A small diminutive woman, famous for her Anna May Wong inspired crop and signature sunglasses – Edith Head may not have been a fashion visionary, but she knew how to concoct screen glamor like nobody before her or since. She managed to make clothes that not only conveyed the moods and ideas behind a screen narrative, but were also beautiful, flattering to the stars, and inspiring to everyday women.

To succeed in the industry, Edith said, one had to be a “combination of psychiatrist, artist, fashion designer, dressmaker, pincushion, historian, nursemaid, and purchasing agent.”

But she was sometimes economical with the truth, taking credit for designs she had not created, such as Audrey Hepburn’s bateau-necked black dress in Sabrina and Paul Newman and  Robert Redford’s wardrobe for The Sting, for which she won an Oscar. After winning the Oscar, she was sued by the illustrator who really designed Redford and Newman’s clothes.

Always discreet about the size and shape of the stars’ backsides, she knew about all the skeletons in their closets but she was never one to gossip, although she did reveal that full-figured Clara Bow was known as “a sausage”, that Claudette Colbert was “mean-spirited”, and that Barbara Stanwyck was “frumpy” until she took over her designs.

“Go on a diet!” Edith would instruct an overweight woman, while instantly making her look ten pounds slimmer by pulling her shirt out of her trousers, whipping a belt around her middle and swapping her cheap gold jewellery for her own signature pearls.

In the first year for which costume design becomes an Academy Awards category, she receives a nomination for best costumes in a black-and-white film, for Billy Wilder’s The Emperor Waltz, a period comedy set in turn-of-the-century Vienna. But no worry,in the following years Edith was nominated 35 times and won 8 Oscars!!!

In 1966 Edith makes cameo appearance as herself in The Oscar, for which she also designs gowns. As more and more cinematic wardrobes begin to be bought off the racks, Edith remains one of the last studio costumers. A year later How to Dress for Success, Edith’s advice manual for the career-oriented, is published. She moves to Universal after her contract is not renewed at Paramount.

With her film work declining in frequency, Edith and June Van Dyke present more and more costume fashion shows—up to eighteen a year. In 1970 Elizabeth Taylor presents the Oscar for Best Picture to the makers of Midnight Cowboy wearing a curve-hugging, low-cut lavender dress by Edith.

Elisabeth Taylor & Richard Burton
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Young Elisabeth Taylor wearing a Edith Head dress.
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In 1974 Edith gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She also begins creating sewing patterns for the Vogue Pattern Company. December Vogue toasts an exhibit at the Met, curated by former editor Diana Vreeland, of costumes from Hollywood’s heyday, including many looks designed by Edith Head.

Edith died on October 24, 1981, four days before her 84th birthday, from myelofibrosis, an incurable bone marrow disease.

Edith Head gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1974

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Edith Head & Grace Kelly

Edith adored Grace Kelly, for whom she designed many movie wardrobes. When Grace won an Oscar for The country girl, she asked Edith to design her Academy Award ceremonial dress. 

Edith was upset when the luminous actress slighted her by not inviting her to design the wedding dress when she got married to Prince Rainier of Monaco. She did create Princess Grace’s grey going-away suit, though.

Edith & Grace Kelly preparing the wardrobe for To catch a thief
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Working on the Oscar dress with Grace Kelly
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1955, Grace Kelly in her ceremonial Oscar dress by Edith Head

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Edith Head & Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn & Edith Head 

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The 8 Oscars won by Edith Head

When asked about the most important men in her life, Head would always reply: “There were eight of them – they were all named Oscar.”

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1950, Oscar for The Heiress

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1951, Oscar for Samson and Delilah 

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1951, Oscar for All about Eve

“Her life was all about glamour in the most glamorous place in the world, Hollywood,” Bette Davis once said of her. Indeed, it was Edith who designed the brown silk, sable-trimmed cocktail dress Davis wore as Margo Channing in the 1950 classic All About Eve, warning everyone as she swept down the staircase for the big party scene to fasten their seat belts because it was going to be a bumpy night.

Bette Davis later bought the dress for herself, because she loved it so much – it had been square-necked, with a tight bodice, but when Davis tried on the finished gown the bodice and neckline were much too big. Edith was horrified, but the actress pulled it off her shoulders and shook one shoulder sexily, saying: “Doesn’t it look better like this anyway?” In the wake of this “accident”, Head won another Oscars for the film.

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1952, Oscar for   A Place in the Sun  

“The prototype of the perfect debutante dress, and every girl coming out or having her sweet-16 birthday party wanted this dress because they all wanted to look like Elizabeth Taylor in this movie, which was one of Taylor’s first  films as an adult. It was a tribute to a typical ’50s gown: strapless top covered with silk petals, waisted in silk with a full, bold but lightweight tulle skirt with petals sprinkled all over. It became the prom dress for American teenagers when it was copied by all the leading department stores.

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1954 Oscar for Roman Holliday

Although Edith Head won an Oscar for Best Costumes, the Capri Collection (Capri Skirt, Capri Blouse, Capri Belt, Capri Pants) was, in fact, designed by the European fashion designer Sonja de Lennart. However, since the outfits were actually made in Edith Head’s Roman temporary Atelier of the sorelle Fontana—that acted as the costume department—Edith, Paramount’s costume designer, used only her name without giving credit to the original designer, Sonja de Lennart, as it was pretty common at that time in history. Costume designers around the world used only their names, regardless who created the costumes. However, Edith was given credit for the costumes, even though the Academy’s votes were obviously for Hepburn’s attire. Sonja de Lennart’s Capri Pants were sewn and used in the next movie, Sabrina, by Hubert de Givenchy. Edith Head did not refuse that Oscar either…….

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1955. Oscar for Sabrina

1954. “Audrey Hepburn plays the daughter of a Manhattan chauffeur. She goes to Paris and returns a total fashion plate. The white gown with black embroidery was the source of some controversy. Hepburn had a relationship with Givenchy. He probably was the one who actually designed the gown, but Edith (again) ended up getting the credit. Rumors circulate that Audrey Hepburn’s famous black cocktail dress with high, straight bateau neck (subsequently dubbed the “Sabrina neckline”) was also designed by Hubert de Givenchy  and merely made by Edith’s studio—a claim that she roundly denies. After this, Givenchy started designing on the record for many of Hepburn’s films.”

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1961, Oscar for The Facts of Life   (together with  Edward Stevenson)

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1974. Oscar for The Sting

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Fashion is a language. Some know it, some learn it, some never will—like an instinct.”

Biography

The legendary costume designer Edith Head loved to refer to herself as Hollywood’s “dress doctor.” Throughout her six-decade career, and in more than 1,000 films, Edith dressed up extravagant cinematic personas (Biblical seductresses, jungle princesses, showgirls, and cowboys) and yet she saw her task first and foremost as that of a roll-up-your-sleeves problem-solver: a curer of wardrobe ills, a soother of vexed brows, and a tamer of egos. Edith was grounded and pragmatic, a shrewd politician and savvy businesswoman who not only operated an efficient “fashion clinic” at Paramount Studios (and later at Universal), but became a celebrity in her own right.

Clara Bow in Wings
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Mae West in She has done him wrong, 1933
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Mae West dressed by Edith Head
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Ingrid Bergman as Maria in Whom the Bell Tolls
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Ginger Rogers in Lady in the Dark

The praise wasn’t unanimous, however. After Head claimed her sixth Oscar for the 1954 film Sabrina, rumors circulated that Audrey Hepburn’s striking black cocktail dress with bateau neck and bow-bedecked shoulder straps was actually designed by the Parisian couturier Hubert de Givenchy (Hepburn’s friend), while Head publicly took credit for it. Even after her death, former colleagues would claim that Head had no compunction about accepting plaudits for others’ work.

Head’s career eventually waned in the late sixties, as the role of the studio costumer began to die out; more and more, clothes were being bought off the rack. By the seventies her output dwindled to just a few pictures a year. Nonetheless, she worked almost till the day she died, in 1981. The comedienne Lucille Ball remembered her this way: “Edie knew the truth about all of us. She knew who had flat fannies and who didn’t—but she never told.”

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The hilarious Play

http://www.edithhead.biz/

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Book

Edith Head: The Fifty-Year Career of Hollywood’s Greatest Costume Designer

All About Eve. Funny Face. Sunset Blvd. Rear Window. Sabrina. A Place in the Sun. The Ten Commandments. Scores of iconic films of the last century had one thing in common: costume designer Edith Head (1897–1981). She racked up an unprecedented 35 Oscar nods and 400 film credits over the course of a fifty-year career.

Never before has the account of Hollywood’s most influential designer been so thoroughly revealed—because never before have the Edith Head Archives of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences been tapped. This unprecedented access allows this book to be a one-of-a-kind survey, bringing together a spectacular collection of rare and never-before-seen sketches, costume test shots, behind-the- scenes photos, and ephemera.

http://www.amazon.com/Edith-Head-Fifty-Year-Hollywoods-Greatest/dp/0762438053

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“Edna Mode” in The Incredibles (2004) was modeled on Edith Head

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Charles James - Photo Cecil Beaton, 1929

Biography

Often cited as the greatest American couturier, Charles James was actually born (1906) and raised in England , but began his career as a hatmaker supported by friends of his mother in Chicago, where he sculpted his creations directly on the heads of his clients. Before he was educated at Harrow, a British public school, where he met the fellow fashion enthusiast and fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, whose images later defined his work. Charles was described by a friend, Sir Francis Rose, as temperamental, artistic, and blessed even in childhood with the ability to escape the mundane chores of life-like a trapeze artist.

In 1928 Charles heads for Long Island with just 70 cents and an assortment of hats to his name, after he left Chicago in a swirl of financial confusion. He sets up a studio in a carriage house once rented by Noël Coward in Southampton. Socialite Diana Vreeland is a client; she will later recall Charles  at the time running “up and down the Southampton Beach in beautiful robes showing his millinery on his head.

Charles James at work

Charles James and Mrs Randolph Hearst

His training as a milliner would shape his approach to clothing design. Much as a hatmaker uses a block, Charles viewed the female form as an armature on which to build his highly sculptural pieces. Never afraid to try new materials, spiraled a zipper around the torso in 1929, thus designing his famous taxi dress. To give strength and shape to the luxurious fabrics he favored, Charles often underpinned them with a framework of millinery wire and buckram for bombast. Though his dresses weighed up to eighteen pounds, his technical prowess ensured that the wearer moved as gracefully as a ballerina. Witness the garment that Charles considered his “thesis” in dressmaking: the Four Leaf Clover ball gown, which, viewed from the top, indeed resembled the lucky charm. To create the unique quatrefoil silhouette, James engineered a complex undercarriage of multiple petticoats, over which floated a skirt of cream duchesse-satin, its four structured “petals” emphasized by a wide undulating band of black velours de Lyon. 

Four Leaf Clover ball gown

Because of various financial escapades that skirted the limits of legality, James found himself in 1939 no longer welcome in England. The next year he opened Charles James, Incorporated, at 64 East Fifty-seventh Street, New York City. Virtually ignoring wartime rationing, he began designing collections for Elizabeth Arden and redesigning her couture collection in 1944; their relationship was severed in 1945 because of financial problems .

His impressive acts of achievement in construction earned Charles a reputation as fashion’s premier architect, known for his sumptuous eveningwear as well as his ingeniously seamed coats. “Mathematical tailoring combined with the flow of drapery is his forte,” Vogue noted in 1944. Even the venerable Cristobal Balenciaga, himself a master of cut and cloth, was unsparing in his praise of Charles James, calling him “the world’s best and only dressmaker.” Christian Dior described his designs simply as “poetry.”

Charles James cloaks by Cecil Beaton for Vogue, 1936

In 1948, Cecil Beaton photographed one of Vogue’s most memorable images, eight models in the eighteenth-century drawing-room of French & Company, a Manhattan antiques dealer. Their hair chicly coiffed, necks craned like swans, the young beauties in the composition were swathed in sculpturesque ball gowns of silk and satin, taffeta and velvet. Together, they created a harmonious palette—icy blues and grays, punctuated by surprising combinations of celadon and lemon, rust-orange and petal-pink. Posed against the Louis Seize–wall-panels, each figure emerged as a singularly exquisite study in color and texture. Indeed, if not for Beaton’s masterful lighting—soft shadows trace the curve of collarbone and shoulder-blade, the drape and billow of skirts—the women themselves could have been the rare objets on display.

The designer of this lavish fashion tableau was Charles James, “master of color comparatives, of the cut and fold of exceptional cloths”, as Vogue wrote.

Cecil Beaton for Vogue. Dresses by Charles James

Between the late forties and mid-fifties—around the time the Beaton photo ran—Charles was at the height of his powers. He finally achieved success and recognition, won two Coty awards in 1950 and 1954 for “great mystery of color and artistry of draping”. His pieces were already sought after by collectors and museums, as well as by those wealthy patrons willing to pay his exorbitant fees—not to mention, gamble on the actual delivery of a commissioned design. “Charles James felt there was not enough money in the world to buy his garments,” one client bluntly remarked. His desire to receive out-sized financial rewards for his designs, coupled with perfectionism and his insistence on total control, eventually destroyed him.

Charles James was, in short, an egomaniac. He considering himself an artist rather than a dressmaker, and was so strongly attached to his creations that he felt they ultimately belonged to him. He would borrow back a dress from one client, only to lend it to another; or, worse, loan it out for an advertising campaign for feminine products. At minimum eccentricity, the darkly handsome designer—who was said to have been an excellent model for his own work—might don a finished gown and dance all night in his apartment above the Chelsea Hotel before handing it over . . . if he handed it over at all. he did not let go of his creations easily. He made his clients pay, sometimes twice for the same gown, and sometimes for a garment he had also promised another client. He was notorious for not having garments delivered on time.

Among his most ardent (and patient) devotees were Babe Paley, Mona von Bismarck, the Standard Oil heiress Millicent Rogers—who steadfastly supported him throughout his career—and, deliciously, the burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee, for whom he created elegant designs for her strip-tease. Fellow couturiers Elsa Schiaparelli (who had to pay) and Coco Chanel (who didn’t) also put in orders.

Antonio Lopez illustrations of Charles James's designs

A perfectionist to the extreme, Charles James was capable of spending thousands of dollars developing the ideal sleeve or a staggering twelve years on a single frock. He would “far rather work and rework a beautiful dress ordered for a certain party than have that dress appear at that party,”  Diana Vreeland once observed. Such obsessive tendencies, combined with his taking investors on a wildly careening roller-coaster ride in his business dealings—in short, promising unicorns and rainbows and delivering absolutely zip—would ultimately prevent the designer from achieving the kind of success his genius deserved.

By 1958 Charles was a beaten man, unwelcome on Seventh Avenue, and mentally, physically, and financially drained. In 1964 he moved into New York’s bohemian hotel, the Chelsea. Here he worked with the illustrator Antonio Lopez to document his career. Old clients joined with his protégé Halston in 1969 in a bravely attempted salute to his career.  Charles attempted to document the creations of a lifetime, whether they were in public or private holdings. Above all, during those final years of his life, Charles James was fanatical about securing his proper place in the history of twentieth-century fashion.

He dies in 1978 of pneumonia in the Chelsea Hotel, alone and penniless.

Charles James at work

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Exhibition in the Metropolitan

          Charles James: Beyond Fashion

The inaugural exhibition of the newly renovated Costume Institute will examine the career of the legendary twentieth-century Anglo-American couturier Charles James (1906–1978). Charles James: Beyond Fashion will explore James’s design process, focusing on his use of sculptural, scientific, and mathematical approaches to construct revolutionary ball gowns and innovative tailoring that continue to influence designers today. Approximately one hundred of James’s most notable designs will be presented in two locations—The New Costume Institute as well as special exhibition galleries on the Museum’s first floor.

Petal evening dress

La Sirene Evening Dress, 1938

In 1988, I got invited to a party thrown by the model agency that represented Linda Spierings, a well-known model who is friends  with Azzedine Alaïa. I still had my own boutique for which I’d designed a collection enriched with embroidery of Arabic writing that season. To be sure nothing offending would appear in embroidery on the clothes, I’d copied words of a Marlboro advertisement (these were the days before internet…..).

The collection was a success and the night of the party I was wearing one of the embroidered jackets. Azzedine was dancing with Linda, when we bumped into each other at the dance floor. He looked at my jacket and got a huge smile on his face…. I didn’t dare to ask him what I had embroidered on the jacket, but because of his smile, I knew it was ok.

Azzedine & Linda Spierings

Embroidered jacket, 1988. Ph. Carel Fonteyne

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He dares to speak his mind

Azzedine Alaïa has earned an unusual degree of autonomy within the fashion industry. He shows when he wants and when he is ready — not when there’s a fashion week on the schedule. He does the same with his seasonal deliveries. He doesn’t advertise, and doesn’t seem to care one way or the other about editorial mentions, either. For this congenial contrarianism, Alaïa has earned the admiration of many an influential fashion critic.

 So here’s his unvarnished take on Anna Wintour: “She runs the business (Vogue US) very well, but not the fashion part. When I see how she is dressed, I don’t believe in her tastes one second. I can say it loudly! She hasn’t photographed my work in years even if I am a best seller in the U.S. and I have 140 square meters at Barneys. American women love me; I don’t need her support at all. Anna Wintour doesn’t deal with pictures; she is just doing PR and business, and she scares everybody. But when she sees me, she is the scared one. [Laughs.] Other people think like me, but don’t say it because they are afraid that Vogue won’t photograph them. Anyway, who will remember Anna Wintour in the history of fashion? No one. Take Diana Vreeland, she is remembered because she was so chic. What she did with the magazine was great.”

Anna Wintour & Karl Lagerfeld

In 2009, Wintour presided over an exhibition at the Met that celebrated “The Model As Muse,” and Alaïa, who is well-known for his enduring friendships with (particularly) the 90s supermodels, was excluded. (Naomi Campbell refused to attend the Met Ball in protest.) At the time, Alaïa said of Wintour, “she behaves like a dictator and everyone is terrified of her…but I’m not scared of her or anyone.”

 Alaïa also isn’t such a big fan of Karl Lagerfeld. In the same new interview, he says: “I don’t like his fashion, his spirit, his attitude. It’s too much caricature. Karl Lagerfeld never touched a pair of scissors in his life. That doesn’t mean that he’s not great, but he’s part of another system. He has capacity. One day he does photography, the next he does advertisements for Coca-Cola. I would rather die than see my face in a car advertisement. We don’t do the same work.”

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Short biography

Born June 7, 1939  in Tunisia, Azzedine Alaïa’s family were wheat farmers. His glamorous twin sister inspired in him an early love for couture and it was whilst assisting the famous midwife Madame Pinot, a close friend of the family, that Alaïa learnt about fashion. Madame Pinot enrolled him at the École des Beaux-Arts to study sculpture where he discovered what was to be his lifelong inspiration, the beauty and symmetry of the human form.

In 1957 the young Alaïa moved to France and began work at Dior as a tailleur but due to ill feeling centered on the Algerian war his tenure was limited to 5 days. He soon met Madame Simone Zehrfuss and Louise de Vilmorin who introduced him to the cream of Parisian society and were pivotal in him gaining his illustrious list of private clients. Alaïa worked under the patronage of the Comtesse de Blégiers, producing gowns exclusively for her for 5 years. He then moved to Guy Laroche to learn tailoring and after this he worked alongside his friend Thierry Mugler.

Azzedine & Naomi Campbell

In the late 1970s Alaïa settled in his famously small apartment on the Rue de Bellechasse. From here he ran his tiny atelier as a secret word of mouth concern, dressing the world’s jet set from Marie-Hélène de Rothschild to Greta Garbo, who used to come incognito for her fittings.

He produced his first ready-to-wear collection in 1980 and moved to larger premises on rue du Parc-Royal in the Marais district. When interior designer Andrée Putman was walking down Madison Avenue with one of the first Alaïa leather coats, she was stopped by a Bergdorf Goodman buyer who asked her what she was wearing, which began a turn of events that lead to his designs being sold in New York and in Beverly Hills.

In the 1980s when most of the fashion world was embracing sharp shouldered power dressing and baggy androgyny Alaïa introduced the world to the ‘body’ and to his own skin-tight mini skirts and dresses. Truly a showcase for the perfect human form, his ‘bodycon’ look sat alongside the more masculine power suits of the decade. Alaïa was voted Best Designer of the Year and Best collection of the Year at the Oscars de la Mode by the French Ministry of Culture in 1984 in a memorable event where Jamaican singer Grace Jones carried him in her arms on stage.

Grace Jones

Azzedine & Grace Jones

As Suzy Menkes said in 1991 “If there were any justice in this (fashion) world, Azzedine Alaïa would be a worldwide household name, instead of a cult hero. It is 10 years since the small, shy, Tunisian-born designer launched the body-conscious stretch looks that have defined the way an entire generation dresses and become the fashion revolution of the last decade”.

During the mid 1990s, following the death of his sister, Alaïa virtually disappeared from the fashion scene but continued to cater for private clients and his RTW collections enjoyed continuing commercial success. He presented his collections in the heart of the Marais where he had brought together his workshop, showroom and Azzedine Alaïa shop. His return to the limelight in 2000 saw a departure from his super sexy 80s heyday and his new look was described as “much more sober, almost Amish in comparison”.

Catherine Lardeur, the former editor and chief of French Marie Claire in the 1980s, who also helped to launch Jean-Paul Gaultier’s career, stated in an interview to Crowd Magazine that ” Fashion is dead. Designers nowadays do not create anything, they only make clothes so people and the press would talk about them. The real money for designers lie within perfumes and handbags. It is all about image. Alaïa remains the king. He is smart enough to not only care about having people talk about him. He only holds fashion shows when he has something to show, on his own time frame. Even when Prada owned him (2000-2007), he remained free and did what he wanted to do.”

Azzedine Alaïa & Tina Turner 

Alaïa’s lack of interest in self promotion is legendary. He never learnt English and even at the height of his fame he was known to show his collection up to three weeks late, long after the international fashion pack had moved on from Paris. Without a thought for producing show stopping outfits or the next ‘it’ bag he is revered for his independence and discreet luxury.

A tireless craftsman Alaïa is famous for his extensive research into new materials and new ways of cutting and shaping them. He cuts many patterns himself and often finishes garments by hand. Alaïa drapes directly onto the body, ensuring the perfect fit. It has been said that once a girl has worn an Alaïa anything else seemed simply ‘too big’. There is always a fit model present in his atelier, available 24 hours a day, a role once filled by a young Naomi Campbell.

Owing much to Madame Vionnet, the great tailleur of the 1920s famed for her introduction of bias cut dresses, Alaïa uses the same lingerie inspired sewing techniques along with seaming and stitching usually reserved for corsetry. Combined with malleable elastic fabrics this allows for maximum body control and sex appeal in his clothes. He avoids vulgarity by utilizing a range of muted colours and expert tailoring, lace is backed with skin coloured fabric to give the illusion of exposure. Alaïa’s garments are created using old tailoring techniques yet he has always taken full advantage of developments in fabric construction embracing modern fabrics such as lycra, jersey and viscose.

Azzedine Alaïa was named Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur by the French government in 2008.

Azzedine working on his famous crocodile dress

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In 2011 Alaïa was asked to become the head of Dior after John Galliano’s departure. He expressed himself to be flattered but not interested in the role.

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Exhibition autumn 2013

Photos by Peter Lindbergh featuring Lindsey Wixson, 2013

Palais Galliera, Museum of Fashion in Paris, Autumn 2013

Designed for the reopening of the Galliera Museum, the exhibition provides the first retrospective in Paris dedicated to couturier Azzedine Alaïa.  After studying at the School of Fine Arts in Tunis, Alaïa arrived in Paris during the 1950s and quickly became a noble artisan himself, perfecting Parisian elegance. He mastered his craft by remaining close to his clients, whom he seduced with custom-made garments in the great tradition of Chic. In the 60s and 70s, he developed wardrobes for famous personalities such as Louise de Vilmorin, Arletty and Greta Garbo.

He followed a creative method that allowed him to free himself from dictates and rules, confirming his talent as a visionary. He was recognised by the media in the 1980s as his work stood out as particularly noteworthy during that decade. A true plastic surgeon who only used his scissors on chiffon and leather, Alaïa sculpted a new body. By inventing novel morphologies for clothes through the simple play of seams, Alaïa became the couturier of a timeless body of work. His influence on contemporary fashion and all generations of creators and couturiers is fundamental.

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Books

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 A beautiful catalogue of the Groninger Museum, Azzedine Alaïa Exhibition 2012

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http://webshop.groningermuseum.nl/p/13/azzedine-ala%C3%AFa-groninger-museum-webshop-catalogus

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II

Very rare hardcover ‘Alaia’ book featuring breathtaking images taken by Azzedine Alaia published by Steidl dating to November of 1998. Limited edition. 240 pages.

http://www.amazon.ca/Ala%C3%AFa-Azzedine/dp/3882435364

http://www.1stdibs.com/fashion/books/fashion-books/alaia-azzedine-alaia-steidl-nov-1998-limited-edition/id-v_91791/

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III

http://www.amazon.com/Alaia-Universe-Fashion-Francois-Baudot/dp/0789300893

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Info for this post: WWD, A Magazine, Wikipedia

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Twiggy & Justin de Villeneuve

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For a while now I’ve been curious about ‘what happened to Justin de Villeneuve, after he and Twiggy split up as a couple and professionally’, so it was time to find out more about him. And I’m happy I did, because it’s the story of a chameleon and a one of a kind, who reinvented himself more often than Madonna did……, being a boxer, a colourful villain, a hairdresser, interior decorator, manager, photographer and poet, but best known for launching Twiggy’s modeling career and making her a superstar.

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Short Biography

Born Nigel Jonathan Davies in East End London, 1939. But Nigel didn’t seem a great name for a boy with ambitions, so he starts calling himself Nagels. Everyone, he says, with their fingers in dodgy pies, knew Nagels. He was one of the most persuasive mouths around, learning his craft by encouraging punters into strip clubs in Soho. From there he turned a few folding ones as the plant in the audience who volunteers to fight the boxer in the fairground ring and soon he was buying and selling this and that. Once he got his hands on a job lot of wine.

“It was an insurance job, Jewish lightning struck the warehouse,” he remembers. “The wine tasted like paint-stripper, but I just stuck fancy labels on it, and sold the lot to Vidal Sassoon for his wedding. He invited me along, I was very nervous, positioned myself by the door to do a runner. But they were such gullibles, his guests, they got conned by the labels, everyone loved it. Vidal was so impressed, he made me his assistant.”

It was then, as number two to the fanciest snipper in town, that the young fast-lip decided that a false name was required to complete the con. This time he renamed himself Christian St Forget. But not for long. “I’d heard the name Justin and I liked it. Then someone said I should choose a French second name, but I didn’t know any. So they said, ‘Well just take the name of a town.’ So I said, ‘What, like Harlow New Town?’ And that was it: Villeneuve.” And so, suitably titled, the young hairdresser soon found himself blagging his way into the affections of all sorts of handsome women who came in to have their hair done. One was a skinny 15-year-old called Lesley Hornby.

She attracts the attentions of de Villeneuve, ten years her senior, while working as a Saturday girl in the local hairdressing salon. “I started going out with Lesley in 1965”. She wanted to become a model and Justin changes her name to Twiggy. Together they arranged meetings with fashion editors, but they all said she looked too young. He sets about promoting her look with great success. Eventually she got her break, within six months of meeting, Twiggy was on the front cover of every magazine. She is declared ‘the face of 1966’ by the Daily Express. Twiggy is photographed by Vogue, flown to New York, and becomes a recognisable fashion icon throughout the world.

“A lot of tap dancing went on,” he says. “I didn’t know what I was doing, I had a lot of front, but I had a lot of taste as well. I’d only let her do the good stuff. We exploded, we were like the biggest names. It was Mick and Keith, John and Paul, and Justin and Twigs. At one point I got through 23 cars in 12 months, Ferraris the lot. I had a domestic staff, five of them: cook, butler, chauffeur. Ridiculous, but I don’t regret a minute of it.”

It occurred in the early Seventies, when the pair had been an item for eight years, during preparation for the follow-up to the film The Boy Friend (“You remember, lovely film, really made Twigs”). De Villeneuve blames it all on a contractual problem. A script had been arranged, a producer engaged, Fred Astaire was going to star alongside Twiggy and a semi-famous actor was lined up to play the love interest. But then the snag struck: the money couldn’t be agreed on, and he dropped out. So an actor called Michael Whitney was recruited in his place. And, whoops.

“Halfway through the filming she rings and tells me she’s in love with Michael Whitney and I’ve got the old elbow. Devastated I was,” De Villeneuve remembers. “But the thing was, it need never have happened. Michael Whitney never needed to be there. It was contractual problems, you see, with the first geezer. Contractual problems which I could’ve sorted, but the agents wouldn’t let me. If only I’d been allowed to sit down with the bloke, then, well: crash, bang, wallop, two kippers and a bon-bon, how’s your father, done and dusted.” A colourful way of recalling his life has Justin de Villeneuve.

De Villeneuve takes fifty percent of her earnings as a model, and from the dress line set up in her name and the franchises for dolls and accessories. During the early relationship, Twiggy is naïve in business whilst de Villeneuve becomes increasingly extravagant – he takes delivery of a new Italian car every six weeks; Tommy Nutter suits are ordered ten at a time.

As Twiggy starts to become more aware of her earnings, De Villeneuve has difficulty demonstrating his relevance to their existing business relationship. He antagonizes professional photographers by taking up photography and then demanding grandiose fees; he generates a similar response in the film world and is deemed incapable of standing back and accepting his role should simply be that of an effective agent.

Iconic photographs of Twiggy in Biba by Justin de Villeneuve

Twiggy in Dudu make-up advertisement for Biba by Justin de Villeneuve

“By 1973, we were no longer a couple, but I remained her manager. David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane had just come out, and we loved the line: ‘Twig the wonder kid.’ We met Bowie a few times socially, and he mentioned that he wanted to be the first man on the cover of Vogue. I called them to suggest this, with Twiggy, of course, and after a bit of a hoo-ha, they agreed. T

o be honest, I wasn’t a professional photographer. I had watched Bert Stern, a hero of mine, do a cover with Twigs. I was fascinated by the set up: he would disappear into an office while the assistants set everything up. Then, when it was ready, he would return, utter those immortal words, “Strike a pose”, click the picture and go. I thought: “Justin, you can do that.” That’s the moment I became a photographer. 

Twiggy for Vogue by Justin de Villeneuve


Twiggy, 1971. Picture by Justin de Villeneuve
Twiggy for Italian Vogue by Justin de Villeneuve

Bowie was working on Pin Ups in Paris, so we flew there to do the shoot. When Twigs and Bowie were together and lit up, I looked through the viewfinder and realised that David was pure white, whereas Twiggy was tanned from a holiday in Bermuda. There was a moment of panic because I knew it would look bizarre; but the makeup artist suggested drawing masks on them, and this worked out even better. 

I remember distinctly that I’d got it with the first shot. It was too good to be true. When I showed Bowie the test Polaroids, he asked if he could use it for the Pin Ups record sleeve. I said: “I don’t think so, since this is for Vogue. How many albums do you think you will sell?” “A million,” he replied. “This is your next album cover!” I said. When I got back to London and told Vogue, they never spoke to me again. Several weeks later, Twigs and I were driving along Sunset Boulevard and we passed a 60ft billboard of the picture. I knew I had made the right decision.”

Photo of twiggy & David Bowie, commissioned by Vogue, but ends up as album cover for 'Pin Ups'

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In 1973, Twiggy severs her ties with de Villeneuve. And with that out went his main source of income. For a few years, De Villeneuve traded on the old name, doing a bit of interior decorating here (“Some poor sap in the City gave me a grand for doing out their restaurant; I hadn’t a clue”), a bit of pop management there (two of his clients were Tim Hardin and – we all make mistakes – Clifford T Ward). But it was not enough to sustain the domestics. 

“I was used to picking up the phone and making it work,” he says. “All of a sudden you’ve got receptionists saying, ‘How do you spell that name?’ “

Then, in the middle of a very barren run in the Eighties, came a crushing revelation. “I realised that I was only any good at that sort of thing when I was with Twigs,” he says. “It became an enormous handicap, my name. You could feel people assuming everything I did must be a load of old bollocks. People seemed to take enormous pleasure in my fall.”  Moreover, by then, Twiggy wasn’t around to help him make a few quid. All this self-assessment, though, had a positive outcome. De Villeneuve decided to write about the good times in book form (An Affectionate Punch, published in 1986).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/An-Affectionate-Punch-Justin-Villeneuve/dp/0283993464

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1975 Justin weds American Model Jan Ward. Together they have to baby girls, who now have made a name for themselves in fashion styling, Poppy de Villeneuve and illustration, Daisy de Villeneuve. 

Jan (Ward) & Justin de Villeneuve

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Another marvelous scheme

Justin worked as a studio producer for a while, after his split from Twiggy. You can find an entertaining story about this when you click on the next link!!!

http://www.studiowner.com/essays/essay.asp?books=0&pagnum=123

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2007 Justin married Sue Timney, president of the British Institute of Interior Design, at Chelsea Town Hall, they live in Kent 

Justin de Villeneuve & Sue Timney

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Now retired, Justin’s influence on Twiggy’s career was again highlighted when Bonhams auctioned the iconic photograph by Barry Lategan from her first modelling shoot in 1966. It had been arranged by de Villeneuve. The picture, which fetched £5,600, propelled Twiggy to international stardom.

Exhibition in 2011

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FACES OF THE SIXTIES: Justin de Villeneuve With a portfolio full of celebrated fashion shots and iconic portrait sittings with a number superstars of his era and glossy magazine publications, the new exhibition in Proud Chelsea is a marvellous look back at a prolific career. Featuring Twiggy, Pattie Boyd, Marsha Hunt and David Bowie, this exhibition showcases an exclusive collection of de Villeneuve’s rare and unseen photographs. Not only his famous sitters, but de Villeneuve himself is one of the most intriguing characters in British fashion history.

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A beauty shot of Twiggy for Biba’s new range of cosmetics, 1970

American singer and novelist Marsha Hunt at the time of her appearance in the stage musical ‘Hair’, 1968

Twiggy wearing a fur-trimmed dress knitted by herself, over a white blouse, 1972

Twiggy & Patti Boyd for Italian Vogue, 1970

Twiggy & Patti Boyd for Italian Vogue, 1970

Twiggy wearing a peasant-style dress in a promotional shot for Ken Russell’s ‘The Boy Friend’

Twiggy wearing an Ossie Clark fox fur coat from 1970

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Book

http://www.amazon.com/Twiggy-Justin-Thomas-Whiteside/dp/B0006BUYPO

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Justin de Villleneuve, 2006
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Information for this post:  Interview by Jim White, 1995

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/no-more-mr-twiggy-1603492.html