Venus Williams and Her Two Companies

Was I the only one who didn't know tennis champion Venus Williams owns not only a fashion design business but also an interior design company?  I knew she designed some of the tennis outfits she's worn at the French Open and other tournaments.  But I was surprised to learn during her interview with Rita Braver on the CBS Sunday Morning show a couple of days ago that Williams has been designing other kinds of women's clothing as well.  And her interior design company has designed a number of  apartments in New York City and Miami. 

Her clothing design company is named EleVen.  And her interior design company, of which she is CEO, is V Starr Interiors. 

When asked why she gave her fashion design company the name EleVen, Williams said, "Because it's one more than ten."  Good answer.

Williams has a degree in fashion, and she indicated in the interview a couple of days ago that when an autoimmune disorder slowed her down, she took advantage of the free time to start the two new businesses.

Models of Color in the New Yves St. Laurent Bio Pic

The movie about the life of French designer Yves Saint Laurent (Aug. 1936 – June, 2008), released this summer, seems real and truthful.  It seems truthful not only in its portrayal of the physical image and personality of Yves St. Laurent (Pierre Niney), but also in its portrayal of Saint Laurent’s passion for both fashion design and his business partner, Pierre Bergé (Guillaume  Gallienne), whom he met in 1958.
    

The film is also truthful in terms of director Jalil Lespert’s use of runway models of color that Yves Saint Laurent himself used to model his fashions on the runway back in the 1970s and ‘80s.  In fact, Saint Laurent was one of the first fashion designers to employ models of color.

Kirat

Mounia

Models of color in the Yves Saint Laurent movie are:  Pat Cleveland, an African American; Kirat, a copper-hued American of Indian descent; and Mounia, a French Caribbean model.

For my readers who are interested in viewing the movie Yves Saint. Laurent, it may still be playing in a theater near you.  If you miss seeing it in a theater, you might see it on cable or as a video. 

 

About the Movie 'Midnight in Paris'

A few years ago, I wrote the following piece about my experience getting to a local theater and viewing the film Midnight in Paris. The piece was well received at a previous blog site, so I've decided to share it with my Paris Related Pieces readers.  Also, I want to say here that in Midnight in Paris, Josephine Baker was played by French actor Sonia Rolland, who is of African and French parents.  Rolland was born in Kigali, Rwanda, from a Rwandese mother, Landrada, and a French father, Jacques.

 

   

       

                                          GIVING MIDNIGHT IN PARIS A CHANCE

When the new Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris opened in Washington, DC, on the last Friday in May, I headed downtown to catch the E Street Cinema's earliest showing of it for that day: 12Noon. Since the theatre's doors were not open at 11:30, I went to purchase a bite to eat at AuBon Pain, a nearby café. I ordered a croissant and a cup of coffee, which I enjoyed very much, especially since I had not taken time to have breakfast at home.

After leaving the café a few minutes before Noon, I walked a couple of blocks to the theatre. The dim auditorium was less than half full, but I wasn't surprised: It was Noon and a work day for many people. The evening and nighttime audiences would probably fill the place if the patrons turned out to be both Francophiles and fans of actor-writer-director Woody Allen.

Although I was not a fan of previous films made by Woody Allen, I wanted to give Midnight in Paris a chance for two reasons: (1) I had enjoyed some older movies in which I'd seen this movie's stars, namely Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and Marion Cotillard, and I wanted to see if I would enjoy their work just as much in this one; and (2) I wanted to find out if "Midnight in Paris" really puts the viewer in Paris. Following is what I found out.

Midnight in Paris puts the viewer in Paris from the start of the film, as images of the city amble across the screen behind beginning credits, and while jazz trumpeter Sidney Bechet is playing "Si Tu Vois Ma Mere;" And it keeps the viewer in Paris throughout the story, so much so that the city itself becomes a character.

Other outstanding characters in the film are Gil (Owen Wilson), a disenchanted Hollywood screenwriter-turned-novelist, and Adriana (Marion Cotillard), Picasso's mistress and one of many people Gil encounters during his nightly jaunts to his favorite golden era, the 1920s.

In the present, Gil is in Paris with his girlfriend Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her parents, conservative Republicans in Paris on business. At night while Inez is dining, dancing, and otherwise hanging out with her parents and a couple of old friends she bumps into, Gil is traveling back in time to the 1920s and hanging out with Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and others of the so called Lost Generation during the time known as The Jazz Age. Gil also enjoys Cole Porter's music and he encounters Josephine Baker and other extraordinarily talented expatriates.

Midnight in Paris, the 2011 Cannes Film Festival opener is sometimes light and breezy, other times gray and melancholy, but it's almost always romantic, and it ends as it probably should: Gil finds real love with a girl in present-day Paris; and after breaking up with Inez and her parents permanently, he remains in the City of Light and starts living his dream in the 21st Century.

Essays about Paris in Notes of a Native Son

  

 

 

Recently I opened Notes of a Native Son (originally published in 1955), by one of America's greatest writers, James Baldwin (1924 - 1987).  The Francophile in me made me turn first in this book of essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and Americans abroad to the two essays about his experiences in Paris, France.  As I was reading Baldwin's Paris essays, I was thinking how sad that his early relationship with the City of Light could not have been more positive.  However, as a quote on the Fantastic Quotes page of this blog states, "Everyone develops his or her own personal relationship with Paris."

 

One of Baldwin's two Paris essays, “Equal in Paris” reveals the hard times he had with surviving, adjusting to life, and making friends during his first year in Paris.  In the stark realism of this essay about Baldwin’s personal experiences, there are mentions of various places he frequented, including the historically literary landmark, Café de Flore:

… for as soon as I was out of bed, I hopefully took notebook and fountain pen off to the upstairs room of the Flore, where I consumed rather a lot of coffee, and as evening approached …

There is a general mention of the cafés of St. Germain des Près:

… in one of the cafés of St. Germain des Près, I was discovered by this New Yorker and only because we found ourselves in Paris we immediately established the illusion that we had been fast friends back in the good old U.S.A.

The Gare St. Lazare and Ile de la Cité are also referenced in "Equal in Paris."

The other Paris essay in Notes of a Native Son is titled “Encounter on the Seine:  Black Meets Brown,” which speaks to the differences between Africans’ and American Negroes’ experiences in Paris, based upon the differences in their histories.  Places such as Chez Inez, La Sorbonne, and the Place de la Concorde are mentioned in this essay.  
_______________________________________________________________
*Note:  Baldwin's personal relationship with Paris, France, eventually became better; for he lived in the South of France for most of his later life, and he died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.