Self-portrait
William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac
Peter Orlovsky, William S. Burroughs and Paul Lund
Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters
Neal Cassady driving The Merry Pranksters’ bus
Neil Cassady and Natalie Jackson
Iggy Pop
Philip Glass
Warren Beatty and Madonna
Bob Dylan
William S. Burroughs
Burroughs and David Hockney
Patti Smith and Burroughs
Take a Bow is a midtempo pop ballad with a “Sukiyaki”-like Japanese touch, performed by American singer-songwriter Madonna. It was released as the Bedtime Stories‘ second single on October 28, 1994. The song also appears on her compilation albums Something to Remember (1995), GHV2 (2001) and Celebration (2009).
Following the release Madonna’s first book publication, Sex, the erotic thriller, Body of Evidence, and the album, Erotica, in the early 1990s, the media and public’s backlash against Madonna’s overtly sexual image was at a peak. Released in early March, 1994, her first musical release after Erotica was the tender ballad I’ll Remember from the soundtrack of the film With Honors. When Madonna appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman on March 31, 1994 to promote the single, her coarse language and behavior—which was provocative, seemingly random at times, full of double entendres (at one point asking Letterman to sniff her panties), profanities, and ended with a refusal to leave the set—caused yet another large public controversy. Following this, Madonna decided to tone down her image and move her career into a new direction. Musically, she explored new-jack R&B styles with a generally mainstream, radio-friendly sound. This new R&B sound was reflected in Bedtime Stories. For Take a Bow, Madonna wanted a more “romantic vein” so she worked with Babyface on the track because he had proved himself to be very successful in his previous works with smooth R&B, working with other artists such as Whitney Houston, Boyz II Men, and Toni Braxton.
The chorus expresses the theme of saying goodbye to a lover who had taken her for granted. The title plays upon the verse in the song “all the world is a stage and everyone has their part,” a reference to the line by William Shakespeare in his play As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women mere players”. In his book Madonna: An Intimate Biography, J. Randy Taraborrelli describes the song as a “somber, sarcastic, all-the-world’s-a-stage song about unrequited love… [about a subject] whose phoniness might have fooled everyone else, but not her.” He goes on to say that in the song Madonna tells the subject of her unrequited love to take a bow for “rendering a great, transparent performance in life and love.”
The music video for Take a Bow was directed by Michael Haussman, and is a lavish period-style piece filmed from November 3–8, 1994 in Ronda and in the bullring of Antequera, Spain. It was outfitted by famed stylist Lori Goldstein who received the VH1 Fashion and Media award for best styling. The plot, set in the 1940s, depicts Madonna as a neglected lover of a bullfighter, played by real-life Spanish bullfighter Emilio Muñoz. Madonna’s character yearns for the bullfighter’s presence, with erotic heartbreak. A total of three different bulls were used during the production of the music video. It generated controversy with animal rights activists who accused the singer of glorifying bullfighting.
In the video Madonna wears fitted, classic suits by British fashion designer John Galliano. In an interview with MTV’s Kurt Loder on the set of the music video, Madonna said that when she was initially writing Take a Bow the inspiration for the song was an actor, but she wanted the male character in the video to be to be a matador instead because she wanted the video to be about an “obsessive, tragic love story that doesn’t work out in the end” and a matador would be more visually effective in expressing the emotion of the song. The style of the music video has been compared to Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar‘s 1986 film Matador, starring Antonio Banderas. The music video for Madonna’s 1995 single You’ll See is considered a follow up to the Take a Bow music video, as Madonna and Emilio Muñoz reprise their roles. In that video Madonna’s character walks out on Munoz’s (bullfighter) character, leaving him behind in despair. Madonna’s character is then seen on the train and later on a plane, while Munoz’s character tries to catch up with her in vain.
Madonna requested that Haussman give the video a Spanish theme because, at the time, she was lobbying for the role of Eva Perón in the film version of Evita. She subsequently sent a copy of the video to director Alan Parker as a way of “auditioning” for the role. Madonna eventually won the role of Perón.
The music video for Take a Bow inspired Justin Timberlake‘s video for SexyBack (Michael Haussman, 2006) and was later tributed by Britney Spears‘ video for “Radar” (Dave Meyers, 2009). Madonna won Best Female Video honors at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards for the Take a Bow music video. It was also nominated for Best Art Direction in a Video, but lost to Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson‘s Scream.
To watch Take a Bow music video, please take a gander at The Genealogy of Style’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hlt
“Apart from the two side seams the dress was folded into shape rather like cardboard. Any other girl would have looked like she was wearing cardboard, but on-screen I swear you would have thought Marilyn had on a pale, thin piece of silk. Her body was so fabulous it still came through.”
William Travilla
Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend number, from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953)
This wasn’t the dress designed for this scene. William Travilla had designed a breathtaking show girl costume with jewels sewn onto a black fish-net body stocking up to the breasts, then covered in nude fabric, embellished with a mass of diamonds, costing close to $4,000. It never got past the cutting room floor. It was rejected because it came out that Marilyn has posed nude for a calendar back in 1949 (the infamous Golden Dreams photographed by Tom Kelley), when Marilyn was desperate for money. And instead of riding on the revelation, Travilla was given strict instructions to cover Marilyn up.
It was rejected because it came out that Marilyn has posed nude for a calendar back in 1949 (the infamous Golden Dreams photographed by Tom Kelley), when Marilyn was desperate for money. And instead of riding on the revelation, Travilla was given strict instructions to cover Marilyn up.
The original concept for the new dress included black gloves and shoes, and no one is sure why they became pink, but Travilla redid his sketch to show pink gloves. When people see the actual dress they often remark that in real life is lighter than it appears in the movie. That is easily explained by the use of glorious Technicolor according to Travilla himself, not only did he have to design the dress, but he had to make sure he got the fabric right, as Technicolor would make it appear more vibrant on film.
This dress was made out of peau d’ange, a sort of silk satin. The aim was to show the outline of the body, but for the dress to move with the body and not crease – which was rather difficult when Marilyn was moving up and down the stairs. Eventually the silk satin was glued onto felt, with a black lining added to the back, to give it a stiffness.
Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of the song Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend and her pink dress are considered iconic, and the performance has inspired homages by Madonna (Material Girl music video) , Geri Halliwell, Kylie Minogue, Anna Nicole Smith, Christina Aguilera, and James Franco (Oscar 2011).
Vanity Fair, December 1986. Photographer: Herb Ritts. Art director: Ruth Ansel
“First love yourself, then you can love someone else
If you can change someone else, then you have saved someone else…”
Madonna
Hey You
Photos by Bruce Weber, LIFE magazine, December 1986
Photos by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, Truth Or Dare Fragrance. Mirror Session, 2012
Photo by Steven Klein
Hung Up is a song by American singer-songwriter Madonna. It was written and produced in collaboration with Stuart Price, and released as the first single from her tenth studio album, Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005). Songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus generally do not allow anyone to sample any of their tracks, an exception being Fugees, who sampled their song The Name of the Game for their single Rumble in the Jungle.
Originally the video for Hung Up was scheduled to be directed by photographer David LaChapelle. He wanted the video to have a “documentary”-style look, much like that of his 2005 film, Rize, in which five of the dancers from the Hung Up video appeared. LaChapelle and Madonna disagreed on the concept, prompting the project to be reassigned to Johan Renck, who worked with Madonna in her video for Nothing Really Matters. According to an interview with MTV, Renck was directing Kate Moss for a H&M commercial when he received a phone call from Madonna who desperately wanted to work with him. The next day he went to Los Angeles to meet the stylist and the choreographer hired by Madonna, who mailed him with her ideas for the video.The director explained that he “kind of liked that we didn’t have time to over-think this and be too clever, I like being out on a limb and not know what we’re doing and why. Just deal with it, the mayhem, you know?”
Madonna clarified that the video was a tribute to Giorgio Morode, John Travolta and to dance in general. Her dance moves for the video, which were inspired by Travolta’s movies like Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977), Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) and Perfect (James Bridges, 1985) took three hours to shoot. Madonna had broken eight bones in a horseback-riding accident a few weeks before shooting the video. Hence she faced difficulty doing the steps as devised by choreographer Jamie King. Renck said,
“She was such a trooper, […] She just fell off a horse! [Madonna said] ‘If you were a real dance choreographer, you could tell I can’t lift my left arm higher than this’ — and it was like, what, a 20-centimeter difference? […] But when she said it ‘hurts like f—,’ she’d take a break and sit down for two minutes. [Madonna]’I have broken ribs, remember that!’ I just can’t imagine dancing like that. Talk about priorities.”
Gucci creative director Frida Giannini designed this particular bomber model exclusively for Madonna in conjunction with her 2006 Confessions tour and television appearances supporting Confessions on a Dance Floor
To watch the music video, please take a gander at The Genealogy of Style‘s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hl
Artwork by Scott Jones
Mouth to Mouth is the debut album by disco act Lipps Inc with Cynthia Johnson on lead vocals. Lipps Inc was formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota and was most known for the Double-Platinum-selling 1980 chart-topping hit Funkytown, which hit #1 in 28 different countries around the world. It consisted of a changing lineup of session musicians, including guitarist David Rivkin, guitarist Tom Riopelle and bassist Terry Grant. Steven Greenberg, the creator of the act, wrote and produced most of the group’s music.Lipps Inc.’s first release was a 1979 single, Rock It, on Greenberg’s own Flight imprint.
Funkytown, the second single from Mouth to Mouth, is often considered to be one of the last massive hits of the disco genre. This single held a unique record for reaching number one in 28 countries, more than any other single release until Madonna‘s Hung Up hit number one in 41 countries in 2005. Hung Up prominently features a sample of pop group ABBA‘s hit single Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), for which Madonna personally sought permission from ABBA songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
To watch the music video, please take a gander at The Genealogy of Style’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hl
“My Teddy bear coat was a conceptual exercise created in 2002 as an homage to the Campana Brothers and their famous stuffed animal chair. I only heard about Castelbajac in 2009 when people saw Gaga and started asking me if I was working with her.”
Sebastián Errázuriz
Teddy bear coat by polymath Chilean designer Sebastián Errázuriz
The jacket, as Errázuriz himself would say, is designed to honor the 80’s eco-friendly fur campaigns but at the same time it seems to serve as a bitter criticism to the fur comeback on the runways.
Teddy bears — 39 to be precise — festooned a snuggly 1989 Jean-Charles de Castelbajac winter coat that was worn by Madonna and Lauren Hutton. This infamous “teddy bear coat”, worn by Madonna, was also inspired by a childhood devoid of toys.”Throughout my career I have explored themes associated with childhood. It’s not that I didn’t want to grow up,” he explains. “When I was a kid, I was living an adolescent life, when I was a teenager I was living an adult life, so I believe my time for childhood is now”
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Fall 2009 collection
20 years later, Kermit, that lovable Muppet frog, emerged as the inspiration for an JCDC plush toy coat worn by Lady Gaga
“The nexus of Born This Way and the soul of the record reside in this idea that you were not necessarily born in one moment. You have your entire life to birth yourself into becoming the ultimate potential vision that you see for you. Who you are when you come out of your mother’s womb is not necessarily who you will become. Born This Way says your birth is not finite, your birth is infinite.”
Lady Gaga
(talking about the meaning of Born This Way)
The first song written and recorded for the album was the title track itself which she wrote in Liverpool and Manchester, England, described by Lady Gaga as a “magical message” song. She wrote it in ten minutes and compared the process to an Immaculate Conception.
“I want to write my this-is-who-the-fuck-I-am anthem, but I don’t want it to be hidden in poetic wizardry and metaphors. I want it to be an attack, an assault on the issue because I think, especially in today’s music, everything gets kind of washy sometimes and the message gets hidden in the lyrical play. Hankering back to the early ’90s, when Madonna, En Vogue, Whitney Houston and TLC were making very empowering music for women and the gay community and all kind of disenfranchised communities, the lyrics and the melodies were very poignant and very gospel and very spiritual and I said, ‘That’s the kind of record I need to make. That’s the record that’s going to shake up the industry.’ It’s not about the track. It’s not about the production. It’s about the song. Anyone could sing Born This Way. It could’ve been anyone.”
Nick Knight directed the accompanying music video, which was inspired by painters like Salvador Dalí and Francis Bacon and their surrealistic images. Gaga is depicted as giving birth to a new race during a prologue. A series of dance sequences later, the video concludes with the view of a city populated by this race. Critics noted cultural references to the work of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Björk, late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, as well as to Greek mythology, magical realism and surrealism.
Laurieann Gibson explained the inspiration behind the video to MTV News:
“When she played it for me, it took me a while to find out the visual interpretation that I could give back to her. And so I woke up one night and I got it, and I said, ‘I got it: We have to birth a new race.’ From the gate, Gaga was like, ‘I want Nick Knight for this video. I want a visual.’ She was always birthing something visual in her head, and Nick Knight is just, well, he’s prolific but he’s so genius. It was about pushing the bar of what a music video should be and can be. […] It’s a different time; it’s a different era; there are no limits. It is a viral message. I think that there’s something in there for everyone, and that’s what’s so amazing about the video and so specific about the message.”
Released on Monday, February 28, 2011, the video begins with a brief shot of a unicorn’s silhouette in a steam-filled alley, inside a pink triangle frame. The triangle transitions to a shot of Gaga, with two opposite facing heads, inspired by Janus, the Roman god of transition and beginnings, sitting in an ornate glass throne amidst a star-filled space. As Bernard Herrmann‘s prelude to the movie Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) plays, Gaga tells the story of the creation of an extraterrestrial race that “bears no prejudice, no judgment, but boundless freedom.” Gaga sits in the throne, giving birth to a “new race within the race of humanity.” She explains that this was followed by the birth of evil, due to which Gaga splits into two opposing forces of good and evil. Her new half gives birth to a machine gun and fires it. The prologue concludes with Gaga questioning, “How can I protect something so perfect, without evil?”
The video featured full-bodied tattooed model Rick Genest (Rico), better known by his stage name Zombie Boy. Gaga painted her face in a similar way to Genest, in one of the main series of sequences. She said that the sequences displayed the fact that she would not allow society or critics to dictate her sense of beauty. “I tell you what I think is beauty, and hence the scene was of me and Rico defining ourselves in artistic way and not relying on society to dictate it,” she added. The costumes for the video were designed by Nicola Formichetti, who blogged about the various designer pieces shown in it. In the opening sequence of the video, Gaga wore a head accessory by Alexis Bittar, a diamond neckpiece by Erickson Beamon with earrings by Pamela Love, and a stained-glass dress by Petra Storrs. Finger rings were provided by Erickson Beamon and chiffon clothes by Thierry Mugler. For the skeletons sequences, both she and Rico wore tuxedos by Mugler while the slime during the orgy scenes were courtesy of Bart Hess. For her Michael Jackson impression in the alley at the video’s end, Gaga wore shirt and pants by Haus of Gaga, shoes by Natacha Marro, a Billykirk belt and LaCrasia gloves.
Harper’s Bazaar, July 1999 issue. Tom Cruise’s cover was the last cover approved by Liz before her death just 3 months prior. All ad revenue went to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. Models, photographers, stylists, make-ups artists, etc., donated their time for free. There are no editorials. It is the one issue which features the solidarity of the fashion industry for an icon.
Illustrations by Karl Lagerfeld
Obituary by Cartier
Christy Turlington photographed by Patrick Demarchelier
Guinevere Van Seenus photographed by Craig McDean, clothes by Yohji Yamamoto
Naomi Campbell photographed by David Bailey clothes by Versace
Left: Linda Evangelista illustrated by Mats Gustafsson; Guinevere Van Seenus photographed by Richard Burbridge
Nikki Uberti photographed by Terry Richardson, clothes by Dolce and Gabbana
Anne Catherine Lacroix photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadinanne, clothes by Balenciaga
Erin O’Connor photographed by Patrick Demarchelier., clothes by Calvin Klein
Natalie Portman photographed by Robert Bromann, clothes by Moschino; Cindy Crawford photographed by Mary Ellen Mark, clothes by Malo; Rita Wilson photographed by Sante D’Orazio; Milla Jovovich photographed by Cliff Watts, clothes by Tommy Hilfiger
“I paint myself because I’m so often alone and because I am the subject I know best”
Frida Kahlo
Self-portrait with Monkey, Frida Kahlo, 1940. Private collection of Madonna
Frida Kahlo channeled her energy and emotion into her artworks and her many pets – monkeys, dogs, birds and a fawn – which lived at her home, Casa Azul (Blue House) in Coyoacán, Mexico City. Of her 143 paintings, 55 are self portraits which feature her treasured animals and incorporate symbolic portrayals of physical and psychological wounds. Perhaps one of the most famous is her Self Portrait with Monkeys from 1943. The iconic black-haired, unibrowed Kahlo is surrounded by three black spider monkeys, their arms wrapped around her. In Mexican mythology, monkeys are symbols of lust, but Kahlo portrayed them as tender and protective symbols. Kahlo’s pet primates were a spider monkey named Fulang Chang (a gift from her husband) and another, Caimito de Guayabal. The species is recognised by disproportionately long limbs and long Prehensile tail and are normally found in the tropical forests of Central and South America. Whilst there are many examples of pet monkeys (Michael Jackson‘s Bubbles just one), they are widely considered to be unsuitable for the home environment. Once they reach sexual maturity, monkeys can become aggressive and can harbour disease.
Guests visiting the home of Kahlo and Rivera would often be entertained by Fulang Chang, or Bonito, the Amazon parrot, who would perform tricks at the table for rewards of pats of butter. At Casa Azul, Rivera constructed a small pyramid in the garden where her pets roamed around freely. She also had a fawn called Granizo; an eloquently named eagle, Gertrudis Caca Blanca (Gertrude White Shit); parakeets, macaws, hens and sparrows. She also kept hairless Mexican ixquintle – including her favourite, Mr Xoloti – a breed of dog with an ancestry traceable back to the Aztecs, hence their appeal to Kahlo, who was enormously proud of her MesoAmerican heritage.
Portrait of Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo, by Annie Leibovitz
Manolo Blahnik and Anjelica Huston in Nice (France). Photo by David Bailey, circa 1973
Miss (Anjelica) Huston and Miss (Geena) Davis are my two favorite actresses in America at the moment-and Madonna and Ellen Barkin. Those four are the most important click click. Anjelica in The Grifters- God bless her with that wig and my shoes on, too”….
“…Anjelica’s the one. Oh-h-h-h-h-h. She’s the most perfect thing. She’s like a piece of sculpture.”
Manolo Blahnik
Vogue USA. March 1992
Stills from The Grifters (Stephen Frears, 1990). Costume designer: Richard Hornung
Joan Collins
Truman Capote
Anjelica Huston
Michael Jackson
Eddie Sedwick
Madonna
“Divine”
Cher
Grace Jones
Miguel Bosé
Isabella Rossellini
Maria Schiano
Debbie Harry
Diane von Fürstenberg
David Bowie
Mick Jagger
For 15 years, beginning in 1972, Richard Bernstein’s signature artwork graced the monthly covers of Interview magazine, that seminal celebrity chronicle of the social, fashion and art crowd that had met in Andy Warhol’s Factory and the back room of Max’s Kansas City in the 60′s and catalyzed in the sybaritic heat of Studio 54 in the late 70′s.
Using an airbrush, pencil and pastel on photographic portraits, Bernstein made the up-and-coming celebrities of the era-Sylvester Stallone, Calvin Klein, Madonna, even wholesome Mary Tyler Moore-look as sleek and sexy as our nostalgized memories of that era. “Things are stronger, faster and further,” Paloma Picasso wrote of Bernstein’s oeuvre in a published collection of his work, Megastar . “Superstars became Megastars.”
But though Bernstein’s work helped put many a celebrity into the hot zone, he never seemed to be able to make the same conversion in terms of his own career. “I never felt that Richard got the full recognition for his contribution to the art world,” said Steve Newman, director of still photography at 20th Century Fox studios. “He never got the representation or put himself out there enough to earn the kind of reputation that other contemporaries of his did. I still think it’s a great shame.”
Some who knew Bernstein said he never broke out because his work, which was clearly influenced by Warhol’s art, was too often confused with the Pope of Pop’s work, and that Warhol, who enjoyed autographing the covers of fans’ copies of Interview , didn’t work too hard to disabuse them of that notion.
Other friends said that Bernstein was too nice and not ambitious enough, and that he was often taken advantage of by those who were in a position to help him.
With his dark, wavy hair, good looks and unfussy fashion sense-black jeans, leather jackets-Bernstein attracted members of both sexes, and though he was gay, he had at least one significant relationship with a woman, the actress and photographer Berry Berenson.
On Oct. 18, Bernstein’s body was found on the other side of that door, in his high-ceilinged studio apartment that once was part of the Chelsea Hotel’s grand ballroom. According to friends, a note found in his apartment that said simply “Do not resuscitate” left some with the suspicion that he had taken his own life.
The Beatles
Mick Jagger
Bruce Springsteen. Born in the U.S.A. promo picture by Annie Leibovitz
Axl Rose
Bon Jovi
Bono
Britney Spears
Christina Aguilera. Photo: Michael Caulfield
Beck
Katy Perry
Lenny Kravitz. American Woman music video (Paul Hunter, 1999)
Madonna. American Pie music video ( Philipp Stölzl, 2000)
Shery Crow. Live At Budokan (2002) album art cover
Lana Del Rey. Born to Die music video (Yoann Lemoine, 2011)
Azealia Banks. Liquorice music video (Rankin, 2012)
Recorded and released on the American Pie album in 1971, the single by American folk rock singer-songwriter Don McLean was a number-one U.S. hit for four weeks in 1972. The song is a recounting of “The Day the Music Died” — the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper (Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr.)—and the aftermath. Don McLean wrote the song in Cold Spring, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The song is well known for its cryptic lyrics that have long been the subject of curiosity and speculation. Although McLean dedicated the American Pie album to Buddy Holly, none of the musicians in the plane crash are identified by name in the song itself. When asked what “American Pie” meant, McLean replied, “It means I never have to work again.” Later, he more seriously stated, “You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me…. Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence.” McLean has generally avoided responding to direct questions about the song lyrics, such as saying, “They’re beyond analysis. They’re poetry.”, except to acknowledge that he did first learn about Buddy Holly’s death while folding newspapers for his paper route on the morning of February 3, 1959, (the line “February made me shiver/with every paper I’d deliver”).
American pop star Madonna released a cover version of the song in March 2000 to promote the soundtrack to her film The Next Best Thing (John Schlesinger, 2000). Her cover is much shorter than the original (it contains only the beginning of the first verse and all of the second and sixth verses) and was recorded as a dance-pop song. It was co-produced by Madonna and William Orbit, after Rupert Everett (Madonna’s co-star in The Next Best Thing) had convinced her to cover the song for the film’s soundtrack.
by Jade Reason
La vía del estilo
Art still has truth. Take refuge there.
Tales from Tinseltown...recording them now...I'll let you know when it's story time.
My Work My Art My Show - new school Sex and the City
All my words that are fit to print (and other's too!)
Making Life more Beautiful
Tulio Silva
Life, Leisure, Luxury
MYTHS AND HISTORIES OF A RELUCTANT BLOGGER
All my aimless thoughts, ideas, and ramblings, all packed into one site!
Meaning in Being. You be you.
Poetry, musings and sightings from where the country changes
Cooking is personalization.
Creativity is within us all
The Genealogy of Style 