One necklace has a very special meaning to me, it is a silver crucifix made with ox-blood red coral beads I wear it every day for more than 10 years already.
At my mother’s funeral my brother gave a beautiful speech and one part stayed with me especially. He quoted a philosopher who wrote: ‘People die twice. Ones when you pass away and ones again when you’re forgotten’. That second one hit me hard! I didn’t want to forget my mom for as long as I live and decided I needed a reminder. I would have loved to wear her wedding ring, which was melted together with my father’s wedding ring (my father died when I was only 11 years old), so they both would be with me every day, but sadly it was stolen at the rest-home, after it was taken of her finger when she passed away.
Then I remembered the little box she owned, with the red coral beads which had belonged to her grandmother as part of the traditional Dutch folklore outfit she used to wear. My mom only had inherited one-third of the traditional necklace the beads came from. I asked my brother and sisters if I could have these coral beads. For a little while I didn’t know what to do with them, how to wear them. Then I designed a silver crucifix with the coral beads incorporated in it and had it made by a jeweller. The beads are sealed in like in a counting frame. By now ofcourse I know I don’t need some item to remember my mom (and dad), I will never forget her anyway, but the necklace represents my love for her and I will always keep it with me.
I first saw a Jackson Pollock painting at a gallery in New York. I don’t have an art education and I didn’t know anything about the painter or his work, it just appealed to me very much. Years later I saw the movie Pollock by Ed Harris and it is one of my top ten movies of all times. It is both the work and his life that inspires me so much.
Pollock was self-educated and he had to travel a long road before he found his own style. He experimented in abstract expressionism. Jackson Pollock’s work and private life could not have developed without Lee Krasner, later his wife and a painter too, who dedicated herself to Pollock knowing he needed a lot of guiding and taking care of. Lee gave up her own ambitions for Pollock and only started painting again after his death.
Lee Krasner & Jackson Pollock during the interview for Life MagazineJackson Pollock & Lee Krasner 1949
Jackson Pollock & lee Krasner
Lee Krasner was the one who made sure Pollock got noticed by art dealers and buyers. She asked Howard Putzel to introduce Jackson’s work to Peggy Guggenheim, who realized his unique talent and commissioned him to make an enormous wall painting for the hallway of her new townhouse and this fabulous work of art called ‘Mural’was the start of his recognition.
Mural by Jackson Pollock, 1949
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The film ‘Pollock’ contains a fantastic scene about Jackson painting ‘Mural’. Click on the link underneath to watch this scene….
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Lee & Jackson in Long Island
Photograph of Jackson Pollock for the Life magazine article
Lee Krasner and Pollock moved from New York city to Long Island, trying to get Pollock’s alcoholism under control and get him more space and solitude to work in. That’s the place where he finally found his style; dripping. Later he was nicknamed ‘Jack the dripper’. To achieve the complex and subtle structural interlace that characterizes his mature work, Pollock had indeed dripped, poured, and spattered his pigments across the vast expanse of raw canvas. The painting is the result of both split-second decision-making and happenstance, choreography and chance. Each physical “performance” was a unique, spontaneous, and unrepeatable event, but the final product was always subject to artistic will. I can control the flow of the paint,” Pollock contended. “There is no accident.”
It’s also during these years, Jackson got his global recognition, after a raving article in Life Magazine.
Dubble page from the article in Life magazine
Number 31, by Jackson Pollock
During the dripping years and enormous success of the paintings produced in this period, Filmer Hans Namuthfollowed Pollock for a longer period and made a beautiful little documentary. Not only the paintings are spectacular, the way Pollock moved in the process looks like a dance performance. In the course of the process of making this documentary Pollock discovered he couldn’t work with people watching/being around him.
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Last picture of Jackson Pollock before his death, together with Ruth Kligman
Pollock’s fame only lasted a few of years, from his recognition at 37 till his death at 44. By the end he was no longer painting. Lee Krasner could no longer stand his adultery and went abroad for a while, when Pollock ‘staged’ his own death by drinking himself blind, driving his car at night with his mistress Ruth Kligman and her friend Edith Metzger in it, into a tree. Edith and Pollock died in the crash. Lee Krasner lived for another 28 years in which she managed Pollocks estate.
I would like to write a lot more about Jackson Pollock’s work and life, but this is a fashion blog not an art blog… If you want to know more I can recommend you to watch the movie Pollock by Ed Harris, who not only directed the movie, but also played the character Jackson Pollock, was nominated for Best Actor for an Academy Award. Marcia Gay Harden, who played Lee Krasner, won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her phenomenal performance in the movie.
Jackson Pollock’s paintings influenced fashion at different times in different ways.
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The First time Pollock’s work inspired fashion was when some of his paintings were used as background in a series of pictures in a Vogue issue of 1951, photographed by Cecil Beaton.
Another influence of Pollock’s work in fashion is the dripping technique reproduced on fabrics and clothes by designers like Ann Demeulenmeester, Dries van Noten,Dior Hommeand Dolce & Gabanna
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Ann Demeulenmeester
Dries van Noten
Dior Homme
Dolce & Gabbana, spring-summer collection 2008.
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Alexander McQueen, 1999 a performance attributing to painting and painters....
This story took place in Italy. I was on holiday with my friend in northern Croatia and one day we made a trip to Trieste. Around lunchtime we looked for a restaurant. It was truffle-season and my friend found this fantastic little cafeteria were they served pasta with truffles. We sat down at one of the tables and enjoyed the food ánd the Italian drama that was going on down there.
At one point an elderly man walked in who obviously knew the people there. He looked like a chique vagabond with a passion for life and all good things it brings, like good food. He set down and ordered a coffee. I looked at him and saw the beautiful red coloured beaded necklace he was wearing. My friend saw it too and said he could try to buy it from him, because the man probably lived of finding and selling stuff and would like to earn some money (for the great pasta down there). We discussed the ultimate price I was willing to pay for the necklace and my friend went over. He knew how to play the game and started with offering the man a drink.
A little later my friend came back and told me he bargained down to €90,- for the necklace My ultimate price was a hundred, so deal! I bought the necklace and the man immediately ordered a plate of the pasta with truffles and a beer… Every time I look at the necklace I smell the magnificent truffle dishes in the cafeteria and think of that fantastic afternoon in Italy.
The first time I noticed Iris Apfel was in Vogue Italia a couple of years ago. I saw this beautiful elderly lady wearing lots of exotic jewelery and interesting clothes, too bad I couldn’t read her story…
At the time I was in a ‘exotic necklaces’ period myself. I gained a lot of weight because of my illnesses and medication and didn’t know how to dress any longer. I only had one dress-pattern left I thought looked good on me and I decided I would only wear the one dress with lots of beautiful necklaces, high-heeled shoes and a variety of handbags. This way I could still play around with my look. I already owned some nice exotic folklore jewelery, but I started collecting more on my journeys to the Far East.
Last december I was invited to a launching party for a new magazine and wore a simple red velvet dress, I wanted to spike up a little. That evening I wore a bunch of my exotic necklaces and told everyone it was my tribute to Iris Apfel…. I hope they understood I was joking!
Mrs. Apfel is 90 years old now and thinks her sudden cult status is very funny. She was just minding her own business, when the Costume Institute wanted to borrow some of her accessories and then thought they could perhaps borrow some of her clothes to put them in context. Iris liked the idea and asked: “What would you like?” Then Pandora’s box opened, her closets, drawers, boxes and armoires contained so many treasures, the museum decided to do an exhibition exclusively about her and her wardrobe. The exhibition was called ‘Iris Apfel: Rare Bird of Fashion’.
Iris Apfel and her husband Carl founded their own textile firm ‘Old World Weavers’ in 1952. It all began when Iris was looking for a certain fabric she couldn’t find, then designed it herself after an old sample and had it woven. She got an offer by the textile company to design more and Carl became the company’s first salesman.
They traveled all over the world to find designs and then the fabricators, asking them to use their original looms. Their business developed without a master plan. The fabrics were expensive, but crafted by hand and not meant for mass production anyway. They started doing custom-made, because there was no money for stocking up. Iris recreated patterns she hunted down from old books, museums, second-hand shops and flea markets. Her limited audience contained some very loyal clientele, like Estee Lauder, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Jacqueline Onassis and Greta Garbo. Iris and Carl were called by the White House through nine presidential administrations, to produce exact reproductions of fabrics for furniture, walls and draperies.
They sold their Old World Weavers company 17 years ago to the prestigious Stark Carpet Company, after they refused many other offers to sell. The Apfel’s were kept on as working hands, consulting to Stark.
During all her travels with Carl, Iris found the most beautiful objects. Not only fabrics, jewelery and clothes, but also art and antiques. In clothes she doesn’t make a difference if it comes from junk or couture. She also shops at Topshop and loves a bargain. She habitually finds clothes so cheap, she doesn’t bother to try them on. ‘What the hell, if they don’t fit, I’ll turn them into pillows.’
‘In the old days, designers didn’t care about archives and you could buy their one-off samples. And in Tunisia you could buy jeans directly from the people who were making them for Pierre Cardin. Also the souks and flea markets were great places for good finds. Nowadays they’re all picked over.’
Being unconventional has had lasting benefits. ‘If you can’t be pretty, you have to learn to make yourself attractive. I found that all pretty girls I went to highschool with came to middle age as frumps, because they just got by with their pretty faces, so they never developed anything. They never learned how to be interesting. But if you are bereft of certain things, you have to make up for them in certain ways.’
Iris’ look has been described as “controlled flamboyance”‘by Lisa Koeningsberg, President of Initiatives in Art and Culture. “To dress this way, there has to be an educated visual sence. It requires courage.”
What appeals to me the most about Iris Apfel is her originality and free spirit. She is not dictated by fashion, but solely by her own exquisite taste. Mrs. Apfel is ‘street deluxe’.
In the short time since her sudden fame Iris has designed a jewelry collection for www.yoox.com and a make up collection for Mac. And she did a smashing job at both of them! Rumour says she is going to design a jewel collection under her own name….
Here is a quotation from our fashion Icon regarding accessories : “For me the key to personal style lies in accessories. My friends tell me that my oversized glasses and my pairs of bracelets have become my unwritten signature. I have amassed an enormous ‘collection’ of bags, belts, bangles and beads without which I would be lost. One can change the entire look of an outfit by substituting one accessory for another. I love objects from different worlds, different eras, combined my way. Never uptight, achieving – hopefully – a kind of throwaway chic.” Iris Apfel.
Some time ago I went through a rough period and decided to talk to a therapist. I made an appointment and a few days later I rang the doorbell. The therapist opened the door herself and looked at me. She seemed a bit surprised…
The waiting room was in the basement and she offered to help me get down the stairs. I thanked her, but it wasn’t necessary. Waiting for the therapist to call me to her office, I wondered what made her think I needed help going down the stairs? Maybe I looked very distressed or panicked?
When it was time to join her in her office, again she asked if I needed help? She began our talk by asking me why I dressed up for the appointment… A bit startled by her question, I said : ‘I always look like this’ (most of the time when people ask me something similar, I ad : ‘I only come in one flavour’, but this time it seemed inappropriate to make a joke…). I was wearing an antique-green silk velours ausbrenner dress and because I like mixed ‘n matched, I combined it with a pair of black canvas laced-up wedges.
After 50 minutes my time was up and she escorted me to the door. We shook hands and then she helped me over the doorstep and asked if I would get home safely. No problem, my bicycle was nearby. She raised her eyebrows… and looked at my shoes. Then I understood …. My shoes had a ‘fashionable orthopedic look’, but my therapist thought they were actually genuineorthopedicshoes!
agnautacouture.com 