Leslie Bacall (1968)

The caption to the photo on the left read, "Leslie Bogart, daughter of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, is sixteen now and old enough to wear a St. Laurent outfit just like her mother's. She got it last month in Paris. While her mother was covering haute couture for TV, Leslie went her own fashion way."

Leslie. BOGART! Paris? Sign me UP!



To finish out my week of non-midcentury postings, I thought I would share with you guys an article I came across while trying to find info on Mia + Vicky for the last post. In 1968, Life did a four page spread on Bogart's daughter, Leslie, who it seems had modeling aspirations. Named for actor Leslie Howard, I'd seen photos of LB as a tiny baby in those picture perfect Bogart family photos that litter the illustrated portions of Bogart biographies, and I'd seen LB, her mother, and her brother Steve (named after Bogie's character in To Have and To Have Not, the movie that launched his parents' romance) at openings of classic Hollywood related events and award ceremonies. But the in-between stage? Nada. Which is why I was glad to fill in a gap in my children-of-movie-stars-I'm-obsessed-with knowledge. Take a look with me, won't you?



For starters, which of her parents do you think Leslie favors? My vote's for young Bogart, but there's a little of the Bacall look there, too.



This first photo finds a long, cool Leslie at the famous Maxim's, doing the same under-the-brow "Look" her mother popularized in the forties'. "Leslie goes formal in a sporty way in an elongated sweater (MicMac, $62) worn unexpectedly with wide leather belt and boots plus beaucoup silver rings," adds the caption. "Micmac", to my understanding, is a French slang word meaning "chaos, disorder"; it was also a boutique in Paris in the sixties' backed by Gunther Sachs (Brigitte Bardot's second husband, after Roger Vadim). I love the maxi-length sweater dress look here, but I think you have to be genuinely whippet-thin to pull it off (she is, I'm not). Nevertheless, the pairing of the boots and the wide leather belt, plus "beaucoup silver rings" is definitely something anyone can do!



I told you she was thin! At left, Leslie models "a skintight jumpsuit of silver mesh", in the "ultramodern chrome filled Left Bank shop of Ted Lapidus". You can see a slideshow of Lapidus's life and work here (warning...around the 70s, lots of plaid. LOTS). At right, Leslie sits in the famous sunken conversation pit at Mia + Vicky (!!), wearing a "tunic dress and a sleeveless Mongolian jacket". Not so sure about the jacket, but I love that I think that's Vicky sitting right there next to her, and the idea of a sunken conversation pit sends the pinwheels in my brain spinning. I can't remember which famous seventies' gentleman, in the VT memoir, came back to the shop in the nineties' when it was just "Vicky Tiel" and looked around for the central seating fixture, only to have Vicky tell him she'd filled it with concrete in the 80s to modernize the boutique's look. Nothing gold can stay!

Best picture!! Ready? Steady? Take a look!



"In the jazzy Castel compound, which has a discotheque, boutique, and poster shop, Leslie wears international youth uniform of Indian headband, multiple rings, and chains." Doesn't she look just like a sultrier Ali MacGraw in this photograph? And she's only 16...!! Additionally, how about that poster shop? I want my den to look just like that.

The paragraph long copy in the middle of the article explains that Leslie liked the look of the Mia + Vicky and Ted Lapidus outfits, but, quote, they were "too expensive and I don't go out that much". Frugality! Practicality! Not something you would probably see in the majority of celebrities' children today. She liked the more conservative look of the other two outfits, it seems, more.

Other tidbits from the article? At the time, Leslie was a student at New York's Lycée Français, which appears to be still running. The article describes her as a "quiet girl, both shy and self-possessed, and she wears clothes well", going on to say, "Along with her tall figure and long, shiny hair, she has inheirited the insouciant way with fashion that made her famous actress-mother also a famous clotheshorse." How nice, though!

This one's very David Bailey, though I didn't see who took it:



Today, Leslie Bogart works as a yoga instructor in California, and is married to Erich Schiffman, a kind of yoga superstar from what the internet's telling me. The only other magazine articles I could find from her online were from yoga publications, like this one:



Which sixties' look, of the four Leslie models above, would you swipe? Do you have any interest in "children of celebrities", like me? Do tell!

Til next time.

Mia (Fonssagrives) and Vicky (Tiel) (1965)

Meet Mia and Vicky!



I think I remember seeing this photo before in the coffee-table compilation book Life: In the Sixties. At the time, I figured the two young women were simply denizens of swinging London, hanging out on a balcony and strutting the peacock fashions for which the decade would eventually become known. I DID NOT know that the women pictured are Mia Fonssagrives and Vicky Tiel, the rooftop is not in London but in Paris, and the apartment to which the tiny balcon is attached houses the fashion label Mia + Vicky, one of a handful of designer labels who lay claim to the invention of the mini skirt.

Get it, Mia and Vicky! Let's take a look at the day to day doings of wildly successful fashion designers, in the sixties', both in their early twenties. Could you just die for this lifestyle?



Here, the designers take advantage of their apartment building's roof to think over sketches-in-the-rough. While I adore Vicky's garden print sundress, green strappy sandals, and chic bouffant, I'm not sure what's going on with Mia's ensemble. I think her shoes match her tights match her top, with only a strangely fitting pair of white culottes to break up the color line. What are your thoughts? She looks kind of like a beautiful op-art leopard... in culottes...

The girls' shop, which opened slightly after this article ran and financially backed by Elizabeth Taylor (we'll get to that), was one of the first to offer the wildly patterned tights that became a staple of dolly birds both on the Continent and back in the states. Vicky describes using left-over lace from a shift dress to whip up a matching pair of heavily textured, totally new hosiery, in time to go to a party that night. There are times, especially when confronted with a social engagement in an hour and closetful of clothes I don't feel like wearing, I really wish I were a seamstress...



Above, Mia lets loose at a Paris nightclub (Castel's) with Vicky's back to the camera, and Mia dyes a swath of fabric in the bathtub of their apartment while Vicky stands in the bathtub behind the material. I have to cite my partiality to Vicky Tiel from reading her book as possibly coloring my perception of the article's photos, but does it look to you like VT is kind of running second banana to MF in this article? Maybe the photographer was more interested in Mia because of her Françoise Hardy like figure and famous family (Mia's mother, Lisa Fonssagrives, was Irving Penn's favorite model and divorced Mia's father to marry the photographer. Drama!). Me, biased by my great love of her memoir (we'll get to that, too), I keep squinting to see if I can get a better look at Vicky!



HERE we are. These two photos appear in the article under the heading: "THEY WORK HARD-- AND ARE SWINGERS". Mia's dress in the photo at left, inspite of looking rather innocuous, is actually, according to the caption, culottes (again?) and Vicky's dress is trimmed in leather at the collar and cuffs (she was once called to the director's office and given a harsh talking to during her time at Parson's for showing up to class in an all leather, mini-skirted item she'd made herself, copies of which she sold out of her apartment and the proceeds of which paid her rent).

At right, the girls attend the premiere of Goldfinger, and profess a desire to dress the Bond ladies in future films (which would come partially true, as the girls did costumes for Woody Allen's first film, What's New, Pussycat, and dressed Honor Blackman, whose sultry, poster-stare you can just make out behind Vicky's head in the photo). VICKY is the perpetrator in this photo, as I am informed by the caption that her ensemble is "a dress-up pajama suit". Meaning the bottom of the outfit is...pants. What do you girls have against plain, honest skirts?! Still, they do look sixties' chic to beat the band.

I didn't realize embellished bra-tops or bare midriffs were an acceptable evening wear choice in the sixties (they seem to seventies' to me), but Vicky and Mia were trailblazers! And why not. Here are some sketches made for both a ready-to-wear line they were working on in 1965 for Sears Roebuck and for Honor Blackman's costume at a particularly tragic portion of the film, printed under the heading "Sketches for Sears and a Suicide" (sounds like a indie rock album title if I've ever heard one):



I love the feather fringe/black tights/backless number at bottom right. I can't help myself.

A model-esque shot I found on ebay (there's another good one of the girls at their drawing desk, but it was really watermarked, and I felt guilty about reproducing it here without permission):



While doing costumes for the aforementioned movie, Vicky met Ron Berkeley, a well-known makeup (and ladies') man, whose principal charges were, oh, just.... ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND RICHARD BURTON (I'm not impressed... no, actually, I am very impressed, and am lying about not being impressed. Emphasis on those capital letters!). I couldn't find any good pictures of him online, but imagine he looks just like 70's era Franco Nero. Which is one of the highest compliments I can pay a man (like this, the same cool blue eyes, wide cheekbones, and blond hair but with less muttonchops). At any rate, Vicky embarked on a serious love affair with him which led her to traipsing around the globe on the Burtons' yacht, the Kalizma, and having good times across the world on different movie shoots (including the camp classic Boom!, which I still kind of love for the costumes and the Burtons in spite of its short comings as a picture). Mia married Louis Féraud, one of the fashion designers who helped them get their start in Paris in the early sixties', then divorced him, gave up fashion for sculpting, and moved back to the US, forever changing the "Mia + Vicky" label to just "Vicky Tiel". The Vicky Tiel label would go on to create the "Torrid" dress, which is, oh, just the red dress Julia Roberts wears in the Cinderella'y-est part of Pretty Woman (I am once again making my best effort to appear not impressed, yet am).

Want to be as crazy about VT as I am? Maybe you should read her book!

I ordered this from another library and let it languish on my desk for three weeks, then renewed it, then, out of boredom one day, cracked it open. AND DID NOT PUT IT DOWN UNTIL I'D FINISHED. You really will like it. My only regret is that I didn't read it in the first three weeks. I didn't know!




Anyway, hope you enjoyed hearing me blabber about sixties' fashion for a whole post. What do you think of the Mia and Vicky designs? Do any of you mid century modernites, like me, ever branch out to a wilder side of sixties' style? Do tell!

You can get your very own (!!) Butterick pattern of a Mia + Vicky swinging 60's design here and here on Etsy.

Further reading:
Vicky Tiel's official website
Mia Fonssagrives-Solow's official website
Interview with Vicky Tiel on the invention of the miniskirt
Women's Wear Daily article with slideshow
Blog with a few neat sketches and a contemporary photo of VT
Read an excerpt of Vicky's book here


PS: A father's (slightly hilarious, completely wrongheaded) response to the Mia and Vicky's Life article, from the next week's issue (can you hear your own dad's voice in this?):

Aw, go soak yer head, Hendry Lars Bart!

Til next time!

The Clothes Off My Back (11)

Have I told you...lately...how much I love this Gap button-up cardigan?



I wear it, and wear it, and wear it, and wear it! Always aware of the calming influence of plain black tights/shoes/a belt/a second layer of some kind upon the wild and out vintage print, I was happy to find this perfect wool cardigan at the Hendersonville Goodwill. As in most staple-wardrobe thrift store acquisitions, the only drawback in finding THE ONE PERFECT ITEM is that il n'existe plus in the current retail world. I'm not sure how you would go about ebaying "two year old black sweater from the Gap, with buttons", but it doesn't seem like a done deal in terms of finding this guy's twin. And I love that paisley print dress so much I included it twice. Two times! I've worn it much more than twice since taking either of those photos.



Lots of different outfits! At left, a cowl neck sweater under and a black velvet jacket over a KISS tanktop. I'm not even a huge fan of KISS (after hearing this almost unlistenable, skin-crawling interview with Gene Simmons on NPR, my initially noncommital attitude towards the band soured dramatically), but I love the effect of the rock t-shirt being turned into something a little more polished! I used to do a lot of layering with graphic tanktops almost as waistcoats in college, and I need to get back into that swing of things, for sure. In the middle, my best Rosalind Russell grand dame outfit-- the jacket had the tackiest fake double-C Chanel closure, so I just removed it and added a belt. I am always embracing leopard print; I am never stopping.There's a charm bracelet at my wrist, and I'm trying to get behind wearing gloves more often, but sometimes can't shirk the theatricality of it enough to be comfortable. At far right, a glum Lisa contemplates life as a French spy (black dress from Target, Goodwill'd, $7.99, beret from an estate sale, $2). I think I had Matthew take this picture as a costume test to see what the outfit would look like if I was just standing around, but who knew I stood around so morosely? I love the black sequin detail at the collar and the waist.



The above was a paparazzo photo taken by Matthew as I'd just finished setting out some chairs on the patio for our Black and White Brunch party back in early January. Our first guests were just coming down the driveway and I turned and Bab snapped the picture! Don't I feel just like Bianca Jagger. At any rate, the drastically sharp cut of the collar, gold buttons, and odd color combination made me fall all the way for this early 70's dress (Goodwill, naturally), but it was DEFINITELY made as a mini, and a mini dress on someone of normal height, NOT an Amazonian. So, I added the black skirt (still short, but preserving my decency) and (you guessed it) the black Gap sweater to make it look like I wasn't wearing someone's little sister's clothes. The clip on purple earrings are from Southern Thrift ($4.99).

That day we ate a complete brunch menu from Discover Brunch, by Ruth MacPherson (everything...in there... is AMAZING) and watched (the ironically completely Technicolor, for a black and white brunch) Adventures of Robin Hood, with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. As a party favor, I made these badges, which you can see proudly pinned to my lapel above, and in close up below:



Here's a shot of the screen (and the projector) I borrowed from my dad. Pas mal, hein?:



And the crowd:



Ignore the blinding light from outdoors and consider, "How did I even get so many people in my living room?" Great time had by all, for sure.

We're in the works to plan another one this month. I'm thinking something screwball comedy related? Or Cary Grant? Or both? Haven't decided yet. But I'll keep you guys in loop!

Til next time!

Sunshine Family (1973)

Oh! My! Goodness!

Yesterday afternoon, an earache had curtailed my usual thrift store rounds in Rivergate, but as the doc-in-a-box drugstore I went to for relief suggested a thirty minute wait time on my prescription, I thought I would check out an indoor flea market set up that actually shared a parking lot with said pill peddlar. Sick? Not that sick! Neither rain, nor sleet, nor earache...

Low on expectations, I went from booth to booth, most of which sold the side-of-the-road type fare of last year's Avon products, someone's yard sale leftovers, garish pink faux alligator hand bags in plastic wrap, etc, etc. The (not that high) highlight of the trip had been a Eva Gabor wig (a lot like this one), the box of which I found in one booth and the wig it was supposed to contain in another, until I came across ONE booth that was packed to the gills with vintage baby dolls and children's toys. Seeing as I'd picked up a sixties' RCA tabletop radio earlier with a busted plastic case and a fifty dollar price tag, I was suprised to see that EVERYTHING. IN. THE BOOTH. WAS. REASONABLY. PRICED. Not the two or three dollars you might expect to get great collectibles for at an estate sale, but I wasn't at an estate sale! I was in an actual running business where for some reason, the cost of the vintage goods I wanted to purchase were about on board with the maximum amount of money I was willing to spend on said items, if not a little below! Before spend-mania overtook me, I managed to calm down and, after careful deliberation, whittle my armload of treasures down to one item. One glorious item.

What did I come away with, lads and lasses? Oh, just THIS:



I'd read about the Sunshine Family in a Cracked.com article and found just about every toy in the "10 Old Toys That Made Sense in Their Era" to be something I'd like to own, but none so much as the macrobiotic, new age spirituality looking Sunshine family. And this one in its box! I opened the cardboard lid expecting to find one chair, a ripped-in-half vinyl playmat, or worst of all, some product having nothing to do with the box (imagine, opening a Sunshine Family playset box to find, I don't know, half the contents of a Sorry boardgame and nothing more). Instead, this:



NO WAY! The original set didn't even come with the dolls! THIS ONE CAME WITH THE DOLLS. And let's take a look at them, shall we?



I don't know quite where to begin with these. Exactly what the creators at Mattel thought went into their design as appealing is a mystery to me. Is it the lidless, staring eyes? The unusually high hairline/extremely long forehead combination? The cherubically "smushed" impression you get from the girls' faces? I have no idea. But I love them. Especially the guy:



The original "family" consisted of a father, Steve, a mother, Steffie, and a baby, Sweets. In this scenario, either the baby has grown to adulthood, or Steve has become a polygamist. This is your call. The dolls were naked when I originally opened the box, but as all their clothes were inside, I've dressed them for you to get the whole effect. Aaaand, lemme get that maxi-prairie dress, Steffie. Do you see Steve's turtleneck and belt?



When I started pullling out accessories, this turntable sticker fluttered out of the playset, its adhesive sticker back long since dried out. As a brand new toy, you could apparently place some of the decorations anywhere you wanted on the vinyl walls, and even move them around as the mood suited you, which I thought was a neat touch. You can't see the label on the LP, but it's obviously a John Denver record. Obviously.



Here's a shot of the Sunshines in their home. I didn't get a good picture of the structure as a whole (except kind of at the end of this post), but imagine that three, flat, vinyl covered pieces make up a floor, a roof, and a four room wall set-up. Did I mention the furniture was in the box, too? This is really an exceptionally "together" used toy.



My favorite room is the living room, with its red free-standing fireplace/chiminea as the focal point. Neat key-based art hanging? Check. Mod-ded out Tiffany style lamp fixture? Check. Books on such varied topics as "rocks", "flowers", "shells", "birds", "animals", "insects", and "trees"? Check. I'm assuming the non-titled books are several volumes of dream journals. I LOVE THIS FAMILY.



Here's the first photo I took of the interior window that leads to the kitchen. Look how much creepier it looks with the dolls in it! I can see so many uses for this in future doll tableaux photography. Also, dig the macrame wall hanging, and the light switch.



Here's Steffy in the kitchen, which looks a lot like many early 70's kitchens I've seen in real life at estate sales. Deep brown particle board cabinets, spice rack, ceramic cannister set, built in stove, sink, and the ubiquitous orange-y red tile of the seventies' kitchens. Yes! I put the turntable on the shelf in front of Steffie, where it seemed to belong.



Here's their outdoor patio area, the fourth and final room, awash in hanging plants and a garden planter, as well as a tripped out blue and orange stone pattern that is the only criminally dated feature of the house besides the Sunshine family themselves (and is one of my favorite features, natch).




Below, you can see everyone hanging out in the kitchen, with a creepy cameo from a photo of Mabel Normand taped to my refrigerator though the left window. As if they needed any help weirding people out. I love the ten-inch tall scale of the dolls inside the house; unlike a lot of Barbie playsets I've been through, they really seem the correct "size" to be using the items in the house, and things like that are important to children. And kitsch childhood obsessed twenty somethings. :)



A last, parting shot of the roof here:



Did you have any totally dated, totally beloved-of-you doll playsets like this as a child? What's your favorite Sunshine family house feature? These guys apparently came with sets that included a barn, a truck with a vendor-topper/store in the back of it, and other dolls, so I'll have to keep an eye out and let you know if my Sunshine Family empire expands!

I Love the Sunshine Family blog, Doll Reference entry HERE, collecting guides HERE and HERE

Also, don't forget to join the MPBCSB Facebook page at the right of this entry... I've been enjoying connecting with you guys on a totally different social space! Plus, how else am I supposed to bombard you with Joan Crawford links when I feel guilty for neglecting my poor blog?

Til next time!