Mal - Aimée

Photographed By Pauline Forje

Frozen Time

Photographed By Isabel Nilsson

"When we consider how great our sorrows seem, and how small they are; how we think we shall die of grief, and how quickly we forget, I think we ought to be ashamed of ourselves and our fickle-heartedness. For, after all, what business has Time to bring us consolation?"

- The Memoires of Barry Lyndon A review in quotes.

The Death Of A Vampire

Photographed By Ellinor Forje

“I am nothing, lifeless, soulless, hated and feared. I am dead to all the world. I am the monster that breathing men would to kill.” 

This self-reflective declaration, spoken by one of Victorian literature’s most infamous characters, Bram Stoker’s antagonist, foreshadows the vampire’s cultural fate centuries later. In his existentialist speech to his beloved Mina, he anticipates a world that would metaphorically drive a stake through his heart, leaving the archetypal vampire, once feared and revered, to bleed out under the knives of modern literary taste.

Outside the Coop bookstore, manager Nancie Scherier sits with her significant other, enjoying ice cream on a warm July day. She wears a black tailored dress paired with an oversized black bag, her hairstyle reminiscent of “Vogue’s” Anna Wintour. “She's a tremendous reader,” notes her companion Rick. Scherier counts Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries among her favorite works in the vampire genre. She also appreciates Stoker’s Dracula, stressing “Yes, ”as in “Yes I do,” when asked. She is, however, not a fan of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, despite its commercial success. While the Coop does not release sales figures, Scherier confirms that Stoker’s Dracula no longer commands the shelves as it once did.

Given the enduring public fascination with vampires, evidenced by the circulation of 1,100 new vampire titles in 2010, and acknowledging that Stoker’s work helped establish the modern vampire, one might justifiably ask: “When and how did the prototypal vampire in literature and film become obsolete?”

Vampires have captivated human imagination across cultures and epochs, appearing in ancient Assyrian, Indian, Greek, Babylonian, and African folklore. Anne Rice revived the narrative in her bestselling Vampire Chronicles, while 5.3 million viewers tune in every Sunday to HBO’s critically acclaimed series “True Blood,” drawn to the living-dead inhabitants, and the “fang bangers” of the fictional town of Bon Temps. The literary evolution of the vampire, from mythological creature to resident of a television township, was first paved by John Polidori’s The Vampyre: A Tale (1819).

Yet it was Stoker’s portrayal of a nocturnal, mortifying, enigmatic, aristocratic, narcissistic, heterosexual alpha-male that crystallized the vampire as a quintessential figure from the late nineteenth through the twentieth century. Dracula became synonymous with the word “vampire,” his image immortalized on screen, from F. W. Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu to 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, starring Gary Oldman.

By the late twentieth century, however, the allure of Dracula had diminished. The 1992 film marked the last significant cinematic adaptation of Stoker’s novel. Contemporary audiences, captivated by the $300 million success of Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Amazon’s current “Bestsellers in Vampire Romances,” demonstrate a shift toward vampires reimagined as sensual, romantic, and often domesticated figures. Freudian psychology frames the vampire as an embodiment of two fundamental human impulses: Eros, or sexual desire, and the tension between the wish to die and the longing for eternal life. Yet modern society no longer finds these qualities fully encapsulated in a single archetypal character. Social paradigms demand diversity, a need presciently recognized by Anne Rice in the 1970s. Her Vampire Chronicles introduced a multi-dimensional cast of vampires varying in race, sexual orientation, and psychic complexity.

“We saw the remorseful vampire,” observes Dr. Sue Schopf, referring to Louis in Rice’s novels and his lament over the loss of humanity. Schopf, seated behind a Victorian-inspired desk reminiscent of the 1994 Interview with the Vampire set, is striking in her black curls, gold jewelry, black coat, and red chemise. Speaking with a southern accent, she emphasizes the final “t” in Lestat and the last four letters in Nosferatu with a Southern belle inflection. Schopf contextualizes Stoker’s Dracula within its historical moment, marked by female subordination, colonial rule, ecclesiastical influence, xenophobia, homophobia, and limited scientific understanding. Yet, she notes, evolving cultural landscapes demand new vampires—hence the flamboyant, homosexual alpha-male Russell in “True Blood,” who declares, "Mine is the true face of vampires!"

Post-September 11 uncertainty, the age of terrorism, and economic instability fostered a desire for a less threatening, more family-oriented vampire. In Harris’ and Meyer’s narratives, some vampires eschew human blood entirely. In The Southern Vampire Mysteries, for instance, vampires may subsist on the synthetic substitute “Tru Blood.” Despite transformation, the nocturnal creature remains vital. Many of its defining traits were catalogued, or invented, by Stoker in his 1897 novel.

Chapter 18 outlines Dracula’s perceived strengths and weaknesses, a framework both adhered to and adapted by subsequent vampire literature. A recurring motif, as seen in Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, holds that a vampire’s power grows with age. Dracula is 113 years old this year. When he marked his centennial in 1997, writers including Stephen King and Naomi Wolf paid tribute at the “Dracula Centennial: Aesthetics of Fear Conference” in New York.

Nonetheless, considering the cultural spectacle surrounding an undead figure’s birthday, has Count Dracula truly fallen from grace?

“How has he fallen from grace, was he ever 'in grace?' asks Harvard Professor Davíd Carrasco. “You might say that every generation gets the Dracula it ‘deserves' meaning the one it creates. Therefore Dracula is a 'mirror' an aesthetic mirror of different subcultures that flock to his story and then project their own fears and desires onto his nocturnal powers. Like all these heroes of our unconscious made conscious: He will rise again,” Carrasco continues, emphasizing the word, “will.”

Alternative State Of Shock

Photographed By: Elvira Gligoric
Make-up: Gabriella Mattson
Clothes Provided By: Shock
Styled By: Ellinor Forje

A few years ago, on my way to town, I ran into a girl wearing the most beautiful purple velvet coat. I couldn't place her style. It was alternative, if you will. Interesting. Interesting because she had combined every existing subculture known to man, and made it hers, without fear. One tribe. One girl.

I was informed by the girl in the purple coat, that she had acquired her piece of clothing from a website called, Drac In A Box. She further added that, as much as people would admire her coat, they would never bring themselves to buy anything from the website as it just wasn't them. Goth and morbidity, was just not them.

I got my brother the coolest shirt a couple of years ago. It was light beige-grey in colour, with a penciled sketch of Mickey Mouse in the center. My brother categorically refused, at first, to wear that shirt outside of his four walls. Refused. I believe his exact words were, "I'm not wearing a shirt that has Mickey Mouse on it." I was paralyzed. My cartoon-loving brother, who loved "The Lion King" and hated "The Return Of Jafar" - felt that he was too cool for Disney. Too cool. I had to challenge him to wear the shirt to work atleast once. Which he did, on a casual Friday. The shirt was loved by all, of course. So from then on, it migrated from his home, to his work, to the club and so forth: Because it had gotten mass approval.

Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood brilliantly draw inspiration for their collections from the streets of London: The streets where the expressionists walk. Then we see them, the clothes, on the runways and in the glossy magazines, and feel that they are "safe" to wear. Forgetting that the inspiration was always there. It was there long before the Olsen twins started wearing the death skull scarfs around theirs necks.

So why hesitate? Be independent and free. Find what you think is not you, then wear it like it's a crown on your head.

Giveaway

Photographed By Ellinor Forje

ENTER TO WIN A PAIR OF BOOTS
A new pair of boots, perhaps? The boots by Pleasure, worn by the model in the blog entry "Alternative State Of Shock" can be your fair weather friends. You just need to answer a series of questions, and complete a sentence. The boots are the actual boots worn by the model in the fashion shoot, and come in the size:

US 10
UK 7.5
EU 41
CM 26

About The Competition

It's simple. Complete the sentence; "If the boots were mine, this is how I would wear them..."

You are allowed to use any medium, as for example poems, drawings, photographs, vlogs etc, to present your style. As long as it's descriptive, any thing goes.

Your competition entry should be sent to p@gmail.com with an address specification as to where you want the boots sent.

The competition is open until Cinderella or Dorothy comes along. The boots will be shipped to where ever you are - free of charge!
Break a leg.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Illustrations By Ellinor Forje

Once upon a time there lived an Emperor whose only worry in life was to dress women in elegant clothes. He created new garments every season and loved to show them off.

"Look at the Emperor's new clothes. They're beautiful!"

That's exactly what I thought, before I sat down to replicate one of the photos (the first illustration) of a Valentino campaign I'd seen in "Vogue" a few seasons ago. The other illustrations are sketches of editorial spreads that I've seen and liked, in different magazines here and there.

I love Valentino. I love how he pays attention to the hour-glass figure: Reminding me that I'm yet to watch "Valentino - The Last Emperor". In this documentary, we supposedly learn through Giancarlo Giammetti, that Valentino's love for colours, patterns and cloth, is only rivaled by his adoration for le bronzage . The vanity! But then again, it's okay to be vainglorious, when your name is Valentino Garavani.

Fashion Is Dead

Photographed By Fohnjang Ghebdinga 


Fashion remains dead. And we have killed it.

Could it be?

Today, I came across an interesting blog with the captivating title, Fashion Doesn't Exist. It made me plunge right into a fashion existentialistic state of shock. Did it never exist? Or did it, and we killed it? If no, then what? If yes, then how can we comfort ourselves, the fashion murderes that we are?

Aquarelle Sur Papier

Illustrations By Ellinor Forje

Watercolour on paper. Spring 2009.

The Measure Of A Chef

Photographed By Ellinor Forje

This was Pooja Dhingra's story then, when I met her in Paris one year ago. Time is a good friend. Yes.

Pooja Dhingra is funny. That is what her classmates at Le Cordon Bleu think. Yet, she seems completely oblivious to the fact that she is charming, and to the fact that people are instinctively drawn to her. Her English accent is that of a Bollywood actress. And her beauty is blossoming. Dhingra is like an extract from the Britney Spears song, “Not A Girl, Not Yet a woman”. Her character is like a composite of three other personalities active in the profession of her intensions. She is as assertive as Gordon Ramsey, of “Hell’s Kitchen” without swearing. She has the archetype; “the boy next door, that sadly doesn't live next door to me,” of Jamie Oliver - “The Naked Chef”. And she is sassy, exotic and curvaceous like the British TV cook, Nigella Lawson. Though she is only half Lawson’s age, she is equally ambitious. And she has epic plans for herself. She is also well aware of the obstacles she will face in her pursuit of them.

Dhingra, is finishing up her “Diploma in French Pastry” at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris. She plans to return home to India, to set up her own chain of pastry shops in Bombay. She is conscious that it is going to be difficult for her as a young woman, to enter the male-dominated business environment in India; “People don’t take you seriously,” she said in a soft spoken voice, yet firm in her speech. And on many occasions when she has had to contact people in relation to her business venture, they would literally hang up on her; “My father would have to call” she said.

Dhingra, who comes from a family where both parents are in the food and catering Industry, did not always know that she wanted to become a chef. After high school, she started studying law in India. But, after a month of studies, she realized that her choice of career had not been the right one. So she dropped out of her law program and moved to Switzerland to study at Cézar Ritz Colleges. In 2007, she graduated with a Bachelor of International Business in Hotel and Tourism Management. And in 2008, she moved to France, to master the art of pastry making. Dhingra, does not feel that the time she spent studying undergraduate law in India was wasted. “By trial, that’s how you learn,” she said.

Dhingra, plans to have a centralized kitchen in Bombay where the pastry will be made, before being transported to the other bakeries. She has already conceived a concept for her pastry shops, “French technique, Indian flavour” she said and continues, “the key will be to find a common ground, you have to tweak the recipes to suit the ingredients available in India, and the temperature.” The menu will also include chocolate pralines, as Dhingra did an internship with chocolatier Jean Charles Rochoux during her one year stay in Paris. Her business establishment is going to be called “Le15” after the arrondissement in Paris, where she lived and spent most of her time.

Catherine Baschet, development manager at Le Cordon Bleu is very enthusiastic over Dhingra’s entrepreneurial spirit given her young age. “She is very focused, and determined at the age of 23,” she said. Baschet, has already collaborated with Dhingra on a workshop project for Le Cordon Bleu, held in India last year, and she is planning for more to come.

Dhingra, belongs to the generation of highly educated young women who are slowly changing the business environment in India. Yet, she is modest in reference to her undertakings, “I don't think I am an inspiration yet. But, hopefully one day I could be!” she said.

La Pâtisserie

Photographed By Ellinor Forje

Gate 38

Photographed By: Elvira Gligoric
Make-up: Gabriella Mattson
Styled By: Ellinor Forje
Modell: G.S
Clothes By: My Wardrobe

"I've had some of my best conversations with strangers, she said, because they have no idea who they're dealing with."
-StoryPeople

Gate 38, is an art gallery located in the central part of Malmö, Sweden (just a stone's throw away from the Danish capital). And the artwork decorating the walls of its interior space, is as colourful as its owner, Monika Österheim.

Österheim likes meeting new people, "Everything is about encounters" she said. That is why she likes travelling. A few years ago, on of her journeys to the U.S., she came across an exhibition showcasing StoryPeople, and decided then that she had to meet its creator. The rest is art history. Today she has distribution rights to their products in Sweden. And about a week ago, the man behind the brand, the business partner of four years, Brian Andreas made a visit to the gallery, in lieu of the city's Culture's Night.

Gate 38 , is named after the street number its gate, or grind in Swedish, is located on. The gallery hosts 5-6 different exhibitions a year, along with other special events. The work by StoryPeople is always on display.

Another artisan, who also has a steady exposition at the gallery, is photographer Jan Olofsson. Olofsson's 43-year-long career in England is reflected in the images he's taken of some of the biggest personalities in music history. He recently collaborated with designer Soheil Norozi of L'ecole National to make his art, wearable.

Wearable art, is an art form highly appreciated by Österheim. "I'm a runway freak" she said, and further elaborated that she obsessively watches the Internet to catch the latest news in the world of haute couture. Karl Lagerfeld is ingenious and energetic." said Österheim. And she's as passionate about music as she is clothes. She frequently listens to old school Soul, Blues and Rock music; as well contemporary music. "New things spark my curiousity" said the gallery owner, and added, "Life has so much to offer".

38's Guide

Photographed By Elvira Gligoric

Art gallery owner, Monika Österheim, offers some pointers on how to become that successful person you want to be.

1. Be passionate about what it is that you want to achieve. Your vision has to be strong. But allow for flexibility. Don't be afraid to fail. The journey is everything. The goal itself, is nothing. There are no short cuts. Work hard and never give up.

2. Be open minded. The most fantastic opportunity is usually just around the corner. Find good people to work with. And Don't be afraid to ask people for help. You'll be amazed over how many people are willing to lend you a helping hand.

3. Don't be afraid to be who you are. It is from there that the personal and unique arises. Know your competition. And always trust your intuition.

In other words, do what is you.