A thick 400 page book including 32 pages of photos, long volume since it's about an exceptional family, the Vartans including her extraordinary career. Her father Georges Robert Vartan (Francophone, 1912-1970) and brother Eddie (1937-2001) both an artistic soul and her mother Ilona (Hungarian, 1914-2007) graceful and tolerant. Each of them was a self-starter and quickly assimilated into France.
In spite of being in high spirits on the day I had it in 2004, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the amount in French and skimed through it. In fact, I didn't really understand how serious such things as emigrating (even with visa) from a country under communism, Bulgaria to France and living in exile until much later on or only the early summer of 2025 (the year of her ultimate grand concerts in Paris "JE TIRE MA REVERENCE"). At the moment when my PC suddently ran into a problem, I decided to read it all slowly and carefully but was so drawn into the first 100 pages (her birth through to adolescence, age 14 or 15) that I took a break.
Readers will be transported to the time (the mid-1940s to 1950s) in Sofia and Paris and even shed tears when her dearest grandparents and her family parted ways at the train station. On the other hand, her mother often makes us smile in Paris. She bought Sylvie a nice duffle coat and then humorously announced at home "We'll be now eating pasta a whole week!" and laughed optimistically. Her father and mother each respectable and generous. The family was blessed with special friends (two families moved from Sofia too) and good people during their hardest time in Paris. Sylvie, an intelligent literary girl and an aspiring actress/writer, obedient to her parents, feels and thinks a lot. She was ultimately grown up in a loving environment. The Vartans owned their appartment in less than four years since their arrival in Paris in December 1952 (Sylvie, age eight). Triumph against adversity.
It seems that her personality and thoughts and all are condensed in her first 15 years of existence and the one quarter alone of this heavy bestseller autobiography tells such an intense life, including European situation around/after World War II. It hit me so hard in the heart. I recall what Sylvie said in many interviews.
Those days are not at all in the so distant past and today in the 2020s, there are still international relentless invasion and conflicts. I will reread the first impressive 100 pages so that I learn it by heart (!) and finish at long last this precious "souvenirs" (memories) that Sylvie dedicated to her family. A must-read publication.
A la memoire de mon pere et d'Eddie.
A ma mere.
Pour David, Darina, Ilona et Emma.
Et pour l'homme que j'aime, Tony.
Book cover: Ilona Vartan and Sylvie Vartan during their trip to Egypt, where Sylvie visited with her mother and son, David. (around mid-1970s)
Memoirs of her mother Ilona Vartan (born in Hungary, 1914-2007), who was and is role model to Sylvie Vartan as well as what kept the Vartan's spirits up. Ilona Vartan always stood by her daughter Sylvie, who traveled and travels a lot around the world professionally and personally. She lived in Bulgaria, France and America, being always with Sylvie, besides her homeland Hungary as a child, a daughter of a prominent architect, who accepted the Bulgarian goverment's request to come and work for the national recovery after the First World War.
Sylvie said, appearing on the news program Journal 13h of France national television F2, it's the life of an exceptional woman who came through all moments of a century, the turbulent 20th century as well as love for her mother that dictated and had control over its direction to write this book "Maman..."
* au Dome de Paris - 8, 9, 10 November 2024
au Palais des Congres de Paris - 24, 25, 26 January 2025: -
Outline of the concerts and 4 dessins of the several costumes per Stephane Rolland
Author : Benoit Cachin
Publication: 7/11/2024
Editeur : Grund
size : 220 x 30 x 290 mm
weight (approx.) : 1.8 kg
Number of pages : 288
ISBN-10 : 2324035995
ISBN-13 : 978-2324035999
Author : Benoit Cachin
Book title : "SYLVIE VARTAN La plus belle pour aller chanter"
Publisher : Grund
Publication date : 7 September 2017
size : 215 x 280 mm
Number of page : 288
It's a little thing but I wonder what's the particular reason for choosing this photo (1982 ?) for the book - Hommage to Sylvie Vartan, who announced her ultimate concerts in Paris. Many fans know that this famous black dress with white (organdy/silk?) collar YSL is Sylvie's favorite, though.
His previous title : Sylvie Vartan Jour apres Jour (2008).
Title : Sylvie Vartan - Le tourbillon d'une vie
Author : Christian Cazalot, Eric Cazalot
Editor : XO editions
Publication : 20 May 2021 (France)
Language : French
Number of page : 414
size : 152 x 35 x 240 mm
Most punctual publication of the first official biography of Sylvie Vartan, who celebrates her 60th anniversary of active creative stage career in 2021. Writing after Sylvie Vartan's two autobiographies (2004 bestseller/2016). It must be worth having and reading this thick French volume.
Still, I wish the book cover were a picture of Sylvie Vartan today, rather than an easy and imcomplete reproduction of the original superb photograph (* 1994) so as to be a perfect commemorative issue.
( * French magazine ELLE - on the cover of no. 7 November 1994 - gracefully featured this Sylvie Vartan in Christian Dior with mostly black and white colors.)
PARIS musees - Les Musees de la ville de Paris
Exposition : SYLVIE VARTAN, REVUE DE MODE
Period : 16 October 2004 - 27 February 2005
size : 170 x 235 x 18 mm
Number of page : 223
Artistically superb and handy catalogue in extremely impressive European crimson red with a matte cover and most iconic look of Sylvie Vartan wearing a summer hat (1965, just before age 21). A grand exposition in the context of mode of the history of Sylvie Vartan, a vibrant concert live performer. Debut in 1961 at age 17 with immediate success and before long she started collaborating with world-class couturiers including Yves Saint Laurent. It must have been worth a DVD. I wished I were in France or in Europe. Fortunately, we could see it in short videos of French media on this event, which is not a project any singers or actors could make. Sylvie Vartan with versatile ability and quality is never easy to describe exactly, however, the exposition shows an important aspcet of Sylvie Vartan.
Our younger days with Sylvie Vartan, it's a recollection, book of testimonies by Sylvie Vartan fans of their encounters with the artist of their own motive that contains thrilling anecdotes of the past forty years (1961-2001). The fifteen fans are from several different generations. A lovely handy book one-cm-thick with an impressive photo of Sylvie Vartan 1968 (*) on the cover and Sylvie and her adolescent fans at the airport Orly on one Sunday in 1967 on the back. It's more than happy to see and talk with someone they truly love. It leaves a strong impression with joyful look of the both sides, fans and Sylvie. A rare photo of Sylvie's mother Ilona Vartan and a teenage girl, who visited their residence while Sylvie was away, on a walk together with Sylvie's dog is also included. Formidable book - a truth free from vanities - as a way to pay homage to the artist. The top page says: A Sylvie Vartan (To Sylvie Vartan). Touching in total.
( * Sylvie at L'Olympia Paris 1968 in her iconic dress with elaborate jewelry stone handwork by Yves Saint-Laurent.)
The entire proceeds from the book is to benefit ASVB L'Association Sylvie Vartan pour la Bulgarie (Sylvie Vartan Association for Underprivileged Children), the humanitarian activities of Sylvie Vartan devoted to improving the living conditions of deprived children. Sylvie established it with her brother and musician Eddie Vartan in Dec. 1990, two months after their first return to their homeland Bulgaria in thirty eight years. It was for her first and unique concert in Sofia, just one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Communist rule in Eastern Europe.