THEGAYUK

Day: 14 August 2015

  • INTERVIEW: Iris Apfel, Fashion Legends Never Cease

    93-year–old IRIS APFEL is a fashion legend. In an era when even Hollywood stars are slaves to stylists and opinionated editors who want all of us to conform, this New York idiosyncratic doyenne is one of the last truly original, most fabulous dressed women around.

    Her large crammed Manhattan home is packed full of vintage pieces, designer clothing and treasures that she has picked up in thrift stores. She combines chic with cheap. Everything she wears is big, bold and totally stunning, and always topped off with her signature oversized glasses. Married to her centenarian husband Carl for 66 years she has such an enthusiastic energy and pulse for living, which has now been so beautifully captured in an enchanting new documentary portrait by the late Albert Maysles.

    We had THEGAYUSA’s Contributing Editor Roger Walker-Dack put his glad rags on so that he could sit down and talk life and style with this remarkable fashion icon.

    RWD: Your mother once told you to buy a simple black dress, as you would always have something to wear. However it looks from the clothes that you actually wear that you simply ignored her, and in fact you say in the movie that “black is not a style, it’s a uniform.”

    IA: No, I didn’t disagree with my mother, as that was good basic training she gave me. What my mother meant was that I should have a good architectural piece of clothing that didn’t have any embellishment. One that I could wear to the office in the morning, and then go straight out to a black tie affair at night by simply just changing accessories. My mother worshipped at the altar of the accessory.

    RWD: How old were you when your sense of style manifested itself, and when did it evolve into the Iris Apfel look?

    IA: As far as I know it always was there. My family told me that when I was a kid of about four or five years old (but I don’t remember) we were spending the summer at a resort. My mother used to take great pleasure in dressing me every night and she would always concoct an outfit. She had a kind of an orange crate, which I would stand on top of as she dressed me. One particular night all of a sudden people came rushing into the room because I was howling and screaming and carrying on like a banshee as if my mother were going at me with an axe. They were desperate to know what happened. It seems that my mother took a hair ribbon and made a big bow out of it and went to put it in my hair. I kept screaming “it doesn’t match, it doesn’t match”, stamping my feet and carrying on. Now all these years later I realise that Mom was so right as I hate matchy matchy, but in those days I was just horrified. (laughs)

    RWD: What was the most exciting thing about fashion in those very early days when you were still travelling the globe for your interior design business?

    IA: It was so exciting because there was such an enormous amount of creativity. Balenciaga was alive and I had friends in the fashion business who would take me to all the openings in Paris, and it was really so exuberant. Then it was like something new with these bursts of creativity and genius, most of which are all finished now.

    RWD: After the success of the exhibition of your clothes and jewellery at the Metropolitan Museum in 2005 you became an octogenarian starlet, and so many more doors were opened to you, what was the favourite one? Being a Visiting Professor perhaps?

    IA: Actually I called myself a geriatric starlet. They were all very nice as I like doors a lot. I collect doors too. (laughs)

    RWD: Bruce Weber the photographer said that the reason you did this movie was that you thought Albert Maysles was handsome and you had a crush on him! I’m curious to know what the real reason was?

    IA: At first I didn’t want to do it and turned it down flat. Then I had a long talk with Linda Fargo (Senior VP at Bergdorf Goodman) and she said that I must be out of my cotton picking head as people would just drop dead to have Albert Maysles even take a still photograph and he wants to do a documentary of you! I really didn’t think anybody would care about a film about me as I wasn’t very well known and I didn’t have anything to sell. However Albert convinced me, and I’m very glad I did it, as it was a wonderful experience he was a really wonderful guy. We shall all miss him so much.

    RWD: What do you think of the movie now?

    IA: I haven’t actually seen it yet. But if I don’t like it, there is no one to complain to about it now. (laughs)

    RWD: You said in the movie that you believe that it is better to be happy than well dressed.

    IA: Absolutely. I think fashion is just part of my life and if it hadn’t of been fashion then it would have been something else. I was so worried in the film that I would come across as some empty headed fashionista.

    RWD: Well you didn’t.

    IA: Thank God for that because they’re so many empty headed people in the fashion business who take themselves way too seriously and I don’t think I am at all like one of them. To me there are lots more important things in the world than just having the right shoes!

    I think that if you have to work very hard at dressing up and it makes you nervous or uptight, then you won’t look very well because you won’t be comfortable. I think it’s much better to be comfortable and happy than well dressed, don’t you?

    RWD: Absolutely. You value individuality and curiosity so highly

    IA: Oh yes…

    RWD: Then how would you encourage people nowadays to be just that, when things are so mass marketed? 

    IA: First you have to know who you are. That is the most important thing, as if you don’t know who you are you will either get swallowed up or you follow some unsuitable trends and just become a nonentity. It’s not easy to know who you are and it’s very painful and takes a lot of time and that is why a lot of people don’t want to put in the effort. However if you don’t have any individuality and you’re happy just being one of the girls (or boys) be my guest. I’m not the fashion police. I won’t fault you.

    RWD: One of the most touching aspects of your life in the film is your marriage to your husband Carl who celebrated his 100th birthday this year.

    IA: It was sixty-seven years together a couple of weeks ago.

    RWD: Wow! Congratulations. What is your secret to having such a happy relationship?

    IA: Having a sense of humour and giving one another space:  your own space. I’m delighted that gay people now want to get married and I say why not! It’s nobody’s business and I would happily give my blessing.

     

    IRIS is now available to buy on the Amazon store

  • FILM REVIEW | Iris

    “I don’t like pretty!” 93-year-old idiosyncratic fashion maven Iris Apfel remarks, in an enchanting new documentary by Albert Maysles.

    Iris acknowledges that she was never a conventional beauty but that has hardly stopped her pursuing her passion for style and becoming one of the most original and daringly dressed women in New York. As Maysles films her on and off for the past four years he captures not just her remarkable talent for putting the most unexpected and stunning outfits together for her daily ensembles, but he also reveals a captivating quick-witted charmer with an insatiable appetite for living life to the full.

    Iris, married to her centenarian husband Carl for the past 66 years, lives in her mother’s Park Avenue apartment crammed with racks and racks of clothes. These, she explains were bought to be worn and not simply to be collected. She mixes chic with cheap and the results are always fabulous.

    She and Carl ran a very successful interior design business for years and their clients include many of the occupants of The White House over the years, in one charming scene she quickly stops Carl spilling the beans about (how difficult) Jacqueline Kennedy was.

    She was already well-known by New York’s fashion insiders but then in 2005 the Metropolitan Museum of Art mounted what they thought was a small exhibition of Iris’s clothing and jewellery which turned out to be an unexpected phenomenal success. Doors were suddenly opened to her including commissions to do collections for the Home Shopping Network and becoming a Visiting Professor of Fashion for the University of Texas.

    She was now, in her own words an octogenarian starlet and she put some of this down to the fact the Exhibition had provided the world with much-needed fantasy and glamour. Iris never does anything petite: everything must be big and bold. “Colour is so important: it can raise the dead,” just one of the statements that just trip off her tongue as she spouts forth about her beliefs. What Maysles is quick to spot though is that despite the seemingly incessant flow of opinion, Iris refuses to take any of it seriously.

    Towards the closing scenes of this delightful docu-portrait of the woman Bergdorf Goodman called, “the rare bird of fashion”, Iris claims that her two best traits are curiosity and having a good sense of humour. “I could never be a friend of anyone who wasn’t either”, she added.

    Frankly it’s hard not to like someone as engaging as Iris who comes out with such plums as “my mother worshipped at the altar of the accessory.” By the end of the movie you may not want to actually worship at the altar of Apfel, but you will be very sorely tempted.

    P.S. This sadly was the last work of the great documentarian Albert Maysles who died just days before the movie was screened at the Miami International Film Festival.

  • Homophobe Calls Himself Batman After Exposing His Penis

    A man has been sentenced and fined after exposing himself and using a gay slur.

    Nathan McMahon, 27, told police he was Batman after being arrested for exposing himself in a pub in Somerset in April.

    The court heard that he drunkenly called the landlord a “gay git” before pulling out his penis and exposing himself in front a customer. He went on to cause damage to plants and a for sale sign, as well as urinating in the street.

    Prosecutor Lucy Coleman said,

    “They were both drunk and after being served with a second pint McMahon called the landlord a gay git and then took out his penis and testicles and put them on the bar in front of another customer,”

    “The landlord took their drinks away but they continued to swear at him so he pressed his panic button to alert the police and they left.”

     

    McMahon also pleaded guilty to using abusive words and behaviour.

    His defendant, Tom Briggs said it was “a drunken night that went terribly wrong”.

    “McMahon had a disagreement with the landlord while he was asking for some money for the jukebox and this ended in him being abusive and he left the pub,” he said.

    “Then, with aggression inside him, he went outside and he kicked some plants, punched the sign and damaged a gate.”

     

    Manchester based McMahon has been ordered to a 12-month community order with 120 hours of unpaid work as well as paying £235 in compensation.

  • 10 Hottest Men In Country Music

    If you know anything about me, it’s that I’m an American trying to emigrate to Britain. I’m often asked what I’ll miss the most about the USA. It’s a tough call; there are lots of things that are uniquely American that the Brits just don’t get.

    From gravy and biscuits (which really tastes a lot better than it sound) to Donald Trump (who really is as bad as you think), there’s a lot about this country that doesn’t quite translate.Chief amongst those, though, has to be country music. Sure, there are exceptions—every gay in Soho has seen a drag queen mime a Dolly Parton or Shania Twain tune at some point—but by and large, the songs of the south simply don’t have the same cache in the UK. Country music is a uniquely American genre. But while the music itself may not be to your liking, some of the men who sing it may be.

    So, in an effort to introduce my favourite music to my favourite country, I give you the ten hottest men in country music:

    10. Dustin Lynch

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    Age: 30

    Hometown: Tullahoma, Tennessee

    Must-hear tracks: “Cowboys and Angels”; “Hell of a Night”

    With those sparkling blue eyes and that million-dollar smile, it’s no wonder Dustin Lynch has melted the hearts of country fans everywhere. His deep voice will make you swoon on tracks like “Cowboys and Angels,” while “Where it’s At” and “Hell of a Night” will get you wound up for a night of tailgating and mudding down home on the farm. (Don’t know what those are? Man, you’re missing out.)

    9. Thomas Rhett

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    Age: 25

    Hometown: Valdosta, Georgia

    Must-hear tracks: “Beer with Jesus”; “Crash and Burn”Full confession: “Crash and Burn” is my song of summer 2015.

    I jam it through the streets of Chicago as I’m cruising around town. It’s hardly surprising considering Thomas Rhett is the son of a country legend (his full name is Thomas Rhett Atkins, Jr, making him the son of 1990’s country star Rhett Atkins). With those dark eyes and dimples, he’s sure to break a few hearts. But simmer down, fellas; he married his childhood sweetheart in 2012.

    8. Hunter Hayes

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    Age: 23

    Hometown: Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

    Must-hear tracks: “Invisible”; “Storm Warning”

    Country music’s answer to Ed Sheeran, twinkalicious Hunter Hayes is the next big thing in Nashville. His song “Invisible” will speak to LGBT youths everywhere (it could be the theme song to the “It Gets Better” campaign), while his EP 21 was released on Friday. With that smile, we’ll let the obvious Adele comparisons slide.

     

    7. Chris Young

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    Age: 30

    Hometown: Murfreesboro, Tennessee

    Must-hear tracks: “I’m Coming Over”; “Tomorrow”
    Chris Young has come a long way since winning Nashville Star, an American Idol-style singing competition in 2006. Since then, he’s produced five number one singles and four top ten albums on the Billboard Country Charts. His baritone voice perfectly captures the heartbreak of saying goodbye on records like “I’m Coming Over” and “Tomorrow,” both of which are guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye.

    6. Reid Perry

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    Age: 26
    Hometown: Greeneville, Tennessee

    Must-hear tracks: “If I Die Young”; “Chainsaw”The only artist on the list that is not a soloist, Reid makes up a third of the brothers/sister trio The Band Perry. They took the country world by storm in 2010 with their single “If I Die Young,” a haunting traditional ballad about a life lost before its time. Since then, they’ve gone on to win Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association, and Grammy awards.

     

    5. Jake Owen

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    Age: 33 (though he’s got a birthday coming up on the 28th!)
    Hometown: Vero Beach, Florida

    Must-hear tracks: “Alone with You”; “Real Life”I haven’t heard a song this decade that more accurately sums up life in a small southern town than “Real Life,” and I haven’t seen an artist have more fun with summer this side of Kenny Chesney. 2011’s “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” was his third album, but his first major hit, and it solidified him as one of country’s more laid back, exciting artists.

     

    4. Luke Bryan

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    Age: 39

    Hometown: Leesburg, Georgia
    Must-hear tracks: “Kick the Dust Up”; “Drink a Beer”

    The reigning ACM and CMA Entertainer of the Year (the two highest honours in country music), Luke Bryan is the undisputed King of Country. From thumping, arena rocking songs like “Kick the Dust Up” and “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” to more stripped down songs such as “Roller Coaster” and “Do I,” Bryan has defined this decade of country music and is the epitome of the “bro country” movement sweeping Nashville. His song “Drink a Beer” always manages to make me cry, as it reminds me of loss of one of my best friends from uni. Say what you will about country, but evoking that emotion is the mark of a true artist.

    3. Canaan Smith

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    Age: 32

    Hometown: Williamsburg, Virginia

    Must-hear tracks: “Stuck”; “Love You Like That”

    Another former reality tv star, Canaan Smith first shot to prominence as a contestant on The Amazing Race. While his first single only peaked at #44 on the Billboard Country Charts, his sophomore effort, “Love You Like That” has already hit #1 on the Country Airplay charts. His eponymous debut album, which dropped in March, has already cracked the top 20.

    2. Easton Corbin

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    Age: 33
    Hometown: Trenton, Florida

    Must-hear tracks: “I’m a Little More Country than That”; “All Over the Road”
    When Easton Corbin first came to Nashville’s attention in 2009, the overwhelming response was swoon. He’s the quintessential boy next door, with his corn-fed good looks and endearing twang. Since then, he’s claimed 4 number one songs, and while his latest two singles haven’t performed as well as some of his previous hits, he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

    Sam Hunt

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    Age: 30
    Hometown: Cedartown, Georgia

    Must-hear tracks: “Cop Car;” “Leave the Night On;” “Take Your Time”

You may notice that Sam Hunt gets three “must-hear tracks” whereas every other artist on this countdown gets two. There’s a reason for that; his debut album, Montevallo, is one of the strongest debut albums by a country artist this decade. Mixing elements of traditional country, Americana, rock, and hip-hop, Hunt has created a truly unique musical experience that is currently taking country radio by storm. His cut of “Cop Car,” a song he wrote, has more heart and more passion than the Keith Urban cover which made it famous. This former collegiate quarterback may never play in the NFL, but he’s definitely got a future in Nashville.

    Disagree with my selections? Have your own opinions about who the hottest men in country music are? Sound off in the comments below.

  • New LGBTI Show Planned For Football Fans

    Scotland’s resident LGBTI radio station Xpress Radio Scotland, has launched a new football show ’90 minutes’, hosted by avid fans of the sport, Iain Sharkey and David Sinclair.

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  • Has The Gay Community Got A Problem With Slut Shaming?

    “The guy gets all the bump, the more he can score. A girl can do the same, yet you call her a whore” sang Christina Aguilera way back in her early noughties classic, “Can’t Hold Us Down”.

    She was singing about something still very relevant today, the fact women are shamed for sleeping with more than one person, while men are celebrated for doing the exact same thing. However, is this a problem in the gay community? YouTube sensation John Bird thinks so as shown in his latest video, ‘Gay Boy Problems – Slut Shaming’.

    Within the video, Bird calls out the gay community for the fact that we are, in all actuality, a little bit self-loathing. Why are we so obsessed with what is going on in everyone else’s bed? Why are we so hung up on judging each other whilst we go on about equality and pride?

    “There is nothing wrong with having a bit of fun if you are single” the vlogger argues and he has a point, there isn’t! If you can pull, then why not? A marginalised group should know better than to marginalise each other.

     

     

  • Boy George Joins The Voice

    Boy George and Paloma Faith have been named as the newest judges to choice the BBC’s flagship talent show.

    Boy George and Paloma Faith will join Will I Am and Ricky Wilson in the new series of The Voice.

    Speaking about their new coach roles on The Voice UK, Boy George says:

    “I’m thrilled and excited to be a coach on The Voice UK. I’m a huge fan of the show and have watched and engaged with it from series one. If I can help someone to win I will be delighted. What a wonderful opportunity to share my experiences and help someone move forward with their musical career. I can’t wait to sit in that chair!”

     

    Paloma Faith adds:

    “I’m really excited about working with creative people who are there not just to be great singers, but also innovative personalities and performers. I have a long history of helping break artists as in my club nights I booked Kate Nash, Adele, and The Noisettes before they hit the big time, and four of my band members have gone on to pursue successful solo careers. I’m really looking forward to getting my teeth into something that cultivates the talents of another person and takes the focus off myself for a bit.”

    The coaches will all be heading to Media City in Salford, Manchester for the blind auditions next month ahead of a new series, which launches on BBC One in January 2016.