Grey Gardens-inspired photo shoot from Jeremy R. Jansen

I especially like a few of the images in the middle of the shoot.

From Dailies, by Jeremy R. Jansen

LXIV (Grey Gardens)

05.11.07 - stylist: Claire Edmondson - model: Jayme Keith

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2007 Grey Gardens-inspired fashion shoot by Wendy Bevan

The interiors of Grey Gardens were so much better than the ones used in this shoot, but this photographer really caught something...

From Italian Marie Claire, by Wendy Bevan, on 10 February 2007, via k17k, via this very blog

Generazione Eccentrica

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Simon Doonan of Barneys on Grey Gardens fashion

The relevant excepts are below, but be sure to read the full article. It's quite fun!

From The New York Observer, by Simon Doonan, on 13 May 2008, via the Grey Gardens Yahoo! group

One Flew Over the Couture's Nest

The Grey Gardens revival and the rise of Amy Winehouse have got me thinkin’ about the intimate relationship between crazy people and fashion

As influential as Amy is, she cannot even begin to compete with Little Edie Bouvier, cousin of Jackie O. Since the release of Grey Gardens in 1975—this award-winning Maysles brothers documentary showed the squalid but fascinating life of Edie and her mother as they wiled away the hours in their raccoon-infested East Hampton mansion—fashion stylists have been mesmerized by the verve and idiosyncrasy of Edie Beale’s fashion choices. In Edie’s closet, anything is possible: a sweater becomes a snood, a blouse becomes a button-through skirt. Little Edie’s all-bets-are-off homemade look has become a yardstick for cool. As I write, a whole new generation of fashion sickos are falling in love with Edie via A Maysles Scrapbook (Steidl Kasher, $60), a newly published collection of snaps and film stills from the archive of her remaining documentarian.

“You’re all sick!” screeched my friend Deb, who works in a psychiatric hospital and has a front-row seat at the unwitting fashion show that is mental illness. “Walk around any in-patient unit: Lots of people are sitting around with things tied around their heads, just like Little Edie. They are not making a fashion statement; they are trying to block out the voices in their heads,” railed my pal when I recently presented her with a copy of the Maysles book.

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Little Edie influenced fashion in 1997

There isn't much fresh, new Grey Gardens news right now, but enjoy this Grey Gardens-inspired fashion shoot from 1997.

From Harper's Bazaar, by Terry Richardson, on August 1997, via foto_decadent, via Grey Gardens Yahoo! Group

Sweater Happy

Canadian article on all things Grey Gardens

Nicely done! An easy read that gives a good snapshot of the world of Grey Gardens.

Oddly, the only mention of the musical is its use as the soundtrack to the Galliano show, but none of the videos I've seen of the show actually have that as the soundtrack to the show.

From National Post, by Karen Burshtein, on 11 January 2008

This year's look: The wrecked socialite

Each year, the world of fashion seems to require a new It icon. Two years ago, it was pin-up girl Bettie Page. Last year, a doomed queen, Marie Antoinette. This season, it's Little Edie, the wrecked New York socialite and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy.

The subject of a cult 1975 documentary, Edith Bouvier Beale, led a bizarre Tennessee Williams-like existence at Grey Gardens, her family's crumbling, vermin-infested East Hampton mansion, where, after a brief stint as a model and aspiring actress, she spent decades taking care of her mother, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Big Edie), with dozens of cats their only company.

An iconoclast in dress, as well as lifestyle, her "revolutionary costumes" have served as inspiration to the occasional eccentric designer, drag queen or Olsen twin. But today, Little Edie is all over the culture, like so many raccoons in the attic.

Her signature look would make Martin Margiela hyperventilate: old cashmere skirts worn upside down over torn stockings, cardigans worn back to front, ratty old fur coats worn with bathing caps and hot pants and turbans fashioned from sweaters or towels and fastened with an enormous brooch.

Designers Todd Oldham, Isaac Mizrahi and John Bartlett have all sampled Edie's style, and photographer Steven Meisel paid tribute to her a few years ago in an Italian Vogue spread.

But the recent Little Edie fever is due, in part, to a new HBO movie about the Bouvier Beales. Currently filming in Toronto, with a screenplay by Patricia Rozema, the movie will feature Drew Barrymore in the lead role. Barrymore bears a striking resemblance to the remarkably beautiful and well-connected young debutante (who claimed she'd once been engaged to Joe Kennedy Jr.), scurrying glamorously through the Royal York (posing as New York's Pierre Hotel, where Little Edie came out before she unravelled).

But the fever is also due to Paris designer John Galliano's Spring 2008 fashion show, which, to the soundtrack of the Tony Award-winning musical Grey Gardens, paid homage to Little Edie's style, with off-kilter sweaters and models' grey hair wrapped around their heads like a turban.

Marc Jacobs also pays tribute to Little Edie this season with lots of layered looks, as does Philip Lim, though the latter's "pedigree minus the prudence" theme was a looser interpretation, primarily dresses that looked like wrapped towels.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the Little Edie look, however. Toronto fashion writer David Livingstone, for one, would prefer to "get this God damn tiresome phenomenon into a scarf shaped like a sweater and be done with it."

But the Edies are hotter then ever. Pop culture can't seem to get enough of the ladies who ate ice cream out of containers they shared with their cats.

Someone out there in YouTube land has done a mash-up, featuring Edie's most famous fashion statement, uttered in the opening sequence of the documentary Grey Gardens: "This is the best thing to wear for the day." She was referring to a tablecloth she had pinned into a skirt and wore over mesh stockings that she'd pulled over shorts. "The best thing is to wear pantyhose or some pants under a short skirt, I think," she says. "And you can always take off the skirt and use it as a cape."

Any fashion employee worth his or her Tods will spout Edie's motto at least once a day in the office. He or she will also be expert in the gnomic asides and high-camp statements Edie delivers throughout the movie: "I can't get the thumbtack in the wall ... I've got the saddest life."

Which may explain why Rufus Wainwright devoted a song to Grey Gardens on his Poses album and why Sarah Jessica Parker has been photographed recently wearing a ratty fur coat, sequined skull cap and pyjama bottoms. Kylie Minogue is said to have watched Grey Gardens 100 consecutive times. Try renting the DVD - chances are, it's been checked out by a teenager who covers her head with a stained Hermès scarf she found at Goodwill.

The Grey Gardens documentary was directed by Albert and David Maysles, of Gimme Shelter fame. Jackie Kennedy's sister, Lee Radziwill, hired the brothers to make a film about the Bouvier family, including their eccentric aunt (the sister of their father, John Bouvier) and cousin. But the two Edies proved to be the film's most enthusiastic participants.

The Bouvier Beales had already known notoriety. In 1971 the National Enquirer broke the story that Jackie's cousins were living in squalor, camped out together in a single bedroom in the crumbling 28-room mansion where they also kept a fridge full of cat food. The house stunk of feline urine and had no running water.

Jackie and Lee intervened cheque-wise, before the Suffolk country Health authorities made good on their threat to have the beach-front dwelling condemned.

Five years later, by the time the Maysles started filming, the house had fallen back into a state of decay. The documentary that was meant to be about the Bouvier family ended up being a film about the two Edies, which Jacqueline and Lee, mortified, tried to have burned. Watching the film is like watching a train wreck - you can't take your eyes off the Edies' folie à deux.

Drinking cocktails from a jam jar in her twin bed, the 79-year-old mother, all sagging breasts and straggly hair, tosses jabs at her then 54-year-old daughter. They bicker and talk about the past, yet seem at times to sweeten to each other's flea-bitten company.

Amid the squalor are moments of trenchant wit. "Oh look, the cat's going to the bathroom on my portrait," Big Edie says. "I'm glad someone's doing what they want."

The film could also serve as a pre-feminist-era metaphor for missed opportunity. Like a Chekhovian sister, Little Edie still mourns the few years she lived in New York. ("I was going to have an audition with Max Gordon, the famous producer! He discovered Judy Holliday!").

By the film's end, though, you have one foot on their side, if only because they are so damn unapologetic about their life (quite Jackie O, come to think of it).

So what is it about this Little Edie style? It's not just the fleas that make us scratch our heads. We have to wonder: What exactly is so important and, for that matter, so "now" about it?

Well, Edie does, as Todd Oldham points out in an interview on the DVD, possess a hallmark of the truly stylish: Consistency. "She knew what suited her. Those turbans, for example, were perfect for her face," he says. (She was also, reportedly, bald, afflicted with alopecia.)

But the real importance of Edie's style, as another designer once explained, "is not so much the clothes as the spirit, the utter originality of them. Edie Beale's look goes beyond fashion. It's like the true meaning of the word style."

In fact, her utterly nutter style has had an impact on how we dress. Let us count the ways:

Edie helped introduce the notion of styling a look, rather then merely wearing clothes. And layering: Onion dressing has, so far, been the defining characteristic of this decade. Recycling: The third-life fur coat is a big trend - now that grandmother's ratty mink is environmentally green, the Fur Council of Canada tells us.

Edie was also a pioneer of high-lo chic and the dishevelled rich-girl look, best exemplified by the Olsen twins. Fashion bloggers, who say "That's so Little Edie" about a look, explain: "The point is that once upon a time, you had all the money in the world ... and look at you now."

There's something pretty existential about that. Not only does Edie's style challenge aristocratic notions of acceptable eccentricity, there's also a foreboding subtext about privilege - that it's not going to last any way.

Of course, what's troubling is that it's hard to tell how much of the ratty sweaters is pure provocation and how much is poverty. In which case co-opting Edie's look might be exploitative.

There's something inherently contradictory about aping the Little Edie look, since the whole point of her style was that it was truly original. She'd want you to create your own revolutionary costume. The question is: Do you dare?

Epilogue: Little Edie died five years ago, aged 84. Big Edie died one year after the Maysleses' film was released. Little Edie finally returned to New York, where she had a brief run in a cabaret show, then spent her final years comfortably in Florida, where she swam in the ocean every day and, instead of cats, had hordes of fan mail for company.

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Vera Wang and Edie Beale, at Kohl's

Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly), the holidays have meant there's not very much Grey Gardens news out there! Thanks to Sara for sending this in!

The Simply Vera Wang line at Kohl's stores is carrying a skirt that seems to have a waistline around its hem, as if the wearer had the skirt on upside-down. Kudos, Vera!

From Kohl's

Simply Vera Vera Wang Satin Crinkle Skirt

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Chanel taps into Little Edie's fashion sense

Somehow I missed another major use of Grey Gardens style in a recent major fashion show, and thanks to Lynne for pointing it out!

By Lynne Chukhin

More Edie-influenced fashion

I'm still seeing Edie's fashion sense everywhere. Chanel wrapped this model's head with a sweater and encrusted it with brooches.

Chanel's creations for this fall/winter feature lots of close-to-the-head wraps; you can browse them under Fashion Shows > Fall/Winter 2007/8 Haute Couture.

The ads on the Chanel site are gorgeous! Edie would be so pleased!

Also visit Style.com's coverage of the show.

From Style.com

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Clothing previous owned by Edie Beale up for auction!

Let me start right off by saying that this is just a joke and that this shirt most definitely never belonged to Edie! It wouldn't have even fit her! Thanks to the eagle-eyed reader with a sense of humor who sent this in.

Without further ado...

From eBay, by vintagevantage

buddy sucks shirt size L

("Buddy" was the nickname of Edie's brother Bouvier Beale.)

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A snapshot of Little Edie's influence on fashion from 2006

This article is from 2006, but quite nicely captures the attention being paid to Edie's fashion sense at the time. Edie's star as a fashion icon has only been rising since this article appeared.

The brilliant William Ivey Long is featured prominently in this article. Another costume designer interpreting Little Edie's style is Catherine Marie Thomas, who, according to IMDb, is responsible for Drew Barrymore's looks in the upcoming Grey Gardens feature being filmed in Toronto.

And, while we're on the topic of fashion, Phillip Lim referenced our girls in his Fall 2007 collection.

From New York Daily News, on 19 February 2006

Little Edie, Big Style

The unlikely fashion icon continues to make her mark - on the stage and the runway

Over the past 40 years, there has been no shortage of ­editors, designers and museum curators willing to cast Jacqueline Kennedy as the most important style icon of the 20th century. So there is more than a little irony in the current frenzy for Edie Beale, her eccentric first cousin, who was as well known for the sweaters she wrapped around her head as she was for the bizarre life she lived with her mother, scores of cats and a family of raccoons in a decaying East Hampton mansion known as Grey Gardens.

But four years after her death, there is no denying this is Edie's Moment.

It was evident last week on Marc ­Jacobs' runway, where his fall collection was filled with wools, cashmeres, chiffons and sequins worn, as Edie would, in mismatched layers of leggings, skirts, coats and furs.

It's evident, too, in Mary-Kate Olsen's trash-can chic, in which the billionaire actress-entrepreneur manages to make everything look just-found and tossed-on. And it's evident, of course, in the new musical "Grey Gardens," the Broadway version of the 1975 Maysles Brothers documentary that exposed the Beales' unapologetically anti-Jackie style.

"Edie Beale's look goes beyond fashion. It's the true meaning of the word style," says designer Isaac Mizrahi, a longtime devotee. "She had a passion for clothes and a way of putting them together that has stuck in my mind and influenced what I do. The way that we now make mistakes on purpose comes from Edie Beale. I'm still and always trying to match her sense of the absurd, her playfulness, her sense of the drama of clothing."

"I love an alternative point of view," agrees funky designer Todd Oldham. "And none was more distinct than hers."

On the surface, it seems impossible that Beale - "Little Edie" to her mother's "Big Edie" - could have such clout. Though she grew up wealthy (her uncle was Jackie's father; her own father was a Wall Street lawyer), she wound up descending into such squalor that the Suffolk County Health Department threatened to evict her and her mother in 1971 if their 28-room house wasn't cleaned up. (Jackie and her Gucci wallet came to the rescue.)

And just as their view of ­proper housekeeping was skewed, so was their sense of dress. Edie would swath her bald head in cashmere sweaters. And fasten the swaddling with a gaudy brooch. She wore towels as dresses. And skirts upside down. And tied the ends together like a sarong (before Yohji Yamamoto did it) or fastened them with ­safety pins (pre-Gianni Versace). Every piece - many from Bergdorf Goodman, many cast-offs from Jackie - was rearranged to fit the moment.

"Why wear a skirt upside down?" says Christine Ebersole, who plays both Edies in the new musical. "You do if your waistline has expanded and you can't close it at the waist."

Improvisation was the beauty of it. "'Designer' clothes went out in the 1980s, and what replaced them is the idea of ­styling things," says Mizrahi, who interprets the high-low sensibility into his Target cheap-chic and his private couture. "Found things, absurd things, old things, even threadbare things, things with patina and brand-new things."

An Imaginary First Act

To channel Edie for the stage version of "Grey Gardens," costume designer William Ivey Long studied not only the original documentary, but the youthful photos that the Beales show off in the film. He used them to create beaded and floaty ballgowns for an imaginary first act that takes place on the day Little Edie is to be engaged to Joseph Kennedy Jr. (It never happened.)

For the second act - essentially a re-creation of the movie - the clothes are ­grittier. "Everything begins as a skirt or a ­sweater, and your job is to figure out what did she do with it," Long laughs. "I can encapsulate her entire design esthetic into four looks."

Though Long is known for such wild costumes as the Bavarian sausage headpieces for "The Producers" and Edna Turnblad's Pucci prints in "Hairspray," the ­already off-kilter Edie needs no props. "I tried not to think of her as madcap, but as making truly comfortable clothes out of very good previously constructed comfortable clothes."

Perhaps the closest reincarnation of Edie so far comes from the Olsen twins, who (Badgley Mischka contract or not) have created a style that is pure anti-style. "Here are two girls who can wear whatever they want, and the way they choose to put themselves together is layered, free-spirit, pile-it-on, can't-tell-what-­designer, is it vintage, is it old, did they get it for free or did they pay for it," says Kristina O'Neill, fashion features director of Harper's Bazaar. "They look like they think for themselves when they get dressed."

And that may be the ultimate allure of Edie's style. Says O'Neill: "We're fascinated by people who make interesting choices, who are not robotic dressers."

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Drew Barrymore as Edie Beale in a pillbox hat

I can completely picture Edie in these outfits and I'm struck by how beautiful Drew is!

From INF Daily, on 13 November 2007

Drew's old-time charm

Drew Barrymore looked great when we caught up with her on the set of Grey Gardens in Canada today. Drew's 50s-style outfit really suits her soft curls and rounded features. And the pillar box hat tops off the stylish look nicely.

And the hat was captured on film again...

From Pop! Goes the News, by John R. Kennedy, on 13 November 2007

Barrymore goes back in time

Drew Barrymore was on Front Street this afternoon shooting scenes for Grey Gardens, the HBO movie in production here until early December.

No fan of the paparazzi, the actress ducked behind umbrellas as she made her way to and from the set in front of the Royal York hotel. In the photo, at right, Barrymore is seen in the passenger seat of a vehicle taking her to her luxury trailer on Bremmer Boulevard.

Tonight, Barrymore is shooting a winter scene outside the lower level of Union Station.

Grey Gardens is based on the true story of Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Jessica Lange) and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (Barrymore) who made headlines in 1971 when the health department raided their run-down mansion in East Hampton, New York. Authorities found dozens of cats as well as raccoons and piles of garbage and excrement but agreed not to evict the women when family member Jacqueline Onassis (Jeanne Tripplehorn) stepped in to pay for a clean-up. (The women died in 1977 and 2002 respectively.) A musical play, based on a 1975 documentary, opened on Broadway last year.

Barrymore hasn't worked in Toronto since shooting the comedy Fever Pitch here in 2004.

Grey Gardens also stars familiar TV faces Malcolm Gets (Caroline in the City), Arye Gross (Ellen) and Ken Howard (Crossing Jordan). Troubled actor Daniel Baldwin, who arrived at Pearson International Airport tonight, is also part of the cast.

Update

And there are even more pictures of Drew from this scene!

From Fashion Mag Daily, on 14 November 2007

Drew Barrymore is Little Edie

Drew Barrymore, dressed as 30s Park Avenue debutante 'Little Edie" with a glimmering black pillbox hat and sheer gloves, reviews her lines while walking along the set of her new film, Grey Gardens, in Toronto, Canada on Tuesday. Joining her are actresses Jeanne Tripplehorn as Little Edie’s first cousin, Jackie O and Jessica Lange as her mother, "Big Edie."

In other exciting news, organizers of the 34th Peoples' Choice Awards announced Thursday that Drew, 32, scored a major nomination for Favorite Leading Lady, alongside Jessica Alba and Queen Latifah. Congrats, Drew!

How does this raccoon feel about all the photos of Drew that are appearing on the internet? Perhaps this blog said it best:

From Sally-Jane Vintage, by Sally Jane, on 14 November 2007

Grey Gardens Movie

Is anyone else as excited about the HBO Grey Gardens movie as I am? From the look of these shots, the wardrobe alone is going to be worth it.

Source: here, here, and here

Edie Beale of Grey Gardens is a hot Halloween costume this year

This Halloween, I encountered the spitting image of Edie Beale at a party I attended, and it hit me that our girls may finally be in the public consciousness. And then, I did a little search on Google and Flickr, and found that there were quite a few Edie Beales at Halloween parties!

Below is just a taste of the various Edie Beale costume photos on the internet.

From Are you sure you want to know?, by Michael, on 2 November 2007

What's your favorite Halloween costume

My favorite costumes are those that have the very odd or very outlandish connection, such as these lovely ladies from Grey Gardens!

I'm not sure this is a good thing... but it's certainly amusing!

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Using Edie's style as inspiration isn't always pretty

They got it right... but so wrong!

Refer to Galliano for a more pleasing take on Edie's style.

From The Wonderland of Mia Mäkilä, by Mia Mäkilä, on 11 October 2007, via Lisa at the Grey Gardens Yahoo group

Little Edie Moments

Inspirerat av Grey Gardens och Little Edie Beale. Fotograf: Mia Mäkilä, topmodell: Domenique H.

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Grey Gardens inspires fashion designer John Galliano

Because he's pulling from multiple sources (Edie and Andy Warhol vacationing in Coney Island?!), it's less obvious here than I've ever seen before, but Edie Beale's style really was an influence in fashion designer John Galliano's spring 2008 ready-to-wear collection.

From Women's Wear Daily, by Jennifer Weil, on 6 October 2007

A Confluence of Themes at John Galliano

Hairstylist Julien d’Ys said the multiple looks he created for John Galliano were inspired by the 1976 documentary “Grey Gardens.”

Makeup artist Pat McGrath elaborated that there were numerous concepts in mind, including “Little Edie Grey Gardens,” a nod to Edith Bouvier Beale, and “Big Edie Grey Gardens,” a reference to Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale — both relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Other looks took cues from the image of a little girl on a beach in Coney Island, the Rockettes and Rossy de Palma.

From Style.com, on 6 October 2007

Update!

There's also a video of the show!

Source: here and here

Harper's Bazaar's Big and Little Edie: Lauren Hutton and Mary-Kate Olsen

Very nicely done, despite Mary-Kate as an odd choice for Edie (at least in this raccoon's humble opinion).

Thanks to Mary Ellen for sending this in!

From Harper's Bazaar, by Peter Lindbergh, on October 2007

Mary-Kate Olsen's Singular Style

Source: here and here

Grey Gardens-inspired fashion from Marc Jacobs and Thom Browne, possibly

Edie Beale's personal style has been making appearances in fashion for years, and numerous recent collections have paid homage to her. The fashion press has been citing the spring 2008 Marc Jacobs collection as referencing Edie, but online magazine Jezebel disagrees.

From Jezebel, by Slut Machine, on 11 September 2007

Marc Jacobs Channels 'Grey Gardens'? We Beg To Differ

Marc Jacobs showed his collection last night, and word on the street is that it's very Grey Gardens. We weren't allowed to attend, because we're bloggers. (We're not joking--that's what other bloggers told us by way of explanation for our exclusion.) Anyway, as soon as we heard that Spring 2008 was shaping up to be Grey, we figured that we'd be the judges of that, considering we're experts on everything Beale. Frankly, we don't really see it, other than the use of a lace cape. First of all, the models have hair, and nobody wore head scarves, and most importantly, there were no upside down skirts.

Don't miss Jezebel's Marc Jacobs gallery for their hilarious captions and photo evidence of the extent of a possible Grey Gardens influence.

And check out this suit from Thom Browne's Spring 2008 collection... the most literal interpretation of the phrase "grey gardens" that I've ever seen in fashion!

From Style.com

Next time, come out in a kimono instead...

Edie Beale's Grey Gardens fashion becomes even more mainstream

According to TrendHunter, the September 2007 issue of Teen Vogue will feature our favorite documentary film in its A to Z Fall Fashion Guide.

In addition, Style Bytes has its own special on headscarves.

From Style Bytes, on 26 August 2007

Headscarves

I don´t know how many times I´ve written about headscarves although I for some reason almost never wear them. Every single time I flip through a magazine and notice a scarf I stop and have an extra look, the same happens when I look through the collections of the big designers. As it´s more of a fall thing since they can be a little uncomfortable on hot summer days, I may at least try to get better at wearing them the next few months. I picked up the latest issue of Costume today and in one of the photo shoots the scarf was used in pretty much all of the pictures. A lady like hat is an important accessory this coming season, so I loved the scarf under the hat the most. It just looks so classy! When looking at these pictures I realized that the 40's inspired and more lady like looks are going to be just as big for me this fall as all the leather and latex.

I hate that time in between seasons when I´m starting to feel tired of the current season while the coming season hasn't hit the shops yet. During that time I can stare into my closet for ages without coming up with anything to wear. Now that fall is right around the corner, the air is feeling a little chillier and the shops are starting to get filled up with new items, I get butterflies in my stomach. So while I wait, I spend my time flipping through magazines, looking for yet more items to crave for. At least these looks can be pulled off without spending much money. Also notice the little brooch dressing up the scarf in the third picture. An easy way to make it look extra special.

Source: here and here