la beauté française, la partie deux

Clémence Poésy Nylon Editorial.

xx

I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am

Having felt uninspired for the past two weeks, despite my efforts, Plath's quote below went some way in pulling me out of my melancholiness. The deaths of both J.D Salinger, who I quote frequently on this blog and of Alexander McQueen have invoked a mournful start to 2010, for myself and undoubtedly millions of others, also. Both unequoivcally inspiring and seminal, the worlds of literature & fashion will never be quite the same. Salinger and McQueen have inspired me no end in both fields, as has Plath whose work I have been drawn to of late. Coincidentally, both McQueen and Plath died on February 11th, albeit of different years. The picture included was part of McQueen's Spring '07 collection and one of my personal favourites of his work's.

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

"you're a stone fox"

I have been meaning to do a post on Ryan McGinley for some time now. His shots of nude "bohemian spirits" have made him prolific in the colliding worlds of art & fashion, and McGinley himself has even starred in ad campaigns for the likes of Marc Jacobs. Every summer, with his 'models' in tow, McGinley travels America capturing things of palpable beauty. The overt nudity and subsequent promiscuous nature of his shots are juxtaposed with the innocent, somewhat childlike liberalness of the people in the photographs. I'm a huge fan of his work and the photograph above "nude grass" reminded me instantaneously of the adjoining shot of Lux Lisbon in Sofia Coppola's film adaption of one of my all time favourite books, Jeffrey Eugenides' "The Virgin Suicides." What's more, the tone of McGinley's photographs is not dissimilar to the character of Lux and her progression from childhood to adolescence in the book and her subsequent promiscuous tendencies. Also for my Proust post, when asked "how would you like to die?" I immediately thought of Ophelia in the stream, fully & regally dressed and surrounded by flowers and next I thought of Ryan McGinley's 2008/2009 Ophelia and so included it with the post (having previously filled the void with the iconic pre-raphaelite Ophelia.) I'll be including some of my favourites of McGinley's photographs in a separate post


Au Revoir xx