tag:localhost,2005:/feedFranglaise News2012-07-16T16:16:00ZFranglaisetag:localhost,2005:Article/552012-07-16T16:16:00Z2012-07-23T08:00:30ZLe temps est arrivé<p>If you can’t leave, there’s always <a href="http://www.franglaise.com/post/august-is-the-cruellest-month">Paris Plage</a>. Alors, bonnes vacances à tous!</p>tag:localhost,2005:Article/542012-07-16T16:08:00Z2012-07-23T08:01:01ZClosed even for Mars Bars<p>Il faut que nous partions avant les JO! We leave you with <a href="http://www.franglaise.com/post/peacocks-to-eye-in-london">parks and peacocks</a>.</p>tag:localhost,2005:Article/532012-07-03T10:30:00Z2012-07-04T16:48:23ZMissing la pointure?<p><strong>The art of spectacle is hardly new</strong> at Versailles. But, since 2008, the Château has augmented its laser displays and re-enactment “balls” with art interventions. Jeff Koons imported balloon dogs and sex toys, Takashi Murakami contributed cartoony sculpture. Now the first female <em>invitée</em>, <a href="http://www.joanavasconcelos.com/index.aspx">Joanna Vasconcelos</a>, has planted giant stilettos made from saucepans.</p>
<p><strong>Copied from a pair owned by Marilyn Monroe</strong>, these heels are given pride of place in the Hall of Mirrors. Other manifestations of the Vasconcelos ethic include giant, hanging hearts made out of plastic cutlery and a gold-leafed helicopter festooned with ostrich plumes. All them are being presented as feminist works, with artisan roots in Vasconcelos’ Portuguese heritage. (There is a black heart to match the red one, and both sway to the strains of tragic <em>fado</em> ).</p>
<p><strong>Although Spain or Austria could have been different</strong>, a Portuguese heritage holds no special resonance here. Like the earlier works, this is just elaborate theatre. As for feminism, aside from all the lace and feathers, it resides in the artist’s empathy with Marie Antoinette. “When I stroll through the rooms of the palace and its gardens, I feel the energy of a setting that gravitates between reality and dreams, the everyday and magic, the festive and the tragic. I can still hear the echo of the footsteps of Marie Antoinette and the music and festive ambiance of the stately rooms. How would the life of Versailles look if this exuberant and grandiose universe was transferred to our period?”</p>
<p><strong>Given the scale and marketing of these art outings</strong>, it already has been. Not to mention that criticism is as <em>interdit</em> as it was under any king. The show has been met with chummy babble about luxury and recycling, to which Vasconcelos adds few insights. Her gilded helicopter, for instance, was “inspired by” Prince Andrew’s recent London wedding. Yet…”It is a time machine that transports the Queen [Marie Antoinette] into contemporaneity.” All of the artist’s statements sound like this, as if cut and pasted from some giddy design blog.</p>
<p><strong>It leaves one to wonder</strong>, just what <em>is</em> it about Marie Antoinette? The infamous biopic by Sofia Coppola was also given extraordinary freedom here. Yet it ended up with less than nothing to say about history, France, decadence, royalty, power, fashion or revolution. It was in sync with only one mentality – the faith that anything can be made part of one’s personal universe. Just like <a href="http://www.vasconcelos-versailles.com/">Vasconcelos at Versailles</a>, it traded in the same 2-D homage that flourishes on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.</p>
<p><strong>Coppola reduced epic melodrama</strong> – and the lives it affected – to hipster jokes and eye candy. Five years later, coming from the heart of art marketing, Vasconcelos has the same idea. Her oversize teapots, crocheted doilies and tapestry hangings are a Pinterest-level photo op.</p>
<p><strong>Ironic, of course</strong>, that this elevation of “pretty” is hosted where frivolity used to come with consequences. But what you see is simply what you get; here, there is no more than striking juxtapositions. Once again, Versailles is reduced to an exotic backdrop. The only difference: this visions is XXL, not XIV.<br /><br>
<strong>• When it comes to Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI or Marie Antoinette</strong>, Versailles has always been a font of obsession. But Marie Antoinette owes many of her Anglophone fans to <a href="http://www.antoniafraser.com/antoinette.aspx">Lady Antonia Fraser’s 2001 biography</a>. It offers a vivid portrait, albeit one in which sympathy outweighs scholarship.<br>
<strong>• Less one-sided, and livelier</strong>, is Patrice Leconte’s 1995 film <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ridicule-Charles-Berling/dp/B0000DZ3C6">Ridicule</a>. A portrait of Versailles in 1780 with much to say about the role of wit in French, then and now.<br>
<strong>• When it comes whether or not</strong> we can “understand” inhabitants of the 18th century, one of the best arguments is Robert Darnton’s famous essay <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Cat_Massacre">The Great Cat Massacre</a>.<br>
<strong>• Take yourself on a</strong> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQvpstWFQSs">virtual tour of the installations</a>.</p>tag:localhost,2005:Article/522012-06-12T14:11:00Z2012-06-14T17:36:34ZSwordsman, tranny, soldier, spy<p><strong>Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Eon de Beaumont</strong> (1728 – 1810) led a life that, two centuries later, still seems unbelievable. Author, master swordsman, diplomat and secret agent, he earned one of his century’s rarest distinctions: <em>l’Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint-Louis</em>. His life in Russia, Paris and London was also distinguished by the fact that he spent 49 years of it as a man, then 33 as a woman. He also spent half of it in London, where the National Portrait Gallery just installed his portrait.</p>
<p><strong>In this portrayal</strong>, the flamboyant nonconformist looks ordinary. His white lace <em>fichu</em> hides no <em>décolletage</em> – and his chubby face is stubbly. The portrait specialist from whom the Gallery bought it recognised the subject because, as he told the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jun/06/portrait-18th-century-early-transvestite?newsfeed=true">Guardian</a>, it was clearly “a bloke in a dress”.</p>
<p><strong>But what a bloke!</strong> The Chevalier is one Frenchman (and woman) who could teach the English about eccentricity. Slightly-built, he liked to swagger around in a dragoon’s uniform just as much as he loved sword-fighting in skirts. D’Eon, who called himself “Mademoiselle”, claimed that he was born <em>coiffé</em> or covered in foetal membranes. His true sex, he insisted, was a mystery from the start.</p>
<p><strong>There was nothing ambiguous, however,</strong> about his talents. After his start as a Royal censor, d’Eon was snapped up by Louis XV for <em>le Secret du Roi</em>. This was a team of spies who answered directly to the King and worked behind the backs of government. At the start of the Seven Years’ War, Louis dispatched d’Eon to Russia to make an ally out of Empress Elisabeth. The Chevalier later claimed he gained her trust as a woman under the pseudonym of “Lia de Beaumont”.</p>
<p><strong>Whatever the truth, d’Eon pulled off the daunting mission</strong>. Impressed, Louis raised him to a captaincy in the dragoons (which provided a uniform d’Eon paraded for years). The Chevalier was a brave soldier, wounded twice before the war’s end. When it finished, the King sent him to London to work on the peace treaty. In 1763, d’Eon saw this signed in Paris, received his Cross of Saint-Louis in thanks, then returned to London as the interim French ambassador. The posting was a bit of a ruse since, in his spy capacity, d’Eon was actually helping Louis plan to <em>invade</em> Britain.</p>
<p><strong>It was just the the sort of contradictory status</strong> d’Eon relished. He went to town as “ambassador”, spending lavishly and schmoozing key British aristocrats. (His secret weapon: fine wines from his home in Burgundy). London society, however, was perplexed; diplomats rarely tried to keep their sex mysterious. D’Eon bemused Londoners so much that the stock exchange started taking bets about his sex. It didn’t help that the Chevalier had friendships among the <em>libellistes</em>. These were French expatriates who, from the safety of London, produced pornographic publications about the royals at home.</p>
<p><strong>The Chevalier’s professional downfall</strong> was as spectacular as his rise. When a French count named de Guerchy arrived as the real ambassador, d’Eon refused to give up his post. Instead, he feuded publicly with his replacement and – perhaps influenced by his sleaze-peddling pals – scandalised the city with a tell-all book. Since it contained diplomatic secrets, this was a clear threat to reveal the King’s invasion plans. The result was fourteen years of political exile, with a shaken Louis afraid to let him back into France.</p>
<p><strong>The blackmailed King</strong> did provide a generous pension. D’Eon used this windfall to indulge his bibliomania, amassing more than 6,000 rare books and manuscripts. Then, when Louis XV died in 1774, d’Eon demanded that the new King bring him back. This time, however, he added a condition: the French government had to recognise him as a woman. Pierre de Beaumarchais, author of “The Marriage of Figaro”, was put in charge of organising his homecoming. It took a twenty-page treaty and a grant for the Chevalier’s “wardrobe”. (The new King had ordered that d’Eon dress full-time as a woman).</p>
<p><strong>King Louis and Marie Antoinette did receive d’Eon</strong>. But their Court had no place for the be-skirted Chevalier, who ended up back in Burgundy living with his mum. Four years before the start of the French Revolution, he threw in the towel and sailed for London – the capital he saw as “even more free than Holland”. When the Bastille was taken in 1789, his military enthusiasms were reawakened (d’Eon himself had once spent nineteen days in a château dungeon). However, no one took up his offer to lead a women’s brigade and his Royal pension was lost to the Revolution.</p>
<p><strong>As a result, d’Eon drifted into penury</strong>. Forced to sell his rare books, staging duels for pay, the Chevalier spent his final years boarding with a naval widow by the name of Mrs. Cole.</p>
<p><strong>He even spent a little time inside debtor’s prison</strong>. But the Chevalier d’Eon remained incorrigible, battling his poverty with sequential pleas to publishers. He assured each of them his memoirs would be rich in scandal but, before he could deliver, the Chevalier was felled by a stroke. Today he is remembered as namesake of the Beaumont Society – an English group who aim to smooth the way for cross-dressers and the trans-gendered. May they enjoy their lives as much as d’Eon did!<br /><br><br />• <strong>Want to know more about d’Eon’s world?</strong> His pals the <em>libellistes</em> ranged from authors to defrocked priests. To meet them, try <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Forbidden-Bestsellers-Pre-Revolutionary-France/dp/0002558351/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_8">The Forbidden Bestsellers of Pre-Revolutionary France</a>, by Harvard’s <a href="http://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/darnton.php">Robert Darnton</a> or <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blackmail-Scandal-Revolution-Libellistes-1758-1792/dp/0719065275/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339669426&sr=8-1">Blackmail, Scandal, and Revolution</a> by <a href="http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/people/20041/school_of_history/person/800/simon_burrows">Simon Burrows</a> of Leeds University.<br>
<strong>• Leed University Library also has</strong> <a href="http://lib.leeds.ac.uk/search~S1?/XChevalier+d%27Eon&searchscope=1&SORT=D/XChevalier+d%27Eon&searchscope=1&SORT=D&SUBKEY=Chevalier+d'Eon/1%2C5%2C5%2CB/frameset&FF=XChevalier+d%27Eon&searchscope=1&SORT=D&1%2C1%2C">a collection</a> that belonged to d’Eon, including a copy of Catullus inscribed as a gift from John Wilkes to “Mademoiselle”.</p>tag:localhost,2005:Article/512012-06-02T11:01:00Z2012-06-02T16:44:52ZBon jubilé, M'am!<p><strong>Je pense que la reine Elizabeth semble en forme en ce moment</strong> vu ses photos récentes, bien mieux qu’ il y a quelques années. Elle à l’air belle, un peu comme la reine Mary, sa grand-mère, mais en plus souriante. La monarchie c’est bon pour les touristes, c’est agréable car ça rapporte beaucoup d’argent mais autrement c’est totalement inutile. Les gens peuvent rêver alors c’est pas mal comme réussite. Once a queen, always a queen. Like me, she lives her memoir, she doesn’t need to write it. <br /><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2012/04/lagerfeld-to-participate-in-the-queens-jubilee.html">Karl Lagerfeld</a></p>tag:localhost,2005:Article/472012-05-27T10:13:00Z2012-05-28T10:32:33ZPixels or petals<p><strong>With the first hint of spring, the number of visitors skyrockets</strong>. Each arrives armed with GPS, tri-band phones and the constant need to comment. Instagram, Facebook, <em>textos</em> and Twitter are the modern parallel of building plaques that resume a life or a death with <em>Ici Veçut</em> or <em>Ici est tombé</em>. The wave of abbreviating strangers arrives after weeks of rain but just as fresh fruit and flowers pour into markets and shops.</p>
<p><strong>At the same moment, buckets of blooms appear on the sidewalks</strong>. There are flowers in the gutter, on the corners, outside stores. The new sightseers fetishize each pretty petal, keeping one another always in the shots. The floral bounty is so rich one has to sympathise as they blur the boundaries between virtual and visceral.</p>
<p><strong>Emerging into watery sun</strong> after months of low, grey skies, the rich green of public spaces is astonishing. The young artists driven indoors since <a href="http://www.salondudessin.com/">la Semaine du Dessin</a> (“Week of the Drawing”) pour out into them, as do the art students. Many are also iPad artists.</p>
<p><strong>This phenomenon didn’t exist last year</strong>. But, when <a href="http://www.hockneypictures.com/">David Hockney</a> chose Paris to debut his bouquets on iPhone and iPad, it must have stirred up something local. Presented by <a href="http://www.fondation-pb-ysl.net/en/Accueil-Fondation-Pierre-Berge-Yves-Saint-Laurent-575.html">Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent</a>, Hockney’s luminous <a href="http://www.fondation-pb-ysl.net/en/David_Hockney_Fleurs_fraiches-506.html"><em>Fleurs fraîches</em></a> were as likeable as Invader’s mosaics. Hockney may have gone back to making <a href="http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/hockney/">blockbusters</a>. But here, from cafés to art schools, smart phone “art” is a topic <em>du jour</em>. It’s back to the questions posed by John Berger and Walter Benjamin; how much do we actually ‘see’ in the beauty we digitise?</p>
<p><strong>Hockney himself says to digitise is not enough</strong>. “I’ve been looking through cameras a long time and it always imposes, it forces a certain kind of picture. Photographs won’t show you how the eye really sees”.</p>
<p><strong>For him, Apple’s app-laden tools</strong> offer a different avenue. It’s not that of Twitter, Instagram or <em>tu m’as vu</em>. Said the artist in Paris, “I advocate drawing. I think the teaching of drawing is the teaching of looking…and learning how to really look has to be good – for anyone.” Regarding petals or pixels, whether you’re transient or resident, in Paris this is wisdom that knows no season.<br /><br>
<strong>• <em>Paris parks that offer free WiFi display a plaque. <br> To connect, you follow these steps:</em></strong><br> 1. Launch your browser and type in the address<br> 2. Wait to be guided to a login<br> 3. Click ”<em>Selectionnez votre pass</em>” <br>4. Fill in details and accept the Terms & Conditions <br> 5. Confirm (<em>Valider</em>) <br> You will receive a confirmation for a two-hour session. <br>To continue after two hours, reconnect. <br>NB: Do not confuse the choice of “Free” with the city service; free.fr is a separate service provider. <br>
<strong>• <em>Find the free WiFi</em> </strong>: <a href="http://www.paris.fr/pratique/paris-wi-fi/paris-wi-fi-accessible-dans-les-jardins-parisiens/rub_7799_stand_31302_port_17981">It’s in these parks and gardens</a>. Note that the Luxembourg (which belongs to the Sénat) and the Tuileries (which belongs to the State) are not part of the <em>Mairie de Paris</em> WiFi scheme.</p>tag:localhost,2005:Article/502012-05-07T10:04:00Z2012-05-09T09:44:18ZLa vraie victoire<p>“Vous êtes bien plus qu’un peuple qui veut changer, vous êtes déjà un mouvement qui se lève partout en Europe et peut-être dans le monde pour porter nos valeurs, nos aspirations et nos exigences de changement. Merci, merci, merci!”</p>
<p>“…Soyez heureux, soyez fiers, soyez généreux, soyez respectueux (...) soyez fiers d’être des citoyens français”. L’allocution a été courte. La Marseillaise retentit. La colonne de Juillet est éclairée par des fumigènes roses, tandis qu’un peu partout sur la place, explosent des pétards, et que des manifestants lancent des confettis.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.liberation.fr/depeches/2012/05/07/presidentielle-acte-ii-en-direct_816726">François Hollande, 7 mai 2012, 00 h 49, Place de la Bastille, Paris</a></p>tag:localhost,2005:Article/492012-05-07T10:02:00Z2012-05-09T09:41:28ZSo close<p>“Fresh from defeat (...) Livingstone hailed the results of last week’s local elections in which Labour won more than 800 seats – as well as four additional seats on the London assembly – saying they showed that the party was now in a strong position.</p>
<p>“The lesson is that we are getting the economic strategy right,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. “For the last two years people have believed – there has been huge media support for it – that the government’s austerity package would work. It clearly hasn’t.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/08/livingstone-miliband-pander-discredited-blairites">Hélène Muholland, The Guardian, 8 May 2012</a></p>tag:localhost,2005:Article/482012-04-26T12:15:00Z2012-04-27T12:45:49ZHello sailor...<p><strong>A new Galeries Lafayette poster</strong> just appeared, created as usual by the store’s <em>graphiste</em> <a href="http://www.jeanpaulgoude.com/">Jean Paul Goude</a>. It features the aging bad boy <a href="http://www.jeanpaulgaultier.com/brand/fr#page-brand/">Jean-Paul Gaultier</a>, turning his naked chest into a <em>marinière</em> with paint. This is a joke with so many levels that to fully decode it would require a semiotics professor.</p>
<p><strong>The blue-and-white <em>marinière</em> is a French stereotype</strong>. Part of the county’s naval uniform since the nineteenth century, it was hijacked for <em>les femmes</em> by Coco Chanel. Some non-French people see wearing the <em>marinière</em> as conformist. (Visitors are frequently surprised by how loyal we can be to stripes and polka dots). But Goude’s poster pokes sly fun at something else. After the World Cup, Nike took charge of the French football team – and one of their first acts was to put the squad into <em>marinières</em>. Those first <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUu4CKOXsKg">away shirts</a> were premiered a year ago. Now, Nike is about to field a similar <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq64zh_nouveau-maillot-euro-2012_sport?start=0#from=embediframe">home jersey</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Both have received</strong> the same response in public, a mix of controversy and <em>coup de pub</em>.</p>
<p><strong>It involves personalities from</strong> sport to <em>haute couture</em> and generates adjectives like “shocking” or “infernal”. Those flames are further fanned by internet polls and newspapers that remind us this is a style worn more by women than men. Fashion as an industry hailed the first shirt right away, giving it an in-house homage at Colette. But its success with the public was limited. Fans like the Sixties designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac were reduced to citing ancient patrimony. The number of stripes, he noted indignantly, “equals the number of battles won by Napoleon. It is therefore a symbol of victory!”</p>
<p><strong>Much of the public</strong>, however, seemed so uneasy Nike stopped marketing the <em>ohé</em> shirt in November. Their new <em>maillot exterièure</em> is almost purged of stripes. Only seven remain on each sleeve.</p>
<p><strong>With the new home jersey</strong>, Nike has been more cautious. This time, the stripes in Naval blue alternate with a lighter tint, “Pacific”. The PR emphasis is all on advanced technology – how a laser chiselled out each side’s aeration holes, how the fabric is made out of used plastic bottles. There is one fashion first: an upright ‘Mao collar’. This has also been controversial, but some see in it a nod to <a href="http://www.google.fr/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Eric+Cantona&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&ei=uYOZT6WnKOPM0QW92uCPBg#hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=Eric+Cantona+You+Tube&oq=Eric+Cantona+You+Tube&aq=f&aqi=g-s2&aql=&gs_nf=1&gs_l=serp.3..0i10l2.16686.20088.0.21103.11.8.1.2.2.0.112.508.7j1.12.0.xFygESCxy10&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=87a70743f6e1048c&biw=1266&bih=668">Eric Cantona</a>. The great Canto always played with his collar flipped up and he has always been one of Nike’s favourite Frenchmen.</p>
<p><strong>Nike’s new collar</strong> has another wacky feature. To quote them directly, “Inside the back of the neck, a thin red tape represents the red ribbons worn by the French after the revolution of 1789 celebrating their freedom and their solidarity with the victims of the guillotine”. Say what?</p>
<p><strong>Anyhow, the real subtext</strong> of all the controversy is the <em>marinière’s</em> central role in gay iconography. This is something at which Jean-Paul Gaultier is an expert. (Many people think it was he behind Nike’s <em>marinières</em>).</p>
<p><strong>Initially such sailor’s shirts</strong> were called simply <em>tricots rayés</em> or “striped jerseys”. As official Navy wear for the lowest of crew members, their stripes were codified by law in 1858. Twenty-one white stripes measure 20 mm, alternating with blue ones of 10 mm. The sleeves are striped with fifteen white bands and fifteen blue ones. Legend says these shirts helped rescue sailors fallen overboard. The item, however, stood for more than just Naval rank. Its wearers were also seen as marginal by “normal” society.</p>
<p><strong>In his fascinating book</strong> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/sep/15/historybooks.highereducation2">The Devils Cloth</a>, Michel Pastoreau traces the negative history of stripes in clothing. Associated since the Middle Ages with pariahs – rebel monks, lepers, heretics, clowns, prostitutes, etc – stripes were also worn by the African servants in rich sixteenth-century Venice. Amusingly, the livery of their servitude ended up on the vest of <a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111108/jsp/entertainment/story_14719766.jsp">Captain Haddock’s butler, Nestor</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Colonial north America made its revolution</strong> with stripes – then the New World’s penal colonies turned them into symbols of guilt and its punishment. However, stripes did indeed enter fashion via the navy. According to research by <a href="http://fr.viadeo.com/fr/profile/aude.le-guennec">Aude Le Guennec</a> and <a href="http://prixroberval.utc.fr/outils/interface/?menu=auteur_details&id=1763">Agnès Mirambet-Paris</a>, it was England’s Queen Victoria who put the wheels in motion. From 1846, she dressed her children in the <em>tricots rayés</em>, blouses, pants and pom-pom bonnets of English sailors. This thank-you from their Sovereign proved visionary. For, when increased leisure sent Europe’s rich to the seaside, they went crazy for nautical stripes. From bathing gear to beach huts, they obsessed the <em>Belle Epoque</em>.</p>
<p><strong>The Devil, however, hung on</strong> to his cloth. That same iconography which inspired Coco Chanel (and Jeanne Lanvin and, later, Christian Dior) has also always been code for the seamier side of the seaside. Sailor’s bars, deserters, tattoos, prostitution and opium have all contributed to its image. Even the French word for sailor, <em>matelot</em>, comes from the Middle Dutch <em>mattenot</em>, which meant “bed mate”.</p>
<p><strong>From that flip side comes</strong> a resonance that would not have amused the Queen. But it’s exactly where Gaultier’s stripes are based, between Jean Genet’s <em>Querelle de Brest</em> – or the Fassbinder film of it loved by JPG – and the French sailor portraits of <a href="http://www.google.fr/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Pierre+et+Gilles&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=NIWZT-2eD8iXhQfb8ZSJBg&biw=1266&bih=668&sei=NYWZT4StMpKyhAeZydzsBQ">Pierre et Gilles</a>. As journalist <a href="http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/sport/football/le-nouveau-maillot-des-bleus-est-victime-du-marketing-sportif_1105426.html">Fabian Cazenave</a> recently noted, certain people speak of audacity, others of pyjamas. It’s not just Goude or Gaultier, you see. You can count on any true Parisian for a <em>double-entendre</em>.</p>
<p>• <a href="http://www.chapitre.com/CHAPITRE/fr/BOOK/collectif/les-marins-font-la-mode,21203442.aspx">Les marins font la mode</a> (Gallimard, 2009 for the Musée national de la Marine) will really fill you in. <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Pastoureau">Michel Pastoreau</a> also writes wonderful books about the history of colour and symbols. <a href="http://www4.fnac.com/Michel-Pastoureau/ia4595">Check them out</a>.</p>
<p>• <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq64zh_nouveau-maillot-euro-2012_sport?start=0#from=embediframe">Nike Marinière 2011</a> (directed by Karl Lagerfeld)</p>
<p>• <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq64zh_nouveau-maillot-euro-2012_sport?start=0#from=embediframe">Nike Marinière 2012</a></p>
<p>• Three things not to miss about Eric Cantona: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/eric-cantona-Film-TV-Box-Set/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=Eric%20Cantona&rh=n%3A283926%2Ck%3AEric%20Cantona%2Cp_n_binding_browse-bin%3A383381011%2Cp_n_feature_two_browse-bin%3A549962011&page=1;">The Complete Collection DVD</a> the Ken Loach film <a href="http://www.amazon.fr/Looking-Eric-Steve-Evets/dp/B002KMW8MO">Looking For Eric</a> and Canto’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhIjuQmHmfE">fair housing campaign</a>.</p>tag:localhost,2005:Article/462012-03-29T12:51:00Z2012-04-02T11:11:17ZHats off to heritage<p><strong>Without hats, said Christian Dior,</strong> “we would have no civilization.” The legendary <em>couturier</em> was well aware of the hat as pivotal to <em>le style anglais</em>. In Paris, since the 1770s, these three little words have stood for elegance. It was around then that French aristocrats fell in love with the riding and sporting clothes of their British counterparts. Thet were celebrated for their expert tailoring, understated style and simplicity.</p>
<p><strong>Parisian Anglomania intensified</strong> after the Revolution, when aristocrats who had fled returned from across the Channel. They brought back both the cult of <em>le dandy</em> and of the English Romantics. Two hundred years later, <em>le style anglais</em> still features in French life, from architecture to clothes to interiors and gardening. After Galliano, McQueen, Westwood and Paul Smith, nothing pleases Parisians more than a new mode they view as ”<em>so British</em>”. Just ask Bidyut Das, the man behind the hottest hats at this year’s <a href="http://www.premiere-classe.com/">Première Classe</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Das runs the label</strong> <a href="http://www.dasmarca.co.uk/">Dasmarca</a>, a line of hip heritage headgear sold <a href="http://www.dasmarca.co.uk/">from its web site</a> as well as retail. Each of his titfers is modelled after an English classic such as the eight-piece, the bookie’s flat cap or the Trilby. Dasmarca’s summer models are made with an eco-braid mixed from paper, while winter hats feature felts with delicious contrasts and textures. Première Classe saw buyers lining up for the label from France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Japan. The spring-summer collection is already at Roxan in Paris (23 rue Lepic 75018).</p>
<p><strong>Bidyut Das is a veteran</strong> of both Central St. Martin’s and the Royal College. After graduation, he followed the trajectory for which those schools are famous, moving directly from student status to hot designer. Das’ degree show had featured what he calls “extreme knitting”, a fresh take on the craft he had learned as a child in India.</p>
<p><strong>There, in his home village</strong> of Kanchanbury, even the youngest locals are put to work at the Lion looms. “Little kids are given big needles made out of bamboo, so they can learn to knit as early as possible.” At college, Das returned to the idea – making himself huge needles out of builders’ tools and broomsticks. In 2002, a project for the designer Russell Sage put Das and his “chunky knitting” centre-stage. Its success led him to establish his label, Dasmarca. “I called it that to mean ‘marked’ or ‘approved’ by Das. Because I was doing everything; I knitted every piece.”</p>
<p><strong>His line of scarves</strong> (re-imagined as everything from collars to capes) was an immediate hit. They featured at Liberty and le Bon Marché, as well as in boutiques from Tokyo to Toronto. When Top Shop commissioned a collection Das launched a studio. With orders flooding in, he got some help from the Prince’s Trust. Yet none of his staff could master his singular style of knitting.</p>
<p><strong>Kangol was also keen</strong> to recruit him so Das agreed to work part-time. His label, he found, was struggling with success. “I saw I was a craftsman but not a businessman. I was making things people fell in love with – but I was giving up everything to do them, I spent every spare moment knitting. I knew I needed to go and work in the industry, work and learn.” When cheap knockoffs of his chunky knitting started appearing, Das agreed to a fulltime job with <a href="http://www.kangol.com/">Kangol</a>.</p>
<p><strong>It meant packing his bags</strong> and moving to New York. There, for the next three years, he designed for Kangol (Das also designed for <a href="http://www.baileyhats.com/">Bailey’s</a> of Hollywood and did their trend forecasting). For Kangol, he volunteered to oversee factory work, not just in America but also in China. It was the Far East that taught him critical lessons. “A couple of places in England still make traditional hats. But China never says no so everyone goes to China. However, they don’t always ask for creativity.”</p>
<p><strong>Das discovered that</strong>, when he build up trust and challenged the companies, the whole game of Chinese manufacturing could be changed.</p>
<p><strong>By mid-2010</strong>, he wanted a line of his own again. He also wanted to come home. “I wanted a British brand and I wanted to keep it niche. One of my contacts, a Chinese family factory, decided to back me”. Their usual minimum order was three hundred for any one model – and Das was starting out in mere double digits. But they loved his products and seemed to relish the challenge. “Despite migrant labour being the norm in China,” he says, “they are trying work with local people”. Dasmarca hats, with their quality and hand-finish, offer proof that the partnership is working for everyone.</p>
<p><strong>Back in his knitting days</strong>, Das sourced merino from South Yorkshire’s Wingham Wool Works. He is still trying to move hat production to Britain. “After Première Classe, I gave it another try. Because you have respect for your country and you want to give back. But, at the moment, no one here can do it.”</p>
<p><strong>So, in addition to managing</strong> everything else, Das continues to liaise with China. From its budget (ten years’ worth of his personal savings) to the website, Dasmarca is essentially a one-man studio. But, thanks to his gruelling Manhattan experience, Das can manage. The workload may be huge, but it lets him oversee the product’s every aspect. “From the start, I knew I wanted to thoroughly brand it. I love my British heritage and I’m obsessed with its visual history. Giving that a modern London twist is the handwriting of my style.”</p>
<p><strong>All the Dasmarca hats</strong> are unisex. Their shapes evoke standards from James Locke or Bates the Hatter. But each has a special subtlety, from wonderful fabrics to touches like flamingo-pink piping or grosgrain bands in citron and chocolate (or their metal pins with the Dasmarca trademark). Their very British range of colours is worthy of Farrow and Ball.</p>
<p><strong>It’s an exhausting life</strong>, yet Das remains upbeat. Based in Bloomsbury, he’s immersed in London life. “If you survive New York, you can survive anything. But here people are more individual. My main market is London and, after that, Europe. Because the client I want is looking for more than high street fashion. Even in a recession, they have to look unique.”</p>
<p><strong>Ah, the “R” word</strong>, how does it affect him? “Well, I came to England at the age of twelve. To me, it sort of feels like there’s always been a recession. Certainly, there’s never been a good time to set up a business. But a recession is helpful in that it makes you careful.” He smiles. “It’s also not a bad time for accessories. A hat is not a huge investment, yet it really makes a statement.”</p>
<p><strong>As M. Dior would say</strong>, he’s doing his bit for civilization.</p>
<p>• Want to meet more bicultural hat fanatics? Check out Honoré de Balzac’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Treatise-Elegant-Living-Wakefield-Handbooks/dp/0984115501/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2">Treatise on Elegant Living</a>, (<a href="http://www.amazon.fr/Traité-vie-élégante-Honoré-Balzac/dp/2916266860/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1333028652&sr=1-1-catcorr">Traité de la vie élégante</a>), Ellen Moer’s classic <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Dandy-Brummell-Ellen-Moers/dp/0803230524">The Dandy</a> and <a href="http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500286807.html">The New English Dandy</a>, available in both <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-English-Dandy-Alice-Cicolini/dp/050051268X">English</a> and <a href="http://livre.fnac.com/a1957683/Cicolini-New-english-dandy">French</a>.</p>