Yesterday When I Was Young

“I make films that I would like to have seen when I was a young man.”
François Truffaut

François Truffaut photographed by JeanLoup Sieff, Paris, 1959

HIER ENCORE

Hier encore, j’avais vingt ans
Je carresais le temps et jouais de la vie
Comme on joue de l’amour
Et je vivais la nuit
Sans compter sur mes jours qui fuyaient dans le temps
J’ai fait tant de projet qui sont restés en l’air
J’ai fondé tant d’espoirs qui se sont envolés
Que je reste perdu ne sachant ou aller
Les yeux cherchant le ciel mais le coeur mis en terre

Hier encore j’avais vingt ans
Je gaspillais le temps en croyant l’arreter
Et pour le retenir, même le devancer
Je n’ai fait que courrir et me suis essoufler
Ignorant le passé, conjuguant au futur
Je precedais de moi toute conversation
Et donnais mon avis que je pensais le bon
Pour critiquer le monde avec désinvolture

Hier encore j’avais vingt ans
Mais j’ai perdu mon temps a faire des folies
Qui ne me laissent au fond rien de vraiment precis
Que quelques rides au front et la peur de l’ennui
Car mes amours sont mortes avant que d’exister
Mes amis sont parti et ne reviendront pas
Par ma faute j’ai fait le vide autour de moi
Et j’ai gaché ma vie et mes jeunes années
Du meilleur et du pire en jettant le meilleur
J’ai figé mes sourirs et j’ai glacé mes peurs
Ou sont-ils a present, a present mes vingts ans?

___________________________________

YESTERDAY WHEN I WAS YOUNG

Yesterday when I was young
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame
The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
I always built, alas, on weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the years ran away
Yesterday when I was young
So many drinking songs were waiting to be sung
So many wayward pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall
Concerned itself with me, me and nothing else at all
Yesterday the moon was blue
And every crazy day brought something new to do
I used my magic age as if it were a wand
And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died
The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play
There are so many songs in me that won’t be sung
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue
The time has come for me to pay for yesterday when I was young

Hier Encore, whose original French title translates as Only Yesterday, is a song written by Charles Aznavour and released in September 1964.

It was subsequently released in English as Yesterday, When I Was Young, in Italian as Ieri Si, in Danish as Hvor tiden går, in Japanese 帰り来ぬ青春, and in Spanish as Ayer Aún. It is considered one of Aznavour’s greatest hits.

The English-language lyrics, written by Herbert Kretzmer, tell of a man reflecting on his life. He recounts how he had wasted his youth on self-centered pursuits, and that, now that he is older, he will not be able to do all that he had planned; this implies that he may be close to his impending death.

To listen the English version of this song, please take a gander at The Genealogy of Style‘s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hl

Nov 17

Lanvin on Stairs

Lanvin Gown posed beside stairs. Photo by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, December 1934

Photo by Arik Nepo, 1949

Coat and hat Lanvin; coat and hat Cardin; coat and fur Cardin; coat with belt and black hat, on stairs, Carven. Photo by Jeanloup Sieff. Paris, Jardin des Modes, 1961

Robe longue Mikonos. Maison Lanvin. Collection Haute couture spring-summer 1970 by Jules-François Crahay

Prêt-à-Porter Fall 2010 Lanvin by Alber Elbaz. After each model walked the runway, she climbed a dramatic circular staircase at the end

Lanvin by Alber Elbaz, Pre-collection Spring-Summer 2012. Promotional picture by Max Berlinger

Aug 29

About 200,000 Blinks

French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby photographed by Jeanloup Sieff, 1996

On 8 December 1995 at the age of 43, Jean-Dominique Bauby (author and editor of the French fashion magazine ELLE), suffered a massive stroke and lapsed into a coma. When he woke up twenty days later, he found he was entirely speechless; he could only blink his left eyelid. Called locked-in syndrome, this is a condition wherein the mental faculties remain intact but most of the body is paralyzed. In Bauby’s case his mouth, arms, and legs were paralyzed, and he lost 27 kilograms (60 lb) in the first 20 weeks after his stroke.

Despite his condition, he wrote the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by blinking when the correct letter was reached by a person slowly reciting the alphabet over and over again using a system called partner-assisted scanning. Bauby composed and edited the book entirely in his head, and dictated it one letter at a time. To make dictation more efficient, Bauby’s interlocutor, Claude Mendibil, repeatedly recited a French language frequency-ordered alphabet (E, S, A, R, I, N, T, U, L, etc.), until Bauby blinked to choose the next letter.The book took about 200,000 blinks to write and an average word took approximately two minutes. The book also chronicles everyday events for a person with locked-in syndrome.

The French edition of the book was published in France on 7 March 1997. Bauby died suddenly from pneumonia ten days after the publication of his book, and is buried in a family grave at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon) describes what his life is like after suffering a massive stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome. It also details what his life was like before the stroke. The evocative title comes from Bauby’s notion that while his body was submerged and weighted down — impossible to move — his imagination and memory were still free and as light as a butterfly’s wings: “My cocoon becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas’s court.”

Apr 3

The YSL’s Naked Truth

Stefano Pilati photographed by Karl Lagerfeld. Harper’s Bazaar, September 2011

Portraits of Yves Saint Laurent by Jeanloup Sieff, 1971

Apr 2

A Transgressive Landmark in Fashion Advertising

This portrait of Yves Saint Laurent was taken in 1971 by Jeanloup Sieff for the brand’s first male fragrance, Pour Homme. Ironically, the provocative ad did not cause much of a stir initially, as the photo was hardly published. Today, the image has reached an icon-status within YSL’s transgressive milieu and served as a landmark in fashion advertising; the ad was the first fragrance campaign which starred the designer of the label and furthermore the first campaign featuring its nude, yet bespectacled designer.