Ursula Rodel

Today I would like to introduce you to a personal style icon. I met her in 2002 at a fashion show where she happened to sit next to me. Her name is Ursula Rodel. She’s a fashion and costume designer – or simply créatrice/artiste. Career highlights include costume design for Federico Fellini’s ‘La Citta delle donne’ and ‘La nave va’. And she did the makeup for Catherine Deneuve in ‘Dancer in the Dark’.

Shortly after our initial meeting I had the privilege to photograph Frau Rodel in her Zurich studio. At the time I was switching from video to (analog) photography. I think this is actually the first portrait I shot with a flash.

Kindly overlooking my insecurities she introduced me to her polaroid collection, 3 hefty A1 size portfolio books. A life changing, deeply shattering experience. Picture this: Ursula and her mates partying hard from Punk through to New Wave at Studio 54, Privilege in Paris and posh Swiss ski resorts… By friends we talk Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, young Debbie Harry, Grace Jones, Edwige, la Deneuve… Of course, everyone was at least 10 years ahead of fashion.

As one of the original shapeshifters, Frau Rodel felt understandably very disgruntled about the prospect of being copied the second time round by Eighties fashion.

I hold great admiration for her generation of artists and creatives. People who shaped a unique period in time with their radical pursuit of creativity and lust for life. And who only too often ended up paying a high price.

That’s why I feel we owe these people big time. Instead of ripping their ideas off in yet another retro fashion or music trend we should continue and fill with our own vision and experience that Punk/New Wave spirit.

This is one of the reasons I do this blog. It’s a continuation of Ursula Rodel’s polaroid collection. Admittedly not as glamorous (yet), it’s nevertheless about people who follow their own style and have fun. Someone looking at today’s streetstyle blogs in 30 year’s time should say: wow, those Noughties kidz had style.

(Do blog Playlust.net)