Under the Influence -- Crossing Delancey

Do you remember, as a kid, hearing your parents talk about movies and music?  Do you remember how mysterious it all seemed -- like there was some vital something that existed in whatever moved them?  I do.  Sometimes I think about my mother from then, and remember how she reacted to those things that shaped her tastes.  The movies she loved, the music she couldn't get enough of, and it makes me feel closer to her in a different way.  I think of her at 38 and it makes me relate to her now through my adult eyes, but still with the wonder of a child. 

The movie, Crossing Delancey, is a movie that has been lodged in my mind since I was a kid.  It came out in 1988, when I was 10 and she was 37, and I remember that my mom went to see it in the theater.  She adored it.  For years afterwards, when it came on television, she would sigh, and say, "I love this movie."  She's a romantic, and for better or worse, so am I. 

I had seen snippets of the movie, but never watched it from start to finish.  I knew two things about it -- that it took place in New York and that it starred Amy Irving, with her lovely pale blue eyes and wild curly hair.  When I watched it through, I finally understood why my mother loved it.

It is a deep movie, masquerading as a light romantic comedy.  Based on the play by Susan Sandler, who also wrote the screenplay, it has the depth that comes from a work that was originally intended for the stage.  I, personally, find that when something moves from the stage to screen, barring any major loss of plot, it holds up better than most screenplays that were written just for the screen.  When you write for theater it needs a stronger backbone; it needs to exist in a certain space, within certain limitations.  Without strong characters, plot, and storyline, a play would fall flat, whereas so many modern movies cover over these faults with visual noise.

The movie exists within the late 1980s with most of its styling. But, I think the 80s looks stick with the secondary characters. Isabelle (Amy Irving), with some slight tweaking, fits right into today with her style.  Izzy favors dusty colors and neutrals, tending towards navy, gray, olive green, brown, caramel, tan, and mushroom tones.  She loves plaids and mini prints, but her staples are solids.  Texture is key for her, too.  Suede boots, braided leather belts, and her all important wool felt oversize fedora finish out her looks.  Izzy loves a trench, a scarf, and her caramel leather handbag.

It's a seamless mix of vintage style pieces -- 1940s and 1950s influences with the rayon mini print dresses, emphasis on strong shoulders, and the boxy plaid shirt jackets -- with basic staples that will always be classics -- the trench coat, the fedora, cable knit sweaters, and denim.

If you want to channel your inner Izzy, here are some basic combos that will put you on the right track.  These are from all over the place, vintage and new. Check out our Under the Influence Pinterest board (here) for details.

And finally, if you need some more style inspiration, two celebrities that channel Isabelle's style are Katie Holmes and Jessica Alba.  Both love layers, textures, and neutral colors.  AND they know how to style a fedora!

 I highly recommend watching it if you can.  It's available to rent from Amazon, and they show it every so often on TCM.  If you're a softie like me, you'll love it.

Oh, and P.S., if you just have to have a plaid shirt jacket like Izzy's, we have one VERY similar in brown in our Etsy shop!  It's a 1950s wool jacket by Merrill.  You can find it here.

The Skinny -- Paul Himmel

Grand Central Terminal, NYC, 1947

Paul Himmel, an American fashion and documentary photographer, was born in 1914 in New Haven, Connecticut.  His parents were Ukranian immigrants.  They moved to Coney Island in 1922, and opened the country's first vegetarian restaurant.   

As a teenager, Himmel taught himself about photography.  But he went to school for science, and began teaching in 1932.  It wasn't his calling, though, and he then studied graphic journalism at the New School with Harper's Bazaar art director Alexey Brodovitch in the late 1940s (Brodovitch worked there from 1938-58).  

Himmel's portrait of Bassman

It was his relationship with Lillian Bassman, the love of his life, that most affected Himmel, though.  He met her in 1923, married her in 1935, and exhibited his first work in 1939 -- photos taken while on a trip to Mexico with her.  Bassman was also a fashion photographer, and is very well known in her own right.  They were married over 73 years.

He started to work as a professional photographer in 1945, and by 1947 he was working steadily as a fashion photographer for Bazaar and Vogue.  He was one of the very few who worked for both magazines.  Unfortunately, all his negatives from this time have been destroyed.

Bassman and Himmel, 2003

By the 1950s, bored with the commercialism of his fashion work, Himmel started his own art projects.  He looked to the human form for inspiration, focusing on people who used their bodies in their own work, like ballet dancers, circus performers, and boxers.  He experimented with grain structure in his negatives and prints, using a series of silhouetted and elongated forms abbreviated almost to the point of abstraction.  His photos are high-contrast, emphasizing the design and patterns contained in the image.

ballet in action, 1954

He published a book, ballet in action, in 1954.  It had an extensive foreword, written by George Balanchine, the lead choreographer of the New York City Ballet.  In 1955, some of his images were included in a show curated by Edward Steichen, called "The Family of Man" for MOMA.

ballet in action, 1954

Himmel took his last photograph in 1967, and by 1969, he became disenchanted with photography and retrained as a psychotherapist. He worked in psychotherapy for more than 25 years.  An exhibition at the New York Galleries, by Howard Greenberg and James Danzinger, in 1996 reintroduced his work; it was an instant success, and a new book of his work was published.

Abstract Nudes, 1954

Paul Himmel died February 8, 2009.

*Info from artnet.com, theworldofphotographers.com and Wikipedia