Gigi

Audrey and Colette. 'Audrey Hepburn: an elegant spirit' by Sean Hepburn Ferrar  (Sidgwick and Jackson, 2003)

www.hepburntribute.com

my  version

Hey Audrey

I hope I didn't offend you by my rant about film adaptions of literature. Colette herself thought you were the perfect Gigi (staged in the United States back in 1951), and I'm sure you were. It must have been such a lovely surprise to have been spotted by a great writer in the foyer of a hotel, and the next thing, one is offered to play the lead in a Broadway play. I found this lovely cover design for the play, and I took the liberty to change it just a bit, I couldn't help myself. I am quite certain that the body text in the original version is also Avenir. Avenir was designed by the great Swiss type designer, Adrian Frutiger. If you were a typeface,  Audrey, you'd be Avenir.

PS. Do you also feel like drinking hot chocolate every time you read something by Colette?

True romance?

www.americanmemorabilia.com

www.moviewallpaper.net

Hey Audrey

I know that you've acted in plays and movies based on novels, so I don't know how you'd feel about this. I recently watched 'The painted veil' (2006, directed by John Curran), and had a similar deeply emotional experience as years before when I saw the 'The English Patient' (1996, directed by Anthony Minghella). Both films were stunning, well acted and visually breathtaking. Epic dramas, set in exotic locations, that filled my head with all sorts of dangerous romantic notions. And of course the leading men: Edward Nortan in 'Veil' and Ralph Fiennes in 'English Patient': both heart-fluttering-dry-throat-jelly-knees-can't focus  hot hot hot men. In both instances I rushed off, bought the novels (written by W Somerset Maugham and Michael Ondaatje respectively) and eagerly started devouring them. In both instances I felt cheated by the films: the important themes in the novels had but little to do with the tragic love stories so beautifully depicted in the films. The films made me cry, but the books made me think, and think again. I wonder, does Hollywood not 'get' what the books are really about, or do screenwriters have to side step the real stuff in the novels, and flesh out the romantic love stuff so that we would actually watch the films....? How sad and stupid we are. Audrey, the novels are so much more.

Judging a book by its cover

Hey Audrey

Did you like reading novels? I'm sure you've read many a script in your day, but novels are different ( I think). Books are good friends. I love reading them, and I obsess about their covers. Like these ones, both novels by W. Somerset Maugham. (what an author, wow!) I stare at these two covers for hours, trying to decide if I prefer the Modern Library's photographic treatment, or the simple illustrative version by Vintage. Which one do you like?

A good pump is hard to find

Hey Audrey

I know that you were also a huge fan of the ballerina pump, and other cute low heeled shoe specimens. Certainly because you were energetic and a dancer, and flats are so much easier and more comfortable to move around in. Apparently you were also quite tall and wore flats to not tower above the men in your life. Funny how we're always tiptoeing around the male ego. Any way, my favourite pumps are from Coast& Koi (www.coastandkoi.com). They're hand-made, imperfect, stylish and last for ages.

Saturday morning favourites

Hey Audrey

Saturday mornings can be delicious! I love munching my yummy guilt-free ginger and raspberry cereal from Woolies (www.peacecereal.com) whilst deciding guiltily that I won't be seen dead in this summer's sky high stacked heels, no matter what Elle says. (www.ellemagazine.co.za)

Donkeys and deers

'Audrey Style' by Pamela Clarke Keogh (Aurum Press, 1999)

'Audrey Hepburn: an elegant spirit' by Sean Hepburn Ferrar  (Sidgwick and Jackson, 2003)

Hey Audrey

Fortunately you don't seem a judgmental person, therefore you won't think my Venus rather conventional, being more of a donkey/deer/dog person yourself.

Once, when she was still an unknown cabaret actress and dancer, Audrey adopted a stray cat and called it Tomorrow. 

(From 'Audrey Hepburn', by Barry Paris, Orion Books 1996)

Two for the road

Hey Audrey

Before we progress any further with this relationship, I have to introduce you to my sidekick, Venus. She is a lady with a mind of her own, which is just one of the many reasons I love her.

my work, Remnants of longing

Hey Audrey

I am sorry if my previous note created this impression, but I am not the kind of person who takes random photos of my linen. It was actually for an exhibition invitation. Both Liesl and I created pieces that dealt with our emotional connections with technology. Making the invitation was definitely my favourite part of the whole to-do.

Wash your linen

Hey Audrey

I hate dirty linen, the kind that one sometimes finds on a makeshift holiday bed, but also the emotional kind. It makes one feel just as dirty. I know that linen getting dirty is inevitable, but that is what washing machines are for. Sometimes sheets get stained, and one can’t get the stain out without rubbing a hole in the linen, but a stain is not necessarily dirty.

“The sheets were white and felt slightly starched; he imagined that they smelled of fresh air and even the sea-salt. He moved down into their clean whiteness, scissoring his legs like a swimmer, abandoning himself to them, floating free.” (From ‘Possession,’  a novel by AS Byatt, so beautifully written it makes my heart ache. It also won the Booker Prize.)