Grand Palais
The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées known as the Grand Palais, is a large historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Construction of the Grand Palais began in 1897 following the demolition of the Palais de l'Industrie as part of the preparation works for the Universal Exposition of 1900, which included the creation of the adjacent Petit Palais and Pont Alexandre III, it has been listed since 2000 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. The structure was built in the style of Beaux-Arts architecture as taught by the École des Beaux-Arts of Paris; the building reflects the movement's taste for ornate decoration through its stone facades, the formality of its floor planning and the use of techniques that were innovative at the time, such as its glass vault, its structure made of iron and light steel framing, its use of reinforced concrete. One of its pediments calls it a "monument dedicated by the Republic to the glory of French art", reflecting its original purpose, that of housing the great artistic events of the city of Paris.
The competition to choose the architect was fierce and controversial, resulted in the contract being awarded to a group of four architects, Henri Deglane, Albert Louvet, Albert Thomas and Charles Girault, each with a separate area of responsibility. The main space 240 metres long, was constructed with an iron and glass barrel-vaulted roof, making it the last of the large transparent structures inspired by London’s Crystal Palace that were necessary for large gatherings of people before the age of electricity; the main space was connected to the other parts of the palace along an east-west axis by a grand staircase in a style combining Classical and Art Nouveau, but the interior layout has since been somewhat modified. The exterior of this massive palace combines an imposing Classical stone façade with a riot of Art Nouveau ironwork, a number of allegorical statue groups including work by sculptors Paul Gasq, Camille Lefèvre, Alfred Boucher, Alphonse-Amédée Cordonnier and Raoul Verlet. A monumental bronze quadriga by Georges Récipon tops each wing of the main façade.
The one on the Champs-Élysées side depicts Immortality prevailing over Time, the one on the Seine side Harmony triumphing over Discord. The grand inauguration took place 1 May 1900, from the beginning the palace was the site of different kinds of shows in addition to the intended art exhibitions; these included a riding competition that took place annually from 1901 to 1957, but were dedicated to innovation and modernity: the automobile, household appliances, so on. The golden age of the art exhibitions as such lasted for some thirty years, while the last took place in 1947; the first major Henri Matisse retrospective after his death was held at the Grand Palais. The structure had problems that started before it was completed as a result of subsidence caused by a drop in the water table; the builders attempted to compensate for this subsidence, for a tendency of the ground to shift, by sinking supporting posts down to firmer soil, since construction could not be delayed. These measures were only successful.
Further damage occurred. Excessive force applied to structural members during the installation of certain exhibitions such as the Exposition Internationale de la Locomotion Aérienne caused damage, as did acid runoff from the horse shows. Additional problems due to the construction of the building itself revealed themselves over the course of time. Differential rates of expansion and contraction between cast iron and steel members, for example, allowed for water to enter, leading to corrosion and further weakening; when one of the glass ceiling panels fell in 1993, the main space had to be closed for restoration work, was not reopened to the public until 2007. The Palais served as a military hospital during World War I, employing local artists who had not been deployed to the front to decorate hospital rooms or to make moulds for prosthetic limbs; the Nazis put the Palais to use during the Occupation of France in World War II. First used as a truck depot, the Palais housed two Nazi propaganda exhibitions.
The Parisian resistance used the Grand Palais as a headquarters during the Liberation of Paris. On 23 August 1944 an advancing German column was fired upon from a window on the Avenue de Sèlves, the Germans responded with a tank attack upon the Palais; the attack ignited hay, set up for a circus show, over the next 48 hours, thick black smoke from the fire caused serious damage to the building. By 26 August, American jeeps were parked in the nave, followed by tanks from the French 2nd Armored Division, completing the liberation of the building; the Grand Palais has a major police station in the basement whose officers help protect the exhibits on show in the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais the picture exhibition "salons": the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, Salon d'Automne, Salon Comparaisons. The building's west wing contains a science museum, the Palais de la Découverte, it was the host venue of the 2010 World Fencing Championships. For the 2011 Monumenta exhibition, sculptor Anish Kapoor was commissioned to create the temporary indoor site-specific installation, Leviathan, an enormous structure that filled half of the main exhibition hall of the Grand Palais.
It was used during the final stage of the Tour de France in 2017, as part of the promotion for Paris' 2024 Summer Olympics bid. The riders rode through the Palais en route to the Champs Élysées. With Paris having been unanimous
Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren, KBE is an American fashion designer and business executive, best known for the Ralph Lauren Corporation, a global multibillion-dollar enterprise. He has become well known for his collection of rare automobiles, some of which have been displayed in museum exhibits. Lauren stepped down as CEO of the company in September 2015 but remains executive chairman and chief creative officer; as of 2018, Forbes estimates his wealth at $7.2 billion, which makes Ralph Lauren the 91st richest person in America. Ralph Lauren was born in The Bronx, New York City, to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants and Frank Lifshitz, an artist and house painter, from Pinsk, Belarus, he is the youngest of four siblings -- one sister. Lauren attended day school followed by the Manhattan Talmudical Academy, before graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1957, he went to Baruch College, at the City University of New York where he studied business, although he dropped out after two years. From 1962 to 1964 he served in the United States Army and left to work for Brooks Brothers as a sales assistant before becoming a salesman for a tie company.
The Ralph Lauren Corporation started in 1967 with men's ties. At 28 years old, Lauren worked for the tie manufacturer Beau Brummell, where he convinced the company's president to let him start his own line. Drawing on his interests in sports, Ralph Lauren named his first full line of menswear'Polo' in 1968, he worked out of a single "drawer" from a showroom in the Empire State Building and made deliveries to stores himself. By 1969, the Manhattan department store, it was the first time. In 1971, Ralph Lauren Corporation launched a line of tailored shirts for women, which introduced the Polo player emblem to the world for the first time, appearing on the shirt's cuff; the first full women's collection was launched the following year. 1971 marked the opening of Ralph Lauren's store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California. This is the first freestanding store for an American designer. In 1972 the Ralph Lauren Corporation introduced a signature cotton mesh Polo shirt in various colors. Featuring the polo player logo at the chest, the shirt became emblematic of the preppy look—one of Ralph Lauren's signature styles.
The tagline for the ad campaign was: "Every team has its color – Polo has seventeen."In 1974 he outfitted the male cast of The Great Gatsby in costumes from his Polo line – a 1920s-style series of men's suits and sweaters, except for the pink suit which Lauren designed for Robert Redford's Jay Gatsby. In 1977, Diane Keaton and Woody Allen wore Lauren's clothes throughout their Oscar-winning film, Annie Hall; the first Ralph Lauren fragrances, produced by Warner-Lauren, Ltd. were launched at Bloomingdale's in March 1978. Lauren, a fragrance for women, on March 12 and Polo, cologne for men, on March 26; this was the first time that a designer has introduced two fragrances – one for men and one for women – simultaneously. The company entered the European market, went international, in 1981 with the opening of the first freestanding store for an American designer on New Bond Street in the West End of London, England. Ralph Lauren opened his first flagship in the Rhinelander mansion, on Madison Avenue and 72nd Street in New York City in 1986.
Lauren re-created the building's original opulence with a young design consultant named Naomi Leff, with whom he had worked on Ralph Lauren Home. The Polo Sport line was introduced in 1992 followed by over ten additional lines and acquired brands, including Ralph Lauren Purple Label in 1995 and Lauren Ralph Lauren in 1996. On June 12, 1997, the company became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange; the 98-seat restaurant, RL, opened in March 1999 in Chicago in a newly constructed building adjacent to the largest Ralph Lauren store at the corner of Chicago and Michigan Avenues. It was followed by the opening of two additional restaurants – Ralph's at 173 Boulevard Saint Germain Paris flagship store in 2010 and The Polo Bar at Polo's flagship in New York in 2015; the company launched its official web site, online shop in 2000 as polo.com by RL Media. In 2007, Ralph Lauren Corporation acquired the NBC share of RL Media and the web site was relaunched as ralphlauren.com. In 2008, Ralph Lauren Corporation launched a brand called American Living for JCPenney.
It was the largest cross-category brand launch in the history of Ralph JCPenney. On September 29, 2015, it was announced that Stefan Larsson would replace the company's founder, Ralph Lauren, as CEO in November. Lauren will stay on as executive chief creative officer. Ralph Lauren has been featured on over 100 global magazines covers including Architectural Digest, GQ, Town & Country, TIME and Vogue. Ralph Lauren celebrated the 50th Anniversary of his brand in a large scale fashion show in at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park on September 8, 2018. Star-studded attendance included Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Kanye West, Hollywood elites such as Robert DeNiro and Jessica Chastain. On December 20, 1964, he married Ricky Ann Low-Beer in New York City. Ricky is the daughter of Margaret Vytouch, Rudolph Low-Beer; the two met six months earlier, in a doctor's office where Ricky was working as a receptionist and on alternate days teaching dance. She is the author of The Hamptons: Food and History, they have three children.
Andrew Lauren is actor. David Lauren is Executive Vice President of Global Advertising and Communications
Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a French fashion designer and business woman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with liberating women from the constraints of the "corseted silhouette" and popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realizing her design aesthetic in jewellery and fragrance, her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked-CC monogram, in use since the 1920s. Chanel's social connections encouraged a conservative personal outlook. Rumors arose about Chanel's activities during the German occupation of France during World War II, she was criticized for being too close to the German occupiers: One of Chanel's liaisons was with a German diplomat, Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage.
After the war, Chanel was interrogated about her relationship with von Dincklage, but she was not charged as a collaborator. After several post-war years in Switzerland, she revived her fashion house. In 2011, Hal Vaughan published a book about Chanel based on newly declassified documents, revealing that she had collaborated with German intelligence activities. One plan in late-1943 was for her to carry an SS peace overture to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to end the war. Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel was born in 1883 to mother, Eugénie Jeanne Devolle—known as Jeanne—a laundrywoman, in the charity hospital run by the Sisters of Providence in Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, France, she was Jeanne's second child with Albert Chanel. Albert Chanel was an itinerant street vendor who peddled work clothes and undergarments, living a nomadic life, traveling to and from market towns; the family resided in rundown lodgings. In 1884, he married Jeanne Devolle, persuaded to do so by her family who had "united to pay Albert to marry her."At birth, Chanel's name was entered into the official registry as "Chasnel".
Jeanne was too unwell to attend the registration, Albert was registered as "travelling". With both parents absent, the infant's last name was misspelled due to a clerical error; the couple had five children who survived—two boys and three girls—who lived crowded into a one-room lodging in the town of Brive-la-Gaillarde. When Gabrielle was 12, her mother died of tuberculosis at the age of 32, her father sent his two sons to work as farm laborers and sent his three daughters to the convent of Aubazine, which ran an orphanage. Its religious order, the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary, was "founded to care for the poor and rejected, including running homes for abandoned and orphaned girls", it was a frugal life, demanding strict discipline. Placement in the orphanage may have been the best thing for Coco's future because it is where she learned to sew. At age eighteen, too old to remain at Aubazine, went to live in a boarding house for Catholic girls in the town of Moulins. In life, Chanel would retell the story of her childhood somewhat differently.
She said that when her mother died, her father sailed for America to seek his fortune, she was sent to live with two aunts. She claimed to have been born a decade than 1883 and that her mother had died when she was much younger than 12. Having learned to sew during her six years at Aubazine, Chanel found employment as a seamstress; when not sewing, she sang in a cabaret frequented by cavalry officers. Chanel made her stage debut singing at a cafe-concert in La Rotonde, she was a performer who entertained the crowd between star turns. The money earned, it was at this time that Gabrielle acquired the name "Coco" when she spent her nights singing in the cabaret the song, "Who Has Seen Coco?" She liked to say the nickname was given to her by her father. Others believe "Coco" came from Ko Ko Ri Ko, Qui qu'a vu Coco, or it was an allusion to the French word for kept woman, cocotte; as an entertainer, Chanel radiated a juvenile allure that tantalized the military habitués of the cabaret. In 1906, Chanel worked in the spa resort town of Vichy.
Vichy boasted a profusion of concert halls and cafés where she hoped to achieve success as a performer. Chanel's youth and physical charms impressed those for whom she auditioned, but her singing voice was marginal and she failed to find stage work. Obliged to find employment, she took work at the Grande Grille, where as a donneuse d'eau she was one whose job was to dispense glasses of the purportedly curative mineral water for which Vichy was renowned; when the Vichy season ended, Chanel returned to Moulins, her former haunt La Rotonde. She now realised. At Moulins, Chanel met Étienne Balsan. At the age of twenty-three, Chanel became Balsan's mistress, supplanting the courtesan Émilienne d’Alençon as his new favorite. For the next three years, she lived with him in his château Royallieu near Compiègne, an area known for its wooded equestrian paths and the hunting life, it was a lifestyle of self-indulgence. Balsan's wealth allowed the cultivation of a social set that reveled in partying and the gratification of human appetites, with all the implied accompanying decadence.
Balsan showered Chanel with the baubles of "the
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, a museum of the decorative arts and design, located in the Palais du Louvre's western wing, known as the Pavillon de Marsan, at 107 rue de Rivoli, in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. It is one of three museum locations of Les Arts Décoratifs, now collectively referred to as the MAD; the museum hosts exhibitions of fashion and graphic arts from its collections from the separate but now defunct Musée de la Publicité and Musée de la mode et du textile. The museum collection was founded in 1905 by members of the Union des Arts Décoratifs; the architect was Gaston Redon. It houses and displays furniture, interior design, religious paintings, objets d'arts, wallpaper and glassware, plus toys from the Middle Ages to the present day; the collection is composed of French furniture, carpets such as those from Aubusson, porcelain such as that by the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, a large number of glass pieces by René Lalique, Émile Gallé and many others. It includes numerous works in the Art Nouveau and Art Déco styles and modern examples by designers like Eileen Gray and Charlotte Perriand.
However, the museum's deep holdings range back to 13th-century Europe. Of interest to the public are the period rooms. Examples include part of Jeanne Lanvin's house at 16 rue Barbet-de-Jouy in Paris. Others are graphic artist Eugène Grasset's dining room of 1880, the 1752 Gold Cabinet of Avignon. And, peculiar to a French museum it seems, there is the 1875 bedroom of courtesan Lucie Émilie Delabigne, purportedly the inspiration for the main character in Émile Zola's novel Nana. There is a distinctive ceiling there once owned by Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, mistress of duke of Savoy; some of the museum's vast number of exhibitions have been distinguished. Yvonne Brunhammer, a curator and director of the museum for over four decades from the early 1950s and the person who rediscovered Eileen Gray, organized the 1966 exhibition, "Les Années'25': Art Déco/Bauhaus/Stijl Esprit Nouveau"; the exhibition served to coin "Art Déco", the term that came to describe design between the World Wars French modern design.
The museum is somewhat on a par with similar and venerable decorative-arts and design-focused institutions such as the more international Victoria and Albert Museum in London and was the inspiration for the Hewitt sisters' collection in the Cooper Union in New York City. However, due to a large number of fine-art, publicity and design exhibitions mounted at the Paris museum, its focus has been diluted and caused its name, Musée des "Art Decoratifs", to be a misnomer. Thus, its name for popular use became MAD in January 2016 though the acronym is the same as MAD in New York City; the Musée des Arts Décoratifs was closed from 1996 due to a renovation of the building and of about 6,000 works from the collection. The museum reopened on September 15, 2006. Béatrice Salmon, the current director and overseer of the restoration, has called the collection "the history of French taste and of the decorative arts and design in France" and has suggested: "People understand how to relate to paintings and sculpture in a museum, but they don't know how to interpret objects".
Pierre-Alexis Dumas, a principal of Hermès International and the president of the Fondation Hermès, was elected president in 2015. He succeeded Bruno Roger. List of museums in Paris Anon.. Chefs d'œuvre du Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris: Musée des Arts Décoratifs, ISBN 2-08-012043-3 Brunhammer, Yvonne. Le beau dans l'utile: Un musée pour les arts décoratifs, Paris: Gallimard, ISBN 2-07-053196-1 Salmon, Béatrice. Chefs-d'oeuvre du musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris: Les Arts Décoratifs, ISBN 2901422861 ISBN 978-2901422860 Rawsthorne, Alice. "A Paris Mecca of the decorative arts opens anew", International Herald Tribune, September 3, 2006 Website for Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Women's Wear Daily
Women's Wear Daily is a fashion-industry trade journal sometimes called "the bible of fashion". WWD delivers information and intelligence on changing trends and breaking news in the men and women's fashion and retail industries with a readership composed of retailers, manufacturers, financiers, media executives, advertising agencies and trend makers, it is the flagship publication of Fairchild Fashion Media, owned by Penske Media Corporation. James Fallon is the editorial director of Fairchild Fashion and the publisher of WWD is Paul Jowdy, its editor-in-chief is Miles Socha. The final newsprint edition of WWD was printed on April 24, 2015 as the paper switched to a digital daily format and a weekly print edition was launched on April 29, 2015; the journal was founded by Edmund Fairchild on July 13, 1910 as an outgrowth of the menswear journal Daily News Record. The publication acquired a firm standing in the New York clothing industry, due to the influence of its first advertisers, including the Philadelphia and New York Wanamaker's, an esteemed group of fashion journalists who included Edith Rosenbaum Russell, who served as Women's Wear Daily's first Paris correspondent.
Apart from her work for the paper, Rosenbaum was a leading freelance fashion buyer, a pioneering celebrity stylist and a press attaché for the powerful Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture Parisienne. Though WWD's lesser reporters were sometimes assigned to the last row of couture shows—a sign of the newspaper's specialized appeal within the American garment trade—the paper realized greater popular appeal by the late 1950s. John Fairchild, who became the European bureau chief of Fairchild Publications in 1955 and the publisher of WWD in 1960, improved WWD's standing by focusing on the human side of fashion, he turned his newspaper's attention to the social scene of fashion designers and their clients, helped manufacture a "cult of celebrity" around designers. Fairchild played hardball to help his circulation. After two couturiers forbade press coverage until one month after buyers had seen their clothes, Fairchild published photos and sketches anyway, he sent reporters to fashion houses disguised as messengers, or had them observe designers' new styles from windows of buildings opposite fashion houses.
"I have learned in fashion to be a little savage," he wrote in his memoir. John Fairchild was publisher of the magazine from 1960 to 1996. Under Fairchild, the company's feuds were legendary; when a designer's statements or work offended Fairchild, he would retaliate, sometimes banning any reference to them in his newspaper for years at a stretch. The newspaper famously sparred with Hubert de Givenchy, Cristóbal Balenciaga, John Weitz, Azzedine Alaia, Perry Ellis, Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, Bill Blass, Geoffrey Beene, James Galanos, Mollie Parnis, Oscar de la Renta, Norman Norell, among others. In response, some designers forbade their representatives from speaking to WWD reporters or disinvited WWD reporters from their fashion shows. In general, those excluded "kept their mouths shut and it on the chin." When designer Pauline Trigère, excluded from the paper for three years, took out a full-page advertisement protesting the ban in the fashion section of a 1988 New York Times Magazine, it was believed to be the first distributed counterattack on Fairchild's policy.
In 1999, Fairchild Publications was sold by the Walt Disney Company to Advance Publications, the parent company of Condé Nast Publications. As a result, Fairchild Publications became a unit of Condé Nast, though WWD was technically operated separately from Condé Nast's consumer publications such as Vogue and Glamour. In November 2010, WWD celebrated its 100th anniversary at the Cipriani in New York, with some of the fashion industry's leading experts including designers Alber Elbaz, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors. On August 19, 2014, Conde Nast sold Women's Wear Daily to Penske Media Corporation; the purchase by PMC included WWD's sister publications Footwear News, Menswear, M Magazine, Beauty Inc as well as Fairchild's events business for a sale price close to $100 million. On April 12, 2015, Women's Wear Daily announced on their website that they will launch a weekly print format from April 23 on. A Daily Digital edition of WWD is available to subscribers. On July 20, 2015, Penske Media Corporation and Tribune Publishing Company announced that WWD will appear on LATimes.com and will be distributed to select Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, Chicago Tribune and Sun-Sentinel subscribers 12 times per year.
Isadore Barmash. Fashion, Retailing and a Bygone Era: Inside Women's Wear Daily—A Look Back. Baltimore, MD: Beard Books. ISBN 1-58798-269-2. WWD.com FootwearNews.com
Anouk Aimée
Anouk Aimée is a French film actress, who has appeared in 70 films since 1947, having begun her film career at age 14. In her early years she studied acting and dance besides her regular education. Although the majority of her films were French, she made a number of films in Spain, Great Britain and Germany, along with some American productions. Among her films are Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, after which she was considered a "rising star who exploded" onto the film world, she subsequently acted in Fellini's 8½, Jacques Demy's Lola, George Cukor's Justine, Bernardo Bertolucci's Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man and Robert Altman's Prêt à Porter. She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her acting in A Man and a Woman; the film "virtually reignited the lush on-screen romance in an era of skeptical modernism," and brought her international fame. She won the Award for Best Actress at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.
In 2002 she received France's national film award. Aimée was noted for her "striking features" and beauty, considered "one of the hundred sexiest stars in film history," according to a 1995 poll conducted by Empire Magazine, she has portrayed a femme fatale with a melancholy aura. In the 1960s, Life magazine wrote that "after each picture her enigmatic beauty lingered" in the memories of her audience, called her "the Left Bank's most beautiful resident." Aimée was born Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus in Paris, the daughter of actor Henri Murray and actress Geneviève Sorya. According to one historian, although some have speculated that her background may be related to Captain Alfred Dreyfus, this has never been confirmed, her father was Jewish. She was raised Catholic but converted to Judaism as an adult, her early education took place in Paris. She studied dance at Marseille Opera. Aimée made her film debut in 1946, at the age of fourteen, in the role of "Anouk" in La Maison sous la mer, she kept the name afterwards.
Jacques Prévert, while writing Les amants de Vérone for her, suggested she take the symbolic last name Aimée, "that would forever associate her with the affective power of her screen roles." In French, it means "beloved."Among her notable films were Alexandre Astruc's Le Rideau Cramoisi, Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, Fellini's 8½, Jacques Demy's Lola, André Delvaux's Un Soir, un Train, George Cukor's Justine, Bernardo Bertolucci's Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man, Robert Altman's Prêt à Porter and, Claude Lelouch's Un Homme et une femme — described as a "film that reignited the lush on-screen romance in an era of skeptical modernism." Words like "regal," "intelligent" and "enigmatic" are associated with her, notes one author, giving Aimée "an aura of disturbing and mysterious beauty" that has earned her the status of "one of the hundred sexiest stars in film history," according to a 1995 poll conducted by Empire Magazine. Because of her "striking features" and her beauty, she has been compared to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Film historian Ginette Vincendeau notes that Aimée's films "established her as an ethereal and fragile beauty with a tendency to tragic destinies or restrained suffering."Her abilities as an actress and the photogenic qualities of her face, its "fine lines, expression of elation and a suggestive gaze," helped her achieve success in her early films. Among those were Pot-Bouille, Les Amants de Montparnasse (The Lovers of Montparnasse, La tête contre les murs. Besides the French cinema, Aimée's career include a number of films made in Spain, Great Britain and Germany, she achieved worldwide attention in Lola. She appeared again in Fellini's 81⁄2, would remain in Italy during the first half of the 1960s, making films for a number of Italian directors; because of her role in La Dolce Vita, biographer Dave Thompson describes Aimée as a "rising star who exploded" onto the film world. He adds that singer-songwriter Patti Smith, who in her teens saw the film, began to idolize her, "dreamed of being an actress like Aimée."Aimée's greatest success came in 1966 with the film Un homme et une femme directed by little known Claude Lelouch.
Due to the excellent acting by its stars, Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant, the film became an international success, winning both the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1966 and an Oscar. Tabery states that with her "subtle portrayal of the heroine—self-protective succumbing to a new love—Aimée seemed to create a new kind of femme fatale..."Film historian Jurgen Muller adds, "whether one like the film or not, it's still hard for anyone to resist the melancholy aura of Anouk Aimée." In many of her subsequent films, she would continue to play that type of role, "a woman of sensitivity whose emotions are kept secret."In 1969 she starred in the American film production of Justine, costarring Dirk Bogarde and directed by George Cukor and Joseph Strick. The film contained some nudity, with one writer observing, "Anouk is always impeccable, oozing
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, its supplementary status to the Ordre national du Mérite was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant contributions to the arts, literature, or the propagation of these fields, its origin is attributed to the Order of Saint-Michel. French government guidelines stipulate that citizens of France must be at least thirty years old, respect French civil law, must have, "significantly contributed to the enrichment of the French cultural inheritance" to be considered for award. Membership is not, limited to French nationals. Foreign recipients are admitted into the Order, "without condition of age"; the Order has three grades: Commandeur — medallion worn on necklet. Officier — medallion worn on ribbon with rosette on left breast. Chevalier — medallion worn on ribbon on left breast; the médaille of the Order is an eight-point, green-enameled asterisk, in gilt for Commanders and Officers and in silver for Knights.
The reverse central disc features the head of Marianne on a golden background, surrounded by a golden ring bearing the words "Ordre des Arts et des Lettres". The Commander's badge is topped by a gilt twisted ring; the ribbon of the Order is green with four white stripes. According to the statutes of the Order, French citizens must wait a minimum of 5 years before they are eligible to be upgraded from Chevalier to Officier, or Officier to Commandeur, must have displayed additional meritorious deeds than just those which made them a Chevalier. However, in the statutes there is a clause saying "Les Officiers et les Commandeurs de la Légion d'honneur peuvent être directement promus à un grade équivalent dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres"; this means that were someone to be made Officier of the Legion of Honour the next year that person can be made directly Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters and by pass a nomination as knight and the five-year rule. Ribbons of the French military and civil awards Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec, a Quebec order based in part on the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres "Nominations dans l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres".
Ministère de la culture, France. 2007. Retrieved 6 February 2009
