Our review of the Andrée Putman documentary on the great lady of design at Arte

Andrée Putman, his compressed silhouette, elegant slenderness, stylized guts for a better film noir profile, Gitanes smoker’s husky voice, special expressions, a little slow, his certainty mixed with chosen words and some freshness. A living paradox between the typical haute bourgeoisie as a family of Lyon-born bankers and distinguished scientists, and the revolutionary of form and use who lived the rich watches of the palace in 1978, Yves Saint Laurent still handsome, Karl Lagerfeld still brown. , Sonia Rykiel eternal redhead, young Michel Berger, unchanging Kenzo, Helmut Berger is so magnetic. In short, a figure from the 1980s whose life and work are closely intertwined. Kim’s signature austere black-and-white checkerboard bathroom evokes a hieratic woman as flat as an “I.”

Look directly under the wick

A very nice documentary dedicated to him by Saléha Gherdane, Andrée Putman, grande dame of design, A real lesson in art and life, designed for Arte, is conducted by the voice of his daughter Olivia, who now runs his studio (her son, gallery owner Cyrille Putman, appears only in the end credits). There is no criticism or dissonance in this didactic portrait of an icon whose clothes, very blue eyes, and direct gaze under the locks avoid any contradiction. Andrée Putman (1925-2013) gets better with age, true warrior wrinkles, Roman emperor nose, chiseled figure like a painting, determined balancing act (she had a terrible accident when she was 20).

the obsession with perfection

Let him be a star designer and eternal child like twenty-year-old Philip Stark
four years younger than him; stylist and elegant as exhibitor Vincent Darré
“Gorgeous!” Until January 29 at the National Mobilier; A design historian like Anne Bony; A gallerist like Ralph Pucci: everyone hails this strange cocktail between classicism and the avant-garde, hiding the glory of this intuitive autodidact in a woman of the world.

Through a precise and clear construction, this film tells the coming of a pianist’s daughter who grows up in the Romanesque beauty of the Cistercian Abbey of Fontenay, an incredible family estate and a certain idea of ​​grandeur. Then, with the wise look of the 1960s, bridal fashion, a look back at its era, the buttoned and styled little cardigan sees the forgotten in art history and brings the masters of art back to life.decoration, Mallet -Stevens, Jean-Michel Frank, Eileen Gray, Mariano Fortuny. Who participates in the famous adventure of Prisunic at the age of 43. Curiosity, innate courage, challenging marriage with his very unique creativity, both pragmatic and theatrical. In 1978, he single-handedly created the first loft in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, a new open-space concept, and reinvented himself at the age of 55 between his obsession with perfection and his desire to simplify.

“Beautiful for an ugly price”

How Andrée Christine Aynard was born on the 6th of 1925^e The Paris region keeps the family name after the separation from her husband, the collector Jacques Putman, keeps her common artists, forgets the more feminine name of Christine, synthesizes and becomes a design lion who can seduce M.^I Pastor, the fortune of Monaco, at once.

Andrée Putman does not know how to draw, but he understands everything about space, sums up his former colleague and architect, the American Elliott Barnes. Using Prisunic’s motto, “Beautiful for an ugly price”Andrée Putman uses humble materials to give another meaning to elegance: the black and white floor of the iconic bathroom at the Morgans Hotel in New York (requiring endless calculations to cut any), a major commission from his friends at Club 54 in 1984, 1993- The blue-gray color of Concorde, which he made a design trophy in 2008, the patterned kraft paper that became the owner of a minimalist towel… All this entered our vocabulary.

» Follow all the news Figaro on culture Facebook and Twitter .
» Discover the program of guided tours Figaro Shophere .