Latest news with #ColePorter
Al Arabiya
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Al Arabiya
Kenzo Brings Mischief Back to Paris' Iconic Maxim's With a Riot of Color and Clash
Few Paris addresses conjure myth quite like Maxim's, the gilded Belle Époque haunt where artists and aristocrats once jostled for a seat at dinner and a place immortalized in Cole Porter's lyrics and classic Hollywood films as the very symbol of Parisian chic. On Friday night at Paris Fashion Week, the renowned restaurant-turned-nightclub became the improbable stage for Kenzo's latest co-ed show–a riot of pop color, celebrity, and cultural collision served tableside. Guests perched around white tablecloths as Nigo, the first Japanese designer to helm Kenzo since the late, great Kenzo Takada, set out to prove the house can still surprise. What unfolded was a knowingly playful mash-up of preppy classics and off-kilter eveningwear: eye-popping pink dresses loosely gathered and knotted, each one tossed with a Left Bank silk scarf; a slinky tuxedo jacket paired with a blaring urban-printed tee in wild color topped with a cartoon bunny in intentional clash. Think cocktail hour by way of Shibuya street style. Tongue-in-cheek references ran rampant–a circus master's striped waistcoat here, sheeny tiger-motif pants there, all nodding to Kenzo's signature mix of high craft and subcultural wink. If the goal was to recapture the house's historic sense of fun, Nigo went all in. While the creativity on display was undeniable, the sheer abundance of ideas sometimes made it hard for a single vision to shine through. With so many bold references and layers echoing recent seasons' spirit of collaboration and eclecticism, the collection sometimes felt more like a lively collage than a focused statement. Still, there were moments where the craftsmanship and playful accessories truly stood out, offering glimpses of the distinct Kenzo spirit that Nigo has made his own. Since joining Kenzo, Nigo has brought a fresh spirit of collaboration and cross-cultural exchange, most visibly in his headline-grabbing work with Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton and his frequent partnerships with artists from across the globe. That outward-looking energy has helped pull Kenzo back into the pop-culture conversation, blending the house's playful legacy with new momentum. As part of the LVMH stable, Kenzo now enjoys the reach and resources of the world's largest luxury group, giving Nigo freedom to experiment, push boundaries, and reawaken the brand's irreverent roots. It was a night that nodded to both past and future. After a string of worn years under the previous design duo, Kenzo seems determined to shake off old dust and reclaim its seat at Paris's most storied table. The show at Maxim's–equal parts fashion circus and cultural memory–was a reminder that Paris style is best served with a wink, a clash, and more than a little mischief.
The Independent
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Kenzo brings mischief back to Paris' iconic Maxim's with a riot of color and clash
Few Paris addresses conjure myth quite like Maxim's, the gilded Belle Époque haunt where artists and aristocrats once jostled for a seat at dinner, and a place immortalized in Cole Porter's lyrics and classic Hollywood films as the very symbol of Parisian chic. On Friday night, at Paris Fashion Week the renowned restaurant-turned-nightclub became the improbable stage for Kenzo's latest co-ed show — a riot of pop color, celebrity and cultural collision served tableside. Guests perched around white tablecloths as Nigo, the first Japanese designer to helm Kenzo since the late, great Kenzo Takada, set out to prove the house can still surprise. What unfolded was a knowingly playful mash-up of preppy classics and off-kilter eveningwear: eye-popping pink dresses loosely gathered and knotted, each one tossed with a Left Bank silk scarf; a slinky tuxedo jacket paired with a blaring urban-printed tee in wild color, topped with a cartoon bunny in intentional clash. Think cocktail hour by way of Shibuya street style. Tongue-in-cheek references ran rampant — a circus master's striped waistcoat here, sheeny tiger-motif pants there, all nodding to Kenzo's signature mix of high craft and subcultural wink. If the goal was to recapture the house's historic sense of fun, Nigo went all in. While the creativity on display was undeniable, the sheer abundance of ideas sometimes made it hard for a single vision to shine through. With so many bold references and layers echoing recent seasons' spirit of collaboration and eclecticism, the collection sometimes felt more like a lively collage than a focused statement. Still, there were moments where the craftsmanship and playful accessories truly stood out, offering glimpses of the distinct Kenzo spirit that Nigo has made his own. Since joining Kenzo, Nigo has brought a fresh spirit of collaboration and cross-cultural exchange, most visibly in his headline-grabbing work with Pharrell Williams at Louis Vuitton and his frequent partnerships with artists from across the globe. That outward-looking energy has helped pull Kenzo back into the pop-culture conversation, blending the house's playful legacy with new momentum. As part of the LVMH stable, Kenzo now enjoys the reach and resources of the world's largest luxury group, giving Nigo freedom to experiment, push boundaries and reawaken the brand's irreverent roots. It was a night that nodded to both past and future. After a string of worn years under the previous design duo, Kenzo seems determined to shake off old dust and reclaim its seat at Paris' most storied table. The show at Maxim's — equal parts fashion circus and cultural memory — was a reminder that Paris style is best served with a wink, a clash and more than a little mischief.
The Guardian
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Taina Elg obituary
Asked how she would know when she had hit the big time, the beguiling actor Taina Elg, who has died aged 95, said: 'When people no longer trip over my name.' When she arrived in the US in 1954 at the start of her contract with MGM, a newspaper campaign engineered by the studio and sponsored by Armour Star meat products offered readers the chance to win a six-room house or $25,000 cash by proposing a new name for this latest exotic star-in-the-making. Contestants were asked to send in suggested names along with labels from corned beef hash and devilled ham. This all came to nought, and she was still not-so-plain-old Taina Elg when she began appearing on screen. She landed her first major US role in 1957 (the same year that the Golden Globes named her New Foreign Star of the Year) in the Gene Kelly musical Les Girls. Newspapers were still helpfully reminding their readers at every opportunity that her first name rhymed with 'Dinah'. They were also prone to tell them, as the Times-Tribune did in 1958, that Elg was 'the only Finn of note' at that time in Hollywood and 'the first from her country to become a genuine star of cinema'. In Les Girls, directed by George Cukor and with music by Cole Porter, Elg held her own alongside Mitzi Gaynor and Kay Kendall as dancers in a cabaret troupe headed by Kelly. Based on Constance Tomkinson's reminiscences of her time in the Folies Bergère, and showing each character in succession looking back on the troupe's glory days before acrimony set in, the film's use of contradictory perspectives made it the closest thing to a musical take on Kurosawa's Rashomon. Elg's performance as the apparently lovelorn and suicidal member of the group won her a second Golden Globe. She followed this with Imitation General (1958), in which she was a French farm worker involved with a master sergeant (played by Glenn Ford) who impersonates a dead general to keep up his platoon's morale. The role was played entirely in French until her final words to Ford: 'I … love … you.' 'I'm the only Finnish actress working here,' Elg said the following year. 'Yet of the six films I've made, I have portrayed a French girl four times.' Watusi (1959), in which she was a missionary's daughter rescued by explorers and caught up in their jungle adventures, took the unfashionable route of making her German. In the same year, she starred in the second adaptation of John Buchan's The 39 Steps (and the first in colour) as the netball coach who ends up handcuffed to the hero, here played by Kenneth More, as he is pursued by assassins. Elg was born in Helsinki, and raised in assorted other Finnish locations, including Turku, by her mother, Helena Doroumova, and father, Åke Elg, who were both pianists. During the Finnish-Soviet wars, the family were forced to leave, returning to Helsinki only after the end of the second world war. Taina trained as a ballet dancer from an early age and was accepted by the Finnish National Ballet as a child, which led to a handful of small roles in domestic films. She also danced at Sadler's Wells and at the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in Paris and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, before an injury led her to reconsider her career. She was spotted in London by the producer Edwin H Knopf, brother of the publisher Alfred. After an impressive screen test directed by Mel Ferrer, she was signed to a seven-year contract with MGM in Hollywood. Small roles followed in two films starring Lana Turner – the biblical tale The Prodigal (1955), in which Elg played a slave, and the 16th-century romance Diane (1956) – as well as Gaby (also 1956), with Leslie Caron as a French ballet dancer. The career high-point of Les Girls was never equalled. For the remainder of her career, Elg worked mostly in television and theatre. Occasional exceptions included Hercules in New York (1970), which gave an early starring role to the young Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 1962, she headed the national touring production of Irma La Douce. In 1973, she starred on Broadway in Look to the Lilies, as well as understudying Julie Christie as Yelena in a production of Uncle Vanya. 'I didn't get a chance to go on and play it, as Julie was in excellent health,' she said. In 1982, she originated the role of the philandering hero's mother in Nine, the Broadway musical based on Fellini's 8½. Her son was played by Raul Julía, with whom she had also starred in the 1974 revival of Where's Charley?, for which she earned a Tony nomination. She briefly found her way back to cinema thanks to two directors with a taste for the power of nostalgia. Mike Figgis's thriller Liebestraum (1991), which was also Kim Novak's final film before retiring, gave Elg her first movie role in more than two decades, as the matriarch of a department store business. She was a teacher in the romantic comedy The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), starring and directed by Barbra Streisand. Her final screen role came in the Finnish caper Kummelin Jackpot (2006). Elg is survived by her son, the jazz guitarist Raoul Björkenheim, from a five-year marriage to Carl Gustav Björkenheim, which ended in divorce in 1958. Her second marriage, to Rocco Caporale, an academic, ended with his death in 2008. Taina Elg, actor, born 9 March 1930; died 15 May 2025
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Famous birthdays for June 9: Gloria Reuben, Michael J. Fox
June 9 (UPI) -- Those born on this date are under the sign of Gemini. They include: -- Russian Czar Peter the Great in 1672 -- Musician Cole Porter in 1891 -- Musician/inventor Fred Waring in 1900 -- Musician Les Paul in 1915 -- Robert S. McNamara, former U.S. defense secretary/World Bank president, in 1916 -- Journalist Marvin Kalb in 1930 (age 95) -- Comedian Jackie Mason in 1931 -- Musician Jackie Wilson in 1934 -- Sportscaster Richard Vitale in 1939 (age 86) -- Writer Patricia Cornwell in 1956 (age 69) -- Religious leader T. D. Jakes in 1957 (age 68) -- Writer/producer Aaron Sorkin in 1961 (age 64) -- Actor Michael J. Fox in 1961 (age 64) -- Actor Johnny Depp in 1963 (age 62) -- Actor Gloria Reuben in 1964 (age 61) -- Musician Rob Pilatus (Milli Vanilli) in 1964 -- Actor Tamela Mann in 1966 (age 59) -- Musician Dean Dinning (Toad the Wet Sprocket) in 1967 (age 58) -- Musician Dean Felber (Hootie & the Blowfish) in 1967 (age 58) -- Actor/musician Ed Simons (Chemical Brothers) in 1970 (age 55) -- Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit in 1972 (age 53) -- Musician Matthew Bellamy (Muse) in 1978 (age 47) -- Actor Natalie Portman in 1981 (age 44) -- Actor Mae Whitman in 1988 (age 37) -- Actor Logan Browning in 1989 (age 36) -- Actor Lucien Laviscount in 1992 (age 33) -- U.S. Olympic gold medal gymnast Laurie Hernandez in 2000 (age 25) -- Actor Xolo Maridueña in 2001 (age 24)
Globe and Mail
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
An underpowered Anything Goes taps into a bygone era's penchant for tap dancing
Title: Anything Goes Written and choreographed by: Kimberley Rampersad Performed by: Mary Antonini, Celeste Catena, Jeff Irving, Allan Louis, Michael Therriault, Shawn Wright Company: Shaw Festival Venue: Festival Theatre City: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. Year: Until Oct. 4, 2025 Modern productions of pre-Golden Age musicals can remind you just how young the form is. Born at the crossroads of vaudeville, operetta and minstrelsy, musical theatre as we understand it today – a cousin of opera, a neighbour to non-musical drama – hasn't even cracked 150 years. At the same time, the genre has also evolved quickly since the 1890s. A hit musical now – Maybe Happy Ending, for instance, about two robots in a futuristic Seoul, or Dear Evan Hansen, about an anxious teen in suburban America – tends to bear little resemblance to the early milestone works that paved the way to its existence. Musicals these days are more often sung-through without much spoken dialogue, and, on a good day, the music and story inform each other in a way that feels satisfying and dramaturgically robust. Anything Goes, first produced on Broadway in 1934, somewhat epitomizes musical theatre's relative youth – and the speed at which the form has grown up. The show contains some of Cole Porter's greatest hits, jazz standards including You're the Top, Blow, Gabriel, Blow and, of course, that eponymous toe-tapper laced with clever rhymes. But the book, by P.G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, hasn't aged as gracefully as the songs tucked between its scenes. Plots are thin; characters thinner. Shaw Festival raises $110-million for facility renovations, Royal George Theatre revamp Sure, none of that matters when the songs are performed with aplomb – when the dance numbers ooze with precision and razzle-dazzle. Alas, the Shaw Festival's production of Anything Goes only occasionally compensates for the material with its choreography and performances. Kimberley Rampersad's tap numbers are often out of sync, the sounds muddy as the dancers' shoes scrape across the stage; the cast, too, occasionally struggles to sing while dancing, panting as they spit out Porter's lyrics. And while the production uses an updated script – add Timothy Crouse and John Weidman to the show's laundry list of book-writers – Anything Goes neither feels like a hazy time capsule of the 1930s nor a retrospective riff on the era's penchant for sensationalism. In her director's note, Rampersad says she crafted the production as a 'response to and in resistance to the darkness in this world,' and when all the musical's moving pieces come together, indeed, the outside world feels deliciously far away. But those moments are few and fleeting. Shaw Festival reports operating surplus just one year after largest deficit in its history When we meet nightclub singer Reno Sweeney (Mary Antonini), she's aboard a ship heading to London. So is Billy Crocker (Jeff Irving), a Wall Street broker in love with Hope Harcourt (Celeste Catena). Small problem, one reminiscent of another famous story about a boat crossing the Atlantic: Hope is set to marry Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (a standout Allan Louis), a Brit whose inability to recall American slang will be his downfall. Obviously, hijinks ensue – the dastardly Moonface Martin (Michael Therriault) is also on the ship, as is Billy's boss, Elisha Whitney (Shawn Wright). It's a simple story that's mostly well-acted by Rampersad's cast – Irving's Billy is perhaps the strongest of the bunch, adding depth to the character as needed and belting out fabulous high notes as he comes to terms with his feelings for Hope. Antonini's Reno – the brassy, belting diva of the high seas – is a trickier affair. At the matinee I attended, Antonini appeared to struggle with Anything Goes' titular crowd-pleaser, the Act One closer Sutton Foster so memorably nailed at the 2011 Tony Awards. On Wednesday, musical notes got lost in the shuffle of Rampersad's shuffles, time steps and cramp rolls, the slurry of taps overpowering and chaotic. I was underwhelmed – by Antonini's performance and by Rampersad's choreography, which doesn't seem to leave ample space for Antonini to catch her breath. But I sure changed my tune when Blow, Gabriel, Blow rolled around in the second act, a song better suited to Antonini's range, and with soft-shoe choreography that better allowed Antonini to shine as the production number's star. It's not often Anything Goes isn't the highlight of Anything Goes – but Rampersad and Antonini's work on Blow, Gabriel, Blow makes a convincing argument for the latter song's longevity. There are other highlights of the Shaw Festival's centrepiece musical: Cory Sincennes's costumes drip with vintage luxury, with sequins and beads that catch Mikael Kangas's blazing lights. Sincennes's nifty set, too, makes a lovely playground for Rampersad's cast, a spinning hub of maritime machinery and attractive staircases. Of course, your mileage may vary with this Anything Goes – as a former tap dancer myself, I'm perhaps more sensitive to the production's choreography and resulting issues than the average audience member. But at its best, Anything Goes ought to be a dazzling display of musical punch and pizzazz, a relic of an increasingly under-produced era of musical theatre; on Wednesday, it was, all in all, just fine. To make the inevitable comparison to another tap show set in the 1930s now playing just a few hours away: It ain't no Annie.
