Berkelouw’s bookstore was founded in 1812 in Rotterdam by Solomon Berkelouw and has remained in the family since that date.
During World War 2, in 1944, the bookstore was bombed and due to the turbulence in Europe the Berkelouws emigrated to Sydney and opened a bookstore in King Street in the city.
The war and post war years coincided with the events set out in ‘The Paris Model.
I set out this history , especially of the turbulent Word War 2, and Berkelouw’s upheaval thereafter because it closely mirrors the time period of ‘The Paris Model’.
In fact Berkelouw’s was fashion central when Jane d’Teliga interviewed Alexandra Joel about her latest novel.
Jane deTeliga was amongst other things Style Director for the Australian Woman’s weekly, Style and Fashion Editor at the Sydney Morning Herald, European Fashion correspondent for the Australian and Fashion Features Editor at Large for Harper’s Bizarre, Australia.
Alexandra Joel has written two definitive books on the history of fashion in Australia. The first is called ”Best Dressed : Two Hundred Years Of Fashion’, published in 1984. The second is called ‘Parade- The History Of Fashion in Australia’ published in 1988.
She then went on to become Editor of the Australian edition of Harper’s Bizarre and of ‘Portfolio’, Australia’s first magazine for working women.
Her father Sir Asher Joel provided Alexandra with materials about her great grandmotherRosetta who was the relative in the skeleton closet due to her outrageous and unconventional behaviour. This led Alexandra to write her first novel ‘Rosetta-A Scandalous True Story’.
Alexandra found herself with having to link the facts about her great grandmother with imaginings to provide a complete timeline.
This then gave Alexandra the motivation to write a fictionalised novel.
In fact, ‘The Paris Model’ is not wholly fictional as it deals with a real person Grace Woods who left her husband and and idyllic life on a sheep station to run away to Paris to find her identity. She walked into the office of Christian Dior, barged in to see him, and became one of his favourite novels.
He was so taken with Grace’s freshness that he held his first and last exhibition’s outside Paris, in Sydney.
Thereafter, the novel takes flight in to fiction. Grace becomes involved with a lover who turns out to be a spy and becomes involved in his espionage activities thereby putting his life in peril.
Alexandra admits that Grace Wood was the mother of a close friend and she showed the book to her and she loved it.
If you love intrigue and fashion this is the book for you.
Pics by Ben Apfelbaum
