It would be unthinkable to write about the film director Terence Davies without acknowledging the cinema that introduced me to his films, decades after it was demolished in the 1990s. Davies died last month, aged 77. London’s Lumiere cinema on St Martin’s Lane lasted a paltry 16 years. I watched it metamorphose into the Ian Schrager hotel (as I say, it was the 1990s) and the Gymbox fitness club it is today.  It was previously an Odeon cinema that solely screened Walt Disney cartoons, reminiscent of those Terence Davies remembered from the Liverpool of his youth. These venues were his initiation into film, with an elder sister as his escort, when he was 7 years of age.  He cried during the iconic dance sequence in ‘Singing In the Rain’ because Gene Kelly was so happy: ‘I remember every single thing about that day. It will be with me for the rest of my life.’ In later years he expressed two main regrets. Firstly, like Siegfried Sassoon, the subject of his last film, he sought redemption, but acknowledged that ultimately it wasn’t in him. He’d turned away from Catholicism and towards atheism at the age of 22.

16 mins 35 secs read

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Paris, 2019. Despite embracing the spectacle when displaying his wares, Karl Lagerfeld decided on the opposite when it came to his finale, his last goodbye. Not for him a send off at the Église de la Madeleine, where the ceremonies of the glamorous dead are staged. Coco Chanel for one, in 1971. Madame Pompidou planned something spectacular until the designer’s iffy war time allegiances came to light. Nevertheless here was Coco Chanel sealed in a casket shrouded by camellias, gardenias - her signature flower - orchids and azaleas. The pews filled with those that modelled her clothes. 'And you and your funeral,’ Lagerfeld was asked months before his death this year, aged 85, 'do you see it more in Sidi Bou Said like Azzedine Alaia, or at the Madeleine?’ Like David Bowie he opted for pure cremation, or what has been catchily termed in Britain 'direct disposal'. No ceremony. No rituals. Ashes to ashes.

14 mins 24 secs read

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'In time people will tell one another, "You really should know about these two guys, who lived in the 20th century in Paris”.’ This was Pierre Bergé in his later years, reflecting on his prolonged partnership with Yves Saint Laurent. Was he referring to their story as erstwhile lovers? Was he alluding to the global fashion brand the couple created, driven by Bergé’s crusading zeal and business acumen. Arguably, it was also a reference to how Paris, Europe, society changed during their lives, and the active role figures like themselves played in bringing about that change. The couple’s presence was felt beyond the confines of their fashion empire. Bergé was notable as a political campaigner and a patron of the arts. The couple’s art collection was famously auctioned for almost €400 million in 2009. The most expensive private collection ever to go under the hammer, according to Christie’s. The money was donated to AIDS research, and the charitable foundation now responsible for the two museums dedicated to the work of Yves Saint Laurent that opened this month. A move the couple had planned for over half a century. Almost as long as they were together.

15 mins 45 secs read

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One afternoon in the Autumn of 1979 a 17-year old Canadian science student stepped into the Fiorucci store on New York’s east 59th Street during a brief vacation. The experience encouraged Douglas Coupland to ditch physics and embrace art on his return to Montreal. Decades later - now an author, an artist - he reflected on that first time at Fiorucci: ‘(It) was like one beautiful little crystallization of everything you wanted adulthood to be. It was sexy, it was pop, it was fast, it was kind of electric.’ The artifact that had such an impact was the one thing he could afford: a postcard image of Twiggy with kohl eyes, pigtails, dressed in the leopard print once synonymous with Elsa Schiaparelli that Fiorucci made its own. The following year there was an earthquake in Italy. Not on the scale of the Messina Strait tragedy, but arumble south of Naples that registered 6.89 on the richter scale.