Tag: Dior

Wednesday 8 December 2010     1 Comment

Lady Grey London (and nothing to do with a cup of tea)

Bond Street by Dior

Actually, we’re back to nails again – and handbags, Dior handbags.  I wanted to show you a cute short film, Lady Grey London.  It’s by Dior and stars Dior face, Marion Clotillard.  Released today December 8th it’s one of three shorts featuring the Lady Dior, the house’s latest bag. It may remind you of the bag Princess Diana made so famous – will Kate carry one with a prettily manicured, be-sapphired hand I wonder?

The film is directed by new kid, John Cameron Mitchell – and Ian McKellan’s in it.   It’s about a cabaret star who captivates.  First scene she emerges naked from within a giant egg timer.  Already everyone transfixed.  Classic Dior touches peep through, from a Gruau inspired wall painting (the illustrator worked closely with Christian Dior from the 50s to the 70s and a little either side), to Geisha-style catwalk hair and make-up (the brows, the red lacquered lips, the Marcel wave).  Yes, like all the other rather over produced, but beautifully mastered designer short films coming through it’s melodramatic.  But it got me.

So, what of the nails?  The parallel lies simply in the fact that Dior has released three grey nail polishes, and in this last film, Clotillard is wearing one.  The film is about the bag after all.

Grey is little surprise, since grey-ish shades have dominated the modern girl manicure of late.   Yet the spin is nice.  Each of the greys is inspired by a city – not difficult to guess which: Paris, New York and our own sweet, London, where each of the three films is set.  And they’ve named each after the cities’ most famous streets.

The London film has Clotillard flashing nails wearing what looks like NY 57th, a reflective grey, inspired by the ‘dusky light of the Manhattan skyline’. ‘Bond Street’, the London grey doesn’t appear to feature.  Here it is (top), a blue grey hue inspired they tell me, by London fog.  Gris Montaigne is a plain, opaque grey, the colour used in the Dior boutique on Avenue Montaigne (my favourite, see below).  You can get your hands of a bottle of yours at the new, Dior boutique on Bond Street.  At around £17 a pop, you’ll be able to hold your head high as you trip out the boutique having made an honest good purchase at Dior.  Failing that, you could pop into Selfridges.

Gris Montaigne by Dior

Back to the film and here’s a spot for you.  Another big nail look right now: the inverted French manicure, with half moon showing. Here the moon is fleshy, the nail black and the nail tip something light.   Gris Montaigne perhaps?   Take a look, here.

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Monday 18 October 2010     1 Comment

Fetishistic? Mmm. Collectible? Sure. Dior’s hot new make-up compact is here

There’s something way more compelling to a compact than make-up.  ‘Compacts are fetishistic,’ says the architectural designer, Tom Bartlett.   Phoo-er.  Women love them – especially if they’re shiny, glamorous – and elusive.  ‘If women know Chanel or Dior are bringing out a limited edition compact, they want it,’ Harrods’, Marigay McKee, Fashion & Beauty Director at Harrods once told me.

Where good looks and rarity lie, you can guarantee there’s a collector lurking.   And of make-up palettes there are plenty.  There are collectors clubs both in the US and here, and they run conventions where enthusiasts gather to share compact devotion.  Oh yes.

Feel like dabbling?  ‘The unusual designs, like the hand or roulette wheel compacts, fetch the highest prices,’ says Linda Bee, who sells antique compacts at Grays in the Mews Antique Market in London (020 7629 5921).  These designs date back to the thirties and forties when whimsical compacts inspired by Elsa Schapirelli and the Surrealists were popular.   Seek out her collection if you’re passing, it’s extensive.

The first compacts were used in the seventeenth century to hold beauty patches – a face saver for women with smallpox scars.  Yet they didn’t catch on until the 1920s when wearing make-up became acceptable after years of Victorian disapproval.  They were small, and contained dry, pressed powder tablets or godets.  They were often decorated with Pierot, ‘a fashionable motif at that time,’ says Bee.

In the thirties the Art Deco style rubbed off and in the forties Surrealism, with hands, hats and birds (Dali once designed a bird compact).  The fifties were about glamour and rhinestones as well as whimsy with fob watches, fans, books, pianos and telephones.

This little treasure from Dior harps back to a time where women were proud to powder their nose in public.  A time where all a woman needed to take with her to a dance was her minaudière – a small compact complete with powder, rouge, lipstick, writing tablet and cigarette holder.   Oh to be a Downton Abbey heroine.

Dior‘s Minaudière isn’t really designed to take out, but is a rather adorable palette to have.  It contains three eye shadows and two lip glosses.  There are two colour-ways, Grey Golds, pictured here, which comes with two smoky grey shadows plus one highlight colour and two glosses, sheer, gold and plum.  The other is Pink Golds – I haven’t seen it but guess it’s a softer, pinkish version.

One for the make-up collector’s treasure cabinet.

£59 Selfridges from 18th October; nationwide from 1st November

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Tuesday 7 September 2010     1 Comment

Perfume Diaries, No5, soap-on-a-rope and a dress to kill for

I was rocking as I tripped into the new exhibition, The Perfume Diaries at Harrods last Thursday night.  Talk about scene change.  Way In stages thumping, DJ set.  Move to: scent, champagne, canapés and string quartet.  This, ladies and gents was the deliciously sumptuous launch evening for a show worth seeing.

A few petit, highlights were: Feasting my eyes on the divine, Dior dress, which inspired Miss Dior (well, its New Look shape, but I like the idea).  Here it is – desperately beautiful and, incidentally, rather of the moment, with autumn’s New Look revival.

How Chanel No 5’s scent bottles have altered, subtly through the decades.  The original (1921) was a fine, oblong shape with a minute stopper.  To my eye it looks modern – if I were ever to do a scent, I’d probably put it in this.  Click through here to see a few sketches à la Emma (the © is a joke, sort of).

Spotting a rather large soap-on-a-rope.  How 70s.  How, open-neck, medallion-decked Denim man.  At a scent exhibition you ask?  Mmm.  Well.  It’s by Aramis, the first line of beauty products (beyond the Trumper-style grooming booty) for men, launched in the ‘70s – and they also do scent.  And it too, feels new again (style guru, Tom Ford does a soap-on-a-rope).  I like soap-on-a-rope.

But here’s the thing.  This show takes you through the history and evolution of scent, decade by decade, in a really captivating way.  Each decade, encased in its own spacious cubicle, displays a collection of original bottles, documents, recipes, things of interest.  There’s on-screen info, interactive stuff, testers.  It presents scent within its wider cultural and historical context without being sniffy or stuffy or precious.

Honestly, if you’re passing, pop up to the 4th floor, make your way through the Way In funk-meisters and check it out.   It’s free but hurry, it’s only on till October 2nd.

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Wednesday 28 July 2010     Leave A Comment

René Gruau for Dior at Somerset House

Gruau for Dior

I’m a nut for fashion and beauty illustration, from today’s David Downton (classic, deft, elegant) to the edgier, but equally exquisite, Julie Verhoeven.  So it’s with excitement that I read about René Gruau’s forthcoming exhibition at Somerset House this November.

I have little more to tell you as yet, except that he is what you might call (well I do) the grandfather of 20th Century illustration.  His life spanned the decade – 1909–2004.  It’s going to stacked with his delicious illustrations for Dior (he and Christian Dior were also friends) – as well as a collection of specially commissioned pieces from half a dozen UK based illustrators.

Their brief?

Gurau and Dior: the collaboration, of course.

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Thursday 11 February 2010     Leave A Comment

Ooh, I’ll have a few grey highlights please…

Icy, golden or honey blonde okay.  But grey streaks through your hair?  This has got to be one of the weirder beauty trends to emerge from the spring/summer shows.

Giles Deacon shot girls down the catwalk with blue-grey streaks.  Rodarte did a bit too – more of a grey halo on one or two.  And Proenza Schouler experimented with the greyish lilac granny rinse, a look I remember well, sported all bold and brazenly by a couple of art school mates after persistent encounters with bleach and ensuing gos with red.

And you’ll have seen the photos of Kate Moss a couple of weeks ago.  That may have been fashion, but it looked plain awful.  She’s now back to her golden gorgeousness (thank heavens).

All this probably won’t entice you to try ColourFX Sacred Silver spray, which when sprayed tactically will give you the aforementioned streaks.  More silver than grey though.  Perhaps the thought of Pixi Geldof’s self imposed grey, or John Galliano’s models at the recent Dior show, hair streaked white – the kind of pure, ice white you only ever really get to see on someone elegant and elderly – might tempt you?   If you hate the result, you can wash it off and donate the silver spray to your local school’s drama department.  At £3.49, it won’t hurt.

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