Old Viv.

Dear Robert,

I'm a little bit taken by Belle Epoque. But you know that already - i'm sure - from the increasingly desperate requests I pestered upon you on our Knick-Knack-Kerouac cross-country rOcktober jaunt.

And yes, I love the music, of course, but it's their god damn composition that makes me swoon. Those two lovely black disco back(dafuck)up singers... and Vivienne Westwood.

And before you start, I'm well aware it's not "in fact" Vivienne Westwood. I have already not met Vivienne Westwood once before - so I'm clued in.

Several years ago I had foolishly told my friends that I was going to hear 'she' speak at the opening of the 'Bigge Ye Olde Vivienney Westwoodery' show at Canberra's National Gallery of Australia. In fact, we had tried to set up an interview with 'she', but the Fauxshionista scrum was too much to bear.

The show was a graft (with extra foliage!) of the V&A's Big-Sur(e) fire hit. I rocked up with one of my former Editors from Sydney, both dressed to the any-number-over-8-but-less-than-ten's'. We waited, we mingle-mangled, we drank cheap champagne, we smoked lovely cigarettes on that blight of an entrance, we met one of her marketing heads from Europe (who was lovelier and more tanned than the cigarettes even), and then later were told that 'she' had canceled, and sent her partner instead... and a hologram ['video message' sounds so barbaric]. So to me that glorious, scratchy, wonder-white wonder-crone in Belle Epoque is Vivienne Westwood. Considering our tartanned history [tartan... vs. 'chequered'... tar... and tanned... 'tartanned'... reference to the marketing head... and Viv's signatu... sigh.. oh just fucking forget it!] Why shouldn't it be so.

And it couldn't be more so in 'Bamalama'.

This is a clip that you and the world's Best Not-So-Well-Kept Secret, DJ Tennassee, have showed me separately on several occasions now. It's fiercely brilliant. The setting is sublime. And it's pure Vivienne Westwood (she is swinging a chain for Christ's sake, whiter than an albino beetroot, and wearing incredible clothes that she looks wonderfully comfortable in but shouldn't be (comfortable in. at all. quite).

Normally i'd post more here about the 'real' lead singer of Belle Epoque, and a little bit about the band itself. But it's Vivienne's band now. So we'll let the hologram do the talking.

'Bamalama' Belle Epoque (with Vivienne Westwood).

By the Way, the Jackie 60 trailer is up on youtube. And the roast is in the oven.

XAMK