Confessions from the Velvet Ropes

Cibeles Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2010 in Madrid: Gwyneth Paltrow at Adolfo Dominguez, Princess Elena of Spain at Jesus del Pozo, Elio Berhanyer's 50th anniversary, Davidelfin's ginger invasion, Moët, paella & The Prado.

My Madrid fashion reports are up on A Shaded View on Fashion:

Cibeles Fashion Week, part 1

Cibeles Fashion Week, part 2

080 Barcelona Fashion Spring/Summer 2010: Come-hither swine-flu fashions, Dree Hemingway, Spanish V mag launch, Nancys Rubias. By Glenn Belverio

Hi Dolls,

I'm in Paris now, preparing for my lecture on my writing career at the Paris Fashion Institute. Last week I had the pleasure of attending another edition of 080 Barcelona Fashion in vibrant Catalonia. My coverage can be read here: A Shaded View on Fashion.

Au Revoir,

Glenn

Dree Hemingway backstage at 080 Barcelona Fashion. 

Photo by Glenn Belverio

Never mind Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon, here's Loretta Lynn's Butcher Holler Possum

Dear fearless foodies and guiltless gourmands,

While the ghost of Julia Child is busy slathering gargantuan amounts of butter over previously neurotic & anorexic New York, I thought I'd take things up a few notches with a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks. Back when I was in Nashville, reporting for ZOO & A Shaded View on Fashion in 2006, Loretta Lynn's charming publicist gave me a copy of the superb "You're Cookin' It Country," a delightful collection of Crisco-coated recipes and hillbilly anecdotes from the Queen of Country. 

I have to admit, I've only tried one or two of the recipes. When I had my first big party at my East Village apartment, for the Autumn Equinox in 2007, I made Loretta's White Bean Dip and it was a big hit (the rosemary is what makes it). But the most intriguing--and in-your-face authentic--recipe in the book is Butcher Holler Possum.

"At night, Mommy would go out and set traps," Loretta writes. "She'd take one of the kids with her. Sometimes she took me, but most of the time she'd take the oldest boy--Junior, my eldest brother. They would go out with a light; one of them would track them dadgum animals down, and she'd set that trap. She usually got a possum or a rabbit or a coon every time we went out, so we'd have meat probably once a week."

"Possum is a different tasting meat than anything I've ever tasted. To me, it was kind of oily, greasy, but Daddy loved it. Mommy would have to cook it like three hours first, because it's tough. Then she'd take it out and put it in a pan. She'd peel the sweet potatoes, and she'd put 'em around the possum. And when the sweet potatoes was done, so was the possum. That's what Daddy loved."

BUTCHER HOLLER POSSUM

Makes 6 Servings

1 good-size possum

salt & pepper

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1/2 cup applesauce

1/2 cup chopped chestnuts

1/2 stick butter, thinly sliced

4 sweet potatoes, cubed

or cut into 1/2-inch-thick pieces

1 cup water

1/2 cup lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350F. Skin and clean the possum by removing all the innards. Scrape the inside clean and scald in boiling water. Season the inside with salt and pepper to taste. Mix the breadcrumbs, applesauce, and chestnuts in a bowl. Stuff the breadcrumb mixture and butter slices inside the possum. Place in a Dutch oven. Add the sweet potatoes, water, and lemon juice. Bake in the oven until tender, basting often.

Bon appetit! 

Love,

Glenn

Further food reading: My Anti-Recession Chic Thanksgiving Dinner Party

Alta Roma Alta Moda in Rome: La Dolce Vita-era haute couture, Gina Lollobrigida & Fidel Castro, Franca Sozzani & Vogue Italia, kooky Euro fashions, Roman cuisine, and a Mussolini fascist fashion dance party.

Dear Readers,

I was in Rome last week for the spring/summer 2010 couture and pret-a-porter collections. My full reports can be read at A Shaded View on Fashion:

Alta Roma Alta Moda, Part 1

Alta Roma Alta Moda, Part 2

Later,

Glenn Belverio

Legendary screen siren Gina Lollobrigida at the Fausto Sarli show. 

Photo: Glenn Belverio

AltaRomAltaModa Fashion Week, Adrien Brody in "Giallo," and my 2005 interview with Dario Argento in Rome

Dear Romanistas,

As Sebastian Venable might say, "Romans are on the menu" as I prepare for my trip to Rome to cover Alta Roma Alta Moda for A Shaded View on Fashion. The 4-day fashion event (July 12-15) will open with the 5th edition of a designer contest called "Who is On Next?" which is co-branded with one of my favorite magazines, Italian Vogue. Not to be a snob but as this is a fashion competition in Europe, don't expect the kind of low-brow bitchiness found on Project Runway and The Fashion Show. (But if we're lucky, we may see something on par with Diana Ross's fashion show in Rome from the film "Mahogany.")

Above: Italian Vogue creative director, Anna Piaggi at the Life Ball in Vienna, 2007. Photo by Glenn Belverio

Above: Adrien Brody and director Dario Argento on the set of Argento's 2009 film "Giallo."

The last time I was in Rome, back in 2005, I interviewed one of my favorite directors of all time, Dario Argento, at the invitation of the Turin Film Commission. For those who haven't heard, the Italian horror meister is releasing his new film, "Giallo," later this year and it stars American actor Adrien Brody. The title, literally "yellow" in Italian, refers to the tradition of Italian crime-fiction pulp novels with trademark yellow covers. Many of Argento's past films are classified as "giallos" because of their adherence to the genre's formula--a whodunit where the killer has a penchant for wearing sinister leather gloves and a black trench coat.

The female lead of "Giallo" is Brody's girlfriend, Spanish actress Elsa Pataky. Rumor has it that the reason Brody scored the lead role is because after Pataky was cast, Brody insisted on being on set with her at all times. Why? Allegedly he was concerned about Argento's reputation as a "misogynist director" who puts his actresses through grueling ordeals in his films. (Sound familiar? Remember the unconfirmed stories of Hitchcock ghoulishly chanting "faster!" while crews members hurled live birds at Tippi Hedren during the climactic attic scene in "The Birds"?)

So, since Brody would be hanging around the set of "Giallo" so much, it probably made sense for Argento to simply cast him as the male lead--bumping Vincent Gallo, Argento's original choice, off the film's marquee! (As much as I enjoy the handsome Adrien Brody, I can only imagine the kind of cineaste boner I would have gotten from watching Gallo in an Argento film!)

Interviewing Argento was one of the biggest thrills of my life. The feature I wrote, which was published in ZOO and WestEast magazines in fall/winter 2005, can be read below.

The Deep Red Menace

Italian horror maestro Dario Argento finally pays tribute to fellow Catholic, Alfred Hitchcock, and discusses his love of Turin, cats and sex 

By Glenn Belverio

On the Via Veneto in Rome there is a rather unconventional chapel, known as the Cemetery of the Capuchins, whose interior is decorated in a meticulous, manic fashion: thousands of bones belonging to Catholic monks have been arranged in a diabolical manner that suggests a speed freak arts-and-crafts fair staged in Hell. This outré display of Roman-style macabre is similar in effect to a typical film by Dario Argento. His films’ notorious set pieces, almost too numerous to mention – Jennifer Connelly sliding into a pit of decaying bodies and maggots, a young woman being shredded in a tangle of barbed-wire, a raven gouging out the eye of a killer with its beak at the Regio Opera Theatre – have garnered him a fanatical following worldwide since his debut film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, was released in 1970. For years, lazy American journalists have pegged Argento “the Italian Hitchcock”, a label that he has vehemently resented. Until now. “I really love Hitchcock, even though I’m not as manneristic as he was”, says Argento. “I don’t imitate him, but sure, he has had an influence on me.”

Scene from "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage"

My friend Rinaldo Rocco, a handsome actor/playboy who coincidentally has portrayed the killer in many giallos, or Italian murder mysteries, has driven me to my appointment with Argento on the back of his Vespa. After the nerve-rattling ride over bumpy cobble-stoned streets, we are sitting in Argento’s Opera Film headquarters in Rome hearing about the maestro’s new TV film, Ti Piace Hitchcock? (Do You Like Hitchcock?). Argento, now a youthful 65, is friendly and robust while still possessing his signature ghoulish carriage that has caused more than a few to comment: “He looks like something out of one of his own horror films.” And while he seems to cultivate this physical image – he famously eats little or nothing while working on his films – he is a true Roman in many other ways: warm, demonstrative and with a fondness for anecdotes. His famous father Salvatore Argento was a key player in the Italian cinema world but what is less known is that his mother, who was a celebrity photographer in the 40s and 50s, is Brazilian.

 

When I meet Argento, I present him with a Portuguese-language version of Camille Paglia’s book on Hitchcock’s film The Birds and he is flattered that I’ve recognized the other side of his Latin heritage. During the interview, Argento rolls along energetically in Italian – like a runaway Vespa careening through the Villa Borghese gardens – as Rinaldo struggles to keep up with him as my English-language interpreter. “For my new movie, I really wanted to imitate the style of Hitchcock, especially the long, drawn-out scenes he used for suspense”, Argento tells me. “But for my film, I really exaggerate the Hitchcock style of suspense by portraying long, long scenes that are much longer than his scenes. This is my way of commenting on Hitchcock’s main device for suspense.” 

"Suspiria"

The story of Do You Like Hitchcock? concerns a 23 year-old film student and Hitchcock fan named Giulio who meets two women in a video store, all of them set on renting Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. Giulio surrenders the DVD to the ladies who – in a gesture to Rear Window – live in the building opposite Giulio’s. When Giulio spies the two women making out, it becomes apparent that Do You Like Hitchcock? conspires to break through the sex-less, Catholic guilt-ridden barriers erected by the repressed Anglo director. “There are a lot of sex scenes in my Hitchcock homage, this is the only aspect that is different from his films”, explains Argento. “Hitchcock was very moralistic, he had this British way of behaving and directing, a British decorum. But I love sex and showing naked bodies in my films.” While this obvious Latin affectation is at odds with Hitch’s infamously timid attitude toward women’s sexuality, the fact that the British Master and Argento have a Catholic upbringing in common begs examination. 

The role of Catholic guilt in the horror genre cannot be underestimated. Argento believes that horror films from Catholic countries serve the function of “releasing some kind of evil you have in your inner self…this is a good thing.” But despite his overt Italian baroque tendencies, Argento claims the reason his films are popular in Japan is because “my mind is very similar to the Japanese mind. I have a lot in common with manga artists.” He feels the prevalence of moralism in cinema is more of a problem in non-Catholic, Western countries. “My films are not moralistic but American films are, especially the big ones like War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise”, he says. “There is a fixation with family values in that film.” And while the calculating Hitchcock seemed concerned with specific psychological conflicts--Norman Bates and his smothering albeit dead mother, Marnie’s pathological frigidity, marauding birds as primitive force vs. civilization--Argento’s work is frequently visceral. He is often so caught up with high visual style, lighting and mise-en-scene, there is a constant feeling that Argento is too distracted to notice the axe-wielding specter of Catholic guilt sneaking up behind him. Viewing Argento’s films is a bit like having sex with a stranger in a Catholic country--there is a nagging concern that you’re doing something terribly wrong but it feels way too good to stop. 

"Deep Red"

In addition to the Catholic connection, there are also the inevitable rumours concerning the cruelty of both directors. During a scene toward the end of The Birds, where Tippi Hedren is being brutally pecked by the film’s feathered stars in an attic, live birds were thrown at the blonde heroine. Hitch, who was not entirely fond of Hedren, allegedly egged on crew members by sadistically chanting, “Faster, faster!” In a similar scene in Argento’s 1980 supernatural experiment, Inferno, live cats were hurled at actress Daria Nicolodi, who was Argento’s then-lover and mother of their daughter Asia, and whose combative relationship with the director is the stuff of eternal Italian gossip. “Yes, Hitchcock hated Tippi”, Argento grins when I bring up both stories. Without denying the frenetic feline-tossing on the set of Inferno, he adds, “Hitchcock was afraid of birds, but I love cats. Some feel that cats are close to the devil and for this reason, priests rarely own them. But I don’t believe that.”

David Hemmings and Argento on the set of "Deep Red"

Produced by RAI Trade, Do You Like Hitchcock? – which was screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival –  is the first in a series of Hitchcock-themed feature length programs and marks Argento’s return to the television format. When he was in his early thirties, Argento sported a modish mop-top hairdo that perfectly complimented his rock star-like status after his 1972 TV series, Door Into Darkness, catapulted him into the Italian pop culture stratosphere. Similar to the TV serial Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Argento’s series featured the horror auteur introducing hour-long murder mysteries from a variety of directors, including Argento himself. “When Door Into Darkness was shown on TV it caused a revolution. Many people called the station and also the newspapers to complain about the excessive violence. I met with the people at RAI and many scenes had to be cut”, Argento recalls. “Now, with the Hitchcock homage the complaints from RAI have been about the sex scenes rather than violence.” 

The Villa Scott in Turin

Do You Like Hitchcock? was shot in Argento’s second favorite shooting locale after Rome, the city of Turin in the Piemonte region of northern Italy. Besides its arguably inflated reputation as the Italian capital of black magic, Turin is also the birthplace of Italian cinema – the first Italian film, Cabiria, was shot there in 1914. “I love shooting in Turin because there are many small neighborhoods that not many people have seen – it’s a rarely filmed city”, enthuses Argento. “I especially love Turin’s architecture as it is different from other Italian cities – it is between baroque and art nouveau.” As a friend and admirer of Michelangelo Antonioni, Argento has always appreciated the director’s use of architecture in his stories – particularly in the 1962 film The Eclipse where Monica Vitti wanders past modern buildings in a forlorn Roman suburb – and sees architectural structures as actual characters in many of his own films. 

Perhaps the most famous example of this in the Argento oeuvre is the flamboyant and decrepit art nouveau mansion in his 1975 giallo masterpiece, Profondo Rosso (Deep Red). Built in 1901, the Villa Scott--nestled in the hills of Turin--is featured in several key scenes in which actor David Hemmings is attempting to solve a series of murders. “A group of nuns and wayward girls lived in this house when I discovered it during a location shoot”, Argento says of the villa which remained empty for most of the 80s and 90s. “We paid for all of them to go on vacation in Remini, a resort on the Adriatic, so we could shoot there for a month.” The nuns and their girls returned tanned and relaxed to their villa which was henceforth referred to as “the Deep Red horror house.” Another famous Deep Red locale is the Piazza CLN, on the via Roma, with its bookend male and female statue-adorned fountains, where David Hemmings is witness to the film’s first murder. Off the tourist beat, this humble piazza will be known to the world when the 2006 Olympics descend on Turin this winter. 

Monica Vitti strolls through EUR in Antonioni's "L'Eclisse"

What is also little-known about Argento outside of Italy is that he shares the left-wing tendencies of his Italian cinema colleagues Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci. In 1969, Bertolucci joined the Communist Party and also collaborated with Argento on the script for Sergio Leone’s classic Spaghetti Western, Once Upon a Time in the West. “I was a member of the Italian Communist Party”, says Argento proudly. He also worked as the film critic for Party newspaper Paese Sera after he finished Catholic school. In 1973, Argento made a rare departure from the horror genre when he wrote and directed the underrated Le Cinque Giornate (The Five Days), a left-wing political satire about the Italian revolution centered in Milan in 1848. Evoking the comedy of Mel Brooks and Monty Python, Le Cinque Giornate is a savage commentary on the birth of Italy. “I wanted to show how false that birth was”, say Argento. “Because it was a revolution conducted by the rich and by the nobles. That is why six years later there was another revolution, an anarchist revolution.”

"The Five Days"

I mention that recently while re-watching his exquisite first film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, I freeze-framed and zoomed into a Chairman Mao poster that hung on the American couple’s apartment wall in Rome. This causes Argento to launch into an anecdote from the time of Inferno’s pre-production with 20^th Century Fox’s involvement in 1979. An American producer friend from Fox, who was very drunk after a dinner with Dario and Daria, was invited to nap in the Argento bedroom. The man passed out in the dark and when he awoke an hour later, he saw an enormous wooden red star, the symbol of Mao’s Red Brigade, towering over the bed. “He came running into the living room where Daria, me and the man’s wife were drinking and talking and he started screaming at the top of his lungs ‘What the fuck is this?! Are you a terrorist, a member of the Red Brigade?!’” Argento recalls. “And I said ‘no, no, no it is just art, a sculpture’ and he said ‘I’m not so sure about that.’ After he went back to America, I never heard from him again and our friendship ended abruptly.” This story brings to mind the anti-communist soliloquy near the end of the preposterous 1949 American propaganda film The Red Menace: "My flag has three colors, not one that's the color of blood!"  

Of course Argento will always be thought of as the creepy yet dignified creator of Deep Red and other blood-soaked sagas rather than as a Red menace – and will continue to forge ahead in the terror terrain. Masters of Horror, a new TV series that will be distributed worldwide, will feature segments directed by fright titans John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Roger Corman, George Romero (Argento collaborated with Romero on Dawn of the Dead) and others. Argento’s contribution will be a short film based on a comic book called “Jenifer”. The project grew out of a bi-monthly dinner gathering attended by the directors. At a recent one held in a Vancouver restaurant, Argento started arguing with John Landis after Landis opined that the shower scene in Psycho was effective because “you never actually see the gory stabbing." Argento began plunging his knife into the rare steak he ordered, screaming "No! I like to see contact with the victim! Lots and lots of blood! Audiences love it!" Would Hitchcock have liked Argento? We think so. 

Thanks for reading,

Glenn

P.S. - The trailer for Mario Bava's "Blood and Black Lace"--a giallo set in a Roman fashion house:

The Mermaid Parade in Coney Island, June 20, 2009. Photos by Glenn Belverio

Dear Ethel Mermen & Maids,

Because it's been raining for forty days and forty nights in New York, a tinge of S.A.D.ness hung over the Mermaid Parade this year....but once the peppy punch of the marchers' prozac-and-beer milkshakes kicked in, the languor melted away and a festive mood triumphed.

The shroud-grey sky wasn't the only bummer mer-celebrants had to cope with: Days before the parade, a rezoning and development plan was approved for Coney Island by the City Planning Commission. The plan will allow developers to dismantle the old Astroland (sections of it have already been removed--the Cyclone and Wonder Wheel, however, are protected as historical landmarks), build some horrid, charm-less Disney-like amusement park, and create 4,500 new housing units. (Only 900 of them will be affordable to low-and-middle-income families. Considering the lack of well-to-do NY yuppies given the recession, maybe the luxe condos will be snapped up by Europeans who have grown weary of their summer view in the south of France??)

But the clouds did have a (tarnished) silver lining: After fears that it would be shuttered, Ruby's Bar & Grill was able to renegotiate their lease with Thor Equities--for how long, I'm not sure. Opened in the late '60s, Ruby's is my favorite bar in New York. The walls are adorned with photos of old Coney Island stretching back to at least the 1920's, and the jukebox pumps out classics from Elvis, Sinatra and Johnny Cash. (None of that weird hipstah music the kids listen to in other parts of Brooklyn). 

On the way to Coney, we were blessed to be on the same F train car as the Reverend Billy, pastor of the Church of Stop Shopping. (Did I just hear a gaggle of fashion victims' hearts skip a beat?) From his website: 

"Reverend Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir believe that Consumerism is overwhelming our lives. The corporations want us to have experiences only through their products. Our neighborhoods, 'commons' places like stoops and parks and streets and libraries, are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores. But if we 'back away from the product' – even a little bit, well then we Put The Odd Back In God!" Hallelujah, Billy!

 

Before the parade starts, it is a Coney Island tradition to meet up at Ruby's for beer, hot dogs and all manner of deep-fried delights.

 

My Mermaid Day lunch at Ruby's: Not one, but two plates of juicy, jumbo raw clams, washed down with a pint of Ruby's Amber Ale. Sluuurrrpp! (I also managed to wolf down an excellent sausage, onions and peppers sandwich as well).

 

If someone ever decides to remake that car crash of a film known as Fassbinder's "Querelle," this handsome, young man will be the first in line for the lead. (A la Brad Davis, this stud's sexual preference was up for debate with me and my friends. Carole insisted he was straight; Corey cast the gay vote. The fact that his sidekick--the guy in the blue t-shirt--was a sexually ambiguous hipstah didn't help matters).

Following a heavy rain, the parade got off to a dry start with plenty of color to combat the gloom.

Whenever I attend the Mermaid Parade, I always think of the time I interviewed Manuel Cuevas in Nashville in 2006. The legendary designer, who has created costumes for Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, the Stones et al, told me an amusing story about his now-departed pal Johnny Cash:

“Cash called me from a payphone on Sunset Boulevard and said, ‘Manuel, do you think it will happen again?’ His voice was half-hopeful, half-melancholy,” Manuel remembers. “And I said, ‘John, what are you talking about?’ And he said, ‘The titty parade! Do you think there’ll be another titty parade?’ I laughed and told him, ‘Well, I hope so and if there is, you better call me sooner next time!” (This was sometime during the Sexual Revolution—circa 1969—when liberated girls took to the streets and randomly flashed their breasts at policemen and other bystanders).

And speaking of Elvis....

No, this is NOT photographic evidence of the Ayatollah Khamenei rigging a voting booth in Iran--it's Zoltar, Coney Island's premiere prophet and used car salesman!

These ingenious gals dressed as roller coaster cars and sped and spun down the entire parade route.

Lobster Lady!

Is that mer-royalty approaching....?

It is! This year, actor Harvey Keitel was crowned King Neptune while actress Daphna Kastner was Queen Mermaid. (Sorry you can only see her arm in the photo!)

God save your mad parade....

"When is the fucking sun ever going to come out again?!?!"

Sexy bongo bearer!

"Nah, I didn't get paid much to be an extra in the "Eyes Wide Shut" orgy scene....but they let me keep the costume!!"

Ever since Henry Rollins stopped hitting the gym, he's begun to resemble Uncle Fester.

These clever craftsmen constructed a float out of some of the pieces from the dismantled Astroland. When God gives you lemons....

After the parade, everyone convened at Ruby's to escape the blistering cold outside....

My pal, the lesbian rock star Carole Pope, grabbed a bloody mary to prepare for her 2-hour bus ride to Asbury Park. Peaches was performing that night at the Stone Pony! From one iconic, time-worn party beach to another, all in one day....I can't keep up with Carole!

Corey and I left Ruby's so we could go take a spin on the Cyclone roller coaster (which I think is a UNESCO World Heritage Site at this point...?). On the way I discovered this customized bus which reminded me of the hippie-painted plane in Michelangelo Antonioni's counter-culture cult film, "Zabriskie Point."

No, this is not a beach in northern Scotland in early winter....it's still Coney Island in June.

Thanks for reading,

Glenn Belverio

Further reading: Coverage of the 2008 Mermaid Parade

Met Costume Institute's "The Model as Muse" disappoints, plus: flashback to my feature on director/photographer Jerry Schatzberg

Two stills from the obscure Jerry Schatzberg gem Puzzle of a Downfall Child

Dear Fashion Fans:

A few days ago I checked out the "Model as Muse" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had expectations, but not too high. After all, I've been looking at and writing about model culture for over ten years. I was hoping to see something new, something startling--some new twist on what is just, let's face it, a recycled theme and a weak idea. As I walked through the exhibit I was making air check marks in front of various photos and tableaus: Iconic Penn photos, check. Dovima and the Elephants, check (would have loved some obscure images/info on Dovima; she had an interesting trajectory), a "Studio 54 room," check. Vintage Dior clothing, check. Magazines opened to '90s Calvin Klein ads, check. Scenes from Funny Face projected on a wall, check. (Great film but THE most obvious choice! Why not throw a curve ball and project scenes from Puzzle of a Downfall Child?....but more on that later). The music played in the various "decades" rooms was predictable and uninspired: "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in the '90s room (most obvious choice) and "Talkin' 'bout My Generation" by The Who in the '60s room. Considering that Paco Rabanne was the featured designer in this room (complemented with clips from William Klein's film Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? which satirizes Rabanne's metallic fashions in its opening sequence) I would have thought someone would have been savvy enough to dig up "The Martian Without a Master" by Pierre Boulez. This was the song played when Rabanne marched black models down his runway, a first, in the mid-'60s. But instead we got The Who? Mediocrity! Mrs. Vreeland would not be pleased.

When I contacted former Costume Institute curator Diana Vreeland via Ouija Board, she confirmed that she was not pleased with the Met's current show. Photo by Andy Warhol.

I will admit that I was pleased to see some of the metal costumes from Klein's film. There was only ONE photo in the exhibit that I had never seen before, a sublime shot of Penelope Tree. But most of the choices were predictable and unsurprising to the fashion initiated. They've been seen millions of times; reproduced in the pages of American and foreign fashion magazines year after year and featured in countless other exhibits. (Even though I've seen it many times, I will admit it's always a pleasure to see Franco Rubartelli's photo of my favorite model, Veruschka--whom I interviewed in 1999 for DUTCH magazine--in Saint Laurent safari chic.)

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "But Glenn, you're old and jaded! You think you've seen it all." Perhaps, and perhaps this show will be of interest to teenagers and people in their early '20s. But even I know that many young people, especially young fashion fanatics, are very aware of fashion history and do have high standards. I have young friends who can describe in detail the looks from Azzedine Alaia's first collection (who, by the way, was not featured in this exhibit despite being well-known for promoting the concept of models as muses).

Above: Azzedine Alaia with Naomi Campbell. Campbell boycotted the Met "Model as Muse" gala to protest Alaia's omission. 

Finally, one last gripe (which, I admit, is also a segue): I do not recall seeing even one image by Jerry Schatzberg in this show. Am I wrong? If I'm right, this is absolutely criminal! Schatzberg not only shot brilliant fashion images in the '50s and '60s, he also directed the above-mentioned film Puzzle of a Downfall Child which features a model/muse, played by Faye Dunaway, who has a nervous breakdown. So, would you rather see that (it's never been officially released on DVD or video) or Funny Face for the trillionth time?

Back in the spring of 2000, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Schatzberg at his Central Park West apartment and penned the following feature which originally appeared in the September/October 2000 issue of DUTCH magazine. 

Schatzberg vérité

by Glenn Belverio 

Jerry Schatzberg is talking about the time he was blacklisted--not by Senator McCarthy, but by Faye Dunaway. "We had a fight because she arrived late on the set. She put my name on the list and I just left it there," he recalls. Schatzberg is referring to the filming of his obscure masterpiece, Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), the story of a fashion model who has a mental breakdown. The film's protagonist, Lou Andreas Sand, played by Dunaway, has compiled an ever-growing list of photographers she refuses to work with. In a life-imitates-art moment, Dunaway added Schatzberg, who was once a fashion photographer and Dunaway's lover, to Lou's list. Luckily they reconciled and were able to finish this quirky gem of a film.

Based on the real-life story of model Anne St. Marie, Puzzle documents the rise and fall of a top model whose distortion of reality shapes the film's surreal narrative. "Anne had her own sense of humor," says Schatzberg, who fell in love with her when he shot her for Vogue in the late '50s. "The stress of this business led to her breakdown." The film is a bit like a Nostradamus prophecy of the tribulations suffered by contemporary models such as Kate Moss. Eerily, Dunaway's visage seems to channel the waif supermodel in the film. But Puzzle can be any girl's story. "Anne was not unique," Schatzberg remembers. "There were models who would walk into the studio and just break down crying because some editor told them that one shoulder was higher than the other." Schatzberg tape-recorded St. Marie during her downward spiral, which was abated by booze and pills, and later played the tapes for Carole Eastman, who wrote the screenplay for Puzzle. "Faye also listened to the tapes and got to know Anne that way," says Schatzberg. Eastman combined her own odd sense of humor with Anne's recorded persona, and Lou Andreas Sand was born. "When Carole initially listened to the tapes, she was so intrigued she left a friend with a toothache waiting in her car for three hours," recalls Schatzberg.

Above: Faye's fractured image in Puzzle

The film's title is derived from the story of a woman Schatzberg knew, who would wake up in the middle of the night, rush to the window and try to catch a "falling child." Schatzberg originally envisioned a film that was about an abortion, but as the story developed it became more about St. Marie and her downfall. Puzzle takes the viewer through Lou's fractured mind which imagines events such as an art director gunning her down while she is being photographed on a beach, and her bridal gown (which resembles a nun's habit and was inspired by the designs of Geoffrey Beene) changing from white to black as she flees the wedding altar. Puzzle is so obscure that the only copy Schatzberg has of his own film is the one designer Anna Sui taped when it was aired at an ungodly hour on a forgotten TV channel. It's the kind of film you hear fashion film freaks talk about in the same breath as that other classic Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? directed by another photographer/director William Klein. "We knew each other in the '60s," says Schatzberg. "I shot him working backstage at the Paris collections for Esquire."

 

Fashion photo by Jerry Schatzberg

Schatzberg, a native of Forest Hills, Queens, NY, got his start in photography in 1954 when he assisted fashion photographer Bill Helburn. In 1956, he moved to Manhattan and started shooting his own editorial for Glamour and Vogue. In addition to his fashion work, he was also involved with the '60s rock scene in swinging London. There, photographer David Bailey introduced him to Mick Jagger before most people had heard of the Rolling Stones. "Here was this guy with a ripped sweater and dirty fingernails, and all the girls were screaming and pulling at him when we got out of my car at one of their gigs," says Schatzberg, who later photographed the Stones in drag for the cover of their single "Can't You See Your Mother Standing in the Shadows?" Later, he was a financial backer for two seminal New York clubs, Ondine and Salvation, where Jimmy Hendrix (then Jimmy James) played his first gig. Most of all, Schatzberg wanted to make films and leave fashion photography. His debut Puzzle functions as a neat exit from his former profession. 

 Edie Sedgwick photographed by Jerry Schatzberg

Most of Schatzberg's films have garnered more enthusiasm abroad, mainly due to his European cinema sensibility: minimalist story lines, languid pacing, painterly-like vistas. "When I go to Paris, I'm treated like Spielberg. It's so good for my ego," laughs the director who still spends most of his time in New York, where he resides on Central Park West. After Puzzle, Schatzberg immediately began working on a new project, a film that he is perhaps most famous for: The Panic in Needle Park (1971), starring Kitty Winn and Al Pacino as heroin addicts who hang out in the park at the intersection of 72nd Street and Broadway. It soon becomes clear, however, that "Needle Park" is more than a row of grimy park benches; it is the mental landscape, or existential prison, that heroin addicts inhabit. The script was written by Joan Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, who it is rumored spent just a couple of days researching the topic of junkies. However, before shooting, Schatzberg, Pacino and Winn hit the streets for six weeks to build on the script. "We hung out with junkies at Blimpie's and went to seminars for addicts at Roosevelt Hospital," says Schatzberg. 

"What do you mean I can't get a prescription for heroin?" Kitty Winn in The Panic in Needle Park

The resulting film is pure cinema verite, partly because real ex-junkies were cast as denizens of Needle Park. A scene depicting the cutting and packaging of heroin by dealers is so realistic that one waits for a documentary-style voiceover to accompany the action. The authenticity is helped again by the casting, this time of actual heroin cutters. In many of Schatzberg's films, particularly Panic, Scarecrow (1973) and Honeysuckle Rose (1980), the action is so natural that one almost suspects a candid camera technique, as if the actors were unaware of being filmed. "I think in some ways it's what I did in fashion photography. When I brought people into the studio, I still wanted them to be honest and real. For the collection I shot for Vogue in 1960, I just had people walking across the set in a very natural way, with their skirts poofing up and so on." 

 Jerry frames a shot

Schatzberg continued to make films throughout the '70s and '80s, winning the Palm d'Or at Cannes in 1973 for Scarecrow, but was relatively quiet during the '90s. "I worked on six films where either the script didn't work out or the money didn't come through. But I'm not very prolific anyhow," he shrugs. Happily for Schatzberg fans, the director has both a new film release and a retrospective scheduled for the fall. His latest, The Day the Ponies Came Back, is about a Frenchman (Guilaume Canet of The Beach) who goes to New York to track down his father and through him, to find himself. The story is inspired by Schatzberg's ex-wife who embarked on the same quest. With Schatzberg's help, she found her father. "I think we're all looking for our fathers, even if we have a father, we're always trying to please him. We do everything we can to make him like us." The film, shot in the Bronx, promises to have the same gritty appeal as earlier works. His next project, Boomer, will be another collaboration with Puzzle scripter, Carole Eastman, who Schatzberg hasn't worked with for twenty-five years. It's based on the memoirs of an English professor overcome with ennui. "She experiments with drugs and homosexuality because she is tired of her life," he explains. "Then she sees an ad for a railway worker position and she takes it. She still works there today."

Al Pacino in Scarecrow

Schatzberg has been credited with being one of the few directors to craft a new style of drama, an American genre that surfaced after the dust of the tumultuous '60s cleared. "The absence of schmaltz and sentimentality in many '70s dramas had a lot to do with the reality of the '60s," he says. "That decade brought us a lot, but also took away a lot." One device Schatzberg often likes to employ is the anti-climactic/non-resolution ending (a style pioneered by Michelangelo Antonioni). Lou walking away from her beach house still trying to piece together the jumbled episodes of her life in Puzzle. Helen silently following Bobby after he is released from jail in Panic. Max the drifter banging his shoe on the ticket counter at the train station after leaving his catatonic companion behind in the hospital in Scarecrow. The characters stay with you after the film is over, you worry about them as if you knew them. "You hope that maybe something nice will happen to them," says Schatzberg. "I loved Anne and I wanted her to come out of it the whole time I was photographing her during her breakdown. Those endings leave a little hope, a little optimism."

Surprise! "Puzzle of a Downfall Child" is on YouTube.

Thanks for reading.

Love,

Glenn Belverio

Marxist heartthrob! Hugo Chavez's daughter is dating Pablo Sepúlveda Allende. Plus, my report on fashion and politics in Santiago de Chile

Above: Dr. Pablo Sepulveda Allende sporting a Ho Chi Minh t-shirt. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Dear Fellow Pinkos,

I love this news item about Chavez's daughter, Maria Chavez, dating Salvador Allende's cute grandson. For those who don't know, Salvador Allende was Chile's democratically elected Marxist president who was overthrown by a bloody USA/CIA-backed coup on September 11, 1973, because the U.S. could not tolerate the existence of a fairly elected Communist so close to home. Allende committed suicide during the siege with a rifle given to him by Fidel Castro. Seventeen years of US-approved fascism, helmed by General Pinochet, ensued.

I traveled to Santiago de Chile in November 2007 to report on the Museo de la Moda and fashion/politics during the Allende and Pinochet years for ZOO magazine. For those who missed that issue, here is my piece below.

Man of La Moda

Jorge Yarur makes a fashion statement in Chile’s post-Pinochet culture

By Glenn Belverio

While passing through Buenos Aires last November, I had a brief chat with Argentine designer Jessica Trosman about my upcoming visit to the Museo de la Moda in Santiago, Chile. “There’s a fashion museum in Chile?!” she asked incredulously. Her shock was based on the unstylish reputation of most Chilean women. “Chilean women dress simply, nearly always in slacks; they wear their hair down and use little makeup," writes Isabel Allende in her 2003 memoir My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile. "On the beach or at a party they all look the same, a chorus of clones,”  It was certainly not my aim to judge the questionable dressing habits of Santiago’s female population. I was, however, curious about how a fashion museum was being received in this far-flung country, one that is framed by the Andes, deserts, glaciers, and a vast stretch of the Pacific. Chile is, after all, a nation whose fairly recent political history—Salvador Allende’s controversial Marxist government in the early '70s followed by a long, brutal dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet—continues to resonate in everyday life. (A popular bi-weekly newspaper called The Clinic, for example, serves up scathing political satire and investigation, and is named after the British clinic where Pinochet was first incarcerated.) 

 An illustration of Salvador Allende from The Clinic

The Museo de la Moda, which opened in June 2007, is located in the exclusive uptown neighborhood of Vitacura, a wealthy, sterile community full of opulent homes surrounded by towering hedges. The area is in marked contrast to Santiago’s bohemian and partially seedy Downtown and Bellavista districts, where a majority of the city’s museums are located. Entering the Museo, you have to check in at a guardhouse, making you feel as if you’re crashing a private party at someone’s home on Mulholland Drive rather than visiting a public museum. But, in effect, you are visiting a private residence, for the Museo has been installed in the former childhood home—an impressive, one-level Japanese-style house built in 1962—of Jorge Yarur Bascuñán. The only child of a wealthy textile manufacturer of Palestinian descent and a bohemian Chilean woman, Yarur transformed the house into a fashion museum after his parents passed away sometime in the '90s. He began collecting pieces in 1999 and has since amassed over eight-thousand acquisitions. 

The lovely zen-like exterior of the Museo de la Moda

Walking through the darkened hallways (the floor-to-ceiling windows of the house have all been covered with heavy curtains) I discovered such treats as important vintage Dior, Chanel, and Cardin pieces; a velvet dress worn by Eva Perón; Joan Crawford’s Jean Louis gown from the film Queen Bee; and a selection from Nolan Miller’s Dynasty wardrobe worn by Joan Collins. The temporary exhibit, titled Dressing Time and curated by Lydia Kamitsis, also reached back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was comprised of pieces from Yarur’s collection. Another, permanent exhibit takes up several rooms and is devoted to tennis clothing from 1880 to the present. An interesting facet of the Dressing Time show was a number of dresses from the '40s and '50s whose designers’ names will go unrecognized by most. They are pieces that belonged to the muse of the museum, Yarur’s mother, Rachel Bascuñán. “My mother was looking for her own style, more than big labels,” Yarur told me over the phone from Paris, where he was tirelessly acquiring more pieces for the museum. “She liked fine clothes, but she was searching for her own identity.” 

A few of the pieces Ms. Bascuñán possessed were bought during her spectacular eight-month honeymoon in 1958. A colorful, dreamlike video transfer of an 8mm film plays continuously at the entrance of the museum’s galleries, documenting the honeymoon’s long trail: from Buenos Aires to Rio, Milan to Morocco (with a pit-stop in North Carolina so Jorge Yarur, Sr. could visit the cotton mills). Elsewhere in the museum is Ms. Bascuñán’s pink 1958 Ford Thunderbird—not a typical Chilean’s car at the time. One of her paintings hangs a few yards away from a work by Latin American surrealist, Roberto Matta Echaurren, in the house’s carefully preserved den. “All the knowledge of culture that I have is from my mother,” says Yarur. “My father was always working, so I spent a lot of time with her, listening to classical music and learning about art. My mother was a quiet, sensitive woman. She never spent hours on the phone gossiping like other Chilean women.”

Inside the Museo

“This young millionaire, Jorge Yarur, didn’t know what to do with his life until he discovered his passion for fashion, which he has dedicated all of his energy and resources to for the Museo,” says Professor Pia Montalva, a Yarur associate and author of To Die a Little: Fashion and Society in Chile, 1960 – 1976. “And he does it very well, very seriously, elevating himself in the eyes of other qualified museum experts.” Ms. Bascuñán’s consumption of non-big-label fashion was not, according to Montalva, unusual for Chilean women during the '40s and '50s. “There was a design house in Chile during the '40s that sold prototyped copies of French high fashion. A manufacturer would buy a copy and then reproduce it with Chilean fabrics, using high-quality manual labor, and sell it commercially in large numbers,” Montalva explains. “By the mid-'60s, there were a number of boutiques that sold imitations of more avant-garde designs by Courrèges, Cardin, Saint Laurent, and Rabanne.” 

Jorge Yarur photographed in Paris in 2007 by Kai Junemann

Copied French ready-to-wear was obviously not confined to Chile—Jackie Kennedy wore American-made knockoffs of Paris fashion while in the White House—but soon, even ersatz fashion statements were rendered démodé by sudden political and economic changes. When Salvador Allende was elected president in 1970, he implemented a number of socialist programs designed to improve the socio-economic welfare of Chile’s poorest citizens. “Allende was all the time against the rich people, and that affected my family,” remembers Yarur, who was a child at the time. “His government was about resentment of the rich, not about everyone having the same standard of living.”

Salvador Allende

“During that time, there was a fear in exhibiting or representing your status. Expensive, ostentatious dressing style disappeared,” explains Montalva. But, it seems, Chilean Marxism did not sound the death knell for creativity and style. “Toward the end of Allende’s presidency, the lack of natural resources produced a hecho a mano (manmade) style,” continues Montalva. “Women made their own clothes and accessories by recycling and transforming old garments from their wardrobes. A hippie-folk aesthetic emerged with an emphasis on the individual.” 

Because the United States government could not tolerate the existence of a democratically elected Socialist in Latin America, they aided and abetted General Pinochet in a bloody, brutal coup against Allende on September 11, 1973. During the long years of Pinochet’s undemocratic government that followed the coup, U.S. and other foreign economic interests predictably seized the moment: Fashion flourished under fascism. “The big change during the military dictatorship was the arrival of foreign fashion brands: Esprit, Levi’s, Wrangler, Benetton, Fiorucci, and the boom of malls and department stores,” notes Montalva. “In the long run, the consequence of this change was the progressive destruction of Chile’s national industries, textiles, and clothing. The main legacy of Pinochet is that Chile has distanced itself from its continental aesthetics. It denies its mestizo origins and considers itself a ‘white’ country with a very superior level of development. And from that it builds its identity.” Perhaps it’s this homogenization that spawned Isabel Allende’s “chorus of clones”? “The women of Chile copy each other,” confirms Montalva. “I don’t think that will change because it’s rooted in Chilean idiosyncrasy; but it is a problem that is much more complicated than fashion.”

General Pinochet addresses his troops

A symbol of twenty-first century optimism, the Museo de la Moda is like a dollop of sugary meringue on Chile’s bittersweet late-twentieth-century history of flawed social programs, political repression, and torture. But even with the frothiness of eighteenth-century lace ruffles and Joan Crawford’s crimson satin, Yarur is turning his sights toward the streets. “I want my exhibits to address the cultures of North and South America and Europe, but not just be a reflection of the glamour you see in fashion magazines. Real fashion is to be found on the street, not at a party where everyone is wearing nice dresses and tuxedos. That’s a minority, what you see on the red carpet.” This is good news for those who’ve grown weary of Anna Wintour’s annual Costume Institute gala and the event’s coverage of couture-clad starlets who think Erté is the name of a new brand of caffeine-infused vodka. 

Yarur’s museum is also poised to address a larger political history’s influence on clothing: the two World Wars and their impact on fashion’s long-lasting patterns. Yarur’s overall fashion vision is at once rooted in Chile (the museum’s homage to his parents) and well beyond his country’s social and religious parameters. “His collection is made with a non-elitist and non-nationalistic approach,” says curator Lydia Kamitsis. “He juxtaposes pieces from all over the world, and of different interests. They can be very simple or very sophisticated. This diversity makes us understand what fashion is about in France compared to Italy, the U.S., Argentina, or Chile.” Beyond the Andes, it turns out, lies a new and unlikely fashion frontier. 

My photo of an exit at a Santiago subway stop. No, this has nothing to do with 9/11 in the U.S.--the avenue is named after the day of the 1973 coup in remembrance of Allende's death. (Chile is now moderately Socialist).

Michael Musto declares Derek Neen the Best Doorman in New York City

Dear Readers,

Once upon a time, this blog used to be about New York nightlife, club doormen and my 2006 book, "Confessions from the Velvet Ropes." But as you probably noticed, I've become bored of the NY club scene and started getting my kicks by traveling around the world to fashion shows and other glam events. However, I couldn't let this item pass by. On his blog, Michael Musto interviews doorman Derek Neen and declares him the "best doorman in NYC" (Thomas Onorato, the main subject of my book, is not really a doorman anymore, so I'm sure he doesn't mind giving up his title). I also profiled Derek in my book--hanging out with him at the doors of Beige and Roxy was definitely more fun than being inside the club--so if you can get your hands on a copy (I think it's out of print but there is an eBook version) there are many juicy stories from his 20+ years-long career.

Here is the link to Musto's interview.

Later,

Glenn

Christmas at the White House Party at the home of Glenn Belverio, December 13, 2008

 
Above: "Hope for the Holidays": An Obama finger puppet tops my tree but is slightly upstaged by John Toth's "Dianne Brill Goes to the White House" piece.

Dear holiday hellraisers,

Since this is probably the first time in eight years that we Americans don't have to feel embarrassed about being American (for the time being, at least) I chose a "Christmas at the White House" theme for my holiday party this year. A week before the party, I invited some friends over to help decorate my tree and was very impressed by their politcally themed contributions.

 
Above: Knitwear designer Tom Scott devised these genius First Lady decorations, while Corey made the Sarah Palin ornament ("I can see Santa and the entire North Pole from here!"). Priya and her husband Ab brought the Obama air freshener (off to the left of Jackie) which was very controversial because it smelled like vanilla! I think it was from the Ralph Nader line of political Christmas ornaments. Sylvia Heisel and her husband Scott made the Obama and Bush fortune garlands. One of the fortunes chosen for Bush reads: "A person is never too old to learn." Also, "Don't ever slam a door; you might want to go back." Good luck with that, hon.

 
More Tom Scott creations: Pat Nixon and, of course. Nancy Reagan.

 
Betty Ford always brings a prophetic vibe to any booze-soaked soiree.

 
Christine Martin and Ben Stock adorned themselves in festively colored duchess satins.

 
The always fab Carole Pope. Carole just finished work on her role in an upcoming vampire film that also stars Iggy Pop, Michael Stipe, Alice Cooper (!), Henry Rollins, and Moby. Sounds like the hippest vampire film since "The Hunger"!

 
Because it just wouldn't be a White House/fin-de-siecle Christmas party without an Obama gingerbread cookie (baked by Corey Sabourin). From left: Nancy Stout, Jill Smith, and Thomas Onorato.

 
Artist Mathias Kessler and Karina Daskalov of Marian Goodman Gallery

 
Angela Gaimari and Christopher Voigt. I'm still stepping on the bits of broken glass from the champagne flute that Angela smashed onto my floor. Thanks, doll!

 
A bevy of bearded men! Mathias and Demetre Daskalakis. Demetre is currently one of the featured "Do-Gooders" in PAPER magazine as recognition for his admirable work with the Men's Sexual Health Project.

 
Graphic designer Michelle Gorman

 
Thomas, Jll and Tim McKlusky hanging out in my bedroom discussing the state of fashion, makeup and politics.

 
Keepers of the subcultural and fashion flames, Patrick Lehman and Adrian Milton. It was great to catch up with the boys after not seeing them for ages.

 
Of course legendary & international DJ sensation Larry Tee was at my party--he'll go to the opening of a toilet!

  
Writer Christopher Anthony Stoddard and artist Scott Neary.

Above: Of course I screened Jackie Kennedy's Tour of the White House, which first aired in 1962, during the party.

 
Me working some (borrowed) anti-recession chic in Sylvia Heisel's mink coat.

 
Everyone wanted to try on Sylvia's mink!

 
Invisible mistletoe! Fashion writer Joselle Yokogawa and her boyfriend Crazy Legs of Rocksteady Crew.

 
Graphic designers Michelle Leung and Minori Kuroishi

 
Yuli Ziv of the fashion site My It Things 

   
Minh and Mary Poon shared laughs with Christine into the wee hours of the morning.

 
Joselle and Legs analyze Veruschka's breakdance moves in my Blow-Up poster.

 
Oops! Joselle spilled red wine all over Legs' sweater (I think it was cashmere). He was like, "Oh, I'll just throw it away, it's just cashmere." I concurred. "The one on the floor is vicuna," I said pointing to a sweater lying by my closet. (That was my token "Boys in the Band" reference that only Bruce LaBruce will get, I'm sure). 

 
Other guests arrived just in time for the floor show, which as you can see is on the floor.

 
Joselle hides her discomfort as fashion writer Cator Sparks debases the Obama cookie with a lewd gesture, as Abe Lincoln looks on with a poker face. Blasphemy or the shape of things to come?

 
Christine and Minh staged a vogueing contest in my Bill Ayers/Mao Room. Fierce!

 
Mary and knitwear designer Tom Scott discuss the global cashmere crisis in the Bill Ayers Smoking Lounge.

Thanks for visiting!

Love,

Glenn Belverio