The power of a muse
Renée Perle and her times as seen by Lartigue Music from soundtrack to 1988 film The Moderns. When I was a teenager someone gave me prints from early 1920s VOGUE covers and I plastered my walls with them. They followed me from dorm room, to dorm room and back home during the summers. Then, later, they followed me to college where I guess they just fell apart from so much thumbtacking… I never knew there was an actual "real" woman who inspired the covers. But, of course there was. (There always is.) She was a muse -- and her name? Her name was Renee Perle. There are always muses and they are so often overlooked. A creative crime, really, considering they're usually more interesting than the artists who celebrates them. Everything is alchemy. In this case it was Perle's long, cool grace which cast a unique spell on the talented artist, Lartigue, whose advertising images of her inform our ideals of marketing beauty to this very day. Pretty cool fash