sitting for Cecil

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'All artists speak the same language , so photographers should be considered in terms of artists...' CB

 Mary Cushing Astor by Cecil Beaton

I've often looked longingly at my Cecil Beaton tomes and sighed-what beautiful photographs.

What gorgeous women, what handsome men-the sitters.

What gorgeous backdrops, the settings.

I love Cecil Beaton.

& that must be one of the many reasons I loved the return of Upstairs Downstairs. Cecil visits the residents of 165 Eaton Place in the last episode of the series. Well played by Christopher Harper, Cecil is there to photograph Lady Agnes Holland & her sister Lady Persie. Beaton brings all his charms- mostly spent on "Cook". Beaton also brings his own props to create the perfect setting for the perfect sitting. 

Baba Beaton, Cecil Beaton's sister & one of his favorite sitters

I've noticed the settings- painterly like. It's interesting to note Beaton never had what he called a studio-his idea was not to have one,certainly unusual in the day . He preferred to use his mother's drawing room, later- his own residences or those of his sitters-and true to fiction- he would bring props from drawing rooms and later drawing from his own stash of props expressly for his portrait work. Not one to wait and see what his sitter's rooms might be like-Cecil was prepared, fully armed with the perfect props to create the perfect portrait-screens, settees, silk, netting, pedestal, vase, roses and the like.

Oh--- 
& cellophane.
cellophane curtained, draped, twisted, tied and tasseled.

He staged.

He draped.

Norma Shearer by Cecil Beaton

Soap Suds by Cecil Beaton

'My sitters were more likely to be somewhat hazily discovered in a bower or grotto of silvery blossom or in some Hades of polka dots.' CB

The haze of Beaton's tinsel and cellophane props,his costumed & gowned sitters, made Beaton's subjects the envy of every aristocrat. When Beaton sends "Cook" a copy of her portrait-a vision- she looks at it admiringly and declares, “I could be aristocracy!”

Cecil Beaton as Major-General FH Seymour, The Groom of the Robes, at 'The Opera Ball', Metropolitan Opera House New York, April 1933. NPG

Beaton  was known as one of the foremost of the Society photographers by 1930. His own special signature became the doubling up of his sitters- twins, sisters or debutantes or a single sitter reflected in a piano top, mirror or some other clever Beatonesque ploy.

 Baba Beaton

 Paula Gellebrand by Cecil Beaton

 Marlene Dietrich by Cecil Beaton

'We all owe a great debt to Cecil, for keeping the idea of style alive.'  David Bailey

Drawing pictorial paradigms  from Watteau, Fragonard, Gainsborough and Piranesi ,Beaton blew up his work to create backdrops for his photographs. His idea- grandeur without the hauteur. Beaton photographed the Queen and other Royals with these scenes in the background. Not just for the Royals, Beaton used them to create the noble aristocratic image dear "Cook" craved so.

 Doris Duke by Cecil Beaton

image borrowed from Colette van den Thillart at Nicky Haslam Design

 The Famous Beauties Ball, 1931.Miss Baba Beaton (second from left) surrounded by Jess Chattock, Nancy Mitford, and Carol Prickard in enormous pageant dresses. by Cecil Beaton

"As far as possible I avoid allowing modern clothes to appear in a photograph... I try to get my sitters to wear some kind of costume that has withstood the criticism of time-that is located amidst a decor of rosebuds, chiffons & turtle doves."- CB

Marquise de Casa Maury by Cecil Beaton

In one of the scenes from Upstairs, Pritchard the butler confides to the Rose that above stairs there is a “contretemps regarding pastel tones.”  Lady Persie is off  to change her dress &  wear a different shade of lipstick to harmonize with her sister's appearance. Beaton not just fearing to date his work- but to he desired it to escape time.  Friends, painter Rex Whistler and David Garnett, novelist, were idealizing the era they lived in-holding time at bay. It was Beaton's way of shunning Modernism- as he stated it was his attempt 'to decorate a machine with dog roses.'   Some of my favorite Beaton photographs are portraits: A series of photographs of Paula Gellibrand, Marquise de Casa Maury  & photographs of Edith Sitwell.

Both so different- but both exuding that Beatonesque haze of timelessness that few can match.

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how they write today

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This is what I turned to read last night from a pile of untouched June magazines:

Two stone-faced waiters at the BHH, balancing trays atop their sturdy shoulders, pause mid-stride to oh-so-discretely steal a glimpse of Kate Hudson's ass, Who can blame them really? Tawny and tousled, Hudson, six months pregnant with her second child (the baby daddy is British rocker Matthew Bellamy) looks so trim, so bikini-ready in her no-name silk sundress and 5 inch wedge sandals, that were she to visit some far-flung village devoid of the Internet or Access Hollywood, the townsfolk might simply assume she'd overdone it on spit roast and poi the night before. It's less baby bump that who wants seconds?

from MARIE CLAIRE/JUNE 2011, Lea Goldman


is there anything that redeems this?
did the waiters drop their trays?
did I read more?




caricature by Al Hirschfeld of The Algonquin Round Table

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when straw calls VIII

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 FLeur Straw

le brun

fleur cowles

when straw calls VII

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STRAW AUDREY
or
she wore a hat in every movie she made-many were straw
&
there's NO denying she looked good in hats!

breakfast at tiffanys

war & peace

my fair lady

funny face

paris when it sizzles

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when straw calls VI

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sitting straw

when straw calls V

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MARITAL STRAW- JAN VAN EYCK'S ARNOLFINI WEDDING PORTRAIT

Yes, that is a black straw hat according to experts and a there is also a definite nod to a return of the platform shoe.
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when straw calls IV

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garden straw

Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich painting Allegory of Summer

nancy lancaster

when straw calls III

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WORKING STRAW

lady diana cooper (at left), painting by Pissarro

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when straw calls II

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Stanley Kubrick is said to have remarked upon notice he had cast Marisa Berenson in the role of Lady Honoria Lyndon in his film  Barry Lyndon- 

She wears a hat well.

that can not be doubted.



in the mood for more Barry Lyndon ? there's little augury here

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when straw calls: I

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it  already being Summer here in the South-North Carolina to be exact-90 degree, sultry, humid-I say grab a straw. if I didn't manage to revive the parasol back into fashion-let me suggest straw hat. I have several I wear in the summer. In many ways little has changed in the styling of straw.  Long before the damage caused to our skin by the sun came to light -tanning-basking in the sun- was very IN.
For me- now and for about 15 years- it has been OUT.

Back in the day straw hats of all sorts were worn to guard ladies from losing their fairness & it's still a stylish and good way to do so. Thoughts about hats after the Royal Wedding have led some to cry for the return of wearing  hats.
My thoughts-don't give the ladies another accessory in which to over Do.
Don't.
Straw hats if held in check to more practical use- can't be harmful.

 Pisanello, 15th c.

 "For me, hats aren't an accessory, they are the raison d'être of an outfit." 

Stephen Jones

baroness fiona thyssen-bornemisza 1966

My GranMa apprenticed at the local milliner and though she married soon after- and fairly well-she always had the talent to "decorate" a hat.  That talent ran to other areas:  decorating the house, exquisite handwork, sewing curtains, dresses, slipcovers, arranging flowers- painting, gardening-let's just say she had the knack-for- the list goes on. 

'Millaners'

millener-1520–30;  variant of obsolete Milaner,  native of Milan, dealer in goods from Milan 

"vendor of fancy wares, especially those made in Milan" famous for straw works, fancy goods, ribbons, bonnets, and cutlery.  "one who sells women's hats"- likely from 1520s onward, but certainly in use by 18 century.

milliner- a maker of women's hats, first recorded in 1529 when the term referred to the products for which Milan and the northern Italian regions were well known, i.e. ribbons, gloves and straws.


there is something quite beautiful about this 18th century hat- the shape, the color, with only its chintz banding a little faded.

from the Costume Institute, 18th century

Mary Countess of Howe, 1764

 by Thomas Gainsborough

Anne Bingham by Sir Joshua Reynolds

Lady Bess Foster Racky by Sir Joshua Reynolds

A FINE STRAW &CHINTZ HAT

D SHAPED CHIPSTRAW LINED IN A RED CHITZ PRINT WRAPING OVER THE BRIM

from Christies

By the mid 1800's Swiss and Italian straws, together with imitation straws made from paper, cardboard, grass and horsehair were available to women.

baroness fiona thyssen-bornemisza

photograph by henry clarke, 1966

18c straw hat with straw flowers from the V&A

" This is so British and so pretty. It's also well preserved. Whoever dyed those flowers certainly knew what they were doing.  Hats can be wild and wacky, formed out of plastic and flashing lights, but sometimes it's quite nice to make things which are familiar and reassuring-" Stephen Jones, milliner

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