The Silver Screen

Seeing Breakfast at Tiffany's on the big screen was a delight. The film is timeless and unbelievably stylish. I have too many favourite scenes to mention but cat is as much the star of the film as Audrey. The Belmont Picturehouse in Aberdeen is showing it this Wednesday again (17th) at 11:am and at 6:30pm. It is such a treat to see it at the pictures with a big audience and popcorn!

:)

Posted via web from Rachel's posterous

Body Armour

Footballers' Wives was brilliant telly at the time. I stumbled across an episode of this on the Freeview channel Fiver on Wednesday night complete with Chardonnay and her boobs gaping out and Gary Lucy way before Dancing on Ice. This was the genius concept which crash landed before the WAGs stepped out for real in Baden Baden at the 2006 world cup. I am a secret Coleen Rooney obsessive. I loved her in her moon boots and velour tracksuits, she just didn't care. Compared to the constant pout of Vicky Beckham and the grooming of Cheryl Cole, Coleen was a light relief.

Fashion has changed from the boob baring and hipster trousers showing midriff days. The in-look is much more safe and covered up. A quick look through the high street confirms this. I do love a Tea Dress and the pretty slouchy clothes on offer on the high street but maybe it's time for a return to 'daring to do fashion in a different way.' Doesn't roll of the tongue. I spotted this ASOS dress which I love because it is actually armour. Imagine wearing armour on a night out? You would feel invincible. I better get ab crunching though for that peek-a-boo oblique flesh.

The melt-a-heart dress

As a student currently trying to complete my post graduate degree in journalism, I have a lack of funds to consume fashion in the way that the magazines want women like myself to. One can still lust though. And lust I did it at this gorgeous ASOS dress. Chanel inspired with beautiful buttons down the back, it makes me consider going into the Big Brother house (for the last time of course before it's axed) to secure some cash from a crap magazine deal to buy my heart out.

This shift dress definitely looks more expensive than it is. And would melt anyone's heart if you're the type who loves to have a valentine on Valentines Day.

Christopher Kane, need I explain?

Philip Green's latest venture is a winner. Christopher Kane for Topshop is a super collection of shocking crocodiles, brilliant black and tight tight tight gorgeousness that is seriously making me consider taking up shoplifting. Ok, the price is a lot less compared to the sashaying creations he sends down the Catwalks, but prices are still a little too high for the girl about town who loves fashion but is limited to spending money on carefully picked accessories and bargains. For the record I did pick up a great tasseled leather bag for £3.00 on Friday from a second hand shop.

One purchase, however I can justify. And I'm having a serious case of envy (envious of the pretty Topshop girls who walk past this garment every day at work of course) over the sherbet yellow bright bandage dress which looks like a pop of Indian Summer amongst a sea of the new gothic trend. It will look striking at winter parties with lace tights and shoe boots. I think I may even dream about it tonight. Kane's clothes cause crazy dreams I imagine, they should come with a warning.

What if maybe?

A Life Less Ordinary

That pivotal moment in life where you take one path and someone else takes another is often a make or break situation. Without any contact details, you may never cross paths again. Nowadays it is much easier to find the lost ones on Facebook or Myspace if you didn’t secure a phone number or address, though even addresses are temporary. Believe it or not there are still people out there who don’t have a “page” with boring information about themselves on it. There are people who have no contact with social networking sites. There are people who don’t have a blog. I know it’s hard to consider that some people know their lives are not worth documenting on the internet. The rest of us either know this and don’t care or worse; actually think we are worth reading about!

Twenty Years, Two People, One Day

The book One Day documents twenty years of a boy and a girl's life who met and shared a few kisses, and maybe more, on the night of their Graduation from an Edinburgh University. Only to be flung out of each others lives and on to the road of their own lives the very next day. The book is written by David Nicholls who also wrote the novel ‘Starter for 10’ which was recently visualised into a film starring James McAvoy. In the novel One Day, the lead characters, wealthy womaniser Dexter and social conscious and opinionated Emma manage to keep in contact by various letters where Emma’s thoughts on life/politics/books spill out and fill pages and Dexter manages a few lines in reply here and there as he fumbles through his gap year(s). This is of course the 1980s before the communication revolution, no texting or emailing, can you remember that far back?

Each chapter begins on the same date of every year following their quick meeting and then subsequent departure on the 15^th July 1988 and as their lives unfold through the pages, the reader can relate to almost everything that happens in some way or another. No thoughts to the future in their twenties, like most, Dexter becomes completely hedonistic and does whatever he wants, even at the expense of losing his family and friends’ respect. This results in various bad habits and a career in TV that nosedives as quickly as it happened. Emma becomes lost, with no idea of what she wants to do with her life and only dreams of being a writer. She gets stuck in an unhappy state of mind relentlessly doing a job she hates until she has the courage to make some life changing decisions.

Sometimes it is almost too true to real life so that it makes you cringe but the book is a refreshing look at two people who grow up with each other in mind and what can happen to these people through time. Many parts of the book are set in London and it is great picturing where they’re living and what they’re seeing in their two different worlds. By the end of the book, you end up feeling great empathy and sympathy for the characters; they represent people in our lives we know or have known. This book has an unexpected ending and you feel as if you've lived through their twenty years. In fact you might need a nap at the end, I was exhausted, life is complicated!

My Generation!

Quadrophenia, the stage production is touring the UK. The film is a cult favourite written by The Who and focuses on Jimmy, a London boy who is at the centre of the mod scene gripping the 1960s. It is a masterpiece of a film with brilliant music and shows off the highs and lows of a generation. Phil Daniels, who recently had a role in Eastenders and was featured in Blur’s Parklife, is a stand out as Jimmy. Sting plays the Top Mod, also the infamous Bellboy, and Leslie Ash plays the love interest. A few other young British actors are in the film, nowadays they are middle aged and feature in programmes like ‘The Bill’. We were all youths once!

The stage version of Quadrophenia delves into the concept of schizophrenia Jimmy who has 4 personalities each played by a different actor. Each Jimmy wears the same tight blue jeans, Fred Perry T-shirt and obligatory Parka so as not to cause confusion but the actors that play him are very good and there is no doubt that each of them is a part of Jimmy. Act one sets the scene and shows young Jimmy with his family, his overbearing father bullying him and his mother. The conflict leads to Jimmy’s personality to split into four; anger, lunatic, contradict and romantic. All personalities compete for the main spot. As Jimmy grapples with his overbearing personalities, he becomes wrapped up in The Scene happening around him, and secures his identity as a Mod. The Who classics like ‘One’ and the magnificent ‘Love reign o’er me’ are sung out with heart and soul by the actors who as well as great movers are great singers too. ‘My Generation’ is a highlight emulating the scene in the film where the boys jump around like they have the world at their feet singing along to The Who classic.

The best thing about the stage production is the music. Where as the film has a gripping story line along with a stunning soundtrack, the theatre production focuses on concepts and so you are left to enjoy the scenes and music for what they are. There’s a few scenes which focus a bit too heavily on Jimmy’s family, although it is clear that the story line aims to show how Jimmy’s troubled relationship with his dad has lead to his personality disorder. The production could have looked at the muddy relationship between the Mods and Rockers a bit more but apart from that, the show sparkled with talent, show stopping songs and personalities – quite literally in Jimmy’s case.

Oui Coco, Oui Coco

Coco Avant Chanel portrays the story of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel before she conquered the world of fashion and revolutionised the way women wear clothes.  Encapsulated by Audrey Tautou in Anne Fontaine's new film 'Coco Avant Chanel', Chanel was born in Saumur, France on August 19 1883 and died on 10 January 1971.  During her lifetime she popularised casual and comfortable clothing for women without them losing an inch of style or elegance.  The film focuses on Coco before Chanel though.  It begins with images of her childhood where Coco and her sister were orphaned to a Convent in France.  Every Sunday, Gabrielle – before she was known as Coco waits in vain for her Father to visit.  She notices the simplicity and monochrome on the nuns’ uniforms, this shapes her whole take on Fashion. 

Coco worked as a dressmaker and after a brief career as a singer in French Cafes with her sister where she acquired the nickname Coco, Chanel finds herself as a Mistress of Etienne Balsan, a wealthy Military Officer.  The relationship she has with Balsan is odd and endearing at the same time.  Balsan is intrigued by Chanel but also embarrassed by her leeching onto him and her “dowdy” dress sense.  Undeterred, Chanel cuts up his clothes and her brain processes the designs she wants to make.  The wealthy world she has found herself in enables her to change it.  She refuses to wear corsets or “ridiculous” hats instead she customises male tailored clothes and rides a horse the male way!  A revelation for the over styled and pulled in to within an inch of their lives women around her.  By designing hats first of all, Chanel wins over the audience around her and falls in love with an English industrialist called Arthur “Boy” Capel.  As Chanel’s popularity rises within her social group, Balsan proposes to her.  Coco is the unique diamond in the rough for these men and the social group around her, or perhaps pearl is a better description, as pearls become the finishing touches to her beautiful designs later in her life.

Coco’s relationship with Boy flourishes and a beautiful seaside trip scene occurs in the film where Coco falls in love with stripes as she watches the fishermen in their stripey shirts reel in their catch.  Coco also wears a groundbreaking simple Little Black Dress at a Dance with Boy amongst the busy Edwardian uncomfortable designs of the time. 

Boy breaks Chanel’s heart as she had always feared by marrying an English aristocratic woman.  This is not the end of their affair though and with the financial help from Boy, she opens her first Milliner shop in Paris which is an instant success.  A tragic ending ensues though and this is where our story finishes.

This bio of Coco Chanel is an endearing and lovely watch but one can’t help hungering for more – perhaps the future films focusing on Chanel will show in film more of the life she led.  Audrey Tautou is scrumptious in the picture, Fontaine claimed she picked Tautou for her “little black bull side” and this is a phrase that rings in my ear whenever I see Tautou, this was the part she was born to play and charms us in it completely.