August 25, 2016

"With her short long pants and her long short skirts, she could put the haunting hemline question to rest."

From a 1973 fashion article about the "outrageous things" Sonia Rykiel could get away with.

Linked to in the NYT obituary for the designer who "made fashions for women who, like herself, were proud of their pregnancies, sophisticated about sex and too busy to fuss over the latest designer fads — women who wanted to look smart, but needed to get on with their lives."
[A] dramatic, sparrowlike woman, always in black, with a pale powdered face engulfed in a mass of Titian flame hair and bangs that fell to heavily mascaraed green eyes. She looked a bit like Édith Piaf, France’s national chanteuse.

“My color is black,” she once told an American fashion editor. “And black, if it’s worn right, is a scandal.”...

“I think creativity is inside you,” Ms. Rykiel told The Times Magazine in 1982. “If you have something to tell, you expose it. I never went to any design school. I was so strong in my thinking and my way of seeing fashion, I knew exactly what I wanted. I said to myself, ‘I have no limits.’ ”

9 comments:

Birkel said...

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was scheming to sell U.S. State Department favors for bribes.

Is there nothing women cannot be celebrated for doing?

Also, people in (bigotistly called) flyover country never gave much of a shit about high falutin' and self-important fashion icons celebrated in NYC periodicals and newspapers.

traditionalguy said...

She was my kind of French woman. Intelligence and fashion mixed together and totally feminine.

Clyde said...

Only black? That's a stunted palette. Besides, everyone knows that redheads can do more dramatic things with green.

Otto said...

Ugh another princess story. Secular elitism to the core.

MadisonMan said...

According to this article from the 1980s, her colors also included white, beige and red, not just black.

She sounds interesting, and she had a productive life. Two things to aim for.

Laslo Spatula said...

I want a girl with a mind like a diamond
I want a girl who knows what's best
I want a girl with shoes that cut
And eyes that burn like cigarettes

I want a girl with the right allocations
Who's fast and thorough
And sharp as a tack
She's playing with her jewelry
She's putting up her hair
She's touring the facility
And picking up slack

I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnng jacket......


I am Laslo.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Genuine question: how do women who are "unsophisticated about sex" dress?

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Laslo said...
I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnng jacket......

I am Laslo


One of my all time favorite music videos is for that song, Laslo--everyone should watch: it's basically a video of various people listening to the song and their genuine reactions (positive & negative).

rehajm said...

For the second day in a row: I went there, too Laslo.



I am becoming Laslo.