The caftan is truly timeless

The caftan is truly timeless: dating back more than 5,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia, it came in and out of vogue through Greco-Roman times, stopping off in medieval Tsarist Russia, cruising through sub-Saharan Africa and up to the Berber markets of Marrakesh. Raiment for royals and simple shifts for serfs, the caftan beats the heat for both men and women.
It was French couturier Paul Poiret who conjured the modern caftan at the start of the Deco period, trimming it with fur and baubles. Then in the ’50s, the fabulous Diana Vreeland, longtime editrix of Harper’s Bazaar, began to haul gilded gowns out of Morocco and preach their glamour to a prim American public.
There is no designer more associated with the caftan than Yves Saint Laurent, who became Morocco’s most famous expat in the ’60s, and was himself of North African descent, hailing from the French Algeria. His Rive Gauche caftans found their way to royalty (Princess Grace), Hollywood (Elizabeth Taylor, whose caftan collection was unrivalled) and haute hippie trustifarians (Talitha Getty, who swanned around Marrakech rooftops in them while high).

Despite a brief ’70s schlockey period, the sophisticated caftan continues to captivate, gracing the closets of Kardashians, Katy Perry and Angelina Jolie — and the runways. Nearly 50 years after the ankle-grazing cloaks hit the catwalk, the look is as fresh as ever.

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L’Oreal Argan , Liquid Gold for Hair

Liquid Gold for Hair Entices Ex-Goldman Analyst, L’Oreal


Moroccan women crush Argan tree nuts to make Argan oil in Smimmou, near Essaouira.
Sitting barefoot on blood-orange pillows in a village near the seaside resort of Agadir, a dozen Moroccan women in multi-colored caftans banter while hitting acorn-shaped nuts with stones in metronomic fashion -- tap, tap, tap -- until they crack, revealing a kernel or two inside.
The Berber women earn 40 dirhams ($4) for a day’s work producing about a kilogram of the dime-sized kernels, which are ground and pressed to release an oil so rare, so versatile, and so potent that it can sell for the equivalent of $400 a liter in beauty boutiques worldwide.
Dubbed “liquid gold,” amber-hued argan oil is the latest obsession of the $430 billion personal-care market. It strengthens hair, soothes skin, and even tastes good drizzled on a salad. It’s everywhere, from Oscar-night celebrity gift bags to the aisles of Wal-Mart (WMT) Stores Inc. and Tesco (TSCO) Plc. Last year saw the debut of 588 new argan-oil hair products, according to researcher Mintel, up from 29 in 2008.
“It’s really going quite crazy right now,” said Dana Elemara, a former Goldman Sachs (GS) Group Inc. bond analyst who now runs an argan oil import business from her London home.
The argan craze calls to mind previous beauty fads, like that for jojoba, another gold-tinted oil from arid climates. Jojoba is now found in a wide array of everyday household items, like liquid hand soap. While argan oil risks similar overexposure, its ability to create livelihoods for rural Berber women will help preserve its cachet, analysts say.
Diluted Blends
And argan products can provide an additional lift to global sales of hair-care products, which will grow 30 percent to nearly $100 billion by 2017, data tracker Euromonitor International predicts.
Morocco’s exports of argan oil have more than doubled in the past five years, to over 700 tons, according to government data. Much of that has gone to hair- and skin-care makers like L’Oreal SA (OR) (OR) and Unilever (UNA). France’s L’Oreal, the world’s biggest cosmetics producer, this year will buy three times more argan oil than it did five years ago. U.S. department-store sales of products with argan oil rose 59 percent last year, following a 159 percent increase in 2011, according to researcher NPD Group.
Rising demand has boosted wholesale prices 50 percent since 2007, to $30 a liter, while retail prices can exceed 10 times that figure. Oil certified under Fairtrade production standards goes for even more. Those prices have led some to resort to less-than-savory tactics, passing off diluted “Moroccan oil” blends as 100 percent argan.
Goat Guts
“It’s like the Mafia,” said Afafe Daoud, a project manager who works with a cooperative near Agadir. The group of 60 Berber women produces Fairtrade argan oil under its own brand, Tounaroz, and sells it across Europe.
Records of argan oil extraction trace back to the 13th century, when locals would gather the oil-rich nuts excreted by goats that climb trees to eat the plum-sized fruit. Today, argan oil processors use nuts that haven’t passed through a goat’s intestines, instead hiring Berber women to extract the seeds from their shells.
Endangered by construction and farming, argan trees -- spiny evergreens with a lifespan of about 150 years -- have come under United Nations protection, and the oil seeks the same geographic certification enjoyed by Parma ham and French Champagne in Europe. The trees, which thrive in Morocco’s semi-arid soil, are difficult to cultivate elsewhere.
‘Magical Tree’
Not that some aren’t trying. Chaim Oren, an agronomist behind an Israeli company called Sivan, says he is growing what he calls the “magical tree” on 100 acres in the Negev Desert.
“There will be less oil available than demand,” Oren said by telephone. “We want to fill this gap.”
The arrival of L’Oreal and Unilever -- as well as smaller U.S.-based beauty specialists like Organix, Shea Moisture and Aura Cacia -- reflects the growing appeal of natural oils. For years, many women were reluctant to put oils directly on their scalp or skin, fearing a greasy residue. Brands reflected those concerns: Procter & Gamble’s (PG) Oil of Olay changed its name to Olay in 2000.
Yet in recent years, consumers have embraced all things natural, from baby foods to cleaning products. That’s helped argan, which migrated from an expensive treatment in salons to mass-market shampoos, conditioners and soaps. British beauty boutique Neal’s Yard Remedies today sells a 4-gram argan lipstick in six colors such as Persimmon, Blackberry and Lychee, for 15 pounds.
Waning Novelty


American drugstore chain Walgreens Co. (WAG) carries 160 argan-infused products, up from zero three years ago, said Shannon Curtin, a merchandise manager there. She expects the chain to cull some its argan offerings in coming years as the novelty wears off.
“There are so many products now that consumers are getting a little bit confused,” Curtin said.
That hasn’t happened yet for Vivian Bernstein, a 37-year-old lawyer in Amsterdam, whose hairdresser recommended the oil a year ago for her long, blonde locks. She liked that it made her hair soft without being greasy, and she now buys argan-infused shampoos and conditioners. “It’s got sticking power,” she says.
L’Oreal says it gets argan oil from the German chemical giant BASF (BAS) SE -- which buys from Berber cooperatives. The company says it’s able to find sufficient supplies, partly because the increasing value of argan has helped convince people living among the trees to stop cutting them for firewood.
Rutted Road
“Before this, the men made everything,” said Belfarah Fatima, a 70-year-old mother of six with more grandchildren than she can count, as she cracks argan nuts at a cooperative in Tagadirt N’Aabadou, a village of mud-brick houses at the end of a rutted gravel road outside Agadir.
Fatima’s cooperative is part of a network founded by Zoubida Charrouf, a Moroccan chemist who has studied the oil’s properties for nearly 30 years. In the mid-1990s, Charrouf began organizing Berber women to produce and sell argan over the protests of their husbands, who claimed Charrouf was only out for their money. Her initial 16 volunteers were all widows and divorcees, she said, seated in the lobby of a Casablanca hotel on a drizzly Friday morning. Today, there are over 150 cooperatives, the most successful of which generate sales of 500,000 euros ($650,000) a year.
Browsing through a market near the hotel, Charrouf notes the argan products on display, including oil from the Tighanimine cooperative that she helped establish. She’s not buying any, though. Proving the fickle nature of beauty trends, she’s moved on from argan and has started using cactus oil on her skin instead. “It’s more expensive,” she said, “but it’s better.”

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Dolls shelved Talitha Getty - Edie Sedgwick Morocco

Dolls shelved Talitha Getty - Edie Sedgwick Morocco


I started to describe a bit of style as Talitha-Gettyish before I had a real understanding of what the term really meant. I have described women with long hair hanging on a balcony in Morocco (or any other geography, with tiles) and wore robes flowing caftan kind. To be honest, I used Oona-Chaplinish the same way by referring to women who wore gloves and skirt combination. But I think I had something to do with that Talitha Getty wording. After all, Yves Saint Laurent said:

"I knew the '60s generation: Talitha and Paul Getty lying under a roof of stars Happy Marrakech and Damned, and a whole generation assembled as if for eternity where the curtain of the past seemed to get on a future extraordinary. "

See? See? Curtains? As billowing white robes?

So basically, I was quite correct in my description, and probably am Oona Chaplin, too.

I always thought that was something Talitha Getty heir to the fortune happened in bohemian, no, that was not the case. It did not start life as a major symbol of fashion has always been strolled around with Yves Saint Laurent. Talitha Pol was born in Java in 1940. She spent the first four years of his life in a Japanese prison camp. After the war, his father, who was a painter, and his mother are separated. Talitha moved with his mother to London in 1945. Her mother died three years later, friends say that has left him something of a wounded quality.

Then she immediately had sex with Mick Jagger.

No, this is not true, she had sex with the dancer Rudolf Nureyev first. And that's all I about his early years, fascinating but they must have been. Then, in the 1960s, everyone in London at the same time decided she was extraordinarily beautiful. They were right:



According to Woodrow Lyle Wyatt, Antony Lambton, 6th Earl of Durham, was totally in love with her. He recalls: "There was Talitha Pol was very pretty and had a bit of work starlet in Yugoslavia, and [Antoine] went and stayed at the hotel and sent huge bouquets of flowers all around two hours and shower gifts. "

Antony and Talitha did not end up together, but I'm sure she loved flowers.

Nureyev told friends that, after meeting her at a party in 1964, he had "never felt so erotically stirred by a woman." It was often said to be a homosexual, which was surprising. I guess it was this beautiful.


Oddly, it is thanks to his relationship with Nureyev she met her husband! Little known fact, but before OkCupid relations were how everyone responded to their husbands. Nureyev was invited to a presentation by Claus von Bulow party, which later may be tempted to murder his wife, Sunny von Bulow. But that is another story, called Reversal of Fortune.


Not this story

At the last minute Nureyev was unable to attend the party, although Talitha was already on its way. While his Claus sitting next to his business partner, John Paul Getty. He was the heir of one of the richest oil in the world and, at the time of his life, described as "a swinging playboy who drove fast cars, drank a lot, experiment with drugs and starlets squired raunchy. " Romance with Talitha seemed to allow him entry into the wider society fashion.

Talitha Tatler describes as "It Girl 1965." Think of it as one, in English, earlier longer hair Edie Sedgwick. Shortly after his marriage in 1966, the Gettys have decided to divide their time between London, Rome and Marrakech. Their place in Marrakech became known for their pleasure palace and if you're a jet setter remotely cool, you went there. And remember those who were at the time when it was still rare to have mounted on a plane, let alone own one.

Or you can take a train!


The Rolling Stones came to visit the couple at their Moorish castle and remembered later in their memoirs: "We would like to climb on the roof where we could see the snowy mountains above and below the gardens, full of palm trees, to wandering birds and fish in the tanks. Lots of music was played, and musicians brought the Djemaah El-Fna, the great square up not full of sounds and stories. "

Meanwhile, Yves Saint Laurent said that when he met Talitha, his whole perspective on style has changed.

To be fair, his eyes on the style has changed. It was no longer a mod young Londoner who married in a white mini skirt trimmed with mink. After moving to Morocco, it adopted a wardrobe more fluid, with lots of dresses, kaftans, jellabiyas and wraps. He worked for it. Vogue editor Diana Vreeland said it was the style icon over the years, and his profile:

"A happy life welcoming, fantastic, sensitive and sybarite ... Mrs. Getty lurking on the market, bringing the delights of home and table. Best she brings artists dancers, acrobats, storytellers, magicians and geomancy. A day that began with a picnic on a large flat rock near a waterfall in the mountains of the Atlas may end with a dinner for a house full of young Moroccan and European friends by candlelight, among roses wrapped with mint. Salome While playing in the background, snake charmers charm and tea boys dancing, balancing on their feet trays freighted with mint tea and candles. "

God, I bet Paula Deen would have liked tea boys.

I think in addition to tea, it should be noted that they were a lot of drugs. Tons. Keith Richards said Talitha Getty was "the best and most beautiful opium."

Keith Richards. A man who probably knew his opium.

At least the Rolling Stones could kind of hold together when they were at Getty. John Hopkins wrote in 1968:

Last night, Paul and Talitha Getty threw the New Year's Eve at their palace in the medina. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were there, flat on his back. They could not get off the ground, much less speak. I've never seen so many people out of control.

Ok, everyone did a lot of drugs in the 1960s, at least everyone who was a jet setter cool, but if you called your house a "pleasure palace" then you're really setting up a ton of the drug. Apparently too much. It seems that in the view taken by Patrick Lichfield iconic Talitha lurking in a multicolored caftan and white harem pants, it actually could not stand, because it was on a lot of medication.

John Paul was, moreover, not better. Supposedly at one point he consumed a bottle of rum and a gram of heroin per day of high quality.

I do not know anything about heroin, but I guess that's a lot? At least there are plenty of rum.

Some members of the jet set started to overdose, and in 1968 the Gettys decided to abandon the pleasure palace of a life of spiritual enlightenment.


The couple went to Bali and Indonesia. They went diving with sharks - which does not really seem to me like spiritual enlightenment, both as something that would be announced on the Discovery Channel. (Jesus Christ, imagine if Paris Hilton or one of our high style icon of the moment went shark diving).

They also had a child in 1968, which Talitha named Tara Gabriel Galaxy Gramophone Getty. If you think, "Well, I know a girl named Tara" I want to emphasize that it was a male child and also that his name was Gramophone.

Talitha probably had not completely abandoned the drug. I do not know. I guess this is speculation. She would just like weird names. I mean, Heloise and Abelard named their child Astrolabe, and no judges, with all the world, ever, which reads a biography of Heloise and Abelard and said, "Astrolabe is a weird name."

Unfortunately, in 1971, largely due to their lifestyle choices, Getty's marriage began to deteriorate. In July Talitha went to his apartment in London to visit John Paul in Rome. There, she reportedly took a massive overdose of heroin. She was found on the "soil black and white marble" among the pieces of "Balinese furniture" which I think is the kind of detail a woman who lived to the style would remember about his death.

Her husband was terrified that he would be charged with the murder and fled Rome. Much later found not guilty of negligence, he never returned to Rome.

Jean-Paul fell into a reclusive depression after the death of Talitha. Despite being one of the richest men in the world, he installed a pay phone in his home and the customers had to pay every time they needed to make calls from his home. Maybe after seeing the result of his hospitality in the past, he was determined to be less accommodating for people in the future. Mick Jagger supposedly helped to return to the world from here. . . seriously. . . helping to develop a passion for cricket. However, when talking about the death of Talitha in 1985, he said: "The pain does not evaporate."

Talitha perhaps early death - she was only 30 years old - but she lived beautifully. Diane von Furstenberg, inspired perhaps a page of Yves Saint Laurent, said Talitha was "a very bright creature who wanted to dance under the stars and danced too fast."

If you may be wondering about Tara - I think he looks like the happiest bunch of Getty. He lived quietly, went to agricultural college and became a defender of the environment in Africa. He met a woman named Jessica, the daughter of someone who worked on one of the yachts of her family, and the two married. They have a son named Orlando Willem Pol, after the maiden name of Talitha, and a daughter, Talitha.

Which all sounds very nice.They will never dance in Marrakech with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but I guess you compromise. Either way, you can wear a large caftan. Kaftans are for everyone.

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