Maybe it’s the bohemian in me coming out now that I live in the countryside, but I have never been more into paisley. It started with an antique Indian paisley tapestry that my mother handed down to me this past summer. I found the perfect spot for it covering an upholstered ottoman in my living room, and it now pulls together all the other colors in the room and adds the perfect touch of ethnic romance to the otherwise traditional English countryside look...
Couldn’t you see this girl from 1940 posing outside of a fashion show for all the bloggers? Her look is so ahead of its time. I wonder if it seemed that way then?
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There is that constant current of melancholy in most photographs of Joan Didion that sometimes makes me question why I am such of fan of them. At best she looks subdued, while in the most extreme she looks tortured and hopelessly sad. In her older years it’s as if that sadness within her came to express itself physically in the lines on her face and the thinness of her body. Yet because she has so honestly shared her sorrows with us, I feel protective and empathetic towards her.
And then there is her style, which is restrained and unselfconscious, but so elegant nonetheless. It looks easy to dress that simply, but it actually takes a lot of discipline to so precisely narrow down what works for you and even more discipline to stick with it. To me she represents the very best of intelligent, courageous and chic American women.
Usually on Fridays I post something about life here on the farm in England, but the next post I want to write on that subject requires a bit more time, and I am just back from London. SO – I will do that post on Monday, and today I will leave you with three photos of Charlotte Rampling that demonstrate that she is quite possibly the most beautiful woman that ever lived. ..
I rarely look back much beyond the 60’s for style icons. On the whole, the clothes just get too costume-y for my taste and the lifestyle they exude is just too antiquated to relate to. Of course there are exceptions, the biggest one being heiress and muse Diana Cunard whose heyday was in the 20’s. When I first saw these pictures I just couldn’t believe how completely relevant she would look today.
Does she remind you of anyone?..
I absolutely love the Hollywood sign. It’s so iconic, it’s like a celebrity unto itself. It satisfies all the yearning for glamour and excitement you expect to feel when you go to Hollywood. Years ago, I took my son Zach to LA. For weeks he told all his friend’s he was “Going to Hollywood!!!!!!!” like they say in American Idol. The trouble was, when we got there, there weren’t celebrities lining the streets, no one was offering us a recording contract, and there weren’t any movies being shot within public view. So I decided on a dime that the best way to feel like we were in Hollywood was to go to the Hollywood sign. On our drive there, we ignored many posts saying “public traffic is forbidden beyond this point,” illegally parked our car, and scrambled up over a hill until we arrived at a clear unobstructed view. It was so spectacular that I couldn’t figure out why we had so few fellow trespassers. We took our requisite photos and went on home, thoroughly satisfied. The next time I came to LA, I returned to the Hollywood sign with my daughter Coco. Within the first few minutes of scrambling up the same path, again accessed from our illegal parking spot, multiple police lights started flashing from the top of the hill, with a stern voice booming over a loudspeaker “YOU ARE NOW TRESPASSING. THIS IS ILLEGAL AND PUNISHABLE BY JAIL. YOU MUST LEAVE AT ONCE!” We froze, wide eyed, looked at each other and ran down the hill. Coco cried when we got in the car. I couldn’t stop laughing, which made her furious at me. I guess we won’t be going to the Hollywood sign again anytime soon, but it certainly made for a memorable visit.
Chances are you’ve all seen these photos many times, as have I. But in the context of looking at Diana’s style over her lifetime, they are a very important conclusion. The way I see it, these photos, taken just 5 months before she passed away, were a hint of what we would have seen next in Diana’s life: a happier, independent and grown up woman who was finally free from the life that so rigidly defined her. It’s as if in the photos from the decade before she was playing a role, and in these pictures she is finally able to just be herself...
So the third significant phase of Diana’s fashion legacy is definitely questionable to some. But this is how I see it: Everyone has a very personal relationship to personal style. We all have our own tastes, experiences, physical features, ambitions and life circumstances that heavily impact the way we present ourselves to the world. Would I ever want to dress the way Princess Diana did in the 80’s. NO WAY!! Do I think she created a signature look that worked for her life as a princess and entertained the rest of us all at once...
I most personally relate to Princess Diana when she was newly married. Her style was still classic English but she was just starting to elevate her look a bit with a puffed sleeve shoulder, oversized sunglasses, a rather large hat, or bolder patterns. There is also a bohemian feeling in her clothes at this moment (inevitably left over from the 70’s) that fades out later on in her life. But it’s the softness of her look during this time – her shaggier hair, her relaxed body language, her shy but sincere smile that moves me the most...
