I love fashion magazine editorials. There is something exquisite about gorgeous clothes on gorgeous girls in gorgeous settings. But there is often something lacking. The girls know they’re pretty, the clothes are pristine and pretty, and the settings range from country jaunt to urban jungle tamer to leaping in front of a blank wall. They’re nice pictures. But they don’t pull my heart out and offer it as a sacrifice to the God of All That is Gorgeous and Frivolous.
Once upon a time photographs said something. Something like. . . this:
"Thana, the beautiful Sea Siren" ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved.
It’s a fashion photograph, but also a story. It’s as far from vintage Vogue as you can get but it evokes timeless feelings with it’s timeless beauty. It has my heart on a stake and it’s marching it to the altar. It is with giddy delight that I introduce you to the storyteller behind this photograph.
Elizabeth Perrin was born in New Orleans, a charmed city where magic is believed and enchantments, naughty and nice, entice and inhabitants become accustomed to seeing the magical in the mundane. Elizabeth has worked in media and film, in front of and behind the camera, for over twenty years. You’d imagine that the woman entering the small Williamsburg bistro would be blasé, beautiful in the way only a retired model can be, and toting an attitude that stretches from sea to shining sea. You’d be wrong (except for the beauty.) Far from jaded, her fascination with the magic of photography remains potent, as does her charm and warmth.
"Amy, the Sea Siren Recreating Herself" ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved.
I think you can tell a lot about someone by her childhood memories. Elizabeth characterizes her childhood as “just like The Secret Garden.” Her neighbours had a private garden, walled-off and mysterious that, when the neighbours moved, Elizabeth claimed as her own. She held court with overgrown flower bushes and teeming fruit trees from her throne in the magnolia tree. Imagine the new homeowners walking into the deserted garden, approaching the magnolia tree, and being greeted by a young girl staring down at them with a wary “Hello.”
©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved.
Earlier, when Elizabeth described watching her father develop film in his darkroom, the hypnotizing “ca-clink ca-clink” of the film canisters and the gradual appearance of pictures from the wet paper, I was so transported I could smell the developer.
It would be easy to dismiss these stories as nostalgia except they offer a real glimpse at what sets Elizabeth’s work apart. The mediums might have changed, but her perception of the alchemy of photographic art remains and evolves.
“Has digital photography removed the magic?” I asked her.
“No, photoshop is pretty magical,” she responded with a laugh.
“You have to be willing to work with the mistakes. Technology is great, but you have to find a balance. Some of my favourite photographs came from mistakes. First, I make sure that I have the shot that I want. Then I play around with the mistakes. For example, the series of photographs where the number is superimposed at the top came from a mistake. The ink printed on the film leader got tangled in the emulsion and bled through. The photograph of Amy recreating herself also came from a mistake. Working with the mistakes rather than trying to erase them ensures that the technology doesn’t overrun the artistry.”
"Sleepwalker in Time Zone, Spacial Shift Zone" ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved
Narrative plays a central role in Elizabeth’s photographs. There is a large does of Southern Gothic sensibility in her work. There are beautiful women who look proper but feel dangerous, chivalrous men whose eyes are anything but gentlemanly, and a constant, gorgeous tension between the beautiful image we see and the story we want to hear.
"Hollie with Coffee Prepares for the First Scene" ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved.
I assumed that it would take a lot of preparation to get the model in the right mood. “How do you ensure that the models and stylists are on the same page as you, narrative-wise? Do you give them mood boards, play specific music, or give them some sort of homework?”
She laughed. “I don’t do a lot of preparation for the models. If they get too into the story and show too much emotion it actually hurts the photo – it’s no longer a fashion photograph. With the stylists and make-up artists, however, I provide mood boards and extensive preparations to make sure we’re on the same page. If the stylist pulls clothes that I don’t like I don’t have the luxury of not using them. I have to make it work. But I also have to make sure that the story doesn’t become the focus. Fashion photography is about the clothes – most editors actually prefer editorials shot in front of a plain background because it allows the clothes to pop the most.”
"Hollie Beauty" ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved.
Part of what makes Elizabeth’s photographs interesting is this tension. There is not only the tension from the narrative (“I am very intrigued by mythological characters, especially the idea of the good girl vs. the bad girl”) but the tension from allowing the photograph to tell a story without compromising its viability as a fashion photograph. Her work finds this balance – it tells a story beyond another pretty woman in pretty clothes.
"Hollie as Hollie" ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved
Elizabeth started her career in Los Angeles working in film and advertising. Her background behind the movie camera is apparent in her photographs. She cites Fellini and Krzysztof Kieślowski as inspiration and their influence is apparent in her tongue-in-cheek compositions and use of visual metaphors. But her experience making a reel of work provided her an even more important, albeit less glamorous, lesson: She learned to trust her own instincts.
“I spent thousands of dollars and many years working on a reel of clips that I thought reflected what other people wanted – the kind of work I assumed potential clients would want. And then I realized that I had a reel of work that didn’t really reflect who I was as an artist and wasn’t the type of work I was really interested in doing. I spent $60k on a reel of work I didn’t love. I learned that that wasn’t the way to work.
Florian. ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved.
“When I started taking photography seriously I decided to focus on what I wanted to create. I didn’t show anyone my work for a year. I just worked and learned as I went along and kept my photographs very private. I gave myself the space to explore what I wanted to do. I only told the stories and took the pictures that I wanted to capture, the pictures that I loved. It was freeing.
“People will hire me based on the work that I’ve done, so it might as well be the work that I am interested in and love doing.”
Florian. ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved.
As the talk turned to films, I asked Elizabeth about the main differences between film and photography.
“They are both ways to tell a story, but film tells a story over time. Most of my favourite films aren’t story-based so much as they’re composed of images that wash over you to give an impression. Film is about capturing images and building a story or mood with the images over a period of time. In photography you have only one instant to capture a story. In photography I plan out the story, the mood, so that I can capture that single instant. In film I capture images; in photography I capture instants.”
"Jana Classic" ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved.
"Jana Abstract" ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved.
"Kate the Evil Witch Lifts the Veil" ©Elizabeth Perrin. All rights reserved.
The Yell Softly Questions
What are your necessities? keys, cell keys, lip gloss, bed & board, nutritious food, friends, family, good health, cash, and a camera.
Nothing smells better than. . . night-blooming jasmine
Nothing tastes better than. . . soup dumplings
Nothing feels better than . . . love
I’d rather live than die.
If you could live in any other epoch, which would it be? The 30s or the time of Atlantis
What work of art or literature (a book, song, poem etc.) changed your life? T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets
If you could jump into any painting, à la Mary Poppins, which would you choose?
Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.” It’ so mysterious, like the beginning of a story. You could start a whole book with the scene. Start by going in and sitting down next to the single man at the counter. . .
"Nighthawks" (1942) by Edward Hopper. Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. All rights reserved.
Elizabeth’s portfolios and bio can be found at her website, www.ElizabethPerrin.com. I highly recommend setting aside a good half hour where you sit, breathless. Please contact her before reproducing any of these photographs. Many, many thanks to Elizabeth for her time and photographs.
My head is currently clamped between the couch’s armrest and my left fist. It’s the most comfortable I’ve been all day. I have an epic migraine so I am going to apologize right now for any typos, misspellings, stupid jokes, and any other grievous errors.
Aaryn Belfer’s sentences snap harder than junior high girl’s bra strap. Her writing is funny, irreverent, and poignant. She answered the Yell Softly Questions on her website and it gave me an idea: Once a week I’m going to post someone’s answers to the Yell Softly Questions.
Give it a try; answer the questions and email your answers to me along with a short bio. Requests to remain anonymous will be honored. You can read my answers here.
And now, I am going to hand you over to someone far more entertaining than an invalid pleading an armrest for mercy from a devious being who’s invaded her head. After you read this you’ll want more and I suggest you start with this post. Over to you, Aaryn Darling.
What are your necessities? Love; kisses from my daughter, both landed and blown; sunglasses; CO Bigelow Mentha Tint lip gloss; heels of all kinds (stacked, stiletto, kitten, princess, wedge, what have you); booksbooksbooks; The New Yorker; On The Street with Bill Cunningham; the family bed on weekends; alone time; my Canon 40-D and 50mm lens; Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, any Thelonious, Jimmy Smith, Gene Harris, Chet Baker, Ella Fizgerald…oh hell, all kinds of jazz that I couldn’t possibly live without, especially Cannonball Adderly’s and Bobby Timmons’ swingin’ masterpiece “Dis Here” set on repeat, cruising up the coast as a passenger in my husband’s classic Mini, windows down, volume at 11. Picture it…
Nothing smells better than. . .my daughter’s skin after a bath and her scalp after oiling; the space between my husband’s nose and upper lip after he shaves; early mornings in a canyon.
Nothing tastes better than. . .Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups/Trees/Eggs/Hearts with an ice cold glass of water.
Nothing feels better than . . .Hey, now…
I’d rather be…laughing and toasting with friends on my back patio during a summer evening, my home filled with people I adore, than doing just about anything else, especially faxing.
If you could live in any other epoch, which would it be? As far as fashion goes, the 20s or the 60s (ala Mad Men). Otherwise, this one seems to be working out well for me.
If you could jump into any painting, à la Mary Poppins, which would you choose?
- “The Tree of Life,” c. 1909 by Gustav Klimt
*I added a new question since Aaryn answered these: What work of art or literature (a book, song, poem etc.) changed your life? Maybe she will answer it in the comments, *hint hint*
Katharine Hepburn © Condé Nast Publications Inc. / Courtesy The Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby's London.
An actor from one of my favourite movies lives a few blocks away. I see him at the grocery store in ratty sweats and a wool hat, remember that I loved him in Angels in America, and hand him the oranges he dropped. No big deal. O, a tall man, remarks that he thought the guy would be taller. I silently muse how strange it is that I’ve seen the guy naked.
There’s absolutely nothing puzzling about this encounter except for this: Had the actor been an author I would have dropped the entire contents from my basket, stepped on one of the dropped oranges, landed on my back, and stammered, ceaselessly, “Um, um, um, um. . . I like your stuff.” It would be a fierce competition between my actions and my words: which could be the most awkward?
A few weeks ago I went to a reading at the 92nd Street Y. Paul Auster was reading with Javier Marias. Mr. Auster read a section from his new novel, Invisible, that was so steamy I’m surprised the room didn’t explode from the sexual tension. Mr. Marias’s introducer asked if we needed a cigarette break and turned the time to Mr. Marias – cool, collected, his prose offering the palette-cleansing train ride home after the tryst with Mr. Auster. I was in heaven, an eager schoolgirl scribbling the answers they gave in the Q&A then joining the line to have them sign my books.
Ok, I am a dork. You should just understand that right now. Because what I am about to tell you is like the Acme of dorkdom and I think you should be warned in advance.
I had been imagining meeting these men since I bought the tickets three months earlier. (Don’t worry, O knows about this and he is not threatened. You’ll understand why in a minute.) So for three months I had been thinking of the astute questions, the perfectly worded compliments I could give that would tell them “a-ha! The reader I have dreamed of has arrived!” I imagined Javier Marias dropping his pen and asking where I’d been all of his life, Paul Auster standing a little taller and saying “Madame, I am honored.” This was my chance. The first sentence of Marias’s A Heart So White indelibly changed the possibilities of writing for me; The New York Trilogy taught me that a whole story, a whole world, could be built from the dichotomy of the weight and arbitrariness of language. I was going to tell them, with elegance and eloquence, all of this and they were going to be my friends. No, they were going to love me.
Yeah, so it didn’t go as planned. I was star-struck. More star-struck even than when, at McNally Jackson last fall, I was handed the microphone to ask Amy Bloom and her editor a question and I had to pass the microphone back because I forgot what I was going to say. At least then I had the brilliant idea to feign a coughing attack.
I stood, first, in front of Paul Auster. He signed my book, and I was MUTE. I couldn’t even tell him my name. He handed the book back to me and I stood there, staring at him, probably hypnotizing him with the crazy that was swirling in my eyes, and then, literally, breathlessly told him “Ican’ttellyouhowmuchyourworkmeanstomeandhowiloveit.” Oh wait, you couldn’t understand that? Good heavens.
Back in line, A Heart So White clutched to my bosom*, I swore that when I spoke to Mr. Marias (“may I call you Javier?”) I would redeem myself. I didn’t. Oh man, it was even WORSE. I don’t even know how that’s possible so I really don’t expect you to. But it was. I stood there, he asked my name and I didn’t say anything because, you know, my name? what’s that? He cleared his throat, signed his name, closed the book and I blurted out “Oh! Your book changed love and I me it write so much.” He thanked me and I had to run away before I became the girl who forgot her name and then cried all over the table and had to wipe her runny nose with her hand because she was too overcome to find a kleenex.
At the aforementioned reading, Amy Bloom mentioned that when she’s writing she can’t read the work of living authors, that their shadow looms too large. The dead can’t cast shadows. For me, it’s the writers themselves. I don’t get nervous around actors or models because I know that I will never do what they do. They can think that I am a terrible actress or not skinny enough to be a model and they would be right and I wouldn’t care. I can’t do accents and I won’t give up chocolate croissants. But I aspire, I actually toil, to be a writer. I might take style cues from Marion Cotillard, but I didn’t come away from La Vie en Rose wondering how I could accomplish what she had on the screen. When I read a great book, a perfectly formed short story, it is heaven unlike any other. It is a heaven I would refuse chocolate croissants for. But it is also a challenge; how can I write a better sentence? How can I write dialogue that is natural and adds to the narrative? I don’t ask to be an actor’s peer or friend. With authors I am like your best friend’s younger sibling, pacing in front of the bedroom door begging to be invited in.
Next month I am going to spend one week with other writers. We are going to spend our mornings sharing writing and critiques and our afternoons and evenings enjoying the beauty of Positano. I feel like the younger sibling already. But this time I’ve made it through the door. Now if I can just learn to speak in full, punctuated sentences.
*this melodramatic phrase is totally appropriate here.
I was just catching my breath. The group was moving through the rooms so quickly the paintings blurred into streaks like median lines glimpsed from a speeding car.
I’ve heard the jokes, darling. The catty, lacquer-haired boy at the café this morning railed against those “idiots from Indiana” who can’t appreciate art. His suggestion, this boy who arrived two years ago, starry-eyed and twanging away with Mid-West kindness, was to post a photo of the buffoon at all museums as a warning. I do get tired of recent transplants doing their best impression of jaded New Yorker, darling, but I couldn’t very well correct him without blowing my cover.
You imagined I was shorter, fatter, frizzy-haired, dressed in a once-white sweatshirt silk-screened with frolicking cats. You pictured white tennis shoes with white socks, maybe glasses worn on a chain – a woman accustomed to awkwardness and embarrassment. You could pity that woman; maybe even applaud her for trying to better herself through continuing education classes.
I know I shouldn’t have worn those ridiculous heels. That inane “click-click” sound they made while I tried to keep up with the group will taunt me always. “Click-click! Click-click!” Then, finally, the group stopped and I had my chance to rest, take some deep breaths and shift my weight from one aching foot to the other. And then I did something really stupid. I tried to balance on one foot so I could scratch the back of my calf with the other.
Then, with a “whoop!” I ripped a $100 million painting. I am the woman who fell into the Picasso.
Now I am a ghost. For a few days I was one of the most famous women in the world yet no one knew who I was. I smiled at the boy making my coffee and preaching death to cultural wazoos, placed a quiet phone call to the Met to ensure that a photo of me, splayed on the floor in teal patent leather Louboutins isn’t posted in Museums across the city, and dropped hints to friends that I’d skipped my museum class last Friday. The museum has been very kind and quiet. But my classmates know it was me, I know it was me, and by this time Picasso himself must know it was me. I am a joke, a humourous “there but for the grace of God go I” for people to chuckle and exclaim over.
At a cocktail party the next night I smirked at the Picasso jokes. I gave the heels to a very thrilled nanny and told my husband that the bruise on my hip was from the pool table. I compose letters to the fellow who tumbled down the stairs while tying his shoes and broke three irreplaceable vases; Steve Wynn and his errant elbow; or the Sotheby’s employee who shred a Lucien Freud drawing. “Dear Sir,” I begin, “tell me, have you given up shoelaces or museums?” I picture him padding around in canvas slip-ons and oversize hats.
The really terrible thing, darling, is that I’ve never really even liked Picasso.
This is a work of fiction. I am clumsy, but I was not at the Met last Friday.
“When a Grecian Urn Takes a Step Onto the Cosmic Banana Peel” (NYT)
I always do this. My closet’s stuffed with loads of clothes purchased for just this situation: last minute party. But for some reason last minute parties always seem to demand last minute purchases. Hence my 7:30 p.m. Zara rampage followed by a quickie make-over at Sephora. I passed on the leggings but snagged some sparkly eyeshadow and new foundation. Ok, and some lipgloss. It’s an improvement over what I did last time: tried to design and sew a cocktail dress the night before. I wore a little black dress and tried to wear sunglasses to hide my raccoon eyes. Lady Gaga is onto something with those lace mask getups.
I totally want some leather pants. . . just not the ones purchased in 2001 and currently residing at my parents’ house: Red, four sizes too big, bootleg jeans-style, and purchased on a screaming sale. (Imagine that. Red leather bootleg jeans on sale?) I wore them once, in my bedroom, and was so embarassed that I even owned them that I refused walk the two feet from my bedroom to the bathroom for fear someone would see me. Moral of this post: Never talk yourself into buying leather pants because they are on sale.
I do have some ideas of what I’d like to wear, neither involving red leather pants but both inspired by this photo of Dorien Leigh:
Dorian Leigh, evening dress by Piguet, 1949 by Richard Avedon
Ok, so she is not wearing leather pants. But the dress is very structured (like the leather pants) and then is overlayed with classic draping. I absolutely love this photo, love the placement of her arm, her amazing profile, and her gorgeous dress. Mostly, I love her confidence.
I don’t own these outfits but do have pieces that are similar. Of course, I just don’t like them much right now. (Delightful, aren’t I?) Fingers crossed I like them more tomorrow. Otherwise, there’s always the lace in the sewing chest.
Film still from "How to Steal A Million." Audrey Hepburn dressed by Givenchy.
(Read Part 1 of the interview)
Recently, Rania turned her lens to that most personal of spaces: the teenage girl’s bedroom. Like her photographs of the Middle East, these photographs capture metamorphoses. Remarkably individual, defiant yet unsure, each girl shares her space and, as a result, herself. Adolescence is often marked by internal wars and external impenetrability; Rania captures both.
Siena 17, Brookline 2009 ©Rania Matar
The series A Girl in Her Room takes me back about 15 years to my own room. I think I spent more time, between the ages of 12 to 18, in my bedroom than I did anywhere else, collectively. What is it about American girls and their rooms? How did you begin this project and find girls willing to pose for you?
I have watched with awe the passage of my teenage daughter from girlhood into adulthood, with all the complications that it entails. As I observed her and her girlfriends I became fascinated with the transformation taking place, with the adult personalities taking shape and with the insecurity and self-consciousness that are replacing the carefree world the girls had lived in thus far. I originally started photographing them in group situations but quickly realized that they were so aware of each other’s presence that being in a group affected how they portrayed themselves. I also realized that under their air of self-assurance the girls were often very fragile, self-conscious and confused.
From there, the idea of photographing each girl alone emerged. I originally let the girls choose the place of their choice and was slowly welcomed into their own private space: their bedrooms.
Mara 15, Boston 2009 ©Rania Matar
The room invariably reflects the girl’s personality. It is the one place a girl does not have to feel self-conscious, the place she can surround herself with whatever matters to her alone, and the place where she can be fully herself. I spent some time with each girl so she was fully comfortable with me around and was able to let her guard down, free of any preconception of what she would like to portray. I was fascinated to discover a person on the edge between two worlds: she’s on the cusp of becoming an adult but she’s desperately holding on to the child she barely left behind. Posters of rock stars were often displayed above a bed still covered with stuffed animals; mirrors were always an important part of the room, a reflection of the girls’ image to the outside world.
As for finding the subjects, I am at the perfect time of my life to reach this age group. I have a teenage daughter and friends with teenage daughters; from here the circle keeps expanding. I have photographed over 125 girls so far and I don’t feel like this project is near being done yet. I am now looking to expand into more varied cultural, economic and geographic backgrounds.
Anna 17, Winchester 2009 ©Rania Matar
How do you approach your subjects and establish trust? You document intimate moments – a day at the beauty parlor, a mother breastfeeding her baby, teenagers primping before a mirror – is it a long process to establish that comfort level? Does the experience differ from the US in Lebanon?
In the camps, I started working with local NGOs (non governmental organizations) and they introduced me to families. From there I had to earn the trust on my own. In the Middle East people are extremely welcoming and hospitable. I spent time with families, met their children, listened to their stories, had the required cup of coffee (and it is strong!), etc. I was interested in their stories and they sensed that I was not there to abuse the situation. I visit a few families regularly and I always make a point to bring them photos. I found people just want to be treated with respect, and if you treat people decently, they are usually pretty trusting. Once you earn their trust, it is important to respect your boundaries. People often forgot about the camera and I was able to photograph life going on as normally as possible. But I also had to learn when to put the camera away. For instance, if a woman is usually veiled, she could be unveiled around me but I knew I couldn’t take her photo, no matter how much I would have liked to.
I found that in some ways it is easier photographing in the Middle East, especially in a public place. In more intimate situations, in the ME, people just rely on trust. In the US, I always ask for a model release. This is a technical aspect; on the personal level, once I am with people and photographing them things are the same. Then it is a matter of a personal relationship.
Becca 19, Boston 2009©Rania Matar
In the context of both series of photographs, I wonder how much of our space is defined by who we are and how much is defined by who we want to be and how we want to see ourselves. In the war photos, the people seem defiant in the face of external upheaval – they refuse to let the destruction define them – while in the bedroom series the girls seem defiant in the face of internal upheaval. Is this an accurate impression?
I am not sure how to answer this. The environment definitely affects who we are. People in the refugee camps, and in the aftermath of war are very much defined by the conditions they have lived in. Their defiance in the face the world is obvious in their resilience, their holding on to their dignity and their humanity, and their will to carry on and provide a decent life for their kids. It is most definitely defiance to their surrounding, to the politics of the area, and their need to survive and overcome it all.
Lilly 15, Brookline 2009 ©Rania Matar
I never thought about it in those terms but on some levels the teenage girls are somewhat going through that, on a different level. They are learning to come to terms with the transition from being a little girl to an adult woman. They are often defiant as a means of expressing themselves: they are confused, they are lost, they are self-conscious, but they would rarely admit to themselves that they are going through all those feelings. Many need to rebel against all the set rules and prove their independence. As a result, some girls get tattoos, some piercings, some take up smoking, some color their hair, other will wear the veil, and other will create a bedroom that is a bubble and the world they invent for themselves.
Do you have any favourite stories or encounters from your photography?
I have many great stories. My favorite is the story that created the image on the cover of the book. It was in September of 2006, right after the 2006 war and I was in the Haret Hreik suburb of Beirut. Many buildings were very heavily damaged and inaccessible so there was a wrecking ball destroying them. People who lived in the buildings prior to the bombings spent their day waiting for the building to finally collapse so they could look for their belongings in the rubble. (Image below.)
Barbie Girl, Beirut 2006 ©Rania Matar
I was fascinated by the resilience, friendliness and trust of these people. Waiting for the buildings to collapse became a family and neighborhood event to which I was welcomed. People would wait together all day in a relaxed atmosphere. Their home was about to collapse to the ground, but they were ready to start over. I picked the image for the cover because it summarizes everything about Lebanon to me: the little girl wearing the Barbie T-shirt, the fact that she is facing forward as if she is rising from the rubble and embracing life instead of the death and the destruction behind her, and the fact that she brought a smile to her mother’s face despite the fact that this family lost their home.
I have many beautiful stories. I was fortunate to meet beautiful people. I always go back and visit the people I photograph (or as much as possible). I bring them back photographs. One time an older lady looked at the photo and was horrified that it was in black and white and that she wasn’t looking at the camera! I have since learned to take snapshots to bring back to them as snapshot-style shots are the photos they want.
Looking Out, Beddawi Refugee Camp, Tripoli 2007 ©Rania Matar
Who / what are some of your creative inspirations
I learned a lot from books. I collect photography books and love the feel, the smell and the look of them. It was my ultimate goal to have my own book – it was like having another child. I learned a lot from Costa Manos, who was a mentor who taught me to stick around to always take the best possible picture.
I love and was influenced by many photographers who each affected me in different ways: Robert Frank, Josef Koudelka, Henri Cartier Bresson, Sally Mann. I also love painting and did quite a bit of my own in college. I love Picasso and all the Impressionists. They definitely influenced my photography on some level. My training in architecture is second nature in how I see things: light, texture, space, really everything!
The Yell Softly Questions:
What are your necessities?
My family, my camera, my yoga, my friends and humor in my life.
Nothing smells better than . . . my kids when they walk out of a shower.
Nothing tastes better than. . . chocolate.
Nothing feels better than. . . a bear hug.
I’d rather laugh than worry.
If you could jump into any painting, à la Mary Poppins, which would you choose?
A Monet painting.
Water Lilies, Claude Monet. Image courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art
Rania’s work and monograph can be purchased here. Please do not reproduce any of these images without contacting Rania for permission. Again, many thanks to Rania for sharing her work and ideas with us.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend joining Five Dials’s subscription list. A monthly online magazine produced by Hamish Hamilton, Five Dials chooses a topic and then collects writing, old and new, to elucidate and delight. It is free and it is fantastic. Their latest issue is a tribute to David Foster Wallace. Plan to spend a few hours this weekend with a pot of good coffee and this treasure.
(If you are a francophile as well as a bibliophile [or one or the other] you’ll love their no. 8, the Paris issue.)
Subscribe to Five Dials here.
Rania Matar’s photographs illuminate and surprise us with joy. Exploring themes of feminity, defiance, family and metamorphoses, her photographs capture the cataclysmic moments when insecurity becomes defiance, and destruction becomes rebirth; when past lives recede and futures are grasped. Focusing on women and children, she reminds us of the common, treasured moments that make lives but never headlines. Her first monograph, Ordinary Lives, was published in September 2009 and is available for purchase here. It is with great pleasure that I bring you the following interview, in two parts. (All images used with permission of Rania Matar. Please click on the image to view larger.)
Defiant, Beirut 2006 ©Rania Matar
Could you tell us how you began the series of photos in Lebanon? They convey the reality of the war in a very real, even relatable, way. I wondered, looking at them, if they helped you deal with the reality of Lebanon’s destruction during the wars – the shock of leaving Lebanon as a student in the eighties and returning to more suffering and destruction.
I grew up during the civil war in Lebanon. When I was twenty I moved to the US to continue my architecture and art studies at Cornell. The mind has the power of selective memory, and I made myself forget all I had lived through during the war. I avoided anything political in college and focused on enjoying college life, graduating, working as an architect, getting married and having kids (4 of them!).
Girl and Rocket Hole, Aita El Chaab 2006 ©Rania Matar
While pregnant with my 4th child, I took photography workshops and instantly fell in love with the medium. Eventually, I think as a reaction to the constant, negative news about the Middle East in the West, especially after September 11, I wanted to tell a different story about the Middle East. Things seemed to fall into place for me in 2002 when I went to a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. I saw beautiful women and children living in terrible conditions and I was humbled by their dignity, their resilience, and the beautiful moments one can find even in less than ideal conditions. I started photographing the beautiful moments of daily life in the Middle East. Telling human stories through photography became my passion and, eventually, my career.
In 2006, I was stuck in another war. This time I was a mother myself and had my children with me. All my forgotten memories of the war came back to me, all the horrors of it. At that point my priority was getting my kids out of the country so we left via Damascus. At the Lebanese/Syrian border we saw trucks loaded with women and children. It was surreal, and a wake-up call: every single person living this war (or any war for that matter) has a story to tell. I instantly decided to return to Lebanon as soon as the war ended to document and photograph the war’s aftermath, the time when the world forgets about the war and moves on to other big news, but a very real time for the people who suffered the war. It is the moment they have to come to terms with all they have lost and rebuild their lives all over again.
War and its effect on people is very real to me and now, in some ways, I am dealing with it. Living in the US, I watch, like everyone else, news and wars from the comfort of my living room – almost like watching a movie. We hear of the destruction of far away places we don’t relate to and of the death (collateral damage) of people we don’t know. It is so abstract. I wanted to show that war (again any war) affects normal people like you and I and is very real.
Open Window, Bourj El Shamali Refugee Camp 2005 ©Rania Matar
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Something that really strikes me about your photos of the Middle East is their lack of politics. We are so used to seeing the destruction and suffering of war and of the Palestinian crisis in terms of the politics of the region – there always seems to be an implicit slogan or call to arms. The absence of propaganda makes your photos more effective. Do you take the photographs with the intent to de-politicize the situation or is this a natural product of your method?
I am glad you asked me this and that you get the feeling from my work that it is not political. I very consciously stay away from causes people to dehumanize their opponents, to look at one another as friend or enemy, similar to us or different. I think it is by looking through political lens that we stop looking at people as human beings but as friends or enemies, as similar to us or different.
When we put politics aside we can look at people’s faces and eyes and see the person behind the politics, a person who is just like us. We can see a person’s humanity. What drove me to this work was that I was sick of the politics of this whole area, sick of politicians and their slogans, and sick of the lumping of people into one category or another.
Juggling, Aita El Chaab, 2006 ©Rania Matar
Sisters, Beirut 2007 ©Rania Matar
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Some of my favourite photos are of the women in the Middle East, particularly the project named “The Veil: Modesty, Fashion, Devotion or Statement.” What I particularly like is that they never explicitly state the women’s religion. A viewer would have to be familiar with the religious melting pot in Lebanon to appreciate the differences. Could you speak a bit about the interest veiling holds for you?
Located between the West and the Arab World, Lebanon is a melting pot of religions and cultural influences. People from different religious and cultural backgrounds interact on a regular basis. As a result, there are many different concepts of female fashion. Women in Lebanon do not have to wear a veil. When I grew up in Lebanon, very few women wore the hijab. It is a pretty recent phenomenon.
Newspapers, Beirut 2007 ©Rania Matar
In the West people tend to associate the veil with oppression and a lack of education thus giving the veil a rather negative connotation. I became very interested in learning about the veil and the reasons some Muslim women choose to wear it. I found that here is just a different story to be told. I was trying to portray the woman behind the veil. For me the emphasis was not on her religion, even though it is implied, but on the girl, the young woman, the mother.
Hanging Laundry, Aita El Chaab 2006 ©Rania Matar
The project started when I was photographing a girl in a refugee camp. She was 9 years old and spent about an hour finding the perfect veil to match her clothes. She was braiding it, layering it, changing colors, etc. It reminded me of my daughter, who was the same age, who spent about the same amount of time fixing her hair in the morning. I was fascinated to discover that the veil had a fashion aspect to it among young women, and I became interested in understanding the reasons behind its comeback, and the different meanings it carries. Photographing women and the veil became another aspect of chronicling womanhood in Lebanon.
Nun with Blowing Veil, Chekka 2008 ©Rania Matar
Three Nuns, Beirut 2008 ©Rania Matar
Please check back tomorrow afternoon for Part 2 of this interview. It features Rania’s latest work as well as one of the most evocative images of post-war Beirut I’ve ever seen.
"Woman Writing Letter" by Henry O'Hara Clive
I’ve been married a year and a half and I still don’t know what my last name is. Technically, according to the State of New York, it is “Choucair-Joseph.” A clumsy compromise, I’m the first to admit. Depending on the day you call I might be going by Sariah Choucair, Sariah Joseph, Sariah Choucair-Joseph or, if I’m having a particularly bad day and don’t feel like correcting the chipper helper on the other end, Sarah Joseph.
This is a modern dilemma. When my mother and grandmothers married they traded Taha for Choucair, Edwards for Anderson, Anderson for Choucair. There’s a nice simplicity to the tradition, I admit. No one knows what to do with a hyphenated last name. They assume you are being difficult or are a mutant feminist who wants to punish the world with a mouthful of syllables hinged on the edges of a spear. Would you like to hear someone roll their eyes? I mean it. If you’d like to be able to hear the sound two eyeballs make as the arc against strained eyelids, make a dentist appointment and tell them your hyphenated last name.
The only people I can completely depend on to use the full hyphenated name are my father and the husband of my blonde alter-ego, A., the friend who I can call when I want to hide under the covers for two weeks because I can’t figure out how to begin a short story and she laughs a magical laugh and we go for a drive and suddenly the blankets look suffocating, not salvational. It figures, then, that her husband would appreciate the finer points of dealing with a woman on the verge of a hyphen. I don’t blame the rest, don’t blame the sweet guys at church who call me Sister Joseph, the friends who circumvent the minefield of envelope addressing by sending everything care of “Sariah and O,” the co-workers who pause after “Sariah” and then choose the last name they know they can pronounce correctly. I don’t blame them because I don’t really know what to name myself, either.
I thought a lot about just staying Sariah Choucair. I was a Choucair, full stop, for 29 years, one month and twenty-three days. That last name was really good to me. When we went to Beirut and I saw our last name on jewelry shops and heard it pronounced correctly I suddenly, for the first time in my life, knew what it felt like to belong somewhere. I was a Choucair, and that meant something. Of course, being half-Canadian and raised in America proved as displacing in Beirut as being half-Lebanese in a town of 20,000 in the middle of Wisconsin, last name notwithstanding.
Do our names define us? I think not. But they do signify who we are. When I say “Choucair” and you, being friendly, ask me where that name originates, I reply “Lebanon” and you understand, however topically, part of who I am. To me, the significance is my father, his wild jumble of fourteen brothers and sisters, my feisty grandmother and my golden-hearted grandfather. But it is also me – it is the person I was before I married, the person I was before I started thinking about having my own family and about the name our family would take. It is the girl who moved to New York without knowing a soul, who toppled over loneliness, stumbled into a career, found comfort in a family of friends, and made a home in the Brooklyn I read about as a child.*
I have my father’s last name and my husband’s last name and somewhere, out of this, I am trying to make my name. Trying to hold onto who I have been and who I want to be, trying to mold it into something that I can give my children, one word, one name, that will tell them the story of who they are. But at this point it gets ridiculous. I mean, what, are we going to give our children hyphenated names? And then, if we have daughters, will they hyphenate their names upon marriage? I can just imagine our family reunions- there will be enough hyphens to give even the most hard-core copyeditor a stroke.
My husband claims he doesn’t mind what last name I use but I know he prefers I use Joseph. It is assumed that our children’s last name will be Joseph and, as I will already be the only white person in our family, it would be nice to at least have the same last name as my children. I offered O. the options of Chouseph or Joscair, thinking he’d be as struck as I was at the good fortune that gave us each two syllable last names – such ease when it came to making a hybrid! He was not impressed. I can’t blame him. Chouseph sounds like a particularly nasty sneeze and Joscair sounds like a minor yet tragic, forgotten figure from the French Revolution.
So here I am. I am admitting my pride. I am admitting that there is a part of me that worries that my unwillingness to become Sariah Joseph, full stop, symbolizes an unwillingness to join my life, fully, with my husband’s. I am admitting that I don’t know if it is even important what my last name is – if it is even important to anyone other than me and the poor souls who mumble “cooChair” or “chow-care.” Mostly I am admitting my inability to decipher what I want from what I think I should want; who I am from who I think I should want to be.
Right now, I am sticking with the hybrid. Really, isn’t that what being married is? It’s a hybrid of who I was and who I am, who O was and who he is, and this new thing we’re still figuring out, five years in, called “us.” At the end of all of this, call me Choucair, call him Joseph, call us the Chosephs, but he is mine and I am, gladly, his.
*The neighbourhood I live in, Williamsburg, is portrayed in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
By this time we’ve all seen the photos of corpses and destruction. We’ve heard the inspiring stories and, unfortunately, the blood-curdling stupidity, that accompany tragedy. Words are an inadequate balm.
These are times that remind us to be grateful and, in the face of that gratitude, to be generous. Generous with our time, our funds, our comfortable blankets and the comfort of an embrace. If you are in the position to donate, I have included a list of reputable, established charities. For those of you who can make it, a good friend of mine is hosting a fantastic event, Hearts for Haiti, on Wednesday night. Details can be found here.
(I posted a pre-earthquake photo. Sometimes seeing what has been hurt is more poignant than the aftermath.)
DONATION SITES
The American Red Cross (you can also donate $10.00 by texting “Haiti” to 90999)
Chorus girls: so scandalous and so fantastic. The costumes, the dancing, the glamour, the flirtation. Chorus girls are naughtier than ballerinas but primmer than strippers. From the Rockettes to Vegas showgirls to Moulin Rouge, “chorus girl” suggests striving for a fleeting “big break” and a future paved with glittering marquees and mink coats. I think – no, I know – it’s the striving that I find so captivating. That, and the feathers and sequins.
So imagine my total excitement when, thanks to flavorpill, I discovered Bookforum’s booklists. Forget boring summer syllabi – these lists are cheeky and unexpected. For instance, they have a reading list devoted to the Chorus Girl. Be still my beating heart. While I am not a fan of all of the books on the list*, I applaud the novelty. Now I want to make my own booklists. One on fashion eccentrics (Simon Doonan, Diana Vreeland, Carmel Snow), one on depressed middle-aged men (Brooklyn Follies, Aloft), one on books that feature flowers, one on books with fabulous fashion, one or two on books influenced by fairy tales. . . .Oh! a whole list on books about artists. But only artists I like (or, in the case of fictional artists, imagine I could like) because gosh, nothing is more tiring than reading adoring prose about an artist whose work makes you roll your eyes or, worse, yawn.
I do love a list! My applause (and apologies) to Bookforum for such a great idea I can’t resist the temptation to be a copy-cat.
*I read Sister Carrie in college and hated it, but I think that might be more due to the professor than the book. She rotated the same 3 pairs of pants the entire semester, and as they were, in turn, blinding shades of orange, mustard, and teal, and rather tight at that, I found her class horribly dull in comparison. Particularly when she read from notecards for an entire 45 minutes. Dreiser never had a chance.)
Elizabeth Taylor photographed by Richard Avedon, 1964
A few reasons why I love this photograph:
1.
Medusa was my first introduction to Greek mythology. I was about five and had no idea what myths were, but then the beauty of mythology is it’s organic. I think children, especially, understand myth. Myth turns the unspeakable, the good, bad, beautiful, ugly, uplifiting and terrifying aspects of life into stories. Children understand stories.
Anyway, I was about five and watching TV in my grandparents’ basement. My legs were splayed out on the scratchy red shag carpet and I clutched a sticky glass of pink cream soda. And then, she appeared on the screen. She was terrifying and gorgeous, repulsive and enticing. The snakes writhing around her head and the lazer focus of her eyes should have sent me quaking underneath my blankets, but I was spellbound. I had nightmares about snakes for years afterwards.
I don’t know if this photo is meant to suggest Medusa, but the suggestion is there. She’s stunning, her skin and bone structure like marble, her brows hinting of villainy, her beauty threatening to turn men to stone.
2.
Liz Taylor was in the movie The Blue Bird, a completely strange, terrifying movie that we were addicted to for a year or so when I was in grade school. We’d just got a new colour TV and, even more thrillingly, our first VCR. . . and cable! We’d tape movies from cable to rewatch on video whenever we wanted. Perhaps we got a little carried away, particularly that Christmas when we taped every single Christmas special that aired between Thanksgiving and New Years. 1988 was the hallmark year of cheesy, melodramatic holiday film (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, anyone?)
So we taped The Blue Bird and watched it over and over and over again. I didn’t love this movie. I didn’t even particularly like it, but I couldn’t stop watching it. It was a little like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, if CS Lewis had been on LSD and had access to technicolour when he wrote it. Two children go on a quest for the Blue Bird of Happiness and, thanks to a magic diamond that Elizabeth Taylor’s queen gives them, encounter the human personifications of the animals and elements they meet on their way. Even as I type this the familiar shivers run down my spine – the creepy cat, the annoying dog, yelling at the children to escape the frighteningly out of control party.
Ms. Taylor played the gorgeous, lavish, hedonistic Queen and the children’s humble, dowdy peasant mother. I think that was part of what made the movie so terrifying – the duplicity of the mother’s character, and the lack of middle ground. She was so beautiful in both roles, and so sad. Even when the children discover the Blue Bird was in their backyard all the while their mother seemed doubtful – even mournful. This photo captures that unforgiving beauty tinted with sadness.
There is only one thing I hate about the Tudors, and it’s that infernal song “I’m Henry the Eighth I am, ‘Enry the Eighth I am, I am. . .” It reminds me of squeaking seats on rickety school buses and the odour of glue and smushed peanut butter sandwiches. Poor Tudors, they deserve so much better.
The Rainbow Portrait, c1600. Isaac Oliver.
Henry VIII. Artist unknown.
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I finished Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning novel, during Christmas break. It was amazing and reminded me why I love Tudor England. I’ll tell you all about how amazing Wolf Hall is later, though, because this post is not about weighty, masterful books. No siree. This post is about the utter fabulousness of Tudor style.* For your consideration:
I find Queen Elizabeth fascinating. It’s so interesting the way she used fashion and make-up to flaunt her feminity, her power** and, curiously, her purity. The otherworldly white lead make-up, the pearls and bows on the black overgown, the strings of pearls around her neck, the ephemeral lace – fragile yet indestructible – at her cuffs and collar. And then those SLEEVES! They are not only humongous, but pearl-encrusted. This is armour that simultaneously protects and entices, and is loaded with symbolism (the austere lines echoing her Protestant leanings, the pearls symbolizing purity.) She appears larger, and brighter, than her surroundings.
Here are some other favourite portraits. I love how as the Queen aged and became more assertive her clothing followed suit. Please note that the dates given reflect the painting date, not the event’s date.
c. 1546 by William Scrots.
Queen Elizabeth I's coronation, c. 1600. Artist unknown.
I love these next two paintings, each done by Nicholas Hilliard. Aren’t these gorgeous? The birds refer to the pendants she’s wearing in the center of her bodice. These are great examples of her use of symbolism. The phoenix, a symbol of rebirth, and the pelican are both symbols of sacrifice. A popular legend at the time held that a pelican, in need of food for her ailing children, pierced herself and nourished her children with her own blood. Her choices reflect the re-emergence of Tudor power and her fidelity to her subjects.
The Phoenix Portrait, c1575. Attributed to Nicholas Hilliard.
The Pelican Portrait, c1575. Attributed to Nicholas Hilliard.
It’s also great to note that the Queen’s hands feature prominently in her portraits. While she scoffed at vanity in public, privately she was quite vain, and very proud of her hands.
Elizabeth I: The Hardwick Portrait, c1599. Nicholas Hilliard and his workshop.
Look at the whimsical design of the skirt above – flowers, sea horses, serpents and frogs. The juxtaposition of the skirt with the reptilian defenses of her sleeves is delightful. It’s the uber-posh predessor of the beat-up leather jacket worn over a frothy ball gown. It also reminds me of these Prada shoes:
image courtesy of faboulista . com
One of the things I love about living in the 2000s is the opportunity to gaze slack-jawed and drooling at wasp-waists and 10-pound headdresses from the comfortable cocoon of leggings and a slouchy cashmere sweater, knowing I can wake up tomorrow and pair my vintage Pendleton skirt with some faux-Tudor gems and a quirky Etro blouse.
Tell me, what historic fashion beguiles you, and how do you make it modern?
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* For an insanely luxurious, modern take on Tudor style, check out this post at A Bloomsbury Life.
**similar to the way the kings used their armour to emphasize (exaggerate) their masculinity. Have you seen some of those codpieces?
1. I love words - listing them, defining them, rolling them around in my mouth. When I was little I’d lie in bed at night and repeat different words until their meanings became ambiguous and only the sounds remained.
2. There are very few situations a square of dark chocolate won’t improve; none that an entire bar won’t cure (at least momentarily.)
3. My first year of marriage was harder than I expected. This has nothing to do with love or commitment and everything to do with two stubborn, opinionated people trying to learn humility.
Photo by Patrick Demarchelier
4. An early edition of Emily Post’s Etiquette is one of my most prized possessions.
5. When perusing a perfume shop, I firmly believe you shouldn’t leave until you’ve spritzed something fabulous on every inch of exposed skin (and any bits you can spray without being indecent. Unless the scent is really amazing, in which case you’re really better off unbuttoning a few more buttons and dousing your cleavage.)
6. The guiding question for my sartorial and gourmet quandaries: “What would Nanny (my grandmother) do?”
7. Golden Rule: Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. Platinum Rule: True friends delete and/or rip up unflattering photos of one another.
8. I only have two iron-clad goals: Live in France. Have a library with books from floor to ceiling, a ladder that rolls from wall to wall, and a worn-leather chaise lounge.
9. I don’t know what the secret to happiness is, but I think it might have something to do with lazy Saturday mornings spent listening to someone you love sing Stylistics songs while he makes you oatmeal.
10. I don’t think you’ll ever be wrong in being grateful.
And now, to tag my favourite bloggers:
Photo of Natalia Vodianova, Alexis Roche, & John Galliano by Annie Lebowitz for Vogue. Copyright Conde Nast publications
I’m back in New York and ready for the new year. I have some posts in the works, but I first want to thank all of you who have made the first few months of this blog so worthwhile. Your comments and emails brighten my days immeasurably; I’m honored you choose to visit. A very, very happy New Year to you all.
Charles James Gowns photographed by Cecil Beaton, June 1948 Vogue.
On the balmiest days of summer I’m a rather nostalgic little ninny, so you can imagine what happens at Christmas. No carol is loud enough, no lights bright enough, no wrapping paper gaudy enough. I like to think that I become a better, more vibrant version of myself at Christmas. More giving, chattier, more sparkling. Of course, that may be the eggnog talking. And the fact that around Christmas I manage to work sequins and/or jet beading into every outfit, including my nightgown.
This Christmas, thanks to my current obsession with Irving Penn, Norman Parkinson and Cecil Beaton, I want to head back to the 1940-50’s, wrap myself in a mink stole, put on some scarlet lipstick and a fabulous hat, and go dancing somewhere smoky and fabulous. Have you seen White Christmas? Is there any denying that, for a die-hard Christmas fan, that was Christmas’s golden era? Besides Mariah Carey’s Christmas album (I don’t care what anyone says, that album is flawless) can you name a classic Christmas song penned after 1960?
In the spirit of glamour and sharing, these are some of the images dancing in my head. Forget sugarplums; think feathered hats and rustling silk taffeta. (Click on images to view larger.)
Cocoa-colored Balenciaga Dress, Paris, 1950. By Irving Penn. Image Courtesy of Conde Nast.
Christian Dior house models wearing the Spring/Summer 1957 collection. By Cecil Beaton. Image courtesy of Getty Images.
Legroux Soeurs Hat by Norman Parkinson, Vogue 1952
Diana Vreeland and Mannequin in Balenciaga, New York, 1983. Photograph by Harry Benson.
The skirt hung primly in my closet for six months. I bought it in a mad frenzy of beauty overwhelment. Picture it: the palest dove grey, subtly hammered satin pencil skirt with a wide waistband and the most perfect double rows of languid ruffles at each hip, where the satin delicately floats and gives the illusion of curves where, alas, none exist. It was a gorgeous skirt. I had to have it and oh, what was this? The last one in the shop was in my size.
Or in what had been my size. Marriage had been good to me, darlings, in particular it had been very good to the region commonly known as “the bum.” Well-fed and well-loved, I was no longer the size I thought I was. Displaying abdominal strength hitherto reserved for Greek warriors and professional body builders, I held in my stomach (a tummy, really,) kept my thighs (they’d been spoiled, too) pressed together and, with one determined yank, zipped up the skirt. And oh lordy, was it a sight. Skin-tight satin is no one’s friend. Especially when one has traded exercise for lazy days spent in bed with a book and a bag of chocolate chips.
But I bought it, along with a genius hot-pink belt edged and buckled with black patent leather – also in my (previous) size. Maybe it’s better for you to believe that I bought these items as incentive to get back to the gym and off of my “french fries with everything” diet. Maybe you’d think “That Sariah, what a classy girl.” Alas, you are destined to know that I am a silly girl who buys skirts and belts not because they are good incentive, but because they are just too beautiful to leave alone in a store; I know they’d be so much happier in my closet with new friends.
Now it is December. Holiday parties loom. I am standing before my closet in tights, a bra, and a grimace. The eternally damning question rages: what shall I wear? Then before I can stop them my fingers dart to the dove grey satin marvel and then my legs step into it and what is this? What is THIS? It glides right on and zips right up and it fits well enough that I can do a victory dance consisting of hips shimmies, jazz hands and whoops of delight. I shimmy over to my darling exclaiming over Christmas miracles. . . and stop short.
Charlotte Gainsbourg. Credit unknown.
My husband has Good Taste. He loves crisp button downs, well-cut jeans, simple dresses and shoes, my black leather jacket, fitted t-shirts and figure-skimming sweaters. Somehow he married a woman who loves, among other things, a satin peplum skirt. My darling hates my skirt. He is not impressed with my Christmas miracle because the result is that he has to see me wearing a skirt with ruffles, and O is not a man easily taken with ruffles. Even delicate dove grey ones.
I do not have Good Taste. Whereas O’s idea of perfection is tasteful and cool (see Charlotte Gainsbourg, left) mine is manic. I either want Ann Demeulmeester’s avant-garde black or Christian Lacroix’s cacophony of color and sparkles. Neither holds much allure for my darling. While I love Audrey Hepburn as much as the next girl, given a choice I’d rather be Anna Piaggi when I grow up, with her crazy make-up and little hats, or Diana Vreeland, the queen of crimson and quips. I find Daphne Guinness and her stripey hair divine, and want to die wearing one of Anna dello Russo’s jewel-toned, poufy-sleeved mini dresses. It’s not that I dislike what O prefers, I just find it slightly, well, boring.
Anna dello Russo. Credit unknown.
Anna Piaggi, photographed by David Bailey for Another Magazine.
Adding salty insult to injury, my love is not a silent love. Whereas the last people I lived with (my parents) let me gallavant in all sorts of get-ups and never said a word, O is never without a word. He has many words, in fact. (I have to tread carefully here because he is opinionated, yes, but also very, very private. Hence the use of initials and endearments.) Our first real fight was when we’d been dating a few weeks and he told me that it was ridiculous to wear high heels to the movie. Especially as we were walking to the movie. In August. Maybe he was right, but the fact remains that while I dress based on what I feel, he’d prefer it if I dressed according to what actually looks attractive, outfits that don’t flirt with raised eyebrows and outright laughter.
I am still learning to navigate the real-life experience of being a woman who dresses for herself who also wants to be attractive for her husband. I’ve learned to limit the amount of long cardigans worn in a wintery week, to embrace shorter skirts and slightly lower heels. I’ll never buy another ankle-length cashmere dress, no matter how comfortable yet subtly seductive. But I’ve also become more comfortable and assured with my own choices while learning to appreciate simplicity. I wear more tailored shirts but in bright colours and interesting prints. I fight for the right to wear my red suede over-the-knee boots, and I love them more for it.
After the Christmas miracle, I hung the skirt back up. Lovely as it is, it isn’t right for the party. Truthfully, though I’m loath to admit it, I’m better-dressed now than I was before I met O. But let’s keep that a secret, shall we?
It’s Christmas-time in the city. The huge star is shining at 57th and 5th, there’s a huge tree at Rockefeller Center, our morning newscasters warn us of “holiday gridlock traffic,” and Salvation Army bell-ringers have joined the buskers in the subway. The scent of peppermint hot chocolate and holly berries is wafting from the Sony building (how do they do that?), the salesgirls at Bloomingdales are wearing Santa caps, tourists (and the rest of us) stand awe-struck before the awesome glory of Bergdorf’s windows, and cramped sidewalk Christmas tree stands are tempting us all with the scent of pine and nostalgia.
Here in our corner of Brooklyn the Santa plate is taking the fine china’s place of honour, a soft film of glitter from disrupted ornaments covers our table, the Christmas music is chiming and my darling O. is trying to figure out how we can pile the couch on top of my favourite turquoise chest of drawers so I can have the 6 foot tree of my dreams. I think the ornaments are going to be displayed in crystal bowls this year, but who can mourn when there’s baking to do? Drop the garland, gulp down the eggnog, and grab your spatula: we’re going on a magical cookie tour.
Of course they didn’t know it at the time, but December 2008 was the last December issue of Gourmet. It’s rather fitting, then, that the issue contained Gourmet’s Favourite Cookies 1941-2008, a compilation of the best holiday cookies from each year of the magazine’s publication.
Images courtesy of gourmet.com
Christmas is a nostalgic holiday, a time when we become a little more child-like, a little more reminiscent, open-hearted and, in my case it seems, verbosely cheesy. Ahem.
Consider the treats we make for Christmas – sure we might try a few new recipes but we always return to the old standbys, the recipes we know by heart because we learned them standing on a chair next to our mothers and grandmothers, patiently waiting to add the pecans or lick the spoon of fudge. Maybe I can reach the counter myself now, but when I’m baking nanaimo bars or shortbread, adding jam to thumbprint cookies, dipping turtles or adding a tablespoon (or four) extra of rum I feel like I am back with my mother, grandmother and aunt laughing and making a mess, caught up in the excitement of rising bread and rustling wrapping paper.
There is a history to our celebrations, a history to our food and the memories linked to it. That’s what I loved so much about this feature; this is part of an irreplacable magazine’s history, sure, but more than that it’s a glimpse at the baking done annually in American homes for some sixty years. The year I was born Linzer bars were a favourite dessert, but the year my Dad was born something called Sugar Shuttles were the latest delicacy. Can you believe it took us ’til the eighties to perfect the Bourbon Ball? Especially great is that each recipe is in its original form – you’ll be amazed at how different (and simpler!) directions in 1947 were from 1997.
My baking starts this weekend. I’ll make my childhood favourites, but I’ll also try my hand at Chocolate Coconut Squares, or the incandescent Stained-glass Teardrops. If they’re a disaster, so be it. I learned Thumbprint Cookies from the master, and if all else fails I’ll literally knock them dead with Bourbon Balls.
A toast to Christmas, and the trumping of calorie counts and Stairmasters by cookies and nothing more strenuous than rising to offer a heartfelt toast of thanks for the years we remember and those yet to come.
Top row: Glittering Lemon Sandwich Cookies (2008); Anise-scented Fig & Date Swirls (1996); Gingerbread Men (1959); Stained-glass Teardrops (2002). Second Row: Spritz (1983); Jelly Centers (1948); Apricot Chews (1966); Souvaroffs (1984). Third Row: Brown Butter Cookie (1961); Sugar Shuttles (1951); Moravian White Christmas Cookies (1946); Chocolate Sambuca Crinkle Cookies (1999). Bottom Row: Almond Bolas (1975); Florentines (1968); Brazil Nut Crescents (1958); Linzer Bars (1979).
Wedding invitations used to come in two styles: conservative and cringe-inducing. Neither style was destined for anything more than a few short weeks on the refrigerator. Recently, though, wedding invitations, thank you notes and personal stationary have moved from staid and boring to sensational and thoughtful. Karisa Winkel, owner and main designer of Pretty Handsome Paper, is a rising star in this development. Her designs are witty and whimsical and combine old-school charm with a distinctly modern sensibility. Karisa’s work has been featured in Modern Bride, Elle Italia, and InStyle Weddings.
Images courtesy of Karisa Winkel
You started out in advertising here in New York; what drew you from advertising to starting your own design business in San Francisco?
I began designing my friends’ wedding invitations as my wedding gift to them, in the very little spare time I had from being an Art Director and designing ads and tv commercials for Young & Rubicam. I had a lot of fun designing the invitations and it was a much-needed break from my job. After about 3 1/2 years of doing this I met my husband, designed my own wedding invitations, and moved from New York City to the San Francisco Bay area. By then I had a small portfolio of wedding designs, and, since I was so burned out from advertising’s crazy lifestyle, I decided to start my own design business. It was a dream of mine that I never had the nerve to actually do. Moving to San Francisco was the perfect opportunity to make a clean break and start fresh.
Image courtesy of Karisa Winkel
Invitations and stationary used to be a throw-away but in recent years they’ve become much more thoughtful and personal. What do you think accounts for this change?
Weddings have become much more intimate, personalized events; it is not only an exchange of vows, but a celebration of two unique people (and their unique personalities). Brides have recently become more concerned with how the guests feel, what kind of experience they have, and what they remember from the night. Thus, weddings are now more personalized events that are much more memorable, intimate, and touching for both the guest and the bride.
A bride used to have to pick a design from a big book of templates, and there wasn’t much to choose from. Now, thanks to Etsy, design blogs, and the many small boutique design firms popping up all the time, brides have access to a niche of designers that otherwise never could have gained exposure. Small designers such as myself have the freedom to experiment, be creative, and offer custom designs to brides at an affordable price since we have low overhead.
If it weren’t for this trend I doubt if I’d have started Pretty Handsome Paper. I love designing things that are unique, clever, and meaningful. Brides are now asking me for new things to make their weddings unique and extra-special. For instance, I had the idea to silkscreen a Save the Date message on vintage handkerchiefs, and mail those as the announcement. The bride loved it, and some of her guests even cried when they received it in the mail! Many guests even brought the announcement to her wedding to use as a hankie. To me this was the biggest pay-off of all.
Images courtesy of Karisa Winkel
You use a great mix of natural and geometric imagery and colour. What is your process for coming up with the designs and color stories? Do you have any sure-fire inspirations?
When I begin a custom design project I always ask the client to send me an “inspiration box” of their favorite things in order to help inspire me. It’s a lot of fun for them to compile, and it helps me to understand what they are looking for. These boxes are often packed full of fabric clippings, magazine pages, and random knick-knacks– match boxes, business cards, photos, etc. They almost always get me excited and fill my mind with possibilities.
I also have a collection of digital files I’ve collected from all over the internet. From BlackEiffel to Design*Sponge, the work of so many small businesses are showcased daily and I keep digital files of everything that gives me an idea. This could be a pattern, texture, or even an outfit– my files don’t really make sense to anyone but me! I can be inspired by anything from a scarf to a haircut.
Places that inspire me are Paris (architecture, fashion), Arizona (the infinite range of browns and greens in the desert), New York (interior design– namely the insanely cool Gramercy Park Hotel– designed by Julian Schnabel), and Barcelona (Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia temple), and Vienna (architecture). Come to think of it, let’s include all of western Europe! I’ve backpacked Europe four times and every time I gather images and ideas that refresh my creative reservoir.
Clockwise from top left: Parthenon, The British Museum, signage, Belvedere Palace (Vienna,) ceiling of Gaudi's hospital (Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau - Barcelona), Gelataria (Florence.) All images courtesy of Karisa Winkel.
What advice do you have for people who dream of starting their own small-business? Do it! Though it can be really difficult at times, it also is a lot of fun and rewarding to work for myself and build a company that is exactly how I want it. For instance, the images I used to design my website are a bit unconventional… a snarling wolf, feathers, diamonds, owls, and an octopus? In my brain, it works. I think it’s pretty fun to design things that are totally unexpected and sometimes even scary. I don’t think that things need to necessarily be pretty in order to be beautiful. Having your own business allows you to do that and not do the safe thing.
Images from PrettyHandsomePaper.com. Courtesy of Karisa Winkel
What are your necessities? My husband and baby
Nothing smells better than. . .orange blossoms in the springtime in Arizona
Nothing tastes better than. . . Cadbury mini chocolate eggs
Nothing feels better than . . . a tight hug
I’d rather be a great mother than a successful businesswoman
If you could live in any other epoch, which would it be? The 1950’s. Those clothes! That furniture!
If you could jump into any painting, à la Mary Poppins, which would you choose?
Ok this is really random… but Raffaello Sanzio’s Lady with a Unicorn. I think it is both really funny, and really beautiful. I love the colors of blue sky, pink cheeks, ivory skin, and wheat colored hair. But that funny little unicorn in her hands makes me belly laugh. It is so bizarre! I love it.
"Lady with a Unicorn." Image courtesy of The Borghese Gallery
I never imagined I’d have a crush on a fox, let alone a mole. I mean, it is completely embarrassing, not to mention most likely illegal. ”Yes, well, he’ a little tubby, has a long skinny tail – no, not a rat, darling – and, well, he falls asleep at the most inopportune moments and when he does his eyes turn into spirals. He is, however, a very natty dresser.”
I’d curse you, Wes Anderson, except I loved your new movie Fantastic Mr. Fox so much that I’m willing to overlook the (rather serious) side-effects: envying a fox’s dress, considering making a bandit mask out of a sweat sock, and ill-advised crushes on moles named Kylie.
New York did a great cover featuring the cast of the film along with a short article that you can read here. What was particularly remarkable was this:
On a good day during filming, working on multiple stages, Anderson and each animator took 40 to 50 stills; at the end of a good week, they had ten seconds of film per animator.
Wes Anderson’s films often veer into cloying and precious, but I give him credit for handily toeing the precipice where precious careens into pretentious with a surprisingly low mortality rate. In this respect, Fantastic Mr. Fox was almost flawless. I have to admit that I was surprised: given the painstaking nature of making this film, I suspected the precocious puppets and set to overpower the story – that the little animals would be suffocating in their little expertly-decorated holes. While the puppets and sets were stunning in earthy shades of brown, amber, green and gold, they were also alive, interesting, and almost entirely devoid of existential angst (there is a teenage son. Enough said.) Equally remarkable, I forgot that George Clooney played Fox and saw the character simply as Fox. When you forgo George Clooney in favor of a furry guy whose table manners most resemble a tornado you know you’re in the hands of a master film-maker. And trickster.
Thank heavens for clever tricksters.
