An Ironing Class at Colette
It’s one thing to be possessed by clothes, it’s another to own them.
This is why Colette, during this last July Men Shows in Paris, held an ironing class, exclusively for men, in its basement Water bar.
It is no irony to think that this would prevent some Fashion-obsessed among us running their shirts to the nearest cleaner (if not their mum) likely to return a Junya Watanabe in the state of a stretch of toilet paper.
A customer puzzled by the scene
A dozen ironing tables had been installed like in a classroom, all equiped with Rowenta steam power stations which were as intimidating as a Hummer for those who have never driven before.
Jocelyne proudly wearing her medal of « Meilleure Ouvrière de France »
Jocelyne, a professor at the École de Gouvernantes et Majordomes, started by teaching us the meaning of washing instructions icons. For some, it was already too late, their shirt had probably shrunk 3 sizes. A student raised his arm in alarm that a symbol inside his shirt was not mentioned in Jocelyn’s exhaustive list.
« Is it Japanese ? … » she asked, raising her eyebrows. The dude confirmed : it was a Tsumori Chisato. « Well, if it’s Japanese… », and she shrugged, with a smile.
A participant discovers the complexity of ironing.
Several unexperienced scenesters, in fear of being unsubscribed from the newsletter by bringing the wrong shirt had brought their best attire, all fresh from the washing machine, crumbled like a handkerchief long forgotten in a back pocket.
For my part, I had brought one of my signature worn out flea market plaid shirts. Some of the dudes glanced over at it with envy, thinking it was an advance sample from Maison Kitsuné’s «Brokeback Mountain » new collection.
In fact, I had just got it back from the cleaner, and had to pull it into a ball and sit on it during my Metro ride over, so it would be wrinkled enough to be ironed.
Jocelyne looked over my shoulder while I was passing over a part of the collar that had stayed flat from the cleaner, and congratulated me.
Writer and blogger Borey meticulously working his shirt
When we finally came to the folding lesson, how keeping our folds symetrical that one shoulder is not twice as wide as the other, there were very little time left for the pants.
This saved me from the dilemma of having to ridiculously iron my jeans, or confess Jocelyn I never wear any other sort of pants.
In fact, it took so much time to perfect the shirt, that none was left for ironing the torn jeans I had brought in a plastic bag.
The Selby is in the Unknown’s pad
When The Selby called to ask whether he could photograph my place, it was a nice surprise, of course, but I thought I should warn him :
-You know, it’s kind of small…
-Don’t tell me it’s smaller than Rockaway Taco ! Don’t be shy, I’m sure it’s wonderful!
But then I completely forgot all about it, and suddenly, on a stormy afternoon, it was Todd knocking on my door.
The bed was unmade since I was taking a little nap, and the kitchen was cluttered with the remains of yesterday’s spaghetti Bolognese (one day I’ll post my recipe, learned from an Italian grandmother). But what the hell, I thought, Todd is cool, he has done a lot of artists and bohemians. I don’t think he was expecting my pad to be as slick as Pharrell Williams’ home.
Welcome to the secluded home of a poet !
But when he walked in, I could see disappointment and a little bit of anxiety on his face.
-What’s that funny smell…he said.
True, I just had a new goatskin shipped from Morocco for my tambourine, and since it’s 100% organic, it exudes a bit of an odor when the weather is hot and humid, but no big deal, one quickly gets used to it.
I used to grow pot on the fire escape, but the plants died while I was out at Fashion Week last year. All I could offer him was a nice cup of Nescafé, straight out of the hot water tab.
Todd is a warm and sweet character, with a great sense of humor, and he knows immediately how to make you feel at ease in your own place. I was amazed, though, by his way of working. I was imagining him firing detail shots with the Eos. On the contrary, he was carefully looking at my stacks of cassettes tapes and my second-hand Beat Reader from The Strand.
I suggested that I play the guitar on my bed, thinking it would make a great wide angle panoramic shot for the opening.
Thanks, said Todd, but let me just do a quick close-up, and I’ll do a little water color from home. And he off, running down the stairs, forgetting to hand me his questionnaire.
Questionnaires, even from friends, are always a pain for me. I admire the spontaneity of most people when it comes to this. I studied the answers of my friends, Glenn, Andy, Xavier, and Pierre, how did they manage to do it ? Finally, it took me 4 weeks to fill it out. Hope it’s okay.
Royal Wedding
I was in London the other day, just walking away from Mr Bongo where I had scored some vinyls when I was caught in a huge gathering. The crowd seemed to have been staking out positions on the sidewalk for at least a day or two, with camping chairs and sleeping bags. I stopped by a group holding British flags and asked them what was going on. Troops in period costume and horse carriages passed by at that moment, and I wondered whether they were shooting some Hollywood film, or maybe even a Fashion event, as I heard people saying that Sarah Burton at Alexander Mc Queen had designed the royal wedding dress.
All of a sudden, there was a deep silence, followed by a giant roar from the crowd as the Queen carriage passed by. I couldn’t help but shed a tear of emotion when I saw her waving a hand in our direction.
Uninvited, I tried to make myself discreet.
I was just following some fellows who seemed to know where they were going.
To be of some use, I joined the choir.
Seeing my embarrassment, the Queen mercifullly asked me what kind of records I had bought at Mr Bongo.
A tribute to Japan, and an anti-nuclear hipster memory.
In 1975, word came to the late hippies of the small town I was living in Normandy that a nuclear plant was to be built nearby. When the news was announced, the idea was immediatedly associated with unfeeling technocrats of exact science, if not of corruption, greed and selfishness. The suits who ran the programme evoked the senile and narrow-minded film generals who are inevitably in the wrong, herding their troops into disaster. Although this would have been enough for revolt, what upset me the most was that the plans were to annex the most beautiful stretch of landscape, building the plant right on the sea, at the foot of wild, dark stone cliffs where I loved to hang out, thinking I was Lautreamont, or where I took girls to kiss. I was still a kid then, and although I was not yet able to grow a full beard, I had hair long enough for two. With my best pal, we made a plywood sign, drew an anti-nuclear cartoon on it, and joined the demonstration. We had also taken a guitar. As with the beard, I couldn’t afford a real folk guitar, but only a «classic Spanish », with nylon strings.
Then we went marching. Thousands of older long haired bearded men and their girlfriends in oversized knitted sweaters were walking under the pouring rain down the narrow winding roads that lead to the future plant. Once the heavy smoke of grilled sausages at the meeting point was dissipated, I remember looking at every single blade of grass like it was to never be seen again. Meanwhile, our cartoon sign didn’t made the impact we thought it would, and was even considered skeptically by the most serious activists we hoped to befriend.
Of course, they built it. And even extended it. And everybody forgot about it, just like the hundreds of others everywhere else. It seemed unfair that some countries wouldn’t have their own. Hey, aren’t you happy to play the turntables? Or write your blogs all night ?
Nearby, there was already a treatment plant for used fuel. It was a quintessential late sixties idea, along with speed trains on air cushion or electric knives. Used fuel was shipped in from various parts of the world to be buried in the landscape, or dumped into sea into concrete, or then later more resistant glass containers. Over years, I saw this plant constantly growing, and it’s as luminescent at night as a city. When the Tchernobyl disaster was reported to the Western world, we went sailing for 2 days, and I remember the orange glow of La Hague that can be seen from halfway across the Channel. Most outrageous was when used fuel started to be shipped in from Japan in the 80’s. By then I had my own folk guitar, and could grow a beard, but I didn’t make a new sign, or participated to the demonstrations that greeted the Japanese cargo ship on its first trips.
A week before the Fukushima accident unfolded, I met a sweet old man at a Parisian dinner, while glancing at his Légion d’Honneur, I asked him what he was up to, since the decoration is frequently worn by people who happily won it on the battlefields of Fashion or decorating. He told me that, as a major executive, he had been fighting all his life for nuclear energy, to the point, he and his family had miraculously escaped a bombing by an anti-nuclear activist group who blew up the staircase of the building while they were asleep.
The man seemed so reasonnable that I had to smile to myself, the foolish hipster I was, walking with my guitar and the anti-nuclear cartoon sign under the misty rain.
Tokyo +81 Magazine is launching Creators Aid for Japan digital book for iPad & iPhone
“Opération 100 Masques pour le Japon” by Minimix
Martha Graham Dance Company, « Snow on the Mesa »
In the midst of the winter I was invited to a preview of the Martha Graham Dance Company’s 85th Anniversary season.
It was cold and lightly snowing the night I went up to the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance on East 63rd Street.
In a basement rehearsal room folding chairs had been set up along the walls. A school bench placed in the middle of the floor was being used as prop, and a dancer was waiting against an exercise bar.
The calm assembly of dance scholars and serious writers made me feel slightly out of place : not only do I know very little about dance, but I’m always in fear that a live performance will extend to an inhuman length of time, like contemporary art videos almost always do.
But I was struck by the beauty of the piece, and hypnotized by the grace and intensity of the dancers.
They performed excerpts from « Snow on the Mesa », a dance choreographed by Bob Wilson and premiered in 1995 after Martha Graham death, and originally subtitled « A Portrait of Martha ».
It turns out to be no time at all when I had to extract myself from this « Cave of the Heart », to return home, enlightened, by the subway.
Xiaochuan Xie and Ben Schultz in « Shaker Interior » (« Snow on the Mesa »)
Carrie Ellmore Tallitsch in « Navaho Rug » (« Snow on the Mesa »)
Martha Graham Dance Company 85th Anniversary Season at the Rose Theater, Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, NY, from March 15–20, 2011
Fashion Week Preview
This is the time of the year in New York when you see them returning.
The tall, thin, black silhouettes navigating the slush in their cheap Rock boots.
They announce the coming of Fashion Week like quails announce the end of summer.
I was inspired to write them a poem :
I see you, all pale faced and sad eyes, standing at the corner
« Don’t look at me unless you’re Vinoodh and Inez
My boyfriend he will get you
Dump you in a trash bin somewhere
Daddy will drown you in a pond behind the factory »
I saw you walking fast
Holding tight the frozen plastic of the lookbooks
And now in the middle of the night
I hear you giggling in the hotel rooms
I often see this guy at the airport.
He chaperones the girls trans-Atlantic.
I think he figures out the passports, waits for the bags,
Makes sure some jerk doesn’t snap some photos of them in their sleep.
The girls look bored while they wait.
No friends but a cellphone.
My Life As a Model
I have recently been offered to do some modeling for French GQ.
I was worried I would have to lift weights or swim two hours a day, but they said it was okay to stay as I am.
Modeling involves very little participation, and there’s nothing demeaning about it if you work with tasteful photographers.
A lot of the job is waiting around, and while most people in the studio spend their day checking Facebook, it’s not forbidden to read a book or write poetry while you’re worked on by the hairdresser or have your nails polished.
It’s a known fact that Fashion photographers have big egos, but it’s okay not to talk to them. There is always loud music in the studios anyway, and photographers can hardly hear themselves giving directions. And this is okay too, because their directions are generally very basic, like « gorgeous », or « yes ! ». Actually, if you happen to hear them over the noise, their comments are more embarrassing than anything else. They suddenly make you doubt and think the whole enterprise is not serious, but it is.
Here are some of my favorite shots, with a few behind-the-scenes commentaries and my own tips.
This was for November Fashion. While posing with these logs, I had a great talk with the girls. Karolina, the blonde on the left, had studied philosophy in Moscow, while Prune on the right had just published a novel. It turned out both girls had been featured more than naked in purple diary, which disappointed me.
Successful modeling is all about being yourself and not trying to hard. A Fashion story on axes, for the December issue. I did my best menacing demeanor with the Best Made ax, so the crew played my old tapes.
For an air travel editorial. I’m so relaxed when I model, I can actually fall asleep for real. I walked out of the shoot with these expensive pyjamas, and had to return them to the assistant the next day, but they shrunk down 3 sizes since it was raining and I couldn’t find a cab.
Who said modeling was a tough job ? I remembered I just had some delicious bruchetta from catering, and the only thing that bothered me on the shoot was the rough feel of this rare vinyl on my fingers.
A tribute to The Fantastic Mister Fox, one of my favorite movie, ever.
Another cool shot. I almost forgot the photographer was there.
If the stylist wants to play, I’m able to completely transform myself.
- no sport at all
- sleep as much as you want, or don’t
- extract respect from assistants by insisting on your musical tastes
Tokyo II : The John Lennon glasses
What I like to do in Tokyo is to get away from the main shopping areas and wander into the less-known neighborhoods, which in my mind must look more like Tokyo used to be. I wish I traveled there not just ten years before they shot « Lost In Translation » and made Tokyo a cliché, but back in the 60’s or 70’s, when photographers were taking distorted black-and-white nudes, Hondas were small and painted mustard yellow, orange or pea green, and the « modern » women wore strict European dresses and listened to classical music in dark hi-fi parlour in the afternoon.
I soon found myself walking down Jinbo-cho, which is the second-hand bookstores district. It’s a bit like the Strand in New York, if the Strand was laid flat on its back and splitted in hundreds of small shops, with piles and piles of books on the sidewalk. This is when my eyes caught the window of an old-fashioned eyewear shop. On display were faded photographs of John Lennon and round-shaped spectacles, all displayed on emerald green and flesh-pink satin.
The shop was a happy clutter inside and seemed untouched since the late 70’s, with more John Lennon posters and more vintage Lennon spectacles. There were collections of old optometric paraphrenalia, and an old, abandoned VCR, which I suppose once played Lennon’s tapes.
A lady came down the wooden stairs, inquiring in Japanese.
Soon it was obvious that we couldn’t communicate, besides nodding and smiling to each other.
- So you must like John Lennon very much, I articulated with my French accent, in a last attempt, actually hoping she would not understand such a tired line.
She took a cell phone, dialed a number, and after briefly speaking into it, passed it on to me.
A man’s voice spoke a few English words, with a noisy crowd in the background, which made him even more difficult to understand.
- I wanted to tell the lady that it’s a lovely shop, I shouted.
- What ?
- I would like to know the name and address so I could write it down in my blog..!
I was thinking of you, dear readers, at this particular moment (although perhaps hundreds of bloggers and guides might already have listed this information), but finally had to admit to myself that the conversation was going nowhere, with the crowd in the background of the cellphone getting louder. Maybe he was off betting somewhere, or in a busy railway station.
I asked the lady for a card, mimicking the object. She gave me a piece of imitation chamois leather, inscribed with something in Japanese and, at last, a phone number : 03-3291-0279
I bowed, and retreated to the door. On my way out, I stopped in front of a framed picture of a white dog.
- Your dog…? Lovely dog !
But didn’t insist, thinking that the fact the dog’s picture was framed meant he might not be there anymore.
I bowed once more, and was out.
In a time when everybody is willing to sell his soul in a minute in fear of being out of date, such faith and fidelity should be praised. I think it’s true gentleness.
And if only I have had access to this shop when I was a young kid, when I was craving Lennon glasses.
Tokyo, part I
Early this autumn, I was invited to attend Tokyo Graphic Passport, a creative and visual arts conference organized by +81 Magazine - a Japanese graphic design journal – with speakers coming from various parts of the world.
I love Tokyo. From the very first time (back in the early 90’s, when I came as the tambourine player for Uneven Dusk to perform gigs at a small club located in the basement of an anonymous white-tile building in the outskirts of Tokyo) I was taken by the poetic particularity of the city, and has taken every chance I could to come back.
I love the crazy sound of cicadas in the summer, the temples and their gardens, the tiny bars, and the blinking red lights on the tops of office towers at night. I can stroll endlessly in the quiet backstreets behind the busiest arteries, and wish I could live in one of these little wood houses. Even the spectacular flagship stores of the global luxury brands seem surrealistic mysteries, and yet appear more gentle than anywhere else.
Struck by jetlag in the hotel lobby.
With Satoru Yamashita, founder of +81 Magazine and Graphic Passport
Fantasista Utamaro performing at Arts Chiyoda.
« Live painting » as it’s called, is a common and much appreciated form of performance art for painters and their public, just like readings are for American writers. Although anybody who has ever painted could sense that it’s less than likely that a painting executed in public would be any good. Even Picasso was not so astonishing in « Le Mystère Picasso ». But Fantasista managed to get his act together in front his home crew.
These young chaps had looks that deserve a Sartorialist award.
John Warwicker from Tomato had flew from Australia to paint a large mural.
If the mural was John’s, the stained plastic protections on the floor were reminiscent of Hans Namuth’s photos of Pollock.
Most amazingly, John’s painting looked good at all the different stages throughout the 3 days it took to finish.
Toru, assisting John and documenting the performance.
While Roland Barthes’ « Empire of Signs » is my beloved travel campanion in Japan, and a nourishing reading, it’s sometimes more nutritious to dine on Sumo food.
threeASFOUR in the park
A few weeks ago Gabi, Adi and Ange of threeASFOUR invited me to their studio, where they were doing the final fittings, one or two days before their show.
Adi
In the all mirror-and-aluminium surfaced loft, the atmosphere was perfectly calm.
Ange, with Misha.
By the window, Ange was sewing vintage kimono pieces in shape of pancakes.
Gabi took me to their inspiration board, arranged with collages of mathematic constructions, spirals, and outer space diagrams.
Gabi
« I love mathematic, » he said. « The collection is called Vortex. It’s about connecting circles and holes. »
I was afraid he would explain more and find out that I didn’t understand any of it. When it comes down to math, I need to see the circles and holes overlaid on a human body to get the idea.
Soon, a young Russian girl came in for the fitting.
Luna, Ange’s pitbull, was participating.
She had just bought a new cellphone, and was obsessed with it. Probably trying to connect circles and holes in her own way, she wouldn’t stop texting, unaware of her sexiness in the esoteric shapes Gabi and Adi were adjusting on her.
At the end, Gabi was also on the phone.
In the meantime, Christian Wassmann, the architect who had designed a structure for the show, came in.
His Porsche Targa was parked in the street, with plywood elements sticking out of the open roof, which we all helped to download.
On the day of the show, the spiral structure stood in the Sara D. Rooselvelt Park in Chinatown. We could admire the sun setting through the surrounding trees. A nice crowd of connecting circles and holes was there, peacefully waiting for the show to start.
The three kings of the night — Waris, Olivier and André — were in attendance
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