Bourgeois & Maurice - Click on image to view video

We love London for its theatre and fashion. We love England for its humour and we are really craving to be there today for the opening of Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord at the Barbican, directed by the amazing Peter Brook. Starting today, the Barbican Theatre is dedicating their Directorspective to Peter Brook–exploring and celebrating his work in theatre and film. Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord runs Feb 5th –27th.

On Valentine’s Day the fabulously wicked cabaret stars Bourgeois & Maurice will ”reveal a glimmer into their stony old hearts” as they perform alongside The Irrepressible (Jonny Woo & Ruby Blues). The performance is called St. Valentines Day Massacre. Fabwick is sad to miss that too, as we’ll be in New York for Fashion Week. We’re completely obsessed with Bourgeois & Maurice. Visit their website and listen to Don’t Go To Art School. The song makes you want to throw a party in your boudoir and invite all your tranny friends over for a champagne bash (I’m just saying – that’s the feeling I create when I listen to it over and over…).

Another reason for craving London – the Lanvin Boutique on Mount Street has yet to be visited by Fabwick. My love for Lanvin is very Vladimir, in Waiting For Godot – I mean where do you go from here? You can’t go back after selling your soul to the creation of Alber Elbaz for Lanvin.

Something to love and adore: Couture Spring 2010 collection from John Galliano for Christian Dior. Oh so gorgeous!

Shopping urge: Shop the best sales online. We always love Outnet.com. For additional winter sales, cruise Refinery29 – they have a fantastic list of online and boutique sales.

Be inspired: Haven’t seen the movie A Single Man? – Go tonight!

Go nuts: It’s all about the coconut – coconut water, coconut milk, coconut ice cream. And I’m all over it. I drink the coconut water after my yoga practice; the coconut milk is in my coffee and granola; the coconut ice cream – whenever I feel like it (all dairy free).

Mercedes Benz Fashion Week is around the corner and today I received my ticket to the Ports 1961 Fall 2010 presentation. I love creative and beautiful invitations. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts everywhere we don’t see too many of them. The Ports invite is a little agenda book with beautiful quotes. The theme is seeds.
‘’Our bodies are our gardens – our wills are our gardeners’’ William Shakespeare. Love!

Another reason to be excited about live theatre: Laura Linney plays a war photographer in a new play by Donald Margulies – ”Time Stands Still”, opening at the Manhattan Theater Club this Thursday.

Peter Som

1. Lady Gaga’s laced-face. Nobody wears fashion as art better than the lady

2. Erna Einarsdóttir. An important fashion designer of the future

3. Peter Som’s Spring 2010. A collection so yummy that it makes you feel like you’re in an edible boudoir from the 50’s

4. Michelle Obama. It’s so very elegant and true of her to support American fashion designers

5. Blockheads. The fact that there’s a place in Manhattan that can get you drunk and full for only $20 makes us happy

6. Avatar. Nothing less than a revolution in film-making

Lady Gaga's laced face

7. Couture Allure. The best vintage bets online

8. Kathy Griffin. Her Official Book Selection and her moving up the alphabet list – we salute her

9. A Streetcar Named Desire. Cate Blanchett and Liv Ullmann. Theatre lives gracefully. Now we just need to get people to go to the theatre

10. Urban Yoga Spa in Seattle. A fabulously chic hot yoga place + spa sans the mixture of old sweat and patchouli

11. Barack Obama’s Tweets. We have a current president who communicates with us

12. Phillip Niemeyer’s Op-Chart. Picturing the past ten years

13. Adam Lambert. We just like him

Michelle Obama in Isabel Toledo

14. The most original recession entertainment. The sheep’s head eating competition

The highest-profile recent interactions between the United States and the international community are a history of antagonism. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (the US did have to retaliate for the attacks on 9/11—but nine years of retaliation?), General Motors’ buying and subsequent dissolution of Saab, and the beginning of the economic crisis (the “Great Recession”), are examples of our behaving without international regard.

In all fairness, we have aided natural disasters in Indonesia (the tsunami), and Italy (the earthquake), and are continuing to aid China’s bottom line with their investing in our T-Bills (essentially underwriting our wars in the Middle East).

Eleven of the fifty largest cities in the world are in China. Can anyone in the States name five of them? It is a good bet Chinese citizens know the three US cities on this list.

The recent production of Streetcar Named Desire, directed by a Norwegian (Liv Ullmann), and with a cast of Australian actors (among them Cate Blanchett), led Ben Brantley of the New York Times to write, “…All the baggage that any “Streetcar” usually travels with has been jettisoned. Ms. Ullmann and Ms. Blanchett have performed the play as if it had never been staged before, with the result that, as a friend of mine put it, “you feel like you’re hearing words you thought you knew pronounced correctly for the first time.”

Ms. Blanchett is one of the best actors working today. Liv Ullmann learned directly form one of the best directors of the last century (Ingmar Bergman). And artistic work finishes its journey of creation by being interpreted by outsiders. (Japanese theatre artists are said to believe Shakespeare sounds best in their language.) All of this said, an effort was made by these theatre practitioners to understand a piece of Americana. That they have done so admirably is not the point. The point is the attempt.

We need to make this attempt more often and more seriously.