the making of, by greg allen
Technically it was released yesterday, but I just finished listening to the second interview with a 2024 Rabkin Prize recipient, Washington Post critic Robin Givhan.
In addition to her own work and career, Givhan spoke to Mary Louise Schumacher about visiting the Equal Justice Institute’s Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Birmingham, Alabama; and the same searing kicker in Hilton Als’ profile of André Leon Talley that has stuck with me for 25 years, too.
I’m committed to the bit and will blog about every André Leon Talley Bean Bag that comes to auction. Including these six [!] which look like they were the ones he actually used. I may have to buy them and then flip five because honestly [update: honestly, i am not bidding on these]
21 Sept 2023 | Lot 429, Group of Six LL Bean Canvas Totes With Monogram, est. $400-600, sold for $1400+buyer’s premium [stairgalleries.com]
Previously: They Had Matching Bean Bags
ALT X LLB
Last night, in a post-MetGala nonsense haze, I dragged myself through the eight [8!] sales Sotheby’s held in late 2021 of Karl Lagerfeld’s estate. The green LL Bean boat tote with Lagerfeld embroidered on it caught my eye.
As his deeply depressing memoir recounts, André Leon Talley and Lagerfeld were extremely close from their first encounter in the early 1970s, when he interviewed the designer for WWD at The Plaza Hotel. Young Talley caused a scandal once in Paris when, running late for a party at Maxim’s, he threw on Lagerfeld’s dressing gown instead of going back to his hotel for the required black tie.
In December 2013, after a Chanel Rodeo in Dallas, Talley asked Lagerfeld to fund a retrospective of a Chanel photographer who’d just died. Karl said he’d think about it. Talley found himself removed from Chanel’s guest and gift lists, and the two men never communicated again.
Lagerfeld’s LL Bean bag caught my eye because a few months ago, an identical one was sold at Christie’s from Talley’s estate. Talley’s lot had a date, c. 2010, so pre-split. What impossibly middle class situation might have occasioned the creation of these matching tote bags for these two men? Did they have them made? LMAO, no. Can you imagine either of these men choosing these bags? Or typing in their embroidery orders on llbean.com? They were swag, or a party favor. Did the men save them, or did the bags only survive their recipients because they were forgotten immediately?
It’s now impossible to say, but that didn’t stop someone out there from paying a thousand euros and twelve hundred dollars, respectively, for these mute artifacts of weekend houseguest culture tenuously connected to these two very damaged men.
Previously: ALT X LLB
This is the one bag I actually kind of wanted from the sale of Andre Leon Talley’s estate. And yet it felt like it was so not his style. OTOH, “includes a Christie’s dustbag,” so they made it hard to resist. But it also included a VOGUE tote bag, which made it easier. RIP.
