Look what I just got…..The Book Stall Newsletter Literary Community Bulletin Board featuring nenasnotes The Fashion Book Club I’m beyond speechless….so honored and thrilled.
“The Book Stall is pleased to host this Literary Community Bulletin Board. Any news of interest to readers and writers? Send your information to Robert at events@thebookstall.com with “Literary Community Bulletin Board” in the subject line. Note: The Book Stall reserves editorial privilege.
Tuesday, March 28
5:30 – 7 pm
Host Nena Ivon talks with author Alexis Romano about her new book, Prêt-À-Porter, Paris and Women: A Cultural Study of French Readymade Fashion, 1945-1968. Nenasnotes: The Fashion Book Club (TFBC) is a monthly virtual gathering, meeting the fourth Tuesday of each month from 5:30 to 7 pm, to discuss all manner of fashion and lifestyle books, and features fascinating authors in conversation with the founder of TFBC, Nena Ivon, and a thoroughly engaged audience. See its website here.
TFBC will celebrate its sixth year in June 2023. Since it’s inception, The Book Stall has been TFBC Independent Bookseller of choice. The monthly fee is $25. For further information please contact Nena at nenasnotes1@gmail.com. Mention The Book Stall in your email to Nena and you can attend your first program for free!”
“Marylou Luther is the editor and founder of the International Fashion Syndicate and award-winning “Clotheslines” column and is the fashion editor emeritus of newspapers including the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. Cuban-born artist Ruben Toledo has had his work published in The New Yorker, Vogue, Town & Country, and The New York Times.” From Rizzoli.
MARYLOU LUTHER BY RUBEN TOLEDO!
Ruben Toledo self portrait!
I had the pleasure of working with Marylou when she was with the Chicago Tribune and have enjoyed her trend predictions through the years. Her talented perspective on fashion is enhanced by her relationships with the designers and fashion professionals. This book is a unique, personal journey, through the years, using wonderful quotes from the best of the best of the intriguing creators of the world of fashion. Who hasn’t she interviewed from Christian Dior, the Master himself, to the current Dior Creative Director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, everyone who is anyone is here. It is indeed a one of a kind book that will enhance your fashion library. The quotes are a fun insight into the minds of the arbiters of style from Marylou’s seventy years as a fashion journalist, newspaper columnist and trend forecaster. And the Ruben Toledo illustrations are pure magic and enhance the quotes perfectly! Once in awhile a book comes along to give me a totally new perspective on a subject that I know very well…this is such a book…I really love everything about it! I think you will too.
From Rizzoli…”In her early days as a journalist, Luther met with the true legends of fashion—she interviewed Christian Dior in 1957 for the Chicago Tribune and visited Coco Chanel at her Rue Cambon atelier; Chanel proclaimed to Luther that “Only those with no memory insist on their originality. Yves Saint Laurent has excellent taste. The more he copies me, the better taste he displays.” Flash forward to present day, and designer Demna Gvasalia told Luther, “Fashion needs to shut up and look at itself—it needs a minute of silence to adjust after the pandemic.”
Working with this incredible creator on fashion shows were some of my fondest memories…and this quote is one of my favorites in the book.I met Jeffrey Banks, as did my nenasnotes The Fashion Book Club, in 2018, when we discussed his extraordinary monograph on NORELL, also a Rizzoli publication. To celebrate the beginning of year 5 of TFBC we were in conversation with another of his blockbuster books TARTAN: Romancing the Plaid, another stunning Rizzoli book. Jeffrey has become a dear friend and major supporter of the monthly The Fashion Book and The Fashion Film Clubs. I’m obsessed with this great Toledo interpretation of the talented Jeffrey Banks a true Renaissance Man!
Lucky me that I will be in a virtual conversation with Marylou for the February 28th nenasnotes The Fashion Book Club. It will be a not to be missed event…contact me at nenasnotes1@gmail.com if you need further details. In addition, The Book Stall, my Independent Bookseller of choice, has a supply of the books. I would be most appreciative if you support them for all your book purchases (This isn’t a sponsored post!!!! Just a gentle nudge!!!!). https://www.thebookstall.com/book/9780847872022
By now you think I am totally obsessed with the Joffrey and guess what you would be correct. My love for them began when they made their first visit to Chicago when they were still new and based in New York. I was lucky to tag along with my BFF, Barbara Varro, who at the time was fashion editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and was given the assignment to see a performance and interview Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino backstage after the performance! What a thrill!! I have loved ballet since I was a little girl sitting on my father’s lap watching all the wonder of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo…wow, I am really dating myself. Fast forward to me at Saks when I had the opportunity to work with the Joffreyfor many special events benefiting the organization. Mr. Arpino graciously always attended and I was able to chat with him about his incredible productions…again What A Thrill! Fast forward even further when I became fast friends with the current outstanding team that is the Joffrey today, Ashley Wheater, Greg Cameron and Brian Smith… as well as another bestie, a Joffrey alum, Michael Anderson, again lucky me! It is, therefore, my privilege to share the advanced information on the Gerald Arpino Centennial Celebration on September 23 and 24 at the Auditorium Theater. Tickets go on sale in March….mark your calendar now, this is obviously a once in a lifetime opportunity to see so many outstanding Arpino ballets performed by so many diverse companies…who knows this might be the catalyst to end my seclusion!
ARPINO FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES BALLET COMPANIES FROM ACROSS THE U.S. FOR CHICAGO CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION SEPT. 23–24 AT THE AUDITORIUM THEATRE
The Arpino Chicago Centennial Celebration takes place September 23 and 24, 2023 at the historic Auditorium Theatre. Video courtesy of HMS.
January 14, 2023 marked the 100th birthday of Gerald Arpino, one of the 20th century’s most influential artists. As the culminating event in a multiyear salute to this extraordinary choreographer and co-founder/director of The Joffrey Ballet, The Gerald Arpino Foundationannounces the Chicago Centennial Celebration featuring ballet companies from around the country performing the choreographer’s work on one stage. Performances take place September 23 and 24, 2023 at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive, Chicago. Tickets go on sale in March 2023 at auditoriumtheatre.org.
The participating companies and the works they are performing are as follows:
Updates will be available on the Foundation’s website, arpinofoundation.org. All programming is subject to change.
Gerald Arpino (1923–2008) was a visionary choreographer who, along with Robert Joffrey, created a ballet company and a body of work that has made a singular and enduring impact on American ballet. Throughout his 50-year career, Arpino created nearly 50 ballets for The Joffrey Ballet. From landmark works like Trinity and Round of Angels to Suite Saint-Saëns and Light Rain, Arpino was a masterful artist and entertainer whose work brought audiences to their feet time and again.
The Gerald Arpino Foundation is committed to preserving and promoting the choreographic works of Gerald Arpino and Robert Joffrey while maintaining the integrity of their works through the highest level of artistic excellence. The Foundation allows qualified organizations the right to license Arpino’s and Joffrey’s choreographic works and offers repertory workshops, lectures, and master classes to teach a new generation of dancers the choreography and style of Joffrey and Arpino.
Still photos top to bottom: The Joffrey Ballet in Suite Saint-Saëns, photo by Cheryl Mann Former Ballet West artists Arolyn Williams and Christopher Ruud in RUTH, Ricordi per Due, photo by Beau Pearson Gerald Arpino, photo by Herbert Migdoll
The Costume Council of The Chicago History Museum and nenasnotes The Fashion Book Club invite you and your guests to attend a special virtual program featuring:
STARSTRUCK: How I Magically Transformed Chicago into Hollywood for More Than Fifty Years with author Michael Kutza in Conversation with Nena Ivon of nenasnotes, TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 5:30 p.m.-7:00 p.m. via Zoom Conference( link to follow), tickets are $45.00 per person.
Please register online by clicking the button below:Purchase Tickets
Long before there was SUNDANCE, TRIBECA, and TORONTO, there was CHICAGO and a young kid from Chicago’s West Side named Michael Kutza. He decided that his city needed to see what it was missing around the world in international cinema and the glamor of Hollywood. So he founded the Chicago International Film Festival in 1964, with the help of silent screen star Colleen Moore and legendary film director King Vidor.
Join the Costume Council and nenasnotes The Fashion Book Club for a special virtual event featuring Michael Kutza in conversation with Nena Ivon. We’ll hear about a roller-coaster ride that lasted for better than half a century, with Kutza presiding over a gathering that throughout the decades hosted a veritable Who’s Who of the film world – from Harold Lloyd to Clint Eastwood, Bette Davis to Viola Davis, Steven Spielberg to Spike Lee, Guillermo del Toro to Jodie Foster, Lauren Bacall to Al Pacino.
Starstruck: How I Magically Transformed Chicago into Hollywood for More Than Fifty Years is Kutza’s rollicking, provocative, racy, colorful, irreverent show business memoir culled from his decades rubbing elbows with the giants of film at both the Chicago Festival and numerous other festivals around the globe.
Michael Kutza is a graphic designer, filmmaker, film critic and podcast co-host who founded the Chicago International Film Festival in the mid-1960s. He ran the festival and served as its artistic director until stepping down in 2018.Kutza remains CEO Emeritus of Cinema/Chicago and the Chicago International Film Festival.
Zoom link will be sent prior to program. If you have already registered through nenasnotes Fashion Book Club, no need to re-register; you will be sent the Zoom link.
A portion of my fashion library in my reading nook!!!!
Have you resolved to learn more about subjects that interest you….My resolution is to make the nenasnotes The Fashion Book and Film Clubs as well as nenasnotes The Fashion Master Class open to more attendees. The following is what I have prepared. I know many of you already attend the monthly events but many of you don’t…if not interested, perhaps you know someone who might enjoy our conversations.
Here we go…….As we begin a new year it’s time to learn new things and since the subject of fashion is interesting to so many and has so much diversity why not think about monthly get- togethers to learn more about this fascinating world of FASHION! You can do exactly that by joining nenasnotes fashion series of events.
A bit about me….Nena Ivon, upon retirement from a 50+ year career at Saks Fifth Avenue as Fashion and Public Relations Director in the Chicago store, began a new career as a lifestyle blogger with her nenasnotes blog, and also does freelance writing, and hosts monthly nenasnotes The Fashion Book Club where she is in conversation with the authors of fashion and lifestyle books and The Fashion Film Club as well as a monthly The Fashion Master Class where she discusses the history of the fashion industry. She also writes two monthly posts for the Randolph Street Market blog. (My regular readers know these details!!)
That is a very brief paragraph of my past and what I am doing now….here is more detailed information on the events I host.
nenasnotes The Fashion Book Club…Meets the Fourth Tuesday of each month from 5:30 to 7:00 Central Time via zoom. The fee $25.00 per month payable via PayPal. I’m usually in conversation with the authors of fashion and lifestyle books for the first hour allowing a half an hour for Q & A. YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO READ THE BOOK…IT IS NOT A PREREQUISITE! YOU WILL GATHER INFORMATION FROM THE CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHORS. I ALWAYS RECOMMEND USING MY INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLER OF CHOICE THE BOOK STALL. https://www.thebookstall.com
We will start year six of The Book Club in June and have done over 50 books from fashion monographs, to lifestyle books, to novels, to anthologies….and even a bit of Proust!!
With Stephanie Lake discussing her superb monograph on the extraordinary Bonnie Cashin. This was one of my first Book Club events.With the brilliant designer and author, Jeffrey Banks, who has not only been in conversation with two of his books, NORELL and TARTAN (he will join me in conversation in June when we chat about his book PERRY ELLIS!) but he is a regular attendee of both Clubs! He is a super raconteur.
nenasnotes The Fashion Film Club meets the second Tuesday of each month from 5:30 to 7:00 Central Time via zoom. Fee $25.00 per month via PayPal. The films coordinate with the month’s book selection. Attendees discuss how the actors costuming is relevant to the storyline of the film AGAIN, NOT A PREREQUISITE TO VIEW THE FILM, ENOUGH DO SO YOU CAN LEARN JUST BY ATTENDING!
One of our first films and one of the best, in my opinion, identifying the characters through their garments ADRIAN is at the top of his form….we start year four in March….lots and lots of documentaries, trend setting fashion films, during the past three years and lots more to discover and uncover!!
nenasnotes The Fashion Master Class Series 6 meets the third Wednesday of each month from 5:30 to 7:00 Central Time via zoom. Fee $50.00 per month payable via PayPal. Each month’s presentation deals with a fashion topic with PowerPoint presentation and offers insight into my personal stories of working in the fashion industry. Topics in 2023 will include: Fashion Editors as Style Arbiters from the 1800’s to today; The Story of Pearls; The History of The Little Black Dress; Late 20th Century and early 21st Century Designers such as Adolfo, Calvin Klein, Michael Kors; Couture Millinery; Bespoke Men’s Wear; Couture in Dance, Opera, Theater; Flowers in Couture Fashion; etc. This is probably my favorite of the presentations….I get to, in many instances, delve into my experiences with some of the over 200 fashion designers and other creators that I have worked with over the years
I hope I’ve stirred your thoughts of fashion and you will consider joining my journey into the fascinating world of style!!!!! For further details please contact me at nenasnotes1@gmail.com.
It isn’t often that a book hits a cord or in this case many cords with me….and that is exactly what Michael Kutza’s STARSTRUCK does!!!! It’s a memoir, it’s an insight into the birth of an entrepreneur, it’s a 50+ year history of a City plus much much more! It’s a deep dive into the movie industry with lots of intimate inside stories told with humor, honesty and a bit of sass, okay, a lot of sass!
It all started in 1964 when Chicago columnist, Irv Kupcinent introduced the 22 year old Kutza to the retired film star, Colleen Moore. Moore was a mega star in the 1920’s, was the first to bob her hair (which became her trademark) was the original “flapper“ and appeared in over 60 silent films. And by the way, you can see her magical fairy castle at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. It is amazing…perhaps I do a nenasnotes blog post on the unique artifact in the near future!
COLLEEN MOORE In the 1920’sThe Fairy Castle
Let me let Michael tell you the story of their meeting….
”So I met this wonderful lady named Colleen Moore. She was a silent film comedian just like Mary Pickford but she retired here and married a man named [Homer] Hargrave, who was the president of Merrill Lynch. He had just died so suddenly I’ve got this film star widow with nothing to do and when Irv Kupcinet introduced me to her it was like magic. It was very much like a mother and son relationship, she helped me to do the whole thing. She knew all the movie stars in the old days so she got them all together to come to the first film festival.”
COLLEEN MOORE In 1964The first Chicago International Film Festival 1965
Kutza a totally hands on entrepreneur! Photo from STARSTRUCK.
Michael, a native Chicagoan, gives us a history lesson on the birth of the film industry in which, Chicago played a major part. I particularly like his telling of the Chaplin story from the beginnings of the mega genius Charlie Chaplin to his daughter, the actress Geraldine Chaplin, to Robert Downey, Jr. brilliantly playing Chaplin in the movie Chaplin!
From the book’s Press Release…”As described in vivid detail in Starstruck, Kutza presided over an annual gathering that would over the next half-century host a veritable Who’s Who of the film world – from Harold Lloyd to Clint Eastwood, Bette Davis to Viola Davis, Steven Spielberg to Spike Lee, Guillermo del Toro to Jodie Foster, Lauren Bacall to Al Pacino. At the same time, the festival helped introduce a plethora of new talent that would go on to revolutionize the movie business, including Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone and Helen Mirren.”
The following photos are found in the book…
With Orson WellesWith Angela LansburyWith Dustin HoffmanRoger Ebert a huge supporter of the Festival
You will learn, as I did, the backstories of stars (major actors, directors, producers…many have become Kutza’s close friends) “real” personalities…many very nice…others not so much! Their demand’s, how about a private plane at a huge cost, some a bit more titillating…no detail is left out and I’m sure there are many more stories to fill a volume 2! Plus there is so much to absorb you will want to read it again and again!
Some of the major stars and directors throughthe years (they, in my opinion. are also stars!!!) Here are more photos from the book…
Jane Fonda Jack Nicholson Sidney PoitierOliver StoneRon Howard
Kutza’s dream as a very young man was to bring the best of film to his City which he describes in great detail…you get the good, the bad and often the ugly…the ups and downs of the process of working against all odds to produce an Internationally recognized and acclaimed Film Festival that predated, Sundance, Tribeca and Toronto. I’m thrilled to do this review for someone I’ve known for decades and you will throughly enjoy his journey…get the book you won’t be sorry!
A crowd hamming it up before a screening!
Kutza has a Podcast, Nose to Nose….here is a YouTube piece he did on the book…take a look it is fascinating! https://youtu.be/4INswIiePBs
I am so excited to tell you that I will be in conversation with Michael, via zoom, on Tuesday, January 24th when nenasnotes The Fashion Book Club joins the Costume Council of the Chicago History Museum in a special event. Do join us when two native Chicagoans talk about two Chicago institutions The Chicago International Film Festival and The Costume Collection at the Chicago History Museum guaranteed to be a great time! Invitations will be out soon…to get on the list please contact Nell McKeown at 312.799.2112orMcKeown@ChicagoHistory.org
More images from the book…
Michael’s iconic “eyes” image, a composite of the silent film stars.
Most images are from STARSTRUCK all others found on Pinterest no photo credit available.
The Costume Council of The Chicago History Museum and
