Bewitching Savoir Faire

With Halloween fast approaching our minds are drawn to all things spooky, wicked and witchy. Who says that witches should be bent up old crones toiling over cauldrons and making potions with eyes of newts and the like?

We have had our young glamorous witches, such as Elisabeth Montgomery in Bewitched in the past, however who can not forget the gorgeous Kim Novak in Bell Book and Candle whom I believed the creators of Bewitched based their Samantha on.


This is one of my all time favourite movies based on the stage name of the same name by John Van Druten. Starring Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart as the romantic leads with a host of others including Jack Lemon, Hermione Gingold, Elsa Lancaster and 19 Siamese cats who all played the witch’s familiar Pyewhacket, this is Witchcraft with the ultimate in Savoir Faire.

Kim Novak plays Gillian, a rather free spirited Greenwich Village witch who runs an art gallery for Primitive African art. After an initial chance meeting with Shep (Jimmy Stewart) she learns that Shep is to marry an old nemesis, and thus begins a rather intriguing plot where Gillian takes her revenge. Casting a love spell on Shep, she begins to fall for him herself. She must eventually make a stark choice, as witches who fall in love lose their supernatural powers. Gillian's cat and familiar, Pyewacket, becomes agitated and leaves her when she decides in Shep's favor. That is all I am going to reveal as this is a wonderful movie and I do not want to spoil it all.

There are some interesting side plots involving members of Gillian’s family that add to the whole movie on a lighthearted level.



For Savoir faire this cannot be beat. Kim Novak is wonderfully costumed by Jean Louis, and looks fabulous all throughout the movie, everything a modern day witch should look like. Also the movie gives a rather candid peek into New York in the 1950’s,especially around the emerging art scene located in the area.


So while not necessarily spooky in the Halloween sense, witches have never looked better! So for some Halloween Savoir Faire see the movie and enjoy.

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!