You talk like Marlene Dietrich and you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire

When Peter Sarstedt sang 'Your clothes are all made by Balmain, and there's diamonds and pearls in your hair', it's a pretty safe bet his muse wasn't wearing tartan bondage trousers and a lame singlet [much as I very, very much love Balmain's most recent offerings]. I want to live an elegant life like his St Moritz-hopping, Picasso-robbing heroine!

I like to think she would have looked like a cross between Grace Kelly and a Rene Gruau drawing.



I've become fixated on Gruau's drawings since a friend bought me a charming Gruau-illustrated birthday card the other week. They look the way I wish, WISH I could draw [and look] - all nonchalant, fearless brushstrokes, cigarette holders, inkpot eyes, insouciant, pointed little chins and ingenious bolts of colour. These are not chicks, girls, ingenues or even women - these here is LADIES.



He was the son of an Italian count and a French aristocrat - after they separated, he spent his childhood travelling Europe with his mother before pursuing a career in fashion illustration. Throughout the 1930s and early 40s he worked from Paris & Lyon, drawing for Marie Claire, L'Officiel and Vogue. After WWII, a meeting with Christian Dior injected his career with new energy - he created the inimitable image for the Miss Dior fragrance, and immortalised the New Look of the 40s & 50s and the designs of Dior, Balenciaga, Balmain, Schiaparelli and Givenchy. Right up to his death he was still illustrating for Elle, Figaro and Vogue - he never seemed to run out of inspiration and ideas.











[Images: Operagloves]

1910-2004. What a life!