Via Vogue, local filmmaker Michael Cain and now D's FrontBurner comes word that Edwige Belmore has died. Vogue makes mention of her passing because of her association with countless bold-faced names, from Sade to Andy Warhol (their famous kiss here) to Grace Jones, and the fact she was a singer and "androgynous beauty who mixed Le Smoking with safety pin earrings and her trademark bleach-blonde chop [who] cut a singular figure in the nightlife scenes of both Paris and New York City." But as Peter Simek of D notes, she was also quite the singular figure in Dallas in the mid-1980s.
After all, she helped Blake Woodall and Phillipe Starck open the Starck Club. But she was ultimately more important than both, because if she didn't like the way you looked or acted, you couldn't get into the Starck Club. Simple as that. (I have a very vague memory of going to the Starck very early on with my cousin and our friends Paul and Lauren and deciding there was no way we'd make it past the intimidating woman working the door. They were older; I was around 16 but, ya know, tall for my age. Still, I don't think we even tried.)
"It's just a matter of behaving," she told The Dallas Morning News in for a High Profile takeout in May 1984. "It's not even the way they're dressed. It doesn't matter if they're wearing jeans. ... Money has nothing to do with it. Some people belong to some nights, but don't belong to other nights."
How that never became Dallas' Official Motto remains one of life's great mysteries.
Belmore pops up repeatedly in Michael Cain's in the finishing-finishing-finishing stages documentary about the Starck. She spoke at great length about her time in Dallas, which came courtesy Phillipe Starck, who designed Blake Woodall's club and, in 1982, recommended Belmore for the front-door gig -- perhaps the most important job at the club.
"A teacher of door policies." That's how she describes her job in this clip. Beats anything else you can come up with.
In another clip, she explains why she stick around long after Starck moved on. Said Belmore of her friend and collaborator and kinda-sorta boss, "He's a designer. He doesn't live with each one of his designs. The fact that we were part of the creation of the Starck Club in his heart and his mind, it made sense we stayed to make sure that our job was going to be properly done or fulfilled."
It's not clear how old Belmore was at the time of her passing. Ageless, more than likely.
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