Creative Optic

Illustration by Jiří Slíva

First row: А. П. Че́хов (Anton Chekhov); J.R.R. Tolkien; Franz Kafka; Betty MacDonald (misspelled McDonald)

Second row: Jack Kerouac; Marcel Proust; Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; R. Kipling

Third row: Marcel Duchamp; Stendhal; Karl May; Karl Marx

Fourth row: Magritte; S. Freud; Louis Pasteur; Günter Grass

Fifth row: Salvador Dalí; E.M. Remarque; Jaroslav Hašek; Isaac B. Singer

The Brit Pack

From left: Stella Tennant in Stella McCartney, Cecilia Chancellor in Luella Bartley, Erin O’Connor in John Galliano, Jacquetta Wheeler in Nicole Farhi, Naomi Campbell in Julien Macdonald, Liberty Ross in Clements Ribeiro, Kate Moss in Hussein Chalayan, Elizabeth Jagger in Russell Sage and Philip Treacy, Jade Parfitt in Paul Smith, Rosemary Ferguson in Markus Lupfer, Jasmine Guinness in Boyd, Lisa Ratcliffe in Sophia Kokosalaki, Karen Elson in Betty Jackson, Georgina Cooper in Antonio Berardi, Alek Wek in Belville Sassoon by Lorcan Mullany, Sophie Dahl in Matthew Williamson, Vivien Solari in Robert Cary-Williams and Jodie Kidd in Vivienne Westwood. Photo by Mario Testino for Vogue, January 2002

May 14

Of Claws and Clothes

“Beauty should be edible, or not at all.”

Salvador Dalí

Lobster Telephone by Salvador Dalí, 1936

In 1936, Salvador Dali designed the Lobster telephone. By spring 1937, Italian fashion designer, Elsa Schiaparelli asked him to design a lobster as a decoration for a white organdy evening gown. And the dress was made famous when it appeared in Vogue modeled by Wallis Simpson. As an American Divorcee, Simpson gained notoriety when the Duke of Windsor chose to marry her in 1936 rather than become King of England.

The oversized lobster on this dress is strangely out of place on such a romantic and feminine gown. The odd juxtaposition between evening gown and sea creature was certainly not an accident. Many of Schiaparelli’s designs were both shocking and humorous.

Elsa Schiaparelli in her atelier

Lobster dress, in collaboration with Salvador Dali, 1937

Wallis Simpson. Photos: Cecil Beaton

Lobster, Andy Warhol, circa 1982

Isabella Blow at the American Embassy in Paris, 1998

Isabella Blow, in her lobster hat (by Erik Halley), at Julien MacDonald’s fashion show in London, 1998

Lobster Necklace by Erik Halley

Lady Gaga wearing a lobster hat designed by Philip Treacy in 2011

Lobster brooch by Tiffany and Co. which contains 200 pink sapphires and 61 spessartites in 18 karat gold. The lobster’s eyes are made from vivid emeralds and the antennae are sparkling diamonds. Summer 2009 collection.

Thom Browne Spring/Summer 2013

Tommy Hilfiger Short, Exploded Lobster Print Flat Front Short. 2013 Spring-Summer collection.

John Galliano Spring/Summer 2013 Menswear collection

May 12

Style’s Nurse

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”
Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest

Mme. Isabelle Cardamone, Christian Dior’s mother

Yves Saint Laurent and Mme. Lucienne Mathieu

Tommy Hilfiger and Mrs. Virginia

The lady in the portrait is Doña María Cristina Passios, Carolina Herera’s (née María Carolina Pacanins Niño) mother

Mrs. Herrera at five years old with her mother in San Sebastian, Spain in 1944.

Bianca and Jade Jagger

Linda Eastman and Stella McCartney

Georgina Chapman (from Marchesa) with her mother, Caroline Wonfor

Alexander McQueen and Joyce

Julien MacDonald (Alexander McQueen’s successor at Givenchy) with his parents. Macdonald was taught knitting by his mother and soon became interested in design.