Happy Halloween - TGIF

Mario Testino

Christina Kruse for American Vogue - ph: Mario Testino


Christina Kruse for Allure, ph: Mario Testino


Today is Mario Testino's birthday! He was born in Lima, Peru.The eldest of seven children born to an Italian father and an Irish mother, Testino attended at the Universidad del Pacifico, the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru and the University of San Diego. In 1976, Testino moved permanently to London.

Mario Testino makes anyone he photographs look the best they ever will. That's part of his magic. The rest is in making the taking of the photo as much fun as possible.

Lou Reed

Lou Reed was in 1942 and grew up in Freeport, New York. He developed an early interest in rock and roll and rhythm and blues, and during high school played in a number of bands. His first recording was as a member of a doo wop-style group called The Shades.

Reed received electroconvulsive therapy in his teen years in response to his homosexual behavior; in his dark 1974 song, "Kill Your Sons", he revisited the experience. In an interview, Reed said of the experience:

“They put the thing down your throat so you don't swallow your tongue, and they put electrodes on your head. That's what was recommended in Rockland County to discourage homosexual feelings. The effect is that you lose your memory and become a vegetable. You can't read a book because you get to page seventeen and have to go right back to page one again."

"Walk on the Wild Side" is a Lou Reed song from his 1972 second solo album Transformer. It was produced by David Bowie. The song received wide radio coverage, despite its touching on topics such as transsexuality, drugs, male prostitutes and oral sex and the term "colored" to refer to African Americans.

The lyrics tell of a series of individuals and their journeys to New York City, and is a thinly-veiled biography of several of the regular "superstars" at Andy Warhol's New York studio, The Factory, namely Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, Joe Dallesandro, Jackie Curtis and Joe Campbell (referred to in the song by his nickname Sugar Plum Fairy). Candy Darling was also the subject of Reed's song "Candy Says".

"Walk on the Wild Side":

It is usually regarded as Reed's best-known solo work. The song reached #16 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and #10 in the UK.

The mellifluous saxophone solo played over the fadeout of the song was performed by Ronnie Ross, who had previously taught David Bowie to play the saxophone during Bowie's childhood.
The song is also noted for its twin interlocking bass lines played by Herbie Flowers on double-bass and overdubbed bass guitar, featuring the extensive use of a major tenth interval, which was unusual in pop music until then.

Vanessa Paradis covered the song in her album Variations sur le même t'aime.

Beth Gibbons performing Lou Reeds song about Candy Darling, "Candy Says":

Every day my train passes thru Freeport. On my way to work in the early morning I can see the laborers assembled outside of 7-11, looking to be picked up for work.

Viktoriya Sasonkina - Spur December Cover

Candy Darling

Over the weekend, Undercover noticed that the cover of The Smiths 1995 compilation album, Singles, featuring a design made earlier by Morrissey but previously unused, and stars singer and actress Diana Dors in a still from the 1956 film Yield to the Night has a similar context to the way that "Candy Darling on Her Deathbed" was used by the group Antony and the Johnsons as cover for their album I Am a Bird Now.

Candy Darling was born James Lawrence Slattery in Forest Hills, New York, son of Theresa Phelan, a bookkeeper at Manhattan's Jockey Club, and James (Jim) Slattery, who was described as a violent alcoholic. There is some conjecture around Candy's year of birth. According to former Warhol associate, Bob Colacello, Candy was born in 1946, her friend, roommate, and posthumous editor, Jeremiah Newton, states that she was born on November 24, 1944.

Early years - as a male - were spent in Massapequa Park, Long Island, New York where she and her mother had moved after her parents divorced. Her half-brother Warren, a product of Theresa Slattery's first marriage, left home for the U.S. military, leaving Jimmy as the only child; Warren later denied his connection to Jimmy.

Jimmy spent much of her childhood absorbing the influences of US television and old Hollywood movies, from which she learned to impersonate her favorite actresses, such as Joan Bennett and Kim Novak. She claimed to have "learned about the mysteries of sex from a salesman in a local children's shoe store" and finally revealed an inclination towards dressing as a female when her mother confronted her about local rumours which described her dressed as a girl frequenting a local gay bar called The Hayloft. In response Jimmy left the room and reappeared in full feminine attire. Her mother later said that, "I knew then... that I couldn't stop Jimmy. Candy was just too beautiful and talented."

Late at night Candy would often take a cab (thereby avoiding the attention of neighbors she would receive if she walked) a short distance to the Long Island Rail Road station for the train to Manhattan, frequently sitting across from Long Island starlet Joey Heatherton. Once there, she referred to her modest Cape-Cod style home at 79 First Avenue in Massepequa Park as her "country house" and hung out in Greenwich Village, meeting people through the circle of Seymour Levy on Bleecker Street.

Before they actually met in 1967, Candy saw Andy Warhol at the after-hours club called The Tenth of Always. It wasn't long before Warhol invited Candy to appear in one of his movies. She was given a short comedic scene in Flesh (1968) with Jackie Curtis and Joe Dallesandro. After Flesh, Candy was cast in a central role in Women In Revolt (1971). She played a Long Island socialite drawn into a woman's liberation group called PIGS (Politically Involved Girls) by a character played by Jackie Curtis. Interrupted by cast disputes encouraged by Warhol, Women in Revolt took longer to film than its predecessor and went through several title changes before a consensus was reached. Candy wanted it called Blonde on a Bum Trip since she was the blonde, while Jackie and Holly told her it was more like Bum on a Blonde Trip - titles which were both used in the film during Candy's interview scene. Women in Revolt was first shown at the first Los Angeles Filmex as Sex. Later it was shown as Andy Warhol's Women, an homage to George Cukor.

Candy succumbed to leukemia and pneumonia on March 21, 1974, aged about 29; she died at the Columbus Hospital division of the Cabrini Health Center.

Like Candy, I too grew up in Massapequa Park. Also, like Candy, I have brother who joined the military. My brother Joseph is a Marine and a veteran of the Iraq War. Unlike Candy, I still live with my brother in Massapequa Park. He is my best friend. Every day I ride the Long Island Rail Road to work at Women. Every night, on my walk home from the train I pass by Candy's childhood home.

As of the census of 2000, there were 17,499 people living in Massapequa Park and the the racial makeup of the village was 97.37% White. As of 2004, they still ban books in Massapequa High School. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", which has sold 300,000 copies, and is recommended for adolescents by the American Library Association, was banned from Massapequa High School in 2004.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an epistolary novel written in the 1990's by American novelist Stephen Chbosky. It was published on February 1, 1999. The story takes place over a series of letters to a friend written by the narrator, a teenager named Charlie. The story explores topics such as introversion, teenage sexuality, abuse, and the awkward times of adolescence. The book also touches strongly on drug use and Charlie's experiences with this.

One student felt the book was innapropriate and her parents complained to MHS. The response was quick. School officials declared that Perks hadn’t been approved as required reading, and told the teacher, Jennifer Pesato, to use a sociology textbook instead. A school letter went out to parents, offering refunds to anyone who had purchased the novel.

“I was a little disappointed the teacher took a little detour,” said Susan Woodbury, the Massapequa district’s executive curriculum director. “I think she did this in very good faith, in trying to get the kids hooked on an issue. But I’m not sure it was relevant for a sociology class.”

Elsewhere, Perks also has been pulled from classrooms and library shelves, in response to parent complaints. It’s happened in Massachusetts, Ohio and Virginia. Stephen Chbosky, a Brooklyn resident who wrote Perks as his first novel, thinks the book’s opponents miss the point.Perks, he said, is about teens who ultimately find their way in life. Chbosky gets lots of appreciative e-mail messages from adolescent readers, two of whom said the book saved them from suicide. “If that doesn’t send a positive message, I don’t know what does,” he said.

November UK Vogue Cover - Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Jourdan Dunn & Eden Clark

Diana Dors

Diana Dors on the cover of The Smiths 1995 compilation album, Singles:


Diana Dors in the 1956 film Yield to the Night:

Diana Dors was born on this day in 1931.

Diana Dors (October 23, 1931 – May 4, 1984) was an English actress and sex symbol. She was born Diana Mary Fluck in Swindon, England. She was considered the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood. She also had significant acting ability, which was destined never to be fully utilised (most of her later work is made up of sex-themed comedies that featured scenes near to soft-core pornography). Her success was such that, aged 20, she was the youngest registered owner of a Rolls Royce in the UK. Her best work as an actress may have been when she played a murderess in the 1956 film Yield to the Night.

Dors left a mark on popular culture; the "50s blonde bombshell look" popularized by Dors and, in the US, by "The Three 'Ms'" Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren and Marilyn Monroe.

A year or two before The Smiths catalogue was sold to Warner Brothers, a still of Diana Dors from the film Yield to the Night (1956) was considered by Morrissey for a Smiths 'greatest hits' compilation then being prepared by their record label at the time, Rough Trade.

That greatest-hits album never materialized because the rights to The Smiths catalogue were sold to Warner Brothers Records. Using Morrissey's concept, Warner Brothers used the Diana Dors image one year later as the cover of the final Smiths reissue.

Nimue Smit @ WOMEN New York

Today in New York it is currently 41°F (5°C) and sunny.

Nimue is represented by WOMEN in New York. She had a very tightly edited Spring 2009 show season: Prada, Miu Miu and Marni.

Nimue at Prada spring 2009:


Prada detail:


Prada backstage


Nimue opening Miu Miu spring 2009:

Nimue at Marni Spring 2009

Anne V and Nimue Smit

Today in New York it is 54°F/12°C, with some sun, windy and cooler than yesterday.

Toni Garrn - Chinese Vogue November 2008 - ph: Corinne Day

Valerie Faris

Today is Valerie Faris' birthday.

With her husband Jonathan Dayton she has directed many amazing music videos. Valerie studied dance at UCLA in the late-1970s; while there, she met Jonathan Dayton, a film and television student, who became her husband and partner. As a pair, they have directed and produced music videos, documentaries, commercials and films. They have received international fame for their music videos for bands such as Oasis, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys, and R.E.M.. They won six MTV Video Music Awards for the video "Tonight Tonight" by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Valerie's video for the Smashing Pumpkins 1979 makes me nostalgic for summertime late night pool parties that go out of bounds, when you'd jump in your underwear, and drive home in wet clothes.........

TGIF

Comme des Garcons #20 - fall 2008 - Risa Fukui

Risa Fukui Interview with Wakana Kawahito

Risa Fukui is one of the up-and-coming Kirie artists who creates a picture by cutting lines to make new space in a piece of paper. Kirie is a traditional Japanese craft technique, making a picture by cutting both white and black paper and putting color paper between space.

KI RI GA is a name of Risa's first book launching this November.

Q:I heard you learned Kirie when you joined a Kirie club at your junior high school but you stopped doing kirie after that. Why did you restart creating Kirie when you were in art school?

A:I had majored in Graphic Design at Tama Art University. At that time, graphic design was more analog; for example, using color papers to think of pattern, dividing a face to make a construction of color and drawing a line by hand. Paper was a comfortable material for me. In my sophomore year, I had homework in class to create works by any kind of technique I wanted. At that time, using paper reminded me I was good at making Kirie. A lot of my classmates were superior to me in terms of drawing and painting watercolors, and I was trying to find my own style. Then, I tried Kirie and it was really fun and worked out. I have been making Kirie since then.

Q:How long does it take time to create a work?

A:For example, I am making one A3 and one A4 white and black works per week for weekly magazine. It is actually hard. If it is necessary to put colors, it will take more. I usually need two or three weeks to create a piece of work.

Q:What kind of Kirie are you looking for?

A:I am interested in bringing active element and movement within flat and silence space of Kirie. It is essential to cut a line for Kirie. I think that my originality is in organic and vivid lines. It is most important that my work be is full of strength and vitality.

Q:What inspires you?

A:I am interested in something alive such as plants and animals, and things that move like smoke. Additionally, my imagination is ignited by invisible things. For example, music from the drums.

Risa Fukui Blog: http://artgene.blog.ocn.ne.jp/fukui/

Comme des Garcons #20 - fall 2008 - Mondongo

New Selections from Comme des Garcons Fall Winter collections 2008 have arrived.

"In Spanish, the word “mondongo” means tripe, or the lining of a cow’s stomach. The word “Mondongo” is also a stew we love, and we are like three witches stirring it up in a cauldron: revolving and expecting and trying and experimenting; attempting to alchemize, to distill, and ooze all the chaos, and the all possible “all-ness” in it . . . " — Mondongo, 2008 (from the Mondongo Manifesto)

Mondongo is the internationally recognized Argentine artist collective comprised of Juliana Laffitte, Manuel Mendanha, and Agustina Picasso. In their transgressive yet celebratory work, Mondongo explore the mystery and depth of the human psyche as a way to break through chaos to creativity and unfettered imagination.

In Mondongo’s world all is up for deconstructive terrorism—the miserable ambitions of the ego, social hypocrisy, the slight satisfactions of sex, what’s left of the family, the murderous ideology of a victim satiated world.

The amount of work Mondongo put into each piece is extensive, and both intricate and beautiful. They are literally paintings without paint—using such materials as thread, beads, plasticine, cookies, and glitter, to name of few. Production is slow and deliberate as the material and concept are intricately jelled: the materials used as metaphorical adjuncts to the concepts.

As critic and author Kevin Power comments in his essay, “Mondongoing the World,”

Mondongo’s work is a dark vision but not a moralistic one. They are
laconic commentators who like the rest of us have taken about as much as they can and who seethe inside but without burning up their energies since there is a long day ahead. All of us need to find the measures of his or her own dance, stretch out in time, fill the curve, smile. There is an ethical positioning but no attempt at facile solutions, no belief structure to hold on to, and as a result the work becomes even more desperate, and often the vomit surges up and explodes as a calculated image, suspended in time, but ready to melt or quickly consumed like everything else, yet at that last minute it twists away and sticks in the mind.

Formed in 1999, Mondongo have since earned their particular place in the ebullience of Argentinean art: an iconoclastic, punk, imaginatively inventive, sharply particular, personal, laid-back look at life—a “do what you like” situation from a ground zero world loaded with elements from a grotesque farce.

Agyness Deyn - Vogue China November 2008 cover, ph: Mario Sorrenti, stylist: Jane How

TGIF

Alberto Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti was born on this day in 1910 in Borgonovo, now part of the Swiss municipality of Stampa, near the Italian border. His father, Giovanni Giacometti, was a painter. Alberto attended the School of Fine Arts in Geneva. In 1922 he moved to Paris to study under the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, an associate of Auguste Rodin. It was there that Giacometti experimented with cubism and surrealism and came to be regarded as one of the leading surrealist sculptors. Among his associates were Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso and Balthus.

Between 1936 to 1940, Giacometti concentrated his sculpting on the human head, focusing on the model's gaze, followed by a unique artistic phase in which his statues became stretched out; their limbs elongated. Obsessed with creating his sculptures exactly as he envisioned through his unique view of reality, he often carved until they were as thin as nails and reduced to the size of a pack of cigarettes, much to his consternation. A friend of his once said that if Giacometti decided to sculpt you, "he would make your head look like the blade of a knife." After his marriage his tiny sculptures became larger, but the larger they grew, the thinner they became. Giacometti said that the final result represented the sensation he felt when he looked at a woman.

His paintings underwent a parallel procedure. The figures appear isolated, are severely attenuated, and are the result of continuous reworking. Subjects were frequently revisited: one of his favorite models was his younger brother Diego Giacometti.

While the intention of his sculpting was usually imitation, the end products were an expression of his emotional response to the subject. He attempted to create renditions of his models the way he saw them, and the way he thought they ought to be seen. He once said that he was sculpting not the human figure but "the shadow that is cast."

Scholar William Barrett in Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1962), argues that the attenuated forms of Giacometti's figures reflect the view of 20th century modernism and existentialism that modern life is increasingly devoid of meaning and empty. "All the sculptures of today, like those of the past, will end one day in pieces... So it is important to fashion ones work carefully in its smallest recess and charge every particle of matter with life."

Steven Meisel used an Alberto Giacometti as an accesory in the fall 2000 versace campaign, which was later exhibited as "Four Days in LA: The Versace Pictures" at White Cube Gallery in London .

Steven Meisel Untitled II , 2000C-type print,48 x 63 in.

Glamour in the Gallery

by Pernilla Holmes

"There's a glamour to it, too -- a sick glamour, but a glamour," says photographer Steven Meisel. He's discussing "Four Days in L.A.," his advertising campaign for Versace's Fall 2000 collection. A year later, these photographs were presented not as advertising but as high art, blown up to mural-size and hung on the walls of London's most avant-garde art gallery, the White Cube II, in an exhibition that garnered lots of fawning press attention, including a cover story in Art and Auction magazine.

In the high-gloss photos, nearly identical supermodels pose in palatial L.A. homes. Primped and preened within an inch of their lives, dripping in gems and gold, they are surrounded by orderly opulence from Old Master paintings to hyper-groomed poodles. In a magazine, they make a sharp contrast to the overused youth-obsessed vision that characterizes women's fashon.

Needless to say, these photos were commissioned to sell clothes and are, whatever their artistry, commercial advertisements. Yet the prints are selling quickly. With 15 photos in all, each in an edition of nine, priced at £12,000-£15,000 each, we're looking at a total value of around £2 million.

White Cube's owner, Jay Jopling, has been a key figure in the marketing of young British artists such as Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, who've since become celebrities in the same kind of fashion magazines that have christened Meisel as the genius of his profession. Jopling's decision to show "Four Days in L.A." as an art exhibition was fairly simple. A preferred Versace customer; he received the catalogue and was struck by its artistry and contacted Meisel's agent.

Meisel made his Versace photos over four days in two L.A. mansions. The models pose in interiors that demonstrate success of the most recognisable sort -- wealth. In the catalogue essay, this untouchable sumptuousness is compared to Italian Mannerist portraits by Bronzino and Pontormo.

At the same time, Meisel has given his subjects a shellacked and frightening emptiness. Their well-adorned conformity with their lavish surroundings makes them just another hieratic sign among the tapestries and objets d'art. In the hermetic fashion world, Meisel's photos are being cited for re-introducing the grown-up woman into a realm dominated by images of youth. But it is a mannered adulthood all the same, the return of The Valley of the Dolls and The Stepford Wives.

In terms of zeitgeist, Meisel clearly knows which buttons to push. "Four Days in L.A." reflects an approach that has become commonplace in fashion as well as art these days -- subverting ideals with a nihilistic attitude, which by extension makes the items they advertise seem "cool." Versace would not risk mocking its well-heeled customers were it not au courant to do so.
At present, Meisel's success proves that artistic irony is simply good advertising. And that in today's art world, commerce can be important as an esthetic component.

Nona Hendryx

Happy Birthday Nona Hendryx!


Nona Hendryx (born October 9, 1944 in Trenton, New Jersey) is an American vocalist, record producer, songwriter, musician, author, and actress. Hendryx is known for her work as a solo artist as well as for being one-third of the trio Labelle, who had a hit with "Lady Marmalade." Her music has ranged from soul, funk, dance, and rhythm and blues to hard rock, art rock, and World Music.

Nona & Labelle perform " Creole Lady Marmalade"


Nona Hendryx performs "Why Should I Cry"

Elizabeth Peyton

Marc Jacobs spring 2009 - Monday September 9, 2008 at 9:00pm.


Elizabeth Peyton wearing Marc Jacobs spring 2009 on Tuesday, October 7, 8–10 p.m.“Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton” Opening Reception

Marc Jacobs's spring 2009 collection was one of my favorites- I love how he mixed my 2 favorite fashion eras: YSL cabine with grunge.

Elizabeth Peyton (born 1965) is an American painter who rose to popularity in the mid-1990s. She is a contemporary artist best known for stylized and idealized portraits of her close friends, pop celebrities, and European monarchy.

Her celebrity subjects have included Noel and Liam Gallagher of the rock band Oasis, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, Chloë Sevigny, Princes William and Harry of The House of Windsor, Abraham Lincoln, Graham Coxon, Keith Richards, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Eminem, Ludwig II of Bavaria, and members of The Kennedy Family.

Elizabeths art is sincerely honest. Not only is she talented, but she can pull off a total look just four weeks off the runway.

Marc Jacobs by Elizabeth Peyton, 2004

Rouben Mamoulian

Today is film director Rouben Mamoulian's birthday. Rouben Mamoulian was the director of Queen Christina.

Queen Christina is a 1933 American pre-code historical drama. The film was written by Viertel LeVino and Margaret "Peg" LeVino, with dialogue by S. N. Behrman, based on a story by Salka Vierted and Margaret P. Levino. It stars Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith and Lewis Stone.

The movie is very loosely based on the life of the 17th century Queen Christina of Sweden, who, in the film, falls in love during her reign but has to deal with the political realities of her society. It was billed as Greta Garbo's return to cinema after an eighteen-month hiatus.

In the film Garbo wears mens clothing and kisses another woman on the lips:

Mamoulian's directions to garbo make clear his perfect understanding of her mystique: "I want your face to be a blank sheet of paper. I want the writing to be done by every member of the audience. I'd like it if you could avoid blinking your eyes, so that you're nothing but a beautiful mask."

The symmetry of Garbo's face in incredible:

Lanvin Spring 2009

Yulia Kharlapanova


Natasha Poly


Vlada Roslyakova


Georgina Stojiljković

Yulia Khalapanova

Natasha Poly

Vlada Roslyakova

Louis Vuitton spring 2009

Heloise Guerin


Katrin Thormann


Naty Chabanenko


Kasia Struss

Natasha Poly

Bruna Tenorio

Vlada Roslyakova

Toni Garrn

Jourdan Dunn