Paula Yates marries Bob Geldof in 1986. Spot the rockers in the wedding party!
My sister, Banana meet-Cute is staying with me from Melbourne and is quite the royalist, so we are preparing for the royal wedding on Friday night. When I say prepare, I mean fully stocked with bubbly (I'm thinking Prosecco) and have requested wedding themed cup-cakes, as she is quite the baker. I'm not really into the royal family, was never interested in Diana (although did watch her wedding in 1982 - only because I was promised Charles & Di chocolates) - but lately I've been caught up in the "Who will Kate wear?" hoopla. My personal fave would be Alexander McQueen, but I'm thinking McQueen may be too edgy. Stella? I have a feeling Kate will accentuate those shoulders and go strapless, bias cut or drop waist in a fairly tailored design - mind you Bruce Oldfield has said that you can't go sleeveless in Westminster Abbey? "'It will have sleeves, it has to have sleeves. You can't walk down Westminster Abbey in a strapless dress. It just wouldn't happen. It has to suit the grandeur of that aisle, it's enormous." Oh well - time will tell! More importantly - who will KATE MOSS be wearing next month? Now that Galliano is vetoed....In the meantime, here are a few of my favourite wedding dresses of all time.
Unmarried Helena Bonham Carter & Tim Burton in a fantasy wedding shot,
Dita Von Teese marries Marilyn Manson Goth-style in electric violet Vivienne Westwood, 2005 (Milliner Stephen Jones is holding her train).
A classic. Bianca Jagger marries Mick Jagger in a YSL suit. The jacket (and lack of a shirt caused quite the stir back in 1971
Gwen Stefani in Avant Garde, pink dip-dyed Galliano. This dress blew me away, it is so Gwen, and I love the structure and the colour.
Rock star wedding! The inimitable Paula Yates marries Bob Geldof at 26 in a blo0d-red satin dress, a gift from Jasper Conran. I met her when I was working at Harrods - she seemed very shy, very sweet.
Carolyn Besette Kennedy marries JFK Jnr in Narcisco Rodriguez in 1996- a classic in bias cut cool. This was one of my favourites and captured the zeitgeist of 90's minimalism and fitted tailoring.
Carrie Bradshaw in Westwood for the long awaited wedding to Big. If only the makeup and hair was softer though. the red lips & scraped back hair look too harsh.
Another rock star wedding. I love Pearl Lowe. Here she is marrying Danny Goffey with gorgeous Daisy Lowe. look at that cake! Dark chocolate strewn with rose petals, mmm.
Pammy and Tommy get hitched in Cancun in 1995 within days of meeting, after Tommy stalked Pam and followed her to Cancun where she was working on a shoot. I'm sorry but I love that she got hitched in a white bikini - Rock & roll!
I love these new (old) shots from a new book, The Lost Rolling Stones Photographs: The Bob Bonis Archive, 1964-1966. While my sister Banana Meet-cute is Beatles, I am Stones! Interestingly, Bob Bonis also captured some rather cool pictures of the Fab Four as well. These muso types do get around!
"The Lost Rolling Stones Photographs. captures the seminal period when the Rolling Stones made their transformation into the world's greatest rock n' roll band. And during that time, few were closer to the Stones than Bob Bonis, the tour manager for their U.S. tours between 1964 and 1966. While on the road with the Stones, Bonis, a passionate amateur photographer with a keen eye, an innate sense of composition, and a deep love for his subjects, snapped some 2,700 photographs of the band – a remarkable collection that until now has only been known to family and friends."
It's amazing how not only the music but the sartorial style of the Stones resonates today! Fab Kiwi band The Checks remind me of the Stones. If you ever get a chance to see them live - do it! Check it out. Oops - no pun intended!
The irreverent, irrepressible David Bailey features in a great article in UK Vogue June, 2010 to celebrate 50 years in which David Bailey has worked with Vogue.
David Bailey - known as 'Bailey' - is one the the most famous fashion photographers in the world. More fascinating is the fact that he was straight, rather attractive and wooed & wed a plethora of beautiful, fascinating and iconic women. He married actress Catherine Deneuve (on "a whim" - or some say, on a bet with fellow photog Brian Duffy), model Marie Helvin (1975), and in 1986 actress Catherine Dyer to whom he is still married. He romanced models Jean Shrimpton & Penelope Tree among arguable 100s of others. In the buttoned up Sixties, Bailey's sexually provocative images stirred up controversy and heralded the birth of 'Swinging London'. He loved women, they loved them, and it showed on celluloid.
"A Bailey woman has a distinct look. A Bailey woman is a real woman of flesh and blood and sex...I always tried to make my fashion photographs more like Cole Porter songs in my mind, and my portraits more like the blues." The Times, August 2009
Jean ShrimptonMarianne Faithfull
Bailey's images of Marianne Faithfull, the Beatles, Twiggy, Mick Jagger & The Rolling Stones, Michael Caine and East End gangsters the Krays cemented his celebrity status. He was as rock & roll as the subjects he shot and became part of the "Black trinity', or the 'Terrible Trio', running riot in society circles with photographers Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy.
Also featured in The Independent, 28 February 2010 - I love the opening lines:"I was young and foolish...': The truth behind David Bailey's legendary way with women. As his iconic 1960s portraits go on sale at Bonhams, David Bailey, the man who made photography glamorous, reflects on five decades of louche living"
The film Blowup (1966), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni depicts a wayward young fashion photographer in Swinging London played by David Hemmings, who is largely based upon Bailey. Funnily enough, I've had the poster on my wall for years - but still not managed to watch the entire movie!
I can't wait to see this Stones doco 'Stones in Exile', which has just premiered in Cannes. I've seen the Stones twice, once in Auckland in Western Springs in the late 90's, then again in London at Wembley Stadium. Both times they were AMAZING!
The music is fantastic & Mick is an absolutely electric performer, with his larger than life strutting and pouting. You can't keep your eyes off him, and Keith is painfully cool, with his well-practiced opening line "I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be anywhere, really!" It always gets a laugh!
Filmed by the BBC, 'Stones in Exile' it follows the recording of their seminal album 'Exile on Main St' in the South of France during the year I was born, 1972. Back in their hey day, Mick, Keith & Brian Jones (below with Anita Pallenberg) were quite the triumvirate - the sexy swaggering lead singer, the naughty rock & roll rascal and the cute, sartorially slick dandy.
Mick
Keith
Brian & Anita
Like Kate Moss & Sienna Miller et al, the Stones 70's boho/rock looks has inspired stylistas & dedicated followers of fashion ever since. WAGs such as Marianne Faithful and Anita Pallenberg, then later Bianca Jagger and Jerry Hall epitomised 60 to 70's style.
Anita Pallenberg
Keith & Anita
With her 'Nico' style bangs, shearling coats and broad brimmed hat, Anita's effortless Boho style tinged with rock made her a style icon. The stunning Italian model/actress met the ill-fated Brian Jones in 1965 and infiltrated the band successfully, leaving her mark. Anita is credited for singing back up on 'Sympathy for the Devil', and Mick even asked for her advice on tracks from the 'Beggar's Banquet' album.
Anita later moved on to Keith Richards, with whom she has two adult children - Marlon and Dandelion. They had a third son who tragically died of cot death weeks after his birth. Their tumultuous relationship was the stuff of folklore, and Keith has still professed his love for Anita when he met his future wife, Patti Hansen.
Marianne and Anita
Marianne Faithfull
The wide-eyed, pretty blonde fledgling folk singer the Stones aged 19 at a party in swinging London in 1964 and quickly captured Mick's attention. Several of the Stone's best songs were said to be inspired by Mick's teenage girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull, including 'Sympathy for the Devil', 'Wild Horses' and Marianne herself penned 'Sister Morphine'.
One of the most famous Marianne stories is when the Stones were arrested at Keith's house Sussex, with Marianne clad in nothing but a fur rug. The stigma of this event still haunts her "It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamourising. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother". She split with Mick in 1970. In 1979 she hit pay-dirt with her solo album, Broken English, with her beautiful song 'The Ballad of Lucy Jordan' going ballistic...
"The morning sun touched lightly on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town
As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers
Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round.
At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair..."
Mick, Marianne, Anita & Keith
Much later, Kate Moss inevitably became pals with her style hero Marianne, but fell out in a widely publicised tiff with Marianne claiming in arather vitriolic way "Kate Moss is a vampire who stole my style. 'Now I see pictures of her with a boy who looks like Mick Jagger, and her looking like me. So there was a reason. It's one of her gigs to do me". Eek! Here they all are in happier times.
Jo & Ronnie Wood, Marianne, Kate & Anita, circa 1990's
Bianca Jagger
An exotic beauty and friend of Andy Warhol, Bianca lived in a glittery New York life of parties, rock stars and Studio 54. This picture of her riding into Studio 54 on a white horse for her birthday in 1977 is one of my all-time favourite images.
The Nicaraguan beauty met Mick after a Stones gig in 1970 & they married a year in St Tropez later while she was pregnant with their daughter Jade. Wearing an immaculately tailored, plunging white Saville Row suit sans shirt instead of a wedding dress cemented her role as a style icon.
They divorced in 1978, after Bianca discovered Mick's affair with Jerry Hall.
Jerry Hall
The leggy 70's supermodel (far left, in this fabulous 1978 Helmut Newton shot for French Vogue) couldn't have been more different to the sultry Bianca - all long legs, blonde sunshiny hair & Texan twang, Jerry met Mick at a dinner party in 1977 when she was with rock-star & Roxy Music singer Brain Ferry - natch!
An affair ensued, with Mick writing one of my fave songs 'Miss You' (1978) about Jerry:
"I've been holding on so long
Sleeping all alone, And I miss you
I've been holding on so long
Sleeping all alone, I want to kiss you"
Bianca divorced Mick and he and Jerry were together through the late 70's and 80's, Jerry turning a blind eye to his alleged infidelities and marrying him in 1980.
They had 4 children but the marriage petered to a predictable end in 1999 when Mick was found to have got another woman, model Luciana Gimenez pregnant.
To me, Jerry epitomised the glam, 70's disco look with her wet-look lip lacquer, Helmut Newton shots and shimmery Halston dresses. This is another all time favourite image - again, at Studio 54, Jerry with Andy Warhol.
The Rolling Stones are STYLE. Even their progeny have inherited that innate style (and many a fabulous retro wardrobe) had their fair of modelling success - Lizzie and Georgia Jagger, Theodora Richards and Leah Wood.
Paula Yates marries Bob Geldof in 1986. Spot the rockers in the wedding party!
Unmarried Helena Bonham Carter & Tim Burton in a fantasy wedding shot,
Dita Von Teese marries Marilyn Manson Goth-style in electric violet Vivienne Westwood, 2005 (Milliner Stephen Jones is holding her train).
A classic. Bianca Jagger marries Mick Jagger in a YSL suit. The jacket (and lack of a shirt caused quite the stir back in 1971
Gwen Stefani in Avant Garde, pink dip-dyed Galliano. This dress blew me away, it is so Gwen, and I love the structure and the colour.
Rock star wedding! The inimitable Paula Yates marries Bob Geldof at 26 in a blo0d-red satin dress, a gift from Jasper Conran. I met her when I was working at Harrods - she seemed very shy, very sweet.
Carrie Bradshaw in Westwood for the long awaited wedding to Big. If only the makeup and hair was softer though. the red lips & scraped back hair look too harsh.
Another rock star wedding. I love Pearl Lowe. Here she is marrying Danny Goffey with gorgeous Daisy Lowe. look at that cake! Dark chocolate strewn with rose petals, mmm.
Pammy and Tommy get hitched in Cancun in 1995 within days of meeting, after Tommy stalked Pam and followed her to Cancun where she was working on a shoot. I'm sorry but I love that she got hitched in a white bikini - Rock & roll!
