I Love Ballet

Especially Anna Pavlova.What I find so amazing, so inspiring about the art of ballet is the contrasting components. The way a ballerina moves is so graceful, so poised and elegant. Yet, in order to move as they do, they must be incredibly strong. At the same time, a good ballerina can be as delicate as a baby daisy and suddenly propel into a powerful storm of a different kind of grace. A grace that is defined as a warrior-like quality. There's nothing quite like a good ballerina.

Here's some footage of Anna Pavlova performing 'Dying Swan' :

Vogue Italia Gioiello

The latest Jewelry supplement for Vogue Italia included a smorgasbord of beautifully designed covers. In the world of jewelry, almost anything is possible. Almost anything goes. And, almost anything will have its 15 minutes of fame. From the here-forever classics, such as Chanel length necklaces and Audrey Hepburn pearls, to the excitingly explosive trend of a fistful of rings- Jewelry's seen it all. This issue of Gioiello also included a jewelry through the ages editorial- everything from charm bracelets in the '60s to rings with exuberant pigs on them in the '80s. The thing I love the most about jewelry is its innate power. Jewelry has the power to completely change the mood of an outfit. How many ways can one wear pearls? The answer is infinite. Jewelry has the power to manipulate the same simple outfit one day into something completely different the next day.

Alexander McQueen S/S '99

Few designers can execute fashion as art and fashion as fashion at the same time as well as Alexander McQueen. It was a tragic loss for the fashion world when McQueen made his departure. Fashion lost its star performer. Some designers have tried and failed to make their shows as much of an experience as McQueen's. Hussein Chalayan's older shows are among the successful few.

For McQueen's Spring/Summer 1999 runway show, two mechanical robots were stationed around legendary model, Shalom Harlow on a spinning wooden platform. A sense of suspense was built up by the way the robots pensively moved, as if they were contemplating what they should do. When a decision is reached, the way the model reacts is up to our own interpretation. The story is given to us and we are the creators of what is actually happening. It takes a true artist to involve his or her viewer without literally interacting with them. A bond was born between anyone who attended Mcqueen's S/S '99 show, and anyone who ever watches this video.

Marcel Rochas' Seagull Bird Dress

Once upon a time, in the year 1934, a couturier in Paris dreamt of an elegant little black dress. However, this was no ordinary dress. The dress in Marcel Rochas' mind was rather the opposite of ordinary. Attached to the front shoulder would be a seagull, one of its wings, particularly arched and curved forward. Perfectly running alongside any woman's face who had the brilliant opportunity to wear it. Like something straight out of a surrealistic painting, the dress was formulated, constructed and photographed for Harper's Bazaar- all in the year 1934. It's amazing what the past holds, isn't it?

Peggy Guggenheim's Butterfly Sunglasses

Sunglasses will always have a dual purpose of disguising and revealing; both at once. To be incognito or to be rather the opposite? That is the question. There are those who choose to wear their kooky cat eyed sunglasses proudly, and there are those who choose to wear their JC Penny sunglasses as a mask, wherever they go. Indoors or outdoors, walking the streets or riding the subway... Curiously using them as a secret weapon to peer out at the outside world from behind their shield. Sunglasses really are funny things.

Peggy Guggenheim (1898 – 1979) was a American art collector and friend to the surrealists who chose to wear her butterfly sunglasses like a badge of honor. A vision of power; inspiring, shocking, and leaving others in complete awe. Most of these photos were taken around the late '60s.

Candy and a Currant Bun

Edie Sedgwick in Warhol's Poor Little Rich Girl. Soundtrack is Candy and a Currant Bun by Pink Floyd.

Favorites from the September Issues

Ah, September! The month of magazines packed with as many advertisements as they can fit... Each trying to out-do each other in number of pages as well as "Newness". September in fashion marks the month which symbolizes the time when we're really supposed to pull out our Autumn/Winter wardrobes... It's the time when the magazines start to style the models in warm fur coats, luscious leathers, and slick boots. However, it is at the same time Spring/Summer Fashion month. Collections in New York, London, Milan, and Paris are being presented for the seasons that seem so far away, in the middle of September. The fashion world will always be ahead of itself.


Numero China-





Vogue Italia-





Vogue China-



Vogue Portugal-






Vogue Paris-

Pierrot le Fou

Pierrot le Fou (1965) is a French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It follows the events of a man who runs away with his nanny and former flame, Marianne, as they travel further and further into the South of France in attempt to find Marianne's "brother", as well as in attempt to escape the Algerian gangsters she happens to be involved with. The movie is very stylistically strong, belonging to the never formally organized Nouvelle Vague/French New Wave movement. Radical experiments with editing and striking visuals make this film a classic example of European art cinema.

Masked

I leave you this Friday with a photo taken by the french photographer André Ostier of a couple dressed up for a ball given in the 1950's by Baron de Redé at the Hôtel Lambert.

So Light is Her Footfall

With all the crazy shoes designers have the ability to design with the new given technology, spanning from McQueen' alien-like hunched platforms (S/S 2010), the Lego palace Balenciaga shoes (A/W 2007), it's pretty amazing that no designer has yet to tackle the idea of creating some kind of shoe embodying a cat. The closest thing to this idea would perhaps be Topshop's kitty flat. But I'd like to see something even closer to the resemblance of an actual cat. Maybe something like the shoes/feet in Romanian artist Victor Braunser's Mitsi (1939).

The Night Starts Here

Vogue Italia, August 2010, presents rough leathers mixed with almost wimpish whimsical scattered pastel colored tattoos. Add garish golds and hard candy colored lips to the mix, and this is what you get:

Eileen Agar's Ceremonial Hat for Eating Bouillabaisse

Eileen Agar (born 1899) was a British artist whose paintings and photographs are often associated with the surrealism movement. Agar had an interesting life, as she achieved almost overnight success after the first International Surrealist Exhibition in London at the New Burlington Galleries in 1936. One of her most important contributions to the world of surrealism and fashion- both together and as separate things on their own is her Ceremonial Hat for Eating Bouillabaisse. The hat itself was constructed of a cork base, painted yellow and blue, and was decorated with an orange colored plastic flower, a blue plastic star, assorted shells, two types of coral painted green and pink, two star fish, twists of paper, a very large glass bead, a piece of jigsaw puzzle, a piece of tree bark and a large fish bone. Agar placed a high value on the hat, and kept it in her own possession until her death 1991. The hat is now in the Victoria and Albert museum in London.

Be: Jeweled

My quest for the ultimate odd experimentation on my nails continues. This time with a bunch of tiny Swarovski crystals chunked together sitting a top of shiny black polish.