Tied Up With Savoir Faire

As a man who wears ties on many occasions I am always on the hunt for ties that will set me apart from the crowd. Now I do not mean some multi-coloured polyester number with a bad paisley design or a cartoon character on it either.

Ties should be subtle and compliment an outfit not distract from it.

The frilled end of these wool ties is what caught my attention and the diagonal stripes of these ties have just the right amount of impact without being brash. A very clever update on the traditional silk striped tie.





Perfect for autumn/winter. Currently they’re on display at Capsule Paris. Something to add to the wish list!

Make Your Own Savoir Faire

Here at Savoir FAire it is all about finding your own style and not following the masses. It is all about being individual , however this is not to say you have to be ridiculous. There is a very fine line between the two.

Now Cinzano has been part of the bon vivant's way of life for decades. We are all familiar with the aperatif that appears in neon signs and billboards all over Europe. So when thay came out with and advertising campaign promoting individuality, savoir faire is right there!

Weekend Away in Trondheim!

Located in central Norway, and somewhere not a lot of us have actually heard of, it seems that Trondheim was a place of great Savoir Faire in the 1960s. Especially the Astoria Hotel!

Very little exists on the Astoria Hotel, which is a shame as the interiors were sixties design pushed to the extreme. Designed by Verner Panton one of Denmark’s most influential 20th-century furniture and interior designers, he created an innovative and futuristic scheme in a variety of materials, especially plastics, and in vibrant and exotic colours.

The interior was radical and psychedelic which was an ensemble of his curved furniture, wall upholstering, textiles and lighting.

The design of the Hotel and Restaurant Astoria included the entry area with the cloakroom, the day restaurant with the winter garden, an evening restaurant with dance floor as well as a self-service restaurant.

Panton used the textile design Geometry I to IV for floors, walls and ceilings in order to give the restaurant a uniform image. The chairs are various versions of the cone chairs. The chairs grouped around the tables and the Topan lights work together to divide the large room into individual seating areas with an intimate note.

Seriously it is a bit of overkill and taken separately each item, fabric chair or light is a tour de force in modern Scandinavian design. However when all put together it is a bit of a psychedelic nightmare which would not do a hangover and favours.

However for central Norway in the 1960’s this was it!

Comment Au Go Go

After much frustration and really no help from the Google team(pictured below) I have managed to fix my comment problem. Now this a huge thing for me as now I can comment on you blogs. The longer the problem persisted the less motivated about blogging I was becoming!

However, now that all is fixed, I will be commenting on all your brilliant blogs shortly!

Famous Last Words with Savoir Faire

Even at the end, they did it with style!

William Somerset Maugham:

"Dying is a very dull and dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it"



Pancho Villa: Mexican revolutionary leader:

"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something…"



Oscar Wilde, Sipping champagne on his deathbed:

"And now, I am dying beyond my means."

H. G. Wells:

"Go away...I'm all right."

Lawrence Oates:

British explorer, who sacrificed himself in 1912 in an attempt to save his starving companions during Scott's expedition to the Pole:

"I am just going outside and I may be some time"

Dominique Bouhours,

"I am about to, or I am going to, die; either expression is used."

No Comment!

Lately it seems that blogger is having a few problems. The latest round of frustration seems to be that I can comment on some of the blogs I am following and not others!

I still love reading your blogs, however cannot comment.

Have a good weekend all!

Sixties Savoir Faire from Lapidus

Ted Lapidus, the 1960s fashion revolutionary whose accessible clothing earned him the epithet "designer of the street", is another couturier whom most of us are unfamiliar with.

The Parisian couturier, who is credited with pioneering the hugely successful unisex look was described in a tribute, by French president Nicolas Sarkozy as someone who had "democratised French elegance and classicism" by making fashion available to ordinary men and women.

Worn by such French celebrities in the 60’s as Brigitte Bardot and Alain Delon, he became famous in the 1960s when fashion was looking for a way of keeping up with the social changes sweeping Europe.

His quirky label, created in 1951 and now run by his son Olivier Lapidus, came to be defined by the clean lines of unisex and military clothing and, most of all, by his famous sandy-coloured safari suit, which is something Yves Saint Laurent is usually credited with creating.
"Ted was the first designer of the nouvelle vague [new wave]," Lapidus's sister, Rose Torrente-Mett, told Agence France-Presse. "The whole world knew him."

After an apprenticeship with Dior, he started his own fashion house in 1951. In 1958 he opened the Ted Lapidus boutique on the Rue Marbeuf. In 1963, he created a near scandal in the world of haute couture by forming a partnership with the manufacturer Belle Jardinière, which mass-produced his designs and sold them at its 250 budget-priced stores in France.

Lapidus proved influential outside France, too, and was the first designer to persuade Twiggy to wear a suit and tie rather than a mini-skirt. Lapidus also designed the white suit that John Lennon wore on the cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album.

He designed the safari suit, a style of men's suit that was popular in Australia in the 1970s. In the late 1970s the Lapidus label started to produce fashion accessories as the haute couture market declined.

What I like about Lapidus is the fact his clothes were easy to wear and relevant for the era. He captured the mood of the 60’s much more so than Rabanne and Courreges whose clothes appeared contrived and more like costume for the impending ‘space age’.

Determinedly modern, he translated the design vocabulary of haute couture into sleek, affordable clothes aimed at French consumers barely in their 20s.

“In France now, the daughters are clothing the mothers and the sons the fathers,” he said in a 1964 interview when introducing his ready-to-wear line at Macy’s.

“His clothes really fit,” it was quoted. “Even people without good bodies looked good in them because they were so well tailored. He was a pioneer in making the denim category sexy by putting some style and fit into it.”

In the 1970s he turned his energies to franchising his boutiques and licensing his name for perfumes, jewellery, watches and sunglasses.

There is often a huge discrepancy between the media coverage and attendant publicity generated by fashion shows and the visibility of the couturiers' designs on the street. Ted Lapidus aimed to bridge that gap and make haute couture more affordable, believing that, "with the right workforce, there is no reason why a factory-made garment should not be as well-produced as one coming out of a fashion house."

Lapidus also created uniforms for the Israeli women's army and China Airlines. He brought denim material, traditionally associated with the French working classes, into the world of fashion, and boasted: "My clothes make anyone look 10 pounds slimmer and 10 years younger."

His sister, Rose Torrente-Mett, who is also a fashion designer, felt Lapidus would have been even more successful if he had met someone like Pierre Bergé, whose business acumen proved crucial in the career of Yves Saint Laurent.