The world of style is a very strange place to be these days. Production costs are up, stores are buying less, and the public, blitzed by the glamour of supermodels and designer names, wants to buy into the “dream” for as little money as possible. Over the past couple of years there have been increasing numbers of bankruptcies, buy-outs, crippling economy measures and apathetic markets. Moreover, according to reports in Women’s Wear Daily, things are going to get a lot worse, with more retail closings, before they level out. Yet, curiously enough, fashion continues to attract young people with high hopes of making it big in an ever shrinking industry. According to the Syndicate Nationale des Stylistes, as many as 3,000 designers are trying to work in France alone, and major fashion schools here continue to draw a healthy number of students from all over the world. Continue reading “Fashion’s Young Upstarts Brave Storm”
Carolyn Carlson Profile
On stage as well as off in her modest apartment opposite the Bois de Vincennes, American choreographer Carolyn Carlson is one of the rare modern dancers who still radiates a penetrating positive energy in everything she does, who dares to express what she calls “dark brightness” in her work and defends simplicity and purity in life and movement that emanate from the fires inside. In between her non-stop wanderings over the past 25 years – touring her solos “Blue Lady” and “Vu d’ici” (premiered last spring at the Théâtre de la Ville), teaching and guest choreographing for Europe’s leading dance companies, such as the Helsinki City Ballet – Paris has been home for Carlson, and she’s back for a few weeks to prepare for the premiere of “Sub Rosa,” her long-awaited piece created for Stockholm’s Cullberg Ballet, opening April 23 at the Théâtre de la Ville.
Oliver Stone Discusses “Nixon”
Oliver Stone is on the campaign trail: a one-day stop in Paris in late February, en route from Berlin, where “Nixon” was shown in competition at the film festival, before returning to America, where the film received four Oscar nominations. Stone, who speaks fluent French, has more than casual ties to France. His parents met in Paris when his father, Lou, was stationed here as a GI. Stone often credits his initial love of film to his French mother, Jacqueline, an avid moviegoer. Continue reading “Oliver Stone Discusses “Nixon””
Jake Lamar “The Last Integrationist”
Jake Lamar does not claim to be clairvoyant. However, with his first novel, “The Last Integrationist,” Lamar has created a work that is not only humorous and richly written but may also prove to be a literary forecast for the United States. “The Last Integrationist” is set, as Lamar puts it, in a “virtual America. It’s sort of an America that you recognize. It’s not quite what America is today, but what it could be. I wanted it to feel like it was just around the corner.”
Visting Barbizon
At first, Barbizon does not seem an obvious choice as an artistic center. After all, this picturesque village to the southeast of Paris is more or less made up of a single street. Yet, between 1830 and 1875, over 60 artists flocked to what was then a modest woodcutters’ village and the movement that grew up around them was later to be called the Barbizon school. Continue reading “Visting Barbizon”
Moved in With a Charming Frenchman
A couple of years ago I met and moved in with a charming Frenchman who was finishing up a stint with a US company, and we returned to France together when he was transferred back. Although his friends and family seem to have accepted me, and we talk a lot about a future together, I find him very different from the way he was back home. My biggest complaint is that he criticizes me constantly, even for the most insignificant things, and when I react to this, he accuses me of being oversensitive. How can I make him understand that his behavior is really eating away at the relationship?
Bilan for the New Year
Commentary, February 1996
A year – the unit of time – in France is seamless. And, aptly, February is both a time to finish up farewells to the past calendar and begin to think about the new year’s “grand vacances,” only six months down the road, at the foothills of “la rentrée.” Christmas will be on us again in a wink. Oysters and foie gras and salmon fumé, blinis, Champagne. In February you eat the last of these things to close down the season, to squeeze out the last traces of “fête,” like skiing those last runs in the late late spring. “Adieu” collides into “bienvenue.” Continue reading “Bilan for the New Year”
For the love of pearls
Style, February 1996
When I was 12, my mother presented me with my first pearls: a small pendant in the form of a tiny cluster of creamy white “grapes” topped with two gold leaves. Mesmerized by the iridescent luster of my first piece of fine jewelry, I immediately developed a fondness for pearls that has never faded. For me, they are the symbol of grace, elegance and beauty in its simplest state. Warm to the touch, tender to the eye, they do not sparkle, they glow. Continue reading “For the love of pearls”
Thalassotherapy – Relaxing in the Mud
The rail weekender feature has been resolutely urban so far, but everyone needs to rusticate now and then, and where better than by the sea? The French, firm believers in the restorative powers of a seaside stay, have elevated the principle to a quasi-science called thalassotherapy, from the Greek for “sea treatment.”
Metz for the Holidays
You needn’t leave the country to find the holiday bustle and cheery atmosphere of a traditional German Christmas market. Just go to the ex-German part of France. While the Alsatian markets are probably the best known, Strasbourg and Kaysersberg are a bit far for a rail weekend. But Metz, the capital of Lorraine, also has a Christmas market – and celebrates the official arrival of St. Nicolas in a big way. Continue reading “Metz for the Holidays”
Julia Child Returns to Paris
Julia Child, the American ambassador of French cooking, recently returned to Paris, where she received her formal culinary training at the Cordon Bleu in 1948. America has watched her on television for 32 years. Her signature closing, with her familiar voice bidding us “bon appétit” as she poured herself a glass of wine, sent a generation of us on our way with the confidence to prepare a perfect gourmet meal.