14 January 2012

Schiaparelli for the Boys.






Generating heat in the European winter, November 1944.

5 comments:

  1. Wow! Are the first 2 photos from a video? Related to this dress, does this site look legitimate? In the coffee table book that Maria put together a decade ago, this dress was a rich pink color--not pale like on that site. Also, that photo of Dietrich is not from 1932.

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  2. Joseph! Can't remember the link for the pics (some site about WWII, I think).

    The site selling those dresses is so suspect, that Schiaparelli gown has been "on hold" for ages! I can't imagine Dietrich wearing the other dresses ... the Schiaparelli gown looks legit, though. Perhaps Dietrich had two? Or this was another person's gown? As far as I know the one pictured in Riva's book is in the Filmmuseum?

    There are a couple of strange errors in the coffee table book. A photo probably taken backstage at the Cafe de Paris is labelled Olympia (which would be 1962!) ... the photo with Elia Kazan was taken at the premiere of "A Star is Born" (he was her date) .... the photo of Dietrich in diFrasso's "bedroom" (with the tiger motif on the wall) is actually the drawing room of the Bevery Hills house, I think, if you look at other photos from that shoot ... the photo with Remarque in the 50s must surely be El Morrocco? .... the famous photo at Judy Garland's Palace show was in the early 50s, not 1960! ... the "unknown" photographer who took the photos of the Dietrich Legs with her Kruse doll is probably Avedon (from the shoot of Marlene on the iron bed -- the doll is in those shots too), etc!

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    Replies
    1. Are you telling me that the inimitable Maria Riva erred? I can't bear reading such irreverence! Oddly, the photos of the legs and the Kruse are indexed under Avedon's name (at least in the Knopf edition). Maybe Riva & Co. rushed to put the book out before Dietrich's centennial? Oh, well! Coffee table books become little more than makeshift coasters during parties and such.

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    2. Those errors could have been the photo editor's. Possibly nothing to do with Maria.

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    3. The title page clearly states "captions by Maria Riva with Werner Sudendorf" so it had everything to do with Maria. It may have been Werner's mistake, but Maria got top billing.

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