The Art of Dressing

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THE ART OF DRESSING

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BEATRIX OST

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Doner Š Michele 2016 Oka Rizzoli International Publications. All Rights Reserved.

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”

—Beatrix Ost

We visit Beatrix in her duplex apartment in one of NYC’s landmark buildings. She greets us with a warm smile and a pot of tea. “Come in,” she beckons, as we enter the spacious living room with its huge windows and art all around, mostly done by Beatrix herself. An artist, sculptor, writer, actress and producer, Beatrix was born in Stuttgart in 1940 and in her youth studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and with the Expressionist artist Oskar Kokoschka in Salzburg, Austria. She tells us that with International Women’s Day coming up next week, someone asked her if she would be their “fierce woman”, a title that sits well with Beatrix. “I am fierce because I am truthful”, she says. “I tell it like it is. You get what you see.”

Whereas her sister was ‘the beauty”, Beatrix was “the brain.” She was the one who made her father, a pessimist, laugh, the one who was praised by him for being the smart one who managed to get paid for modeling at the tender young age of 14. It was her wit that delighted this stern and aloof man who invited little Beatrix into his inner chamber where he retreated daily for an hour or two to take refuge from the hardships of a war he detested and a world gone mad.

“My Father’s House”, Beatrix’s book about growing up in wartime Bavaria on a large estate peopled by family, relatives, and forced laborers came about as a result of Beatrix’s finding a stack of love letters written by her father to her mother during World War II. Her father, an officer in the army, was sent away to Africa to be City and Harbor Commander of Tuburq, Libya where he befriended the local merchants, drank coffee with them and purchased their fabulous wares which he promptly sent back home to Germany. While there, he also became friends with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, one day telling him that this war was lost, a treasonable offense.

Rommel could have easily had him executed but instead sent him home to “feed Germany”, citing a likely nervous breakdown. Hence, Beatrix, since age 3, grew up with both parents around and with being on a farm with food and shelter “all that really mattered” was available to them.

This, too, is when she experienced her first shock of style. Already knowing that she preferred “figure” over “hanging” at the age of 5, she took her father’s tie and tied it around her tiny waist to make the dress her mother put

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on her conform to her body and her taste. And when her two aunts came to visit, dressed in an American officer’s army jacket, flower in their lapels, platform heels and a rakish hat, little Beatrix knew “this is who I am going to be.”

While she easily could have become a designer, she chose to become a painter instead because she knew the commercial side of fashion would totally bore her. The whole notion of what’s in and what’s out and fashion’s quick turnover does not interest her. And yet, she is considered a great style icon, being well known for her great dramatic personal style.

The designers the Olsen twins named her as their inspiration for their Fall 2016 collection and she continues to inspire a new generation of designers and stylists. She is currently involved in a project called Article 22, for which she is designing jewelry and tea pots to be handmade in Laos out of war bombs.

When I ask her about her sense of style, and what it takes to achieve that, she asserts that first and foremost is a sense of self. She insists that she is not a shopper, rather a collector and she keeps her clothes for years, augmenting them with the occasional newly-acquired piece.

Many of her garments, including shoes and thigh-high boots are bespoke and she often wears her own designs. In fact, while we were there, her tailor came in, holding a garment bag in his hand. Beatrix favors a late Edwardian style, peplum jackets over narrow skirts, hats and turbans and ankle boots made totally her own with pieces from such avant-garde designers as Comme de Garcons, Junya Watanabe, Yohji Yamamoto and Azzedine Alaia. This morning she is wearing a lime green skirt by Ronald Shamask with hand-painted animals by the artist John Owen who also painted the floors to the entrance of the apartment. She pairs it with a black undershirt from La Perla , an Ann de Meulemeester crocodile belt and custom-made boots. On her fingers are her signature rings; two are her own designs of twigs that wrap around her fingers up to her first knuckles, tributes to the landscape where she lives on a farm in Charlottesville, Virginia. The other two were purchased for her by her husband in Venice; one features a large pearl entwined by a snake; the other a memento mori skull. On her pinky is a ring of her own design made of bomb material. In her ears are lovely hanging onyx from the 30’s and in her signature blue hair she wears a turban of Fortuny-like silk. The overall 11

affect is one of utter femininity, sensuality and timeless glamour. I tell her that she reminds me of a modern-day Anais Nin. Like Anais, delicate and fine-boned with an old-world charm and arresting beauty, Beatrix owns her sexuality and is not afraid of her femininity.

Her whole being - from her laughter, her writings, her outfits, her artwork, her surroundings, her homes and the food she serves —exude a sensuality, a knowing, an unabashed sense of self. Beatrix Ost is one fierce woman indeed!

Doner © Michele 2016 Oka Rizzoli International Publications. All Rights Reserved.

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We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.

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MICHELE OKA ODONER

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ENRICA CARRETTI

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TERRI WONG

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RUTH SHUMAN

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