If you could have dinner with anyone from history, who would it be? Man Ray

Ella Raines by Man Ray

If you could have dinner with anyone from history, who would it be?

People often love to ask this question and I thought it would be interesting ( and maybe fun?) to have a series of posts where I would write about each of my guests!

My first guest in no particular order would be Man Ray!

I’m inviting him for many reasons but my two most important ones are:

First:

His amazing avant-garde photography of course. He was a key player in the evaluation of photography as a form of art

In 1922 shortly after his first experiments with camera-less photography Ray said “I have finally freed myself from the sticky medium of paint, and am working directly with light itself”. He became well known for those images, commonly called photograms but which he famously dubbed “rayographs” combining his own name and the word “photograph.”

To make those rayographs he placed his subjects or objects in front of a photosensitized paper and exposed them to light, creating negative images. This process was not new, camera-less photographic images had been produced since the 1830s but in his photograms, (or should I say rayographs) Ray embraced the possibilities for irrational combinations or arrangements of objects, emphasizing the abstract images made from this technique.

Man Ray was an artist of many talents. He directed a number of influential avant-gard short films, known as Cinema Pur. He directed Le Retour à la Raison (2 mins, 1923); Emak-Bakia (16 mins, 1926); L’Étoile de Mer (15 mins, 1928); and Les Mystères du Château de Dé (27 mins, 1929). He also assisted Marcel Duchamp with the cinematography of his film Anemic Cinema (1926), and Ray personally manned the camera on Fernand Léger’s Ballet Mécanique (1924). In René Clair’s film Entr’acte (1924), he appeared in a brief scene playing chess with Duchamp.

Second:

His sense of humor!.

According to his many famous friends he was really fun to be with! I can imagine him mesmerizing every one at the table with his stories about how he fled paris in WWII and about the many famous people he photographed such as Picasso, Salvador Dali, Peggy Guggenheim and the eccentric Marchesa Luisa Casati to name a few.

I couldn’t ask for better company!

Style Icon: Countess Setsuko Klossowska de Rola

Wearing fur over her Kimono At the Chanel Haute-Couture Spring / Summer 2012 Show

Countess Setsuko Klossowska is an artist and a writer and has been cultivating her unique sense of timeless chic for decades. Countess Setsuko Klossowska de Rola was born in Tokyo in 1942 into the Ideta family, an ancient Samurai clan originally from Kyoto that is part of the Japanese aristocracy. She has been in charge of the Villa Medici in Rome, she has exhibited her work internationally. She became UNESCO’s Artist For Peace in 2005.

She is the widow of the French artist Count Balthus Klossowska de Rola. She met him while he was visiting Japan for the first time in 1962. He was sent to Japan by André Malraux, then France’s first minister of cultural affairs, to choose traditional Japanese artwork for an exhibition in Paris.

XXX attends the Haider Ackermann show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2017 on October 1, 2016 in Paris, France.

<> on March 7, 2015 in Paris, France.

Shortly after their marriage in 1967, they moved to the Italian capital where Balthus became the director of the French Academy in Rome, housed in the 16th-century Villa Medici. In 1977, they settled permanently in Switzerland with their two children in the 18th grand chalet, (a former hotel whose guests included the noted French poet and novelist Victor Hugo). Located in the tiny alpine village of Rossinière, it became the setting for chic dinners and gatherings that included an eclectic roster of international guests such as photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, artist Alberto Giacometti, the Agha Khan, the Dalai Lama and David Bowie. There is a room at the Grand Chalet de Rossinière dedicated to storing Countess Setsuko’s legendary collection of custom kimonos, some of which were recently exhibited in Tokyo. To the untrained eye they may appear traditional, but to those in the

There is a room at the Grand Chalet de Rossinière dedicated to storing Countess Setsuko’s legendary collection of custom kimonos, some of which were recently exhibited in Tokyo. To the untrained eye they may appear traditional, but to those in the know, they are a sartorial fusion of tradition and modernity, East and West, thanks to the Countess’ expert eye. She will often appear at private dinner parties in a ravishing gold brocade kimono, flecked in a deep red that she had matched to her signature nail polish.

SETSUKO KLOSSOWSKI (FEMME DE BALTHUS) – LANCEMENT DU LIVRE “LE STYLE PUTMAN” CHEZ LOUIS VUITTON

Surprisingly, her custom of donning the kimono only began after her marriage to Balthus. Her husband was so enamored by the elegance of the traditional Japanese costume that he asked his wife to wear the kimono without fail every day. “Balthus was surrounded by people who were conscious of the beauty inherent in what they wore, and it was through him that I was able to realize the elegance of Japanese style,” recalled Countess Setsuko, who until their marriage had only worn the kimono on ceremonial occasions, such as the traditional tea ceremony or on New Year’s Day. “I couldn’t even tie the obi belt on my own at first. It would sometimes loosen, making the bow droop down. I made a lot of mistakes,” confided Countess Setsuko, who at 73 continues to wear the kimono even when traveling abroad, whether it is to the Middle East or on a plane bound for New York.