Jacques Fath’s Muse

Geneviève and Jacques Fath. Photos by Nina Leen, 1946

Photo by Maurice Jarnoux

Jacques Fath, who has been described by Italian journalist Bonaventuro Calora as “extremely effeminate” and a former lover of the French film director Léonide Moguy, married, in 1939, Geneviève Boucher de la Bruyère. The bride was a former model from an aristocratic family who had been a secretary to Coco Chanel. They had one son, Philippe (born 1943). According to Fath’s friend Princess Giovanna Pignatelli Aragona Cortés, Geneviève Fath, who directed the business side of her husband’s firm during his lifetime, was a lesbian.

Mrs Jacques Fath travelled the US with a $12, 000 wardrobe — almost $116.000 in today’s currency — all created by her husband, the legendary Jacques Fath. This included 17 hats, 16 pairs of shoes, 10 handbags, four umbrellas, and other accessories, not including 12 trunks full of suits and dresses.

Life Magazine, April 19, 1948

Jan 8

After a Royal Mistress

Portrait of Madame de Pompadour, François Boucher, 1759

Pompadour refers to a hairstyle which is named for Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764), mistress of King Louis XV. Although there are numerous variations of the style for both women and men, the basic concept is hair swept upwards from the face and worn high over the forehead, and sometimes upswept around the sides and back as well.

After its initial popularity among fashionable women in the 18th century, the style was revived as part of the Gibson Girl look in the 1890s and continued to be in vogue until World War I. The style was in vogue for women once again in the 1940s. Variations of the pompadour style continue to be worn by men and women in the 21st century.

“The Weaker Sex: The young man imagines himself the latest victim of some fair entomologist“, Charles Dana Gibson, 1903

Portrait of Lady Astor, John Singer Sargent, 1908-1909

Among women, the hairstyle has become marginally popular again in the first few years of this century. It can be created by ratting at the roots of the hair on the sides of the pompadour towards the top of the head. Then the hair is combed up and over the ratted hair, off the forehead, the front up in a curl straight back, and the sides pulled back towards the center.

James Dean. Photo: Phil Stern, c. 1955

Elvis Presley, circa 1956

Elvis Presley. Photographer unknown, 1957

Pompadour style quickly became a stereotypical feature of rebels and nonconformists, and gained popularity especially after the rise of rock ‘n roll legend Elvis Presley, who sported the same look. In recent years the pompadour hair style has been adopted by those enamoured with vintage culture of the late 1950s and early 1960s that includes antique cars, hot rods, American folk music, rockabilly bands, Little Richard, and Elvis , as well as actors such as James Dean and Desi Arnaz.

Morrissey’s hairdo is inspired by his evergreen idols Elvis and Jimmy Dean

Nowadays, the pompadour hairstyle is worn on celebrities which include Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, Macklemore, David Beckham, Zac Efron, Zayn Malik of One Direction, Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys, Justin Timberlake and many others.

Apr 22

Leda and the Swan

Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces, or rapes, Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. In the W.B. Yeats version, it is subtly suggested that Clytemnestra, although being the daughter of Tyndareus, has somehow been traumatized by what the swan has done to her mother. According to many versions of the story, Zeus took the form of a swan and raped or seduced Leda on the same night she slept with her husband King Tyndareus. In some versions, she laid two eggs from which the children hatched.In other versions, Helen is a daughter of Nemesis, the goddess who personified the disaster that awaited those suffering from the pride of Hubris.