EDITO

ART AND CULTURE

Cultural Committee Chairman RIALDistinctness or imitation? Understatement or extravagance? Playing Valéry Giscard d’Estaing with one’s appearance or remaining authentic? Elegance is at once movement, style and spirit, and the essence it seeks to express Cultural Committee transcends the trends of the moment. As Hubert de Givenchy once said, Franco Cologni “Jeanne Toussaint was not fashionable, she was elegant.” Arielle Dombasle Elegance clearly has an aesthetic quality but also a moral and intellectual one. However, it can become dangerous when it defies Hugues Gall conventions. Too much distinctiveness arouses anger. Daniela Giussani They say it is universal and timeless yet is it not a touch cultural Guillaume Pictet and changeable? Time blurs certain references, certain frontiers. Franceline Prat Perceptions shif, appreciation changes. A garment, a type of behavior Agatha Ruiz de la Prada or certain gestures are judged diferently in diferent times and contexts. Oliva Salviati We should relativize. Elegance is everywhere. It’s in the tiniest detail created by nature Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and man; it’s in the heart of a landscape, in a feather or a leaf, in a piece Cyrille Vigneron of haute couture, fine jewelry or an exceptional timepiece. Yet at the The Duke of Wellington same time it remains, for some of us, out of reach like some inaccessible Xiaozhou Taillandier Xing grail. We endlessly admire the innate poise of a large feline, the naturally graceful way a woman holds her head; we envy the break of the dandy’s trousers and his impeccable mustache unfazed by rain or shine. If elegance is equilibrium, then are not those endowed with it virtuosos of balance? PIERRE RAINERO

RIGHT PAGE Denis Darzacq, Yohji Yamamoto fashion show, 1997.

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p. 8 p. 34

p. 40 p. 94 p. 48

p. 58 p. 76 p. 102

p. 62

Editorial 4 // Portfolio 8 // On the Virtue of Elegance 34 // Dandies Past and Present 40 // The Touch of Beauty 48 // Design: Form and Function 58 // An Expressive Singularity 62 // p. 112 The Rhythm of Bodies, the Melody of Drapery 68 // ELEGANCE For Men Only 76 // Iris van Herpen: A Perfect Balance 86 // Elsie de Wolfe: High Priestess of Taste 94 // Through the Photographer’s Eye 102 // N ° 42 On and Of-Screen Elegance 112 ELEGANCE: SOME ARE BORN WITH IT, OTHERS HAVE TO WORK AT IT. ELEGANCE IS HARMONY AND PURITY, RIGHTNESS AND DISCRETION, LIGHTNESS OF TOUCH AND EASE OF MANNER. IT IS TIMELESS AND TRANSCENDS FASHION. IT IS OFTEN OBSERVED WHEN OUT AND ABOUT IN NATURE BUT IT’S ALSO SEEN IN MANMADE CREATIONS; ONE ADMIRES IT IN THE HANDSOME LINES OF AN AUTOMOBILE, IN THE MOVEMENTS OF A SRI LANKAN STILT FISHERMAN OR IN A GEISHA’S HAIRSTYLE. portfolio

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What might these gentlemen in frock coats,

depicted here by Henri Félix Emmanuel

> > In Columbus, Ohio, Topiary Park is the Perfectly fitting dresses, sumptuous jewels, > They are dignified, proud and dressed to Philippoteaux in 1839 afer a gouache by astonishing backdrop for a freshly trimmed doe-like eyes and highlighted lips: women the nines. They love fashion and preen in their Louis Carrogis Carmontelle from 1770, be and flufed poodle in a lion-like pose. Set to excel in the art of finery. When a world colorful outfits. Photographed in 1973–74 discussing? It could be anything: the layout compete in one of those famous American famous American photographer, a member by Ambroise Ngaimoko and in the 2000s by of the new gardens at Saint-Cloud or maybe dog shows, the pooch prances proudly amid of the Magnum Photos agency since 1986, Héctor Mediavilla, these men are sapeurs, their admiration for the charming demoiselles the park’s 54 human figures, eight boats, met an Emirati designer with a strong as members of Congo’s Société des walking along the paths below. In any case, ape and cat fashioned from branches and personality, the results went beyond Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes these men in the country attire of the House leaves that are inspired by the Georges Seurat refinement to give an impression of ascension (SAPE) are known. Inspired by Western of Orléans are certainly taking a break painting, A Sunday Afernoon on the Island of and power: Steve McCurry and Abeer Al tailoring and English dandyism, the SAPE from protocol: the Marquis de Périgny has La Grande Jatte. A curious encounter between Suwaidi are all alone, or nearly, at Fairmont was founded in Brazzaville in the 1920s and his arm around the waist of the Chevalier two arts: canine grooming and topiary. the Palm, Dubai. continues today with an authentic joie de de Saint-Mars, and the Baron de Tourempré vivre spiced with a touch of provocation. is playing with a dog.

> The panther, a noble feline with an > Escaping the humdrum of life, the traveler enchantingly agile and powerful silhouette, is charmed by all things foreign. Actions and is the perfect embodiment of elegance. tasks that may appear quotidian for those Its spotted fur, its eyes, its haughty gait and performing them become graceful dances the languid pose of its body at rest make when you are discovering a country, a custom it eminently seductive. Admired by painters, or a trade. At Weligama, in Sri Lanka, sculptors and photographers, it has even stilt fishermen spend hours perched on

> been transformed into jewelry, becoming wooden poles tirelessly repeating the same

“The Concours d’Élégance en Automobile a Cartier icon and a favorite animal of the choreography much to the delight of tourists combines the presentation of a team that Maison’s clients. and photojournalists. must always include a woman—the man plays an ancillary role, that of driver—and

a car whose lines are undeniably elegant.” > Whether lef to its own devices or patiently > An autodidact and key figure in 20th- This definition, formulated by the Fédération sculpted by human hands, nature is a creator century architecture, the work of Luis Française des Véhicules d’Époque, France’s of elegant forms. At the Château de Hautefort Barragán is deeply rooted in his childhood. vintage car society, has remained unchanged in Dordogne, the French-style gardens and Born in Guadalajara, he spent part of it since the first competitions of the 1920s. English-style park of this old medieval castle on the family ranch, where he was steeped This national tradition of uniting famous are among the finest examples of in popular traditions, wide-open spaces, couturiers and classic automakers in a single landscaping in Périgord. Harmoniously bright colors, shadow and light, and the event has been emulated worldwide. In 2008, integrated with the surrounding landscape, clear language of forms and materials. the Maison Cartier created a similar event the building and its grounds are a pleasure These elements were ingeniously integrated in Mumbai, India: Cartier Travel with Style, to explore. into his buildings, as here in the Cuadra San now an annual classic. Cristóbal estate built in 1964-69 in Mexico City. Cartier is a creator of precious objects

> < Her face painted white, lips red and nape for elegant women. This powder compact > Military uniforms are attractive. exposed, a geisha stands in her silk kimono. from the early 1930s, made in the London And when the wearer himself is good-looking, Her life, dedicated to the perfection of ateliers, has a style and formal purity many a lady may be of the mind to surrender. Japanese traditional arts, is all delicacy reminiscent of early modern architecture. Perhaps they’ll yield to these cadets from and refinement. Music, dance, poetry, The black curves of the lacquered compact the Belgian Royal Military School, whose literature and the tea ceremony, all subtly contrast with the lines of coral along charming uniforms have all the trappings studied with her “sisters” and long-standing the hinge and clasp. On the outside, it’s a of power. Back straight, head up, an companions, fill her days. More than a simple controlled interplay of matte and shininess; unflinching gaze and impeccably attired, escort, she is an accomplished, admired inside, the mirror ofers the lady a last glimpse military grooming is an art that aims and envied artist. of her powdered cheeks. to impress.

32 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 33 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 portfolio On the Virtue of Elegance In its most fundamental sense, elegance is a person’s unique manner of occupying space and time, of setting him or herself apart from the rest of the world, of “appearing,” as evoked in the “À une passante” poem by Charles Baudelaire: “A woman passed, lifing and swinging / With a pompous gesture the ornamental hem of her garment.” by Charles Pépin

34 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 35 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 legance is principally about movement; or, to put it another way, movement and freedom. Look at Charlotte Rampling in The Night Porter and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. It is impossible to conceive of elegance as simply conforming to norms of good taste; Eit is impossible to attain elegance simply by following. You have to set yourself apart from the rest of the world and, at the same time, from social conventions—conventions which you need to have assimilated before seeking freedom from them. But if elegance is only that then it could be mistaken for “cutting a fine figure,” in other words, for style. Elegance is style with the addition of a “moral” component. A “bad guy” can have style and it is possible to behave outrageously while still cutting a fine figure. Elegance is much more than style: it is both aesthetic and moral. Being elegant is to conduct oneself with grace, be it walking down the street or interacting with others. A move, or way of moving, can be termed “elegant.” The same can be said of conduct. Being elegant is moving with style and conducting oneself gracefully, as if one didn’t go without the other, as if the civilized human animal can only aspire to Beauty in aspiring simultaneously to good. As if elegance is inconceivable without its moral component. It is likely this moral component that gives style that subtle quality that transforms it into elegance. But it’s a fine line: elegance begins with style. There are some magnificent pages in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty on style: to have style is to appear in a manner that is your very own. Have you noticed that style can be spotted a long way of? In a crowded street, suddenly, style comes into view. You can’t yet make out the elegant man or woman’s facial features; you can’t yet tell exactly how he or she is dressed; yet the fact that the person has style is indisputable. What is it then that you have seen? Is it the elegance of the person’s style, which is the mark of uniqueness in search of itself? Elegance is always instantly conveyed. And that is why nudity can also be elegant, not when it is exposed crudely but in the moment of its unveiling, in the very motion of its appearing. Elegance breeds a desire for elegance. There is an exemplarity in elegance: another person’s elegance cannot be copied but it can at least inspire. Our daily life is full of constraints and mediocrity is a constant temptation. Remaining elegant is ofen a challenge. That is why a mere encounter with elegance can set us free, reminding us that elegance is attainable. This is the fundamentally moral virtue of admiration: we admire to nourish ourselves, to absorb the idea that we, too, might become admirable. Someone who persists in elegance in the face of adversity, someone who continues to conduct themselves with elegance while those around them have given up is something that speaks louder than words. Baudelaire’s passer-by has that kind of efect on the poet.

“A gleam... then night! O fleeting beauty Your glance has given me sudden rebirth Shall I see you again only in eternity?”

To encounter her so elegant, so beautiful, gives him a “sudden rebirth,” it gives him the desire to recapture some of his own force and beauty. Elegance is a proposition, as if the other’s uniqueness PRECEDING DOUBLE PAGE Cricket umpire were a bridge extended toward mine, an invitation. It shows, once again, that elegance cannot be in position behind the wicket. merely of a social order: strict compliance with social conventions would hinder this communication ABOVE Two young amateur boxers between “uniquenesses,” those mutually inspired “elegances.” Elegance is the personal and listening to the referee giving them instructions before the fight. subjective reappropriation of a social code: it plays with it in the double sense of playful activity FOLLOWING DOUBLE PAGE The London and a movement back and forth. 2012 Olympic Games.

36 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 37 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 But this playful dimension doesn’t make elegance superficial. There is nothing more essential than virtuous. Our concern for beauty channels us toward good; Plato analyzed this movement, this upward seeking to invent oneself in the play of appearances. Elegance is an appearance: the appearance of dynamic in the Symposium: we are drawn to beautiful forms so that we might then seek to conduct my truth that is in search of itself, of my truth that is looking for itself in other people’s eyes. Merleau- ourselves with grace. The aesthetic dimension of elegance is a stepping stone toward its truly moral Ponty, who pondered the enigma of style, came up with the idea that if we are able to recognize the dimension. At its root, and from the start, our attraction to beauty is an attraction to good. We don’t have style of a friend, in the street or at a distance, it is because his truth is revealed in his appearance. to follow Plato to that point; we can continue to conceive of an attraction to beauty that has nothing to do His walk, or his manner of occupying space, speaks to his uniqueness. To attach importance to with morality. There is no doubt that beauty ofen goes beyond mere good and evil. But the Platonic vision elegance is to remember that our human depth also embraces our appearance. Elegance is the helps us to view elegance as an ideal for living. We can seek out beauty of form and grace of gesture in outward apparition of my depth within my appearance. Speaking of style, Victor Hugo wrote: “The order to be both a beautiful person and have style. form is the content that rises to the surface.” We human animals have been attached to symbolism This understanding of elegance always implies at least the possibility of moral behavior. See, for and the beauty of forms since we lived in caves. We are “superficial in our profundity,” as Nietzsche example, Robert de Niro in Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York. He behaves badly toward Liza Minnelli. put it so well; for us, elegance is anything but superficial. Elegance speaks of my concern to invent And yet his every step, every shoulder shrug, every look is achingly elegant. What does this elegance myself in the eyes of the other, a concern that is shared by the other. Elegance is directed convey to us? That he could behave better, or could have behaved better or regrets not having behaved simultaneously at myself and at others. I endeavor to conduct myself with elegance in faithfulness to better? In short, it’s that he is a moral person. He’s neither perfect nor beyond reproach.He’s a man who myself but at the same time I address this conduct to others. Being elegant always shows that thinks, who doubts, who questions the notions of good and evil. His elegance is inextricably linked to his elegance is possible. A “graceful gesture” is a gesture that is not only formally elegant but morally questioning and to his conscience. Without these, there’d only be style. ■ Dandies Past

and Present by Pierre Jouan Elegance is a subtle notion and subject to the vagaries of time. Each person or group interprets it in their own way, respecting the norm to a greater or lesser degree. From the dandies of yesteryear to today’s fancy dressers, from the aristocratic tradition to globalized society, diferent codes of elegance are at play. riginally, no doubt seem to believe, an immoderate taste for about it, the dandy was an idle aristocrat. the toilet and material elegance”; when one In 18th-century English society, one was was truly “in love with distinction above generally content to conform to one’s rank all things, the perfection of his toilet will consist Oand disinclined to leave it. High society was in absolute simplicity.” One had to avoid being governed by strict social conventions, rules extravagant, extrovert or conspicuous, for and customs. In short, a recipe for boredom. elegance went hand in hand with a certain The dandy sought to break with the restraint, a composure of philosophical origin monotonous triviality of his everyday life by that detested scandal and publicity. cultivating a form of separation, namely that The elegant young man was drawn to of the individual from the group or circle. Yet futility in a world stifled by gravity: to take he was no revolutionary as his very distinction meticulous care with the fold of a tie or the presupposed an established order. The art of studiously negligent fall of a scarf was a way dandyism was to assert one’s singularity while of saying that nothing really mattered, that moving within the confines of propriety and men’s great ideas were hollow and that paying never to overstep those boundaries for fear of fussy attention to one’s appearance was no marginalization. “Eccentricity is unbridled, less deep than a speech full of gravitas on wild and blind. . . . Dandyism on the contrary, politics or morality. In a world that was all while still respecting the conventionalities, appearance and no substance, one had plays with them,” is how Barbey d’Aurevilly put to be naive to see a depth in things; the dandy it. It is like walking a tightrope, adopting a def explored the surface, ofering a kind of pose between originality and the norm, superior profundity. “It is only shallow people between audacity and reason. who do not judge by appearances,” This form of elegance was therefore said Oscar Wilde, with his characteristic sense a matter of balance. Sidestepping the of paradox. conformism, which dictated that everyone should dress appropriately but without From idle aristocrat to urban tribe originality, the dandy added something But this élégant, as depicted by Baudelaire diferent to his attire—a new cut, an unusual and Proust, served his time. In the collective color—without ever losing his sense of consciousness he became a heroic figure of moderation; for if he deviated too far from the inspiration for the masses, consumed by that norm, one would only perceive his excesses, inextricable paradox: if everyone was a dandy, not his taste, and the efect would be lost. In his then no one was. book about Beau Brummell, the epitome of Elegance, as a means to create a certain PAGE 40 John Singer Sargent, portrait of Carolus- Duran, French painter (detail), 1879. the English dandy, Barbey says that Brummell efect, took on a diferent meaning. Among PAGE 41 Rose Callahan, portrait of Raymond Chu, “lef scarlet to savages,” adding that “to be the members of a specific group or culture, actor and dandy, photographed in Chinatown, well turned out, you must not be noticed.” it became codified, acting as a social marker New York, 2010. ABOVE Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Portrait In a similar vein, Baudelaire observed that to the detriment, sometimes, of its intrinsic of the Count Pierre de Quinsonas, circa 1913. dandyism is not, “as many thoughtless people simplicity.

42 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 43 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 44 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 45 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 dress style as a discreet display of protest against injustice—what Peter Meaden, manager of the rock group The Who, summed up in his famous words: “Clean living under difcult circumstances.” It was a principle that reflected the dignity of the proletarian in the face of oppression, and his silent glee at symbolically winning the class struggle when, at every encounter with his social superior, he was aware of being the more elegant of the two. His overall appearance was irreproachable and yet the devil was in the details since his impertinence was there for all to see. Recent decades have seen the working classes borrow bourgeois-style elegance in countless ways, in part mimicry, in part provocation. In the Republic of Congo, the urban movement La SAPE (Société des itness the zazous of the 1940s Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes) in France, whose passion for jazz music and worships prestige brands and haute couture; Wnightlife engendered a kind of sartorial while in the West, young people from the hyperbole: excessively high shirt collars, working-class suburbs favor luxury sportswear. inordinately long jackets, hair always curled Dressing with style, and not lacking touches of and an umbrella whatever the weather! It might extravagance, is a way to identify with a group have been a passing fad had it not taken on and to be identifiable. a new meaning during World War II, when the But if elegance can be bought, if it is zazous’ frivolous dress style became a discreet becoming standardized, does it not cease to be but efective way for young people to thumb elegant? If we are to distinguish ourselves from their nose at the Occupation; their bravado our peers should we not return to a form of was reflected, for example, in the absurdly wide simplicity? It is no small irony that the “no look” pants they wore at a time when fabric was concept, using ordinary clothes and strictly rationed. Elegance, even when bizarre, secondhand or recycled pieces, should have had become a token of recognition. become the last word in elegance. Unbranded A mark of panache, a sign of revolt against clothing, retro shoes and banal beanies any the established order, in the 1960s the British time of year are the distinctive signs of a young mods turned elegance into a class issue. generation that is uncomfortable with mass Originally they were a group of style-conscious consumption. And this purely sartorial rebellion modern jazz lovers who donned close-fitting has created its own cliché: the hipster, a person suits to pose in London’s trendy districts, a who is totally modern with a deceptively rustic Jean-Paul Sartre book tucked under their arm. exterior. Behind that repellent term it is still But the phenomenon caught on and the mod the neighbor being referred to, mired as he style became popular worldwide: a suit (tailor- is in contradictions: his simplicity belies his made and in an unlikely color), a three-button sophistication, and his revolt is a submission PAGE 44 Rose Callahan, Mickael François Loir, jacket (the last one always undone), a turtleneck to global culture. designer at Le Loir en or shirt (with a button-down collar, always Perhaps there is too much artifice in the Papillon - Paris, buttoned), cufed pants (slightly too short), elegance of the hipster when, in essence, it photographed in Paris, 2011. PAGE 45 Henri-Lucien Doucet, suede boots and a French crop haircut. It was should be self-evident, almost natural. Wanting Portrait of Robert, Count an immutably spruce look that stated their to be elegant in a conspicuous manner points of Montesquiou-Fézensac, afliation to a group. to not having what it takes. Elegance is not critic and poet (detail), 1879. RIGHT PAGE Rose Callahan, The mods were proud to belong to the something you can put your finger on; it has Sven Raphael Schneider, working class and their elegance was a a je ne sais quoi that cannot be put neatly into founder and editor-in-chief reinterpretation of upper-class conventions. words. And that is probably why elegant men of Gentleman’s Gazette, Their look was a form of political insolence, a tend to be as attractive as they are irritating photographed in New York, 2012; Antonio de La Gandara, private rebellion. Unable to overthrow the world since all we can really say about them is that we Portrait of Jean Lorrain, writer from their humble position, the mods used their never really know how they do it. and journalist (detail), 1898.

46 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 47 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 The Touch of Beauty The elegance of dressing in precious jewelry, daringly donning a sensuality that enables beauty to flourish. High jewelry and femininity form an inseparable, potent duo, made mutually resonant in a sublime union of grace and glamour. Cartier’s creations as seen by an artist.

Drawings and monotypes by Aurore de La Morinerie

BROOCH — white gold, one 46.12-carat cushion-shaped purple tourmaline, plique-à-jour enamel, onyx, brilliant-cut diamonds.

48 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 49 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 — platinum, two coral drops, two cabochon-cut corals, natural pearls, coral beads, cabochon-cut turquoises, onyx, brilliant-cut diamonds. brilliant-cut onyx, beads, cabochon-cut turquoises, pearls, coral natural cabochon-cut corals, two drops, coral — platinum, two

PENDANT EARRINGS PENDANT 51 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 carats, coral, onyx, emeralds, brilliant-cut diamonds. brilliant-cut emeralds, onyx, coral, carats, 68 . 133 — platinum, fourteen coral beads totaling beads totaling coral — platinum, fourteen

52 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 BRACELET 53 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 -carat cabochon-cut amethyst, brilliant-cut diamonds. brilliant-cut cabochon-cut amethyst, -carat 16 . 26 platinum, one

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54 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 RING 55 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 LONG NECKLACE/BACK NECKLACE — platinum, chalcedony beads, amethyst beads, amethysts, brilliant-cut diamonds. “ Elegance in language is like luxury in society. Neither one nor the other can exist within the principles of the weak but only when the weak are made cultured, capable experts.” FRANCESCO ANTONIO ASTORE, La filosofia dell’eloquenza, o sia L’eloquenza della ragione. Design: Form and Function by Alberto Cavalli The fatal year: 1789. Dispatched to the court at Versailles, the fledgling ambassador Thomas Jeferson returned to the newly born United States of America amid the clangor of gunfire and the collapse of old worlds. The future president had spent just five years at the court of Louis XVI. Yet those months of marvels and worldliness permitted him to bring back across the Atlantic two visions that were destined to forever change the Western concept of elegance: the perfect proportions of Palladian architecture, then a dominant trend in France thanks to English influence; and the exciting magnificence of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. Deeply impressed with the sovereign’s exquisite sense of style, Thomas Jeferson wrote that she was the perfect representation of everything that art, good taste and wealth allowed one to obtain. At the same time, he was so intimately subjugated to the formal purity of Palladian classicism that the future president laid the foundation for an original declination of elegance that would come to characterize not only the University of Virginia, an authentic “small city” inspired by Vicentine architecture, but Washington itself. Sumptuousness and sobriety, splendor and rigor, a spasmodic search for the ephemeral, surprising, iconic efects through a timeless hieratic key, these apparently contrasting elements perfectly identify the creative dissonance that would determine the very concept of elegance, thus bridging not only the ancien régime and modernity but also Europe and America as well as aristocracy and democracy to boot. Through historical comprehension of this generative dialogue we can understand why the “taste” that Montesquieu, in his entry for the Encyclopédie, declared unfailingly connected with a “certain something” derived of aristocratic influence was then transformed into a series of codes, sensations and rules that were transversal to diferent worlds, classes and disciplines. Because while it’s true that elegance is innate, and that being elegant is undoubtedly more an attitude (or a gesture) than an object, it is equally true that from the 1700s onward a certain snobbism among members of court was no longer viewed as an expression of refinement but rather associated with the terrible parvenu: an individual who represents the exact opposite of the elegant man, just as vulgarity (as Coco Chanel would later afrm) represents the precise opposite of luxury. It was clear times had changed when in 1870 another American, Henry James, who in The Nation magazine wrote of the kaleidoscopic and sumptuous clothing worn by the ladies of Saratoga, spoke probably for the first time ever of a “democratization of elegance.” Was it somehow a reference to Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, which the aristocratic had written in 1835 and which was a reflection on the way to best protect personal liberty in a world racing toward an equality of living conditions? Or was it the response that history was supplying another Frenchman, Honoré de Balzac, and his concept of an elegance that “did not consist so much in clothing, as in the way it was worn”? His elegant life, as it was described in his famous essay from 1830, seemed, in the eyes of Tocqueville five years later, not only profoundly classist but even a bit boring. It comes back to the fact that elegance was and is an expression of freedom, expressiveness and naturalness. This new yearning for the rationalization of beauty, this attitude of simplicity and proportion that the Pre-Raphaelites would connect with the style that preceded the migration of Urbanites to Rome soon found a sanctification at London’s 1851 Universal Expo that was destined to endure. Reporting to the king of Sardinia on the masterworks of modern industry and crafsmanship on display at the Crystal Palace, Conte Sermattej anticipated one of the key points of the culturally aware planning typical of design: the perfect union of form and function—in other words, a search for beauty that is no obstacle to the object’s fruition. “The steel is clear and of extremely beautiful

58 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 59 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 quality, a work of true perfection, but the design could not be more baroque,” wrote the Savoy aristocrat, commenting on a particularly bold set of tableware. “What fingers will ever make use of those scissors, elaborated and tormented in such a way that they’ve been rendered practically impossible to use? And what mouth will avail itself of that trident-shaped fork, which seems more than anything else ready to lacerate any tongue that attempts to caress it?” If even the aristocrats stigmatize pomp and excess, invoking an elegance carved out around function, it is clear that the dialogue between the diferent visions entertained by Thomas Jeferson had carried out their revolution: bringing beauty into everyday life, extending its power to useful objects but avoiding that afectation which efectively is, as Baldassare Castiglioni emphasized in his admirable text Il Cortigiano (The Book of the Courtier), the farthest thing imaginable from true elegance. In other words, beauty and elegance are aesthetically evolved and functionally plausible. The establishment of an increasingly close dialogue between crafsman and industry, art and production, fashion and the avant-garde led to a series of revolutions in the very concept of elegance that was fatally destined to bring about an entirely contemporary idea of design. While in Europe Art Nouveau and later Art Deco led to the rigors of the Bauhaus, in America the desire for beautiful forms led to the legendary model of mass production. One of the protagonists of this search for beauty, at once aesthetic and formal, was undoubtedly Raymond Loewy, who dominated American design for over forty years. Afer all, what could be less aristocratic than a locomotive? And at the same time, what could be more elite than an automobile? Loewy, with his advanced, aerodynamic and aesthetically sober solutions, transferred Le Corbusier’s intuitions to objects used in everyday life, to symbols of progress, to icons of contemporary existence that were right under everyone’s noses. It trained PAGE 58 The Rotunda at the many an eye to appreciate a beauty and style no longer confined to the couture salons. It became University of Virginia, the flame and fuel for a new desire, setting alongside the elegance of the mind—“the only real Charlottesville, elegance,” according to legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland—an accessible, difuse and even completed in 1826. The university was didactic elegance of form, didactic in the sense that it led to an experimentation of new solutions. founded in 1819 by Indeed, who would have imagined that the sumptuous rooms of the Élysée Palace, at the time Thomas Jeferson, occupied by the exquisite Madame de Pompadour, would one day house Pierre Paulin’s chairs? author of the United Who could have imagined a French president seated on pieces by the creator of the Orange Slice States Declaration of Independence (1776) Chair, the 560 (Mushroom) Chair and the Tongue Chair? and third president To tell the truth, Yves Saint Laurent could have easily imagined it. He was the first one to recognize of the United States that the true “chic” originated on the Rive Gauche within artistically evolved environments that (1801–1809). He designed the layout were therefore disconnected from the old “elegant life” of Balzac. Saint Laurent also agreed with of the campus like an Vreeland that “elegance is refusal,” a refusal of the old, the ugly, the useless. academic village. The Rotunda was inspired by Rome’s Pantheon, while the other buildings in the neoclassical style fuse functionalism with symbolism. They reflect Jeferson’s ideals for oday, it has even become banal to recognize that the democratization of luxury “has been the new American the single most important marketing phenomenon of modern times,” as author James B. Twitchell republic. T RIGHT has afrmed. It is less banal to reflect on the fact that this difusion of luxury has also led to a new Armchair by French concept of elegance: when the object is accessible to (almost) everyone, the individual reemerges designer Pierre Paulin, to make a diference. Loewy, for example, “transformed the world of those objects among which 1959. Part of the millions of people conduct their daily lives.” It is hard to deny the role of the object in the evolution famous 560 series, it is nicknamed the of the individual or the collective consciousness, or the fact that elegance is, once again, a fine Mushroom Chair. balance between form and function. Paulin is said to have This intuition is joined by another attribute, one that Jeferson had already glimpsed, been inspired by the shapely forms of de Tocqueville hypothesized and Saint Laurent celebrated: freedom. In ancient Greece, the beauty women sheathed in of the agora taught citizens of the polis a sense of justice. Beauty seems fragmented, dispersed, swimsuits. He covered hidden away like a Minotaur lost in a labyrinth. What remains is elegance, reminding us that justice his chair entirely in and beauty always walk hand in hand. There is the simplicity and spontaneity of gesture, a pureness stretch fabric for a perfectly smooth efect. of line and the knowledge that a human’s touch can transform material into desire. It evokes an This design was one of elegance that is everything art and good taste can—and must—create. ■ his favorites.

60 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 61 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 An Expressive Singularity by Bertrand Prévost Elegance is an obsession for many people; for animals, not at all. A girafe would never glance appreciatively at its own reflection while passing in front of a mirror, but women would admire the animal’s graceful gait. A chicken would not enter a beauty contest of its own volition, but people may make that choice for it. The elegance of animals is a profoundly human construction. own sake—of these stripes and spots, bright and iridescent colors, crests and tails? We may need to reflect simultaneously on the wealth and variation of these features and their extreme precision within a given specimen. Haphazard colors are unknown to the animal world, even on the most flamboyant parrot. So how do we explain all of these qualities on their own without reducing them to a design of nature, or worse, the artistic plan of some divine being? Clearly, to introduce the notion of elegance into the animal realm is to blur the boundary between nature and culture. Could this also imply that our own artistic space is not entirely distinct from nature as we supposed? In reality, these questions have nothing to do with the artistic abilities of animals and it would be quite pointless to evoke well-worn examples of the ingenious crafsmanship of the spider and its web, the beaver and its dam, the bee and its honeycomb or the bowerbird and its nest. The aim is not to see the animal’s form as the result of some artistic design or plan, according to which it produces even its own attire, but to consider the animal’s appearance in all its singularity—its distinctiveness compared to other appearances but also in and of itself, with its sovereign precision and inherent uniqueness (one pattern, one shape, one color, etc.). In place of an objective form having specific traits, animal elegance should be thought of as a deeper form of expression. This elegance would then be a means of perceiving the autonomous expression of living forms. The life sciences have also examined these questions of aesthetics. Since Darwin’s theory ince the dawn of humanity, of evolution, we know that the development the animal realm has lent its materials and of a given form is ofen due to natural and forms—feathers, fur, leather, bone and scales— sexual selection processes: for example, Sto human fashions, from the crudest to the most feathers serve as protection from the cold elegant. Simply consider how our sartorial and also as adornment for courtship rituals. vocabulary continues to bear this zoological More recently, scientists have attempted to imprint, in its wasp waists and swallowtails, explicate morphogenesis by unveiling the herringbone and houndstooth, boas and physical and chemical processes governing aigrettes. While it is easy to visualize this the development of forms, including chemical borrowing by humans, it is more difcult to Photos by Eric Sander, and structural coloration, pattern formation contemplate animal elegance on its own or “Coq & Roll” series, 2011. and regular organization. But the specific at least other than through metaphors PRECEDING DOUBLE PAGE aspect that these explanations systematically Silver-Laced attributing human aesthetic characteristics to Crested Polish hen. overlook, whether they point to external animals. Perhaps the whole question lies herein: LEFT PAGE functions or internal morphogenetic processes, how can we describe the elegance of animals Padovana White is the supreme distinctiveness—in other words, without resorting to vague poetic expressions Frizzle hen. clarity or precision—that results in this animal PAGE 67 Padovana or simple metaphor? How can we envision Chamois Frizzle having this set of colors or one specimen having the sovereignty—the state of existing for one’s bantam hen. green stripes while another has yellow.

64 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 65 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 ERIC SANDER For sixteen years, in stories and portraits, Eric Sander photographed the American Far West in all its diversity and eccentricity for popular European and American magazines. iological evolution, thanks in on the same level as metabolism and During his long stay in Bparticular to advancements in genetics, adeptly reproduction. One could say that the Swiss California, he portrayed explains the principle of variation of forms but zoologist was not so much concerned with the wide-open spaces, fails to enlighten about the varieties produced. animal forms as with what is inside them to make new customs and Look at how we choose our own appearance: them expressive, diferentiating between extravagant characters. to wear a striped necktie is not the same as “genuine” appearances (for example, the color In 2001, the photographer wearing one with polka dots, even if the of a morpho butterfly or the stripes of a tropical returned to France to aesthetic, social and subjective functions of the fish) and non-genuine appearances (the shape rediscover the beauty and tie-wearing are identical and the processes by of the heart or the intestines). This is the reason richness of his own country. which the stripes or dots are woven into the tie for his focus on the autonomous nature of a In the Dordogne he worked are similar. It’s exactly the same for animals. designed appearance and an aesthetic on one of his favorite themes: We can point out that the iridescent blue of dimension independent from organic functions. nature and gardens. Since the peacock’s neck comes from a structural Here is probably where elegance enters 2010, twelve books have been coloration difracting only blue light (physical the equation: to qualify or determine a vaster published on the subject. color) and not from a blue pigment (chemical expressiveness. Whether human or animal, color) but little is said about what it means for elegance lies perhaps in the ability of a form the peacock to have a blue neck rather than or color to claim its independence and exist a red or yellow one, and even less about as a pattern in and of itself. Elegance can be the stunning composition created by the mix described as a form of distinctiveness. Yet while of this blue with the smaller black feathers and the latter should of course be understood in white skin of the peacock’s head or of this same relation to other forms and patterns it should blue with the iridescent green of the train. be considered on its own. What does this imply? Singularity—in this case, a unique color—gives That the elegance of a shape or color becomes the elegance of animal forms its expressiveness. all the more expressive when it can break free To better understand this expressiveness of from or rise above its organic substance, living things, we can refer to the brilliant work of detached from any bodily shape. Elegance Adolf Portmann, a relatively overlooked Swiss then becomes synonymous with abstraction, zoologist who published in the mid-20th century. if by this we mean a force abstracting the Throughout his writings on morphology, in individual form. One can only concur that particular his principal work Die Tiergestalt animals have mastered the art of producing written in 1948 (published in English in 1952 as these strange robes. Once their patches and Animal Forms and Patterns: A Study of the bands of color no longer denote anatomical Appearance of Animals), Portmann consistently divisions, once the rosettes, crests and stripes denounced the utilitarianism of the theory of no longer adorn specific body parts an evolution and the mechanism of morphogenetic abstract garb emerges to divest the animal models. Rather than explain forms based on of a part or, in the extreme cases of their function or origin, he sought to understand camouflage, all of its individual corporeity them through their appearance insofar as to exist only as a motif. In short, that is the appearance can be considered a vital function pinnacle of elegance.

66 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 67 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 The Rhythm of Bodies, the Melody of Drapery: On Elegance in Greek Sculpture

Let the gaze follow from the fold of the elbow to the curve of the goddess’s or muse’s shoulder, from the knee pressing against the dress to the belly and breast that may be hidden or bare. Touch with your eyes the muscular torsos and outreaching arms of gods and ephebi. The works of Ancient Greek sculptors have survived the centuries as beacons of beauty and elegance.

by Alain Pasquier hen the sculptor Henri-Frédéric fold and fall of fabric. The tunic of the figure Iselin was commissioned to create a in the Opéra is merely a feeble echo of these Wpersonification of Elegance for the Grand Foyer based on diluted adaptions in Roman sculpture. of the new Opéra de Paris, built during the Those Archaic Greek statues, most of which show Second Empire, he gave it the form of a young how elegance can transcend fashion, are woman clad in antique-style drapery. Standing sufused with timeless grace. In Athens as in the poised, in her lef hand she draws a bunch ruins of other Helladic cities, they survived the of flowers close to her breast, her right hand millennia with their freshness fully intact. In the slightly raises the tunic that is falling around her modern era several big names in couture sought feet. There is nothing surprising about such an to recapture that quality. Created in 1907, the evocation of antiquity in a gallery of allegories “Delphos” dress by Mariano Fortuny contrived within a building in which architect Charles to imitate the slender, dynamic silhouette of Garnier so freely cites the forms of Greek and the figure surrounded by fabric that trembles Roman art, especially when we consider that in all its folds, as found, for example, in a superb Iselin himself belonged to a generation fired statue from Samos. The evening gowns with enthusiasm for the architecture, sculpture fashioned by Madeleine Vionnet also played on and painting of classical antiquity, knowledge the sense of transparency that tunics and cloaks of which had advanced considerably thanks ofered the gaze as they adjusted and changed to recent archeological discoveries. But this with the wearer’s body. And American dancer personification means something more: the Isadora Duncan achieved great success with the association of elegance with classical statuary efects to be had from the manipulation also tells us that Johann Winckelmann’s of drapery. celebration of the “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur” that placed Greek sculpture at the pinnacle of the arts still had currency among cultivated minds a hundred years afer it was formulated. This being said, we should recognize that in his efort to represent elegance Iselin fell short PRECEDING DOUBLE PAGE circa 1930 by the Myron, Discobolus, Spanish-born fashion of the mark. Although executed à la grecque, 5th century BC, and textile designer his rather bland and staid figure is too much Classical period (detail). Mariano Fortuny y a creature of Second Empire France: the length RIGHT PAGE Winged Victory Madrazo; Pensive of Samothrace, 2nd [Mourning] Athena, 5th of right leg revealed by a parting in the garment century BC, Hellenistic century BC, Classical is more Ofenbach Paris than Periclean Athens. period. period (detail). It was not until a decade later that the site of the FOLLOWING PAGE Kore, 6th PAGE 73 Model posing as Acropolis yielded up its wonderful korai, those century BC, Heraion of a Greek statue. She wears Samos; “Delphos” and Roman-style pyjamas marble statues of young women whose delicate “Peplos” dresses by the French couturière drapery embroiders endless variations on the designed in 1907 and Madeleine Vionnet, 1931.

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Certainly, the ancient Greeks, for whom dance, with the multiple taut muscles of his beauty and goodness shaded into one, immense body conjoining strength and grace. generally strove for complete harmony in their Women, in contrast, are always dressed, or at artistic creations. This is evident in everything least until the 4th century BC, when the Athenian from the majestic temples conceived for their Praxiteles created the Aphrodite of Cnidus, gods to the smallest everyday objects. We need the first female nude in classical sculpture and only consider the metamorphosis over the a quintessence of beauty whose countless centuries present in their recreations of the descendants are still with us today. However, fabulous creatures that, early in their history, these nudes represent only a portion of the art they borrowed from the East. As these fearsome created afer this event. Many of these monsters became Greek, so their forms mutated goddesses and mortals are still robed in cloths into a sofened composition of perfectly ordered as subtle in their execution as they are varied lines in which equilibrium regulated all the in their motifs. In Classical or Hellenistic models, proportions, removing any hint of dissonance elegance is expressed in the changing but from their graphic or visual melody. Whether always harmonious relation that artists were architects, sculptors or potters, Greek artists able to create between the body and the fabric. always chose the path of refinement. That is The korai, as we have seen, lend their form to why the enormous blocks of stone forming the the endlessly renewed play of folds, in which façade of the Parthenon seem so light, and what the imitation of reality yields to the desire for makes a drinking cup a masterpiece of delicacy. ornament, an efect that was surely furthered This relation, as we know, is constantly by decorative painting. But the surface of these present in the elaboration of human figures: materials grows more moderate at the end of the representation of the human body must the Archaic period; bodies are draped more always contain the pulsations of a certain simply, with large smoothed areas over the rhythm. This may have undergone changes bosom and a row of long deep folds hanging over the generations but it never ceases to down vertically. This is the age of the peplos, shape the silhouette, carefully ordering the a thicker garment of which there were several entire construction of the body. Represented varieties, including the one worn by the Pensive standing, men are usually clothed only in their [Mourning] Athena. The Parthenon frieze muscles. These handsome youths, their bodies assembles female figures dressed in the peplos marshaled by exercise, are never imbalanced whose noble posture perfectly captures that by the practice of a given sporting discipline. simple and natural grace in which we generally Bone and muscle combine with true felicity. recognize the definition of elegance. Initially at rest, these athletes were later There could be no better demonstration captured in movements that exclude violence, of the diferent colors refracted by the prism of exalting equilibrium rather than threatening it. elegance in the world of Greek sculpture than The famous bronze Poseidon in Athens’ National the figures of Victory and Nike. The allegory Archaeological Museum brandishes his weapon itself has moral elegance, an elegance that, as if performing a choreographic movement distancing the tedious spectacle of the bound that exudes ease yet remains powerful. and vanquished, chooses the graceful image As for Myron’s Discobolus, it is not only a of a beautiful winged young woman flying discus thrower but also a symbol of reason: there fluidly through the skies to announce triumph. is, in the deployment of this figure in space, The Nike of Delos, with its radiant smile, prettily a sovereign harmony between fullness and void, stylizes swif movement, while the Nike of Paros an abstract construction that takes from the real says everything with almost nothing: elevation, only that which makes form “sing.” From another suspension in the air, lightness. As for the viewpoint, the Borghese Gladiator, a fine Winged Victory of Samothrace, it converts LEFT PAGE Poseidon, 5th century example of late Greek sculpture, strikes the howling of the storm into harmonious BC, Classical period a posture that is a cross between fencing and chords. (detail).

74 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 75 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 For Men Only

Cartier, the watchmaker of forms. A rectangle for the Tank watch, a parentheses for the Tortue watch, taut curves for the Clé de Cartier watch. Each timepiece embodies the same ideal of purity. Their lines seek balance, modeling a masculine elegance that is perfect for every occasion.

photographs by styling by Eric Sauvage Nicolas Guillon gold case. 430 MC, 18K white caliber movement, manual winding mechanical model, Manufacture – large – platinum, 18K white gold, one cabochon-cut colored sapphire, emeralds, mother-of-pearl, brilliant-cut diamonds. brilliant-cut mother-of-pearl, emeralds, sapphire, gold, one cabochon-cut – platinum, 18K white colored

76 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 TORTUE WATCH BROOCH77 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 CURVES OR CORNERS? STRAIGHT OR CONVEX LINES? The Drive de Cartier wristwatch plays on paradoxes, harmoniously uniting circle and square. The sleek, bold masculine aesthetic of this new timekeeper makes it an instant classic.

DRIVE DE CARTIER WATCH – Manufacture self-winding mechanical movement, caliber 1904 MC, 18K pink gold case. CUFFLINKS – 18K pink gold, cabochon-cut silvered obsidians.

78 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 79 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 – extra-large model, Manufacture manual winding mechanical movement, caliber 430 MC, 18K pink gold case. movement, manual winding mechanical model, Manufacture – extra-large – Manufacture self-winding mechanical movement, caliber 1904 MC, 18K pink gold case. movement, mechanical self-winding – Manufacture TANK LOUIS CARTIER WATCH

DRIVE DE CARTIER WATCH CARTIER DE DRIVE

80 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 PAGE LEFT ABOVE 81 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 ABOVE AND RIGHT PAGE CLÉ DE CARTIER WATCH – 40mm, Manufacture self-winding mechanical movement, caliber 1847 MC, 18K pink gold case. Montre Rotonde de Cartier est proposé en doluptiis sunt ex eum ium is eossita sequatem ra volor aut 82 // ELEGANCE ABOVE / NUMBERBROOCH 42 – yellow gold, pink gold, chalcedony, one natural pearl, diamonds. Cartier Paris for New York, circa 1953. 83 // ELEGANCEexplandantem / NUMBER 42que nest, ut faciuntia volore mos elessequam, volorem is duciduciunt quia as eturion sedisto tota voloreperit. LEFT PAGE AND ABOVE CALIBRE DE CARTIER DIVER WATCH 84 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 85 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 42mm, Manufacture self-winding mechanical movement, caliber 1904 MC, steel case. IRIS VAN HERPEN: A Perfect Balance

Dutch designer Iris van Herpen turns the conventions of fashion inside out. Reptilian, organic, technologically challenging and impeccably crafted, her creations confuse and delight. A former assistant of Alexander McQueen, frock-maker and friend to Lady Gaga, Daphne Guinness and Björk, Van Herpen has discreetly staked her place in the select circles of Parisian couture with her modern take on elegance. She herself is as graceful and demure as she is determined. Interview by Emmanuelle Polle

86 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 87 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 or you, what is elegance? There is more than one kind of elegance. It would be simplistic to say there is only one model, excluding all others. Elegance is when time, place and the individual all come together. FThe conjunction of self-knowledge and self-awakening, the conjunction of inside and outside. The more you’re in harmony with yourself, the more elegant you are. The more you try to be someone else, the less you glow. Too ofen people try to reduce elegance to beauty, whereas for me it’s all a matter of proportion and balance. Two very beautiful women can look perfect in the same garment but one may lose her elegance because of her personality or attitude. It’s because I love these metamorphoses that I do this work.

Your designs play on the spectacular, you have introduced a new way of wearing and looking at clothes. Is dressing a gesture that we do for ourselves or for others? How we dress is very cultural. I would say that in Europe the pleasure of clothes is more a personal pleasure, whereas in Asia part of this pleasure is turned outwards: people dress to please others.

My work plays on proportions, which are what fashion is all about. I engage with disciplines and PRECEDING DOUBLE PAGE techniques outside the world of fashion as a way of bringing out new ideas. The proportions of the AND PAGE 90 Biopiracy, haute female body are a great source of inspiration, and when you decide to change those proportions couture Fall/Winter that will impact the garment and the body wearing it. A garment needs movement to come to life. 2014–2015, handmade Maybe that’s why I enjoy working for dancers so much. dress from green-gray goat suede with ray fish print and black In his memoirs, Christian Dior says that whenever he had to design a collection he would spend embedded beads. a month in his hideaway outside Paris, drawing hundreds of models. Is that how you work? RIGHT PAGE Magnetic Each designer has their own process. I have noticed that if I start only with drawing I soon feel Motion, haute couture Spring/ blocked because drawing remains an intellectual process. It’s in the mind, then it’s in the studio Summer 2015, detail and afer that you’re just doing variations on a theme and pretty soon you start to feel you’re of dress handmade repeating yourself. I need my mind to be in equilibrium with my body, and that’s why I’m happier in 3D-printed transparent fabric, working on dolls. in collaboration with Philip Beesley; Hacking What kind of dolls? Small or large dolls? That’s what couturières like Jeanne Lanvin Infinity, haute couture and Madeleine Vionnet did in the 1920s. Fall/Winter 2015–2016, detail of dress, My creations are contemporary but I work in a very traditional way. These are human-size dolls, hand-plissé and which are like models but static. I create forms by mixing materials. When I started out in fashion burned stainless I wanted to do everything by hand—to sew, make patterns. I wanted to control things as much as steel mesh; Magnetic Motion, Spring/ I could. Only later did I go of and explore other fields like 3D printing, new materials and try Summer 2015, detail collaborations with artists. All these techniques are now in my “toolbox.” They haven’t replaced of “RTW” dress, anything, they’re an addition to my skill set. Everything comes together and finds its place on the 3D-printed laser-cut leather texture same garment. embedded with When I’m modeling on my dolls, it’s like meditation. I work very unconsciously, my mind is laser-cut crystals; elsewhere. These are rare, silent, precious moments. I like to be alone at such times, which isn’t Hacking Infinity, Fall/ always possible because of things that come up in the studio and as part of everyday work. Winter 2015–2016, detail of flexible and But when I’m working for other people, dancers for example, I have to include a drawing phase, translucent 3D-printed because I need to adjust and understand another person’s wishes. That’s very diferent. “Echo” dress.

88 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 89 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 90 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 91 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 When you’re working with dancers, the distance from which you appreciate a costume is not the same as it is for street clothes? Is elegance about finding that right distance? Elegance really is a matter of the distance between the wearer and the beholder. At the opera, this distance is at least twenty meters. It changes the way you think about the garments. But, distance aside, the two approaches, to fashion and ballet costumes, are fundamentally diferent. A costume must be “super-comfortable” and there can be no exceptions, which is not always the case with some of the spectacular pieces for runway shows. Even if my experience of dance is still fairly limited (I have worked with Dutch choreographer Nanine Linning and with Benjamin Millepied for the New York City Ballet and Opéra de Paris), I am hoping there will be more. Dance is very important to me. I have danced myself and, although I don’t have time for that now, I feel close to dancers. I know about dancers’ fascination with a body that you can see becoming deformed. Take the way a classical dancer holds her foot. The more arched the foot, the more deformed, the more exaggerated the curve, the more years of practice begins to show. For the New York City Ballet I therefore invented a kind of boot that reproduces and exaggerates this curvature of the foot. The dancers loved it.

In your shows it’s clear that the shoe is an element that structures the architecture of the silhouette. You have worked with Japanese designer Noritaka Tatehana. At what stage of the collection’s development did the question of the shoe come into play? I usually spend five months working on a collection and the shoes come into the creative process early on, afer about a month. It’s true that they are an important part of this quest for architectural construction. Tatehana and I played on the transfer of equilibrium, getting the equilibrium onto the toes rather than on the heel. This game of ours went all the way to dreaming up a crystal shoe, but of course it was too fragile. So we worked on the illusion of a crystal shoe. For the spring 2016 collection I worked with Finsk, a master of balance. If you look at the silhouette, it seems extreme, a crazy height and a gap, or so it seems, between the sole and the foot. And yet those shoes are like sneakers, ten times more comfortable than a pair of heels!

How do you construct a collection? Do you have a “bank of images” from all around the world? My way of working is very unconscious. It’s like a journey, a mental journey through all the images I collect in my head. I don’t write, I don’t take notes. I’ve never been very interested in language. At school I was always more attracted to mathematics, sequences of figures. Not that I am a scientific type. But I am a great collector of books. I buy them all the time and I go to museums a lot. But I hardly ever take photos, because taking a photo means you lose something of the moment you are living, and I don’t want to lose a thing. ■

PRECEDING PAGE Magnetic Motion, Spring/Summer 2015, transparent 3D-printed strapless “Ice” dress. LEFT Escapism, haute couture Spring/Summer 2011, silver-threaded dress. RIGHT PAGE Voltage, haute couture Spring/Summer 2013, handmade and laser-cut dress, in collaboration with Philip Beesley.

92 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 93 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 Elsie de Wolfe High Priestess of Taste

The famous blue rinse that puts the pizzazz into an aging lady’s white locks? One of her inventions, it seems. The heady Pink Lady cocktail? Her creation, some say. Interior decoration? Many credit her with both professionalizing and feminizing what was originally a pastime for society gents. Elsie de Wolfe was an unorthodox figure whose taste and refinement made her the go-to interior decorator for American and European high society.

by Bérengère Gouttefarde lsie de Wolfe, “an eccentric with Ean innate sense of chic,” lived several lives. Ella Anderson de Wolfe was born in New York on December 20, 1865 but became known by the name Elsie de Wolfe. In 1926, aged over sixty, she became Lady Mendl as a result of her surprising marriage to an English diplomat, the press attaché at the British Embassy in Paris. Born into the American bourgeoisie, she was an elegant society debutante, an actress and theater producer, a keen sportswoman, a peerless hostess, a nurse for the Red Cross during World War I, a decorator and an organizer of extraordinary soirées. But let’s start at the beginning. Her father, Stephen de Wolfe, was a doctor of distinguished old North American stock; her Scottish-born mother came from a family of scholars and lawyers who emigrated to Novia Scotia. Elsie grew up in the town of her birth, was privately tutored and attended society events. She got her taste for beauty and luxury from her father. In order to polish her education, the young woman was sent to finishing school in Europe at the age of seventeen. There she not only learned fine deportment but attended the social round of receptions and balls. In 1883 the success of her education was crowned by her presentation at the court of Queen Victoria. The 18th-century style: Returning to New York, Elsie had no choice a revolution but to work: her father soon died, leaving his When not acting or producing plays, de Wolfe family a heritage of heavy debt. Fortunately, traveled in France with her companion, she would be helped by two decisive friendships. frequenting the couture houses and luxury Shortly before leaving London, she had become jewelers of Paris. At Cartier she acquired the protégée of Mrs. Cora Potter, one of the first emerald jewelry and a tiara set with American society figures to become an actress. aquamarines that she wore for one of her Through her Elsie gained access to the world of productions. A faithful client of the house, both theater, first as an amateur and then as a in France and in America, all her life she bought PRECEDING PAGE Portrait of Elsie de Wolfe by Cecil professional actress. It was not long before she necklaces, brooches, medals, clocks, evening Beaton published in met Elisabeth Marbury, a pioneering impresario bags and other elegant accessories, including American Vogue in 1930. and also the agent of many foreign writers in the a cantine d’automobile. Dressed in her most ABOVE AND RIGHT PAGE United States. Bessy, as she was known, had a resplendent jewelry and fashionable outfits, Interiors of the Beverly Hills villa belonging to strong personality and a physique to match in de Wolfe frequented the aristocratic and artistic Countess Dorothy di contrast with Elsie’s delicacy. But the two women elite. During one of her trips to France she was Frasso. Decorated in 1936 were soon an item, their relationship common introduced to Robert de Montesquiou, a man by Elsie de Wolfe, the villa was inhabited notably by knowledge in American high society. The couple of letters, critic and dandy who was also one of Marlene Dietrich. In 1947, moved in together in 1892, buying a house on the most famous arbiters of taste. Through him, the pianist, composer Irving Place close to the elegant Gramercy Park. she discovered the decorative arts of the 18th and conductor José Iturbi Decorated by the young actress, Irving House century. This was a revelation. The French style purchased the house and lived there in the quickly became a meeting place for artistic of this period embodied the aesthetic harmony original decor until his and political figures. she had long been looking for. In 1897, death in 1980.

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V V V V V V V V 98 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 V 99 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 she rid Irving House of its dark tapestries and Clay Frick and the publisher Condé Montrose heavy Victorian furniture and made its interiors Nast all gave her the keys to their New York light and comfortable—these being new notions mansions. Now into her forties, Elsie’s acting in the bourgeois society at the end of the 19th life was a thing of the past. She had found century. The walls were white, beige or pale the profession that would bring her fame and gray, or hung with Chinoiserie-pattern fortune, as decorator to the crême de la crême. wallpaper. The furniture was upholstered with Published in 1913, her book The House in Good bird of paradise chintz. Mirrors expanded the Taste was a huge success and became the style spaces, spreading the daylight. Chaises longues bible of a generation. Her crusade against replaced strict armchairs. De Wolfe invented overwrought and over-stufed eclectic interiors, an interior to match her lifestyle, and it stunned her conception of simplified space and bright the high society guests that she and Marbury colors and her sense of modernity made a real received there. Indeed, many of the women impression on American taste. Her French asked their hostess for help reimagining their connections and friendships with what would own interiors. De Wolfe obliged, and in the first become European café society also helped few years charged nothing for her tips. broaden her horizons. In the early 1900s she and Marbury bought and restored the Villa Farewell to the boards Trianon in Versailles, turning it into a showcase Truth be told, de Wolfe was not the greatest of for the French and European public that she actresses. In fact, critics and audiences found hoped to charm. Her close circle included the her abominable. And yet her personality, Duchess of Windsor, whom she advised on the her good manners and her ever more elegant art of receiving and for whom she decorated outfits created by Jacques Doucet, Charles the Château de la Croë on Cap d’Antibes, Frederick Worth and Jeanne Paquin, as well as which Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor her sumptuous jewels, were truly seductive. acquired in 1938. Theaters filled as New York’s smart set flocked A decade earlier, though, in 1926, Elsie finally to admire this French-style refinement and had tied the knot. With a man: Sir Charles Mendl. discover the latest trends in European fashion, Everyone found Lady Mendl a disconcerting which was the height of chic. The supreme proposition, starting with Elisabeth Marbury, consecration came in 1900 when Harper’s although Marbury still made de Wolfe her sole Bazaar named de Wolfe the best-dressed heir in 1933. And so, in her sixties, de Wolfe had woman on the American arts scene. Still, acquired that missing jewel for her crown: a title. her career as an actress of modest talent was With Mendl, she continued to welcome the great unsatisfying. Marbury encouraged her to and the good and organize sumptuous monetize her precious decorating expertise and receptions at Villa Trianon. In 1938 and 1939 she so in 1905 she became an interior decorator. put on two “circus balls” in homage to the spring- De Wolfe started out by modernizing a few summer collection of her friend Elsa Schiaparelli. private apartments. However, it was her In their subtle mixture of elegance, lavishness and interiors for the Colony Club, the first American gaiety, these were like her last testament. club exclusively for women, that really launched When she passed away in 1950, de Wolfe, her name in 1907. Indeed, such was her success who had conquered and professionalized the that the Vanderbilts, Anne Morgan (the daughter male-dominated activity of interior decorating, of banker J.P. Morgan), the industrialist Henry was seen as the high priestess of taste. ■

LEFT PAGE Interior of the villa of Countess Dorothy di Frasso. In 2008, the house was put up for sale and the furniture sold at auction.

100 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 101 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S EYE

The women of the court came first, followed by actresses. Then female models—the muses of couture designers—struck their first poses in fashion magazines. Revealed through the lenses of the greatest photographers, the model portrayed the feminine ideal. Just like she does today. by Raphaëlle Stopin

102 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 irst fashion icon of the photographic era, the Countess of Castiglione understood quite well that photography, being reproducible by nature and so allowing images to be widely Fdisseminated, could satisfy her desire for self-promotion. Its relative speed of execution —compared to painting—opened the door for her to express all of her fantasies, allowing, for instance, some five hundred pictures of herself to be taken by Pierre-Louis Pierson, the photographer to the court of Napoleon III. From its earliest days photography thus embraced the feminine subject just as painting had done before it. And the feeling was mutual: female models posed with delight in the salons on Paris’s Grands Boulevards, where La Castiglione would dress up as the Queen of Etruria—in the typical 19th-century style of aping previous eras — and bourgeois women would picture themselves as La Castiglione. They quickly adopted these photographic portraits and the practice of portraiture spread to the emerging middle class. This space in which to project another imagined self, always in a staged setting, became a powerful tool of social construction. It reflected a desired identity, created with the extensive use of scenery, props and even wigs and was embellished with a few touch-ups. Photographic portraits began circulating in the 1860s in a visiting card format and were avidly collected, as baseball cards would later be traded in schoolyards. Tens of thousands of copies of the likenesses of Sarah Bernhardt, Queen Victoria and even Napoleon III were printed, PRECEDING DOUBLE PAGE Simone d’Aillencourt, bearing the stamp of the photographer’s studio: Nadar, Disdéri, Carjat or Mayer & Pierson. a celebrity model in Members of the bourgeois class aspiring to the fineries of aristocracy and the world of the stage the 1950s and ‘60s, could now place their own distinguished portrait alongside these illustrious figures, sometimes photographed in 1960 going so far as to imitate the poses of the luminaries in carefully arranged albums. Although by Melvin Sokolsky for Harper’s Bazaar. Zola and Baudelaire decried the standardization of the self-image it introduced and Sokolsky’s surrealist the resulting social conformism, photography was unstoppable and would soon be entering compositions every household. revolutionized fashion photography in the In news journals, on the eve of World War I, and later in gazettes and fashion magazines, 1960s. engravings and hand-drawn illustrations made way for photographs. Gradually, a new figure RIGHT PAGE Margaret emerged, one who could convey any fantasy: the fashion photographer. Aided by the fashion Horan photographed designer (today’s ubiquitous stylist played no part in image-making at the time), the fashion in 1935 by Edward Steichen, a pioneer of photographer was now the one to shape the feminine ideal. In a context of mass dissemination, fashion photography in the maker of images unwittingly became the standard-setter of elegance. the early 20th century.

104 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 One of fashion’s most illustrious photographers, a pioneer of the genre as of the 1920s, was Edward Steichen. He shot pictures for Vogue and Vanity Fair portraying women in stylish interiors, where minimalist geometric shapes create an architecture that was accessorized with a few objects: a grand piano here, an African sculpture there, his recurring staircase motif, all of these items hinted at—as elliptical as the reference may be—a luxurious setting. Like the designs she wears or the painted canvas she stands before, the woman is an object of style. More than a portrait, the image is the expression of an ideal of elegance to which the viewer aspires. The model is generally photographed head to toe, ofering a full-length view of the outfit and room for a feminine pose that is ofen reinforced by silhouetted shadows or mirrored reflections. In a more whimsical style, another Vogue photographer, the Englishman Cecil Beaton, would also paint women in sumptuous settings. They were ethereal creatures draped in elegance and playing on the great stage that is fashion. Norman Parkinson, an eccentric figure who contributed to fashion photography in the postwar years up until the 1980s, pushed further, producing many images depicting women as divine creatures, measuring their beauty against celebrated monuments. The postwar period nurtured the development of a new feminine ideal. Fashion grew bolder and models lef the stylish studios with their velvet drapes to interact with the outdoor world. Martin Munkácsi and Richard Avedon in his early career portrayed happy women running and jumping in playful beach scenes.

RIGHT The model Tamaris by Edward Steichen in 1925. FACING PAGE The American actress Adrienne Ames by the fashion photographer and portraitist Cecil Beaton, 1933.

106 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 107 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 ABOVE Fashion photograph by Norman Parkinson for British Vogue, 1956. In the background, Shore Temple in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Parkinson was little known despite a career spanning more than fify years as a fashion photographer and portraitist. He specialized almost exclusively in outdoor shots. RIGHT PAGE Simone d’Aillencourt by Melvin Sokolsky for Harper’s Bazaar, 1960.

108 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 ABOVE Simone & Nina, illiam Klein would undeniably pioneer this trend by thrusting his models on the Spanish Steps, Rome. Photograph into the turmoil of urban life in full swing, such as could be seen in the streets of Manhattan or Rome. taken by William Klein It is no coincidence that the 1950s saw the emergence of a woman who would be known as the for Vogue, 1960. At the “supermodel” toward the end of the 1980s: a face that was familiar in every household. Simone time, Klein was already W taking fashion d’Aillencourt, a favorite model of William Klein and Melvin Sokolsky, epitomized the dynamic, photographs in the liberated woman. Hers was an elegance that escaped the refined studio setting to hit the pavement. street, amid passing Elegance had definitely become a matter of attitude rather than clothing or environment. strangers. Here, the Now for a closer look with a case study: Paris, 1963. A bubble floats on the Seine. Inside is a artist is positioned above his subjects and woman, haute couture and much, much more. American photographer Sokolsky, the author of some distance away; iconic shots in the history of fashion photography, took great care to engineer the subject’s poses he uses a telephoto lens in his work, especially this series, making incremental adjustments in tandem with his model to to retain the natural atmosphere and scene achieve harmony. Simone d’Aillencourt, his muse, joins him in this near-choreographic quest. around the models. In the cocked hip, angled arms and hands, long crossed fingers and sharply tilted head, there RIGHT PAGE is no realism, only an extreme stylization of the female body evoking the slender young girls painted Simone d’Aillencourt in by Balthus. Rather than grandiloquent lyricism, the woman’s body conveys a hint of strangeness, one of Melvin Sokolsky’s famous bubbles, for coaxing fashion photography out of the anesthetizing comfort of its folds of white silk. Elegance Harper’s Bazaar, 1963. has become a shared quest of the photographer and the model for a photographic climax. The Plexiglas bubble The high priestess of fashion, Harper’s Bazaar fashion editor Diana Vreeland, ofen repeated that was made by aeronautical engineers real elegance is in the mind and is the prerequisite of any other form of elegance. This was in the and hoisted up with 1960s, a decisive decade for fashion photography, in which it finally freed itself from the overly a crane; the formal tone that ofen characterized pre-war images. For a time the image of fashion would find its photographer then freedom and, in its golden age, celebrate whimsy and character in a play of the mind and the body, erased the suspension cables from the picture sweeping away conventions and rules to reveal elegance—in the expression of something unique, by scratching the in a woman, in an era—suspended in a photographic instant. negative.

110 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 111 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 On and Of-Screen Elegance

Cinema’s paragons of elegance include Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich, Audrey and Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart, Humphrey Bogart and too many others to mention. But the merest murmur of their names conjures up the magic.

by Jean-Michel Frodon

112 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 113 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 n matters of elegance, be it Fred Astaire was born Fredrerick Austerlitz the movies or in real life, it is almost universally and his father hailed from Linz, Austria. Oagreed that it comes down to a question It seems fair to make the connection between of personal taste. So what follows is purely elegance—a certain type of elegance—and subjective. If asked to name the most picture- Europe. In Hollywood cinema, the last word perfect icon of on-screen elegance, this author’s in film-directing elegance is attributable to unhesitating reply would be Fred Astaire. the German-born Ernst Lubitsch. The famous It’s not just about the impeccably cut “Lubitsch touch,” much admired by François tuxedo or the dapper glossy top hat and cane. Trufaut, is reflected in his delicate Elegance doesn’t boil down to clothing or compositions of sentiment and suggestion, accessories, although they are naturally in the way the actors move around. The ballet a part of it. It’s not even simply the spellbinding of words, looks and silences that make up grace of the man who danced in Swing Time. The Shop Around the Corner perhaps ofers the A great deal has to do with the way he carries finest example. Also nurtured by Mitteleuropa his head or places his arms and hands. but with diferent visual and narrative means, It’s about the rhythm in his most ordinary of the couple formed by Josef von Sternberg gestures. It is a recognition of how the most and Marlene Dietrich ofers yet another banal situations can be enhanced and that is example of total elegance, which neither fully something that is within everyone’s reach, achieves without the other. although precious few concern themselves Is this to say that American cinema owes its PRECEDING DOUBLE PAGE with it. Yet virtually no one achieves that degree elegance solely to the Europeans? Far from it. Maggie Cheung and of harmony, that perfect balance of rigor and In fact, it is curious to note that among Tony Leung in Wong nonchalance. Hollywood’s most iconic figures of elegance Kar-Wai’s In the Mood For Love, 2000. The diferences between the of-compared two stars, both bearing the last name of RIGHT PAGE Ginger Rogers Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, that other Hepburn, outshine the rest: the American and Fred Astaire prodigious musical-film dancer, jump out at you Katharine and the Englishwoman Audrey. They in Mark Sandrich’s musical comedy when you see them in action; or when you watch perfectly represent two faces (there are others) Top Hat, 1935. the legendary duo of Kelly and the sophisticated of elegance in film: that of the Old World and FOLLOWING PAGE Audrey Cyd Charisse in the iconic Singin’ in the Rain. that of the New. They are rarities. For every Hepburn in Blake Edwards’ Breakfast The film features the most extravagant fashion Louise Brooks, whose unconventional beauty at Tifany’s, 1961. parade in film history, a tribute to Hollywood’s carried with it a whif of scandal, for every PAGE 117 Portrait of the top costume designer, Walter Plunkett, played Greta Garbo with her carefully cultivated American actress out to the song Beautiful Girl. It’s humorous, Nordic mystery, there are ten, twenty, fify Katharine Hepburn in 1938 by Alfred inventive and spectacular all at once. beauties whose feminine charms would get Eisenstaedt for Life And yet, is it elegant? generations of Tex Avery wolves howling. magazine.

114 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 115 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 116 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 117 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 Yet from Jean Harlow to Rita Hayworth and There is a wealth of evidence of Europe’s Marilyn Monroe, from Bette Davis to Gene advantage in this field. Take northern Europe Tierney and Liz Taylor, from Julia Roberts to from London to Vienna. Latin or Mediterranean Sharon Stone, all of whom incarnate the charm exploits diferent, more sensual numerous ideals of male fantasies, it would channels—witness the stars of Italian cinema, the seem that, apart from the two Hepburns, dive of the 20th century: Sophia Loren, Gina Lauren Bacall alone personifies elegance. Lollobrigida, Anna Magnani, Stefania Sandrelli Men have more of what it takes in America and Monica Bellucci. Of course, there are it has to be said. The likes of Cary Grant (even exceptions: Lucia Bosè, Monica Vitti and, among clad in a flufy white robe), James Stewart the men, Vittorio Gassman and Marcello (even in his cowboy costume), Gary Cooper, Mastroianni, the latter bringing a light and Humphrey Bogart, Peter Fonda, Burt Lancaster, graceful poetry to the archetypal Latin lover. Paul Newman and Steve McQueen all have that extra je ne sais quoi, a mixture of restraint and just the right amount of eccentricity, whose every gesture seems just a tiny bit exaggerated, like a secret, a complex sign that isn’t just about sex appeal. Misogyny, in its most common manifestation in the film industry, namely the portrayal of women as objects, is one of the worst enemies of elegance. Action films are the ultimate challenge for elegance and very ofen it is entirely down to the actor. It befalls the paragon of the genre, James Bond, who is required to pull of the most improbable capers and punish his numerous and formidable enemies without losing an ounce of signature chic. The elegance of the famous MI6 agent was meticulously defined by his author, the novelist Ian Fleming, through a wealth of details woven skillfully together as excellently described by Kingsley Amis in his seminal The James Bond Dossier. The one actor who is the indisputable incarnation of Fleming’s hero, no matter who was directing him in the role, is Sean Connery. There is a unique coherence in his physique, his body language, the way he wears his suits and accessories not to mention a sense of “what lies beneath.” Meanwhile, the current 007, Daniel Craig, is reinventing the character, lending him greater physical strength and psychological depth; and yet elegance precludes the visible demonstration of strength and the display of inner motivations.

RIGHT Portrait of the American actor Gary Cooper, circa 1940. FACING PAGE Sean Connery playing a sexy James Bond in the British film Goldfinger directed by Guy Hamilton, 1964.

118 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 119 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 lthough France invented the or talent or even genius. No, it’s more explicitly elegant movie star in the first decade complicated than that. Ingmar Bergman Aof the 20th century with Max Linder, it has is a genius who made memorable films with leaned to a more Latin style of appeal and magnificent women whom he loved, but even elegance is rarely the defining quality of its they are tinged with misogyny. The only actors greatest actors. But here, too, there are whose elegance he truly rendered were Victor counterexamples: among the women, whose Sjöström in Wild Strawberries and Max von Sydow voice usually plays a major role in their way of in the many films they worked on together. being both very present and absent, of melting But it is at the other end of the film spectrum, away or dissolving into a shadow or the light, with the arrival of women in a certain type of such rarities as Danielle Darrieux, Bulle Ogier action movie, martial arts or wuxia films, that and Jeanne Balibar stand out. Other qualities cinematographic elegance would reach new are at work in the men, with Louis Jouvet’s heights. The director King Hu reinvented the splendidly sharp, well-honed acting style or the genre with his exceptional sense of rhythm and strained, secret humanity in Michel Piccoli, forms. In the mid-1960s, he introduced female anxious yet jovial, neatly packaged in his actors (who were also dancers and acrobats) impeccable appearance even when stark naked in his films—Cheng Pei-pei in Come Drink and growling in Themroc or binge-eating in La With Me followed by Hsu Feng in A Touch of Zen. Grande Boufe. A man’s feminine side, which can They brought a diferent kind of presence, be admirably captured on film, brings its own diferent movements, tempos, contrasts, all elegance, ofen in those who have an echoed in the lighting and the use of nature unconventional type of beauty, such as Michel or objects. Through the film’s action and Simon and Gérard Depardieu, and in those who choreography, the inventor of the modern manage to express their obvious beauty in martial arts film created a dynamic around diferent ways like Louis Garrel. his female actors, their physique enhanced But it is unfair and misguided to place by a very non-Western restraint, drawing out responsibility for the question of elegance their resources to an unsurpassed degree. entirely with the actors when it’s ofen only Exactly what Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill or expressed in their screen presence, in the way Ang Lee in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon went they are filmed. Elegance is a promise that can to exhausting lengths to rival. only be fulfilled thanks to a director. Jean-Luc In the crime film and gun fu genres John Woo Godard’s manner of spinning the camera and Johnnie To, not to mention Wong Kar-Wai in around Anna Karina the first time the character his romantic In the Mood for Love, his sci-fi movie in The Little Soldier sees her; Maurice Pialat 2046 and his kung fu films (Ashes of Time, The enhancing the already immense natural gifs Grandmaster), provided its most accomplished

ABOVE AND RIGHT French of Gérard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert in visual and spiritual expression. Nothing, of actress Fanny Ardant in Loulou; Michelangelo Antonioni filming Monica course, tops Wong Kar-Wai when he was filming François Trufaut’s 1982 Vitti (and not Jeanne Moreau) in La Notte; and that pure incarnation of cinematographic film Vivement dimanche !, based on the 1962 novel François Trufaut’s directing of Fanny Ardant elegance, the ultra-contemporary and eternal by Charles Williams, in Confidentially Yours. It is not a question of skill Maggie Cheung. The Long Saturday Night; French singer and actor Yves Montand, 1966; American actor Cary Grant examining footage from the shoot of Kiss and Make-Up by Harlan Thompson and Jean Negulesco (released in 1934); Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi in the wuxia film Hero directed by Zhang Yimou, 2002.

120 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 121 // ELEGANCE / NUMBER 42 C R E D I T S COVER © Condé Nast Archive / Corbis Images / Contrasto, graphic design © Cartier. EDITORIAL Page 5: © Denis Darzacq / Agence VU’. PORTFOLIO Pages 8-9: © Tim Flach / Getty Images. Pages 10-11: © Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images for Cartier International. Pages 12-13 and 16-17: © Steve McCurry / Contrasto. Pages 14-15: © Eric Sander. Pages 18-19: © Michael Poliza. Page 20: © Ambroise Ngaimoko, Studio 3Z/3C Courtesy, galerie Magnin-A, Paris. Page 21: © Héctor Mediavilla / Pandora / Picturetank. Page 22: © Elliott Erwitt / Contrasto. Page 23: © Dennis Stock / Contrasto. Pages 24-25: © Adriana Zehbrauskas / The New York Times / Contrasto. Pages 26-27: Nils Herrmann © Cartier. Pages 28-29: © Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris / AKG / Mondadori Portfolio. Pages 30-31: © Paolo Verzone / Agence VU’. ON THE VIRTUE OF ELEGANCE Pages 34-35: © Justin Pumfrey / Getty Images. Page 37: © Simon Roberts / Gallery Stock. Pages 38-39: © David Burnett / Contact Press Images / LUZphoto. DANDIES PAST AND PRESENT Pages 40-41: © Bridgeman Images / Archives Alinari, Florence. Pages 41, 44 and 47 lef: © Rose Callahan. Page 42: © Musées de la Ville de Boulogne-Billancourt – Photo Philippe Fuzeau by Siae 2015. Pages 44-45: © Franck Raux / RMN-Réunion des Musées Nationaux / distr. Archives Alinari, Florence. Page 47 right: © Lewandowski Hervé / RMN-Réunion des Musées Nationaux / distr. Archives Alinari, Florence. THE TOUCH OF BEAUTY From pages 48 to 57: Aurore de la Morinerie © Cartier. DESIGN: FORM AND FUNCTION Page 58: © Peter Stackpole / Time Life Pictures / Getty Images. Page 61: © Jean-Claude Planchet / RMN-Réunion des Musées Nationaux / distr. Archives Alinari, Florence by Siae 2015. AN EXPRESSIVE SINGULARITY From pages 62 to 67: © Eric Sander. THE RHYTHM OF BODIES, THE MELODY OF DRAPERY Pages 68-69: © The Trustees of the British Museum / Archives Alinari, Florence. Page 71: © Thierry Ollivier / Archives Alinari, Florence. Page 72: © Lewandowski Hervé / RMN-Réunion des Musées Nationaux / distr. Archives Alinari, Florence; © 2015. Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Art Resource / Scala, Florence; © Claudio Franzini, Venise; DeA Picture Library, licence accordée à Archives Alinari, Florence. Page 73: Condé Nast Archive / Corbis Images / Contrasto. Page 74: © DeA Picture Library, licence accordée à Archives Alinari. FOR MEN ONLY From pages 76 to 85: Eric Sauvage © Cartier. Acknowledgments: Lanvin and Paul Smith. IRIS VAN HERPEN: A PERFECT BALANCE From pages 86 to 90: © Morgan O’Donovan. Page 91: © Mathieu César / Iconoclast Image. Page 92: © Britta Pedersen / dpa / Corbis Images / Contrasto. Page 93: © Boy Kortekaas. ELSIE DE WOLFE: HIGH PRIESTESS OF TASTE Page 95: © 2015. Foto Nat. Portrait Gall. Smithsonian / Art Resource / Scala, Florence by Siae 2015. Pages 96, 97 and 100: © Simon Watson / Trunk Archive / Contrasto. Page 99: © Bettmann / Corbis Images / Contrasto. THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S EYE Pages 102-103, 109 and 111: © Melvin Sokolsky - www.sokolsky.com. Pages 105 and 106: © Edward Steichen / Vogue / Condé Nast by Siae 2015. Page 107: © Cecil Beaton / Vogue / Conde Nast by Siae 2015. Page 108: © Norman Parkinson Ltd. / courtesy Norman Parkinson Archive by Siae 2015. Page 110: © William Klein by Siae 2015. ON AND OFF-SCREEN ELEGANCE Pages 112-113: © Block 2 pics / Jet Tone / The Kobal Collection. Pages 115 and 118: © John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images. Page 116: © Paramount / The Kobal Collection / Fraker Bud. Page 117: © Alfred Eisenstaedt / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images. Page 119: © Rue des Archives / IPA. Page 120: © William Karel / Sygma / Corbis Images / Contrasto; © Hulton Archive / Getty Images; © Ministère de la Culture - Médiathèque du Patrimoine / Studio Harcourt / RMN-Réunion des Musées Nationaux / distr. Archives Alinari, Florence; © Russel Wong / Corbis Images / Contrasto. CREDITS Page 123: © Tim Flach / Getty Images.

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Pune, India 2014. Asma attends a sewing workshop at the Saahasee’s Skill Development Center.

© Cartier Charitable Foundation. Photographer: Cyril le Tourneur Photographer: © Cartier Charitable Foundation. This vocational training will allow her to work to earn a living.

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