Getting Lippy with Lelong

What is it with women’s lipstick these days? (Sorry girls). Here you have the main weapon in a woman’s arsenal of tips and tricks, demoted down to usually just a mundane black cylinder with a logo on it to be tossed into a handbag or cosmetic bag. These magical little items should be displayed and brandished about with savoir faire, shown off and treated with a little respect.

At Lucien Lelong, in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s they were luxurious little objets deluxe, that women were proud of, and they were also fun!

Previously I posted on a luxurious little Lelong offering covered in mink, which had wonderful undertones of luxury and surrealism.

On the luxury side we have this wonderful little jeweled case which I am sure drew envious glances when the owner used this in a powder room with other women around.

Lelong wasn’t afraid of arming a woman with several different lip shades depending on her mood. Often three different colours were contained in the same unit, giving our young fashionista a choice of how seductive she wanted to be.

The below while a very simple box shaped container, oozes glamour.

The silver container called “Quick Change” below mimics a coin container of the type that buss or tram conductors used to carry to dispense change. Not only is the container clever and fun there is a new meaning in the name, implying that a girl could change her lip colour on a whim. It also doubled as a brooch to be worn and displayed.

The set of three green plastic tubes below is an actual whistle that works.

Advertising also was fun and innovative. Colours were given names that were fun and carefree and meaningful.



So ladies get lippy like Lelong and arm yourself with a bit of savoir faire!

Great Expectations with Savoir Faire

Very busy day here at Savoir Faire, back to back meetings and just generally falling behind in blogging and reading all of my fellow blogger’s fabulous posts. That brings me to Great Expectations, that wonderful Dickens’ novel which is filled with themes such as tragedy, love and hope.

Finding images which I like has always been a passion of mine and I always look for ways I can use them giving them another meaning than what they were intended for. Here are three images that I think have a very modern Great Expectations feel about them. I will let you be the judge!

Pip meets the convict in the graveyard.

Miss Havisham on her wedding day after finding out she had been left at the altar

Pip in a moment of reflection lamenting the loss of Estella.

Savoir Faire Then and Now

We know the big names of couture and the it designers of today, but how many of us really know the history behind a house or what the original design aesthetic was actually like?

Are the new designers who take over the creative directorships of these houses following the design aesthetics that the original names followed or are they going off in their own directions using references from the house’s archives to inspire them?

Are they reinterpreting the look, the cachet or just in it to make money? Where elegance and sophistication was the catchphrase most used to describe these “old” houses what would the catchphrase be now. Previously we could see continuous evolution, the refinement of a line, a certain aesthetic, what do we see now?

Here are some then and now photos of some such houses that had their beginnings almost half a century ago and what they are producing now? What do you think?

Pierre Balmain

Balenciaga

Christian Dior

Chanel

Givenchy

Nina Ricci

Yves Saint Laurent

Flirting with Savoir Faire!

I remember my mother wearing Tweed by Lentheric when I was a small child, and I could never have imagined that the below might have ever happened to her.

Don't our young couple exude all the confidence and savoir faire in the world? She is confident in the knowledge that her perfume is going to attract the opposite sex, and he is confident in the fact that that he has the perfect opening line!

Savoir Faire on the Soccer Field

True to the Italian nature it seems that Dolce & Gabbana also love soccer! Just recently they have designed the uniforms and leisure wardrobes for two soccer teams.

Italy’s World Cup team wore the below, which really set them apart from the majority of the other teams participating in this year’s World Cup.

Secondly the boys from Milano Beach Soccer must look a treat on and off the field in the below.

It is nice to see some savoir faire on the sports field, who says you can’t look good and play as well!

Put Some Chris in Your Dior!

Some Chris Von Wagenheim that is!

Savoir Faire just loves the great fashion photographers of the 70’s and 80’s, such as Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin and Chris Von Wagenheim.

All photographers had a very similar pseudo erotic style which can seem to be sexually intimidating, but hey these were the days of hedonism and excess. Wangenheim’s world is a dark one, combining sexuality, violence and voyeurism, which somehow come together with visual elegance, which is unique to his work. All these things are subtle as in his work for Dior; however they are there in the background causing us all to look twice.

By the mid 1970’s the fashion side of Dior under the directorship of Marc Bohan was languishing and had reached an almost middle class sensibility. It was a good solid house that symbolised good taste. Not so on the licensing side of things, where accessories such as sunglasses, bags, scarves etc were the must haves, as the Dior logo took precedence over all others. The cosmetic division under the directorship of Serge Lutens was also pushing the boundaries with highly artistic advertising copy and colours.

The series of advertisements for Dior accessories used strong visual references plus clever puns on words to create a campaign that stood out for its innuendo. They were secretive and mysterious with a heightened sense of expectation as if the models were caught in a moment wondering what was going to happen next. I remember as a teenager whenever seeing the Dior ads in magazines etc, thinking how glamorous and grown up they were, and clipped them out for future reference and I still have them.

Aspects of his work are still referenced by photographers, artists and pop stars today. In the Dior Addict campaign of the early 2000’s you can see these references.