Jane Russell - what a beauty

It was really sad to wake up to the news of Jane Russell's death as she was one of my favourite actresses and it was her and Marilyn Monroe who formed part of my MA dissertation on the red dress thanks to their stellar performance in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). If you haven't seen it then make sure you do. Jane Russell is wonderful and delivers great gags and comic timing, as does Marilyn. The pair are fabulous together.

The death of Jane Russell really is an end of an era when it comes to 1940s stars. Her Hollywood career ended at the end of the 1950s. She was a real bombshell!

More Marilyn Monroe

100 new photos of Marilyn Monroe, as well as letters and essays, appear in the book Marilyn: August 1953, a period when she injured her ankle filming River of No Return in the Canadian Rockies. All photos are by John Vachon who was then a LOOK magazine photographer. You can pre-order the book on Amazon

Performance

Now I know you'll all be concerned with LFW and the shows blah, blah blah but I'm caught up in a self absorbed holy trilogy, mainly my three 4000 word essays for this term.

Bad timing as well for LFW as tomorrow will be all about the Oscars and how global recession has impacted on the red carpet. All the glitz and glamour will be down played dutifully by the Hollywood glitterati.

As part of one of my essay submissions I've been exploring performance and obsession. I'm nearly there, only a couple more thousand words to go, thanks to the questionnaire participation. Part of my submission is a photo shoot I styled and performed in last Friday titled 'I am Carrie Bradshaw'. So here's my bit of glitz, 3 untreated yet to be cropped photos!

Nail biting stuff

I dunno 'bout you but I'm on the edge of my seat with today's monumental Presidential vote in the USA.

I'm doing anything to distract myself from thoughts which veer from gloom to hope. My view of gloom is McCain and hope is of course Obama. I will spare you all a rant but the historical value of an Obama victory is overwhelming (spare a thought for Hillary today as she too could have been the same force for change).

Instead I give you Kate Winslet's bottom which couldn't be further from the events of today.

I quite like the Catherine Deneuve Belle de Jour tribute not least because I hope to write about the film and Yves San Laurent as the costumier. But it is interesting that a seminal French Film is chosen to portray a Hollywood star. I think the hair styling isn't quite perfect but what do you think?

images: Vanity Fair & The Daily Telegraph

Smile through consumption crisis

I have to confess to rather neglecting my Fashion & Film blog and if I could find the extra time I'd be going to the gym instead as I need to! However, yesterday one of my lectures delivers a great insight into female transformation as portrayed by Hollywood.

I'm not going to give away too much seeing as our visiting lecturer has a book coming out about it sometime soon, I feel obliged to wait and go into more depth then!

But one film example we looked at played out the double whammy of transformation and consumption comprehensively in the opening sequence - Thoroughly Modern Millie Now I love this film despite it's 1960s interpretation of 1920s costumes. It is a totally uplifting, fun film. Interestingly musicals as a genre have remained very few and far between since the lifting of the Hays Code.

But back to the opening sequence...Julie Andrews as Millie undertakes a walk, a walk along a street that results in a complete transformation of her look. she loses her curls, long frock coat, big hat and lace up boots to become a flapper complete with cloche hat, bobbed hair, long beads and short dress. At each step of her transformation Millie appears from the relevant places, hairdressers, dress shop etc extremely happy until she spies something else that is missing. She loses the smile on her face and her walk slows down as the realisation of not having it quite right dawns upon her.

And there we have it the perfect juxtaposition of looking good and never being completely satisfied...there is always something else. This is pure consumption. We are caught up in the consumption process and that's why we are never quite satisfied. Always looking for the perfect handbag, lipstick or dress that will make us complete.