#custom wig wear Declarative Image

[jeregarn25-blog]

15 Celebrities You Never Knew Wore Wigs

10, November 2017: Are you afraid that wearing a wig will be too noticeable? Think again. In today’s day and age, wig creation has been taken to a masterful level. So much in fact, that you probably pass someone on the street every day (or at least consistently) that wears a wig and you didn’t even know it. All you think is, “Wow! I wish I had beautiful hair like that…” Take some of your favorite celebs, for example. Celebrities are a great instance of people who are trying to constantly keep up with society trends or simply to Hollywood's demanding image expectationsand keeping up appearances for their long adoring fans. You may look at them in magazines or online and think even with the advent of Photoshop they are models of perfection, but what you may not realize is sometimes there is another addition to all that makeup, angles, clothing, and so on. Celebrities have consistently fooled the public eye with wigs, whether it be for purely aesthetics, medical necessity, or to cover-up the inevitability of aging. At Declarative Image, we know custom wig wear. We consider ourselves masters of the art and science, and we do it just so you can feel incredible and strong on the outside and the inside. Yet we also realize that you may need a bit more persuasion on the matter of how amazing you can truly look with a custom wig. That’s why we’ve collected these top 15 celebrities that you never knew wore wigs. 1. Charlie Sheen – There has been photographic proof in recent past of the long time star showing evidence of some baldness and then later showing a full head of hair. It’s hard to tell if his hair loss has been due to aging or medical reasons, but he hasn’t let either stand in his way with the use of wig wear. 2. Robert Pattinson – While you may have loved Patterson’s luscious locks in the Twilight franchise, you probably didn’t know that he wore a wig while filming parts of Breaking Dawn: Part 2. According to Glamour and other celebrity news sources, a custom wig was designed to match his hair since he had shaved his head for his role in Cosmopolis. However, others have also mentioned that Patterson has dealt with thinning and receding hair since his early twenties. 3. Kylie Jenner – In case you thought she was just a master at dying her hair and keeping it healthy, the truth is Jenner actually started wearing wigs to get her natural hair back to good health. If you visit her site TheKylieJenner.com, you’ll get an up-close and personal view of the reality star’s major wig collection. 4. Chuck Norris – So, we admit, this one is of wide speculation across the internet, but it could be entirely possible. The Walker, Texas Ranger has for many years never shown any signs of aging on the top of his head, so is it a wig or just the fact that even Norris’ hair is an unstoppable force? 5. Sherri Sheperd – Reports have talked about how envious Shepard’s co-hosts on The View are of her wig collection, which apparently covers an entire wall. According to her hair stylists, she prefers wigs over dying her natural hair, in order to prevent damage from the number of products and excessive heat it would otherwise have to endure. 6. John Travolta– Although Travolta has aged well, he hasn’t been able to escape a receding hairline and male pattern baldness, and yet who can tell? The actor is known to wear an essentially undetectable lace wig piece. 7. Gwen Stefani– Ever wonder how Stefani maintains her gorgeous bleach-blond look? She is believed to wear extensions or various wigs when her roots need dyed or her hair needs to repair itself. 8. Emilia Clarke – If you have seen Ms. Clarke in any of her other on-screen appearances, such as Me Before You or Drop the Dog, then you know that her long and beautiful locks in Game of Thrones is actually one of the customized wigs she wears on the show. 9. Debra Messing– The Will and Grace star apparently wore wigs after her pregnancy due to hair loss caused by hormonal changes. She’s not the first to have need to do so for the same reason: Angelina Jolie and Kate Hudson have also noted the need, among others. 10. Dame Maggie Smith – Another beloved actress who has worn wigs for roles and for health reasons. In Harry Potter and Downton Abbey she wore wigs to compensate for her real life short hairstyle and hair loss caused by her fight with breast cancer. 11. Dolly Parton – As someone well known for her major up-dos, it may surprise you that Dolly hasn’t mounted her famous locks in hair spray for quite some time. The country singer, actress and philanthropist has worn customized wigs to keep up appearances and recently noted she wears them daily, due to extreme thinning of her hair. 12. Taraji P. Henson– You’ve loved her in her sensational roles like Empire and Hidden Figures, but did you know that Ms. Henson is a regular when it comes to faux hairstyling? Such is usually for portraying her roles and photoshoots, simply to keep up appearances despite loving her natural hair. 13.Charlie Villanueva – This all-American basketball player for the Detroit Pistons has been known to wear wigs due to suffering from Alopecia, an autoimmune disease that results in baldness or hair loss. 14. Keira Knightley – As an A-list actress, Knightley knows the woes of having to consistently dye her hair and the negative effects that can have. Last year she opened up about having to wear wigs previously in order to cover-up the fact that she started to lose her hair. Thankfully after 5 years, her hair grew back in full force during and after her pregnancy. 15. Matthew McConaughey – Alright, alright. Ever notice how in the 90’s, McConaughey started to show signs of balding, and yet now he has a great head of hair? Rumors are that he has previously received a hair transplant or wears a custom wig, particularly since his endorsement for the hair loss product Regenix. Well, there you have it. As you can see, there is no reason to fear that you won’t look amazing in a customized wig. Declarative Image is guaranteed to help create the perfect custom wigs and hair enhancement solution that will provide you with a new level of confidence and beauty. Contact us today to see how we can truly change your life today! Declarative Image USAF VETERAN American Made Exclusive custom high-end handmade wigs & hairpieces. Insurance Accepted! (800)649-3905 info@declarativeimage.com www.declarativeimage.com

[chryseis]

the future’s in our hands (and we will never be the same again)

Fandom: Alien: Isolation, Alien Summary: Ripley and Samuels have spent months on the run after barely escaping Sevastopol alive. Just when they believe they have found a safe haven, they discover that the Company will stop at nothing to erase all evidence of what truly happened on that terrible day. AO3 Chapter 1/?

Amanda peered at the double faces of her watch and wondered how long she had until she’d be kicked out for loitering. It was late afternoon, and the establishment’s booths were beginning to fill with patrons looking for an after-work pint. Amanda gaze wandered over the other customers as they talked and laughed and drank, and she tried to ignore the little prickles of envy that crawled up her spine. She had spent many good nights in bars like this one with friends and coworkers, but those nights seemed so hazy and far away, as if they’d been nothing but dreams. At one of the booths, a group of engineers wearing Hyperion logos on their jumpsuits burst into laughter, and Amanda had to turn away.

Hyperion was a midsized station owned by Spectrum, a company so small that Amanda had never heard of it. She and Samuels had stepped off the Torrens and on to its’ docks at the beginning of April.

“What about Earth?” Samuels had first suggested while they had still drifted aimlessly in the Torrens. They had both crept around the ship hesitantly those first few days: half-fearing a reappearance of the creature— although they had expelled it— and half-hoping Verlaine and Connor would emerge from some clever hiding place. After scouring the ship, they had confirmed that there were no other unwelcome passengers, but also that the Torrens’ crew was gone.

“Earth is too obvious,” Amanda had countered. Not only the birthplace of human life, but also the planet where Samuels was built, and so close to her own home planet of Luna.

“But easy to lose ourselves in,” he had pointed out. She had had to agree and so they had spent two weeks in a motel in an Italian suburb before two Weyland-Yutani agents kicked down their door. Amanda and Samuels hadn’t dared to wait and see what the men had planned for them, and instead left them half-dead on the cheap plastic floors as Samuels shook the blood from his knuckles. They had spent the next four months on the Torrens, occasionally docking on planets and stations only long enough to refuel and restock their supplies. When they had decided that they had put enough distance between themselves and anyone who might be following them, they docked at Hyperion, a mundane station that was unlikely to attract any kind of attention.

Amanda took a tiny sip of her pint and scratched her head. She’d been sitting in the bar for nearly an hour and had only finished half her drink. The bartender, a short middle-aged woman, had repeatedly come to hover around her, no doubt annoyed by the customer who was taking up space and spending little money.

“I’m waiting for my friend,” she said awkwardly, when she felt the woman’s eyes burning into the top of her head. The bartender rolled her eyes and stepped around the bar to serve a group of men at one of the booths who were waving her over.

“Your beer is flat, anyway,” Amanda mumbled under her breath, dinging the edge of the glass with her fingernail. She looked back at her watch and sighed.

Samuels was late. This was not too unusual, for he was often kept behind at work. The first time that he hadn’t met her when he was supposed to Amanda had panicked. She had remembered the way he had looked on Sevastopol, slumped on the floor with milky liquid leaking from his nose and from between his lips, and her heart had hammered with fear. She pictured Ricardo with that terrible creature clinging to his face, Taylor with shards of glass embedded in her brain, Waits with his broken body, Axel and the mess of gore and blood he had left behind. She had pushed her way to the nearest transit car, seeing nothing but white until she had stumbled into his workplace and watched him turn around in his desk chair, his face an immediate picture of concern. His co-workers had watched awkwardly as he had put his arm around her and guided her back to their apartment. Amanda’s breathing had steadied by the time she had sat at the kitchen table with a glass of water. Samuel’s had tried to speak to her about the incident several times since, but she had refused.

Amanda reached up and scratched her scalp again, trying to make the casual gesture appear effortless. It was a difficult task, especially as the hair was as fake as the ID in the pocket of her pants. The wig was a pain in the ass, just like her false name, and her terrible job. But Weyland-Yutani would be searching the galaxy for dark-haired, bare-faced Amanda Ripley, and not for Ellen Baker, who had red hair and a fondness for pink lipstick. Amanda Ripley worked contract jobs on ships and hangers, Ellen Baker sold clothing in a store that catered mostly to middle-aged women and only rarely did she forget to smile. Amanda knew that using her mother’s first name could be a dangerous, but she had once heard that aliases were most believable when they meant something to the person using them. It might have been stupid to cling to her past, but she’d always been so very bad at letting it go.

“Ellen,” Amanda turned at the sound of her alias. Samuels smiled as he pulled out the barstool beside her. His face was a familiar comfort, even with dyed blonde hair that washed out his skin. Amanda raised her hand to the bartender who had returned from the booths. She sulkily poured Samuels the same brand of beer that Amanda had ordered without asking him what he’d like. Samuels accepted the drink with a friendly smile and slid over his payment, just the same.

“Hey, Adam. You’re late,” Amanda said lightly, addressing him by his own fake name. “Long day?”

“A wasted day,” Samuels replied with a dry smile. “I’m afraid the life of a dental receptionist isn’t as exciting as one might think.”

Amanda laughed. “There are other jobs, y’know.”

Samuels’ smile turned rueful. “Not for me.”

Amanda turned back to her drink and awkwardly fiddled with the coaster underneath it. He was probably right. Hyperion Station was a good, anonymous place for them to take shelter in, but the inhabitants saw synthetics as little more than tools. Amanda had seen Samuels’ fists clench when his coworkers spoke to him too clearly and with over enunciation, as if he were a child. Hyperion gave its’ least sought-after jobs to synthetics, and while Samuels could generally pass as human, it was pointless to pretend to people as intimate as coworkers. Synthetics owned by the station were not paid for their labour but Samuels’, as an independent, was paid in full, although his earnings were deposited directly into the bank account of Ellen Baker.

“I hope I don’t sound as if I’m complaining to much,” Samuels said after a moment.

Amanda swallowed. “You’re allowed to be angry,” she said. “You’re allowed to be hurt.”

She looked up and met his eyes. His brow was furrowed, as if he couldn’t think of how to respond, a strange delay for a synthetic. His lips parted, and Amanda found herself wondering if they were soft. After a moment Samuels blinked rapidly and turned away toward the television on the wall. Amanda let out a breath and took a deep gulp from her glass. Moments like that one had been happening between them with more frequency, but that was simply another thing that she did not want to address.

Amanda turned to the television that Samuels was watching. A news anchor sat solemnly as images of a watery, grey planet flashed beside her.

“Fiorina 161, a planet that operates entirely as a correctional facility, is facing budget cuts after the lead smelting works on the premises was declared ‘non-essential,’” the anchor’s bottle-blonde perm shook with every word she spoke. “Although the site remains open, it is unknown how long such the operation will realistically be able to run.”

“No one knows where that is, you know,” Samuels gestured to the screen with his glass.

Amanda frowned, and studied his profile. His face was neutral and his eyes were trained on the screen, as if the awkward moment between them had been in her head. “What do you mean?”

“The coordinates of the planet are unlisted. It’s somewhere in the Neroid sector, but the Company won’t release where.”

“Why not?”

Samuels quirked his lip. “Security.”

Amanda dug her fingernails into the flesh of her palm. Security? Bullshit. It seemed to her that it should be impossible for Weyland-Yutani to extend their reach to encompass every part of the galaxy, and yet it was omnipresent. “I wonder what they’ll do with it.”

They fell into a silence, but it felt more companionable than awkward. Samuels leaned forward to pick up his glass and Amanda couldn’t help but look again. His throat moved as he swallowed, allowing the drink to be dissolved in the fluids in his artificial digestive system. She picked up the drink menu, quickly looking away before he could catch her.

“Six months after the tragedy that left hundreds of people dead, authorities are still investigating what exactly caused Sevastopol Station to fall into the gas giant that it orbited.”

The menu fell from her hand and fluttered to the floor. She looked back at the television with a pounding heart. The image beside the anchor’s head had switched to Sevastopol’s exterior in its former near-glory, lit brightly by KG-348.

“Representatives of Seegson and Weyland-Yutani maintain that the tragedy was an unexpected accident that was unpreventable the moment it began.”

“Bullshit,” Amanda hissed. Samuels leaned forward and clenched his jaw.

The image beside the anchor had switched to that of a large Earthen forest fire. There was no new story on Sevastopol, and so no reason to give it more than a brief mention.

Amanda gripped the sticky wood of the bar hard enough to turn her knuckles white. There were so many people who had lost their lives because of Weyland-Yutani’s greed. So many people whose memories had been dishonoured by the very people who killed them.

“Ripley,” Samuels whispered in her ear. The sound of her real name jolted her from her reverie, and she looked at Samuels half-dazed.

“Sorry,” she said slowly. “I—,”

“No,” he interrupted, urgent but still so quiet. “We have to go.”

Amanda was instantly alert. She glanced carefully over at the end of the bar, where Samuels was staring so intently. The bartender was speaking urgently into a telephone by the cash register, shooting quick glances over to them.

“Just act like everything’s fine,” Amanda said lowly, and casually sipped her beer. “We don’t know what she’s doing, it could be nothing. We don’t want to bring any attention to ourselves.”

“Right.” Samuels copied her and sipped his drink, but his shoulders were tense.

“We’ve already paid,” she continued, “so we’re just going to get up and leave.”

Blood pounded in Amanda’s ears, but she breathed deeply and forced herself to move slowly as she slid off the stool. She was closer to the door than Samuels was, so she stepped forward, trusting that he was behind her.

“Amanda Ripley, turn around and put your hands behind your head,” a cold female voice said, followed by the unmistakable cocking of a gun. Someone screamed and Amanda could hear the sound of overturning chairs and frightened shouts.

She forced herself to continue her deep breathes and looked at the window in front of her. It faced the hall outside, and she could see the bar reflected in front of it. The cranky bartender stood a several feet behind them with a revolver pointed at the back of Amanda’s head. The counter of the bar was still between them, and Amanda’s heart pounded as she made up her mind.

“Samuels?” Amanda said softly. Her arms shook slightly as she lifted them to the back of her head.

“Yes?” his breath was hot against the back of her neck.

“Run.”

[ellanainthetardis]

I read Elizabeth's thoughts about Effie being bi or pan and I was thinking, could you write something where at some point haymitch and Effie bump into a somewhat serious ex girlfriend of effies and haymitch is like what????? The fuck?????

Here you go [x]

The Memory Of A Kiss

“I am sorryto trouble you.” Plutarch insisted in that tone that meant he wasn’t sorry atall because Effie was little more than a glorified assistant in that District. Theformer Head Gamemaker even walked aheadof them.

“I assure you it is no trouble.” she replied cheerfully.

Haymitch’s shoulder not so accidentally bumpedinto hers and she glanced at him, lifting her eyebrows in a silent question.His grey eyes were twinkling with amusement and he lifted his own eyebrowsback.

She supposed that meant he wasn’t fooled by herpretences and knew exactly just how irritated she was.

“Haymitch and I really need to be in Command.” Plutarch went on as if she hadn’tanswered him at all. “And I reallyneed that asset debriefed. Just take some notes and then type them for me, thatwill be enough. I can pass them along to President Coin.”

She gritted her teeth and reminded herself thather safety was precarious in this place. She patted her low blond ponytailself-consciously, always too aware of what she looked like clad in those awfuluniforms. She had tried to rebelagainst the dress code by customizing them but Coin was ruthless and Haymitchhad begged her to stop beingconfrontational before she ended up in a cell for disobeying the rules.

There were days she truly didn’t understand why they were exchanging the Capitol foranother brand of tyrant.

“She’s my escort, not your secretary.” Haymitchrebuked with some irritation.

Being his escort was very much like being asecretary sometimes but she minded it less when it was Haymitch. He behavedlike he had always behaved. Plutarch… Plutarch acted like a true Capitol andtended to be a little dismissive because she was not on par with his social statusin Thirteen. He was at the top of the food chain and she was at the verybottom.

“I do not mind.” she insisted.

Spending the day with a Capitol agent who hadfled the city in a near-miss with death after being discovered and who hadmanaged to join a group of refugees just in time to escape to Thirteen seemedmore riveting than listening to Coin ramble on and on about the delicateproblem that was Four. Apparently the District wasn’t key to their victory butshe really wanted to take it anyway. And that was without talking about thebombs that kept raining on Three and the images they were forced to watch inCommand. No, really, she would have a better time talking to a no-doubt dashingspy.

Fortunately, they arrived at the refugeestriage room before the bickering between Plutarch and Haymitch could escalate –they had been bickering quite a lot lately, they shared a compartment and it triggeredtensions because… Well, Haymitch was a slob and Plutarch was probably the kindof men used to strict order, which meant that Haymitch had relocated most ofhis stuff in her room and while theyweren’t openly admitting they were living together… They sort of were, she supposed. Unofficially.

The Head Gamemaker immediately led them awayfrom where the families were gathered at the center of the room with theirmeager belongings, waiting for a soldier to call them so they could beprocessed and explained the rules, and toward a smaller side-room that Effieknew to be the interrogation room.

That wasn’t what it was called but that was whatit looked like.

That was where she had been processed afterher arrival in Thirteen – her kidnapping,as she liked to call it.

The mood wasn’t as tensed in there as it hadbeen for her but, then again, she supposed spies were more welcomed than escorts.

“Lys?” she gasped, shocked, when she recognizedthe woman sitting in front of the small desk.

The spy looked up in surprise and her faceimmediately lightened in relief and joy. She bolted off her chair and to her,prompting two small alarmed reactions from the soldier and Haymitch, but thewomen both ignored that as they hugged tight.

“You are here!” Lys whispered in her ear. “I wondered but there was no finding outwhat had happened to you. I am soglad you are safe…”

The woman drew back long enough to frame herface and Effie took the time to assess… Lys didn’t look hurt. Very tired, yes,but not hurt. She was wearing a forest green dress that had seen better daysbut that still stood out against her dark complexion. The black jacket was dreadful and Effie wasn’t sure where shehad picked it up but she supposed style wasn’t the most important thing whenyou were fleeing the Capitol. Her black eyes were just as fascinating as usualthough, they still felt as if they were looking right into Effie’s soul. And Lyshad changed her hair since the last time she had seen her: gone were the glossypurple hair that reached the small of her back, it was short and straight now,dyed in a declination of yellow, pink and brown with the occasional whitestrand. It looked amazing on her.

Too aware of what she looked like in her grey jumpsuit and hasty natural blondponytail, Effie felt inadequate. There weren’t many women who could make herfeel less beautiful than them but Lys Verdi had always been one of them. Shecould have been a model if she had so chosen but she had always claimed thelife of a socialite suited her better.

As if sensing her sudden insecurity, Lys smiledand gently wrapped her hand around the ponytail, brushing it over her shoulderand very much stroking the side of her throat while she was at it. Effie lickedher lips. It was an automatic response.

“Gorgeous as ever.” the woman offered despitethe fact that Effie had certainly never lether see her without her wig or make-up before.

“Oh, please.”she dismissed with an embarrassed chuckle. “We both know that is far from the truth.”

Lys shook her head gracefully and then closedher eyes and let her forehead fall against hers. “I am so glad to see you… I feared they had caught you.”

“I am glad to see you.” she offered because it was true. The relief and joy she feltat seeing a familiar face… Someone from home, someone from her life, who wouldn’t look at her oddly because she was a Capitolwith Capitol quirks… It couldn’t beexplained.

Lys leaned in and Effie let her, out of a nevertruly forgotten reflex. It was so chaste a kiss it could barely be called that. A peck a touch too long to be entirelyinnocent but certainly nothing to write songs about.

At least, that was what she thought untilPlutarch cleared his throat and Effie crashed back into reality. And shecrashed back hard.

She quickly let go of Lys’ arms and steppedback at a proper distance, cursing the lack of make-up that made her blushingso obvious. She looked at Haymitch but his face was closed, his hands were deepin his pockets, he was slightly slouched and his grey eyes were glaring a holeinto the floor.

“I see introductions are not necessary?”Plutarch teased.

“We are old friends.” Effie declared, stilltrying to catch Haymitch’s gaze. To no avail.

“Friends…” Lys repeated with a disapprovingtwitch of her perfectly shape eyebrows. She let the word draw out, clearlywaiting for her to amend.

And she did because, to be honest, they had never been friends. “Old flames?”

“Better.” Lys laughed, turning to the HeadGamemaker. “I apologize, Plutarch, Effie always managed to distract me. I haveinformation for you.”

“Good. Good.” Plutarch nodded. “Effie will helpyou settle down and show you around. She will pass any intel you have tome.”  

“Maybe that’s not the most clever plan.”Haymitch grumbled. “If she’s such a distractionand all…”

“Haymitch…” Effie sighed. She paused, thensighed again and shrugged, a little uncomfortable. “Haymitch, may I introduceLys Verdi? Lys, I trust you already know who Haymitch is.”

Lys, polite as ever, offered her hand to shake.

Haymitch, unsurprisingly, simply sneered at it.

“We are all on the same team here, Haymitch.”Plutarch quietly reminded him.

“Some more than others.” he muttered and Effie glared.

He did shakeLys’ hand though. It may have lasted a little too long and he might havesqueezed a little too hard if the socialite’s amusement was to be believed.

“Alright.” Plutarch clapped his hands andgrabbed Haymitch’s arm. “We really need to go to Command now.”

“I’ll see you tonight.” Haymitch declared. Loudly. It almost sounded like awarning.

Effie pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes at himand tilted her head to the side but if he noticed her annoyance, he didn’t leton. They may have been unofficially sharing a room but they weren’t in a habitto advertise. Of course, they hadbeen… Perhaps they had been less careful than usual since they had arrived inThirteen, less quick to deny, less desperate to hide… But they hadn’t gone and admittedit either. Doing it like that, meaninglessly, out of petty jealousy… It didn’tsit well with her.

“Let’s get you settled.” Effie offered once thetwo men had left.

They got her welcome pack from the soldier,along with her new compartment number.

“Are they serious about this rule book?” Lysasked, nodding at the huge file Effie was carrying while she struggled with theclothes and first necessary items. Soldiers weren’t known for their gallantryand nobody in the District lifted a finger to help two frail women carryingheavy load. Well, it wasn’t that heavy.Effie had carried her own by herself.

“They are serious about everything.” Effie told her in a whisper. “This place is dreadful.”

“It is better than refugees camps in someDistricts.” the woman argued. “It was a long trip from the Capitol… I have seenthings you wouldn’t believe. Honestly, I feel lucky to be here.”

There was a gravity to her words that toldEffie she should stop complaining. That was one of the things she hadn’t reallyliked about Lys. The woman had depths she wasn’t afraid to show. She advertisedher interests for politics and science, passing it as a mere hobby between twoparties, but always displaying such understanding and intelligence that Effiehad more than once felt inadequate standing next to her. She had sometimes feltas if the dumb escort act hadn’t been such an act. It had been no fault of Lys,of course. She hadn’t aimed to make her feel that way. But…

“I cannotbelieve you were a spy.” she declared, redirecting the conversation on saferground. “How long have you been working for the rebellion?”

“A couple of years.” Lys answered.

“Oh…” Effie frowned. “So not when we…”

“No.” The woman shook her head. “I would never have done that to you.”

She wasn’t sure there were limits to whatpeople did to each other in the name of this rebellion. Haymitch hadpurposefully kept her in the dark even when she had demanded to be told what was going on, he had lied to her, hiddenthings from her… He had helped turned their girl into a symbol behind her back…

“Here. Number 606. It is your room.” she said,pointing at a sliding door that nothing differentiated from the others lining downthe corridor except for the small numbers on the side.

“This place is a maze.” Lys winced. “I will getlost.”

“There is a map in the rule book.” Effiereassured her. “And there are maps on the walls at key intersections. It isoverwhelming at first but I promise it is not that difficult once you get thegist of it.” The compartment was empty and she didn’t think someone else wasliving there yet. “You will probably be assigned a roommate.”

“Do you have one?” Lys asked, looking aroundthe small living quarters curiously.

“Oh… No.” she hummed awkwardly, sliding thedoor shut and automatically drawing closed the curtains of the window that gaveon the corridor. She hated those plastic windows. “Be careful in the bathroom.It is awfully small and water tendsto get everywhere when you shower. Oh, and there are only five minutes of hotwater per day.”

She explained everything she could think of,how to place her arm in the small cavity in the wall to get her scheduletemporarily tattooed on her wrist, the important rules that could get you introuble… She remained in the small living area when Lys went into the bedroomcorner to change out of her green dress and into the standard grey jumpsuit,purposefully keeping her eyes on the wall to give her some privacy.

“Oh, and do nottry to customize the uniform.” she warned. “I almost got arrested for that if you can believe it. They tolerate headscarvesbut barely. They really dislikeanything that makes you stand out. If you can find a painless way to removeyour fake nails, I would advise you to do it before someone notices and reportsyou. They are not exactly… skilledwhen it came to taking them off.”

She looked down at her own hands and thechipped damaged nails she now had to contend with. Two had turned black.

“Have they hurt you, dove?” Lys asked with afrown, leaning against the bedroom threshold.

The familiar nickname associated with how goodthe woman looked in the jumpsuit – and truly no one had a right to make thosejumpsuits look so good – made her feel uneasy. The attraction was still there,that was plain to see.

Lys had pushed her sleeves up and Effie’s eyeswere drawn to the golden tattoos on her forearms. She had always loved how thegold contrasted with her dark skin.

“They are not allowed to touch me. Haymitch gotme immunity.” she said. “But they do not like the fact there is an escort intheir District and they are not shy about letting me know.”

“Effie…” Lys breathed out with worry andsympathy.

“It is of no consequence.” she dismissed. “I amperfectly fine. Now… You must behungry, are you not?”

Effie’s schedule read lunchtime and she figuredthe dining hall was as good a place as any to finally get to the point and getthe report Plutarch wanted. She had forgotten how overwhelming the place couldbe when you first arrived. Lys kept looking around, not oblivious at all to thecurious – when not outright hostile – looks her hair warranted her.

“They truly do not like Capitols much.” the spy remarked once they had found asmall table in a corner. It wasn’t empty but the group of soldiers they  had to share with was sitting at the otherend, far enough that they could have some semblance of privacy.

“That is a niceeuphemism.” Effie chuckled, attacking the insipid dish and regretting the factthat Haymitch wasn’t there because he always gave her some of his share. Shehad never been a big eater but she was often hungry in Thirteen.

She quizzed Lys while they ate, scribblingprecise notes down. By the time both of their trays were empty they had movedback to other topics but neither of them suggested leaving the hall. The noonrush was over now and there was something almost hypnotic to watching peoplesit down, eat, stand up and leave with such precision they might as well havebeen robots.

It wasn’t hard to figure out who was born inThirteen and who came from other Districts despite the uniforms. People fromother Districts were always more prone to enjoying meal times, to laughtogether and make it a communal moment.

“They do not waste any second in this place, dothey?” Lys asked.

“They live according to their wrist.” shesnorted.

She loved her schedules, she did. She had dozens color coded journalsand diaries at home. She loved schedules.

But this was taking it a step too far.

Branding her own arm with a timetable everymorning and getting in trouble when she didn’t follow it? She didn’t like it.And she was more lucky than most. Given that her job was to act as Katniss’prep team, stylist and babysitter when she wasn’t following Plutarch orHaymitch around to take notes and fetch them whatever they needed like aglorified assistant, her schedule was somehow flexible, changing with the tideof war. She knew for a fact people like Haymitch’s housekeeper or Katniss’mother had strict hours branded on their skin.

“That is no life at all.” Lys commented, thetips of her fingers brushing against Effie’s inner wrist where the timetablewas inked.  

Her hand twitched but she didn’t take it offthe table.

She frowned. “Lys…”

“I was thinking…” the woman hummed. “Since youdo not have a roommate… Perhaps we could request to share? After all… Wealready know we can live together and…”

“I have someone.” she interrupted quietly.

Lys trailed her fingers from her wrist to herhand. “I noticed. He is not very subtle, is he? A bit boorish.”  

“Nevertheless.” she argued.

“But you are not married. Nothing is set instone.” Lys countered. “We were very good together, weren’t we?”

They hadbeen. Effie had been madly in love with her. For a few weeks, at least. It hadbeen a spark. A glorious, short-lived spark.

Then she had gone to the Sixty-Ninth Reapingand Haymitch had antagonized her too much and she had ended up with her backagainst a wall and her victor between her legs and she had wondered how she couldbe with Lys when nothing compared towhat she felt when Haymitch touched her. Lys hadn’t been the first girlfriendor boyfriend she had cheated on with him. She wasn’t particularly proud of it.She had loathed herself for itbecause most of them had been good people she had cared for. At least until shehad remembered that no matter how many times she tried to forget him withsomeone else, she always went back to him for more.

She belongedto him.

It was the sad pathetic truth.

From the first kiss shared in anger and hatred,he had owned her. Body and soul.

“Oh.” Lys smiled softly, taking her hand away.“You are in love with him.”

She licked her lips and didn’t dare meet hereyes. “I would love rooming with you but…”

“Your bed is taken.” Lys finished for her withsome amusement. “It is alright, I understand. I am sure there are plenty oflonely women around.”

“And they would be lucky to have you.” Effiesmiled.

She didn’t suggest they remained friends. Theyhadn’t remained friends after the breakup, they had awkwardly avoided eachother for months until it had been socially acceptable for them to simply nodand wave at each other from afar at parties when they couldn’t help exchanginga few polite words. There were people you couldn’t be friends with because it was either all or nothing.

A little like with Haymitch.

But without compare.

If what she had shared with Lys was a spark,what she had with Haymitch was a blaze.

She had never loved anyone like she loved him.What they shared… It was madness.Passion. Born out of hatred, forged in fire… Poisonous and deadly and… It consumed everything. It was wild. Largerthan life. And painful. Oh so painful…

But she wouldn’t have exchanged it for theworld.

They parted amicably after Effie had pointedher out in the direction of her compartment and she spent the rest of theafternoon in the small room near the shooting studio Plutarch had commandeeredas his office, typing out Lys’ report as well as some possible speeches forKatniss. She didn’t see why they bothered given that the girl only did and saidwhat she wanted but it was a task she had been given and she would see itthrough.

It was late by the time she went back to thedining hall for dinner – certainly later than the schedule on her wrist advised– and it was mostly empty. She gave a wide berth to the refugees from Elevenbecause they were very hostile to her and she didn’t feel quite safe aroundthem. A few faces at other tables were familiar, people from Twelve she hadseen Haymitch talking to, but she didn’t dare impose herself on them even ifthe old woman who kept calling him a boy to his face without blinking – shethought her name was something Sae –nodded at her when their eyes met. She didn’t think the woman would have chasedher off but she didn’t want to tempt it.

She sat at an empty table at the far end. Shealways kept a wall at her back when she was alone in this District. She wasn’tsure where she had picked up the habit but it made her feel better to know noone could jump on her – and given the looks some people shot her, it was a realpossibility.

She absent-mindedly tapped her fork on herboiled turnips, lost in the memories Lys had brought back, wondering what itsaid about her that she had exchanged a happy steady relationship for somethingwhere everything was left unsaid and where nothing was certain – even if the sex was unparalleled. The clatter of a tray being carelessly dropped on thetable in front of her made her look up, lips pursed.

Haymitch flopped down on the bench, undisturbedby her pouting.

She glanced behind him and spotted Plutarch,Boggs and Coin settling down at another table.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” he scoffed as ahello.

“Ex-girlfriend.”she corrected. “And jealousy does not suit you.”

He angrily stabbed a turnip, sparing her aglare. “You’ve got nerves saying that when you’ve been on my case about Hazelleand those other women.”

“An entirelydifferent situation.” she huffed.

He might argue she was crazy all he wanted, sheknew what she was seeing. And what she was seeing was a bunch of women who hadno home left and who wouldn’t have minded cozying up with Twelve’s victor. Thefact that he was handsome – and now sober – was a nice plus. As for HazelleHawthorne… She knew when someone coveted her significant other, thank you verymuch, she wasn’t born yesterday.

“Yeah.” he sneered. “Cause I don’t go kissing them.”

She winced and cut a turnip in two beforeclearing her throat. “It was barely akiss.”

“Locked lips. I call that a kiss.” he spat.“But, hey, if that’s okay with youthen just let me find a girl…”

He made a show of looking around and shequickly trapped his ankle between hers under the table, a little afraid he would actually select a woman and kissher to make a point. He would. She knew he would.

“Shekissed me.” she pointed out.

“And you kissed back.” he growled, stabbinganother poor turnip.

She licked her lips and sighed. “She is… a verybeautiful woman.”

“Yeah.” he agreed, more easily than she hadexpected. “But see… Thing is… When I say you’re the most gorgeous woman I’veever seen? I sure mean it but thatdoesn’t mean there aren’t other gorgeous women around. Some I may have sleptwith before, even. And I still don’t go and kiss them just for the hell of it. See where I’m going withthat?”

She did seebut her pride was getting in the way of admitting he was right. “It was barely a kiss Haymitch. Is it becauseshe is a woman?”

She knew he had some… insecurities about that part of her sexuality. Her preferencesdidn’t bother him but he was always more prone to act out when a woman flirtedwith her or…

“Sweetheart, if she had been a man I’d havepunched her.” he snapped.

“We are not exclusive.” she reminded him evenif it was a moot point and one she would have liked to see buried six feetunderground. It had been a long time since their casual affair had turned into something serious. But likeeverything with them it had been left unacknowledged.

“Yeah?”he challenged, letting his fork clatter in his tray. He stared straight at her,his grey eyes dark with anger and jealousy. “Careful, Effie. ‘Cause you keep saying things like this maybe I’m really gonna test the theory.”

“Yes?” she hissed back, putting her own forkand knife down to place her hands flat on the table, ready to push herself upand storm out. “I knew you were onlylooking for an opportunity to go with that Hawthorne woman.”

“The fuckare you even talking about?” he sneered. “You’re the one who’s kissingother people and saying it’s okay ‘cause we’renot exclusive. Maybe you want another piece of her ass  for old time’s sake, yeah? That’s what you want?”

“Stop being an idiot!” she retorted, rising hervoice a little too high. “I am notthe one with cold feet in this relationship.”

“Not what it feels like every night.” hemocked. “Your feet feel like fuckingice cubes.”

That brought her short.

She stared at him, wrinkled her nose and sighedin frustration. “What are you eventalking about?”

“I’mtalking about you kissing ex-girlfriends like it’s okay.” he scowled. “You’re talking nonsense as usual.”

“She kissedme.” she persisted.

“You kissed back.” he accused once more.

She rolled her eyes. “For perhaps a second.”

“So you admitit!” he triumphed. Again, too loud. Heads were starting to turn in theirdirection.

“Yes.”she gave in with irritation. “Yes. I kissed her back. I should not have. I admit it. There. I apologize. Are you happy now?”

He didn’t look happy but he finished histurnips in silence. She was coveting his yoghurt and very much wanted to swapit against the cheese they had given her but she didn’t dare request it yet.

Truth be told, if he had gone and kissed an ex-girlfriend in front of her – no matterhow chaste the kiss – she would have made a much more dramatic scene than theone he had just made.

“I am sorry.”she whispered, more sincerely subdued. “I did not intend to kiss back. It just…happened.”

“Okay.” he grumbled, not looking at her.

“Haymitch.” she insisted, squeezing his anklebetween hers.

It was at least a good minute before he slowlymoved his other leg to frame her own ankle. It wasn’t very discrete even if itwas happening under the table but she supposed nobody was paying them attentionanymore and the dining hall was almost empty anyway.

“When was it? With her. When was it?” he asked.

“Six years ago.” she answered. “I broke it offduring the Games because… Well… You know why.I do not like cheating on people.”

He scoffed at that. “See, you say that likeit’s a good thing but all that it tells me is that you do cheat. Doesn’t matter if you like it or not.”

“The only times I ever cheated were on otherpeople and with you.” she replieddefensively.

“Yeah but you still did it and you liked some of them. Like that woman.” hepointed out, still not meeting her eyes. “So what’s to say you won’t cheat onme with someone you’re really attracted to? Again, like her. Maybe it’s gonna be an accident. That’s what we used to say, yeah? I can’t know itwon’t happen.”

“Yes, you canactually.” She frowned. “First, because I neverlied to you about anything. And then because I did like some of them but I do not like you.”

She stared until he briefly met her eyes, thechallenge clear in her gaze. She would saywhat she felt for him and he wouldn’t like to hear it. He was the one whoalways insisted they shouldn’t get attached and who always cut her short whenshe tried to make him understand.

“She’sreally pretty.” he remarked slowly. “Even with the ridiculous hair.”

“I happen to find you more handsome.” sheretorted without hesitation.

He tossed her a look that clearly meant hewasn’t buying that but he pushed the pot of yoghurt in her direction andgrabbed the cheese on her tray.

“Let’s stop saying we’re not exclusive, yeah?”he muttered.

Her lips twitched but she forced herself toremain detached. “I have not beenwith anyone else in five years.”

“Except for the people you kiss back.” he scoffed.

“How long are you going to hold that over myhead?” She sighed. “I alreadyapologized.”

He snorted. “How long would you?”

She pursed her lips and tilted her head to theside. He lifted his eyebrows and she rolled her eyes.

“Fine.” she granted, attacking the yoghurt. “I would lord it over you for quite some time. But I would also believe you if you said I am the onlyone you are interested in.”

He studied her for a moment and then finallyrelaxed. “You’re gonna see her again?”

It sounded more casual than accusative so shedidn’t bother getting defensive.

“Not if I can help it.” She shook her head. “Weare not friends material.”

“Alright.” he said, and this time it was entirely casual. There was a spark ofmirth in his eyes when he slouched a little in his chair. “You still owe me,sweetheart.”

“Do I?” she grinned. “And how do you intend tohave me repay you, I wonder?”

His gaze trailed to her mouth and stayed therelong enough to make his desire clear.

She supposed it was only fair. The offense had come from her lips going astrayafter all.

They finished their meal quickly and mostly insilence before leaving the dining hall. It was a long succession of corridorsand elevators to the habitations area and Effie spent half the way ponderinghow to say what she wanted to say.

“I think you should move in with me.” shedeclared eventually, as they rounded the corner that led to her compartment. Hebriefly paused but easily caught up with her. She continued, pretending not tohave noticed. “They will assign me aroommate at some point and… You are already living here anyway and Plutarchalready knows where you spend your nights, so… We do not have to advertize it but I think we should makeit official at leastadministratively. You know… Just in case they want to assign me a roommate.”

She expected an argument. She really did.

“Sure.” He shrugged. “In case they want to giveyou a roommate. Can’t have that.” Sheopened the sliding door and let herself in, grinning hard. He waited until hehad closed the door and nobody could hear them to continue. “Imagine if theytry to kiss you and you kiss back…”

“Oh!” she huffed in exasperation, turningaround to shove him against the door. “Enough with this…” The kiss she pressedon his mouth was nothing chaste or innocent. It was hard and dirty and she bitdown on his bottom lip, making him groan. She drew back.  “There. Thisis a real kiss. Did you see me kiss anyone else like this? Did you?”

She captured his mouth again, not leaving himtime to answer that and not very surprised when he grabbed her under the assand flopped them over so she was the one with her back against the door.

“Don’t want to see you kissing anyone else.” hegrowled, sinking his teeth in her neck and sucking the delicate flesh. It wouldleave a mark. Then again, she supposed it was rather the point. “Ever.”

“Never again.” she promised, her fingers doinga quick job of discarding his clothes. “I amsorry.”

His hand sneaked inside her jumpsuit andsqueezed her breast over her grey tank top. “Prove it.”

She didn’t mind praying for forgiveness on herknees.

Not for him.

And not when he was the one begging at the endof it.

[shorthaircutsmodels]

Coco Rocha's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts - 20+ - https://shorthaircutsmodels.com/coco-rocha-short-hairstyles-and-haircuts/ - Coco Rocha's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, a kind of creative vision Coco inspires in fiery brunette bands. The cut is a modern look at the much-loved 70s rock look. "We knew that layering and overall shape would improve Coco's bone structure facial framing bursts would open her beautiful eyes to a naturally and sharper alternative to the lob of a popular trend over the past year Oh my god girl this short bob is dried to soften the top while turning the ends slightly for a gorgeous finish. Coco Rocha's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts Coco Rocha's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, The two squares of the face from the explosion and the overall appearance of the brightness are completely worn out. Regular decorations are needed to maintain this hairstyle. Coco Rocha's sleek and timeless blunt bob looks flawless here. This cut is ideal for showing strong facial features, especially in the eyes and mouth. Grown blasts provide her face with a beautiful frame, while the rest of her hair retains a smooth sculptural shape that crosses her chin. Coco Rocha's Short Hairstyles Coco Rocha's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, The blunt ends give her locks a healthy look and keep her hair looking thick. The wet look adds to the Eighties feel and you'll love or hate the overall effect, but with features like this you can wear any style well. Her hair is coloured in a pale auburn shade and perfectly smooth and silky Coco Rocha wears a good retro side sweep. This vintage-inspired style relies on a deep side sweep to bring hair to fall in reverse shoulder waves but the parting here doesn't go round Coco's face enough and the style extends her face and draws attention to a. Coco Rocha's Short Haircuts Coco Rocha's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, combative box jaw with a soft feminine fifties hairstyle. I remember working with Agyness Deyn at the time when she was the only one with short hair as a model. We all remember him being so jealous because we were pulling our hair backstage for two hours and he was getting a new haircut on almost every show. It drove me crazy because this girl just gets free cuts and doesn't have to build another blow dryer. I just remember it as a particular haircut I loved. Coco Rocha's Hairstyles Coco Rocha's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, Short-haired girls are taking over. First Beyonce's dramatic pixie crop was the talk on Twitter last week and now social media savvy supermodel Coco Rocha has been parted at the top and swept back for a formal look and feel while following this chic 'hand-tapered head and back suit. This is a great hairstyle for those with medium hair who want an easy style to manage style with regular trimmings every 4 to 6 weeks. she has the experience of cutting her hair and on Twitter. Coco Rocha's Haircuts Coco Rocha's Short Hairstyles and Haircuts, Take a look at this quirky hairstyle from Coco Rocha. She made a statement with her hair at the Blood Cancer gala honoring Evan Sohn and the Sohn Conference Foundation in New York. She appears to be growing her hair out after cutting it into a fairy. This is a cool cut that you have as a very short bob between styles. This very brave bob cuts off his cheekbones and returns straight to the nape line. Clear lines and smooth finish give this short hairstyle a very edgy and futuristic look. The hair is ironed straight stick. So much so that her hairstyle looks almost like a wig. Coco Rocha's Short Hair A flat iron was painstakingly passed through each section of the hair so that the hair was completely flattened. When you use a flat iron on wires, remember to always use a heat-protective serum on your hair. And that jawline. Why didn't he have short hair? Rocha couldn't stop smiling while her hair was cut for this Tilda inspired look. He also decided on the mid-cut that he wanted shorter than originally intended. Coco Rocha's Hair Can we officially declare a short-haired revolution? What a good way to start your day than through the web you need to click on talking points curated by us. Do you have a story you'd like to nominate? We'll post our best stories every morning so we can tweet at @BeautyHigh #BHbuzz 1. Coco Rocha posted another new short haircut to Instagram along with the video. Do you like his fairy haircut. 2. No makeup look this video breakdown has everything you need to know. Phew is here to stay a glamourous look that will be so easy for hard Coco fans to copy and look amazing. Coco Rocha Interview - Supermodel Coco Rocha Pixie Haircut For this flapper-inspired hairstyle, style your hair with a deep side piece and then place it on the rollers to create Old Hollywood-style waves. Brush it out with a paddle brush to create a soft swung look and then spray it in place. For makeup, you can start by creating a smoky eye using grey and black eyeshadow, followed by a sleek black liquid lining line on the upper lash line and loads of mascara on the upper and lower lash lines. Best Coco Rocha images Keep the rest of the face straight and flawless, but add resistance to the thick red lip. Go for a real cherry red, as Coco does here. Or choose a red black tone for an extra vampire look. 3. Gold eyeliner. if you're not using it, you're missing it. Coco Rocha is one of the hottest models right now. I tried to do that six months ago, but in my line of work, you have to ask a lot of people for permission. Coco Rocha two ways to style a short bob! I had to make sure the customers weren't upset, or I had to make sure the look of next season wasn't going to be too different from this cut, or I shouldn't have been dropped for what I did. So six months later I finally had the opportunity to do it. Did anyone hesitate to see you move? I think he was my agent from day one. He saw my hair up to my hips and suddenly told him I really wanted to cut it. Coco Rocha Sports a New Crop Hairstyle It was really hard for him. It's almost like an older brother saying he's grown up. You're getting a real lady haircut. But once you do that you're like you'll never make a big deal again. How important it was for you to choose a short style that would be versatile. It is especially important to make sure all customers are happy. You don't want to be stuck in a corner and people now think you're just taking a look. Coco Rocha Hairstyles, Hair Cuts and Colors So I think if everyone does it all round looking for that kind of short style of short cut on the sides and giving yourself a bit of length on top. You can make it give yourself a piece of slippery oil back or curl up like a man. They curled my hair in my first photo shoot with cuts and it looked like a 2020 - 2021 style. You can make a rocker pompadour in front of you can make it look feminine and you can even make it look like you have a slick ponytail. I've seen my hair grow like crazy during and after pregnancy, and while I'm really happy with its length it's all hanging loose. I spoke to my executives at. Coco Rocha New Haircut on Instagram IMG about changing my ready look for the new show season and we all agreed it was a great inspiration for her to be Joan Jett this time around. The woman has always had the amazing hair game and she still does but we wanted to go for Joan, especially circa 1978. Back then, graduates had this amazing rock and roll shag haircut with multiple layers, and it wasn't as heavy on the product as it was in the early 80s. Another excellent reference that IMG President Ivan Bart revealed, I'll be honest, was Suzi Quatro. Coco Rocha live tweets her haircut Whom I was never familiar with. Apparently he was in Happy Days in the late 70s and then had a music career in the 80s.Ivan took out this old Rolling Stone cover with him and this became another inspo picture for Anh. Coco Rocha displays a perfectly flattened auburn brown bob to soften the top while the ends are kicked too lightly for a gorgeous finish. This cut is ideal for showing off high cheekbones and bold facial features. Bob has lighter layers with tips and will fit most face shapes as well. Coco Rocha short haircut Regular decorations are needed to maintain this hairstyle. The brunette do was cut from the back and sides to achieve a firm finish to the edge that perfectly framed her cheekbones. The blasts are blunt cut to frame the top of the face, complementing this look with Edge and precision. It corrects regularly every 4 to 6 weeks to maintain this shape, and a small amount of product is required for brightness and grip. Quiet, everyone. It's funny enough in time that I realise my hair will suddenly feel like there's no product in it anymore and I just have to start over and do it again. Coco Rocha's Pixie Haircut If my hair feels dirty at the beginning of the day, it's weird since I feel dirty at the end of the day. But now I have to make it dirtier. Fashion Week is just around the corner. What do you do to prepare for this hectic time. I'm still waiting for my vacation to start on Monday. I haven't had a vacation since last June. We're going to Greece. I'll be back the day the shows start. So I'm still excited to celebrate my holiday. Coco Rocha Short Straight Hairstyle Everyone's already back and saying how great their break has been but I haven't even left yet. Is there a particular show you're looking forward to this season? It's like a high school modeling session backstage. I'm so excited to see all my girls again to watch the shows because I'm too old now or to be in a few shows with the girls. I'm also excited to see designers I haven't seen in a very long time. Do you have a model or designer BFF that you're particularly looking forward to seeing. Coco Rocha Bangs Haircut I'm excited to see Behati Prinsloo. We're best friends. I miss hanging out with him because we used to be backstage at every show. I'm also excited to see Jean Paul Gaultier and Zac Posen. What's the next logical step when you have a pixie cut as famous as Coco Rocha? Go shorter. At least that was on Coco's mind and stylist anh Co Tran yesterday when the stylist took a lap in the chair. As for make-up she went for a crazy smoky eye consisting of copper brown and black shades that Coco applied all the way to her brown bone. Coco Rocha Haircut on Instagram The normally brunette model works a cropped platinum blonde do with embroidered tops. The hairstyle was done by Balmain Hair creative director Nabil Harlow's hands. Frankie Boyd worked on makeup with Victoria Pavon making it for the shoot. To prepare, she looked at pictures of famous pixie cuts from past and present, and settled on a cut similar to Tilda Swinton's longer version of an increasingly popular look. I love that she can wear it in more ways than she told hairdresser Anh Co Tran from Beverly Hills for a Rocha cut. I still have to maintain that versatility for my job. Coco Rocha haircut I want to play with him and shape him in different ways. Beyoncé's big chops weren't enough to set the social media world on fire, now Coco Rocha has boosted Ms. Carter by live-tweeting the entire process of her once pixie cut for Allure. With my work, my hair is constantly dyed and fried and no longer growing, so I decided it was time to get rid of it, Bright said. Tilda Swinton served as the model's muse and hairdresser Anh Co was the one who wielded scissors except her husband James Conran who made the first snip after lopping off three long ponytails when Tran decided to go even shorter on the side resulting in a rebellious Red swoosh on top of Rocha. Coco Rocha red hair There is a lot of movement to do this and it works both comfortably and in formal attire. It also makes her slim hair type look cut and thick thanks to backcombing throughout. Coco looks gorgeous on her skin and white blonde locks which trend to receding eye colour. Having blue eyes and a cool skin tone, she looks best in shades of beige and platinum blonde as well as her natural brunette colour. This particular colour accents her cool skin and has a hint of silver white on it which makes her eyes pop.

[jessicakehoe]

From the FASHION Archives: Karl, Before Chanel

Since its launch in 1977, FASHION magazine has been giving Canadian readers in-depth reports on the industry’s most influential figures and expert takes on the worlds of fashion, beauty and style. In this series, we explore the depths of our archive to bring you some of the best fashion features we’ve ever published. This story, originally titled “The Eccentric Luxe of Karl Lagerfeld” by Marci McDonald was originally published in FASHION’s Winter 1978 issue.

It was Karl Lagerfeld’s idea to throw the party at his house. “I thought it would be more personal,” he says. Six hundred of his most intimate friends were greeted at the doorway by liveried footmen in white wigs and blue-satin breeches brandishing gigantic silver candelabra. By the light of more than a thousand flickering tapers, they were led into his ivory-and-gilt 18th-century salons, large enough to hold a small gymkhana, only to confront buffer tables recreated to match Marie Antoinette’s finest. Three-tiered pièces montées, threatening to graze the ceiling frescoes, spilled over with foie-gras-trimmed dolphins and peacock-shaped saddles of lamb. The sweet table featured a 50-foot meringue fountain cascading petits fours and crowned by four life-sized jeweled sugar swans spouting green syrup water. Jean Seberg, his next door neighbour, came and declared it marvelous. Paloma Picasso, whose marriage to a penniless Argentinian playwright in Lagerfeld’s heart-shaped red-taffeta wedding dress had rivaled Princess Caroline’s as the social event of the season, remarked that it was “very Karl.” Only the host, looking a slightly dressier version of his usual cross between Count Dracula and Louis XVI, seemed to have any reservations, confiding later that he wished it all hadn’t been at the expense of promoting his new men’s perfume, instead of the simple little gathering of near and dear as he preferred to think of it. “Little do people know I lead such studious, down-to-earth life,” he sighs. “To be a celebrity – it’s very demanding. But I am my image, I’m afraid.”

The image perches on a folding plexiglass chair in the fading afternoon light that invades the two-floor Chloé empire just off Paris’ fashionable rue de la Boétie and peers out at the world through rose-colored glasses. He used to favor smoky lenses, but finds things vastly improved since the change. “Everybody looks 10 years younger,” he says. Not that everything Karl Lagerfeld lays eyes on now meets his approval. “Ugly, ugly, ugly,” he dismisses the better part of the universe – a condemnation second only to “borrowing.” Offices are boring, as are desks and “fixed points” – which leaves the Chloé staff swirling around him among racks of tweed and sequins in apparent casual mayhem. Most of the clothes in which the hoi poloi parade outside his windows are boring, and frequently ugly as well. Neither sin, however, can be attributed to his image, which on this particular day consists of the usual: black smock emblazoned with a six-inch monogram, one of the hundred handmade shirts he orders annually from Hilditch and Key, shirtmakers to the Shah of Iran, which requires him to have custom-built luggage in order to preserve their starched stand-up collars, and, at his throat, a flowing black-silk bow. His greying shoulder-length tresses are pulled back into a ribbon, his complexion so pale that in certain lights it appears freshly powdered.

It is not an image that the casual bystander might associate with the semi-annual outbursts of witty sophistication and romantic chic that have come to characterize Karl Lagerfeld’s contributions to those feverish April and October follies known as Paris’ prêt-à-porter collections. But on reflection, it is nothing if not appropriate. While not everyone might be prepared to go around done up as he does, it is also true that not everybody can wear a Chloé.

In the 10 years since he has emerged as one of France’s trend-setting fashion triumvirate along with close friends Kenzo Takada and Yves Saint Laurent, his name has become synonymous with a look of rarefied elegance and eccentric luxe that makes him closer to the grand style of haute couture than any other ready-to-wear designer. Wherever two or more of the relentlessly à la mode are gathered, there is bound to be a slither of cleverly constructed silk by Karl Lagerfeld. The press has hailed him as one of today’s most influential stylists but, in fact, the sphere of his influence is limited. While Saint Laurent has set the silhouette for two decades of dressing and Kenzo has cut the pattern for almost every trend that has filtered down to the streets, Karl Lagerfeld has fashioned a unique niche for himself – not copied by the masses, but not ignored either; a label more applauded than pirated; a name that has come to mean class by itself. Buyers tend to swoon over his showings, which have twice inspired the shrewd Martha Phillips of Martha, Palm Beach and New York, to exit rhapsodizing that they were “like a beautiful song.”

But the music to her ears may have been the cash register bearing witness to the fact that, beneath Lagerfeld’s outlandish exterior, there lurks the canny commercial intelligence that has managed to create not only what the ads unabashedly call “the world’s most beautiful clothes,” but also some of the most wearable. Bianca Jagger, the Baroness Olympia de Rothschild and Margaret Trudeau all number Chloés in their closets, as – much to Karl Lagerfeld’s astonishment – did did his ailing mother’s private nurse. “She kept turning up in all these dresses of mine,” he says, tinted shades only half-betraying the intimation that there are, after all, limits to the democratization of prêt-à-porter. Discreet inquiries, however, finally assured him that the Chloés hovering at the bedside came of impeccable lineage – castoffs from a former patient’s wife named Jacqueline Onassis.

The tiny ready-to-wear house that he signed on with 14 years ago now boasts 11 boutiques and 95 outlets in the world’s toniest fashion emporiums under his signature, chalking up $9 million in wholesale clothing sales last year alone – triple the business of three years ago. If the growth rate is just short of phenomenal, it is no accident. Today, ethnic and organic are stunningly out and the fashion tyrannies of the crunchy granola set are going down to the yawns. In a year when the blue jean has resurfaced in gloriously co-opted little $300 leather versions and glitz has become de rigueur, it may not be entirely coincidental that the designer of the hour is an exotic of rare plumage whose idea of getting back to basics was once to show tennis shoes with chiffon ball-gowns and T-shirts of crepe de Chine. “Today, fashion is not made in the streets as much as it was in the early ‘70s,” he says, the relief clearly evident in his voice. “Now there’s a new sophistication that has nothing to do with the streets – in fact, it may not even reach them.”

Certainly, the pavement was not what he seemed to have in mind when creating his fall collection. An androgynous stray from a Cabaret set, in black chesterfield coat and top hat, waltzed down the runway and opened prison gates to release his latest inspirations: hip-hugging petal-hem skirts blossoming over stiletto heels, lamé tunic dresses afloat over skin-tight black-satin pants and tiny bellboy hats perched on the forehead, all topped off by mammoth fake jewels that dripped from tweed lapels like relics from a chandelier disaster. They were droll, they were outrageous, and the fashion press promptly went into delirium, demanding to know their meaning. “Why, they don’t mean anything – they’re just fun,” said Karl Lagerfeld, only surprised that anyone would ask. Relevance, significance – he waves them off as only slightly more boring than inquiries into the origins of his image. “Who knows where it came from,” he shrugs. “It was just there.”

For those inclined to favor the environmental theory of character formation, it was not perhaps a childhood designed to produce the average citizen. Born in 1938 in the heart of Hitler’s Germany, Karl Lagerfeld cannot recall ever growing up aware that there was some international unpleasantness going on. Life continued as usual at the château in the countryside outside Hamburg, where he found himself the last child of the last marriages of two not entirely typical members of Third Reich gentry. His father, a canned-milk tycoon with an inclination for marrying, was 60 at his birth. His mother, who had worn a Paul Poiret gown for her first wedding and a Vionnet for her second, favored Lanvin for the war. Their offspring passed his time reading her back issues of La Gazette du Bon Ton, sketching her wardrobe and changing clothes three times daily. “Already, I hated open shirts,” he said. “I had collars up to here, bows and ties, even hats. I was a fashion freak. Even as a child, I was overdressed.”

He does remember a parade of rather curious people showing up at the château who later turned out to be war refugees, but the memory concerns him only insomuch as one of them tortured him in French – a language he could speak with devoted fluency from his sixth birthday. When he was 12, his mother took his drawings to the director of a Hamburg art school who refused him admittance, declaring, “This boy is not interested in art. He’s interested in costume.” At 14, he begged to be allowed to finish high school in France, pointing out that he had, after all, immigrated in spirit. His arrival by train at the Gare du Nord did not disappoint him – it was dirty, it was decadent, and it was gloriously Paris, the city where he has lived ever since. Boarding school, however, was another matter – crowded and cloying. “In those days, if you were the slightest bit out of the ordinary, you were considered and eccentric,” he says. “I wanted to be alone.”

He won permission to rent an apartment on his own to prepare for his bacclauréat exams, provided that his father’s minions could keep an eye on him. When the other eye was closed, he secretly entered the International Wool Competition fashion contest for amateurs. He was just past his 16th birthday when his sketch of a little wool coat captured first prize and he was catapulted into a career that over the next 23 years was in many ways to mirror the progress of fashion itself.

The year was 1955 – mid-point in the heavy heyday of haute couture’s resuscitation by a one-time designer’s assistant named Christian Dior, who had opened his salons during the liberation sweep-up in 1947 with what he called the New Look, and was promptly hailed as the man who had saved Paris. Each July and January the world hung on his prophecies for hem lengths and hair lengths, while names like Jacques Fath, Pierre Balmain, Cristobel Balenciaga and Hubert de Givenchy were lesser stars who revolved around his headlines’ pivotal glare. In 1955, the press was in its usual uproar over Dior’s newest look, the A-line, and did not pay particular attention to the International Wool Competition fashion contest which two teenagers had just won: Karl Lagerfeld in the coat category and, in the dress category, a gangling blond 19-year-old who was to become one of Lagerfeld’s closest friends and two years later, Dior’s heir – Yves Saint Laurent.

While Dior plucked Saint Laurent out of the contest to become his dauphin, Balmain, one of the judges, sometimes known as the “couturier of queens,” offered Lagerfeld a stylist’s job. He worked with Balmain for three months before he had the courage to break the news to his parents, and stayed three years. He failed to meet any queens, but did help dress Anita Ekberg, Vivien Leigh, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida and even Bardot, although in retrospect he cherishes no fond memories. “Pierre Balmain was very teacherlike,” he says. “But the whole atmosphere with models and all was very borellolike. I just thought it was not chic at all.” Bored, he toyed with the thought of going back to school, when a job offer as art director at the venerable couture house of Jean Patou saved him – but in the end, only for more boredom. “Twice a year, I turned out 50 dresses,” he says. “It wasn’t enough for me. I spent the rest of my life at nightclubs, on beaches, at parties. It was empty, completely empty. When I think about it today, it was really the most boring and stupid time of my life.” After five years, he dropped out of couture altogether, the bloom rubbed thin on the boyhood dream. “I didn’t like the atmosphere. You waited there for your private clients, then you flattered them so they’d keep coming back. But they were just boring. Uglies – all uglies. Today there are 50 girls in the street who look better than the women who wear haute couture. I didn’t like what Balenciaga was doing. I didn’t like what Chanel was doing – all those little suits – maybe because I saw so many ugly copies on so many ugly women.”

At 25, he decided to devote himself to a life of the mind, but found that finishing his high school diploma did not always provide sufficient inspiration to get up in the morning, nor even in the afternoon. A year of more parties. And more boredom. “Then suddenly I realized work was the most important thing in my life, more important than all the rest of that stuff. I knew couture was finished. But something was changing.”

It was 1964, two years before Saint Laurent descended from his haute-couture shrine on the right bank to set up a Left bank boutique for the vast unwashed, making mass retailing respectable. The Paris ready-to-wear industry was still a slightly disreputable collection of pirates devoted to churning out bargain-rate couturier rip-offs, thanks to the advances in mass production and manmade fabrics with such odd names as Orlon, rayon and Terylene. The idea of men’s fashion had become fashionable, and teenagers with fat disposable dispentions from daddy had created a new market that British upstarts like Mary Quant were blithely capitalizing on with the miniskirt.

But in Paris the only rustlings of a change in the wind were cries of indignation going up from the couturier salons. “Paris has lost its leadership,” fussed Pierre Cardin, while Courrèges fumed that, “I, for one, won’t stand for it,” though what he intended to do nobody had the slightest idea. Among the mass-market outlets, however, there was one tiny house called Chloé, owned by a former financier named Jacques Lenoir, which had delusions of grander things under a young designer named Gérard Pipart. When Pipart was hired away by the couture house of Nina Ricci, Lenoir regarding it as such a disaster that he replaced him with four newcomers – names like Graziella Fontana, Tan Guidicelli, Christine Baille and Karl Lagerfeld – and decided to let them fight it out.

“It was very inspirational,” Lenoir says. “They were like phagocytes in the blood, where the one eats the other. Karl learned a lot from the others, but when it came to competition, he always came out on top. He was stronger, he had more force of personality.”

Indeed, the strength is almost physically tangible when you meet Lagerfeld in person, the image only half concealing a surprisingly solid man with large fleshy hands who looks as if, should the need arise, he could arm-wrestle the ugly or boring to the ground. The sensuous mouth has a capacity for the brutal as it echoes its staccato bulletins in four languages, mingling high camp, high bitchery and exquisite manners with penetrating analyses of the most pragmatic sort. He is briskly efficient, sardonically high-charged – transformed from the languorous wunderkind who once could barely struggle into Patou by 3 p.m. and devoted whole evenings to pondering the meaning of life. But then, he had finally found it, at least for himself. The discovery released so much energy that he designed not only for Chloé, but whipped off freelance work for Charles Jourdan shoes and Fendi furs, along with a band of such other young free spirits as Kenzo and Sonia Rykiel, who were invading the transformed landscape of ready-to-wear.

“I did everything,” he says. “It was very tiring, but very amusing, too – getting up early to take trains to go to the factories, taking planes here and there. It was the best way to learn, because I had never gone to fashion school. And nobody had done it before. We were a little community of pioneers.”

Within 10 years, the little community of pioneers had left haute couture languishing in charming oblivion. Their rambunctious April and October showing stole the thunder – and the crowds – from the ancient rituals in mirrored salons where the faithful perched on little gold chairs. Prêt-à-porter began to hand down the prophecies for the world’s closets, and just as promptly to fill them up, inspiring its own cut-rate copiers, while its brash young stars eclipsed the old names in an entirely new firmament of fashion. No longer did a woman dress under one label. The new rule was that there were no rules and there were as many styles as there were brash young upstarts with chutzpah and scissors.

By 1974, the process of Darwinian selection had left only Karl Lagerfeld at Chloé, where he was offered an exclusive contract and, in tribute to his stardom, his own perfume. He chose a sweet, heavy, old-worldly scent in keeping with his image. “At the time, everything was light, green, duty-free as I call it,” he sniffs. “It set a new trend.” Elizabeth Arden, who holds the franchise, now sells $11 million worth of liquid Chloé a year. Having just launched a men’s cologne, Lagerfeld is already at work on a second feminine fragrance scheduled for 1980 unbottling – “something quite eccentric, I think.” Discussions are also underway for makeup and a men’s line, although he refuses to design for children and linen closets. “One day your name cannot be used any more – only for toilet paper.”

His place in posterity assured, he now looks down from the heights of chic to observe his former conferes of haute couture – like Marc Bohan of Dior – with charity. “Boring – they’re only allowed to do boring things. Of course, they’re only employees. Sleeping beauties, I call them.” He does not resent the phenomenal success of Saint Laurent who has outstripped him even in the prêt-à-porter arena, and they continue to be the closest of friends. “Yves was always more ambitious than I was. He likes high fashion. He never found it humiliating. And he made lots of efforts that I’d never have made.” For example? “Well, for example, I’d never have consented to live with Pierre Bergé (Saint Laurent’s business partner and companion) for 20 years. I mean, there are prices I wouldn’t pay.”

A tiny bronze buzzer swings open the massive iron door on rue de l’Université and a security guard points the way across a courtyard roughly the size of a skating rink. A greying housekeeper in a worn sweater leads the way up marble stairs to the lofty salons where Karl Lagerfeld has consented to be photographed in a little at-home portrait. He sweeps in 20 minutes late, brisk and understated, a shrunken monogram on his dun-colored smock, only a thin western string tie which was the gift of the people at Neiman Marcus in place of the usual flounce – a sobered image due perhaps to the fact that he had just celebrated his 40th birthday two days earlier at his 18th-century château in Brittany where his mother now presides.

“I always live in 18th-century houses,” he says. “For me, it’s the perfection of human culture – the top.” In fact, he once did not live in an 18th-century house when he was making his name as a freelancer, but in a Left Bank apartment surrounded by one of the most lavish Art Deco collections then in existence. He had a backdrop made for it, and immediately had to auction the whole thing off. “It was too much – too fragile, too beautiful. I couldn’t live in it. It was like waking up every morning in an opera set.” Besides, so many people were getting into Art Deco. Now he collects state beds – Madame du Barry’s, the Duke of Richelieu’s, the Princess of Conti’s. Most are in the country château, but there is one of the indeterminate ownership plumped here in the midst of a receiving room, its white-silk coverlet and headboard sumptuously embroidered with a motif of the four seasons. It turns out to be one of the few pieces of furniture in the entire place. He keeps the rooms empty on purpose. “I don’t want to look nouveau riche,” he says.

It is virtually the eve of his next collection, and there is not much time for the setting. A gentle-faced young man serves apple juice on a silver tray and Karl Lagerfeld keeps examining his watch. His fabrics are late in arriving from the factories, his fittings are delayed and he has not yet seen the drift of his next seasonal direction, which makes him tense, although never given to the bouts of hysteria Saint Laurent is said to glory in. “What’s the point?” he says. “A dress doesn’t last forever. In the business, you start all over again every six months.” Still, he shuns holidays and works so obsessively that colleagues confide that Karl Lagerfeld’s problem is not that he may one day dry up on ideas, but that he has to be stopped. His study, a crammed anteroom to one of the salons, erupts with costume histories and ancient fashion circulars that spill over from his drawing board and onto the floor, but he shies from specific discussions of the Muse. “Designers shouldn’t talk too much; they should design. I believe only in instinct, intuition. I believe in imagining things from a window.”

He does not like all of this boring talk of the nuts and bolts, the whys and wherefores. He prefers to deal in images. The night he threw a little candlelight dinner for 40 here in honor of Paloma Picasso’s wedding – “the whole table filled with flowers, orchids the same red as her dress. I must say it was magic.” The little costume ball that Saint Laurent’s associate LouLou de la Falaise held at a disco palace where he turned up in a crystal-beaded jumpsuit and feathers once worn by Josephine Baker. The evenings he insists he spends dining in these rooms alone, according to the counsel of his fortune teller, scarlet drapes drawn, the table splendidly laid for one, while scented candles cast a spell upon the air. He quick-sketches the scenes as one might imagine looking in upon a life through a window. With a stylist’s finely honed eye, he settles upon each detail he chooses to reveal.

It is, after all, no easy task to tread the uneasy line between mass design and mystique, between turning out dresses that everywoman can buy off the rack while leaving the impression that only the truly privileged could attain such a luxury. Karl Lagerfeld, who prefers to work his magic in crepe de Chine rather than cheesecloth, who introduced satin knickers and tried to bring back the fan, has a showman’s unwavering sense of his audience. Strangers are not invited to his workrooms. Colleagues are discouraged from answering questions about him. Upstairs and downstairs in this townhouse, which he writes off for promotion purposes on his taxes, there are other rooms – private apartments that are never seen, never photographed.

The camera clicks. The image is preserved in the splendor of an empty salon. Karl Lagerfeld is in a hurry for his next appointment and rushes off with the gentle-eyed young photographer, shaking hands all around. It is a demanding, tightly scheduled life where even the star of the hour cannot be sure he will not be upstaged a half-year away. It is sometimes not a glamorous life at all, although one only has his word for it.

“I don’t believe in glamour,” he says. “Glamour is very artificial.”

Our footsteps echo on the marble staircase as the housekeeper lets us out with two plastic garbage bags in her hand, which she deposits behind a closed 18th-century door.

The post From the FASHION Archives: Karl, Before Chanel appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

From the FASHION Archives: Karl, Before Chanel published first on https://borboletabags.tumblr.com/

[lindyhunt]

From the FASHION Archives: Karl, Before Chanel

Since its launch in 1977, FASHION magazine has been giving Canadian readers in-depth reports on the industry’s most influential figures and expert takes on the worlds of fashion, beauty and style. In this series, we explore the depths of our archive to bring you some of the best fashion features we’ve ever published. This story, originally titled “The Eccentric Luxe of Karl Lagerfeld” by Marci McDonald was originally published in FASHION’s Winter 1978 issue.

It was Karl Lagerfeld’s idea to throw the party at his house. “I thought it would be more personal,” he says. Six hundred of his most intimate friends were greeted at the doorway by liveried footmen in white wigs and blue-satin breeches brandishing gigantic silver candelabra. By the light of more than a thousand flickering tapers, they were led into his ivory-and-gilt 18th-century salons, large enough to hold a small gymkhana, only to confront buffer tables recreated to match Marie Antoinette’s finest. Three-tiered pièces montées, threatening to graze the ceiling frescoes, spilled over with foie-gras-trimmed dolphins and peacock-shaped saddles of lamb. The sweet table featured a 50-foot meringue fountain cascading petits fours and crowned by four life-sized jeweled sugar swans spouting green syrup water. Jean Seberg, his next door neighbour, came and declared it marvelous. Paloma Picasso, whose marriage to a penniless Argentinian playwright in Lagerfeld’s heart-shaped red-taffeta wedding dress had rivaled Princess Caroline’s as the social event of the season, remarked that it was “very Karl.” Only the host, looking a slightly dressier version of his usual cross between Count Dracula and Louis XVI, seemed to have any reservations, confiding later that he wished it all hadn’t been at the expense of promoting his new men’s perfume, instead of the simple little gathering of near and dear as he preferred to think of it. “Little do people know I lead such studious, down-to-earth life,” he sighs. “To be a celebrity – it’s very demanding. But I am my image, I’m afraid.”

The image perches on a folding plexiglass chair in the fading afternoon light that invades the two-floor Chloé empire just off Paris’ fashionable rue de la Boétie and peers out at the world through rose-colored glasses. He used to favor smoky lenses, but finds things vastly improved since the change. “Everybody looks 10 years younger,” he says. Not that everything Karl Lagerfeld lays eyes on now meets his approval. “Ugly, ugly, ugly,” he dismisses the better part of the universe – a condemnation second only to “borrowing.” Offices are boring, as are desks and “fixed points” – which leaves the Chloé staff swirling around him among racks of tweed and sequins in apparent casual mayhem. Most of the clothes in which the hoi poloi parade outside his windows are boring, and frequently ugly as well. Neither sin, however, can be attributed to his image, which on this particular day consists of the usual: black smock emblazoned with a six-inch monogram, one of the hundred handmade shirts he orders annually from Hilditch and Key, shirtmakers to the Shah of Iran, which requires him to have custom-built luggage in order to preserve their starched stand-up collars, and, at his throat, a flowing black-silk bow. His greying shoulder-length tresses are pulled back into a ribbon, his complexion so pale that in certain lights it appears freshly powdered.

It is not an image that the casual bystander might associate with the semi-annual outbursts of witty sophistication and romantic chic that have come to characterize Karl Lagerfeld’s contributions to those feverish April and October follies known as Paris’ prêt-à-porter collections. But on reflection, it is nothing if not appropriate. While not everyone might be prepared to go around done up as he does, it is also true that not everybody can wear a Chloé.

In the 10 years since he has emerged as one of France’s trend-setting fashion triumvirate along with close friends Kenzo Takada and Yves Saint Laurent, his name has become synonymous with a look of rarefied elegance and eccentric luxe that makes him closer to the grand style of haute couture than any other ready-to-wear designer. Wherever two or more of the relentlessly à la mode are gathered, there is bound to be a slither of cleverly constructed silk by Karl Lagerfeld. The press has hailed him as one of today’s most influential stylists but, in fact, the sphere of his influence is limited. While Saint Laurent has set the silhouette for two decades of dressing and Kenzo has cut the pattern for almost every trend that has filtered down to the streets, Karl Lagerfeld has fashioned a unique niche for himself – not copied by the masses, but not ignored either; a label more applauded than pirated; a name that has come to mean class by itself. Buyers tend to swoon over his showings, which have twice inspired the shrewd Martha Phillips of Martha, Palm Beach and New York, to exit rhapsodizing that they were “like a beautiful song.”

But the music to her ears may have been the cash register bearing witness to the fact that, beneath Lagerfeld’s outlandish exterior, there lurks the canny commercial intelligence that has managed to create not only what the ads unabashedly call “the world’s most beautiful clothes,” but also some of the most wearable. Bianca Jagger, the Baroness Olympia de Rothschild and Margaret Trudeau all number Chloés in their closets, as – much to Karl Lagerfeld’s astonishment – did did his ailing mother’s private nurse. “She kept turning up in all these dresses of mine,” he says, tinted shades only half-betraying the intimation that there are, after all, limits to the democratization of prêt-à-porter. Discreet inquiries, however, finally assured him that the Chloés hovering at the bedside came of impeccable lineage – castoffs from a former patient’s wife named Jacqueline Onassis.

The tiny ready-to-wear house that he signed on with 14 years ago now boasts 11 boutiques and 95 outlets in the world’s toniest fashion emporiums under his signature, chalking up $9 million in wholesale clothing sales last year alone – triple the business of three years ago. If the growth rate is just short of phenomenal, it is no accident. Today, ethnic and organic are stunningly out and the fashion tyrannies of the crunchy granola set are going down to the yawns. In a year when the blue jean has resurfaced in gloriously co-opted little $300 leather versions and glitz has become de rigueur, it may not be entirely coincidental that the designer of the hour is an exotic of rare plumage whose idea of getting back to basics was once to show tennis shoes with chiffon ball-gowns and T-shirts of crepe de Chine. “Today, fashion is not made in the streets as much as it was in the early ‘70s,” he says, the relief clearly evident in his voice. “Now there’s a new sophistication that has nothing to do with the streets – in fact, it may not even reach them.”

Certainly, the pavement was not what he seemed to have in mind when creating his fall collection. An androgynous stray from a Cabaret set, in black chesterfield coat and top hat, waltzed down the runway and opened prison gates to release his latest inspirations: hip-hugging petal-hem skirts blossoming over stiletto heels, lamé tunic dresses afloat over skin-tight black-satin pants and tiny bellboy hats perched on the forehead, all topped off by mammoth fake jewels that dripped from tweed lapels like relics from a chandelier disaster. They were droll, they were outrageous, and the fashion press promptly went into delirium, demanding to know their meaning. “Why, they don’t mean anything – they’re just fun,” said Karl Lagerfeld, only surprised that anyone would ask. Relevance, significance – he waves them off as only slightly more boring than inquiries into the origins of his image. “Who knows where it came from,” he shrugs. “It was just there.”

For those inclined to favor the environmental theory of character formation, it was not perhaps a childhood designed to produce the average citizen. Born in 1938 in the heart of Hitler’s Germany, Karl Lagerfeld cannot recall ever growing up aware that there was some international unpleasantness going on. Life continued as usual at the château in the countryside outside Hamburg, where he found himself the last child of the last marriages of two not entirely typical members of Third Reich gentry. His father, a canned-milk tycoon with an inclination for marrying, was 60 at his birth. His mother, who had worn a Paul Poiret gown for her first wedding and a Vionnet for her second, favored Lanvin for the war. Their offspring passed his time reading her back issues of La Gazette du Bon Ton, sketching her wardrobe and changing clothes three times daily. “Already, I hated open shirts,” he said. “I had collars up to here, bows and ties, even hats. I was a fashion freak. Even as a child, I was overdressed.”

He does remember a parade of rather curious people showing up at the château who later turned out to be war refugees, but the memory concerns him only insomuch as one of them tortured him in French ��� a language he could speak with devoted fluency from his sixth birthday. When he was 12, his mother took his drawings to the director of a Hamburg art school who refused him admittance, declaring, “This boy is not interested in art. He’s interested in costume.” At 14, he begged to be allowed to finish high school in France, pointing out that he had, after all, immigrated in spirit. His arrival by train at the Gare du Nord did not disappoint him – it was dirty, it was decadent, and it was gloriously Paris, the city where he has lived ever since. Boarding school, however, was another matter – crowded and cloying. “In those days, if you were the slightest bit out of the ordinary, you were considered and eccentric,” he says. “I wanted to be alone.”

He won permission to rent an apartment on his own to prepare for his bacclauréat exams, provided that his father’s minions could keep an eye on him. When the other eye was closed, he secretly entered the International Wool Competition fashion contest for amateurs. He was just past his 16th birthday when his sketch of a little wool coat captured first prize and he was catapulted into a career that over the next 23 years was in many ways to mirror the progress of fashion itself.

The year was 1955 – mid-point in the heavy heyday of haute couture’s resuscitation by a one-time designer’s assistant named Christian Dior, who had opened his salons during the liberation sweep-up in 1947 with what he called the New Look, and was promptly hailed as the man who had saved Paris. Each July and January the world hung on his prophecies for hem lengths and hair lengths, while names like Jacques Fath, Pierre Balmain, Cristobel Balenciaga and Hubert de Givenchy were lesser stars who revolved around his headlines’ pivotal glare. In 1955, the press was in its usual uproar over Dior’s newest look, the A-line, and did not pay particular attention to the International Wool Competition fashion contest which two teenagers had just won: Karl Lagerfeld in the coat category and, in the dress category, a gangling blond 19-year-old who was to become one of Lagerfeld’s closest friends and two years later, Dior’s heir – Yves Saint Laurent.

While Dior plucked Saint Laurent out of the contest to become his dauphin, Balmain, one of the judges, sometimes known as the “couturier of queens,” offered Lagerfeld a stylist’s job. He worked with Balmain for three months before he had the courage to break the news to his parents, and stayed three years. He failed to meet any queens, but did help dress Anita Ekberg, Vivien Leigh, Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida and even Bardot, although in retrospect he cherishes no fond memories. “Pierre Balmain was very teacherlike,” he says. “But the whole atmosphere with models and all was very borellolike. I just thought it was not chic at all.” Bored, he toyed with the thought of going back to school, when a job offer as art director at the venerable couture house of Jean Patou saved him – but in the end, only for more boredom. “Twice a year, I turned out 50 dresses,” he says. “It wasn’t enough for me. I spent the rest of my life at nightclubs, on beaches, at parties. It was empty, completely empty. When I think about it today, it was really the most boring and stupid time of my life.” After five years, he dropped out of couture altogether, the bloom rubbed thin on the boyhood dream. “I didn’t like the atmosphere. You waited there for your private clients, then you flattered them so they’d keep coming back. But they were just boring. Uglies – all uglies. Today there are 50 girls in the street who look better than the women who wear haute couture. I didn’t like what Balenciaga was doing. I didn’t like what Chanel was doing – all those little suits – maybe because I saw so many ugly copies on so many ugly women.”

At 25, he decided to devote himself to a life of the mind, but found that finishing his high school diploma did not always provide sufficient inspiration to get up in the morning, nor even in the afternoon. A year of more parties. And more boredom. “Then suddenly I realized work was the most important thing in my life, more important than all the rest of that stuff. I knew couture was finished. But something was changing.”

It was 1964, two years before Saint Laurent descended from his haute-couture shrine on the right bank to set up a Left bank boutique for the vast unwashed, making mass retailing respectable. The Paris ready-to-wear industry was still a slightly disreputable collection of pirates devoted to churning out bargain-rate couturier rip-offs, thanks to the advances in mass production and manmade fabrics with such odd names as Orlon, rayon and Terylene. The idea of men’s fashion had become fashionable, and teenagers with fat disposable dispentions from daddy had created a new market that British upstarts like Mary Quant were blithely capitalizing on with the miniskirt.

But in Paris the only rustlings of a change in the wind were cries of indignation going up from the couturier salons. “Paris has lost its leadership,” fussed Pierre Cardin, while Courrèges fumed that, “I, for one, won’t stand for it,” though what he intended to do nobody had the slightest idea. Among the mass-market outlets, however, there was one tiny house called Chloé, owned by a former financier named Jacques Lenoir, which had delusions of grander things under a young designer named Gérard Pipart. When Pipart was hired away by the couture house of Nina Ricci, Lenoir regarding it as such a disaster that he replaced him with four newcomers – names like Graziella Fontana, Tan Guidicelli, Christine Baille and Karl Lagerfeld – and decided to let them fight it out.

“It was very inspirational,” Lenoir says. “They were like phagocytes in the blood, where the one eats the other. Karl learned a lot from the others, but when it came to competition, he always came out on top. He was stronger, he had more force of personality.”

Indeed, the strength is almost physically tangible when you meet Lagerfeld in person, the image only half concealing a surprisingly solid man with large fleshy hands who looks as if, should the need arise, he could arm-wrestle the ugly or boring to the ground. The sensuous mouth has a capacity for the brutal as it echoes its staccato bulletins in four languages, mingling high camp, high bitchery and exquisite manners with penetrating analyses of the most pragmatic sort. He is briskly efficient, sardonically high-charged – transformed from the languorous wunderkind who once could barely struggle into Patou by 3 p.m. and devoted whole evenings to pondering the meaning of life. But then, he had finally found it, at least for himself. The discovery released so much energy that he designed not only for Chloé, but whipped off freelance work for Charles Jourdan shoes and Fendi furs, along with a band of such other young free spirits as Kenzo and Sonia Rykiel, who were invading the transformed landscape of ready-to-wear.

“I did everything,” he says. “It was very tiring, but very amusing, too – getting up early to take trains to go to the factories, taking planes here and there. It was the best way to learn, because I had never gone to fashion school. And nobody had done it before. We were a little community of pioneers.”

Within 10 years, the little community of pioneers had left haute couture languishing in charming oblivion. Their rambunctious April and October showing stole the thunder – and the crowds – from the ancient rituals in mirrored salons where the faithful perched on little gold chairs. Prêt-à-porter began to hand down the prophecies for the world’s closets, and just as promptly to fill them up, inspiring its own cut-rate copiers, while its brash young stars eclipsed the old names in an entirely new firmament of fashion. No longer did a woman dress under one label. The new rule was that there were no rules and there were as many styles as there were brash young upstarts with chutzpah and scissors.

By 1974, the process of Darwinian selection had left only Karl Lagerfeld at Chloé, where he was offered an exclusive contract and, in tribute to his stardom, his own perfume. He chose a sweet, heavy, old-worldly scent in keeping with his image. “At the time, everything was light, green, duty-free as I call it,” he sniffs. “It set a new trend.” Elizabeth Arden, who holds the franchise, now sells $11 million worth of liquid Chloé a year. Having just launched a men’s cologne, Lagerfeld is already at work on a second feminine fragrance scheduled for 1980 unbottling – “something quite eccentric, I think.” Discussions are also underway for makeup and a men’s line, although he refuses to design for children and linen closets. “One day your name cannot be used any more – only for toilet paper.”

His place in posterity assured, he now looks down from the heights of chic to observe his former conferes of haute couture – like Marc Bohan of Dior – with charity. “Boring – they’re only allowed to do boring things. Of course, they’re only employees. Sleeping beauties, I call them.” He does not resent the phenomenal success of Saint Laurent who has outstripped him even in the prêt-à-porter arena, and they continue to be the closest of friends. “Yves was always more ambitious than I was. He likes high fashion. He never found it humiliating. And he made lots of efforts that I’d never have made.” For example? “Well, for example, I’d never have consented to live with Pierre Bergé (Saint Laurent’s business partner and companion) for 20 years. I mean, there are prices I wouldn’t pay.”

A tiny bronze buzzer swings open the massive iron door on rue de l’Université and a security guard points the way across a courtyard roughly the size of a skating rink. A greying housekeeper in a worn sweater leads the way up marble stairs to the lofty salons where Karl Lagerfeld has consented to be photographed in a little at-home portrait. He sweeps in 20 minutes late, brisk and understated, a shrunken monogram on his dun-colored smock, only a thin western string tie which was the gift of the people at Neiman Marcus in place of the usual flounce – a sobered image due perhaps to the fact that he had just celebrated his 40th birthday two days earlier at his 18th-century château in Brittany where his mother now presides.

“I always live in 18th-century houses,” he says. “For me, it’s the perfection of human culture – the top.” In fact, he once did not live in an 18th-century house when he was making his name as a freelancer, but in a Left Bank apartment surrounded by one of the most lavish Art Deco collections then in existence. He had a backdrop made for it, and immediately had to auction the whole thing off. “It was too much – too fragile, too beautiful. I couldn’t live in it. It was like waking up every morning in an opera set.” Besides, so many people were getting into Art Deco. Now he collects state beds – Madame du Barry’s, the Duke of Richelieu’s, the Princess of Conti’s. Most are in the country château, but there is one of the indeterminate ownership plumped here in the midst of a receiving room, its white-silk coverlet and headboard sumptuously embroidered with a motif of the four seasons. It turns out to be one of the few pieces of furniture in the entire place. He keeps the rooms empty on purpose. “I don’t want to look nouveau riche,” he says.

It is virtually the eve of his next collection, and there is not much time for the setting. A gentle-faced young man serves apple juice on a silver tray and Karl Lagerfeld keeps examining his watch. His fabrics are late in arriving from the factories, his fittings are delayed and he has not yet seen the drift of his next seasonal direction, which makes him tense, although never given to the bouts of hysteria Saint Laurent is said to glory in. “What’s the point?” he says. “A dress doesn’t last forever. In the business, you start all over again every six months.” Still, he shuns holidays and works so obsessively that colleagues confide that Karl Lagerfeld’s problem is not that he may one day dry up on ideas, but that he has to be stopped. His study, a crammed anteroom to one of the salons, erupts with costume histories and ancient fashion circulars that spill over from his drawing board and onto the floor, but he shies from specific discussions of the Muse. “Designers shouldn’t talk too much; they should design. I believe only in instinct, intuition. I believe in imagining things from a window.”

He does not like all of this boring talk of the nuts and bolts, the whys and wherefores. He prefers to deal in images. The night he threw a little candlelight dinner for 40 here in honor of Paloma Picasso’s wedding – “the whole table filled with flowers, orchids the same red as her dress. I must say it was magic.” The little costume ball that Saint Laurent’s associate LouLou de la Falaise held at a disco palace where he turned up in a crystal-beaded jumpsuit and feathers once worn by Josephine Baker. The evenings he insists he spends dining in these rooms alone, according to the counsel of his fortune teller, scarlet drapes drawn, the table splendidly laid for one, while scented candles cast a spell upon the air. He quick-sketches the scenes as one might imagine looking in upon a life through a window. With a stylist’s finely honed eye, he settles upon each detail he chooses to reveal.

It is, after all, no easy task to tread the uneasy line between mass design and mystique, between turning out dresses that everywoman can buy off the rack while leaving the impression that only the truly privileged could attain such a luxury. Karl Lagerfeld, who prefers to work his magic in crepe de Chine rather than cheesecloth, who introduced satin knickers and tried to bring back the fan, has a showman’s unwavering sense of his audience. Strangers are not invited to his workrooms. Colleagues are discouraged from answering questions about him. Upstairs and downstairs in this townhouse, which he writes off for promotion purposes on his taxes, there are other rooms – private apartments that are never seen, never photographed.

The camera clicks. The image is preserved in the splendor of an empty salon. Karl Lagerfeld is in a hurry for his next appointment and rushes off with the gentle-eyed young photographer, shaking hands all around. It is a demanding, tightly scheduled life where even the star of the hour cannot be sure he will not be upstaged a half-year away. It is sometimes not a glamorous life at all, although one only has his word for it.

“I don’t believe in glamour,” he says. “Glamour is very artificial.”

Our footsteps echo on the marble staircase as the housekeeper lets us out with two plastic garbage bags in her hand, which she deposits behind a closed 18th-century door.