Claire de Rouen

Claire de Rouen, the doyenne of fashion and photography books, has died after a long illness. I first met Claire in the late seventies at the Photographer's Gallery, where she was an eternal presence behind the counter that served as the diminutive bookshop in their Newport Street premises. To this day, I regret the non-purchase of a Minor White monograph which Claire predicted 'would become extremely sought after in years to come, darling'.

During the eighties and for most of the nineties, she was the force behind the photography and fashion department at the original Zwemmer bookshop in Charing Cross Road. Her breathtaking knowledge of the subjects made her the icon of fashion students and famous photographers alike. I had the pleasure of working with her during her short-lived tenure with Shipley Art Booksellers. It is however, for the shop that proceeded this period that she will best be remembered. She was afforded the governance of a small premises on the first floor of a sex shop at the Tottenham Court Road end of Charing Cross Road, and it soon became a mecca for the faithful as well as the neophite to the world of photography and fashion. The shop was easy to miss, but a discreet neon sign in the window directed the determined to their destination like a beacon. It flourished as much by word of mouth as any website, and garnered a reputation among a dedicated cognoscenti for whom Claire's advice was paramount. With her trademark bob and a fringe that skimmed those smokey, intriguing eyes, Claire's dress-sense was immaculate; her look was timeless and never disappointed. Usually sat by the till, her faithful pug Otis curled beneath the desk, she would direct customers to whatever newly-published book she thought might suit their needs and tastes, but often, she simply delighted at your own discoveries amidst the stock. Seldom resorting to the shop's database, she knew her books by heart, with rarities temptingly encased in a vitrine which were never priced but which she would be more than happy to let you examine. Collectors were legion, and giants of the photography world sought her out when they were in town. Bruce Weber was a regular visitor, and Claire was an early advocate and seller of his monographs. David Bailey was a huge fan, stating that Claire's was 'probably the best photography bookshop in the world' and it was Bob Carlos Clark who persuaded her to open premises under her own name.

Born Claire Alphandri in Alexandria in the early thirties, her age was always a notoriously-guarded secret. She attended art school in London and married Reid de Rouen in the 1950s. She met John Nichol in the mid 1980's, and they lived and worked together until her death this week. Claire was passionate about the things she loved, and kept her manicured finger firmly on the fashion pulse of her time. Her mystery and allure added greatly to the shop's atmosphere. She was a tireless champion of young photographers and fashion students (the newly-graduated Alexander McQueen adored her) and she often displayed their work in the stairwell gallery adjacent to the shop. Her stock of fashion and photography magazines from around the world was unrivalled.

Claire de Rouen books will continue without her, but her legacy will live on there for as long as it remains open, as I trust it will for many years to come. The world will be poorer without her, and her throne within the pantheon of fashion and photography will remain unoccupied. It was a privilege to have known her.

The Lion Roars in Rye

William Morris's epithet of having nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful has never seemed more apposite than in the case of The Lion Street Store in Rye, East Sussex. Owned and operated by former milliner Sarah Benton, the shop has been open only a few short months, but it has clearly already attracted a huge following which spreads far beyond the ancient Cinque Port town. Situated just down from the historic St Mary's church which crowns the Rye skyline, Sarah has created a light and airy space and stocked it with objects of desire which are a feast for the eyes and the senses. The best in contemporary-designed items effortlessly blend with carefully-chosen vintage pieces, all of them bought together with an assured sensibility which makes the shop such a mecca for all who hanker for the unique and the unusual in their home. With all the panache of a Bawden vignette for Fortnum and Mason, Nicholas Frith's masterful logo of the sailors and the friendly lion perfectly captures the mood of the shop, as elsewhere, fabric dolls by Jane Foster and textiles by Lisa Stickley sit alongside one-off toy theatres by Emily Warren. Knitted creatures by Donna Wilson become the outriders in a vintage Triang truck, whilst distressed children's desks open to reveal their treasures. Sarah shares with her customers a passion for the miraculous images of the likes of Robert Taverner and Edwin La Dell, and the card racks overspill with the cream of British 20th-century printmakers. Wire baskets are packed with handwoven Irish blankets, fashioned from recycled wool, whilst elsewhere are screen-printed boy and girl-shaped cushions that somehow evoke the days of 'Look and Learn' and the Ladybird series of books so beloved of our childhoods. In the coming months, Sarah hopes that the store will become a regular venue for literary and musical events, and is keen to organise one-off specialist exhibitions of artists and craftspeople. With a contemporary eye fixed firmly on the sensibilities of similar institutions such as St Jude's Gallery, Loop in Islington and Old Town in Holt, Sarah's conviction that people deserve to have the very best in British art and craft is everywhere evinced at the Lion Street Store. The ancient town of Rye has never seemed so fortunate to have this newcomer in her midst; I urge you to beat a path to its' lovely painted portal.

The Lion Street Store. 6 Lion Street, Rye, East Sussex TN31 7LB
www.lionstreetstore.com

Drella does Rainer: Warhol's poster for Fassbinder's 'Querelle'

Andy Warhol's poster for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1982 film adaptation of Genet's 'Querelle of Brest' uses an original photograph culled from a 1977 series of screenprints entitled Sex Parts, and remains one of his most potent and memorable images. Now highly desirable by collectors, the original poster was issued in a number of colours (pictured is the grey version), and despite Warhol's interpretation bearing no direct reference to the film itself, somehow retrospectively at least, succeeds in being thoroughly synonymous with Fassbinder's vision of Genet's 1946 novel. The film was Fassbinder's last, and European distributors in particular, released a plethora of promotional material, from giant 7-sheet billboard images to artfully-airbrushed portraits of Brad Davies, who played Genet's eponymous murdering sailor-hero. Warhol's photographic image of two boys is overdrawn in his customary style with off-register lines and blocks of colour, and possibly recalls the characters of Querelle's brother Robert, and Gil, his fellow matelot and murderer. Frank Episale, in his riveting review 'Genet meets Fassbinder' in Bright Lights Film Journal, states that 'Genet's Querelle bought Melville's Billy Budd out of the closet and exposed the coded homoeroticism of the all-male naval vessel inhabited by men and boys in tight white pants to a wider, largely heterosexual audience'. Fassbinder's film pays visual homage to James Bidgood's 1971 American underground arthouse classic Pink Narcissus, in which a handsome male hustler fantasizes about a kitsch universe where he is the central character in a number of set-piece encounters. By extension, the gay French photographic duo Pierre and Gilles owe a debt to Bidgood's fantasy-world by placing their protagonists in a number of highly-wrought and glitteringly-enchanted settings where there is more than a nod to Genet's muscular matelots in all their campy eroticism. Fassbinder's set for Querelle is highly stylized and uses overly-wrought lighting techniques reminiscent of those which he employed in Lola a year earlier. Frames are shot within frames, and the misty murk of Brest is re-imagined with phallic towers and dark culverts where lurk and lean the denizens of Genet's twilight world. Episale concludes his review by reminding us that by the time the film was released, 'Susan Sontag had already published Notes on Camp, Stonewall had come and gone', and that '[The Village People's] YMCA had been appropriated by wedding DJ's'.

Pryde of Place: The Beggarstaff Brothers and 'Don Quixote'

Arguably the finest of all the poster designs created by William Nicholson and James Pryde, working under the aegis of the Beggarstaff Brothers, was for a play entitled A Chapter from Don Quixote which opened at the Lyceum Theatre on 4th May 1895 with Sir Henry Irving in the title role. The production, based on an incident in Cervante's novella, consisted of two scenes contrived out of an adaption by W.G.Wills, but as it was not deemed sufficient for a night's entertainment, it formed part of a triple-bill. Convinced that Cervantes was worthy of more serious treatment than that conceived by Irving for the play (in attempt to divert the audience's attention from the poverty in Cervantes' text, Irving included extravagantly comic antics and slapstick elements in the narrative), the Beggarstaffs introduced the dramatic graphic device of the windmill in place of the village pump, around which the main action of the play took place in the second scene. Their authentic depiction of Rosinante, Quixote's horse, replaced a more robust creature (a veteran of the London stage) that Irving attempted to make more pathetic by the use of make-up to replicate the fictional creature's emaciated look. The Beggarstaffs made three separate versions of the Don Quixote poster. The first, dating from 1895, was a collage that lay for many years in Nicholson's studio before being acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The second version was then superceded by one that was later published in the 1896 edition of The Idler, and the third- a simplified version of the first two- was presented to Irving, whom, it was said, thought it too bold a design for use on London theatre hoardings. Pryde later claimed in his autobiography that not only did Irving commission him and Nicholson to design the poster, he paid them a hundred pounds for the result.

The Beggarstaff design for Don Quixote poster remains one of the most iconic images in British graphic history. Colin Campbell, the leading authority on the graphic work of Nicholson and the Beggarstaff Brothers, refers to the poster as the earliest large-scale work in which 'the lettering was conceived as part of the composition from the very beginning'. The poster design also shows the full impact on Pryde and Nicholson of Toulouse-Lautrec, for whom their admiration was boundless at the time. Pryde was quoted in The Idler as saying that Lautrec was 'one of the few artists who understand what a poster is and should be'. The French artist's design for La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge of 1891 was of particular significance to Pryde and Nicholson, and showed how flat, ungradated masses of colour could artfully be combined with line, and how light and dark forms could be contrasted as a key component of the overall design. Lautrec had also demonstrated the decorative potential of a simple black mass as a means of enhancing the pictorial interest in the work, and in turn, the Beggarstaff poster for Don Quixote displays this to stunning effect, particularly in the contrasting form of the horse's head juxtaposed against the dark hulk of the windmill, and the way in which the liminality of the sails are cut off by the extremities of the design.

I Was a Boy Dalek

The Dalek Playsuit is an enduring memory and, given the plethora of Dr. Who-related merchandise that has resulted from the programme's phenomenal rebranding and re-invention, it seems that this particular item of early Dalek merchandise is one that tends to remain in the minds of those of us who are of a certain vintage, and for whom Saturday evenings were spent cowering behind the couch with delight and terror in equal measure. I was particularly struck to see this advertisement from an old Marshall Ward mail order catalogue, as doubtless, it was the very same one that caught my childhood eye and possessed my every waking hour all those many years ago, so much so that my beleaguered mother was driven to distraction by my constant badgering until it was sent away for (and at the outrageous cost of 66/6. it must have been intended to be a gift for several birthdays and Christmases combined). Let's face it, in the light perhaps of today's more finely-tuned aesthetic sensibilities, the Dalek Playsuit was, by anyone's standards, a superannuated bin bag, through which a sink plunger was thrust through one hole, a plastic potato-peeler through the other. It came down to just below the knees (despite the floor-length apparition we see in this somewhat overstated illustration) and lent the wearer the appearance of being clad in a futuristic mini-dress such as Courreges might have dreamt up for the catwalk. The head-piece was fashioned from stout cardboard, silvered on the outside, and with a series of die-cut slits through which one just about saw the direction of travel; the 'skirt' hung down from its base, whilst that dome was a sort of inverted saucer that sat on your head like a coolie-hat. The eye-piece was fixed, and was basically a large ping-pong ball on a stick. The colour of the skirt was red, and the trademark 'balls' on the Dalek's skirt were printed in white. I more or less lived in it (again, much to the frustration of my poor mother, who later decreed its fate) and when I decided to leave home, aged probably about eight or nine, it was my going-away outfit. I would like to imagine that to this day, there might be some soul who retains a glimmer of recollection that, whilst driving in Sussex in the sixties, they glimpsed the apparition of a Dalek wandering down the central reservation of the A22 like a revenant from a dream. Miraculously, I got as far as the pig-farm (the marmalade sandwiches having by then run out by then, thus posing something of a dilemma as regards supplies for any ongoing journey), whereupon I was duly returned on the back of the farmer's tractor (again, this must have been something of a sight to an unwitting onlooker). The days were numbered for the Dalek playsuit: my mother, at her wit's end, finally consigned it to the flames of our kitchen Raeburn on the very night of the Royal Variety Performance when the Beatles were blazing their own trail before the Queen of England. This act of iconoclasm on her part proved a step too far, as it set fire to the chimney at the exact moment the Fab Four took to the stage. A postscript. I am reliably informed that any Dalek playsuit that has survived (either flood or fire) commands huge prices on the vintage market; six to eight hundred of anyone's money, and that no one I know has ever seen one offered for sale, nor as a collector, possessed one in adulthood.

A Child's Christmas in Wales

As Christmas tails away for another year, here are two spreads and the cover from a charming little edition of 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' by Dylan Thomas. Printed by the Belmont Press, Northampton for J.M. Dent and Sons, the book was first published in the United Kingdom in 1968, an earlier edition being issued in the U.S. in 1954. It features beautiful woodcut vignettes by Ellen Raskin, which perfectly compliment Dylan's evocative account of a Welsh childhood Christmas. The image of the town with its cloud/constellation- the heavens above it and the sea beneath- is wonderful, as is the laterr vignette of toy soldiers standing guard by a towering glass epergne of sweets, and elswhere, a roaring fire with flaggons and mistletoe. This classic work for children ends with the following stanza:

'Looking through my bedroom window, out into
the moonlight and the unending smoke-coloured snow,
I could see the lights in the windows
of all the other homes on our hill and hear
the music rising from them up the long, steadily
falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and
holy darkness, and then I slept'

Pet Shop Puginesque

This Gothic psalm-board was made for me by Russell Thomas, and hangs in the stairwell of my house. The quotation is from 'West End Girls' by the Pet Shop Boys, and it is a line that has always intrigued me. My initial thought was to have it embroidered on a sampler in the Victorian style. I then considered a more oblique treatment, with aircraft carriers and spitfires on a cushion cover, the stanza perhaps picked out in Trajan a la Ian Hamilton Finlay. It was Russell who came up with the notion of a psalm-board such as would display hymn numbers to a congregation of church-goers. Fittingly, the frame is fashioned from an old pew-end, the gold-leaf lettering laid on a granite ground. The typeface is Sirona, which lends the piece its pleasing quality, particularly the kerning on the R and the K, as well as the caps on the A and N, and the G is as Gothic as it comes. I adore the enigma of this couplet, coming as it does at the end of this classic eighties electro ballad with its haunting 'How far have you been?' vocal rejoinder. I once glimpsed the Finland Station from the window of a coach bound for Leningrad, and to this day, wonder just what motivated Messrs. Tennant and Lowe to fashion such a wonderful lyric as this.