Shallowly

I'm going to be really shallow here (you have been warned). I'm prodded by something written by Ted Rall yesterday in his piece published at Smirking Chimp and at Counterpunch.

From: The 4 things Hillary could do to close the deal against Trump:

........Then there’s her incredibly ugly, unbelievably hideous wardrobe: it’s hard to like someone who makes your eyes burn. But let’s face it. Hillary Clinton, probably like you and definitely like me, can’t do anything about her personality. At 68, that stuff is baked in. Still, there’s a lot she could do to close the deal against Donald Trump.....

(My highlight.)

Google Image offers up several pics of Ms Clinton in her many trouser suits - or as they call 'em on this side of the Pond "pant suits".

These are not some of the most recent creations we've seen during this election go-around, but do illustrate one of my main quibbles about her style - the other quibble was the buttoned up round-necked jackets she was sporting during the primaries. The jacket she wore during the last debate with Trump - the grey job with long, lighter coloured lapels - was a big improvement. However, it's those darn trousers that, for me, take away from any total good look. Most of her trouser legs are too narrow, and almost all are too short. To my eye women's trousers should cover the front of the foot or, if not, show off a nice soft boot top (and she could afford the very best light-weight boots that money can buy!) Those narrow-bottomed trousers are out of proportion; low-fronted "court shoes" are not a good look with trousers. The trousers of the turquoise suit, 4th from left in the first photo above, are about right, but she hardly ever wears them that way. The skinny leg look is fine for slender young things who can get away with just about anything - she ain't one of those. Narrow trouser bottoms with a bit of flesh/stocking showing, on a woman of Hillary's age and size, just look bad. I'm surprised that her advisers don't...well...advise better!

Now...I am no fashionista by any measure, as I've written before when doing a bit of ranting about clothes; do feel, though, that I can tell what looks good, right and proportional.

Oh my - how shallow was that!? What does it matter what this lady looks like and what she wears? It really shouldn't matter at all. If she'd just keep us out of World War 3, I'd be happy enough if she wore an old hempen sack clinched with duct tape, a muddy pair of green wellies on her feet.

Dressing

Hat-tip to Avedon's Sideshow for the link to this:

The Fascinating History of Flour Sack Dresses. A portrait of a different way of life in the 1930's and 1940's.

Just prior to reading that article I'd read, in stark contrast, that Melania Trump's dress, worn at the opening night of the 2016 Republican Convention in Cleveland, cost $2,190. The dress was designed by Roksanda Ilincic, a Serbian-born designer based in London. Reportedly stocks of dresses of the same design were quickly sold out. Ah well, I guess $2,190 is chump change to some. It's a pretty modest price anyway, compared to that $12,000 for the jacket Hillary Clinton sashayed around in when campaigning, a few weeks ago.

While mentioning Melania Trump - I do not give two hoots whether she plagiarised some of, or all of, a convention speech given by Michelle Obama! What does it matter? Are there not more important things to obsess over? Seems not, at least not for online websites yesterday!

Tsk....back to dressing. Even in the 1930s, though, while some girls were wearing flour sack dresses, there'd have been some pert young things whose rich daddies hadn't been totally cleaned out by the stock market crash, flaunting some very expensive fashions. And, in 2016, though flour sack dresses aren't a possibility, frugal dressers, by choice or by necessity, can shop at Goodwill, thrift stores or at E-bay for pre-owned goodies.

It has always been thus, and will always be...

The Well-turned Male Ankle

I've never been a dedicated follower of fashion to wear for myself, but I have always been fascinated to watch as fashions change. This is possibly an extension of my interest in art and design in general, and in people - in general.

I make an internet stop at The Sartorialist blog every day without fail (it's mainly a street photographer's take on fashion around the world, with occasional pics from fashion shows of the best and brightest included). Seldom do fashions photographed there excite me enough to want to emulate them, or in the case of male fashions, encourage husband to do so, some leave me gobsmacked in fact. Most of the middle-aged guys photographed there, though, and especially in Italy, are very stylish in an eternally classic but ruffled kind of way. Ya don't see that sorta thang on the streets of Oklahoma - I'll guarantee that! Oklahoma's version of classic and ruffled is a pair of baggy shorts and a tatty tee shirt!

Anyway, getting to the point.....a piece in the BBC Magazine attracted my attention a while ago - I saved the link in order to feature it here someday:

A Point of View: Why don't men's trousers cover their ankles any more?

I'd been noticing this strange trend in photos at The Sartorialist, and occasionally on TV guys, for men to show their ankles, and for their trouser legs to look way too tight. I'm not talking about jeans - tight jeans are another matter. I'm talking about the business suit type of trouser. Ankle showing goes on whether socks are worn or not. The sight of a nicely turned male ankle can't disgust anyone, but with foot ensconced in a regular-type shoe (Oxford, brogue, whatever) it does tend to look a wee bit incongruous. With sandals or even loafers it's less strange. The "fashionable" jackets too, by the way, seem often to be a size too small. It's all the opposite of some late 1980s and early 1990s fashions when baggy jackets, wide padded shoulders and baggy trousers were all the rage. What'll come next I wonder? Back to the baggies? Fashion cannot stagnate, that'd be very bad for biz!

This has been a brief ramble of a post - not sure what commentary can be expected, unless, perchance any male commenter loves to air his ankles, or any female is a secret fashionista. I shall be interested to know these things.


Anybody remember this song by The Kinks?

Two of Each, Salt, Vinegar and Scraps.

"Two of each, salt, vinegar and scraps" was a common request at the local chippie (aka fish and chip shop) back in Yorkshire. The customer would be presented with two neatly packaged parcels each containing a portion of fish, fried quickly in tender batter, and a portion of chips, all properly seasoned (British chips are similar to the kind of fries in the US known as steak fries). Before I start dribbling on my keyboard.....

Two of each, on the blog today, refers to two videos that caught my interest this week, and two movies likewise.

Two Videos:

From Clay to Mosaics - amazing skills on show here - watching all the way to to the end is essential!





100 Years of Fashion in 2 Minutes. This is women's fashion, of course. Men's fashions have changed in subtle ways, but not nearly as dramatically as women's. Having watched the video I wondered whether any astrological links would be possible to coincide with changes - investigated Neptune transits 1915-2015, but decided that fashion has links to too many other factors to clearly relate to the old "as above so below" doctrine.






Two Movies:

Words and Pictures, new to Netflix this month, is another movie about teachers. This time it's not about a mythical magical change-your-life type teacher such as Robin Williams portrayed in Dead Poets Society back in 1989, but a "warts and all" depiction of a couple of teachers who specialise in English and Art and wage war over the question of whether words or pictures are more powerful. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche star as the two brilliant but flawed teachers. I enjoyed what exploration there was about the comparative power of words and pictures - would have appreciated more of this, but that would have turned the story into a documentary I guess.

The film held our interest, though I found it hard to like any of its characters - maybe that's a sign of their good acting!

The Quiet American from 2002, also on Netflix. It's the second adaptation of a novel by Graham Greene. The first adaptation, in 1958, is said to have skewed the novel's core intent, must have been an attempt to save American face, and do a bit of flag-waving.

The tale is set in Vietnam in the early 1950s. Michael Caine plays Tom Fowler a middle-aged world-weary British journalist covering the war between French colonial forces and the communists. The quiet American, Alden Pyle, played by Brendan Fraser, arrives in Saigon, ostensibly part of a US Aid Mission. There's a layer of love story involving the two men and a lovely local girl, with an strong second layer involving political issues Vietnam, and the USA, were caught up in at that time.

We found it a sad but engaging and, for me, an enlightening movie. Michael Caine is "just right" in the part of Tom Fowler - I cannot think of anyone who could have played the part as well as he.

Graham Greene's novel has proved prophetic in many ways (see here.)
Snip

During the Vietnam War and its sequels, the novel became routinely labeled "prophetic." But what Greene was trying to tell us half a century [ago] now seems to border on sedition, as our government implements the President's declaration, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Indeed, The Quiet American has become so subversive that Miramax tried to deep-six its movie after 9/11 (it was originally set for a 2001 release), until Michael Caine forced a two-week run in December 2002 and a wider opening in early 2003. So now Greene's exposé of the U.S. machinations for imperial war in Southeast Asia in the early 1950s reappears amid the machinations for imperial war in Southwest Asia and the Mideast.

That was the "two of each" then...here's the salt, vinegar and scraps:

Another film - an independent one, little known outside of Netflix I suspect - The Station Agent. While I didn't like any character in Words and Pictures, I liked all the characters of The Station Agent. Co-stars are Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson and Bobby Carnavale. I enjoyed their individual quirks, their non-mainstreamness, their silences, their minimalist chat, their quiet - and the actors' wonderful portrayal of living life on the fringes of what is common. That's all I'll say so as not to spoil it for anyone else who enjoys an out of the ordinary sojourn with out of the ordinary people in ordinary, yet so out of the ordinary, circumstances.

Fad, Fun, Fashion, Irony and Taste.

Yesterday morning I spent a pleasant half hour, chuckling, as I read this piece at Lawyers Guns & Money: Lumbersexuality and a Crisis of Masculinity by Erik Loomis, and its thread of fun comments. That piece had been inspired by an article by Willa Brown in The Atlantic.

In nutshell mode, what it's all about is some current male fad to grow beards and wear flannel plaid, lumberjack style  (plaid being the American term for any old check-pattern, not proper Scottish plaid as in kilt).

As I see it, such a fad, assuming it is actually a fad and not just a practical avoidance of the regular need to shave, whilst keeping warm in winter temperatures,  may be just another way of trying to "belong" or conform to a group who think of themselves as "hipsters".  That'd be somewhat ironic though, because hipsters proper are not supposed to conform to anything.  Or, as the article's title suggests,  is this an indication that more males are feeling the need to crank up their masculine side?

Living as I do, close to the Oklahoma-Texas border, the sight of men in beards and plaid shirts is an everyday experience when out and about (not around the house though; husband will not, under any circumstance, wear a checked flannel shirt. Why this is I haven't yet discovered.) In Texoma the sight of beards and plaid definitely does not indicate an influx of hipsters to the region, nor, I suspect does it mean that Okie males need  ways of proving their cojones.

If so-called hipsters in more north-eastern urban areas find amusement in aping rural or working-class garb, while embracing "indie" music and movies, along with anything else but "the norm", then I have to feel a little sorry for them. The fact that they are conforming anyway, to a group, seems to have flown over the tops of their deliberately unkempt heads.

I don't like the "ironic" in its fashion translation. One of the nastiest  examples was/is the sight of multi-millionaire "celebrities" wearing designer jeans bought already torn and frayed, and designer teeshirts created with "moth-eaten" holes and worn edgings. I don't call that ironic, I call it bad taste - especially as said garments probably cost far more than a year's food ration for a person who is forced to wear naturally tattered clothing from necessity.

Still on the topic of taste - of the bad variety, how about Seth Rogen's new movie, The Interview, due out this weekend? The film's theme is assassination of Kim Jong-un - this described as "humorous". Really? Nobody in the West has much time for Kim J-u, but murder is murder. It's no use wringing one's hands about the murder of black men by American police if you're going to laud and enjoy a depiction of murder of some, admittedly nasty, person in North Korea - and for fun. The ticket price will ensure that multi-millionaires make even more multi-millions of $$$$$$$$ from it! And - by the by - how funny would it be if the target of this schoolboy-type humour were to arrange for a weaponised drone or two to be aimed in this direction?

NORMCORE - Non-Style Style

Fashion and style have interested me since, oh, the 1960s I guess, but I've never attempted to be fashionable or stylish myself (as if!) I suppose it's the design and art involved that interest me. I've lived through so many fads and fancies, fashion-wise: the shortenings and lengthenings of skirts, the loosenings, flarings or tightenings of jeans and pants, the classic, the quirky, the polyester, crimplene (UGH!!), nylon, polyester (YUK!) the lambswool, the organic cotton, the jersey....the high heels, the low heels, the ultra high heel, the clumpy, the dainty. I've watched it all with interest, but as a rule have gone my own way...different drummer an' all that.

I still take a look at The Sartorialist, blog of a professional street fashion photographer most days, to keep up with what's happening out there, outside of this Oklahoma bubble in which I find myself marooned. Not much fashion goin' on here! Mom jeans, dad jeans, tee shirts, sweat shirts, ball caps, some biker gear here and there, some cute dungarees, with the occasional Stetson for special occasions is best I can hope to encounter out in the wild.

But wait....what's this I read about something called "Normcore"? Wow! Is Oklahoma going to be abreast of - or even ahead of, real hipster fashion now?



A more "in depth" piece - if Normcore has any depths to plumb that is - is from April in the New York Times:
The New Normal
Normcore: Fashion Movement or Massive In-Joke? By Alex Williams

It becomes unclear whether the whole Normcore thing began as some kind of in-joke or ironic wotnot initiated by some bored New York hipsters. Then the internet caught wind of it and spread the word rapidly, possibly in the process getting the wrong end of the fashion-stick. Maybe. Stripped of its hipster links though, Normcore can be seen as A Good Thing. Eschewing fashion "labels" and dictates of billionaire fashion moguls and corporations cannot be bad - wearing what's handy and comfortable: hand-me-downs (or ups), re-cycling old clothes, buying from thrift stores, Goodwill etc. Being anti-consumerist, anti-corporate. If it lasted it could be the beginnings of a political movement!

Could it catch on in a big way though? With the help of the net anything is possible. The hipsters will no doubt peel off soon, if they haven't already, and find something else with which to define themselves as individuals by all looking the same - let 'em get on with it!

A Match Made in Heaven......Givenchy & Hepburn

Hubert de Givenchy, famous French couturier had a birthday yesterday, according to Astro.com anyway. Wikipedia has his birthday down as today, 21 February. Astro.com is more reliable, their website has the date and time rated AA (the highest rating for accuracy, birth certification in hand).

I'm not really into haute couture sufficiently to launch into a post on the subject, but who would not be impressed by Givenchy's superb dresses and suits especially designed for Audrey Hepburn in her films, as well as in her private life? She was the ideal "clothes horse" for his restrained, often minimalist styles. She had a simplicity and youthfulness that lifted his designs to a different, more accessible wavelength for all. The two were close friends - soul mates almost, though not in a romantic sense as far as we can tell. He called her his muse. It was a friendship which lasted until Ms Hepburn's untimely death from cancer in 1993.

Audrey Hepburn: His are the only clothes in which I am myself. He is far more than a couturier, he is a creator of personality.

From: HERE

Hubert de Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn - a match made in heaven. Similar ages, the French couturier and Iconic screen star immediately empathized with each other – an intimate relationship that continued into old age.

Givenchy intuitively understood Audrey’s petite frame – the perfect foil it would seem for the sophisticated and ladylike look of the late 1950s and early 1960s – tiny waist, full skirt – often with underlay and a simply cut bodice, often collarless to show Audrey’s swanlike neck.

In turn, Audrey’s iconic movies served as the perfect environment for the ultimate catwalk – raising Givenchy’s profile. And perhaps due to the timeless design of both the couture and the movies both are still much admired decades later.

Hmm. Match made in heaven? There ought to be evidence of that in their natal charts - let's see. Yes! The clearest sign of all of potential for a good relationship is here: his Sun conjunct her Moon. His Sun is at 00 Pisces her Moon at 6 Pisces, additionally his natal Jupiter at 7 Pisces is in even closer conjunction to her Moon. His Mars and her Mercury are conjoined too, though on the cusps of two signs: 29 Taurus and 00 Gemini.

Both Monsieur Givenchy and Ms Hepburn have Air signs ascending, Aquarius for her, Gemini for him, that factor alone makes for easy communication and compatibility. Their natal Suns are quite harmonious too, Givenchy's in Pisces, Audrey's in Taurus, different sensibilities but an easy enough blend of Water and Earth.

The pair both have Sun conjunct Jupiter they share a natural enthusiasm and confidence, possibly even "feeding" those traits to each other. I read somewhere online that Audrey Hepburn had said that in the course of her many wonderful efforts on behalf of UNICEF, when giving speeches, she always felt more confident and able to give of her best when wearing something made by Givenchy.

Blazer - arguing with the dictionary

I hesitate to argue with the good old Oxford Dictionary, or with any other online dictionary, but I'm going to argue - just this once.

The article/review setting me off on this tack is titled Pattern Recognition....The swoosh, the golden arches, the chevron, and a million other logos your hindbrain can recognize before you do.....by Seth Stevenson, published at Slate this weekend. Mr Stevenson refers to a book: In Marks of Excellence: The History and Taxonomy of Trademarks by Per Mollerup who surmises that the first trademarks “probably marked ownership - a simple sign to show that a weapon belonged to a particular man.”

Per Mollerup, in his book further says :

Today’s logos find their forebears in coats of arms and royal monograms. Marks of Excellence wonderfully contextualizes these building blocks of graphic identity. You’ll learn the rules of heraldry, and will soon be sorting invected lines of partition from embattled or dovetailed ones. You’ll spot the difference between chevrons, gyrons, inescutcheons, and double quatrefoils.

It's an interesting study: logos, trademarks, their derivation, history and use. From that article I re-visited an old post of my own from 2009:
Astrology and Heraldry

I casually searched the word heraldry and the term blazon. Also here.

Getting there......

No huge leap from blazon to blazer is there?

What is a blazer? It's a jacket which, in its original form, carried some kind of badge denoting membership of a club, group, military regiment, school etc. Sometimes - often - the badge was in heraldic form, sometimes shield-like in shape it carried more of a logo. Our school badge was an example, and was carried in miniature on all pieces of our dark green uniform, but in larger format on our green/white/black striped blazers (see right).

Over the decades the term blazer has been hijacked by the fashion industry and has come to describe a particular type of formal jacket, for males or females, nowadays no badge is needed for a jacket to be described as a blazer.

I propose that the term blazer was a derivation of the term "blazon".

However, dictionaries tell us:

Origin of blazer:

Late 19th century: from blaze + -er. The original general sense was 'a thing that blazes or shines' (mid 17th century), giving rise to the term for a brightly coloured sporting jacket.
Oxford Dictionaries.com

or

Blazer (n.) "bright-colored jacket," 1880, British university slang, from blaze (n.), in reference to the red flannel jackets worn by the Lady Margaret, St. John College, Cambridge, boating club. Earlier it had been used in American English in the sense "something which attracts attention" (1845).
Etymonline.com

I beg, humbly (or not) to differ.

MISCELLANY... touching on a Sun Virgo astrologer, fashion police, lifeboat heroes, photography.

Continuing a monthly trawl through astrologers with birthdays in zodiac sign where the sun currently resides: Virgo Sun astrologers proved to be rare. I found only Liz Greene and Louis MacNeice. The latter born 12 September 1907 in Belfast, Northern Ireland was a poet and scholar, rather than an astrologer proper, but he did write a book on the subject. My post on him is HERE .

Liz Greene was born on 4 September 1946 at 1:01 PM in Englewood, New Jersey (see chart at Astrodatabank)

American professional astrologer and author, Jungian psychologist and lecturer; one of the most highly respected astrologers of the 20th century. Greene has been awarded the Regulus Award for Theory and Understanding, 1989, recognizing the work with other disciplines and philosophical models. She relocated to England and then to Switzerland. With Howard Sasportas, she founded the Center for Psychological Astrology in London. Her books include "Saturn, A New Look for an Old Devil," "Star Signs for Lovers," and "The Outer Planets and Their Cycles." After Sasportas died of AIDS, she teamed with Charles Harvey as co-head of the Center.

Does she match the pattern I've been trying to establish (i.e. that best astrologers have Air (mental acuity) and Water (emotional intelligence) prominent in their charts)?
She does: 5 planets in Air signs (Libra and Gemini), a Water sign (Scorpio) rising.




Glancing down the long list of tags on my Blogger dashboard I noticed fascism and fashion adjacent....the fashion police ("never wear white after Labor Day, don't wear socks with sandals, don't wear back bra under pale shirt", etc )come to think of it are really distant cousins to outright fascists!





Among some photos we took during the time husband lived with me in the UK, in Bridlington, on the East Yorkshire coast I noticed this:



We found the gravestones of James Watson (43), David Purdon (38) and Robert Pickering (34) in the grounds of the town's Priory Church; they represent a very sad story of men who sacrificed their lives attempting to save the crew of a brig "Delta". In February of 1871 a terrible storm and gale, often referred to as the most notorious and best remembered of all the gales on the Yorkshire coast, caused the destruction of several vessels and deaths of many seamen and lifeboat crews around Bridlington Bay. A report of events is available at Flamborough Lifeboats website. The gravestones in the photograph commemorate three of the crew of the lifeboat Harbinger, David Purdon, one of the three, had also built the boat, three other crewmen of the Harbinger perished too.


The report of that storm reminded me of the raw courage lifeboatmen everywhere have always displayed, often with little recompense. They, along with firefighters are the TRUE heroes of our times, and of times long past.

A man of courage never wants weapons.
~Author Unknown

Painting by J.T. Allerston, see also HERE.



Words of my husband, aka "anyjazz" on photography:

A friend once described the difference between "taking pictures" and being "a photographer": You have to have the eye.

Taking a picture often catches the moment, a photographer catches the mood, the aura, the personality, the action. A picture shows you Grandma Hattie in her best dress. A photograph shows you how she felt that day. A photographer knows how to use the medium to capture more than the image. The elements.

Think about that: The Elements.

Color, balance, texture, design, rhythm and detail all are parts of most photographs, illustrations or paintings. These are basic elements of visual arts. There are probably others. Start with these.

In some photographs there can be seen action, story, drama, emotion, mood. Some others record a moment, predict an outcome, ask a question, decide an argument, set a course.

In some photographs the subject matter alone can be an element of its beauty or worthiness. In another photograph, there may be no identifiable subject at all but other elements, color, action, mood are there. In a sports photo for instance, the subject can be quite secondary to the excitement, the event, the action.

Sometimes it is just a picture of a baby, sometimes it is a picture of the future of mankind. Both pictures are wonderful but one is just an image of a child while the other is a legend.

Physical elements: Color, balance, texture, design, rhythm and detail. Intangible elements: action, story, drama, emotion and mood.

If a photograph combines several of these elements then it is likely an exceptional photograph.

A website carrying daily doses of all manner of wonderful photographs is Fluidr.com

Below are some of the husband's own work - shots he particularly likes:

"Some years ago I attended a couple Pawnee Powwow celebrations in Pawnee, Oklahoma. This gentleman posed for a picture. He was a distant relative of mine, loosely connected through marriage. A sort of ex-father-in-law from an ex-marriage of an ex-marriage...or something like that. He was a full blood Pawnee, I understand. His name was: Chauncey Gardipe. He and I actually got along rather well to the best of my memory.
This is a scan of an old print. I shot it with my old workhorse Pentax K1000 and some tri-x film. You can now tell how long ago it must have been. 40 years probably."

"I remember this shot very well. I was at Lac Gustav in Northern Quebec. The wind died for a moment and I got a shot in while the water was smooth as a mirror. The logs are the remainder of an old dock that had been replaced with the one next to it. Knowing what it really was kept me from seeing that it was a beautiful optical illusion."

"Bored but Quiet"

Arty Farty Friday ~ Pierre Cardin, 90 this week.

Iconic fashion designer Pierre Cardin turned 90 this week, one of the last of his ilk - the Paris haute couture crew of the 1950s and '60s. He's still at the helm of his worldwide business empire, now expanded from clothing into ...well you name it, he probably dabbles in marketing it.

Cardin came from humble beginnings, born, youngest of eleven children to an Italian labourer who, when Pierre was 2 years old, fled with his family into France to escape Mussolini's regime.

Arty from the start, he was fascinated by both costume design and architecture. In 1936 at 14, he became a clothier's apprentice, learning the basics of fashion design and construction. At 17, left home to work for a tailor in Vichy, where he began making suits for women. During the war, he worked in the Red Cross.
He moved to Paris in 1945. There he studied architecture and worked at various fashion houses, eventually becoming head of Christian Dior’s tailleure atelier in 1947. He founded his own fashion house in 1950.

Cardin refused to acknowledge limitations in his designs. His approach was whimsical, futuristic in the extreme - fitting for the era of the "space race". His "bubble dresses" smacked of science fiction. He experimented with unisex designs and geometric designs with nothing in common with female curves.
He used vinyl for some of his dresses, hammered metal rings, decorations of of carpenters nails, and diamonds, catsuits, tight leather trousers, close-fitting helmets and batwing jumpsuits were at one time or another his signature pieces. His earlier designs had been more mainline: raglan sleeved suits and coats, tulip skirts, unstructured chemise-style dresses.

After attaching his name brand to items as diverse as umbrellas and cars - and everything in between - snooty critics lambasted him for "selling out". Reported to run an empire of 450 staff in Paris and 200,000 worldwide almost singlehandedly, and perhaps at times chaotically, the designer has little time to worry about critics. He now claims to own licences for 1,000 or so products sold under his name. His conglomerate includes Paris theatres, Maxim's restaurants, food and drink products, a new golf course, along with fashion and many accessories. Cardin was first of the elite designers to launch a ready-to-wear collection, and first to move into men's fashion, the first to sell his brand-name, first to venture into China, India and Japan, respectively between 30 and 45 years ago.

Recently controversy has brewed over his Provençal castle in Lacoste. It once belonged to the Marquis de Sade. He has partially renovated the site and holds music festivals there. He also bought up many other local properties, turned some of them into art galleries. Villagers resent his attempt to turn their small community into a "cultural St Tropez". He has opened cafés, attracted tourists, but in the process the formerly idyllic rural community has changed immeasurably. Cardin is unrepentant. "Personally I pay no attention to what the people say. They are just jealous," he said in a television interview. "After all, what have they ever done for Lacoste? Absolutely nothing." Hmmmm. He could use a little lesson in tact and diplomacy, I reckon! (Note: Libra rising should know better!)




Cardin also owns a palazzo in Venice named Ca' Bragadin, and a fascinating "Bubble House" - Palais Bulles - just outside of Cannes. It was designed by renowned architect, Antti Lovag. More photos of the interior HERE.



ASTROLOGY

Astrodatabank has a copy of Cardin's birth certificate, copy shown on the website, which proves that the many sources online stating his birthdate as 7 July are incorrect. Astrodatabank (with an "AA") rating states his barth data as: 2 July 1922 in San Biagio Di Callalta, Italy, at 2:00 PM.



"...the clothing I prefer are those I invent for a life that doesn't yet exist-the world of tomorrow!" (Pierre Cardin) - I'm pinpointing mostly from the chart what's relevant to that avant garde, futuristic yen of his, manifesting clearly in his designs.

His natal Sun in Cancer is tightly conjunct Pluto. Normally Cancer is sentimental and nurturing, but in Cardin's case that side of his nature may be somewhat overshadowed by Pluto. I see an echo of this in his draw to owning the former castle of the Marquis de Sade. There's no way of knowing whether any element of darkness resides in his own nature. I somehow doubt it - his passion has been spent in building his business and design empire.

Venus (art) conjunct Neptune (creativity) in Leo (on the public stage) well describes a fashion designer, and in Cardin's case there's an added piece of the picture bringing in his futuristic, "space-age" feel: the Yod (Finger of Fate) pointing sharply to Uranus (everything futuristic) is linking the sextile aspect between Venus/Neptune and Jupiter/Moon to Uranus and forming the Yod, the apex of which, astrologers teach, acts as a "funnel" for the natures of the sextiled planets.

Additionally the Venus/Neptune conjunction forms an harmonious trine aspect to Uranus. Doubly whammy!