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FUNNY… Since Peter Sellers wooed Britt Ekland in the 1960s, British comic actors have held a curiously special place in the hearts of the female population. As James Corden and Georgia May Jagger recreate the chemistry of that kooky couple on an exclusive Bazaar shoot, STEPHANIE RAFANELLI explores the irresistible allure of British funny men Photographs by TRENT MCGINN Styled by PIPPA VOSPER

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ames Corden is doing the twist. Arms outstretched (from his funny bones to his fingertips) like the wings of a Boeing 747, he gyrates nimbly from the waist to the Sixties groove, slowly screwing himself down to the floor.

Eyebrows cocked through televisionshaped specs, he fixes the lens of the Bazaar camera with a sardonic pout, as the svelte form of Georgia May Jagger presses wantonly against him.

Hair coiffed Scandinavian-sex-bombstyle, she squirms like a needy kitten, gravitating inexorably towards her man. They dance again, fingers clicking; they are eye to eye, nose to nose, hip to hip until… the music fades out. ‘It’s ironic,’ Corden deadpans to his feline admirer, as he readjusts his horn-rims. ‘We’ve stopped shooting and still you cannot let go of my hand.’

Meet Corden, the funny man; Corden, the sex symbol, who today resurrects the spirit of Peter Sellers with his wife, 22-year-old Swedish ingénue Britt Ekland, 17 years his junior, who he met in 1964 and married within weeks – a whirlwind romance, fuelled

Georgia May Jagger wears white cotton shirt, £99, Thomas Pink. Black wool miniskirt, £165, Theory.

Black tights, £19, Wolford. Black patent pumps, £94, French Sole. White gold watch (worn throughout), £15,260, Patek Philippe.

James Corden wears navy wool suit, £3,000, Thom Sweeney. White cotton shirt, £110, Boss Black. Brown leather shoes, £1,180, Berluti. Gold watch (worn throughout), £2,900, Omega. Glasses (worn throughout), £299, Cutler and Gross

by sex (for him) and laughter (for her). Sellers was at the height of his acclaim, his comic genius and mocking-bird talent for mimicry, slapstick and improvisation showcased in his bumbling Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther, and in his tripartite performance in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove. These humorous endowments made him not only a national icon in the 1960s, but granted a magnetic pulling power disproportionate to his physical charms: his other wives included British beauty Anne Howe and Australian model Miranda Quarry; his co-stars, Goldie Hawn and Kim Novak; his flirtations, Sophia Loren and Princess Margaret. ‘He oozed effortless charm. He was wildly charismatic,’ says Corden. ‘You can see why so many women fell for him. It was not just that he made them laugh but it was his confidence in himself – and that is very attractive to be around.’

The Ekland-Sellers ‘beauty and the witty beast’ dynamic has become a classic paradigm in the history of our sexual relations, in particular the curious readiness of the female population (in stark contrast to its male counterpart) to overlook the physical defects of our British suitors, if won over by a nifty knack for comic timing, acerbic irony or even, sometimes, a plain old GSOH. May I cite: Dudley Moore (club feet, five-foot-two-and-a-half ), Bo Derek’s 10 co-star, whose reputation for bedding Amazonian sirens lasted well into his sixties; Woody Allen (diminutive, weedy, self-obsessed and bespectacled), surely an honorary Brit in his geeky neurotic self-deprecation, who managed long-term liaisons with Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow; and John Cleese (ineptly gangly and ludicrously moustachioed), married thrice, whose off beat powers of seduction, even as a septuagenarian, wooed foxy 40-year-old Jennifer Wade.

It is a tradition that has been passed down to our charismatic comedians today: Jonathan Ross (speech impediment and tight trousers); Russell Brand (grotesque camp via rock-Victoriana); Jack Dee (ashen-faced), Steve Coogan (monobrow), Ricky Gervais (generally physically odious, he himself professes to be ‘a fat git’) and our very own dear Corden, who by his own admission is unlikely to appear in a Dolce & Gabbana underwear campaign anytime soon.

‘I was always successful with girls in school,’ he banters, smoothing his hands seductively over his copious torso. ‘I worked out pretty early on that if you look like I do then you sure as shit had better make the girls laugh if you wanted to get anywhere.’ (The proof of the pudding is in the eating: after a few hours in ‘the court of Corden’, Jagger is quietly mesmerised. ‘I think he’s just really cool.

It’s so nice for me to work with someone who’s fun,’ she purrs.

‘Women like men who make them laugh. They put you at ease.’)

The dry wit of our nation’s men has always been a cheeky compensatory factor for his general group failings – lack of romance, lack of dress sense, lack of attentiveness, lack of sexual prowess. Still, we girls swear by our men’s stealthy seduction by quip. After all, the Italians are too self-preening, the French too existential, the Americans too earnest to laugh us into bed.

The Brits’ famed talent for irony and self-deprecation has been lauded both at home and globally (how else did Joe Average Gervais transport himself from working-class Reading to Hollywood-god status, picking up a presenting gig at the Golden Globes and Johnny Depp as a best ‘buddy’ on the way?). Indeed, it seems that the historical trajectory of this country’s male underdog-turned-funnyman has reached its triumphant apex. In our comedy-obsessed popular culture (please count the number of stand-up and panel

shows that saturate our TV viewing), it seems that a new generation of comics, however unlikely, have become our latest alpha males.

There are of course some wits who cannot believe their luck, or that times they are a-changing. ‘Women are seduced by a combination of money, looks, power and money. Humour really isn’t a factor.

I would hate to pretend that it is,’ scoffs famously piquant columnist and TV presenter Giles Coren. But in these bleak-looking times, dictated by crashing economic zones and multi-dip recessions, is it so ridiculous to surmise that the innate, Darwinian survival instincts of the female have zeroed in on the newest, most desirable male attribute – a killer sense of humour – to laugh her through the absurdity of her darkest days?

There can be no better signifier of this quickening cultural shift than the marriage of Dutch supermodel du jour Lara Stone and

‘It was not just that Sellers made women laugh, but his confidence,’ says Corden.

‘And that is very attractive to be around’

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Corden wears wool suit ( jacket not shown), £3,000; cotton shirt, £195, both Thom Sweeney. Jagger wears cotton and Lurex top, from a selection; matching skirt, about £685, both Giambattista Valli. Clear resin bangle, £60, Pebble London. White resin bangle, £40, Susan Caplan Vintage Collection www.harpersbazaar.co.uk

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comedian David Walliams in May 2010. (Their first dance was to Disney classic Beauty and the Beast.) Like a Greek chorus, our press marvelled that this gap-toothed, Bardot-esque muse should fall for a man so at ease with wearing three layers of foundation, his quarterback torso squeezed incongruously into an array of frumpy dresses. But Stone’s answer was simple and to the point – ‘I can be in such a cranky mood. But he makes me laugh. He’s super-funny’ – as though Walliams’ possession of this superpower simply bulldozed over every other offer she had ever been made.

Another exemplary union is that of Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher (a beauty turned off neither by a shellsuit nor by the intimate waxing regimes demanded by the role of a gay Austrian fashion icon). In summation: funny men are sexy because they don’t take themselves too seriously, they will never love themselves more than us, and they are uninhibited both in and out of the bedroom. And as the wise sage Mariella Frostrup says: ‘The sexiest thing you can do is laugh in bed.’

There are, of course, several major exceptions to this theory: Ronnie Corbett, Jim Davidson, Bernard Manning (in the past); Michael McIntyre and Leigh Francis (in the present), to name a few.

It would be hard to argue that any of their punchlines have ever induced an erotic hot flush (although, sadly, I still suspect their chances of any sexual conquest were dramatically improved).

Rather than delivering jokes by rote, punctuated by the crash of a high-hat (boys, please, please take on board), it is a certain mental agility honed to off-the-cuff banter, drollery and observational humour that appeals most to the feminine psyche. ‘In order for funniness to appear sexy or attractive to females, it needs to be spontaneous and to fit the context perfectly,’ says Kristofor McCarty of Northumbria University, whose 2009 study found that women think witty men are more intelligent. ‘Humour may serve to inform females of preferred male qualities such as intelligence, dominance and assertiveness… It may also be used as an honest cue to traits that women are interested in, and in that it is very difficult to fake.’

As multi-dimensional creatures, with highly tuned analytical skills, women may simultaneously take witticisms at face value while being intrigued on another level by what that humour points to. Take Corden, for example. At first look, his appeal was that of

Jagger wears white cotton and Lurex dress, about £1,115, Giambattista Valli.

Vintage Miriam Haskell faux-pearl and gold-plate earrings, £320, Atelier Mayer.

Pearl ring, £145, Pebble London.

Corden wears wool suit, £3,000; cotton shirt, £195, both Thom Sweeney. See Stockists for details. Hair by Paul Merritt at Jed Root.

Make-up by Lotten Holmqvist at Julian Watson. Grooming by Donald McInnes at Milton Agency. Model: Georgia May Jagger at Tess Management

‘cheeky chappie’ and artful motormouth, breezing confidently through life with his best mate and History Boys co-star Dominic Cooper, at ease with himself and his portly frame, verging on cocksure (his seduction of Lily Allen on live TV, his ode to his imagined sex life with Keira Knightley, his hosting of the Brits). But scrape the surface of Gavin & Stacey, which he co-writes with Ruth Jones, analyse the cultural context of his comedy, and the lad culture of other comic generations is peeled back to expose something deeper.

Yes, Smithy is a beer-guzzling Essex plumber, but he is also deeply sentimental; he is wont to fits of sobbing (how we love to see a grown man cry), and his love for Gavin constantly teeters on the brink of homoeroticism. His Comic Relief sketches are the same: with David Beckham in the bath (the affectionate pecks, the matching towelling dressing gowns); with George Michael singing ‘Club Tropicana’ in the car (‘Love you, George’), or his impassioned, tearful plea to the England football team. Through his observational drollery, he navigates what it is to be a ‘new’ man – and how postpost-unreconstructed males relate to each other today.

Of course, any way in which the formerly ‘emotionally retarded’ British male emerges from his proverbial cave, willing to explore emotional openness, is likely to both amuse and be endorsed by the female population, so long have we suffered. When Dylan Moran, fag and wine glass in hand, expounds the horrors of the male genitalia or male envy of female platonic relationships, we femmes chuckle knowingly, and suddenly his Irish lilt and dishevelled bed-hair prove all the more irresistible.

It is perhaps not ludicrous to suggest that it is comics with more ‘female’ traits – observational, analytical – and an urge to explore feminine insights, and even those leaning towards the downright camp, that we find most sexually alluring. Eddie Izzard, who often performs stand-up in six-inch stilettos, has an army of lustful female devotees (his appeal only heightened by his ability to do his routines in a plethora of European languages). Russell Brand pillages our beauty secrets – eyeliner and backcombing – as he recounts his sexual exploits. Noel Fielding’s wry ‘Joan Jett meets Marc Bolan’ glam-rock attire endears us as much as his wry gags. The aforementioned Walliams can move seamlessly and unabashedly between a Tom Ford two-piece, a Victorian gown, an air-stewardess uniform, a fat suit and a wetsuit – and he is all the more virile for it. It is less that we actually desire men in drag – we don’t – than we are thrilled by the sheer bravery and chutzpah needed for this flirtation with sexual boundaries. Such modern British comics present the rather erotic combination of being both female empathisers and risk-taking ‘bad boys’. On top of that, their impetus to make us laugh can be romanticised by us ladies as ‘honest’ and ‘heroic’, their gags often bombshells for breaking taboos and exposing the truth (in politics, in society and in sexual relations).

Most of all, we are perhaps hooked on humour because it is,

by Freudian definition, a defence mechanism that signals the underlying existence of something deeper, and sometimes darker. (There is nothing, after all, that women like more than a little complexity.)

Off-camera, Sellers suffered from paranoid insecurity (‘What do you see in me?’ he wrote to Ekland. ‘I am not handsome, I am not tall. I am not special in any way’); Stephen Fry and Walliams, from depression; even Corden has been in therapy. Yes, we want our men to make us laugh, but, in our own lives, we don’t want jazz-handing, juggling, two-dimensional live-in clowns; we want proof that our men are capable of self-exploration, that something more substantial lies beneath. Brand, after all, only really won our hearts when he proved that he was capable of alternating his loquacious, comic rants with sober, insightful musings on the death of Amy Winehouse or the August riots.

Such judicious wit balanced by thoughtful intellect is not just a passing aphrodisiac. It is desirable in our mates precisely because, more than good bone structure, DIY skills and an insatiable libido, it is a gift that provides long-term relationships with staying power.

‘You can marry funny,’ says columnist and funny-men admirer Polly Vernon. ‘It endures, unlike prettiness. A non-existent sense of humour is an absolute deal-breaker for me in men.’ Jane Goldman and Jonathan Ross’ partnership has endured 23 years across a mutual

Modern British comics present the rather erotic combination of being both female empathisers and risk-taking ‘bad boys’

ROLE PLAY

Broadway star, awards-show host, sitcom writer and first-class comic talent: in his young career, James Corden has done it all.

AJESH PATALAY looks at how he got here, and what he might do next 280 |

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You have to hand it to James Corden: charging at life with such relentless energy, building a career that amazes for its diversity, striking up friendships with some of the biggest in the business, and embracing his role as a new dad (to one-year-old Max) and husband-to-be.

Notwithstanding a few creative hiccups (let’s draw a veil over 2009’s Lesbian Vampire Killers), there’s something

awesome and endearing about Corden’s ascent, since his breakthrough at 25 in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys and follow-up as the co-creator and star of Gavin & Stacey.

Let’s take stock: the riotously funny National Theatre production of One Man, Two Guvnors transfers to Broadway in April; he’s hosting the Brits for the third time in February; he’s co-writing a new www.harpersbazaar.co.uk

BBC Two comedy called The Wrong Mans; and his skits for Sports Relief (with David Beckham) and Comic Relief (with George Michael, Keira Knightley, Gordon Brown and Paul McCartney) pretty much stole the shows and proved Corden’s pulling power among the A-list.

But then Corden, 33, always had a knack for being at the centre of things, rubbing shoulders with Prince Harry at the www.harpersbazaar.co.uk

love of sci-fi comics and banter, after she fell for him as a precocious 16-year-old columnist. Gervais and Jane Fallon (writer and producer of This Life and Teachers) have been together for 29 years, since they met at university. ‘We have things in common, mutual respect and a sense of humour,’ Gervais has said. ‘I still laugh at her [ jokes].’ After all, after decades of partnership, when the lust has petered out, laughter remains; and its endorphin-inducing properties are not a million miles away from a session of lovemaking.

For all this lengthy skirting, there is one fundamental reason – stunning in its simplicity – why we prize the possession of wit in our partners above all things: because, however sadly controversial this may be, women are themselves innately funny (try dealing with the tribulations of pubescence, men’s fascination with breasts, hormonal rollercoasters, fashion and birth without a wry sense of humour), and we want someone who can return a fast serve. We want to throw down the gauntlet and have it slapped playfully back at us, and if our men weren’t capable of matching us – however chiselled or moneyed (take note, Mr Coren) – we would, quite frankly, be bored.

Arts Club recently, and regularly firing off tweets to Piers Morgan, Milla Jovovich and Jamie Oliver on Twitter, where he rivals Richard Branson, Jessie J and Jonathan Ross for followers, at nearly 1,700,000.

Corden owes that ‘go for it’ approach partly to his mentors: Bennett, who urged him to write; Shane Meadows, who directed the untrained 18-year-old in Twenty Four Seven; and Mike Leigh, his All

or Nothing director five years later, who showed Corden ‘the difference between doing something and not doing something is just doing it’. And lest you forget that Corden remains a serious actor at heart, behold his wish list of collaborators: ‘Jez Butterworth, Ian Rickson, the Coen brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson, George Clooney. And if I could be in a Steve McQueen film, I’d be so happy.’

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Among the soothsayers of the fashion world there is no better barometer than Madonna of the way modern women will live. Writhing around in her bra and girdle in the Eighties, she prefigured the brash, youth-obsessed, expose-all culture of the Noughties (so neatly articulated by Britney Spearsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Hit Me Baby One More Timeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;). Her sexual taboo-busting antics incurred the same ricochet of tutting disapproval as her flaunting of the rules of ageappropriate behaviour (â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;lateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; motherhood in her forties; provocative dressing and a voracious sex life in her fifties; and every sign of the continuing pursuit of an ambitious career well into her sixties) do today. At 52, Madonna is still trailblazing on the frontline for women; 134 |

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PASSIONATE PARTNERS Natalie Massenet with Roland Mouret. Roland MODERN wears his ownMONOCHROME clothes. Natalie wears pink MUSES wool silk dress, RM by Roland Mouret; Carmen Dellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Orefice poses with pink suede heels,a fellow Christian Louboutin, both model to demonstrate from a selectionglamour at Net-a-porter.com across the ages

PHOTOGRAPH: XXXXXX

BRUCE WEBER/TRUNKARCHIVE.COM PHOTOGRAPH: XXXXXX

here are rare moments in the ephemera of fashion that are worthy of true jubilance â&#x20AC;&#x201C; beyond the fleeting thrill stirred by â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the returnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of feline, black leather or the revival of Studio 54â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Halston look with its sultry, cascading gowns. Nor are there many in which it is possible to crystallise the zeitgeist of a new epoch. But when 71-year-old Veruschka, crowned by a regal Mohican of baby-pink feathers, strode like a defiant Boudicca on to Giles Deaconâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s catwalk last autumn â&#x20AC;&#x201C; her splendour eclipsing models five decades younger â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the audience responded in an exultant ovation, as if they had instinctively grasped her significance as a symbol of change.

Such riotous applause was echoed elsewhere during Fashion Week. At Hermès, 48-year-old French actress Farida Khelfa, clad in a matadorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tuxedo, channelled AlmodĂłvarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heroines as she emerged, rose in teeth, at the finale to Jean-Paul Gaultierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s show. At Tom Fordâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exclusive presentation in New York the fashion elite stared in wonder as women on the catwalk â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Karen Elson (in her thirties), Rachel Feinstein (at the dawn of her forties), Julianne Moore (in her fifties) and Lauren Hutton (in her sixties) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; mirrored their own myriad of ages for the first time. At the OpĂŠra Comique Yasmin Le Bon walked for John Galliano, her skin as luminescent as when she made her debut almost 30 years ago.

But the undisputed triumph of Paris Fashion Week was the return of the aquiline features of Karl Lagerfeldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s former muse Inès de la Fressange, at 53 the star of Chanelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spring/summer 2011 campaign. With his usual talent for decade-defining aphorisms, Lagerfeld declared: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The modern woman today is all about agelessness.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

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exposing the perfect contours of her inner thigh, cavorting with Jesus (Luz) and Brahim (Rachiki), this time at the final frontier: the barrier of age. In her Houdini-like evasion of the ageing process, she has steadfastly refused to surrender to the onset of social and sexual death in her forties and fifties, to which women were once consigned.

Like all pioneers, Madonna has a slight tendency for overstatement, but she has always been a magnifying glass to our radically evolving times. With almost half of all babies in the UK born to women in their thirties, and a growing proportion in their forties; British retirement ages pushing towards 70; and predictions of lengthening life-spans (in industrialised nations half of children born in 2000 will live to be 100), â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;middle ageâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; has slipped another decade. And then some. Fifty has been declared the new 30, and 60 the new 40.

In Steven Kleinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s campaign for Dolce & Gabbana, a smooth-skinned Madonna bounces a gurgling baby on her lap then races hand-in-hand down the cobbled Sicilian streets with her juvenile beau â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the living prophecy of a new age.

7 ROLE MODEL Inès de la Fressange returns to the catwalk at Chanel S/S 11

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It would be negligent, at this juncture, to proceed without giving recourse to the mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fascination with â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;cougarsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, a somewhat unflattering term with such predatory and ravenous associations that it has masked the obvious fact: that some men prefer older women. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;There is an intoxicating sense of womanly confidence to an older woman who has gained wisdom and an insight throughout her life,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; says fashion designer Roland Mouret. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll note that the term â&#x20AC;&#x153;femme fataleâ&#x20AC;? is hardly ever applied to a young girl.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; With such a tempest of womanly pheromones in the ether, it is not so far fetched to suggest perhaps that â&#x20AC;&#x201C; after generations ingrained by Lolita fixations and Oedipus complexes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the number of men captivated by the allure of maturity might be on the rise. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I feel there is a new appreciation of older women that is more about attitude than age,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Catroux continues. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Personality is much more importantâ&#x20AC;Ś It is not the classic idea of sexy, but a subtle sexiness that comes from knowing who you are. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about women who have had a past, who have lived.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; If this is a modern phenomenon, then its most intriguing aspect is this: with the fortresses that divide our ages crumbling â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to the new generation of men in their twenties and thirties â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the numerical categories that define us are becoming ever more immaterial.

When Sam Taylor-Wood appears in public with her 20-year-old boyfriend Aaron Johnson, the age gap between them is all but inscrutable. Johnson, just out of his teens, seems able to rise to the occasion of fatherhood (to his six-month-old daughter Wylda) as naturally as Taylor-Wood, at 43, can carry off a leopard-print pillbox hat.

Meanwhile, with her playful tweets 48-year-old Demi Moore is able to keep up with - and often trump â&#x20AC;&#x201C; her husband Ashton Kutcherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stream of online banter. At 32, he clearly revels in Mooreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s youthful spirit; his passion for her quasi-bionic body notwithstanding.

Whether Moore is blessed by genetics or a plastic surgeon from the future, she has obviously worked hard to delay the ravages of time. Her motives are doubtless multiple and complex, but she cannot have been immune to the customary pressures of Hollywood, in which a newly-furrowed wrinkle can mean relegation from leading lady to character role. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;In film, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a huge chasm between the sexes in terms of acceptability,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; says columnist and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Who doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t love a bit of George Clooney salt and pepper? I mean, every new line on his face and women want him more.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; But even in such a stalwart bastion of ageism as film, there are subtle signs of a shift. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;What I think is so exciting is that so many feisty older women are now getting key roles,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; says director of the British Film Institute Amanda Nevill. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;One of the trailblazers is Helen Mirren who is able to play a conservative, dowdy role like the Queen, but still retains her sex appeal at 65.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; In Hollywood, a core set of increasingly powerful women producers, directors and screenwriters including Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyers and Lisa Cholodenko are setting the wheels of change in motion. More than 60 years after All About Eve, which chronicled the fading career of an ageing actress, they are shaking up mainstream film with the creation of defiantly sexual leading roles for 50-plus women. In Meyersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Somethingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gotta Give (2003) and Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Complicated (2009), Diane Keatonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and CONTINUED ON PAGE 158

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n light of this new vision of our times, the fashion industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s whole-hearted embrace of women over-25 is more than just a one-season-wonder.

Sensing the growing ennui with the homogenous sea of bland teenage models, designers have returned to the Supers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Linda, Claudia, Christy and Naomi â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in recent years. Deemed past their fashion sell-by dates at the end of the last century, all have made comebacks in their forties as the instantly recognisable faces of YSL, Escada and Prada campaigns.

Spurred into action by the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;wake up and smell the coffeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; effect of the recession, in recent years fashion has shifted its focus away from a cult of youth, creating timeless collections for a more relevant age-inclusive approach. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The recession made designers look to women over 35,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; says Jane Shepherdson, CEO of Whistles, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;They were the real customers with money who were buying their clothes.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; More recently, fashion has caught on to the twin selling power of the mother-and-daughter duo. Daisy and Pearl Lowe have modelled and designed their own high-street collection, Georgia May Jagger launched skincare range Invisible Zinc with Jerry Hall, and Amber Le Bon has walked the catwalk alongside Yasmin for Fashion for Relief; the daughtersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; youthfulness somehow more captivating next to their mothersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; age-defying allure. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Without older women, young women would not even be noticed.

The mature women are a reference and inspiration to girls nowadays,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; says designer Manolo Blahnik. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Look at Yasmin Le Bon, Bianca Jagger: to me they look more beautiful than ever. They are elegant and sophisticated. They have lived their lives, have more experience and they know what works for them.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Betty Catroux, muse to Yves Saint Laurent in the Sixties and Seventies who was recently photographed by Tom Ford for French Vogue alongside Ali McGraw, Lauren Hutton and Marisa Berenson, says: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Young girls can be divine, they are gorgeous, but they can easily be mistaken for each other. They often donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the mystery of some older women, who have already lived a fashion life.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; In fashion, grey hair is no longer the death knell for women. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;We are seeing more and more pictures of Lauren Hutton, Lauren Bacall, Romy Schneider or Diane Keatonâ&#x20AC;Ś Designers often have them on their inspiration walls,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; says de la Fressange. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;A very young girl will hardly have these sophisticated looks. Older models bring

life and experience that can transform an outfit. They bring sensuality instead of sexiness, some femininity with tenderness and an old-fashioned word totally forgotten: elegance.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; This attitude to maturity is not entirely groundbreaking. Les Françaises still hold the attentions of their male counterparts well into their sixties. In France, a sexy woman is a sexy woman is a sexy woman. It is no accident that Jane Birkin and Kristin Scott Thomas, who rank high among British icons of agelessness, escaped early on to Paris. Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, Beatrice Dalle â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and the roles they play in French cinema - are still as sensual as they were in their twenties. In such an all-age-embracing culture, French women can be freer from angst about the emergence of a wrinkle, or the correctness of a skirt length. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a mindset epitomised by 56-year-old fashion editor Carine Roitfeld and her fearless approach to fashion-forward garments (with the proviso that they are black).

Elsewhere, this new celebration of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the post-forties womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; has helped dissolve the de rigueur of age-appropriate dressing â&#x20AC;&#x201C; already chipped away at in the Noughties by the outrĂŠ costumes of the Sex and the City brigade. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The rulesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; as decreed by Trinny and Susannah all seem, thankfully, terribly passĂŠ. Flick to the multi-aged fashion line-ups in your weekend supplement, and play spot the difference with the 20-something and septuagenarian models. Arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t their ensembles interchangeable, even counterintuitive, as if they have all merged into one collective unspecified fashion age?

Alongside such fashion breakthroughs, the beauty industry has been an instrumental driving force in the blurring of the categories.

The anti-ageing industry, spanning hi-tech creams to surgical procedures, is now worth around ÂŁ700 million in the UK. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Botox, lasers and fillers have given us a new control over ageing, not by making us look younger, but by slowing down how we age,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; says Bazaarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beauty director Newby Hands. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Now, if you choose to, from your early to mid-thirties you can enter a â&#x20AC;&#x153;twilight zoneâ&#x20AC;? of ageing in which you age in a reverse version of dog years, so for every seven years, you will only age one.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Psychotherapist Lucy Beresford who has stuided the beauty industry, believes that the psychological effects of such technical advancements have been as profound as the physical: the elongation of the life-span in which we can â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;feel good about ourselvesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Psychologically I think women feel very empowered by the knowledge that they have this as back-up,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; she says. In contrast to the notion that the beauty industry has triggered hyper-neurosis among women, Beresford suggests that it may have contributed to a more relaxed approach to ageing. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I think that some of us are beginning to feel a little more comfortable in our own skin. We want to take care of ourselves, but we do not mind a few wrinkles or few signs of ageing to show we have lived.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; And this is where the self-fulfilling prophecy â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;feel good, look goodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; blissfully comes into play. Invigorated by this renewed sense of liberation on a mass scale, a new cohort of older women is gaining momentum, both in their outlook and physiognomy they belie the ingrained expectations of age. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I feel better looking than I did 10 years ago â&#x20AC;&#x201C; much funnier, more intelligent, myself,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; says Catroux. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I have more success with men now than when I was very young.

But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s always with younger men, never men my own age.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; www.harpersbazaar.co.uk

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MODERN

MELTDOWN Many of us now have a near-umbilical link to the internet, with smart phones, Twitter and Facebook allowing us to broadcast our every thought, 24/7. And while this constant connection has created some new fashion-world stars (think Anna Dello Russo), this double-edged sword also facilitated the chronicling of John Galliano’s sorry implosion. With all of us feeling the pressure of constant scrutiny, and our very mental health at risk, STEPHANIE RAFANELLI asks if it’s finally time to switch off

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Photograph by MARKN

PHOTOGRAPH: XXXXXX

ad infinitum. Until you find yourself staging something akin to a stand-up show from your super-kingsize to over 1,000 users (if you are popular), who are all bantering, chipping in and heckling you at the same time – not the most nourishing recuperation from a frenetically plugged-in day.

My mention of Galliano-gate is not a random one; a debacle, which, while deeply upsetting, has become emblematic not only of the mounting pressures of a fashion world in which designers have become the ‘celebrity’ figureheads of their brands (and the increasing number of meltdowns occurring in both our public and private domains), but of our ‘always tweets, never sleeps’ culture, with its global reach and its insatiable appetite to regurgitate a happening and make it news. Galliano’s implosion was the final, cataclysmic episode for a man who has been in free fall for some time. His meltdown was due to a complex amalgam of factors (although one senses that, on top of the high demands of the fashion schedule, the micro-management of his outré image under the permanent glare of the media could not have lightened his load), but his ultimate downfall was, in itself, symptomatic of our digital age. His unforgivable racist outbursts would have been mere allegations had a prior mobile phone recording of his xenophobic mantra not gone viral. Galliano’s meltdown was not just public incident, it went global instantaneously, unleashed into the abyss of the online community to, in turn, incite infinite outrage.

Via the internet, Twitter and social-networking sites, we have made it our business to follow the intricacies and minutiae of the private lives of our public figures in a way that was once impossible.

The early-20th-century Italian fashion muse Marchesa Casati (beloved of John Galliano, incidentally) wore live boa constrictors as accessories, smoked opium and painted her Tunisian man-servant

PHOTOGRAPH: MAKE-UP AND HAIR BY NIKKI PALMER AT MANDY COAKLEY USING DIOR SUMMER LOOK

here is a rather dusty theory that expounds that an individual’s psychological status can be gleaned from their bedtime habits (in particular their chosen position for sleep, which includes such Freudian classics as ‘the free fall’ and ‘the foetus’). Though such corporal feng shui seems more than just a little passé in 2011’s rapidly changing landscape, our nocturnal habits are still undoubtedly enlightening. Take, for instance, the bedside table – a curiously revealing site for the astute analysis of our current mental states. What was once a sacred shrine reserved for lavender candles, a Booker Prize-winning novel and a pot of Crème de la Mer is now a docking bay for the iPhone, the work BlackBerry, the iPad and, goddamit, even our laptops (just in case the iPad crashes) – a gaggle of gadgets that lights up the night like the neon signs of a 24-hour takeaway, saying: ‘We are always here. We are always on. You are always missing something’.

Who didn’t hit iPlayer in their PJs to catch the latest breaking news of John Galliano, post-anti-Semitic rant, followed by a look at the uncut version on YouTube, and a rampant tweeting session?

And who hasn’t broken curfew on their self-imposed ‘technology sunset’ (a new term which defines the time we promise ourselves we’ll switch off – ideally an hour before sleep) to tend to a non-urgent work email, update a Facebook status, tweet or to take a sneaky peek at Perez Hilton from under the covers – despite our partners’ protestations? You send. You put down. You turn over, but then there’s always that seductive bleep, the answer to your answer; one response after another – all demand your (must be) witty repartee in a chain reaction of super-urgent yet meaningless chat, which is judged by multiple audiences and is neverending,

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gold (one even imagines she might have held eccentric opinions and political persuasions), but her antics, which today would surely spread like rampant flames through Twitter, remain elegantly the stuff of ‘mere legend’. Should a clip of her legendary trip to the chic jet-set resort of Capri – during which she dyed her hair green, donned witches robes and paraded with crystal ball in hand – have been posted on YouTube, she would perhaps have lost her holy fashion cachet and been regarded in the same league as Britney Spears (post-head-shaving incident). And how would the legend of Howard Hughes have been documented by history had he shut himself away at the Desert Inn hotel in Las Vegas in 1966 with a 4G iPhone and a Twitter account? Surely his online profile would outstrip even that of Charlie Sheen. The former Brat Pack golden boy, who if not suffering from Bipolar disorder (as diagnosed in cyberspace), certainly appears to be in the midst of a substanceabuse-triggered mental breakdown, picked up one million followers on Twitter in a single day after joining, keeping his global audience enthralled with such nuggets as ‘I got tiger blood, man.

My brain… fires in a way that is – I don’t know, maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm.’ The Sheen phenomenon demonstrates not only Twitter’s ability to blast a personality from obscurity into the top-10 Google searches, but also our compulsive and often macabre addiction to our voyeuristic digital culture.

Such is the power of Twitter that, when harnessed, it can catapult a personality (and by default their brand) into the forefront of our minds even more effectively, and certainly more cheaply, than traditional advertising methods. Even seasoned media regular Stephen Fry admitted that he need never do another television interview, so dedicated and captivated are his Twitter followers. Yet never has there been such a double-edged sword for public relations – the relentless access-all-areas nature of the blogosphere means that today, celebrities have nowhere to hide. A slip of the tongue or a momentary lapse in judgement can no longer be swept under the carpet by the skilful manoeuvring of PR teams.

The recent William Hague scandal is a case in point. The accusation by political and parliamentary blogger Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes (whose musings attract around 118,000 visitors a month), that the foreign secretary shared a room with his driver-turned-special advisor Christopher Myers during the general election in 2010 became a lead news item and threatened to jeopardise his campaign. This prompted a public declaration from Hague in which he underlined both his heterosexuality and his commitment to his wife, which in turn went viral (and regardless of Hague’s statement has left the global twitterati debating his sexual persuasion ever since).

‘The key problem that we grapple with these days is the speed and scope of informal information communication on the web; that is, the high speed at which gossip is sent around the world and the way that gossip goes global in seconds,’ says Deborah Chambers, professor of media and cultural studies at Newcastle University. ‘For celebrities in particular, sites like YouTube have the ability to expose their misdemeanours visually before they can employ damage control. Celebrities gradually lose control over their public image – this exposure and vilification by members of

the public, who now have a voice, can be relentless and cumulative.’

Herein lies the crux of the modern meltdown: the ceaseless demand not only to perform in our daily lives, but to construct and project the perfect image of ourselves into the digital stratosphere, and update and upkeep that image at all times. After all, in the fastmoving online universe, you are only as good as your last tweet.

The golden rule of the online community is that whatever you inject into the technological ether – from an off hand tweet to new images of your autumn/winter collection – will be met by a voracious global audience eager to have their say. The twitterati are the 21st century’s Greek chorus, ready to cast their – sometimes insidious – judgement on our every manoeuvre.

For designers, the endlessly flowing critique from our rapacious media culture is clearly wearing, with amateur reviews often muddying the waters of that all too critical post-show feedback from the press. From the moment that fashion moved out of the salons and exclusive circles to become a popular online phenomenon, designers opened themselves up to a rampant (and unedited) tirade of mass opinion. ‘Google,’ says fashion writer and author Justine Picardie, ‘is no longer a designer’s friend.’

‘It’s hard sometimes to turn a blind eye to what you are reading on the internet the whole time’ says designer Antonio Berardi.

‘Once you get caught up in the whirlwind, it’s hard to stop. I just wonder whether that’s when the paranoia sets in, because there are so many opinions and it’s from everyone and everything.

‘Recently, somebody sent me a link to a celebrity wearing one of my dresses and I looked at it and there were millions of comments and you do have to step back. It’s often someone, somewhere, who spends their days at a computer, scouring the net with an axe to grind, who is not a fan of mine, or of said celebrity, saying something demeaning about your work. You have to take it with a pinch of salt.’

The early-20th-century fashion muse Marchesa Casati wore live boa constrictors as accessories, smoked opium, and painted her servant gold, but her antics, which today would have spread like flames through Twitter, remain the stuff of ‘mere legend’

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t

wo fashion legends – Isabella Blow and Alexander McQueen – passed before the crest of the Twitter tsunami truly crashed upon us (though McQueen was an early and enthusiastic tweeter).

Even before the rise of the twitterati, McQueen muse and flamboyant style doyenne Isabella Blow, who finally killed herself in 2007 after several attempts, found it increasingly difficult to cope with the demands of the ever-accelerating fashion cycle to be constantly fabulous, eternally new. ‘Issy felt the pressure to be Isabella Blow,’ says Detmar Blow, her husband, and barristerturned-art dealer, ‘to be constantly performing, to keep up that fame… but she said, “I’ve got no children, I’m going to go out in a blaze of bloody glory.” So she decided to embrace it, she got hooked, and then it got too hard – to be on that creative high with no down time, with everyone on to you.’

One senses that Blow would have been strangely drawn to Twitter, and yet simultaneously repulsed. It would have surely appealed to her ‘all the world is a stage’ theatrical sensibilities, offering her a platform, an audience of global spectators that could give her the recognition that she felt she deserved – and of which she was www.harpersbazaar.co.uk

so bitterly robbed (just a few years after Blow’s death, Anna Dello Russo, editor-at-large of Vogue Japan and a fashionista in the Blow mould has become a global brand, with several tens of thousands of followers on Twitter and even her own fragrance). Having parted company with The Sunday Times and her ex-protégé McQueen, she could have fallen, Gaga-like, into the arms of the world: Isabella Blow, the global icon.

But that incessant pressure to ‘be Blow’ would have penetrated every aspect of her being, the essence of every moment of her day and night. Even her retreats to the country would have been no escape.

Could the already vulnerable Blow have survived the public scrutiny involved with endeavour? Who knows? But one suspects not.

a

nd so from the macrocosm of global fashion brands, politicians and Hollywood luminaries, to our own lives, which are subject to the same forces – accelerated deadlines, the constant ‘every waking hour’ mentality and the mounting importance of creating an online presence and the upkeep of our own personal brands – all on a microcosmic scale. Our analysis of the fashion world, in particular, is revealing as to the state of our own collective modern psyche. While there is no data for breakdowns (‘they are a term for an experience rather than a diagnosable problem in themselves,’ says a spokesperson from Mind, the mental-health charity), study after study suggests that mental health problems among women are rising. Last year, an NHS investigation showed that between 1993 an 2007 the number of common mental disorders such as depression and panic attacks had risen by a fifth among women aged 45 to 64. According to Mind, one in four women will have a mental-health problem such as depression at some point in their life, which can lead to a highly stressed state of mind and erratic behaviour. Is the brink closer than we realise?

‘The problem is the complexity of managing it all,’ says Dr Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation.

‘For an increasing number of women, on top of the traditional pressures of the female lot is now the added burden of “managing your image,”’ he says. ‘In this age of Facebook and Twitter, you are now also CEO of You, Inc.’ As Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, once said: ‘Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.’ However, by the very dehumanising nature of virtual discourse, online users are not so likely to politely hold back.

With the female population’s tendency to make psychological connection between their image and self worth, it is unsurprising that women can be obsessive brand ambassadors. Take this now deeply ingrained modern compulsion to uphold a perfect projection of ourselves to others, and then act it out in the virtual abyss to an infinite audience in a world that never switches off – is it any wonder that we are all on the verge of breaking down? Unlike actors, who are fiercely guarded by publicists and given training to handle their public image, as a rule, we civilians, like designers, are wholly unprepared for the collateral damage of putting ourselves ‘out there’.

Event organiser Yasmin Mills recently took herself off Twitter. www.harpersbazaar.co.uk

‘It was kind of a technology overload. I love the whole modern communication thing, but you find yourself replying to your emails, Facebook, text, BBM. How many different formats can you deal with simultaneously? I think Twitter puts the most pressure on people to perform because you have to make that small amount of space – those few words – witty and eloquent. And it’s the calibre of people. I mean Stephen Fry is on there! And if you are in a creative industry it’s extremely competitive. The more you tweet, the more visible and exposed you are. I think those kind of pressures contribute to an overload.’

Yet despite this mounting tension (who hasn’t felt the toxic Ready Brek glow of a technological overdose?), few of us can resist dipping into the virtual realm even for micro updates.

‘If I am ever offline, even for a few hours, I find it quite stressful,’ says Donna Ida, who runs her own eponymous denim boutique.

‘When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is check my email, check news, check Twitter. It’s so addictive. I can be checking every 30 seconds.’ In fact, her gadgets have almost become ‘the other man’ in her relationship. ‘My husband is constantly asking, “Darling, are you tweeting?” On a recent trip to Sydney, he suggested we have an early night to spend some time together. But there was the iPhone, and then I got on the computer…’ Though Ida is not technically addicted to the online world, she, like most of us, would certainly admit that her behaviour is more than a little compulsive.

‘There is only a minority of Twitter/Facebook/internet users who have become addicted, spending longer and longer periods plugged in. These extreme users are likely to show some mental-health problems, as with any addicts,’ says Professor Pam Briggs, codirector of the psychology and communications technology lab at the University of Northumberland. ‘For the majority, who aren’t addicted, there is a growing recognition in the value of mindfulness in mental health and wellbeing – Twitter and Facebook can be construed as the enemies of that mindfulness, disrupting our simple engagement with the immediate world around us.’

But how to resist ‘Compulsive Tweeting Disorder’ and regain our inner Zen? To refocus our lives in the here and now we must learn to let our 140 characters of fame fall by the wayside; to stop and think before engaging in another banal episode of oversharing and remember that old-fashioned value: mystery. It is no coincidence that Tom Ford, always on the crest of a zeitgeist, has banned the online proliferation of his collections, limiting his shows to intimate, fashion-industry affairs.

‘We live in a world that loves a star, a celebrity, but I sometimes think that holding back is a good thing,’ says Berardi. ‘And I think it’s important to preserve yourself as an individual and maintain some kind of mystique.’

Berardi’s words of sanity apply as much to ourselves as his fellow designers. On a microcosmic scale, we are all under the same pressures and temptations. The scope that technology offers us is intriguing, seductive 24-hour access to the world – a platform for our own voices, our own brand; but unlike our BlackBerrys – always on, always bleeping – we are not machines. We need more time to recharge, to make human contact and communicate face to face, and to switch off both literally and spiritually: at least in the time between our self-imposed technology sunset and a new sunrise.

The golden rule is that whatever you inject into the technological ether will be met by a voracious global audience eager to have their say. The twitterati are the 21st century’s Greek chorus, ready to cast their judgement on our every manoeuvre

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It is unavoidable. Inexorable. Omnipresent.

The country is in the midst of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;a momentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;; one that can only be described, if I may quote from the tabloids for a second, as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;wedding feverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a collective fervour that has been precipitated, I need barely say, by the news that not one, ladies and gentlemen, but two of our most iconic Kates are imminently to wed. This dual happening has been made all the more intriguing by the polarised nature of our two national brides: one, the fresh-faced quintessence of demureness; the other, our very own louche Queen of Rock â&#x20AC;&#x2122;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Roll.

But as we count down, most notably, to the Royal D-day, with the minutiae of the dynastic preparations, from hors dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;oeuvre to fascinator, being submitted to compulsive examinations, regurgitated with mounting zeal, some of us cannot deny a hint of ambivalence in the pit of our stomachs. The national division can be neatly summarised by a historian friend who looks on 29 April as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the triumphant dawn of a new era of romance, tradition and patriotism in a period of British history characterised by drabness and cynicismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, and another â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a journalist â&#x20AC;&#x201C; who recently texted me pre-dawn with a borderline-psychotic rant triggered by yet another front-page story about â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Kate and Willsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, her vehement emphasis on â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ANACHRONISMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; referring not to our blessed monarchy, but to the very institution of marriage itself.

Really, the ensuing nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton should not be such a shock to the system, considering the Princeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pivotal position in the Windsor family tree, and the existence of the British royal family as one of the most traditional institutions in the world. Rather, the obvious salient point is this: 152 |

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| May 2011

that the future king of England, now 28, managed to cohabit and elude marriage for eight years of his togetherness with Middleton, in the face of the Palace press office (something that would have been unthinkable in Dianaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prenuptial days).

Early on in their courtship, William pointedly told a television interviewer: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Look, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m only 22, for Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sake. I am too young to marry at my age. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to get married until Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m at least 28 or maybe 30.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Of course, it was inevitable that Middleton should eventually succumb to marrying her prince; but what of fashionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most renowned agent provocateur? Kate Moss, the cultural pin-up for libertines (I need only remind you of her F Scott Fitzgerald-themed 30th birthday party, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Beautiful and the Damnedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;), has rolled, unwedded, through the great loves of her life: Johnny (Depp); Jefferson (Hack), the father of her child, nine-year-old Lila Grace; and Pete (Doherty). Her antics have always been part of a rarefied, bohemian existence, typified by defiant sexiness. But as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;long-term couplesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (who live and raise children together without marriage as a necessary precursor) become the increasingly prevalent relationship norm, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;living in sinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, once a Leftist preserve, has lost its countercultural frisson. There could, perhaps, have been little left for our feline temptress to do that would shock us more than embrace our most conventional social institution and marry the Killsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; rock frontman Jamie Hince. Is this an act of subversion, in some elaborate double bluff? Or is the arch-priestess of decadence finally laying down her velvet mantle? Whatever. With the matrimonials of the two Kates causing such fascinating societal perplexity, there can be no more apt time to examine todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s state of marital play. CONTINUED ON PAGE 184 www.harpersbazaar.co.uk

PHOTOGRAPH: ROBIN BROADBENT/TRUNKARCHIVE.COM. DIAMOND RING, FROM A SELECTION, CHOPARD (020 7409 3140)

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Clearly, in 2011, it is no longer ‘a truth universally acknowledged’ that every unmarried woman is ‘in want’ of being a wife (to adapt Jane Austen’s famous opening line); that her validity, as once was, would be secured by tying the proverbial knot. But even though civilisation has lived through several centuries post-Pride and Prejudice, emancipation, free love, the Pill, Gaga and arguably three of four waves of Women’s Liberation, we are still deeply divided about the issue of matrimony. Although today we are choosing to marry later (the average age for women is now, thankfully, over 30) or not at all (Office for National Statistics research shows that fewer couples are opting for matrimony now than at any other time since records began in 1862; and that in the next few years, the majority of babies will be born to unwedded parents, despite, one suspects, the coalition government’s planned tax-break initiatives), the shadow of the institution of marriage still looms over us – whether we like it or not.

My 10-year-happily-cohabiting friend Rebecca often regales me with amusing anecdotes of suspicious raised eyebrows and piteous eyes flashed at dinner parties (from a more decorous section of her social set, the Mrs Bennets and Mr Bingleys of the 21st century) – which, she says, translate as: ‘If Oliver was sure about you, darling, don’t you think he would have married you by now?’ In fact, Oliver has proposed to Rebecca, a 30-yearold fashion designer, on three occasions, all of which she has turned down (the first time with a rather panicked flow of rapid-fire expletives, poor Ollie). I have little doubt that he and Rebecca will be together, until ‘death do us part’ – their relationship is enviably rock-solid, they have two mortgages, three-year old Lily (and another on the way), but they are both happy to commit while remaining unwedded; an informal arrangement, it seems, that more and more of us are favouring.

Never slow to pick up on the zeitgeist, the Hollywood crowd are embracing long-term cohabitation as never before (who needs elaborate wedding-gown fantasies, with all those premieres and galas?).

There, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins are the icons of Lefty, co-habiting chic. Though the pair split in 2009, it’s fair to say, I think, that 23 years – and two sons – together, despite all the temptations of the film-making schedule, is a pretty impressive track record.

Stating her primary motive for not marrying, Sarandon said: ‘When you are not married, I think, it is not as easy to take each other for granted. When you say, “Til death do us part,” you don’t have to affirm your love for each other as often.’ (Though her divorce from Chris Sarandon, who she met in college, after 12 years might also have been a contributing factor. ‘I no longer believe in marriage,’ she said as she emerged from the fallout.)

The Sarandon-Robbins life-partner baton has been duly picked up by the Pitt-Jolie camp (both divorcees; Jolie, twice). ‘Usually people fall in love and everything revolves around the ritual of marriage,’ she has said, ‘and children are an afterthought. We did everything backwards.’ (Her quote vaguely suggests an eventual matrimonial outcome, in the non-specific distant future; presumably while on Harley safari in Kashmir, or in a hot-air balloon over Kinshasa or Islamabad.) Meanwhile, Johnny Depp’s reason for being single (despite a 12-year-liaison – and two offspring – with French hippie chanteuse Vanessa Paradis) is characteristically poetic, though perhaps a smokescreen that masks more profound motives, should one choose to delve: ‘It would be a shame to ruin her last name. It’s so perfect – Vanessa Paradis. So beautiful. It would be such a drag to stick her with Paradis-Depp. It’s like a flat note.’ A reason that, when delivered from such a Brando-esque countenance, would be inclined to weaken even the most icon-clad resolve to wed.

Back in the more prosaic realm of British politics, Ed Miliband (and his girlfriend Justine Thornton, an environmental lawyer – both in their forties) has been the subject of much heated debate for not possessing a marriage certificate – calling into question his very ability to steer the country. Should Labour defeat the coalition government,

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Miliband would be the first unmarried prime minister for over three decades. ‘We’re not against getting married,’ says Thornton. ‘It’s just like we already are. Children are clearly a commitment, a bigger commitment [than marriage]. It’s for life.’ (Some would argue that this is a heavily weighted and rational argument.) It is appropriate that an esteemed feminist should come to Miliband’s defence: ‘So many people choose to be in committed relationships without living together or marrying,’ says psychotherapist Susie Orbach. ‘Surely we are grown-up enough to embrace and delight in the different arrangements people find for themselves. They can serve as models for us all. We have everything from arranged marriages to love marriages. They can be successful or unsuccessful. No one way is right for our country today.’

And so the social sands of Britain – and the definitions of meaningful relationship fulfilment for its savvy female population – are shifting (despite research suggesting that those who merely cohabit are more likely to split), with marriage reduced to merely an option, which can be deferred to at any time in the trajectory of a relationship.

‘In the past, marriage helped people achieve a certain status in life, and women would focus on a wedding as the aim of a relationship,’ says psychotherapist, writer and broadcaster Lucy Beresford. ‘Nowadays, people see it more in context – as part of an ongoing process, rather than being blinded by the big white dress as some kind of ultimate goal.

People have realised that it’s an unrealistic fantasy and it weighs everything too heavily onto that one day.’

The iconography of such a ‘fantasy’ has been known to cause profound anxiety. Through the empirical findings of our own personal experience (as well as from the failures of parents’ generations), it has been exposed as – at the very least – idealistic, or worse, as a friend of mine would put it, ‘a darn-right bloody con’.

Columnist Hannah Betts, a self-confessed gamophobe (of course, the fear of marriage has a scientific moniker), suffers from an extreme aversion to the trappings of weddings, from diamond ring to Mauritanian honeymoon. ‘I have long found them purest voodoo,’ she says, shuddering. ‘Where other little girls dreamt of tulle, for me it was the stuff of nightmare. It still is. I just about get why other people would want to be married, but I will never fathom the utter ghastliness of weddings.’

Betts’ violent opposition to matrimony (as vigorous, it is worth noting, as the diametrically opposed passion to find a husband ingrained in a certain proportion of the female population) is both moral, political and philosophical. ‘My objection is based on feminism, atheism and a repugnance over the state dirtying its hands by rendering private relationships public. I could also not be happy availing myself of an institution from which homosexuals are barred.’

Harsh, but this is not an entirely unique sentiment. ‘My generation was bought up with feminist principles,’ says Chloe, a 44-year-old gallery owner, who met her partner James, a film producer, 17 years ago. ‘We wanted relationships to be 50/50. My self-image is not defined by being anybody’s property. I never liked the idea of being somebody’s wife. I love other people’s weddings, but I find the whole meringue-dress thing a little, well, cringe-making, to be honest.’

Even after nigh-on two decades of unwedded contentment (and the birth of Noah four years ago), Chloe is still fearful about entering into a contract that itself might alter the dynamics of such a fulfilling long-term relationship. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! I think we both associate marriage with a state that is closed, static and unsexy in a way. Your partner has already been won over, the deal has already been done. For unmarrieds, there is always the risk that your partner could meet someone else.

There is nothing legal to bind you. You stay together because you choose to every day. That’s what makes our relationship authentic, engaging and somehow sexier – I suppose.’

Unsurprisingly, such suspicion of the institution of marriage (with all its signifiers) and matrimonial commitment-phobia is often deeply rooted in childhood, according to Beresford, particularly for those who www.harpersbazaar.co.uk

grew up under unhappily married parents or endured the trauma of divorce – a reluctance that can sometimes be misinterpreted by partners.

American-born editor Molly, 38, began to doubt her British boyfriend Johnny’s devotion to her when they moved from London to New York in 2008, after seven years of living together. ‘The logical thing to do was to get married so that Johnny could get a work permit,’ she says. ‘But he preferred to go through years of legal red tape rather than tie the knot.

His parents divorced when he was a child and, of course, he was very coloured by that. He always argued that marriage was no proof of our love for each other, nor a guarantee against splitting up.’

Although, in principle, Molly understood Johnny’s aversion for ‘the pointless need for such a public display’ of their mutual commitment, after almost a decade together, insecurity crept in: ‘I increasingly felt that if we weren’t getting married, then perhaps there was a small part of him that just didn’t want to marry me.’

In the end, Johnny sensed Molly’s growing unease and, overcoming internal tribulations, proposed to her on their 10-year-anniversary (on a trip to the Rockies). ‘We got married at City Hall in New York with just my parents as witnesses,’ says Molly. ‘It was quick, fun, and exactly right for us.’

Chloe’s refusenik status (she is agnostic and her parents divorced when she was five) has also been more recently under review as she re-contemplates the concept of marriage in the light of its new modern incarnations. ‘For me, it’s gradually shaking off its dowdy, sanctimonious image. Today, it’s something that women can adapt for themselves, when and how we want to do it. We can mix it up and make it our own.’ She admits that Noah was the catalyst for this reappraisal. ‘Having children, of course, changes everything. I went through a crazy vulnerable stage just before I had him, when I was 40, thinking that marriage might be the best container for his life and his future. When you become a parent, there is suddenly your child’s trajectory to consider, and all your selfish ideas come second. There are issues affecting Noah, like wills and property inheritance in the event of our death, to be considered.’

Chloe intimates that she and James will eventually embrace some form of nuptials, their own personal version. ‘I’m still vacillating wildly between the registry office with a small dinner afterwards, and the greatbig life-affirming party – but it won’t be any time soon.’ For now, there’s the gallery to run, private views to organise, art-buying trips to New York, scheduling Noah’s school runs and play dates. ‘The thought of producing a wedding or writing a wedding list just fills me with dread. Noah’s fourth birthday party just about sent me over the edge…’

For the matrimonially challenged, with all their complex reasons to wed to or not to wed, perhaps the apotheosis of modern marriage is that of Dinos Chapman and designer Tiphaine de Lussy. Not one to take conformity lightly, in February 2006, the iconoclastic artist proposed to his life partner after 22 years. ‘Dinos and I got together when I was 21 in 1984,’ says de Lussy. ‘Marrying didn’t cross our minds, we had no time, no money and no feeling for it. At 28, I had my first daughter Seraphine.

We were totally committed. We used to have a joke, when people asked us why we weren’t married. We’d say, “We haven’t met the right person yet.”’ It was their own daughters, Seraphine, 19, and Agathe, 16, who cajoled Chapman into the idea. (‘They were always begging us to do it, designing dresses for it…’)

The ceremony took place at Shoreditch Town Hall, in front of a congregation comprised of the most provocative members of the Brit-art community. ‘Dinos tripped over his words. I wobbled through mine. I was shocked by how moved I was.’ De Lussy sighs. She is enthusiastic in expounding the benefits of ‘late weddings’ after decades of unmarried bliss. ‘Since us, two other couples in our group have done it. Getting married young is a bit crazy, isn’t it? Get married late, and it’s a celebration of a journey, the unit of your family, everything you have experienced together over the years. I was embarrassed to call Dinos my husband for about a year, but now it’s really nice. Actually, it makes sense.’ www.harpersbazaar.co.uk

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French dressing Scarlett Johansson and fiancé Romain Dauriac at the César awards in February

THE BEAU IS MINE W hen I look back, I think I always wanted to be with a Frenchman. Even at 14, growing up on the Isle of Wight, I picked my first boyfriend on the basis that he habitually wore a vintage Parisian-style mac with a black poloneck. Despite my geographic proximity to Normandy, there was no direct ferry and thus a dearth of real, live Gallic options: I had to make do. We hung out on the waterfront, smoking — me in a black beret — pretending that we were in a Jean-Luc Godard film and that the Solent was the Left Bank of the Seine; he was Jean-Paul Belmondo

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to my Jean Seberg. At university, I fell for a moody, blue-eyed Manc because of his uncanny resemblance to Alain Delon. It helped that he drove a moped, perfect for re-enactments of The Girl on a Motorcycle. My first birthday gift to any subsequent boyfriend was a Breton sweater, usually pronounced to be ‘too gay’.

I tried and tested a cross-section of nationalities: other Englishmen (emotionally and sexually constipated, fidgety eye contact, intimacy-avoidance issues), two Italians (Oedipus complexes, too worried about you ruffling their hair wax), and an Argentinian (hot, but supremely arrogant). Then, finally, I met Maurice, an art director from Marseille. He had a magnificently prominent nose, smoked

Gauloises sans filtre, dressed like a 1960s-era Yves Saint Laurent in horn-rimmed specs and dishevelled suits, and liked to drink red wine in the afternoon, in bed. He wasn’t obsessed with Fantasy Football League, his pants’ elastic remained safely at trouser-waist level, he didn’t fix our dates via WhatsApp — he actually picked up the phone and called me. He was a gentleman, neither over-effusive nor noncommittal and, best of all, he lived in Paris. It was my light-bulb moment. My early beretwearing instincts suddenly all made sense.

I’m not the only woman to have been struck by the charms of les hommes français recently.

The secret appears to be out. Cheryl Cole and Gemma Arterton have both found their very

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They invented the coup de foudre and proper kissing, they dress well, and they have seriously sexy noses… no wonder Gallic men are enjoying a romantic renaissance — just ask Scarlett Johansson and Cheryl Fernandez-Versini. Impassioned Francophile Stephanie Rafanelli on how a little French fancy can do you good

Love match Gemma Arterton and boyfriend Franklin Ohanessian at Wimbledon in June

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Entente cordiale Cheryl and Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini arriving at their wedding party in July

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FRENCH FANCIES own Serge Gainsbourgs this year, joining the ranks of the already enlightened. Scarlett Johansson started dating journalist Romain Dauriac in 2012 and can be seen weaving in and out of Parisian traffic on the back of her beau’s moto. The pair are expecting a child in a few months and their marriage is rumoured to be imminent. Sofia Coppola has two children with Thomas Mars of French alt-rock band Phoenix; in 2012 Natalie Portman married her Black Swan choreographer Benjamin Millepied, soon to be the dance director of the Paris Opera Ballet; and Halle Berry wed Kylie’s ex Olivier Martinez in 2013. These women are the Francophile new wave, who have followed in the ballet-pump-clad footsteps of Jane Birkin, Charlotte Rampling and Kristin Scott Thomas — all of whom traversed the Channel permanently for the sake of l’amour fou (not to mention easy-access Chanel shopping). ‘The French lover is no longer a distant legend,’ announced Paris Match magazine recently, but ‘a species in the process of regeneration.’

Meanwhile, Cole has changed her name to Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, after marrying Côte d’Azur playboy and Cannes Festival pop-up bar Cosy Box owner Jean-Bernard, despite the Geordie language barrier. It all happened très, très vite. The pair only met four months ago, but then the French did invent the coup de foudre, as well as proper kissing. Actress Gemma Arterton has also converted, ditching her Italian husband Stefano Catelli in favour of a Frenchman. She learned the language of love for French film Gemma Bovery, and put it into practice on set when she fell for the assistant director, Franklin Ohanessian. She can now be spotted on the Eurostar most weekends. I mean, she’s practically French already.

Pourquoi toute cette? you may ask. Well, a Frenchman has many, many talents, but first and foremost is his aesthetic. The fact is that Frenchmen just look permanently post-coital.

It’s not what they wear — although it’s always low-key and classic — it’s the way they wear it; not preened to within an inch of their lives, Italian-style, but décontracté, insouciant, like

A FRENCHMAN WILL WHIP UP CRAB THERMIDOR OR A SOUFFLÉ FOR YOU, OFF THE CUFF, AFTER DRINKS they’ve dressed after a protracted afternoon’s lovemaking. Then there’s the aquiline features, specifically the Gallic nose. It’s nearly always big, and hardly ever perfect. The young JeanBaptiste Mondino, the French Marlon Brando, had the bent snout of a boxer, as if he’d been brawling over one woman or another all his life, his fag still dangling from his mouth. Ditto Vincent Cassel, star of La Haine, Mesrine and Eastern Promises, whose frisson of brutishness and open admission of vulnerability kept the attention of Monica Bellucci, the world’s sexiest woman, for 17 years.

The French nose simultaneously suggests toughness, sensitivity and an artistic temperament, a melange perfectly expressed by Romain Duris’ character in Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005), a petty criminal who is secretly studying to be a concert pianist. Please note: to women this is super-hot. The face of Bleu de Chanel cologne, Gaspard Ulliel, who plays the eponymous role of Yves in this year’s French film Saint Laurent, might be just another pretty boy, were it not for an air of roughness lent by the scar from a Doberman attack on his cheek.

The Gallic proboscis is also a sign of discernment: Frenchmen are passionate connoisseurs of life. They adore food and though few reach the proportions of Gérard Depardieu, the same gastronomic spirit abounds. What’s more, they can cook more than spaghetti bolognese or an omelette. A Frenchman will nonchalantly whip up crab thermidor or a soufflé for you, off the cuff, after cinq à sept drinks; and when you eat out, he’ll offer to pay the bill as a matter of course, not tot up his share on a calculator.

Gallic men are simply classy. They drink whisky and wine, so there’s no beer-induced

farting and burping; and they’ll always look you straight in the eye when they toast you — if not, it brings them seven years bad luck in the form of terrible sex. And, zut alors, Frenchmen really don’t do bad sex.

OK, the Frenchie can be a little moody, but it’s not that he’s repressed or has withdrawn into his man cave because he thinks he might like you way too much. He doesn’t feel compromised or exposed when he’s falling in love. It’s just that he’s a thinker, brought up in the French intellectual tradition on the likes of existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and les philosophes. Be patient with him: he’s got a lot of Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire poetry to plough through and reflect on.

Gallic men also respect intelligence in the opposite sex; they are not intimidated by strong, smart women, they do not scamper away with their tails between their legs at the mere utterance of a polysyllabic word, as some British men do. Nor do they put women on a pedestal like some Italians, then drop them from a great height once they reach 35, damning them to a life of pop socks and viscose house dresses. The French admire women of all ages: Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling, Isabelle Huppert are all still considered major sex symbols in their sixties and beyond. Gallic men love women. Full stop. And they themselves age like a bottle of Château Lafite. For the pièce de résistance of the French male species is le renard argenté: the silver fox. I cite the aforementioned Vincent Cassel, 47; exfootballer David Ginola, 47; and Hidden actor Daniel Auteuil, 64. Even Alain Delon’s charm is still going strong at 78.

Sadly, I won’t be around to see Maurice turn grey. We broke up. He found it a little hard to accept that — just sometimes — I might put my career or friends before our impassioned liaison. Oh, well. C’est la vie. Still, I don’t have to move to Paris to replace him, instead the proverbial mountain has come to Mohammed — fortuitously, half of France now seems to live in London. ES

Take me homme France’s most delectable men du jour Schadenfreude is a nasty thing, but it’s hard not to celebrate the fact that Vincent Cassel split from Monica Bellucci last year and is now — gulp — single. If the I-could-kick-theshit-out-of-anyonebothering-you-baby frame, the artistic temperament and intense gaze aren’t enough for you, he also speaks English, Italian, Russian and Portuguese.

Of course, it’s best when he’s talking to

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you in French. He’s also an excellent samba dancer — we know because we bumped into him in a Rio nightclub, and it was très chaud.

T H I E R R Y H E N R Y, 3 7 When it comes to French footballers, few can rival the veritable hotness of David Ginola or Zinedine Zidane — apart from ex-Arsenal striker Thierry Henry, that is. It’s the shaved head, the gentle air that

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masks his powerful offensive, the ability to calmly score one-onones — and, of course, that Renault Clio ad.

He’s also a man of principle, an active spokesman against racism in football and a campaigner for UNICEF. British women still mourn the day he was transferred to the New York Red Bulls.

CLEMENT CHABERNAUD, 25 Number one, he’s called Clement.

Number two, he’s the new Alain Delon, with sandy hair and feline cheekbones. The male model du jour, he’s the

current face of Gucci and has worked for Roberto Cavalli, Prada and Dior Homme.

Long and lean, Chabernaud is the perfect Hedi Slimane-era Dior Homme boy with a potential to roughen up beautifully.

See him in a fishermanknit jumper in the H&M Isabel Marant ad campaign or on a bike with Kate Moss for Matchless London.

show. Top tip: make sure you get an invite home for dinner – they are two of 18 siblings.

P I E R R E S A R KO Z Y, 2 9 LES T WINS: LIL BEAST, 25, AND CA BLAZE, 25 Breakdancerchoreographers Laurent and Larry Bourgeois are the 6ft 4in Parisian-born twins of Guadeloupean origin who dance for Beyoncé.

Their trademark style — gravity-defying Afros and backwards hip-hop trousers — and physical dexterity have also caught the eye of Jean Paul Gaultier, who put them in his couture

It might seem unlikely, but history has proved that Nicolas Sarkozy has ‘got it’. Perhaps Carla Bruni knows something we don’t.

Anyway, the free Sarkozy spirit lives on in his DJ-slashmusic producer son Pierre.

Think a longhaired Michael J Fox with Technics.

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VINCENT CASSEL, 47