Remember the Push-Me-Pull-You from “Dr. Doolittle”?
I’ve just finished watching The September Issue on my Roku/Netflix device. I know, I’m always late to the party. Mrs. E. and I don’t get to the cinema much, aside from the odd kid’s movie (“How to Train a Dragon” in 3-D this past weekend).
I found it to be a meditation on the delicate balancing point of fashion and beauty, commercial appeal and art. To see Oscar de la Renta in a scene following Jean-Paul Gaultier, and the way that Ms. Winatour and Ms. Coddington approach a trip to Paris (and the magazine in general) is a study in the forces that push and pull each of us in different directions. Each of them is successful. Each chooses to approach things in a different way.
(via Papermag without their knowing…)
(via Zimbio.October 4, 2008 – Photo by Francois Durand/Getty Images Europe and used without permission. Let me know…)
Art for art’s sake. The relentless pursuit of beauty. (But isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder?) Empirical versus conjectural (is that the word? Should it be “personal”) beauty. Cool versus square. Traditional versus modern. (Or is it traditional versus cool?) Style versus fashion. Restraint versus abandon.
These are all the things that we struggle with on a daily basis. Even in such small ways as our choices of shoes or ties for the day. Accentuate the positive and look better than you have to. No matter where you go, you’re going to turn someone’s head. Try to make sure that it’s in a good way.
I actually watched that film on a plane back in December, and found it to be a lot more interesting than I expected.
Rather than being just a glitzy expose of what goes on to make a glossy, I agree that it really got at some of fashion and the fashion world’s most contentious issues: exclusion, constant change, humanity vs. branding, in vs. out, etc. I wouldn’t call it a brilliant or amazing documentary, but I certainly got off the plane thinking about a lot of these issues in slightly different ways.
I always loved the push me pull you, and I actually have a photo of my brother and myself with a push me pull you from when we were kids in the late 1960’s! Someone taxidermied two llamas and put them together to make one.