Ahoy!
Welcome on board for a night devoted to Jean Genet, chanson, shanties and sailors! Expect jaunty mariners at the bar, French chanson and sailor shanties echoing around the officers mess and the twinkling of stars above the starboard bow as we take you on a Genet inspired nautical evening of fabulousness!
Live music throughout the evening from 2befrank, Keziah Hodgson, Medusa Has Been and Frankie Heartless, plus if you come early you can watch an interview with Jean Genet plus archive of Querelle, sailors and all things nautical and naughty! Your host is the hammerhead obsessed Martin O’Brien and there might even be a few sharks dotted around the bar!
Why do we love the erotically charged sailor image so much? Jean Genet, Kenneth Anger and Fassbinders iconic sailor iconography has created an enduring legacy. Sometimes, the fashion legacy of a famous figure owes itself not to the way they dressed but the sartorial influence of their life’s work. French avant-garde writer Jean Genet's inversion of the moral and literary zeitgeist gave way to an enduring romanticism with French vagrancy and a tawdry underworld that continues to inspire artists, musicians and fashion designers to this day. Emblematic of Genet’s erotically-charged vision is the Breton-striped sailor from his novel Querelle de Brest.
“My Grandmother used to dress me in Breton tops, so when I think of navy stripes I feel a nostalgia for that era when I was growing up. And then of course, there is Jean Genet and Querelle de Brest and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film of that novel. At the beginning of the 1980s, I started wearing the Breton stripe top again. I wore them everywhere, even with a tuxedo for gala evenings. I paired them with everything – jeans, even a kilt” – Jean Paul Gaultier
Doors open at 7pm, Genet interview documentary at 7.15pm, live music from 9pm! See you on the starboard side!