Savoir Gres!

In fashion today, there are the big names, which are on everyone’s lips, if not for commercial value only. If a designer can sell and sell a lot, he or she is as good as gold. Then there are the old names that have been around before a lot of us were even born who are undergoing a renaissance based on the name alone. However can anyone really master the sway that the great Balenciaga or the shocking Schiaparelli had? One woman, whose design aesthetic and technique will never be reproduced, is the nearly forgotten name of Alix Gres.

Madame Gres, contemporary and rival of Lanvin, Vionnet, Chanel, and Schiaparelli has virtually faded away into history and mystery. Even in death she was clouded in mystery, with her daughter supposedly suppressing the event, so that nobody knew for sure whether she was dead or not. Nobody even knew what her real name was. Born Germaine Emile Krebs, she then for a while was known as Alix Barton and then Madame Gres.

She formally trained as a sculptress, and that is how the haute couture that came out of her house took on an artistic fluidity that has only been rivaled by the great Vionnet. Her signature was cutouts on gowns that made exposed skin part of the design. From her original training you gain a sense of how the ideals of classicism influenced her. Evening gowns followed and sculpted the human form, using techniques practiced only by herself, a specialist skill known as draping, quite distinct from tailoring When looking at her clothes one is not only impressed with the design, but of their sheer timelessness and sophistication. Where fashion today can be a ridiculous parody of itself, Gres designs never were and never will be.

She dressed the rich and the famous, including the Duchess of Windsor, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Dolores del Rio. Some even say that she was more Garbo than Garbo herself.
Even after WWII when most of the pre-war designers were struggling with the bombshell that Dior had launched and later on the swinging sixties, Madame could hold her own. Her style evolved with the times because it was more like art than fashion and was timeless.

However through changing tastes and moods even she could not keep her finger on the pulse that was fashion. The house started to loose money and like a lot of other houses was only being propped up by the perfume side of things, but soon even that was not enough. The company at 1, Rue de la Paix, was liquidated in 1987, during her own lifetime. She died in November 1993, but her death was not announced. With its disclosure in Le Monde, on December 14th 1994, Anne, her daughter, finally agreed to talk: "first of all, I wanted to protect her. All these people who took advantage of her would have found a way to shine again at her expense...It's a love secret.” Madame Grès left us just as she had lived: very discreetly.

Of course like most of the couturiers that time forgets the name lives on in a Perfume business. You can still buy her most famous perfume, Cabochard (even though changed through time), which I wear myself from time to time. Of course it smells of a bygone era, but I like it like that.

Savoir Faire in Yellow???

Another entry from 'that' Australian woman's magazine. This time from page 11 of an issue some time in 1973.

Caption being: "Mrs Helen Mullinger wore a domed yellow beret". Ithink that this is all they could say on this particular entry as words just escape me.

Mrs Mullinger obviously had not considered what this would look like in June, 2009, where she has unwilling found herself on a blog of do's and dont's about savoir faire.

Martini Savoir Faire

As a lot of you already know, I like GIN! One of my favourite drinks and I think that nothing can beat a nice long, cold, gin and tonic with a twist of lime in the summer. I am a purist and I don’t like to do too much to my gin, apart from mixing a few classic cocktails, and the martini is one of them. For those of you that think a martini can be made with vodka, I would probably suggest stop reading now. Not to start a war here, however a true martini should not be made with anything else except gin. If you must make it with vodka, call it something else, but not a martini. (Ok, I might be appearing, boorishly pretentious here, however I am not going to make any excuses).

Basically a martini consists of gin and vermouth, and that’s it! Nothing else, so forget the flavourings, the fruity liqueuers! The trick to a great tasting martini lies in the correct balance of vermouth to the gin. As to how much vermouth, that is under constant debate, which borders on the sensible to the ridiculous!

Winston Churchill had several variations as to the balance of vermouth, including

"Glance at the vermouth bottle briefly while pouring the juniper distillate freely."

Or

“Wave an unopened bottle of vermouth over the glass freely”

Someone else (I am not sure who) was quite happy with the vermouth bottle being opened in the same room as you were making the drink.

However here is the lowdown. (Make sure gin and glass have been chilled to within an inch of their lives.

6 oz Gin
A splash of dry vermouth
3 Olives
Ice Cubes

Swirl the vermouth around the glass and then discard it! I don’t care what you do with it, pour it down the sink, give it to the cat or drink it yourself, but get most of it out of the glass.

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and then pour in the gin, and shake it like there is no tomorrow. Strain into your glass and you are as good as gold.

Spear the olives place in glass and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for how many of these you drink and the resultant hangover. Actually that goes for all the drinks I feature on savoir faire.

I Spy With Savoir Faire.

I am sure that all of us at sometimes or another has wished we were a devilishly handsome spy (or a femme fatale, who just happened to be a spy) dashing through obscure European countries or over the top sci fi film sets, hoping to save the world. We would fight our arch nemesis, get the girl or man and do it with indubitable style. Even our villains were stylish and it was a match of wills to see who could come out on top.

Of course the most famous spy to come to mind is 007 himself who has had many reincarnations since he exploded onto the scene. Mr Bond was stylish, handsome, knew what he wanted and was ruthless. Bond was the quintessential spy, and of course there is some debate who is the best Bond, but I think Connery and Lazenby were the best, and of course Mr Craig does deserve an honourable mention.

In the 1960’s espionage was cool, and for those of us who couldn’t get enough of the gadgets, the style and the action there were several TV series that satisfied our rather carnal desires.

Britain created “The Avengers”, which had suburban males drooling over Diana Rigg as Mrs Emma Peel. The name might have been a bit frumpy, however she was not. For Mrs Peel, leather cat suits were de rigueur and these were a perfect compliment to Patrick McNee’s ever so conservative John Steed.

I can' resist putting the below photo in of Mrs. Peel in mortal danger, just waiting to be saved

Spies were running rampant across the Atlantic in the States with “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” and “Mission Impossible”.

The Man From Uncle series centered on a two-man troubleshooting team for a fictitious secret international law-enforcement agency, the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement with American Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughan) and Illya Kuryakin.

U.N.C.L.E.'s archenemy was a vast organization known as T.H.R.U.S. H, the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity. How fabulous is that!

Then of course there was Mission Impossible. Who could ever forget the protagonist Jack Phelps receiving the instructions for the next mission through a tape that would self destruct! The series follows the exploits of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF), a small team of secret agents used for covert missions against dictators, evil organizations, and crime lords.

The world might have been in constant threat of being taken over by the likes of SPECTRE or THRUSH, but we were safe in the knowledge that we were going to be saved by an Organisation or spy with the savoir faire to do it with style!

Does your Savoir Faire stand the test of time?

Since it is now Friday and the beginning of the weekend thought I would show a bit of savoir faire through the ages.

Below are some photos from a well known women’s magazine in Australia (which shall remain nameless). Each week they would have a feature called “What People are wearing’. It usually showed the society set, who had all the savoir faire in the world (for 1973 anyway) at various society functions generally being, glamorous, intelligent and oh so with it. Just goes to show that what is considered the height of style one year is so terribly de trop the next.

Original captions from the magazine are with the photos.

Mr and Mrs Tony Richardson at The Sunday Painters Exhibition held by Committee Members of the Peter Pan Kindergartens at their Paddington Headquarters. Mrs. Richardson looks stunning in velvet flares and matching jacket.'

'Peta Oxer was a guest at the annual dinner dance held by members of the Avant Garde Committee at the Menzies Hotel (Sydney) in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind. The Gold fish pendant Peta wore with her beautifully styled shantung dress added an unusual touch.'

The thing that I am wondering is that there was an “Avant Garde Committee” and that they had regular soirées like the one Ms. Oxer was attending and why wasn’t I invited?

'Mrs Kym Bonython wore a New Guinea tribesman's mask and an animal printed silk dress to the Night of Fantasy arranged by the Pied Piper Committee and held at the Elizabeth Bay home of the Cedric Symonds'

So style mavericks, think carefully before posing on that staircase, cigarette and drink in hand, wearing chartreuse, think to yourself, “Is this going to stand the test of time?”

Savoir Faire on the 9th Floor

A couple of weeks ago in one of the local newspapers here in Toronto was an article featuring Eaton’s Ninth Floor restaurant atop their department store in Montreal. I was intrigued as I remember department store restaurants back in Australia when I was just a young wee thing, however nothing as opulent and luxurious as this! This is an art deco masterpiece, which sadly is off limits to the public and sitting shrouded in decay, since the Eaton’s chain when bankrupt in the late 1990’s.

The restaurant drew its inspiration from the 1st class Salle a Manger on the French Line’s transatlantic liner the Ile De France (see pic below). The company’s matriarch Lady Flora Eaton travelled aboard the luxury liner in the 1920s, and was so impressed by what she found on the liner that the dining room was incorporated into the plan when Eaton's decided to expand its Rue St. Catherine store to nine floors from six in 1928.

The 650-seat dining room opened on Jan. 25, 1931, as Le François Premier, but the ladies who lunched there never called it that. It was always known as "The Ninth Floor."

The room is the work of interior designer Jacques Carlu, the French-born professor of advanced design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was also responsible for the celebrated Trocadéro in Paris and the Rainbow Room in New York's Rockefeller Plaza. Carlu was also responsible for Toronto equivalent at the Toronto store, which I am happy to say, has been restored and functioning as an event space.

With opal glass, nickel steel railings, and pink marble columns with black Belgian marble accents, and monumental space the dining room remains one of the most staggeringly beautiful art deco rooms in Montreal, if not the world. This was a luxurious escape for lunch where with a bit of careful imagination we were on our way to Europe cocooned by the luxury around us.

Luckily it has been given heritage status by the Quebec government, however it is still mothballed. When and if its doors ever open again, the devotees of savoir faire will be lined up just to experience the cachet of dining in a space that harked back to days of style.

Space Age Savoir Faire

Pierre Cardin. One almost shudders when we hear the name, but there was a time when it wasn’t so. I still have hopes for Monsieur Cardin, and believe him to be one of the most influential designers of the 20th century. Way before he sold his name and licensed everything from socks to linoleum this man and his designs had style and panache. Sure he paved the way for nearly all the major couturiers to launch prêt a porter collections, and made certain elements of style available to the masses, however he goes far beyond that.

In the late 1960’s Monsieur Cardin was heralding in the Space Age, when everything spacey was becoming fashionable, from movies, to furniture. His fashion designs from this period are heralding the beginning of a Brave New World, which had the public dressed to kill in vibrant and functional designs, which the whole family could wear.

Clothes appeared almost unisex with the same design with only a few tweaks being worn by both men and women.

Not only were clothes functional, but there was a certain amount of sexiness too. These were modern day amazons and gladiators ready and willing to fight the establishment, with savoir faire. Normal suits were hastily reduced to being so out of date when compared to a Cardin design.

Monsieur Cardin had definite ideas as to what the public and those in professions serving should be wearing including nurses as shown below.

Just imagine if Monsieur Cardin had had his way? One thing for sure, was that he was always at the forefront of innovation.