Nadine Williams

Saint Laurent’s story “pure haute couture”

Ze Fashion Party before screening of the film Saint Laurent at the Palace Cinemas last night was a little light on fashion, (there was none) but made up for it with delightful pastries and chocolates – and plenty of French champagne and red and white wines.  There were also hair stylists and make-up artists to do “make-overs’ for anyone brave enough to site in front of the crowd.

And there, in a blast from the past (my days as celebrity columnist) was a familiar male face…. But firstly, as a lone woman, I teamed up with the delightful and beautiful Gabriele Kelly, the French teacher at Walford Girls School, who, after one or two champagnes,said she knew how to find out who the mystery man was. And, to my surprise, she waltzed up to the man in question and dropped the give-away line “Don’t I know you”.  To which, Mr older charm himself, announced himself as none other than the renowned Richard Zacharia.  “Well Hello beautiful. I’m Richard Zacharia.  but I don’t think I know you.”

When I introduced myself, I asked if he had flown into Adelaide for the night. “No, I live in Woodside now,” he said. “But we are selling up right now to move closer to the city.”

“Who was that man?” she asked.

“He was once married to Maggie Tabberer,” I said.  “When he left her, Maggie wrote a very revealing memoir and so he then followed with his version of things.” I explained. “It was very much dirty linen”.

Gabrielle did not know who Maggie was.

“She was a very beautiful photographic model for many years and was born in Adelaide.”

“I have never heard of her,” said Gabrielle. Such is the sad reality of the generation gap.

It was so exhilarating being in the company of such a sparkling personality because Gabrielle danced off with me into a photo booth where we had our photographs taken like giddy teenagers – and the feeling sliced all those years away.

**

Luckily for us, the viewers, the spectacular display of covetable garments designed by Saint Laurent in the film which followed, made up for the  no-show at Ze Fashion Show.

No-one in the Adelaide audience would have been  prepared for the explicit portrayal of promiscuous homosexuality on screen and there were rumblings of discontent from viewers behind me. However, I was riveted to the screen for two and a half hours as a stellar performance by the charismatic Gaspard Ulliel as Yves Saint Laurent at the zenith of his fame exposed his relationships, neuroses, alcoholism, drug addictions and vulnerabilities.

What made this film so poignant for me was that I was in Paris, outside the Yves Saint Laurent headquarters the day he died and the media scrum was on the pavement right where I sat in my car wondering who famous had died.  That night French television was consumed with stories of Saint Laurent and his impact on fashion.

Saint Laurent’s folly was his misplaced love for the vacuous preening male model  performed by Louis Garrel, which contrasted  with the steady, solid-as-a-rock love of Pierre Berge played to perfection by Jeremie Renier.   What was so refreshing was that the women in his life -his mother, his muse Lou Lou, his favourite model – and the head of the fashion workshop – all had strong life-long relationships with him.  Louise “LouLou” Le Bailly de la Falaise acted as Yves Saint Laurent’s creative partner, confidante and sentinal for three decades from 1972 until 2002.

All the ugliness of his life – his disastrous fall from grace, his hospitalisation – contrasts with his spectacular redemption.  Most striking though, were the contrasts in his own personality – his flambuoyant fashion genius and his fragile vulnerability.

Also confronting were the scenes of Saint Laurent as a damaged old man, surrounded by luxury, but alone.

The Bertrand Bonello’s version of Yves’ tortured life was the French entry for Best Foreign Film in the Academy Awards 2015, following its official selection in the Cannes Internaitonal Film Festival 2014. No wonder. It was a true work of art – like Saint Laurent’s Haute Couture.

 

 

 

 

 

50 Shades of Drivel

Forget about reading those popular movie reviewers: Here is the first reaction (review) to the film “50 Shades of Grey”, by my astute, wise friend, renowned Adelaide divorce lawyer, Diane Myers.

“Dear nadine

The movie was dreadful

I yawned through most of it

Just a bit of tantalising and bondage

The actors looked gorgeous as did the sets, but the script was mostly drivel – four word sentences

And no plot – an insult to the audience really

Handsome rich boy dominator meets university student, virgin, and invites her to contract herself to him for emotionless sex

He has one angry session whipping her bum she cries and they go their separate ways

Waste of time and money

And the cost of the car park was  $18!”

Her few critical  words prove that relationships need much more than juicy sex to be rich and meaningful to both parties. What concerns me, as a former women’s issues editor, is that popular culture is such a powerful medium to impressionable young women. But I must watch the film before I comment further.

MUST ENDURE THE FILM BEFORE I WRITE ANYMORE.

 

 

Delicious dose of French culture d’Adelaide

After the dramatic gathering of the French community to show their “Je Suis Charlie” solidarity, it was time to have French fun once more for French speakers, students and Francophones alike over the past weekend.

Alliance Francaise held an Open Afternoon with wines and crepes to herald the new academic year at its Young Street premises on Friday. Teachers, students and supporters enjoyed the delightful ambiance under umbrellas.

Meanwhile, L’Agence Consulaire de France d’Adelaide under the patronage of honorary French Consul, Sue Crafter, celebrated Galette des Rois  at the Trinity Baptist Church, Colonel Light Gardens on Sunday, February 1.

After last year’s vague de chaleur (heatwave of over 40 degrees), Sunday was a cool 22 degrees, ensuring a big crowd of French people at the church’s community hall.  Sue Crafter gave a warm welcome in perfect French and thanked everyone – including about 40 children – for attending the event.  A real coffee machine and a lineup of plenty of plates of the specially prepared Galette des Rois ensured guests had a “taste” of an important traditional French celebration.

 

 

 

 

Marie’s art on Danish Royals’ chocolate box

Hallett Cove naïve artist Marie Jonsson Harrison has pulled off an international artistic coup, with her  artwork printed on the prestigious limited edition series for SV  Michelsen Chocolate-box in Denmark.

The leading chocolatier visited an exhibition of Marie’s work in Denmark last year and promptly commissioned her to create the lid of the chocolate tin for 2015 with a Danish flavour.

She is the first person outside of Denmark to be commissioned to design the tin, which the Danish queen, Margrethe II, collects each year.

“It is a wonderful honour,’’ said Marie.

“The chocolate boxes are all numbered and Number one goes to the Royal Family, number 2 goes to the Michelsen family and Number 3 goes to me, the artist.

“I have had quite a few exhibitions in Denmark last year and I was lucky that SV Michelsen came to the opening of an exhibition and he liked one of my artworks.’’

Marie’s artwork features Copenhagen tourist highlights and also Prince Frederik and Princess Mary,

the Australian who won his heart at the 2000 Olympics.

Beloved Literary Legend dies

One of Australia’s top-selling novelists, Colleen McCullough, who wrote that salacious best-seller, The Thorn Birds, has died on Norfolk Island, aged 77.

It was the story of a celibate priest trapped between his vows of the Catholic church and his passionate love of a woman. The American paperback rights worth $1.9 million alone allowed her to become a full-time author and live her life on Norfolk Island.

The Thorn Birds, written in 1977 when she was 39 years old and was made into a sexy miniseries with the dashing Richard Chamberlain, and Australian actors Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward in 1983, although the typical Hollywood ending was dramatically changed.

McCullough had many strings to her career bow before abandoning it all to become an author.  She had been a librarian, journalist, research associate and a neuroscientist, before teaching in the Department of Neurology at the Yale Medical School in the United States.

Her first novel,  Tim, about a middle-aged woman’s unlikely romance with a good-looking, intellectually disabled handyman, changed the direction of her life.  It sold well and was also made into a film starring Mel Gibson in 1979.

Other notable books were An Indecent Obsession (1981) and the Masters of Rome series, which she wrote over a 17 year period from 1990-2007.

McCullough was born on June 1, 1937 in Wellington in Central NSW and died on January 29, 2015 on Norfolk Island.  She suffered health problems for much of her life including weight gain and depression. In her later life, she became vision-impaired. She is survived by her husband of 30 years, Ric Robinson, who lived with her on Norfolk Island.

 

 

French Alize’s ace words – “Stay really close”

The shocking slaughter of 12 cartoonists and editors in the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris, followed by another four hostage deaths  in a Jewish supermarket by home-grown Islamist terrorists, shocked the world out of our New Year euphoria.

The French people instantly realised the immensity of these evil acts and took to the streets to show that “liberte” and freedom of expression through the press was at stake.  Millions of words have been written in the media across the world to match the millions of French people who marched right around France in support of what they hold dear – freedom of public expression and fearlessness in the face of extremist Islamic aggressors.

That eccentric, but gifted early 20th century French novelist, Marcel Proust captured why the French nation responded so wholeheartedly when he penned “du moment que les gens sont libres” – “As long as people are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost”.  His message is imbued in the hearts of citizens of the Fifth Republic, whose street action over the past few centuries has forged a strong Western democracy.

Before Proust, Voltaire wrote these profound words – “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Freedom of the French press was granted on October 6, 1789, at the pivotal time of the Revolution, a day after the frenzied mob had stormed Versailles, bringing King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, back to Paris, virtually prisoners in the Tuileries.   It is intrinsically wound into the French ethos of “liberte”.

At this sad time, it is also worth repeating gritty French star Alize Cornet’s emotional personal tribute to her fellow grieving Parisians.

Her head in her hands, sobbing alongside her racket bag strapped with the words “Je suis Charlie”, she said.

“I can’t talk about it, otherwise I’m going to cry but it means so much (to me to win)… It’s horrible what happened in France. I have no words to describe how I feel.  It’s terrible for the whole world, not only for Paris and France. We should all be touched by that.

“It’s the freedom of public expression and just the humanity that is touched..and we have to stay really close, all together, and just stand up….and (show) we’re not afraid. We’re going to stand up and show who we are.”

It was a heart-felt cry of emotional pain after the 24-year-old had delivered a memorable win on court at the Hopman Cup.  Amazingly, the World No. 19 produced one of her best wins against the World No. 6 Agnieska Radwanska, as she carried a burning rage and powerlessness at the shocking event back home onto the court.