Oh-livier!

I’ve been out of the internet loop for a while. There was Christmas of course and before that, an epic journey from London that involved a cancelled flight, staying overnight in Stansted airport and Christmas shopping in Holyhead before getting the ferry home. Now it’s that lazy time before New Year and my days involve nothing more taxing than eating Selection boxes for breakfast and laughing at Fair City. Before my life became this uneventful, I had the chance to interview Olivier Theyskens for Glass magazine. It was a lovely early Christmas present for me as anyone who reads this blog will know that I am a massive OT fan so I was beyond excited and thrilled about this. I was a little bit apprehensive as he is known for being ultra private and mysterious but he was surprisingly friendly and open, recommending books and music and using one of my most overused words - “cosy” - to describe his adopted city of Paris. The interview coincides with the release of The Other Side of the Picture, a beautiful retrospective of his career with photographs by Julien Claessens to be published by Assouline in the new year. A decade of OT’s heavenly designs in a beautiful coffee table book – I can’t think of anything better. Read all about it here. NOK

The News

According to last week's Guardian Fashion Statement, David Lynch is to direct the new installment of the Lady Dior ad campaign. I've already spoken of how I was slightly underwhelmed by the last Lady Dior short - starring Marion Cotillard and directed by Olivier Dahan - so I'm not sure how this new Lynch project is going to pan out. Because - and don't all kill me - I'm not a big fan of David Lynch. OK sorry, sorry, I know that's sacrilege but I just can't forgive him for making me sit through Inland Empire, aka the most boringly confusing 3 hours of my life. Don't get me wrong - I like good confusing as much as the next person but when the director and actors seem as perplexed as you are mid-movie, I think there's something wrong. I can't even watch Laura Dern anymore and I used to like her but 180 minutes of low-quality, grainy footage put paid to that. The only good thing about that movie were the scenes with the rabbits. So yes I'm apprehensive. I have a feeling though that Dior wouldn't be too pleased if Lynch shot the ads for their high-end bags on digital video so I'm guessing that we'll be returning to his Obsession ads aesthetic, where I must admit he truly captured Heather Graham and Benicio del Toro's beauty, even if the concept of using lines by famous authors was a bit like something I would have come up with in Transition Year.



On Monday Grazia reported that some people were saying mean things about Tavi. Well actually it was mainly just one person: US Elle's fashion director Anne Slowey, who compared Tavi with JT LeRoy and seemed to imply that Tavi is not blogging alone. "You look at her video, and the writing [in her blog] doesn’t sync up with the way she talks about fashion. When I watched that video it smacked of this ethereal vagueness — this vacant-like quality where it was like everyone was on Vicodin. Like everyone was uncomfortably dumb except for me. I’m not trying to take anything away from her — her love of fashion, her love of style. She’s either a tween savant or she’s got a Tavi team." Hmm I'm not really sure. I mean there's something about having a camera in your face that can make even the most articulate come over a little tongue-tied. And surely we can't doubt a person's intelligence - or validity - just because they happen to be a teenager. There are lots of child geniuses out there.

Just look at little Johnjoe of Late Late Toy Show fame.

In other news, I joined Twitter. If you are on Twitter, please follow me and help me to navigate the etiquette of this new (for me) medium. Like can I just respond to somebody's tweets even if they are not following me? Because at the moment I feel like an eavesdropping stalker. LE

High Hair, High Fashion

We’ve been feeling completely bereft since John & Edward left the X-Factor – Olly, Stacey, Joe, whatevs. We’re had to make do with a mediocre appearance on the Late Late Toy Show (totally overshadowed by Johnjoe) and find something else to do with our Saturday and Sunday nights. But now the fashion world is sitting up and taking notice, we are getting excited again and remembering why we fell in love with them in the first place. Jedward might be saying goodbye to personal appearances at Basildon nightclubs and hello (and “this is soooo cool”) to the front row. The first sign that the fash pack were taking them seriously was their Grazia photoshoot.

Now they have taken it to another level by sitting for Nick Knight as part of his 100 Portraits project for i-D. All we can say is, wow. The suits, the quiffs, more than a hint of homoeroticism – it could be an ad campaign for Prada or Dior Homme. Louis, or whoever is advising these boys, is doing a great job. Fellow sitters for Knight include Phoebe Philo, Philip Treacy, Marios Schwab and Gareth Pugh so our boys are in excellent company. NOK

The Break-Up

Girl gets dumped by her lover via email. He signs off: "Take care of yourself". She then invites over 100 other women, from a ballerina to a lawyer, to interpret the message. Sounds like the premise of a lame Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy. One that I would probably go to see in the cinema because one of my favourite pastimes is torturing myself by watching terrible movies “for the laugh” and then being given out to by the lady in front of me for talking all the way through and saying how terrible it is. Fun!

Disappointingly, that’s not the plotline for the next Poor Jen turkey but the idea behind Sophie Calle’s installation Take Care of Yourself, currently on show at the Whitechapel Gallery as part of a retrospective of the French artist’s work. Each woman, an expert in her field, interprets the email from their professional point of view: a translator examines its grammar, a composer turns it into music, Miranda Richardson sits on a sofa next to her cat and reads it aloud. There are performances by famous faces Feist, Peaches and Jeanne Moreau but Calle also calls on an accountant, an opera singer, a criminologist and other unknowns for their take on the email. The exhibition continues with earlier works including The Bronx where Calle asked residents of the south Bronx in New York to take her to a place of their choice, and her collaboration with novelist Paul Auster, where she becomes one of his fictional characters. I loved this show – it’s clever and involving, filled with words and feels like you’re reading the artist’s diary. NOK