The Queen.

In honor of this weekend's Diamond Jubilee celebrating Queen Elizabeth's 60 year reign on the British throne, I present

The Queen as painted by Lucien Freud

The Queen's Norman Hartnell designed coronation dress

The Queen in her coronation dress

The Queen photographed by Cecil Beaton

The Queen photographed by Annie Liebowitz

The Queen's enormous pink diamond, the Williamson Diamond Brooch, by Cartier

The Queen in her enormous pink diamond brooch

The Queen, Michelle Obama and the Queen's trusted purse

The Queen and her Corgis

The Queen in a hat

and The Queen all dolled up and in a crown

My Love Affair with Vivienne Westwood

Didn't you know?  I have had a not so secret love affair with Vivienne Westwood.  I am trying to remember when it all began.  I think it all began with a bit of SEX*.  It was casual SEX with a rock star.  I can't even remember if it was Adam Ant or one of the Sex Pistols.

Adam Ant in Vivienne Westwood.

Or maybe it was when Vivienne was awarded with an OBE by Her Royal Majesty the Queen of England and the newly named Dame Viv did a twirl and showed her little girl to the whole world that I felt a pulse of excitement.  (This is the G rated version of the knickerless twirl).

Or maybe it was when I saw one of her enormous ball gowns in 2006 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Costume Institute's exhibit, Anglomania, that I swooned with lust:

Or then again maybe it was Kate Moss and some swashbuckling pirate action that got me all excited and determined to get a little pirate booty for myself.  

Kate Moss in her Vivienne Westwood Pirate boots

Oh, and I almost forgot, for RARE vintage.  So, you see, my love affair with Vivienne Westwood was not just some one night stand but an epic romance.

Here are some amazing pieces of Vivienne Westwood that we have in store for you right now at RARE vintage:

1990 Vivienne Westwood 'Portrait' black patent leather shoes:

Early 1990s Vivienne Westwood chiffon Pirate blouse:

1990s Vivienne Westwood pale striped corset and sea foam green silk draped ball gown skirt:

Worlds End Vivienne Westwood top:

*and by the way, SEX was the name of the shop run by Macolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood on Kings Road in 1974.  And just what kind of SEX were you thinking of??

Fashion Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Love Me, When I'm 71? Part 4

There was no anarchy in the UK on Wednesday but there was a gaggle of Dames at a celebration of the British arts at the Royal Academy with the Queen.   There was Dame Joan Plowright, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Shirley Bassey and then there was Dame Vivienne Westwood.  

Dame Viv wore a striped gold lamé dress with her Dame of the Empire pink ribbon on the lapel of her black jacket and a pink flowered headband in her hair.  Just goes to show that it is all a bunch of bullocks that you can't have fun with fashion - and look fabulous - when you are 71.  

Getty images

Do You Have A Spare 2,000,000 Euros?

You do?!  Well lucky you because this wonderful Jean Dunand for Madeleine Vionnet games table can be yours!  It is up for auction in Paris with an estimate of 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 (so if you only have a spare 2,000,000 euros it may not be yours.  Sorry!)

Image courtesy of Artcurial-Beist-Poulain-F. Tajan

The table has a very stylish history.  In addition to having belonged to the great designer Madeleine Vionnet, it also had been in the collection of Michael and the very great Tina Chow and you know how much we love Tina Chow here at RARE vintage.

The living room of Michael and Tina Chow with the Dunand table in the background: 

Image from a Passion for Collecting: Decorating with Art and Antiques.

Get that paddle ready!

This One is for Yves Saint Laurent

Natasha Poly walked the red carpet at Cannes in an emerald green Gucci gown with long sleeves (I still get goose bumps when I see girls in long sleeves - anything other then a mermaid gown and anything with a sleeve, my heart goes all aflutter!).  

Now call me crazy but I think I have seen this dress somewhere before and I do not mean the Gucci store on 5th Avenue.  Just off of 5th Avenue in The New York Gallery building, inside RARE vintage, we had two Saint Laurent dresses.  One in black.  One in red.  They both wrapped and showed a slinky amount of leg that would do Angelina Jolie proud. 

The black has sold but we do still have the red.  

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Beautiful Dresses, Beautiful Women: Cannes 2012

The weather has been dreadful in Cannes and I know from personal experience that it is not much fun dragging a long evening gown through a torrential downpour.  Just take a look at poor Isabelle Huppert's soggy gown:

No umbrella for Isabelle?  It looks like she needed Fonzworth Bentley -  P. Diddy's former umbrella man:

And then the wind caught Lily Cole's dress and she flashed a bit of her very sensible looking knickers.  

But wet weather aside, there have been some beautiful dresses on the red carpet and Diane Kruger in particular has been a real stand out.  She has looked super glamorous and like a movie star and you can tell she really enjoys getting dressed up.   In Giambattista Valli:

Looking very Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief don't you think?

And then she wore this ridiculously fabulous Vivienne Westwood gown

Which has a really wonderful late 19th century silhouette but in a futuristic and shiny gold.

I also loved the Versus laced dress that she wore:

and with friends like Karl Lagerfeld you are reportedly given gifts like antique earrings to wear with your Westwood gown: 

Versailles 73: American Runway Revolution

Pat Cleveland

Billie Blair 

Alva Chinn

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Charlene Dash

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Bethann Hardison

Amina Warsuma (I could only find this little photo of Amina Warsuma, if anyone has a larger one, I would love to see it.  But don't you just LOVE the Zandra Rhodes she is wearing?!)

China Machado

were the models of Versailles in 1973.

In January of last year I went to a lunch at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate the models of that infamous friendly competition between American fashion designers and French designers .  Oscar de la Renta spoke (a lot), Donna Karan spoke too and Stephen Burrows managed to get a few words in.  And the women we were there to celebrate, the models of that evening in Versailles in 1973, unfortunately barely had a chance to speak at all.  The only little anecdote we heard was that there was little food and lots of people fighting .  And I wanted to hear so much more.  Happily debuting during the Cannes film festival is a new documentary, Versailles 73: American Runway Revolution and it looks like there will be hopefully be more models and less Oscar.  You can see the preview here.

And I am absolutely thrilled to have at RARE vintage a Halston dress very similar to one photographed on the oh so fabulous Pat Cleveland.

`  Pat Cleveland in the Halston gown.  Image from Halston An American Original by Elaine Gross and Fred Rottman.

This dress is BEAUTIFUL!  It is a wrap dress which is of course very typical of Halston.  It is in a heavy emerald silk taffeta with a black silk sash for the waist and what many people often forget about Halston is what a superb craftsman he was.  To accentuate the nipped and fitted waist, Halston "padded" the interior hip area with integral silk organza panniers.   (I will be adding photos of the interior shortly)  The sleeves are gathered at the wrist and for that very American sportswear feel, can be worn pushed up on the arm.

Halston emerald silk gown.

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