Protesting With Savoir Faire

With all the protests etc that have been happening here in Toronto over the last week in relation to the G8 and G20 summits, I came across this little gem! Nothing says savoir faire than wearing your favourite French perfume to a protest rally!

Needless to say Ma Griffe is one of my all time favourite perfumes and I wear it habitually. Maybe I am a liberated male!

Behind Every Great Man

One cannot speak of Poiret without mention of his wife Denise. Long before any fashion history novice would proclaim that Chanel (curse her, she gets all the credit) had liberated the modern woman in the early twenties, Denise Poiret was proof that Poiret had done it years before! She was unfashionably (at the time) tall and slender with Poiret saying in 1913, "My wife is the inspiration for all my creations; she is the expression of all my ideals."

Poiret married Denise Boulet in 1905, much to the shock and horror of his circle who considered her rather provincial and lacking any style. As Poiret said of his choice of wife and mother of his children. "All those who have admired her since I made her my wife would certainly not have chosen her in the state in which I found her," Poiret stated in his rather self praising autobiography King of Fashion. "But I had a designer's eye, and I saw her hidden graces…. She was to become one of the queens of Paris."

Up until recently the role his wife played in his success has been underrated. However, here was someone with enough savoir faire to recognize that Poiret was revolutionizing women’s fashion and had the panache to wear his creations with the confidence of somebody who knew exactly what she was doing. She had the audacity to spur Poiret on by being a major force in the display of some his more outrageous costumes and schemes.

For his legendary Thousand and Second Night Ball in 1912, she was dressed as a slave girl in the famous lampshade tunic, harem pants and turban, locked in a gilded cage, waiting for her master’s arrival so that he could set her free! For another fete, dressed as the Queen of Sheba in an ensemble slashed to the hip revealing her leg, she shocked even Parisian haute bonheme.

She wore his creations confidently and nonchalantly. The luxurious fabrics being an accessory to Denise herself.

After their acrimonious divorce in 1928 (Time reported, "M. Poiret charged that his wife's attitude was injurious; Mme Poiret countercharged that her husband was cruel"), she still held her ex-husband’s work in high esteem. She kept her spectacular wardrobe for posterity’s sake and it was passed down to her children and grandchildren. In 2005 most her wardrobe went up for auction, how I wish I was there with unlimited funds!

Lacqured Savoir Faire

Who could pass up these wonderful lacquered panels from that Art Deco lacquer master Jean Dunand? Master artist, decorator and craftsman, responsible for some of the major rooms on the Normandie, I will let these speak for themselves!

Ancient Savoir Faire

The ancients sure knew how to adorn themselves with savoir faire. There is something also to be said for less is more. All these are deceptively simple but boy do they create an impact!

Greek Necklace
Cypriot Necklace

Egyptian Necklace and Earings

Persian Ring

Greek Bracelets

Around the World with Savoir Faire

Remember when around the world trips were practically de rigeur for anyone in the know? Whether by train, plane or ship, one travelled in style without the hustle and bustle and the general blah of travel these days.

Airlines, hotels and shipping companies would take your luggage and paste or attach a brightly coloured label on to it signifying where your luggage was going or where it had been. Nowadays we get a computer generated tag with a bar code which looks just as exciting as a receipt from a supermarket.

Hotel labels remained on a suitcase as a testament to where we had been, much to the envy of our friends. Years later vintage luggage would turn up at a variety of flea Markets and second hand stores plastered with labels and one could only wonder of the travels the original owners had had.

Labels were mini artworks created to convey the exotic and the luxury of travel. One was proud of the assortment and variety of labels on ones luggage. So bring back the label, so that even if we are not somewhere exotic, we can look at our luggage and plan our next trip.

Jet-Set Savoir Faire

For the perfect weekend away in the jet-setting 60’s nothing could have been more perfect than spending the weekend by the pool at the Phoenicia Hotel in Beirut. The pool was said to have the best displays of bikinis in the Mediterranean in the 1960’s.

Although not the same style of today’s modern hotels and resorts, the Phoenicia was the place to be and to be seen. Designed by American architect Edward Durell Stone with Middle Eastern Influences especially on the façade of the hotel, this was a 600 room oasis for the rich and famous.

I love the pure architectural symmetry of the modernist architecture which is reflected in the colonnade which ran along the pool deck. The marble used is pure white and immediately looks cool and inviting. This was a modernist masterpiece! Unfortunately due to the civil war and the subsequent refurbishment of the hotel this area is virtually unrecognisable.

I am going to sit back, and remember the jet-set with a gin this weekend, and hopefully run into an Onassis or two.

Step Out With Savoir Faire

Before there was Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik and Louboutin there was Charles Jourdan! The iconic shoe maker of the 70’s and 80’s has supposedly made a comeback; however I can find very little information on this, not even a company website!

I remember back in my formative teenage years and early adulthood that every girl I knew lusted after a pair of Charles Jourdan shoes or Sergio Rossi’s. They were always cutting edge, with heels so wonderfully high and sometimes bizarre, so that you wondered how women could walk in the things, however walk they did. Somehow you could always pick a pair of Jourdan’s. Also the thing that I liked most was that they had a male line as well. Although not as fashion forward as the female line, the men’s shoes were superb!

Designing since the 1920’s the company became known for design and fabulous workmanship, creating shoes for Christian Dior and Pierre Cardin. The height of his fame was in the late seventies with ad campaigns created by the likes of Guy Bourdin that emphasised a rather racy image that was in perfect keeping with the times and Jourdan’s clientele.

Unfortunately after the death of Charles Jourdan in 1976, and subsequent leadership by his sons, and numerous investment bankers, the company declined, filing for bankruptcy in 2002. Roger Vivier seems to have made a successful comeback, so will Charles Jourdan be able too as well? So Savoir Faires, has there been a revival????

The shoes below are supposedly from the new collection. They still retain the Jourdan trademarks of colour and design, and are perfect!