Manolo for the Big Girl

Velvet Goldmine. Anyone who has any interest in 70’s glam has got to see this film.
Unbelievably gorgeous, as all Todd Haynes films are wont to be, Velvet Goldmine stars Jonathon Rhys Meyers and traces the rise and mysterious fall of David Bowie-like sensation Brian Slade and his alter ego Maxwell Demon. After a staged assassination attempt, his fans turn on him and Slade disappears completely. On the ten year anniversary of the hoax, a journalist (Christian Bale) is sent to uncover the truth about Slade’s disappearance. Toni Collette is a treat as the jaded Mandy, Slade’s (ex)wife who switches effortlessly between American and British accents, and Eddie Izzard is note perfect as Slade’s smarmy agent in big rings and raccoon coat but it’s Ewan MacGregor looking like Kurt Cobain in Iggy Pop drag as Curt Wild the strung out, hopped up visionary of the Next Big Thing…Punk.

The soundtrack is killer with excellent selections from Brian Eno, Shudder to Think and The Venus in Furs (featuring Thom Yorke from Radiohead) but understandably features no David Bowie. This is one of my favorite movies and, had I not had the hangover that ate Manhattan on Monday, would have taken the first spot. For what it’s worth, I do not prefer the director’s cut as I find it too dark.

There, that’s enough of this celluloid stuff, let’s get back to shoes!

A few years ago at one of those truly truly horrific “Industry Parties” where every air kiss comes with a free knife in the back, a New York filmmaker who had a moderately successful doc on her hands was holding court. The subject of Isaac Mizrahi and Unzipped came up. Her response was “Isaac looooooves Isaac.”
Well, that may be true, but I still love Unzipped. Released in 1995, Unzipped centers around the creation of Mizrahi’s 1994 Fall ready-to-wear collection –it’s a frothy doc for folks who rejoice in footage of Andre Leon Talley and funky little fashion troll John Galliano getting their tarot cards read in Paris while gasping over the divinity of a bathroom wallpaper (for which, we are to understand, Donna Karan would murder.) Watch Eartha Kitt speak in tongues and burst into dance! Witness Linda Evangelista pitch a pretty funny fit at having to wear flat shoes for two shows while Naomi Campbell gets heels! Be astonished as Polly Mellen drops pearls of wisdom like “too short looks long!”

Check out the heels incident here.

I do not say that 8 Femmes, today’s glammy movie is the glammiest movie that will ever be made. I am only saying it is the most glamorous movie that has ever been made.

I’m sure that modern science, once it has sent a middle-aged man to Jupiter supplied with pills ensuring readiness for all the interplanetary nookie he can, ahem, stand, that the fine doctors and scientists will turn their heads to creating a film that is actually glamorous at a molecular or even sub-atomic level.Until then 8 Femmes, a stylishly torrid, often humorous murder mystery (and each actress has a musical number!) will just have to tide you over.

The day before Christmas sometime n the late 1950’s, eight women in an isolated French estate try to figure out which among them is responsible for the master of the house’s current state of repose (read: dead, locked in a bedroom with a knife in his back) The cast is stellar. Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Beart, Virginie Ledoyen and Ludivine Sagnier as the sweet young daughter before she got her kit off in Swimming Pool.

I don’t want to give too much away but I will tell you that Catherine Deneuve, who plays the freshly-minted and not-entirely-grieved widow and Fanny Ardant, the murdered man’s sister of ill-repute have the single most glamorous catfight I’ve ever seen. Lily ponds and shoulder pads be damned.

Watch the trailer here and prepare to die of chic.

First of all, you’re not going to find “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” on this list. Yes, Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly is a delight to look at and the chicest example of that old hooker with a heart of gold chestnut, but voluntarily pseudo-helpless women –no matter how good they look in Givenchy– bore me to tears. Holly Golightly lacks inner resources and what’s more I firmly believe her character is directly responsible for the popularity of those loathsome “Return to Tiffany’s” heart and toggle gewgaws which are so tacky as to provoke in me the most violent and unrestrained of purple fits.

Oh, and don’t get me started on the girls who run around in the most ridiculously large sunglasses because it makes them “feel like Holly Golightly.” Hepburn’s signature shades were plain old Ray-Ban Wayfarers.

Still, I suspect my beloved readers would attack stately Château Gâteau –by which I mean my apartment (we take the wide view on châteaux here at Manolo for the Big Girl)– with pitchforks and blunderbusses (blunderbi?) were I to exclude all Audrey Hepburn flicks from this list.

It is thus with an eye to the sanctity of my already high renter’s insurance premiums that I offer unto you “Funny Face.” Released in 1957 and starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire, it’s essentially an extremely fast and loose biography of photographer Richard Avedon —-Astaire’s character is Dick Avery— with a handful Gershwin tunes and Givenchy thrown in for good measure.

The real treasure of this little flick is Kay Thompson who gives a fantastic send-up of Harper’s Bazaar editor and glorious wackdoodle Diana Vreeland. Her imitation is brilliant, from her constant use of “pizzazz” to DV’s signature hunchbacked ballerina posture. In fact, the best line in the film –and a valuable life lesson to boot—comes in right after the first number, “Think Pink” (click to watch it on Youtube) where La Thompson admonishes the women of the world to wear nothing but –you guessed it—pink.

One of the honchos exclaims that her campaign is a triumph and that he hasn’t seen a woman in anything but pink for weeks. “

What about you?” he asks as he eyes her in her charcoal suit.

“Me?” she says “I wouldn’t be caught dead.”

Wrapping up our recommendations of mysteries by Agatha Christie, here are two of Francesca’s favorites which feature neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple, but are in any case gripping mysteries (don’t start reading them the night before a big meeting; you can’t put them down!)

And Then There Were None (also titled Ten Little Indians) (1939) Ten strangers are invited to an island, where one by one they are killed. Who has brought them here, and why?

This books was made into a play and many film versions. Here is a good one from 1945.

Ordeal by Innocence (1958) Jacko Argyle is imprisoned for murdering his own mother, insisting that he is innocent. Years later, after he has died in jail, the man who can corroborate his alibi suddenly appears. Indeed, Jacko was innocent. But then who killed Mrs. Argyle?

And . . . as you might expect, Francesca, as a mystery buff, LOVES to watch CSI. She is addicted to all the CSI franchises. Whaaaaat? You do not watch this show? We must catch you up!

C.S.I. Crime Scene Investigation (CSI: Las Vegas) - The Complete First Season

C.S.I. Miami - The Complete First Season

C.S.I. New York - The Complete First Season

Happy reading and happy viewing!

xoxo, Francesca

Yesterday, I wrote a review of Igigi clothing, emphasizing the importance of Princess Seams for the Appley Woman.

So now Francesca has princesses on the brain.

Here is a book I love: The Lonely Empress: Elizabeth of Austria by Joan Haslip. You know what is spooky? How much the Empress Elisabeth of Austria was like Princess Diana of England. Both married men in line for the throne (or on it) who had been “supposed” to marry her older sister; both were raised in the relative freedom of common or semi-common life, and were thrust into court life when they married; both had major problems with their mothers-in-law; both had eating disorders; both were known and loved for their beauty, and youth, and fantastic clothes. Haslip does a good job of bringing Elisabeth to life while still being somewhat dispassionate, and fair to the mother-in-law.

Then we have the colorful Marie Antoinette: The Journey, on which the movie with Kirsten Dunst was based. The production values for this hardcover version are incredible. From the metallic design inside the covers to the color photographs and the high-quality paper, this book is beautiful enough to befit the royalty it describes. But if you want to save some money, the softcover version, pictured at left, is here. (Oh, and by the way, chances are slim that Marie Antoinette ever said to “let them eat cake.”)

A story that starts out more austere but ends more happily than either Elisabeth’s or Marie’s: the beloved 1905 children’s novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. A pampered rich girl suddenly finds herself orphaned and poor, leading to a series of unfortunate events . . . but don’t worry, this delightful story has a happy ending, or else they never would have made a movie out of it –one of Francesca’s favorites from her childhood — starring Shirley Temple.

Speaking of movies starring Shirley Temple which Francesca loves . . . and Austria . . . when was the last time you saw Heidi?

And finally, if you need a cute chyck flick (that’s “chick with a y,” get it? I bet anyone who went to a Seven Sisters school gets it) Francesca recommends The Princess Diaries and the sequel, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. Yes, the plot is ridiculous. Yes Francesca is embarrassed for Julie Andrews, who deserves so much more. And yet, when you are in the mood for ordering Chinese food and cuddling up in your sweatpants while watching something fun and brainless, these movies are perfect.

Francesca was scoping out the plus-size sale items at Size Appeal when she was struck, right there on the sale home-page, by this royal purple polafleece cape jacket.

Francesca loves purple. And even more, she loves Star Wars. And so Francesca dreams of walking down the street in this yummy, so-so-soft cuddly jacket and having myriad passers-by stop and say “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”

Hah! Francesca jokes! In fact, everyone knows that this is not the Jedi robe, but the Elfin cape of the Lord of the Rings. Just purple instead of green. Duh! Did you think Francesca did not know the difference?

At just $12.99 on sale (yes, you read that correctly), it makes playing Epic Fantasy Hero affordable for us all. And perhaps even a romance with a certain Elf,

known to hang out with a short and overweight friend. There is hope for Francesca!

xoxo

Can you believe these kooky darlings are from John Fluevog?!

I give you the “Oolong” from his Teapot line. To me these are very Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night.

In fact, they are not entirely dissimilar to the shoes she wore while cutting a rug with Mister Clark Gable, who by the looks of it certainly does give a damn about our sexy, screwy heroine.