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DYLAN

Dylan removes Nobel-mention from website

American singer-song writer Bob Dylan has removed any mention of him being named one of this year’s Nobel Prize laureates on his official website.

Published: 22 October 2016 12:08 CEST
Dylan removes Nobel-mention from website
The American musician has more or less responded to the news with silence. Photo: Per Wahlberg

Dylan was announced as the winner of the coveted Nobel Prize in Literature on October 13, but aside from a factual tweet and brief mention on his official website, the news has been met with total silence by the troubadour.

The Swedish Academy, which awards the prize, has made numerous efforts to get a hold of Dylan to deliver the news in a more personal manner, but after several unsuccessful attempts, the academy earlier this week announced it had given up.

On Friday, the brief text on the musician’s official website that mentioned the win appeared to have disappeared.

“You could could call it rude and arrogant. He is the person he is,” Per Wästberg, a Swedish Academy committee member, was quoted as telling Swedish broadcaster SVT.

According to an unnamed source cited by Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, Dylan himself ordered the Nobel-prize mention to be removed.  

“It wasn’t really unexpected. He seems to be pretty moody and reluctant so I’m not that surprised,” Wästberg said after the academy noted that the information had been removed from Dylan’s website.

Wästberg said the academy will now keep a low profile when it comes to Dylan and that it is up to the musician himself whether he wants to come and pick up the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm in December.

“Either he will come, and in that case he is welcome. Or he doesn’t, and in that case we’ll arrange something else during the festivities. He is a laureate whatever he might say,” Wästberg said.

On Saturday, the academy’s Permanent Secretary Sara Danius issued a press release distancing the academy from Wästberg’s comments.

“A writer who has been named a Nobel prize laureate decides her- or himself how she or he wants to relate to the ceremonies linked to the distribution of the prize. The Swedish Academy has never had any opinions on a laureate’s decision on this matter and doesn’t this time either, she wrote.

“One of the academy’s member’s, Per Wästberg, has expressed his disappointment over the fact that Bob Dylan hasn’t responded. This shall be viewed as his personal opinion and not an official statement from the Swedish Academy,” Danius said in the statement.

Dylan, 75, whose lyrics have influenced generations of fans, is the first songwriter to win the literature prize.

Other contenders for this year's prize included Salman Rushdie, Adonis and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

Every December 10th, Nobel prize winners are invited to Stockholm to receive their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf and to give a speech during a banquet.

FASHION

Son and daughters of stars are Paris catwalk’s new royalty

They are fashion's new celebrity aristocracy, the sons and daughters of stars who are themselves becoming the kings and queens of the catwalk shows.

Published: 21 January 2017 13:31 CET
Son and daughters of stars are Paris catwalk's new royalty
Paris Jackson
From Lily-Rose Depp and Will Smith's daughter Willow — the faces of Chanel — to the Beckham boys and Sylvester Stallone's two daughters modelling for Dolce & Gabbana, celebrity offspring are luxury labels' new not-so-secret weapon.
   
With their huge followings on social media and instant name-recognition, these millennials born in the limelight have become the perfect avatars for advertising campaigns.
   
British actor Jude Law's daughter Iris is the new face of Burberry having followed her brother Rafferty in modelling, while the daughters of singer Lionel Richie, Cindy Crawford and even Bob Dylan's grandson have all embarked
on catwalk careers.
 
Michael Jackson's daughter Paris turned up in the French capital this week for a photo shoot, adding her name to a bulging celebrity model roll call that includes the daughter of Oasis singer Noel Gallagher, the son of Isabelle Adjani and Daniel Day-Lewis, the daughter of Nastassja Kinski and Quincy Jones, and the sons of Sean Penn and Pierce Brosnan. 
 
The list is endless and seemingly inexhaustible, with marketing experts maintaining that young consumers cannot get enough of celebrity dynasties. You just have to look at the Kardashians, said Gachoucha Kretz, professor of fashion marketing at the HEC business school in Paris, to see how the model works.
 
They have converted their reality television fame into fashion hard currency, with Kim Kardashian and her half sister Kendall Jenner now established stars of the firmament, their every wardrobe choice scrutinised on social media.
   
Brands hope to piggyback on “the popular fascination with these tribes and families”, Kretz said.
   
With no problem about name recognition “there is much less marketing to do”, she added. “The associations are already created.”
   
With their Instagram or Twitter endorsements of their favoured brands, they become the ultimate “influencers” to help push demand. Aged only 17, Brooklyn Beckham has nine million followers on Instagram.
 
After two years as a model he has branched out into fashion photography, shooting an advertising campaign for Burberry this summer that made headlines around the world.
   
Even fashion's biggest players are happy to play along with the family fame game. Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld, for instance, has been a enthusiastic nepotist, hiring Depp, Smith and Jenner, and taking former supermodel Ines de la Fressange's daughter Violette d'Urso as his muse.
 
“The tabloids and celebrity magazines love these famous families and that assures media coverage,” said Aurore Gorius, co-author of a French book “Sons and Daughters of…”
   
The 2015 book casts a critical eye on the public's fascination with this “phenomenon of elites reproducing themselves and blocking social mobility.
   
“These children have grown up under the eyes of the media and we are curious what will become of them,” she said.
   
Trends expert Cecile Poignant, who teaches at the New School Parsons Paris, said there has been a gradual push towards the “starification of childhood” over the last 15 years.
   
She said it began with photographer Annie Leibovitz's famous front cover of a naked Demi Moore pregnant for Vanity Fair magazine.
   
“For a lot of models and celebrities, the child has become something of a fashion accessory, a must have,” Poignant told AFP.
   
But could the omnipresence of celebrity offspring now finally lead to a backlash.
   
Fashion student Marie Richaud said she found it irksome that their fame “is not based on merit but family links. It excludes”.
   
Even so the 25-year-old follows several second generation celebs on Instagram even if “she doesn't identify with them”.
   
“These children who seems to have had it all give people something to dream about. But at the same time they can just as easily annoy,” said Poignant. “Do any of them have any talent or is their name enough (to succeed)? We will have to wait and see,” she added.