered by serendipity last summer:

Summer for prose and lemons, for nakedness and languor,
for the eternal idleness of the imagined return,
for rare flutes and bare feet, and the August bedroom
of tangled sheets and the Sunday salt, ah violin!

When I press summer dusks together, it is
a month of street accordions and sprinklers
laying the dust, small shadows running from me.

These beautiful verses from John Keats’s “Endymion” which I loved last summer came to mind while I was watching the film:

…Now a soft kiss –
Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss,
An immortality of passion’s thine:
Ere long I will exalt thee to the shine
Of heaven ambrosial; and we will shade
Ourselves whole summers by a river glade;
And I will tell thee stories of the sky,
And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy,
My happy love will overwing all bounds!
O let me melt into thee! let the sounds
Of our close voices marry at their birth;
Let us entwine hoveringly!

I hope you enjoyed this review and that you decide to watch the film. I am glad I watched it now, in May, because I can look forward to another summer and hope that it is as sweet as the last one’s was, instead of pining for it once it passes.

Edwardian Daydreams of the 1970s – Lace, Pastel Colours, Countryside Idyll

Today we’ll take a look at the Edwardian influence on the fashion of the 1970s and the dreamy world it created where white lace, straw hats, floral prints and pastel colours rule.

Photo by David Hamilton, 1970s

Fashion-wise, the 1970s were an eclectic decade, a trend-driven one, especially compared to the previous ones, like the 1950s which were homogeneous. Fashions ranged from Hollywood-inspired Biba glamour, Glam rock, Yves Saint Lauren’s gypsy exoticism to disco, Studio 54 extravagances, Punk and New wave. There was also one trend that I absolutely adore at the moment – the Edwardian revival which brought a gentle, girly and romantic touch to one’s wardrobe. It is in stark contrast to the bold patterns and bright colours of sixties mini dresses.

I already wrote about the influence of the late Victorian and Edwardian era along with Art Nouveau on sixties psychedelia, both in visual art and in fashion here, but this influence is a tad different. Forget the vibrant colours and shapes of Mucha’s paintings that go perfectly with groovy sixties posters. Open your mind for something whiter, gentler, dreamier….

Jane Birkin (1970) and Edwardian lady (1900)

Photo by David Hamilton, 1970s

Left: Bette Davis, Right: Jerry Hall by David Hamilton

Wearing certain clothes can transport you to a different place in imagination, don’t you agree? Well, the mood of this Edwardian revival fantasy is that of an idealised countryside haven where a maiden in white spends her days in romantic pursuits such as pressing flowers, strolling in the meadows, picking apples, lounging on dozens of soft cushions with floral patterns and daydreaming while the gold rays of sun and gentle breeze peek through the flimsy white curtains, reading long nineteenth century novels by Turgenev or Flaubert in forest glades, Beatrix Potter’s witty innocent world of animals, illustrations by Sarah Key, all the while being dressed in beautiful pastel colours that evoke the softness of Edwardian lace, Lilian Gish and Mary Pickford’s flouncy girlish dresses, long flowing dresses with floral prints and delicate embroidery, straw hats decorated with flowers and ribbons, lace gloves, pretty stockings, and hair in a soft bun with a few locks elegantly framing the face, or all in big rag curls with a large white or blue bow, resembling a hairstyle of a Victorian little schoolgirl.

Brooke Shields in “Pretty Baby” (1978)

Left: Lillian Gish, Right: Mary Pickford, c. 1910s

As you know, films have an influence over fashion. I myself often watch a film and caught myself mentally going through my wardrobe and looking for similar outfits that a heroine is wearing. It’s beyond me. Many films from the seventies have the same romantic Edwardian revival aesthetic, such as Pretty Baby (1978) set in a New Orleans brothel at the turn of the century, women are lounging around in white undergarments and black stockings which is so typically fin de siecle, and Shield Brooks in a white dress holding a doll, adorable.

In Australian drama mystery film Picnic at the Hanging Rock (1975) set in 1900 girls from a boarding school go out in nature for an excursion and are dressed in long white gowns, have straw hats or parasols and white ribbons in their hair, Polanski’s Tess (1979) brought an emphasis on the delicate beauty of floral prints on cotton and that also inspired the designer Laura Ashley, even the film Virgin Suicides (1999) which is set in the seventies has a wardrobe of pastels and florals and all the girls wear such dresses to a school dance.

Left: Brigitte Bardot and Right: Nastassja Kinski

ELLE France, 1978, Gilles Bensimon

Left: dreamy hairstyle, Valentino Haute Couture Spring 2015, Right: photo from 1910

Virgin Suicides (1999)

Left: Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Right: two Edwardian ladies, 1900s

Models of the era are also seen wearing the fashion, such as Twiggy with her straw hat with cherries and Jerry Hall in white dress. Many photos by David Hamilton also capture the mood of this Edwardian revival; there’s something dreamy and ethereal about them, a frozen moment with girls in a reverie, either lounging on bed half-naked or surrounded by trees and flower fields wearing long floral dresses and hats, looking so serene as if they belong to another world. The first picture in this post is my favourite at the moment, a girl with a straw hat with ribbons, and stocking, and those warm Pre-Raphaelite colours… mmm…

Edna May photographed by Alexander Bassano, 1907

Jane Birkin looking so Edwardian and adorable!

Even Brigitte Bardot couldn’t resist elegance in white.

Tess (1979)

Seventeen magazine, February 1974

Twiggy in Valentino by Justin de Villeneuve for Vogue Italy, June 1969

Brigitte Bardot

Wedding dress ‘Faye Dunaway’ by Thea Porter, 1970, England – All that lace!!!

Left: Abbey Lee Kershaw by Marcin Tyszka, Vogue Portugal (2008), Right: Alexis Bledel in Tuck Everlasting (2002)

As you can see in the pictures above, the Edwardian revival has found its place in contemporary fashion and cinematography as well. If you like this style, look for things that capture the mood, regardless of the decade.So, do you want to be a pretty and dreamy Edwardian lady too? Well, it is simple, you can wear a white dress, have a cup of tea, read Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” or Forster’s “A Room With a View”, stroll around wearing a straw hat, pick flowers, press flowers, chase butterflies, surround yourself with white lace and indulge in reveries!

Art Nouveau and 1960s: A Psychedelic Dream

I noticed that some sixties posters and film costumes have a strong Art Nouveau and Pre-Raphaelite vibe, so naturally I turned to my art, culture and music bible when it comes to the Swinging Sixties – book ‘Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd: Dark Globe’ by Julian Palacios, And here’s what I found. So, in this post we’ll take a look at the influence of Art Nouveau, Aesthetic movement and 19th century Orientalism on 1960s posters, designs, fashion and film costumes. I’ve also chosen some whimsical psychedelic tunes that I love and that fit very well with the mood of the post. Psychedelic Autumn, is it not?!

Flower Power fashion, Photograph by Peter Knapp, 1967, Image scanned by Sweet Jane

Donovan – Season of the Witch

Around 1966/67 there was a shift in style and mood. A change was in the air, as ‘vibrant coloured clothes and laughter’ filled the drab tube stations. Waning Mod fashion was quickly being replaced by a style more romantic and oriental. The new mood, exhibited not only in clothes but in posters, designs and music, found its inspiration in nostalgic reveries of the past and romantic daydreams about far East. Gone were the days of short skirts and fake eyelashes. Instead, young people – students, artists, musicians, groupies and dollies – traded their black and white geometrical outfits for caftans, vibrant coloured long dresses, long hair and less make up.

Do you notice the similarity in colours and composition between the sixties illustration (above) and Mucha’s painting ‘The Precious Stones (Ruby, Amethyst, Emerald, Topaz) from 1900.

Cosmic Sounds – The Zodiac

In late sixties, when Mod culture was starting to be looked upon as too commercial, and ‘futuristic themes gave way to exoticism, romanticism and nostalgia’ (1), young people started seeking answers and inspiration in paganism, mysticism and Eastern stuff: I Ching, Bhagavad Gita, The Golden Bough by James George Frazer which explores ‘magic, myths, Druids and Viking lore’, (p. 91), Ouija boards, tarot cards, meditation, vegetarianism and Hindu scriptures. Driven by LSD and hashish, they believed they were creating a new world, and so they delved into mysticism, found beauty in forgotten illustrations and paintings, whether it’s the sumptuous Klimt’s golden paintings or intricate William Morris wallpapers or William Blake’s drawings, laden with spirituality, hidden meanings and symbolism.

1) Baby Doll Cosmetics 1968/ 2) Photo of Cleo de Merode, 1905; similar hairstyles.

Ravi Shankar – Sitar

A quote from the already mentioned book that sums it all:

“The underground exhibited a curious nostalgia, unusual in people so young. Living in tattered Victorian flats, smoking dope and rummaging for antiques on the Portobello Road, the underground pillaged their cultural history. Part romantics and part vandals, as they pulled away from their parents’ world, they embraced the shadow of their grandparents’ Victoriana, torn between an idealised future and rose-tinted visions of the past.”

1) Flower Love, C.Keelan, 1967/ 2) Painting by Mucha

Just imagine that beautiful asceticism of the sixties; candle lit room with bare floor, mattress, incense sticks, Eastern fabrics for curtains, someone jamming on the guitar, girls in colourful clothes with flowers in their hair, resembling Mucha’s painting, laughter, optimism, mind expanding chatter… General mood of the time could be described as a combination of idealism, hedonism and optimism that eventually exceeded into decadence. Similar were the turn of the century vibes and the art movement that came to define the era – Art Nouveau.

1) 1960s poster/ 2)Alphonse Mucha, ‘Job’, 1898

Art Nouveau demanded artistic freedom, art for art’s sake. Free the colour, the line, the beauty itself, the artists demanded. Similarly, in the sixties, after the drab post-war years were finally over and the economic situation was a bit better, artists and designers demanded the liberty of colour and design. Taking inspiration from the past, in a hope for a better artistic future, designers combined the refinement and elegance of Victorian and Edwardian art; floral prints, aestheticism and playful lines, and combined it with acid-laced colours such as magenta, aqua and bright yellow. Inspiration was often found in flamboyant turn of the century designs by Klimt, Aubrey Beardsley, Mucha and Georges de Feure.

1) Poster for The Crazy World of Arthur Brown at UFO, 16 and 23 June, by Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, 1967, London (Michael English & Nigel Waymouth / 2) 1897-98. Journal Des Ventes, Georges de Feure, Color lithograph

As you can see above, poster for the UFO designed by Michael English and Nigel Waymouth who worked under the moniker ‘Hapshash and the Coloured Coat’, is truly Art Nouveau in style; whimsical lines, fluid shapes amalgamating one into another, female figure with flowers and different ornamental detailing in her hair and on her body, the whole mood very playful and fit for the new sixties spirit and yet beautiful aesthetically.

Psychedelic poster, Pink Floyd, 15 March 1966

A sixties touch in designs is definitely colour which is often bright, contrasting and eye-catching, whereas the turn of the century style preferred more refined colouring, jewel-like colours being popular but always combined with subtler shades. Klimt, Mucha and Georges de Feure placed the attention on ornamentation, almost Baroque in its heaviness, whereas in the sixties, the designs were made for the tuned-in folk, and colour combination such as mauve and yellow, orange and lilac, red and green appealed to the crowd. Psychedelic flamboyancy owes it all to Art Nouveau (and LSD).

“Hapshash and the Coloured Coat’s posters rejected the stark formalism of graphic design in favour of referencing the 19th century illustrators William Morris and Aubrey Beardsley, with opium-laced flora and leaves drawn in interlaced patterns, hypnotic motifs and arabesques.“(p. 147)

1) Barbra Streisand in Edwardian-inspired dress and hairstyle/ 2) Biba drawing

1) Barbra Streisand /2) Edwardian illustration

The book also mentions illustrations by Arthur Rackham, a late Victorian and Edwardian era book illustrator who portrayed subjects from Nordic mythology to scenes from Shakespeare and Alice in Wonderland: “Art Nouveau posters by Alphonse Mucha and illustrated books by Arthur Rackham, dented silver carafes, spindly umbrellas with ivory handles, and chipped porcelain tea services formed a backdrop for an undulating mass along Portobello, Curving to Landbroke Grove…”

And it seems to me that the sixties were one really long Mad Hatter’s tea party with great clothes, music and attitudes towards life and spirituality.

1) Pattie Boyd and Twiggy for Vogue, 1969 / 2) Barbra Streisand in Edwardian dress

Influence of Art Nouveau, Pre-Raphaelites and Edwardian era can be seen not only in visual arts but also in fashion and film costumes. In 1990s there was a Jane Austen revival with films such as Sense and Sensibility. Well, films from the sixties and seventies are all about turn of the century; large hats decorated with roses, Art Nouveau interiors, Edwardian dresses in pastel colours with abundance of ruffles and lace… Some great examples of this aesthetic are films Hello, Dolly (1969) with Barbra Streisand, La Ronde (1964), Morgiana (1972), Viva Maria (1965) with Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau, Baba Yaga (1973) etc.

1) Catherine Deneuve in Edwardian dress / Photo of Emilie de Briand, 1900s

Even in everyday fashion, it’s hard not to see the influence. No, women didn’t return to tight corsets and uncomfortable lingerie, but some designers such as Barbara Hulanicki of Biba took the best of Victorian and Edwardian fashion and incorporated it in sixties style. Think of longer dresses (compared to Mary Quant’s mini dress that ruled the Swinging London), straw hats and lace details, floral prints, velvet, bishop sleeves, heavy dark coloured fabrics, longer hair often with curls (instead of the previous strict bob hair) or soft voluminous buns that were worn by Pattie Boyd and Twiggy for Vogue in 1969, and also Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot. Jane Birkin couldn’t resist the style as well, picture below:

Jane Birkin in Edwardian dress with lace and ruffles, 1970

1) Biba girl with Gibson Girl Hairstyle, 2) Illustration by Alphonse Mucha, 3) Biba illustration

Fashion Icons: Brigitte Bardot

Ah, Brigitte Bardot! What can be said about this French actress, sex symbol and a 1950s and 60s fashion icon that wasn’t said already? She was simply gorgeous with her cat eyeliner, pouty lips and a messy blonde hairdo. She made St Tropez a hot spot, posed for Kess van Dongen, danced ballet, acted in many films, and had an amazing style that’s really timeless; from her elegant 1950s dresses, gingham print skirts and black shirts with the smallest waist ever, to her carefree seaside style with beach hair and barefoot-look, all the way to her classic Parisian 1960s look and her bohemian/gypset 1968 look. Brigitte Bardot is, along with Kate Moss, my ideal of a beautiful woman. She is a vegetarian and a lover of animals. This is one of her quotes:

“I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.”

Enjoy the collages!

Fashion Icons: Anna Karina

Anna Karina is a Danish-French film actress and for a while, in the 1960s, she was the muse of director Jean-Paul Godard. In his films such as Une Femme est Une Femme (1961), Bande a Part (1964), Vivre sa Vie (1962), Pierrot le Fou (1965) and Made in U.S.A. (1966) Anna Karina can be seen wearing beautiful yet simple outfits. Her costumes in Une Femme est Une Femme are especially eye-cathing; she wore red and blue skirts and dresses against the grey backdrop of Paris.

Her style is very chic, tailored and Parisian. If you want to dress like her, be sure to wear some coloured tights, I have them in all colours – blue, red, yellow, green, purple, and all thanks to Anna Karina. Her classic look would include grey knee-length skirt with red tights, cardigan and a trench coat. Whenever I wear something like that, I feel like I’m in one of Godard’s films. Now all you need is Jean-Paul Belmondo or Sami Frey and a book by Camus.

Let my collages speak for themselves.

Czech Avant-Garde: ‘Daisies’ and ‘Valerie and her Week of Wonders’

Today I’m going to talk a bit about two films I recently watched and still can’t stop thinking about.

“The imaginary is what tends to become real.” (Andre Breton)

Daisies (1966)

Last Wednesday I finally watched these two brilliant films – Daisies or Sedmikrasky (1966) and Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970). Looking back, it seems I had an afternoon of Czech New Wave, and what a wonderful afternoon it was! The first film I watched, Daisies, directed by Věra Chytilová, is about two girls, Marie I (Jitka Cerhová) and Marie II (Ivana Karbanová), who, led by the thought that everything is relative and that the world is f*cked up, decide to do everything they want, and that includes behaving improper at restaurants, cutting sheets, dining with wealthy men, eating lots and lots of food, cutting eggs and pickled cucumbers with scissors, having a bath in milk, walking through a corn field, just fooling around really.

Every scene of this film is so aesthetically pleasing; from Marie II’s floral headband and bright orange hair and their pretty 1960s dresses, to their walls half-covered with drawing of flowers and pressed flowers and half with phone numbers and addresses of their ‘sugar daddies’. Just to observe them having fun is a cure for mundaneness of daily life. And Czech language is so soft and pleasant to the ear, especially when Marie I says something like ‘Kam jdeš?’ (Where are you going?) or Marie II proclaiming she likes food very much. Their cheeky behaviour is hilarious. Oh, did I mention it was forbidden by the Communist regime? Forbidden fruit always tastes better.

I’ve read about these two films on a website about weird films. This is what makes this film weird, according to the author of the website:

“Watching the bright colors and bratty joie de vivre of Marie I and II as they slash and burn their way through square society, cutting up phallic symbols and the film stock itself with scissors, it’s hard to believe that Daisies wasn’t produced under the influence of drugs. Made a year before and half a world away from San Francisco’s Summer of Love, this proto-flower power film nonetheless captures the anarchic spirit of Sixties psychedelia; it’s a relic from an alternate universe populated by sexy Czech hippy chicks with serious cases of the munchies. Alternately described as a feminist manifesto, a consumerist satire, and a Dadaist collage, it seems that no one—possibly including the director herself—is quite clear on what Daisies is supposed to be about. Does it matter? No, it doesn’t.” (source)

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“I’m an enemy of stupidity and simple-mindedness in both men and women and I have rid my living space of these traits.” (Vera Chytilová)

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Valerie and her Week of Wonders (original title Valerie a Týden Divu), 1970, directed by Jaromil Jiroš, is different in subject and atmosphere, but what connects it to Daisies is a similar creative and non-commercial approach to film making. Valerie, played by Jaroslava Schallerova, is a thirteen year old girl who lives in a small town with her granny who, by the way, looks really frightening. Actually, Valerie’s surroundings hold a sinister appeal all together; from a pale-faced man referred to as ‘the Weasel’, a lusty priest, mass that resembles an orgy, granny whipping her self and proclaiming her love to the priest. Valerie falls in love and often rescues a boy named Eagle (Orlik, played by Petr Kopriva), who is either her brother or just her neighbour.

You could draw a parallel between ‘Valerie and her Weeks of Wonders’ and Lewis Caroll’s opium-laced classic Alice in Wonderland, but Valerie’s story has a flair of Middle European small towns, with a dash of vampires, Edwardian-revival white lace dresses, barley fields, and lots of mystery. All these weird things start occurring after Valerie becomes a woman, symbolised by a daisy splashed with blood drops. The film is an adaption of Vítězslav Nezval’s novel of the same name. Nezval was a co-founder of the first Czech Surrealist group, and I think the film’s dreamy, surreal atmosphere justifies the story’s origin.

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As I’m writing this, I’m planning to watch two more Czech films – Morgiana (1972) and Alice (Neco z Alenky, 1988), and I hope they’ll be equally weird in a good way! Strange are the paths of one’s imagination; in the beginning of June I was crazy about kitchen sink dramas and wouldn’t watch anything else, and now I totally want to delve even deeper in Surrealism and Czech films. Crazy.

Desperate Romantics (2009) – A Review

I’ll start off this post by saying I absolutely loved ‘Desperate Romantics‘ – a period drama set in Victorian London which revolves around the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; their art, lives, loves and scandals.

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First glimpse of Desperate Romantics, from left to right; Rafe Spall as a somewhat austere perfectionist William Holman Hunt, also known as ‘Maniac’, Aidan Turner as the dashing Byronic Hero, ‘half-Italian, half-mad’ Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Samuel Barnett as a child-prodigy, sweet and bewildered John Everett Millais, and lastly Sam Crane as the gentle, caring and ‘always-in-the-shadow-of-others’ Fred Walters; a composite character mainly based on Fred Stevens and several other historical figures who serves as a journalist and a diarist of the brotherhood.

I found the actors and actresses wonderful and perfectly suitable for their roles. Every character has an individualised personality and that is one of the main reasons this period drama is so brilliant. This emphasis on individual personality traits, be it good or bad ones, helps a great deal to understand the artworks they produced. Their choice of subjects seems so natural after understanding their characters. For example, the strong-willed and religious Hunt would never go on painting sensual women or characters from Roman mythology, and likewise it’s inconceivable that Rossetti would ever paint anything similar to The Light of the World.

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Brooding Rossetti and his sorrowful muse

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I very much enjoyed how relatable everyone seemed. Their conversations and jokes in the pub sounded beautifully modern. Pre-Raphaelites smoked hashish, consumed opium, flirted with waitresses and visited brothels. In several scenes you can even see Charles Dickens himself entertaining the ‘ladies’. After watching this, I feel like the Victorian world wasn’t as grim and proper as presented, perhaps in the higher classes but not amongst artists and intellectuals.

In Desperate Romantics Featurette (you can watch it on YouTube) actors and actresses talk about their roles and opinions of the PRB. I found it especially thrilling how Rafe Spall connected the members of the Brotherhood to modern artists and writers. He made a parallel with the Beat Generation and compared Fred Walters to Jack Kerouac, Millais to Neal Cassady, Rossetti to Allen Ginsberg and Hunt to William Burroughs. Also, he compared the radical avant-garde quality of the brotherhood to Punk Rock, and he described the make-up and hairstyle of Annie Miller (Hunt’s girfriend and model) as being Vivienne Westwood-esque.

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Amy Manson as Lizzie Siddal

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I’m afraid that costumes are a great factor for me, and in Desperate Romantics it was yet another source of enjoyment. As you can see from the pictures I’ve assembled here, dresses worn by Lizzie Siddal are very simple and romantic, made of printed cotton in earthy colours, no corsets or crinolines. Along with her long flowing coppery hair, she looks more like a Medieval maiden than a Victorian lady. Apart from a few bonnets, everything seemed historically accurate. Men’s attire was interesting as well, which is unusual because it tends to be boring and grey. Millais is a true peacock, usually wearing scarlet-coloured velvet jackets and lots of purples and greens. Rossetti is very flamboyant but more sophisticated, he wears loose, half-unbuttoned shirts and vibrant coloured scarves. Fred is all simple and proper, true mama’s boy and Hunt is dressed according to his reserved nature, but after his trip to the East, he starts growing a beard, smoking hashish straight from Syria and dressing with a touch of East just like The Rolling Stones when then discovered Marocco.

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First love couple: Rafe Spall as William Holman Hunt and Jennie Jacques as Annie Miller

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I’ve read some complaints about the lack of art in the series and I highly disagree. Exhibition of Millais’ Ophelia, an important moment for the PRB, was well presented and so was the moment when Rossetti found his new direction in portraying pure womanly sensuality after an encounter with Fanny Cornforth. Millais, Rossetti, Hunt and Fred are often seen visiting the Royal Gallery, even objecting the mainstream Victorian art, Rossetti said: The Academy’s utter disgust is what gets us all out of bed in the morning‘, continuing ‘Where is the naturalism, where is the life, the flesh, the blood, the nature?’ When Hunt comes back from his trip, he also showcases his paintings, and after Lizzie dies we see grief stricken Rossetti painting Beata Beatrix. We see Rossetti painting Jane Morris and the murals in a nearby church, and Lizzie painting as well. Is this not enough art?

In Desperate Romantics we are presented by something even more important than ‘art’, we see the background of their artworks and everything that went on in their personal lives and the way it reflected on their works. The series captured the mood of the Brotherhood and I think that’s not only more interesting, but more important. Anyone can simply google their paintings, but it takes a lot more to understand them.

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Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Lizzie Siddal as Victorian era Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull

INTERESTING QUOTES:

“We are artists, we thrive on strong emotions.” (Elizabeth Siddal, ep 5)

“We cannot confuse our feeling about the artist with the art, that would leave us only able to admire works of those we like.” (John Ruskin, ep 3)

“I insists it’s the most noble profession there is. An artist only records beauty, but a model radiates it. If I were Millais, oh, I would paint you in a pure white silk dress.” (Rossetti’s opinion on modelling and words directed to Jane Burden)

“I find the modern world the most random and confusing place.” (Millais, ep 3)

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Love couple number 3: Millais and Effie as Victorian version of Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg

A only have a few objections. Firstly, I’d love to have seen Rossetti’s family because his sister Christina was a poet and his brother William Michael also belonged to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Secondly, no mention of Lizzie’s stillborn child and that was something that deeply saddened her and ultimately led to her death. Thirdly, too many sex scenes which was tasteless and unnecessary in my opinion. It’s obvious that Rossetti wasn’t celibate. Perhaps a hint of intimacy would be more interesting than seeing Rossetti jump on every redhead in London.

All in all, I loved Desperate Romantics – escapism into the bohemian circles of Victorian era London. It’s beyond inspiring, the story itself is enigmatic and interesting, actors were brilliant, thoroughly recommend it! There are six episodes, each is one hour long. If you can spare six hours of your life, I sincerely recommend you to do that.