Yves Saint Laurent on screen

The Film Forum has seen fit to extend the Jalil Lespert movie about Yves Saint Laurent probably because so many of us didn't get around to seeing it.  And thank God!  Filmed in a luxurious state of mind, about a luxurious young man who became a luxury brand, Yves Saint Laurent comes onto the screen as a visual delight.  And. Then. Some. Tracking early YSL through the days of becoming the newly appointed big boss at Christian Dior after the Maestro dies, to the almost end, this film warrants being seen again, and then again.  Take it from several points of view: the visuals, the sets, the actors, the direction, and, of course, the costumes.  Although they are not really costumes per se, but the entitled inspirational collections of a young man's vision, the clothing offers time and again fresh insights behind the scenes of a designer's life.  Not in a tawdry sense, but depicted in a matter of fact life -in -the -trenches way.  Drugs, sex, backstory, ego.  All of the above do not over ride the reality of this film: Yves Saint Laurent was a genius.  And for those in the fashion world, the fact that the quirks come with that title is a given.  Perhaps to the newest fans of fashion out there, the hedonistic and indulgent world of the 1970's and 1980's is news.  To those who lived the time, the mindset, and the mood, it's a flashback . The lush quality of M. Saint Laurent's thinking process is embellished by placing us within their homes, not just within the confines of the atelier.  Pierre Berge, the keeper of the flame (and the other driving character depicted so ably in the film) gave his consultation and stamp of approval, as well as allowing many of the archived original haute couture pieces from the Maison  to be featured in the film  .  Given the white glove treatment, to be sure,  it is said that the garments were cast first,  followed by the models who filled in the dresses.  An uncanny, but logical way of casting some of the iconic models of the era.
The delicate phraseology of the young Saint Laurent is part of his persona.  He seemed to look at everything in a telescoped fashion, focused, with subtitles.  His business life was managed by Pierre Berge, but those who loved him could not control the uncontrollable.  One of the fascinating feats that this film accomplishes underlines the gentle soul that was Yves Saint Laurent.  In spite of the whirlwind of fashion , fame and backstory that surrounds a supremely successful man such as himself, his ability to hone in on a point of design is evident.  From the first shot of the young man slicing into a bolt of silk and draping it under the watchful gaze of Christian Dior himself, to the luxe collections he produces one after another, the director frames this ability with brilliance.  In those moments of calm, found throughout the film here and there, we can commune with the mind of YSL, and pause for one slice of time, before plunging back into the fray.
Color and personae is what this film is all about.  If you're a designer, you'll know this world.  If you're a design student, see it now.  If you're a design teacher, see it to learn more about methodology, atelier activity and results.  And for the rest of the world: take it all with a grain of salt, or a teaspoon of sugar. Films of this ilk are much loved in the world of fashion, and will long serve as standard bearers for the rarified world of haute couture .

Welcome Aboard

We have a new website with wonderful pictures of our hats taken by brilliant photographers with whom we have been working for eons.  Please come and visit, send us your input, as we tweak,  update and upgrade the new site so that it works to your advantage.  More in tune than ever with the hat-wearing public, Ellen Christine provides unique design, local confection, and unlimited imagination to her public and her product.
The first set of pictures  you see on the new website were taken for a local magazine to be distributed in Hudson Square, where we are located.  We loved David Carlo's shots so much, they're our new portraits.
We'll include news that will change on a regular basis so you can see all of our exciting projects.  Uploaded at the moment is the exclusive headpiece we designed for Va Bien Lingerie, a French/NY/Puerto Rican company that is using the shot of our headpiece with their new collection in their Fall campaign.  If you wish to inquire about owning one of these headpieces, ask Va Bien directly for information about them.
You'll see the lovely Sophie Pera, stylist at Town and Country, in a unique take on retail.  This video is by Cinematique, and it lits you shop while you watch.  Go to the company website for more information, but do watch our video with Sophie in our showroom.  We love it, too.
Our collections will expand as our photoshoots progress and we edit the pictures.  We've included our favorite campaign, and our shoot by Sandy Ramirez "The Metropolitan Opera Collection" because it's so very beautiful.  The shot was inspired by a famous photographer from the 1940's, and we loved doing it. there are beautiful gallery shots taken in some of the collections by our dear Tom Bloom.  some of you may know him as a star of stage and screen, but did yo know that he is one of the premier portrait photographers in NYC? He's taken some glorious shots of pieces that merit hanging as art.
Our Press Kit is highlighted on the home page, and further developed on the Press page.  Feel free to inquire about any of the hats or headpieces you see on those pages. Although they are not in stock, we are happy to reproduce our own past archival collections for you.
Pass along the site to your friends, and welcome aboard to the scintilatting hat world of Ellen Christine Couture.

www.ellenchristinecouture.com
Information about the special order headpiece can be addressed to: atelier@vabienlingerie.com

Dear WWD

Harper’s Bazaar  just gave us our thrill of the year : the cover.  Sarah Jessica Parker is wearing an Ellen Christine Couture headpiece on their cover, and it looks glorious. Naysayers may mock, may dissent, may critique.  But there are thousands, millions wearing hats once again.  Given the Royal Wedding feeding frenzy, celebrities are not as timid about donning a hat or a headpiece from time to time.  Sarah Jessica Parker was seen at the Metropolitan Museum Gala wearing a Phillip Treacy headpiece, as she is wont to do.  Either our dear Stephen ( Jones) or Mr. Treacy is the choice for high profile hat handlers, much because of the English influence on the world of millinery. Those of you in the business know Ellen Christine, and we proudly join the ranks of editorialized touted hat makers the world over.

Now that the feather is out of the bag, and Ms. Parker can be seen with that magnificent masthead spread across our plumage, does the world sit up and take notice?  Yes, in a way.  But WWD, that bastion of daily fashion waves and trends seems to be put out by the Harper’s Bazaar cover.  Thank you, WWD, for covering Ellen Christine over the years, but give hats a break, please. Not fair for you to take a one sided view , and that one side being anti-hat.  At any rate, it’s a headpiece, for heaven’s sake, and what of it? I take umbrage at your point of view, and my client/friend base has been as miffed as I am.  Please allow me to take a quote from Mrs. Ann Albrizio, the Doyenne of  the Millinery Department at FIT  who said in one of her press releases :

“ Women’s Wear Daily” has been calling the total look a suit complete with the wearing of a hat.  Also known as the “Snob Set”, it has become a status symbol in the fashion field today.”

We don’t have a date on this press release, but as Mrs. Albrizio was the driving force in millinery during the 1960’s through the 1990’s, pick a date.  No need to dissect the quote, but if you liked hats once upon a time, what happened?  How did you fall out of love with us, the hard-working milliners of American fashion?

I won’t belabour the line you poached from a Steven Sondheim song to end your article  I won’t slash your tires.  But I will stand as a strong supporter for the only accessory that can “top it off”: the hat.  Many accessories can compliment an ensemble, but none but the hat can end the sentence. 

.

http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/deja-view-7088825

http://www.whomyouknow.com/search/label/Top%20it%20Off

Summer Newsletter Ellen Christine Couture

Winter Newsletter

Here is the link of our Newsletter: http://ymlp.com/zk2ZJG

Ellen Christine , Rehearsals, Turandot, Roberto, Orange

Sitting on stone bleachers in a Roman amphitheatre.  The chorus is rehearsing Act 1 of Turandot, and the pigeons are singing along with them.  The stage director leads the children's chorus to center stage, and the music of Puccini permeates the old stones.  Piano only.  And voices.  Voices filling the crevices in the rock.  Voices bouncing off the worn stone bleachers, worn smooth by the recurring 8000 people or so who fill the seats year after year, as they have for centuries.
The sun is setting in Orange and the second rehearsal is in full swing.  Roberto Alagna sings in half voice, with his family in the front row.  We can only imagine the alchemy that is being wrought.
  Act I of Turandot opens with a Mandarin  singing up, way up high, on the topmost level of the set.  Calaf/Roberto hides among the pillars of the courtyard, and  the chorus is spread out across the entire stage. The stage director at Choregies, Charles Roubaud, uses the space in a conceptual format, every stone, every inch as part of the environment,  to better allow the magic of this extraordinary opera to happen. The inherent grandiosity is conveyed by using  the different levels of power, and the height, the majesty of this amphitheatre.
The "hands that speak" are the hands of Michel Plasson, a wizard of a conductor.  He is here for the run-through before the orchestra arrives on Sunday.  It is Friday, and he seems happy that everyone is so well prepared.  The hard working chorus responds to those hands, to his language, and the Wall of Sound begins.  Ebb and flow, ecstasy, pain, excitement, fear : all basic human emotions conveyed here via voice, extracted as it were by the very evocative hands of Maestro Plasson.

  In Act II the need for a relief from the tension created by a  cold, cruel princess and the effect she has on her kingdom is provided by the Courtiers Ping, Pang and Pong. Their names may sound like characters from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, but their vocal arrangements are  so harmonious, they provide the presence needed. The audience is now set up for the tender plea of Liu. Drama mounts in the duet between Calaf and the handmaiden, Liu , as the crowd onstage swarms, and the entire scene crescendos: Turandot!  On an almost bare stage, with no costumes, the performance evokes all the needed sentiment.  When  Calaf runs off, we can once again breathe. Roberto's presence onstage is so evocative that we as one , the audience, follow his every move. For the end of act notes, the conductor summons first the chorus, and then the children's chorus.  As he tells them how sweetly they are singing, he manages to tweak their performances with just the right point needed to achieve perfection.
Rehearsal continues with a reprisal, as Calaf/Roberto and Ping/Pang/Pong do their thing.  Roberto is saying to Maestro Plasson that it will be "little by little", close the the footlights under the hot sun.  This is a huge role for Roberto; as they say in French a "prise de role": his debut in this role.  Yes, he's sung the music before, but never AS Calaf in the opera itself. He has lots of time onstage, and lots of high notes (les aigues).  Mr . Alagna will be working very hard.
Be still my heart!
Oh, gosh, I just got a "Hello, Ellen!" from the stage, as he faces me (on the bleachers) and we have a little exchange about his Twitterfeed today.  (He posted a picture of himself, shaving, in one of my hats.) And me, trying to concentrate on the rehearsal!
Back to M. Plasson: watch this man's hands!  Ping/Pang/Pong are onstage on top of a set of BIG bookcases/bookshelves.  The books on the shelves are storybook size.  think of the piano keys at F.A.O.Schwartz for scale.Plasson guides them through their reveries with his will, his cajoling, and his mega-professional attitude.
 Now at the top, and along the stage itself,  with the chorus, and we are immersed in the court music that Puccini composed for the $54,000 Question Show. The power of their voices in this amphitheatre is something that needs to be experienced in person: the walls resound with  magic music.
Calaf/Roberto is 40 feet below the Emperor, who is seated on high, god of the heavens, and he repeats his request to have a shot at the Princess and her game of chance: Filio del Cielo!
Doves fly in and out of their crevices.
Now we have the children singing, as they prepare us for  the magnificent presentation of the magnificent and darkPrincess, who deigns to join the Court , encased in her globe. A globe that protects, and defends, pushed by her slaves to center stage.  Lise Lystrom begins her aria as the sun is setting over the Theatre Antique. The Princess commands the stage, as the doves call to each other . Now  it's time for the triple threat: either Calaf answers her riddles correctly, or he dies.  The intricacy of the riddles is surrounded by trickles of music that set both the mood, and her attitude. Puccini was brilliant.  As Calaf divines the answers one by one,  slaves partially close the globe, her last sacred place. Extracted as it were from her isolation, the Princess makes a measured progression into the real world. The confrontation between the now conquered Princess and the conquering Calaf leads us into the sublime "Nessun Dorma". Just kill me.
Half and hour for a break, and then everyone straggles back in for the rest of the rehearsal.  We will be here until midnight.Night time has now fallen, and on the stage, the chorus  are choreographed carrying lanterns that seem as firefies in the dark. At last,  Nessun Dorma, with Roberto still using only a portion  of his golden voice, in a lower register.  This will protect his vocal chords and save the killer notes for the performances.  There will be three: the full dress and tech rehearsal (la General), and the two performance dates themselves.
What comes next is the death of Liu, in the last piece of music actually written by Puccini himself.  He died just after completing this portion, but he left his masterpiece in the capable hands of Toscanini.  Maestro Toscanini did have the opera finished for  it's first performance  in the 1920's. There's as much drama surrounding the creation of the piece as there is in the opera itself, but we won't cover that ground here.
Liu's death is followed by the inevitable: Turandot in Calaf's arms in sweet surrender. Still trepidatious, but won over by Calaf's intelligence, persistence and charm. The final magical notes fill the amphitheatre, the chorus fills the stage once more, and the Emperor holds forth on high. But wait a minute: it's seduction, Roberto-style, in slow motion. Turandot and Calaf circle each other, as Calaf/Roberto gently lifts her hand to his lips.  He kisses it.  We all sigh.  He places her hand on his cheek.   We all sigh. He caresses her cheek.  We all sigh. And,  they fall into each other's arms.
My heart stopped.

Photos courtesy of Helene Jeanneret

Ellen Christine at the Choregies d'Orange

The Romans came to Orange, France, and decided to build a Theatre.  I haven't found out why, as yet, but it's an extraordinary place, where the acoustics hit you like Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. It doesn't matter if you like opera, but it helps.
The Choregies d'Orange are in rehearsals this week for Turandot, with Roberto Alagna and Lise Lindstrom.  It's an incredible production, with a vast chorus, all from the South of France.  Imagine! This huge stage, with the original architecture behind the performers.  The French have put a glass roof over the stage, for historic preservation, but I'm sure it helps the acoustics even more.  When Puccini's music is being sung by 100 chorists, the heart stops, the blood chills, the spirit lifts, and you are in Heaven.
Having never been to Orange, I'm enthusiastic, to say the least.  More like a kid in a candy store.  It's fascinating to be present for all of the rehearsals.  The singers are in half-voice most of the time, but even one note that hits you like an arrow between the eyes is enough to get you ready for the production. The veritable smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd, is the bug that bites and keeps you coming back.  Maybe it's different when you're backstage most of the time in your line of work, and you get to see the first pieces fall into place.  Maybe it's different when you are used to hearing the director yell up and down the theatre.  But hey, this is some theatre.  To talk to each other, they need walkie-talkies, because the stage is about 100 meters wide.  The stage director moves the crowd around, placing them in their precise positions every 5 minutes.  The sound and the lights are up behind us, in the arc of the stone seats.  a friend of mine told me that the plebians had straw-filled cushions to sit on, and the VIPS had cushions and retractable domes, to protect them from the sun and the wind. Rehearsals are until midnight, so the wind is capable of whipping through the stadium, as the birds fly in and out of their nests.  Lodged high in the stone walls, the birds fly almost on cue, sometimes in a flock, sometimes one or two little wings beating their way home.

With everyone in place, and the stage director happy, the chorus lances into the last act.  Get a copy of Pavarotti singing the role of Calaf, and you will have the touchstone performance.  Those of us who live for the golden tones of Roberto Alagna can't wait for the sacred moment of Nessun Dorma.  For this note, have I flown 3000 miles.  For this opera I have traveled this distance, to hear those incredible tones in this incredible place.  This is opera.