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judy smith Nov 2016
Before the hordes of his extended fashion family descended on Somerset House last night, Sam McKnight was pacing through the two floors of an exhibition of his life as one of the great sessions hairstylists. He stopped in front of a formal British Vogue portrait of Princess Diana, taken by Patrick Demarchelier in 1990. “I put on the tiara and had to make her hair big for it,” he remembered. “But, oh, God, then we had such an amazing day afterward. We were chatting and she suddenly asked, ‘If you could do anything, what would you do?’ And I said, ‘I’d cut it off!’ And she said, ‘Well, let’s do it now!’”

Thus, Diana, Princess of Wales, got the best slicked-back look of her life, the cut that defined her chic, grown-up, independent years—and her cutoff from her marriage. “I didn’t realize at the time,” McKnight said, “but in retrospect, with everything that was going on in the background, she wanted a change.” McKnight, after that, became Diana’s entrusted hairdresser. As photographer Nick Knight puts it elsewhere in the show, McKnight has that general effect on women when he’s working. “When he goes near the girls, they relax.”

It’s a testament to McKnight’s popularity in the magazine and fashion show milieu he has worked in since 1977—nearly 40 years!—that so many (who are sometimes so difficult) cooperated and gave permission, and that Chanel and Vivienne Westwood lent spectacular clothes to illustrate the interpretive cut and ****** of what a great hairstylist contributes. Straightaway, as you step off the street into the exhibition, you’re plunged into the next best thing to a backstage hair-and-makeup station and the kind of frenetic scene that goes on minutes before Chanel, Fendi,Dries Van Noten, or Balmain shows take to the runway. In place of the mirrors there are videos—say, of Kendall Jenner getting her Balmain hair look at a recent presentation—which have been recorded by GoPros worn by McKnight’s assistants. Every facet and every angle of the transformations—sometimes with four pairs of hands working on one girl’s hair—are captured.

From then on in, it’s easy to see how this exhibition will become a magnet for kids who want to experience the atmosphere of fashion and worship at a temple of a sublime hair alchemist. Shonagh Marshall, the curator at Somerset House, has run the numbers on the hairstylist’s Vogue covers, many of which are displayed on a faux newsstand. “Sam has been involved with 190 Vogue covers, which is more than any one photographer, or anyone else over that time,” she reported.

That’s not bad for a Scottish lad, born the son of a miner in 1955, who made his way to being a central team player with photographers and editors in the high supermodel years. Glorious images of Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington,Cindy Crawford, and Tatjana Patitz abound. “It was a golden era. We were on the road the whole time with Patrick Demarchelier, traveling the world with the same 10 people,” McKnight said, laughing. “We were making it up as we went along, really.”

The massive sweep of the show brings out the important collaborations of his career, with photographers Demarchelier, Knight, Tim Walker, and more; with fashion editors Lucinda Chambers and Edward Enninful; and makeup artists Mary Greenwell and Val Garland. It’s studded with celebrity—Lady Gaga, Tilda Swinton, Kylie Minogue—and honors the spectacular shape-shifting talents of Kate Moss, from her early days as a fresh tousle-haired ’90s teen in love on a beach: “Johnny Depp was there,” McKnight recalled.

There are the moments when McKnight changed models’ fates with short, blonde crops—Jeny Howorth’s in the ’80s and Agyness Deyn’s in the aughts. We see his process, with the hairpieces, wigs, and frizzing techniques integral to creating Westwood and Chanel shows, in both videos and installations masterfully laid out by Michael Howells. Right at the end, there’s a room Howells describes as “Sam the Man,” the walls checkerboarded with pictures of flowers from his garden and the ridiculous varieties of wigs he poses in on his Instagram feed these days. It’s testament to the energy and humor of a talent happily adapted to an industry that is constantly working on the new, in the now; an inspirational treat for all those who remember and for all the many thousands of young eyes that will be opened for the first time by this extravagant journey through one man’s career.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses
Bruce Levine Aug 2018
I had a daydream
That I was transported back
To Old New York.
But the time was confused,
The eras overlapping.
Was I a New York Knickerbocker
Or a Gilded Age socialite?
Were my friends the Theodore Roosevelts
Or Mrs. Astor, the Vanderbilts,
Carnegies, Howells or Upton Sinclair?
With Gilded Age manners
And pride in couture.
Was I living on Washington Square
Or in a Fifth Avenue mansion?
The confusion was scary
And my timeline divided.
And yet there was something
That comforted me, held me
Like a blanket.
Society changes
But dreams are everlasting.
And Old New York remains a mem’ry;
Painting a picture,
Holding a candle, a gaslamp, a light
To brighten the moments
With happier eras,
And flights of imagination
Of times out of sight.
As Old New York remembers
The passage of time
That rekindles our passion
For elegance and splendor;
That brings on the daydreams
That remain Old New York.
Abby C Jul 2018
My journal is where I keep my  thoughts,
Of you, and him, and me,
But you don’t know what I say,
Or how mean I can be.
I write about what you did,
And how it really hurt,
About the time you were smiling,
When you left me in the dirt.
Sometimes I write the good things,
Like the day we first met,
Then I remember how cruel you are,
So I drink to forget.
Do you think just because,
You try to beat me senseless,
That I will run away and hide,
Or run away defenseless?
I’ve called you things, I have to say,
Are not PG-13,
Just to try and get revenge,
And destroy your self esteem.
No Mrs. Howells, this isn’t true,
It’s just some made up stuff
But if you know me all too well,
You’ve already caught my bluff.
Now I’ll give you time to ponder,
To try and make a guess.
Alright you want the answer!
Well, I think it’s for the best,
If I keep their name inside,
The pages of a book.
But by all means, if you’re curious…
Go ahead and take a look.

— The End —