I got familiar with the name Françoise Hardy at a young age, when her songs already had an impact on me. Listening to her music with my eyes closed, made me dream of Paris on a sunny Saturday morning and it still does, as I am a hopeless romantic…. Later, after seeing some of her pictures, I noticed Françoise looked stunningly beautiful in a very natural way and was incredebly stylish. Balenciaga’s Nicolas Ghesquiere names her as one of his muses. I still often listen to her music and this post is my tribute to Françoise Hardy….

Françoise Hardy Portrets

Françoise Hardy was born january 17, 1944 in Paris. Barely seventeen she answered to an ad in which the record label Vogue was looking for young singers. Françoise got signed. Her first single featured Óh Oh Chéri’ on the a-side, but it was the b-side ‘Tout les garçons et les filles’ a song she wrote herself, that was a huge success and Françoise became one of the youngsters that rode the popular ye-ye pop music wave of the sixties.

She represented Monaco at the Eurovision Song contest in 1963, only nineteen years old. At a photo shoot for the magazine ‘Salut les copains’ she fell in love with photographer Jean-Marie Périer, who changed her into a young trendsetter and made her become a fashion model. Something she actually never wanted, being extremely shy and very serious about her music career.

Françoise Hardy: Fashion model

In the 1970’s Françoise started to reinvent herself again and casted of the image of ‘fashionable young girl about town’, she was no longer under the spell of her boyfriend Périer, although he stayed involved, designing her album covers for a long time. From those days on she only worked on her singing career and collaborated with many famous people in the music business, who just admired her for writing skills and her voice.

She reinvented her music several times over and that makes her known by different generations. She worked with Malcolm Mclaren (‘Revenge of the flowers’ on MCLaren’s ‘Paris’, one of my favorite albums all times), Iggy Pop and some years ago recorded a song with the British band Blur.

‘Revenge of the Frower’ by Malcolm McLaren

 ‘Message Personnel’, one of Françoise Hardy’s most well-known songs.

Françoise Hardy photographed by Jean-Marie Périer

Françoise Hardy video’s

Comment te Dire Adieu

Ce Petit Coeur

Suzanne  (written by Leonard Cohen)

I’ll be Seeing You (duet with Iggy Pop)

Françoise Hardy portret, 2011

I don’t remember much of my first communion except what I wore that day. It’s the first outfit of my childhood I have a recollection off …: a creme-coloured-with-silver-lurex-thread dress, white knee socks and white mary-jane’s… And large white bows in my hair (in almost all pictures of my childhood I wear these enormous bows in my piggy-tails or braids…On Queensday ofcourse my bows were orange, the colour of the Dutch Royal family).

The tradition of First Communion clothes   

First Communion is traditionally an important festive occasion for Roman Catholic families. Also, Holy Communion is the second sacrament of the seven. This is traditionally practiced by many Roman Catholic Italians, Latin American, Scottish, and Irish (etc.) families.

Traditions surrounding First Communion usually include large family gatherings and parties to celebrate the event and special clothing is usually worn. The clothing is often white to symbolize purity. Girls often wear fancy dresses and a veil attached to a wreath of flowers or hair ornament. In other communities girls commonly wear dresses passed down to them from sisters or mothers, or even simply their school uniforms plus the veil and/or wreath.

In many Latin America countries, boys wear military-style dress uniforms with gold braid aiguilettes. In Switzerland and Luxembourg, both boys and girls wear plain white robes with brown wooden crosses around their necks.

In Scotland, boys traditionally wear kilts and other traditional Scottish dress which accompany the kilt.

Gifts of a religious nature are usually given, such as rosaries, prayer books, in addition to religious statues and icons. Gifts of cash are also common.

Many families have formal professional photographs taken in addition to candid snapshot in order to commemorate the event. Some churches arrange for a professional photographer after the ceremony.

All-white looks are seen often on the catwalk, inspired by summer linen, winter ‘snow-like’ wool, bridal gowns, couture chique and the first communion. I like the first communion-inspired collections the most, for instance the one by Comme Des Garçons s/s 2012 and  Viktor&Rolf s/s 2002. Tao (a protegé of Comme des Garçons) also designed a lot of all-white’s… These collections have an innocent and pure look with a touch of couture, call it theatrical…

Comme des Garçons

  

Viktor & Rolf

Tao  (Comme Des Garçons)

Summer is on its way and I am sure I’m going to wear a lot of all-white’s again…

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 Magazine
Jackson 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 Namuth followed 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.

http://www.amazon.com/Pollock-Ed-Harris/dp/B003NVN0QO

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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 Homme and 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....

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Jackson Pollock's genuine work shirts

Jackson Pollock's paintcans

An art-director I work with, send me a link to this commercial…  Ine,thanks! The best I’ve seen in a very long time.