Autumn — Winter Fashion Bruce Weber on Film · Vertical Gardens by Patrick Blanc Carine Roitfeld · Juergen Teller AUTUMN
WINTER 2008
MAGA ZINE AUTUMN WINTER 2008
02
Contents
03
AUTUMN WINTER 2008 An Introduction
04 -05
THE EDITOR A Conversation with Carine Roitfeld Written by MURR AY HEALY
06 -13
THE OBSERVER A Conversation with Bruce Weber Written by MURR AY HEALY
14 - 49
FASHION ‘An Element of Nature’ Photographed by Willy Vanderperre Styled by Joe Mckenna ‘A Delicate Balance’ Photographed by Willy Vanderperre Styled by Joe Mckenna ‘Essential Accessories’ Photographed by Patricia Schwoerer
50-55
MOMENTS People We Like Written by Murray Healy Photographed by Paul Wetherell Styled by Michael Philouze
STREET LIFE The Centrefold The Vertical Gardens of Paris Photographed by Åke E:son Lindman
56
Store List
COVER IMAGE BY WILLY VANDERPERRE NATASHA: WOOL MIX COAT ¤ 2 50 £ 190, COTTON STRETCH SHIRT ¤ 3 9 £ 2 9 YANNICK: CASHMERE KNIT ¤ 125 £ 9 9, COTTON SHIRT ¤ 59 £ 4 5
AUTUMn WInTeR 2008 Ð 3Ð
STRUCTURED SKIRTS COUTURE SHAPES TIGHT KNITS THREE- QUARTER LENGTH COATS BE AUT Y IN THE DETAILS PRESSED FELT COATS NEW TAILORING FOR MEN NEW SUIT PROPORTIONS T WO BUT TON JACKETS DRESSES WITH FL AIR ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF AUTUMN WINTER 2008
THE EDITOR —5—
THE EDITOR
CARINE ROITFELD Written by Murray Healy · Photographed by JUERGEN TELLER
Paris in shock: chic Vogue editor reveals love of INEXPENSIVE clothes and minimalist spaces Given the mythology that has built up around her in her time as a top fashion stylist, editor in chief of French Vogue and editorial director of Vogue Hommes International, there are certain assumptions you might make about Carine Roitfeld. Thanks to her image, which has been endlessly dissected in numerous women’s magazines – long, straight hair, smokey eyes, slim-cut rock’n’roll glamour and the hot-blooded sensuality that characterises her shoots (her most characteristic work has been with old friend and longtime collaborator Mario Testino; their work together might be described as sultry maximalism) — you might imagine that she (a) inhabits a world of decadent, velvet-draped opulence, and (b) only has time for the most superluxurious brands. And you’d be wrong on both counts. Carine’s office is a long white room with a set of thick white shelves at the far end, holding a mere handful of books. There are two glass tables by Le Corbusier – one her desk, the other a conference table beneath a portrait of her by Karl Lagerfeld. And that’s all. ‘My office is very minimalist because it’s better for my mind,’ she explains. ‘When everything is clean and empty it cools me down; and if someone brings in pictures or articles to show me, I can see them better.’ Her Paris apartment, designed by architect David Chipperfield, is very much in the same clean, white vein – except ‘there are more books’. And she’s not only interested in the super-expensive end of fashion. When I speak to her she has been busy attending the haute couture shows, but she is still in touch with what is happening on the high street. ‘My readers and all the girls working at my magazine, they find a lot of good stuff in these shops. If I say, “Where is that shirt from?”, all the time it is H&M and Zara.’ Of course, the credit crunch makes high-street prices more attractive than ever. ‘In fashion, it helps if you have a lot of money. But you can be more chic with good ideas than by buying a designer’s total look, which makes you not interesting at all.’ Ideas, after all, are more important than shopping lists. ‘We’re not the sort of magazine to tell people what to buy. With Vogue, we try to make our readers dream.’ CARINE ROITFELD, VOGUE PARIS OFFICE JULY 2008, BY JUERGEN TELLER
THE OBSERVER —6—
THE OBSERVER
BRUCE WEBER Written by Murray Healy · Photographed by BRUCE WEBER
In his photography, films and books, Bruce Weber has a fingerprint that marks his work as unmistakably his. HERE HE TALKS about escapism, beauty and finding Chet Baker.
WINE AND CUPCAKES (SHORT – 2007) Starring Angela McCluskey and Paul Cantelon, Music by Vernon Duke. Official Selection Berlinale 2008
This is the year the all-round Renaissance qualities of Bruce Weber has come into the fore. Of course, it’s his fashion photography for which he’s most widely known: for over 30 years he has been shooting everything from dogs to divas, but it’s those photos of good-looking young men, often partially clothed, in black and white and bathed in summer light, which are his most celebrated. He’s also a writer, and four years ago he launched his own small-scale fashion label, Weberbilt, ‘making clothes for fun’. But this summer it was his filmmaking that was in the limelight, thanks to the simultaneous rerelease, both in cinemas and on DVD, of all the movies he’s made since the 1987 boxing documentary, Broken Noses. It was film, not photography, that Weber studied at NYU – attending classes in the East Village in a room above the Philmore East, a legendary rock venue where the aspiring young moviemaker would hear The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin rehearsing downstairs. ‘Can you imagine?’ he remembers, giving a gentle chortle that goes ahurrahurrahurr. ‘It was wild.’ Hailing from small-town Pennsylvania, he’d dreamed of running away to the big city for years, although once there he was ill prepared for the culture shock of New York etiquette. ‘I was this preppy kid coming from the Midwest, going up to people and saying, (brightly) “Hi! How are you?” And they’d look at me like, “Why the hell are you talking to me, kid?”’ While studying in New York he met the photographer William Claxton, who had alerted Bruce to the life-changing power of photography many years before. In his teenage years, Bruce’s allconsuming interest in the trumpet-playing Fifties jazz idol Chet Baker had been sparked by a Claxton portrait that appeared on the sleeve of Chet Baker Sings And Plays: ‘That image was definitely my
first connection with Chet.’ Over two decades later, after a chance encounter that led to a friendship with the then-ailing musician, Bruce would make the definitive, Oscar-nominated Chet Baker documentary, Let’s Get Lost. Baker seemed to act as an archetype for the work that followed: Weber has said before that he carried on looking for ‘another Chet Baker’ after the musician’s death in 1988. Certainly the handsomeness of Baker in his younger days seems to echo through Weber’s other subjects. He has remarked that Peter Johnson, the wrestler whom Weber turned into a successful model, and who was the focus of his 2001 movie Chop Suey, looked a little like him; he even saw Chet’s sense of longing in the eyes of his pet retriever, True (star of his 2004 film, A Letter To True): ‘I can’t help but carry on searching for a new Chet.’ It’s amazing the chain of inspiration that an image on an album sleeve can set in motion. It’s also a testament to the enduring power of juvenile fascination. Weber first came across that pivotal Chet Baker image, he says, at ‘14 or 15’. This is about the age I first discovered Bruce Weber’s work. And even now when I look at an image taken by Weber, I’m reminded of the purity and strength of teenage emotion – the full-on adolescent crush, that heady, obsessive attachment, not just to people but places and ideas. I have no idea whether this is because every time I see Weber’s work it takes me back to those first encounters, or whether it’s inherent in the work itself: it’s too subjective and personal to rationalise in any meaningful way, both for the viewer and, I suspect, the photographer. ‘I think talking about photographs and photography is very difficult, you know,’ admits Weber at one point in our conversation. ‘It’s, um – it’s still a mystery to me!’ A LETTER TO TRUE (2003) Starring True Blue, Palomino, Big Skye, Polar Bear, Rain, Cloud, Guy, Sailor, Hope, Whizzy, Jake, Finnius, Tai the Elephant, Tyson the Cat, Dirk Bogarde, Herbie Fletcher Voiceover by Marianne Faithfull and Julie Christie. Official Selection Berlinale 2004
CHOP SUEY (2000) Starring Peter Johnson, Francis Faye, Rickson Gracie, Teri Sheperd, Robert Mitchum, Christian Fletcher, Jan-Michael Vincent, Diana Vreeland, Tara the Elephant. Awarded Best Edited Documentary Film by American Cinema Editors USA (2002) and Teddy - Special -Mention at Berlin International Film Festival (2001)
THE OBSERVER — 10 —
TEDDY BOYS OF THE EDWARDIAN DRAPE SOCIETY (SHORT - 1996) Music by Puccini, performed by Maria Callas
GENTLE GIANTS (SHORT - 1994) Dedicated to River Phoenix
But certainly Weber’s imagination has been driven by his everybody feels so beautiful all the time,’ he says, before questioning youthful enthusiasm for his idols. Long before Chet, there was why people need to be conventionally beautiful anyway. ‘One time Elizabeth Taylor. ‘Oh, I was crazy about Elizabeth Taylor,’ he grins. I was in a bedroom of a hotel with Gérard Depardieu – I think he’s ‘I knew her works so, so well.’ There was Robert Mitchum; Weber is one of the sexiest guys alive. I was kinda nervous ’cause I was there currently working on a documentary movie about him. There was alone with him and he was sitting on his bed. And it just came out Jan-Michael Vincent: ‘I always wanted to look like him. When I was of me naturally, I said in a really soft tone: “I’ve gotta tell you this – I about 12 I even told my parents that I wanted to dye my hair blond think you have the most beautiful nose I’ve ever seen.” And he said, like his. And they were like… there was no way I could do something “Really? I’ve always hated my nose.” I said, “But you’re so handsome!” like that, a Jewish boy growing up in the Midwest.’ By chance, one of and he said he never felt he was, and he almost felt people looked at Weber’s first assignments as a photographer was to shoot the young him like he was different. And I said, “But that’s what I always loved actor. ‘I thought wow, taking pictures really can be magical.’ about looking at you.”’ There’s nothing conspicuously contrived or It’s a common observation that Weber’s work artificial about Weber’s photography – indeed, is readily recognisable, but what gives his images much of the appeal of his most widely seen and movies this distinction? Is he consciously aware of a Bruce Weber sensibility? Does he go work lies in its apparent ‘naturalness’, with his into a shoot with rules about what a Bruce Weber promotional images for Abercrombie & Fitch shoot should look like, and what it shouldn’t? staged in fields and forests, on beaches and snowy mountain slopes, and his Calvin Klein ads shot ‘No, I don’t have the slightest idea of what a straight-up style against a plain white backdrop. Bruce Weber sensibility is, and I hope I never do. Because every day I feel different. Every day I start But he acknowledges what he does as an exercise in out again taking pictures. And some days I fall fantasy. ‘I have a big fantasy life,’ he says. ‘I always flat on my face, and some days I surprise myself, did as a kid; I had to, to survive. I grew up in a small and some days I see all the mistakes I made in my town where everybody played football, and I was sitting there reading magazines about Elizabeth pictures. I never take it for granted, or feel that my Taylor, you know what I mean? Ahurrahurr. And “vision” is so important, ’cause it’s different all the not too many of my friends were into Elizabeth time, ’cause I just want to be better. I never have to Taylor movies.’ Even when he’d left the smallprove anything in my pictures or films. I just wanted town experience behind, he discovered that ‘the to find a way to create the experience I was having, world wasn’t like those Broadway musicals’: his you know?’ imagination still had a role to play in making So for all its untouchable idealism, his BACKYARD MOVIE (SHORT - 1991) sense of the world. photography and filmmaking are very much Starring the Weber Family, Ric Arango, Rowdy and However far you run, life is never like it is in grounded in the material experience of meeting Little Bear. Music by Primas Stefan the movies, I offer. ‘Right,’ he says, ‘but it doesn’t his subjects. He has spoken before of taking mean you can’t make it so. When I make my films or take pictures or photos as a form of human contact. He witnessed this as a child write something, I try to impose my… uh, my childish imagination in Greensburg, when his family would make movies and take on it. If anything, I want my work to look like I wanted it to be when photographs of each other every Sunday; it was, he explains, their I was eight years old.’ way of getting along. And its function as a ritual of connection is So if Weberworld is a land of fantasy, then that explains the what led him to take up photography and filmmaking in the first unearthly beauty of many of its inhabitants. Of course, good place. ‘You know, I was always shy, and I thought a good way of casting always helps; but the final image is, it seems, the triumph facing up to that shyness was to take photographs or make films. of imagination rather than genetics, as it’s the experience of It’s an invitation to the world. Doing this forces you to face people. being before the camera that perfects these models. ‘Sometimes You’re more than just a tourist.’ something wonderful happens where you go to photograph a girl A Letter To True will be released on DVD in early September or a guy and they have no self-confidence: it’s the actual making A Bruce Weber box set containing all films and a special selection of shorts will of a picture or a film that gives them this confidence to shine. Not be avalaible in the autumn
LET’S GET LOST (1988) Starring Chet Baker, Ruth Young, Lisa Marie, Olga Liriano, William Claxton, Andy Minsker and Flea Awarded Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival and The International Documentary Association Award in 1989 Nominated for best Documentary Academy Award and the Sundance Festival Grand Jury Prize in 1989
BROKEN NOSES (1987) Starring Andy Minsker and the kids of the Mt. Scott boxing club Awarded International Documentary Associaton Award in 1988 and nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1988
BEAUTY BROTHERS (SHORT - 1987) Starring Paul, Brian, Tim Dillon, Rodney Harvey, Maya Oloe Music by the New York Pops, Mongo Santamaria, Dean Martin, Ann Margaret, Tomaso Albioni
CAP SLEEVE BLAZER ¤ 9 9 £ 7 9 COTTON BLOUSE ¤ 5 9 £ 4 5
AN ELEMENT OF NATURE PHOTOGRAPHED BY WILLY VANDERPERRE
LODEN WOOL COAT ¤ 2 50 £ 190 COTTON SHIRT ¤ 5 9 £ 4 5
KNITTED WOOL COLLAR ¤ 4 9 £ 39
NATASHA: WOOL JUMPER ¤ 69 £ 5 5 YANNICK: WOOL JUMPER ¤ 69 £ 5 5
COTTON WOOL MIX COAT ¤ 2 50 £ 190 COTTON STRETCH SHIRT ¤ 3 9 £ 2 9 LEATHER BELT ¤ 3 9 £ 2 9
VEST ¤ 19 £ 14, LEATHER BELT ¤ 2 9 £ 19 OPPOSITE: THREE BUTTON WOOL BLAZER ¤ 175 £ 119
SILK SATIN DRESS ¤ 9 9 £ 7 9
LODEN WOOL COAT ¤ 2 50 £ 190 COTTON STRETCH SHIRT ¤ 3 9 £ 2 9
STREETLIFE
THE VERTICAL GARDENS OF PARIS Photographed by ร KE E:SON LINDMAN
The French capital is famous for its public parks, but green-fingered designer Patrick Blanc has taken them into a new dimension, transforming the barren faรงades of the city into leafy oases of beauty
Quai Branly museum, 37, Quai Branly métro “Hotel de Ville”, RUE D’ALSACE BHV Homme, 36, rue de la Verrerie
A
DELICATE BA L A NCE
PHOTOGRAPHED BY WILLY VANDERPERRE
STR APLESS WOOL DRESS ¤ 125 £ 9 9, LEATHER BOOTS ¤ 2 25 £ 175 KNEE HIGH COTTON SOCKS ¤ 17 £ 12
WOOL JACKET ¤ 175 £ 129, COTTON SHIRT ¤ 5 9 £ 4 5, COTTON TROUSERS ¤ 6 9 £ 5 5 OPPOSITE: CROPPED WOOL BLAZER ¤ 9 9 £ 7 9, WOOL SKIRT ¤ 7 9 £ 5 9, LEATHER BOOTS ¤ 2 25 £ 175 KNEE HIGH COTTON SOCKS ¤ 17 £ 12
COTTON BLOUSE ¤ 4 9 £ 3 9, WOOL MIX SKIRT ¤ 5 9 £ 4 5
OPPOSITE: TAUPE COTTON BLAZER ¤ 175 £ 129, COTTON SHIRT ¤ 59 £ 4 5 COTTON MIX TROUSERS ¤ 6 9 £ 5 5
WOOL MIX COAT ¤ 175 £ 129, LEATHER SKIRT ¤ 190 £ 150 LEATHER BOOTS ¤ 2 25 £ 175, KNEE HIGH COTTON SOCKS ¤ 17 £ 12
LEATHER WALLET € 4 9 £ 3 9
ESSENTIAL ACCESSORIES Photographed by PATRICIA SCHWOERER
LEATHER PLATFORM SHOES € 125 £ 9 9
LEATHER GL0VES € 4 9 £ 3 9
NECKLACE € 2 5 £ 17
COTTON SCARF€€ 3 5 £ 2 5
MENS LEATHER BOOTS € 175 £ 129
COMPACT JERSEY BRIEFS € 2 9 £ 19
LEATHER BELT € 3 9 £ 2 9
MOMENTS — 51 —
THE MUSICIAN
GEORGE BARNETT Challenging on the ear and easy on the eye: These New Puritans mix sharp style with musical substance Written by MURRAY HEALY · Photographed by PAUL WETHERALL
Those of you who like a nice, nursery-rhyme melody you can whistle and an easy toe-tapping beat probably aren’t fans of These New Puritans. The Southend four-piece has introduced a more conceptual, complex, energetic and, frankly, difficult dynamic to modern music, shifting it away from easy listening and closer to art (an early track is entitled ‘I Want To Be Tracey Emin’). With their impenetrable lyrics, stabbing, stop/start rhythms and strait jacketed, schizophrenic mix of punk, new wave and synth pop, they present a shockingly original departure in a medium dominated by stage-school swots and thinly disguised tribute acts. Angular and unsmiling, they look good too: George Barnett, the band’s drummer, is also a model. And his fashion credentials don’t end there: he worked at the studios of Dior Homme under Hedi Slimane, who championed the band and commissioned them to create the soundtrack for his final show at the label. While many of us are relieved to find a band that is both innovative and sharply dressed, others have voiced suspicion at just how stylish they are. ‘Some critics have this stupid idea that if a band has been involved with fashion then they must be completely talentless and brain-dead,’ says George. ‘We’ve tried to challenge this and invert it completely.
So far the band have remained heroically resistant to pigeonholing their tricky sound. ‘People try and persuade us, but we haven’t done it yet,’ shrugs George, content to let the music speak for itself. ‘Maybe we’ll get round to it, but we’re not good businessmen.’ Lead singer Jack (George’s brother) has provocatively described their music as ‘pop’. So do they see themselves as part of popular culture or a cultural underground? ‘For us that distinction is irrelevant. We’re pop and we’re everything else,’ says George, declaring that yes, they would play Top Of The Pops if it were still running. ‘As Jack says, “These New Puritans is for everyone.”’ And everyone expects great things of These New Puritans. Released back in January, their first album Beat Pyramid was showered with praise by all the critics that matter. How is George dealing with the burden of expectation? ‘Well, enough people hate us for me not to get too carried away. And the next album is going to be different enough for all the criticism to be irrelevant anyway.’ GEORGE WEARS: TAUPE COTTON BLAZER ¤ 175 £ 129, BLACK COTTON SHIRT ¤ 4 9 £ 3 9 BLACK COTTON TROUSERS ¤ 6 9 £ 5 5
MOMENTS — 52 —
THE SCULPTOR
TOM BELL The globetrotting minimalist sculptor is rejecting labels in art and taking on new challenges Written by MURRAY HEALY · Photographed by PAUL WETHERALL
‘I’ve been labelled “the heir of minimalism” and all that,’ says artist Tom Bell, ‘but my reference points are not purely abstract; there’s far more to it than just an abstract shape.’ Just what these references might be is not always obvious from his large, smooth, simple sculptures, however. There are rows of blood-red, 16-inch spikes resembling tops of pencils sticking out of a jar; a nine-foot arch linking two circles like a giant pair of sugar tongs; a series of simple, seductive, supersized hooks and claws; and nipple-shaped, shieldsized discs of marbles. Even to describe these pieces is to limit their meanings in a way that works against Tom’s intention – which is why he refuses to title any of them: ‘There are certain subjects that are to do with sexuality and other things that I’d prefer the viewer to discover for themselves.’ He’s not keen on audiences who demand exposition. ‘The art world has changed so much; now everybody wants everything instantly. “Oh, this means that and that means this and everything’s going to go up by this much in five years…” I’m sorry, that’s not what I’m making work for.’ Tom was born in Melbourne, studied art in London but gave up (‘I couldn’t bear it’) and started working as a sculptor in Madrid. There he found both the light and local industry (his favourite material is aluminium, and Spain has a tradition of metalwork expertise going back several thousand years) conducive to his creativity. He currently lives in New York, but after eight years there he has ‘the itch to move on again’. One future home will be in China, where he’s building a studio after being profoundly inspired by the artists there. ‘Many of them are not just incredibly talented, they’re multitalented. They don’t say “I am a sculptor” or “I am a painter”. They do sculpture, they do painting, they do video, they do whatever – and do it all incredibly well.’ This has encouraged Tom to venture into other media: he recently produced a series of embroideries of body parts and has been working on his first video. ‘China taught me that you don’t have to label yourself by sticking to one medium. If the work is good and stands up, fine, it doesn’t matter what it’s made in. Simple as that.’ TOM WEARS: BLACK 2 BUTTONS WOOL BLAZER SOLD AS A SUIT ¤ 2 50 £ 190 WHITE COTTON SHIRT ¤ 3 9 £ 2 9
MOMENTS — 53 —
THE PRODUCER
SAM GAINSBURY Creating order out of the chaos of fashion, Gainsbury & Whiting can organise the mother of all runway shows Written by MURRAY HEALY · Photographed by PAUL WETHERALL
Sam Gainsbury has two children and Anna Whiting four. This may not seem immediately relevant to the fact that Sam and Anna run one of London’s busiest and most creative fashion production companies, Gainsbury & Whiting. But their children are central to the company’s raîson d’être. ‘We set up the company as I was expecting a child and Anna was trying to get pregnant,’ explains Sam. ‘The assumption used to be that you had to time having children carefully because it could ruin your career. So we created an environment where women could have incredible jobs and still work flexible hours.’ Before setting up the company, Sam worked long hours producing music videos and commercials. Her sideways step into fashion came when, following a chance encounter, Alexander McQueen asked her to produce his catwalk show – ‘he needed someone who was good at organising things, basically’. So is she particularly ruthless with a clipboard? ‘I guess I’m a big list person, strong on multitasking. But I’m not as organised as Anna – she’s got four boys under six and runs a very tight ship.’ With a reputation for putting on spectacular, headline-grabbing shows that require precision planning, McQueen has remained a loyal client of Gainsbury & Whiting; the company has also organised runway presentations for Boudicca, COS, Armani, Gap and Hermès, as well as numerous photo shoots for campaigns and editorial (Dazed, Pop, New York Times Magazine and French, British, Japanese and American Vogue) and special events like the launch of Kate Moss’s line at Topshop and Fashion Rocks. Right now Sam is catching her breath between finishing Showstudio’s Fashion DJs – three days of 30 characters from the world of fashion spinning tunes online and over the airwaves from Abbey Road studios in London – and gearing up for the Fashion Weeks of September and October. Even with the flexible hours, it sounds like a lot of hard work. So at what point does the job satisfaction kick in? ‘When you cue the finale at a show and all the models are coming out – you know you’ve done a great show, you’re going backstage for champagne and everybody’s happy. That’s a great feeling.’ SAM WEARS: DARK GREY MEN’S COTTON SHIRT ¤ 4 9 £ 3 9
MOMENTS — 55 —
THE DIRECTOR
MARTHA FIENNES The multi-tasking filmmaker on life between the sewing machine, the camera and the calculator Written by MURRAY HEALY · Photographed by PAUL WETHERALL
Martha Fiennes’s creativity knows no bounds. She’s best known for directing beautiful, credible, sophisticated movies – her first, Onegin, got a BAFTA nomination for best British film, while last year’s Chromophobia closed the Cannes Film Festival – but her artistic curiosity doesn’t begin and end with the big screen. The sewing machine by her kitchen table and the bags of fabric left around her south London townhouse are clues to another of her passions: making clothes. ‘I’ve always sewn,’ she says, ‘although I’m self-taught so I do it in my own mad, slightly boho way.’ Boho or no, she’s about to become a bona fide designer, launching a line of luxurious leather utility belts (‘because womenswear isn’t big on pockets’) created in collaboration with a master shoemaker whom she initially commissioned for a pair of bespoke clogs. And then there’s art. Martha is working on an idea so big that it may well give rise to a whole new artistic medium, and so innovative that the technology involved is currently being patented. This means she can’t go into detail beyond mentioning ‘photography and LCD screens’. But back to the movies. Martha has spent the past couple of years getting other film projects off the ground – ‘the process is soooo long and arduous; there’s so much paperwork and accountancy’ – but her
efforts are finally bearing fruit. She’s hoping to start shooting Blown, a thriller written by her husband George Tiffin and starring Samuel L Jackson, in late autumn, and has optioned to direct an adaptation of The Hustlers, Douglas Thompson’s true-life story of casino corruption in postwar London. More intriguing still is her planned biopic of exotic dancer-turned-international spy Mata Hari, starring Dita Von Teese: Martha’s still working out how to make the burlesque dances central to the storytelling. But she’s wary of being too experimental. The complex, genre-transcending nature of Chromophobia made it difficult to market, with critics at pains to pigeonhole it in their snappy reviews. ‘I’m so proud of Chromophobia, but never again. Increasingly, film is just about entertainment. Advanced capitalism irons out creativity – it only wants what sells. Does art have a place any more? I’d love to think so. But it’s a struggle. Still,’ she smiles, with self-mocking melodrama, ‘like weeds growing through cracks in pavements, we find a way.’ MARTHA WEARS: CAMEL CASHMERE VEST ¤ 2 9 £ 19, CAMEL CASHMERE CARDIGAN ¤ 175 £ 119 OPPOSITE: BLACK STRETCH DRESS ¤ 7 9 £ 59 BLACK FINE WOOL CROPPED TROUSERS ¤ 69 £ 5 5
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