My own designer and nutritionist: how the style of Lyudmila Gurchenko developed
'20.11.2020'
Source: Blueprint
Lyudmila Markovna never considered herself beautiful and therefore constantly studied her appearance, emphasized her merits, masked flaws, relied on individuality, charisma, a shining look and, of course, her waist, says Blueprint.
“Studying myself thoroughly, building, with age I became much more interesting and effective. She traveled a lot abroad, observed faces, manners, outfits. Absorbed and analyzed. And I so wanted to tell our "restricted to travel" women about this! Better yet, show it. Keeping one style in mind, I managed to diversify my outfits, turned on intuition - and as a result appeared on the screen in the role of even beauties. I know that when they saw me, many women suddenly took to themselves. In general, I think: more often looking at your photos, looking in the mirror and analyzing what suits you and what doesn't suit you, everyone needs - not only actresses.
Having developed or, if you like, finding her own style, Gurchenko was already quite condescending to fashion.
“Style is an innate, exclusively individual phenomenon. And fashion is a transient and a little superficial thing: you have acquired a fashionable thing and you are already fashionable. Anyone can become such an “original”. Today you are fashionable with your new little thing, and six months later another collection arrived, and you again puzzle over how to keep up with the locomotive! " - said Lyudmila Markovna.
Stylish rebel
For her courage in clothes, she was loved and mercilessly criticized. In youth - responsible workers, in maturity - everyone who for some reason gave himself such a right.
“Starting with the first picture, at the age of 20, I am strangely stirring the imagination of the public. I remember how after “Carnival Night” they sent a letter from the Komsomol committee: “You are dancing there, and you can see your knee! How can you ?! ” It was a whole event: knee! Or bangs - as a sign of vulgarity. Because of this, I walked for a long time with an open forehead and wore tight dresses so that they would not flutter, so that they would be “without a knee” ... there are so many beauties of us who just don't know much about style. God, how they turned against me! "A Soviet woman must wear white collars!"
Gurchenko had a lot of collars, but she was not ready to put up with the dictates of someone else's collective will.
“When I was in an image suitable for extravagance, the country was“ communism plus the electrification of the whole country ”. There was nothing. And today everything is possible! But there will certainly be someone who will say that Gurchenko has again put on something wrong. "We're shocked!" If at my age I can't wear what everyone wears in our time (except for super-short skirts and cutouts that are lower than the back, which I have never worn before), then I will become bored and gray. This is what you have failed to do before. Implementation of the unrealized. And self-irony: I put on some bold outfits, I do something modern, and everyone knows when Carnival Night came out ... And when I hear condemning groans and gasps, I say: let's not groan and gasp, but take care of yourself! " - said the movie actress at one time.
Gurchenko shocked others not so much because she was ahead of her time. Most likely, she simply caught the onset of a new era earlier than others.
“This is the biggest secret in life - being modern. I somehow clearly hear the time and clearly understand what is mine and what is not, "explained Lyudmila Markovna.
Attitude to clothes
Her reverent attitude to clothing had nothing to do with "materialism". The outfits were her friends. Or - they weren't.
“If I put on a dress and it lay down, I immediately understand what voice and gait should be. And if you don’t feel the image, you don’t have an inner understanding of clothes, then pull on yourself whatever you want, nothing will help you anyway. When I dress, I know exactly what role I have to play! " - commented Gurchenko.
Friendship with fashion designers
Lyudmila Markovna was friends with many costume designers and fashion designers, but she singled out Zaitsev and most of all - Yudashkin. “Whichever of his clothes I wear, everything fits. He seemed to have spied my dreams and fantasies. In each of his costumes you feel like a character! " - talked about the film star fashion master.
She even participated in his shows and admitted that if she had met him twenty years ago, she would have gone to work as a fashion model: “Yes, I often feel like a model on the catwalk!”
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With pleasure, the Soviet superstar also wore things of young designers, for example, a silver stole by Irina Egozarova or dresses by Leonid Gurevich, who in 2012 at Aurora Fashion Week dedicated a Tribute collection to her. Petersburg fashion designers Bunakova and Khokhlov made Gurchenko a costume for the Diva project back in 2008, which was then presented along with a headdress decorated with feathers. In this costume (shortening her skirt) Gurchenko starred in the film "Motley Twilight".
In the very last film and absolutely her own, she acted as a director, producer, author of music, costume designer - this is not counting the main role. And she altered the headdress for the last video (for Zemfira's song "Want").
Even in the designer things made especially for her, Gurchenko brought something of her own. But to the flattering question "Why don't you open a fashion line?" answered: “This requires impudence and adventurism ... I do not paint, I just know my style, which suits me. And most importantly - I never lose a real idea of myself ... In outfits I understand, but only in relation to myself. And in each case a person must be five hundred percent sure, then it makes sense to do it. "
Fragrances as associations
For Gurchenko's heroines, perfumes were no less important than clothes.
“When I was filming“ Sibiriada ”, my heroine had the perfume“ Red Moscow ”. And a little chypre men's cologne. So I immediately plunged at that time! " - recalled the actress.
In the film "Five Evenings" Tamara Vasilievna smothered herself with "Lily of the Valley" or "White bird cherry". Mrs. Laura Cheveley smelled like Madam Rochas in Perfect Husband. Gurchenko called this floral-aldehyde perfume with honeysuckle notes her favorites, but they were discontinued, as was another favorite perfume of the actress - Clara Centinaro by Gandini Profumi.
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A much more reliable favorite turned out to be Chanel No. 19. For a long time, she also used Slava Zaitsev's Marusya - out of respect for the fashion designer who adored her and called her “the queen in the forefront of time”. Her first expensive perfume was Ma Griffe by Carven (adored by the first superstar of Soviet cinema, Lyubov Orlova). At the same time, Gurchenko did not leave any perfume collection after herself, so it seems that the unique buttons “turned on” her more than the most sophisticated perfumes.
My own designer
It can be assumed that Gurchenko was the only one who dared to sew new cuffs to the Dior jacket and completely redo the Roberto Cavalli and Oscar de la Renta dresses. So she "sharpened" the costume, adapting to her temperament, building this or that image. When a suit or dress got bored, she cut off the buttons from them, and altered the outfits or gave them away. Buttons, stored in candy tin boxes, then turned into brooches, earrings, added to belts and hats, collars and cuffs.
“Against the background of dull faces, gray streets and costumes of the color of autumn mud, this always looks advantageous,” Gurchenko said.
She modeled at random, cut by eye, sewed only by hand, mastered the most complex embroidery and work with lace, and made herself not only brooches, boutonnieres and collars, but even hats. “It is the lack of toilets that gives rise to the imagination. At one time she gave birth to such a wild fantasy in me! "
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In the early 1960s, Gurchenko traveled with the Moscow Music Hall to Bulgaria - and there she sewed a velvet suit with a white frill in one night. “Then I bought the material, and my hands were shaking - I didn't have the strength to endure home. At night, with a needle, I did everything on a living thread. And then, already in Moscow, I slowly sewed on tightly. I had one thing in my head: I have to go on stage in this dress today! " When the deficit ended, the fantasy did not subside.
"For her, I have inserted kilometers of thread into needles and beads." “You can buy an idiotic dress of a large size in commission,” the actress wrote in her memoirs. - You sit, twirl, twirl ... go out - everyone gasps! Where did you buy it? Yes, it happened by chance, overseas ... And everyone believed. And then, after a while - to grab his sleeves, and instead of folds - a skirt "pipe". And you walk like a Japanese geisha, bale-bale-bale with heels. Furor! " - the last husband of the actress Sergey Senin voiced the words of his wife.
Hardly a single star of comparable scale put so much effort into its image.
“If you want to be beautiful, if you want to look spectacular (especially in miserable times) - be able to turn around. Be able to spin twenty times faster than you can, ”reasoned Gurchenko.
Russian Marlene Dietrich
Gurchenko was often called "Russian Marlene Dietrich", but she did not consider this comparison flattering. And jealously argued.
“I was once tied to this Marlene Dietrich. Why Marlene Dietrich ?! She knew only one key - F minor. I have never played Love and Doves, Five Evenings, Old Walls and had no idea what a social role is. And she knew from childhood what good shoes are! Maybe they compare us in old age? It existed for a long time, and here I am ... Otherwise, we have nothing in common. She would have been in our conditions, when there was no makeup or costumes, I don't know what she would have done, ”Ludmila Markovna complained.
High heel slippers
Even the actress's slippers were always high-heeled. By the way, her shoes, like a real prima donna, were often made to order. In theater workshops, at Mosfilm ... “They made shoes with one bow for everyone, but I needed two. And it was beautiful! " She recalled.
Fear of old age
Lyudmila Markovna fought old age bravely and not always wisely. In 2009, she nearly went blind due to repeated blepharoplasty. And the first operation on the eyelids she did while still young, at the Beauty Institute on Kalininsky Prospekt, and without anesthesia - "so that there were no severe edema."
In the middle of the XNUMXs, the number of her plastic surgeries was discussed in the press almost more often than the dollar rate. For the most part, the criticism looked like real rudeness: "A woman has been for so many years, and she still behaves like a girl, you still need to respect your age." Flat jokes about Gurchenko have become a separate genre in Comedy Club. The actress and her husband Sergei Senin were even going to sue the "humorists", but the topic disappeared.
All these exercises in wit left the most important thing behind the scenes: even with half-closed eyelids and enlarged lips, Gurchenko did not lose her individuality and seemed to be ironic at her own perfectionism. She assured that the struggle for the external form gives colossal energy, the sources of which are more and more difficult to find every year. This was noticed by the famous plastic surgeon Sergei Kulagov (by the way, he dissuaded the star from her last circular lift).
“Gurchenko was getting courage from her updates. They added drive and self-confidence to her. If she was not fond of plastic, she would have left the screen long ago. And no one would have grieved now for Gurchenko, who showed an example of how you can shine on stage even at her age ... She did her best to the end. Yes, she may have gone too far with the plastic. But even at the age of 75, everyone looked at her, ”said the singer's surgeon.
In fact, the real secret of Gurchenko's youth was in another plastic - the plastic of movements. According to the recollections of Soviet journalists, her steps towards the public "immediately turned the figure of a beautiful woman into a kind of cello resemblance, into a plastic, absolutely precisely verified phrase of a future performance, sketch, farce, tragedy, comedy, film, anecdote, mystery." Decades have passed, the face of the actress has changed, but the famous appearance in people remained the same spectacular, and the plastic - charming. And one more thing: no matter what they wrote, Lyudmila Markovna did not perform a single operation “for the sake of her young husband,” before whom, by the way, she never hesitated to walk in a dressing gown and without makeup. Everything is for art.
Diva
So from the late nineties it became customary for us to call Pugacheva, but the singer herself considered Lyudmila Gurchenko to be the prima donna. Therefore, she invited her to her film-concert "Surprise for Alla" and to the video, which was shot by Fyodor Bondarchuk in 1997. At the concert, she almost fell when she walked on the artificial turf on thin stilettos, but, "like a proud goose, she began to bend her leg at the knee." In general, one hundred percent hit.
In the image of the prima donna, Gurchenko was amazingly organic, like Cher or Diana Ross. She was our Cher: she sang fantastically, danced, played, reincarnated, changed her appearance (and did not get better). It was not for nothing that the designer Leonid Gurevich called her the firebird, who miraculously got into the chicken coop and was forced to live in it all his life.
“It would be much easier for Gurchenko to live if she did not know that somewhere there is Hollywood and Broadway, wonderful light, sound, costume designers and directors who dream of shooting people like her ... But she knew, and this is her tragedy”, - Gurevich spoke about the actress.
Of course, she was not the only girl who grew up on old "trophy" Western musicals and from childhood imitated Marika Rekk. But only it took place - and became the personification of that "shining world". She wore sequins, feathers and boas as if she was born in them. And she always had a proudly raised chin, stage makeup, concert styling (not styling, like a hat or a wig).
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Gurchenko emphasized that she was the first in Russia to use feathers in her outfits: it started with the musical "Heavenly Swallows" (who does not remember the beautiful Jeannette - by the way, also a prima donna), but continued in real life. She adored chiffon, velvet, satin. Spectacular hats, veils ... Large gigot sleeves. And luxurious collars. And a bolero.
At the Cannes Film Festival in 1979, when Sibiriada received a special prize, Gurchenko took to the red carpet in a laconic dress and lace bolero sweater from the beginning of the century. “In Cannes they have already forgotten what it looks like, and suddenly I go out: an amazing jacket made of lace, behind this tail, bustle - wow! Everyone was dumbfounded. " She admitted that she could slouch, groan, and walk without makeup in her native walls. But only without witnesses.
"Nobody can see me when I am disassembled!"
She did not want an inquisitive viewer to be able to imagine her at the stove in the kitchen or in line at the savings bank. And as a result, even its wilting was much more luxurious than the flowering of many of its colleagues.
Film style
In all the roles of Lyudmila Gurchenko - cinematic, theatrical, pop - the style was on a par with the game. She came up with-thought-over-improved-settled-inspired costumes for all her heroines.
A naive critic wrote: "Of course, Gurchenko could not interfere with the work of a costume designer for films and performances ..." She could! And she intervened. Many costume designers simply adored the actress - she gushed with ideas, gave a lot of tips, and could do half the work herself. Her huge filmography is a perfect illustration of the catch phrase "An artist must change clothes."
And she also knew how to create a harmonious connection between the inner state of her heroine and her appearance, when clothes became a “second skin” and began to play no less expressively than human facial expressions. A knitted jacket tucked into the tucked-up belt of an oversized skirt of the beloved woman of the mechanic Gavrilov and her dress with Greek draperies.
Perfectly fitting pencil skirt and white blouse of the waitress Vera at the Train Station for Two. A tweed suit a la Chanel with a page collar and a red mohair beret - from the most elegant lovemaker of Soviet cinema, Raisa Zakharovna. Embroidery, sleeves-lanterns and "baubles" by Mama Koz in the film Mama. Nina Nikolaevna ("Twenty Days Without War") in a fur coat, belted with the same strap that the mother of our heroine had during the Great Patriotic War. This and much more - came up with Gurchenko. And having invented, she played character, fate. She was never afraid to "say goodbye to the outer polish" for the sake of a strong heroine.
“If in the role the costume and hairstyle are developed to the smallest detail, if the time is precisely given in them, then the gait, and height, and smile, and age, and the structure of thoughts - everything comes by itself, independently of me. And then it does not matter to me at all whether I am beautiful or ugly, young or old, then the character of the character “works” - a person, ”Gurchenko said.
Perfect waist
The wasp waist of Lucy Gurchenko (her historical minimum is 43 cm) is an immortal brand. From Carnival Night to the end. The legend that Gurchenko did not leave 48 centimeters of girth until her death may not fully correspond to the truth, but the prima donna's waist really remained amazingly thin. When her wardrobe became the property of exhibitions, it turned out that modern mannequins did not fasten Gurchenko's dresses. According to Yudashkin, she had "the best figure in the country." What did she do to keep this figure? According to Gurchenko herself - nothing. According to the media and some ex-girlfriends, everything she could.
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The Internet is still full of numerous “Gurchenko's diets”, according to which “the actress has always chosen only low-calorie foods,” which looks unconvincing against the background of her famous love for a bun with butter. Most likely, the actress just ate little. Everything that I loved, but a little. I could have broken this rule in a Georgian restaurant, for example, or in the "Bosco cafe". I could have made some "potatoes for the night" at home. But occasionally.
But she certainly did not have a trainer and nutritionist.
“By nature, I can eat what I want and how much I want ... Why is that? And I, as they say, is not broken. Hunger, war, combustibility ... Dad was the same - all his life in one weight. Nevertheless, I never engage in gluttony and do not advise others. The secret is simple: don't overeat! " - the actress shared her simple beauty secrets.
A proud posture ...
“I need someone to tell me every day:“ We love you! We need you! ” And this lifts my chin, straightens my shoulders, ”admitted Lyudmila Markovna.
Radiant smile
In her youth, Lyusya Gurchenko was all like a smile. She just didn't understand how she could live differently. And all her later life she repeated: “A woman may have an ordinary appearance, but a kind smile - that's all! It already glows from the inside. A smile is the joy of the face. "
However, since the mid-1960s, the smile in her films has been lost, insidious, victorious, shy, mischievous, sarcastic, intriguing, victorious, even happy - but never as gleefully carefree as in Carnival Night.
“I was remembered for“ Carnival Night ”- cheerful, cheerful. I came to the screen happy and optimistic! It seemed to me: nothing can break me, I will definitely break through! And depression will never touch me. But this person from my early films is no more, ”the actress stated over the years.
The memory of the time when she was criticized "for emptiness and frivolity" and did not give her roles in which she could shine and smile, lived in Gurchenko until recently. As a result, her smile has matured. But she always remained impeccable - the actress put the porcelain crowns shortly before the "Station for Two" and was very worried about them during the passionate hugs with Basilashvili.
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After the Cannes Film Festival, the actress unexpectedly complained: “Everyone there is smiling as if it’s a routine, but I think: isn’t it boring? After all, one cannot understand what they think, they like it, they don't like it ... All are radiant! " Then I realized that it was necessary. I learned to smile when I didn't want to, but at the same time - without fake. Her smile said: "If you want, you will get it." It was a role, and in the roles of Gurchenko she never faked.
“My style was - infectious vitality and optimism. I carried myself as a symbol of irony over myself! " - explained Lyudmila Gurchenko.
But there was another smile. “What happiness,” Yuri Bespalov wrote in his review of “Songs of the War Years”, “that there is a person who will appear on the screen, smile at you, and you will feel that the soul of this person contains the same sorrows and joys with which it hurts and in which your soul rejoices. " And that was her too.
