That Leisurely Mid-Century

WHILE THE SUMMER SUN BLAZES ON IN BARCELONA, it has begun to feel as if the season has reached its peak and is now on gradual decline. Locals are very slowly back from vacation, tourists are no longer as plenty as in previous weeks, summer sales have ended, and both retail and media encourage thoughts of autumn.

But with the days still long and the sun still high, I won't let go of summer just yet. There are still a couple seafood lunches to be had by the water and there is still over a month of warmth to wear summer clothes in.

Not a beach bum at heart, I skipped yet another beach holiday this year and head down to the local beaches mainly for dining. Despite bothersome tourists outnumbering the beautiful ones, there is enduring appeal in seaside leisure, which in the 20th century, has forever changed our relationship with the sea. Trade, navigation, food production and power generation perhaps never thought it would have such a frivolous industry as "leisure" alongside it, but as tourism and bathing costumes evolved, so have our concepts of the seaside.

Since Gabrielle Chanel's accidental popularization of the tan in the 20s, seaside leisure has washed in wave after wave of cultural phenomena; some exclusive as a luxury resort, some accessible as a game of beach volley. Some short-lived as a summer movie, others as eternal as the bikini. What I wish had lasted: mid-century beach glamor. Editorial images in the 50s and 60s have their share of bikini-clad celebrities, but it's hardly peculiar to see clothes with seams or footwear made of leather.

If this is the leisurely elegance we've evolved from, would it be wrong to devolve back into it?

Elizabeth Taylor 1956, Salvador Dali 1951, Paul McCartney and John Lennon 1964, Catherine Deneuve 1968, Warren Beatty 1965, Marilyn Monroe 1955, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin 1969, Brigitte Bardot 1956, Jane Fonda and Alain Delon 1963. All images from gettyimages.com

Those Next-door Oddities

STARRING JANE BIRKIN, who in 85 minutes, didn't speak a single line, Joe Massot's Wonderwall has credits beyond its beautiful lead Brit of which the much coveted handbag is named after.

With music by George Harrison and Eric Clapton, the eccentric film about a straight-laced old scientist obsessing over his neighbor's fashion model girlfriend, Wonderwall also provides the title for Oasis' single, written and recorded 27 years later.

As if Jane Birkin's perfect face isn't enough to get you interested. 

Wonderwall, 1968. Directed by Joe Massot.

That Blow-Up

FROM THE SWAGGERING LEAD PHOTOGRAPHER to his mod-era models, large and lofty studio in a bleak Brit neighborhood, jazzy brassy long play sounds, kooky pantomimes, a serpentine Veruschka in an orgasmic photo shoot, a young Vanessa Redgrave standing taller than the Big Ben and an even younger Jane Birkin to which the famed bag is named after, this movie is so ultra-stylish that I don't even want to bother thinking about what it means.

Michaelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up follows fashion photographer Thomas' nonchalant stroll through his worldly life, quite indifferently, until he accidentally steals a series of snapshots that would reveal a possible murder.

The photographic revelation takes Thomas from boredom to reawakened passion but in the end, the turn of events leave him just as isolated as he had been at the start.

Does fame and career success necessarily come hand-in-hand with loneliness?

Blow-Up, 1966. Directed by Michaelangelo Antonioni.