It's OK for intellectual feminists to like fashion

Saint Laurent Mauvais Garçon, Marie-Dominique Lelièvre

Saint Laurent the bad boy. The alcohol-loving, drug-taking, unfaithful, irregular Saint Laurent. In case of doubt on the content of Lelièvre’s biography, here is its very first sentence: “Il ne fut qu’un couturier”. He was a mere designer. For Lelièvre, the Saint Laurent myth is nothing more than marketing orchestrated by Pierre Bergé (who refused to collaborate to this biography and apparently forbid many former Saint Laurent collaborators from doing so). As mentioned in previous articles, many of Lelièvre’s assertions feel like little more than controversy for the sake of it. Contrary to many biographers of “la saintlaurentie”, she isn’t close to her subject, observing it in a cold and systematic manner. If anyone could accuse her of bias, it would be against Saint Laurent, of writing une biographie à charge. Is it better than being so blinded by your subject you’re incapable of criticism?

Le Monde à ses Pieds, Géraldine Maillet

Death by fashion industry at 21. Death by too much fame, too much money, too much coke, too much uncertainty, too much self-doubt and too little love. In the middle of the 2000s, Ruslana Korshunova was the model of the moment, a recognisable face among the Slavic hurricane engulfing catwalks. Former model Géraldine Paillet wrote a scenario-like imagined biography. Initially multiplying view points to only focus on Ruslana’s once she has found success, her narrative is time-marked by restaurants and people and by an acerbic take on the ridiculous side of the fashion industry. We’ll never know why Ruslana killed herself but Paillet suggests it is the consequence of a gigantic misunderstanding: Ruslana wanted to make her already proud mother proud, wanted love from people who already loved her and wanted eternal success in an industry where everything has a best-before date.

Helena Rubinstein La Femme qui Inventa la Beauté, Michèle Fitoussi

We owe her modern beauty. The scientific jargon, the three steps evening routine, the sunscreen and hydrating obsession: all courtesy of one Mrs Rubinstein. Poland-born, Australia-bred, America-famous, Helena Rubinstein built an empire based on an acquaintance’s miracle cream, a huge amount of will and work and an infallible instinct for what women (and men) want. ELLE journalist Michèle Fitoussi wrote a novelised biography full of imagined dialogues where Picasso and Paul Poiret are nothing more than secondary characters.

L’Effet Kiss pas Cool Journal d’une Angoissée de la Vie, Leslie Plée

It’s not easy going through life worried. Leslie Plée suffers from the kind of anxiety which stops you from doing something because you worry it will trigger worries. Rather than allowing this anxiety to spoil her life, she channels it into a cartoon blog. Her blog is so popular it has lead to two books, including L’Effet Kiss pas Cool, full of well-spotted and funny strips on the little moments in life that can become big if you suffer from heightened anxiety. Not bad for someone who used to worry about how her drawings would be received.

Pictures: Saint Laurent from Fashionfreax, Ruslana from The Fashion Spot (ad for Geog Jensen), Helena Rubinstein from The Wall Street Journal, Leslie Plée from Leslie Plée’s blog via Les Gridouillis

Posted at 4:47pm and tagged with: book review, ysl, yves saint laurent, beauty, Helena Rubinstein, model life, blogosphere,.