Hello, Dali!

His pictures always make me laugh so much! Can you imagine how much fun it must have been being him?

Stuff of Nightmares

So, this is apparently the week when I steal inspiration from my friends.  I got an email this morning pointing me towards Juxtapoz Magazine’s blog post about Takato Yamamoto’s amazing artwork, and ever since I’ve been obsessed, doing nothing but look through page after page of his paintings. This was rendered slightly sketchy, due to the fact that I was at work and a great deal of his pieces are inspired by Japanese rope bondage and S&M. I kept accidentally clicking on the bad ones just as my supervisor was walking by. Sigh.

Disregard of being thought the office perv aside, what attracts me so much to Yamamoto’s paintings is the dreamlike combination of elements to be found in them. As I said, a lot of them draw inspiration from S&M (not many of the ones I’ve put up here, as I didn’t have time to study those as much to see if I liked them.) The influence of that and other erotica is definitely felt, but I’m much more interested in the images from folklore and horror conventions. The drawing style also reads to me as quintessentially Japanese, the tight lines and small details simultaneously evoking things as wide-ranging as horror manga, tattoo art and Hokusai. I love the use of anatomy, the organic details, the mysterious looming presence of the moon. I also love the intensity and simplicity of his palette (which I just wrote as palate– though with drawings like these one might wonder if he can stomach things, or if he is plagued by the monsters he creates.)

I’ve put up a lot of pictures, but it was very hard to edit it down to even this. I strongly urge you to go look at his works elsewhere and see what other things he has to offer. Everything is basically along these lines, but the variations can be rather glorious.

 

Horror take on Little Red Riding Hood. I love it, queasily. Look at the blood spatters on the post and her leg. I’m so curious, but I’m not even sure I want to know what happened there.

He makes it weirdly beautiful, right?

The blog post also features a pretty interesting interview with him, so I urge you to check it out.

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I love these pictures of dancers. The lights and movement make them look almost abstracted. The gauziness of the skirts is just amplified. Gorgeous!

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Channelling…

 

That’s it. This woman is going to be my inspiration today, red chiffon wrap, bored look and all. I do think her look is just what I need to add some zing to my day. What is a “Snow-Ball of Fire”, anyway? I’m intrigued but slightly terrified.

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Role Model

I have a whole plan for when I’m 80. It involves  a motorcycle, a great wardrobe, younger lovers and general eccentricity. Perhaps a greyhound and a sword-cane. All the things I don’t or can’t properly indulge in now (though I can drive said motorcycle).  I’ve always found old women to be the epitome of cool. Their lives have made them a treasure trove of awesome stories, (I just got to hear my friend’s tales of her grandma’s life in Manchuria under the Japanese occupation… fascinating!) sage advice and shameless quirks. Most of all, 80 years on the planet pretty much guarantees that whatever clothes you end up . I’ve always loved seeing old Italian women when I’m home, in their perfectly refined coats and dresses, and aspire to dress like them. At the same time, I also find it endlessly apppealing when a woman has spent her life accumulating unique pieces and combining them in new and inspiring ways. That’s where Iris Apfel and her collection come in.

I remember first seeing her in a magazine spread a few years ago, and just fixating on her trademark big round glasses, which somehow managed to stand out to me through the splendid visual clamour of her clothing and jewelry. Then this weekend, amidst glorious girly bonding with one of my dearest friends, it was mentioned that there was an exhibition of her clothing at the marvellous Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. (Aside– if you’re ever in the area, go! The museum is a treasure trove of beautiful objects, and offers a fascinating insight into New England trade culture in the past, notably, beautiful Asian and Native American artwork.) We whipped out the laptops and rediscovered her and her wardrobe– along with paper dolls!–  and spent a good couple hours poring over the website. Or rather, constructing ensembles of our own out of the things they had to play with.

There are many wonderful things about her– firstly, that she is not the idle society wife that springs to (my) mind when the words “clothing collection” are heard. She’s accumulated a lot of clothing, but she has also turned her eye for aesthetics outwards from the fun-filled costumes she crafts for herself to a successful career as an in-demand interior decorator. Aesthetics is a whole lifestyle with her.

She also started the Old World Weavers textile company with her husband, Carl, drawing inspiration from her widespread travels for their replica period fabrics.

What I love most of all about Iris’ approach to clothing is how she manages to break free of her pieces’ backgrounds and use them simply as colours and textures, rather than thinking she needs to stay married to a certain kind of look. The result, with all the unexpected elements is beautiful and unusual. I also really enjoy her stated dislike of fine jewellery. I’ve always found myself much more attracted to organic forms and semi-precious stones than to faceted gemstones (though I wouldn’t turn down an Indian-style necklace made of gemstones) and I applaud anyone who agrees with me on this. It’s a much more interesting look. And I covet this turquoise and bearclaw necklace intensely.

Anyway, poke around and enjoy these other excerpts from her wardrobe, and be sure to go to the Peabody Essex website and play with the paper dolls!

Travel outfit, made with Old World Weavers fabric, custom-woven on 19th century looms. Because why shouldn’t you travel in head-to-toe tiger-print velvet?

And on top of everything, she and her husband are the cutest couple ever:

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Guy Bourdin

Garance just wrote about going to see an exhibition of Guy Bourdin’s videos. Guy is one of my favourite photographers, so I thought I’d take the opportunity of being reminded of him to put up one of my favourites of his photos. It always surprises me how fresh his photographs look. This one seems to be telling a story that’s half Thelma and Louise, half Max Headroom. I love the retro-futuristic vibe of the sunglasses.

This was shot for Vogue, but I sadly don’t know any more information about when where who why how. It was a surprisingly hard picture to track down. His pictures are splayed all over web, but they tend to be the more shock-to-the-gut nekkid-lady style photos he is more known for. It’s also really really hard to google. Result is, alas, no information. I’m guessing Vogue Paris, late  1980s? Regardless, a really awesome picture. I want to hang out with these girls. Hand over the sunglasses, and we’ll see what trouble we can get ourselves into.

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O Dia do Maracatu

 

Brazilian photographer Carlos Cajueiro took these pictures of the preparations for the maracatu rural performance in the village of Nazare da Mata in Pernambuco, in the Northeast of Brazil. He says that its his first year taking close portraits of the people involved in the festival. Previously, he would just take pictures of the preparations and dancing for further away. I think the results are just wonderful. The colours of the costumes and the expressions on their faces are really gorgeous.

I first heard about maracatu in Portuguese class, and I’ve been dying to see it ever since. It’s a performance form originating in Congo, and from what I can glean, contains costumes and elements designed to represent the history of royalty and slavery. Fascinating.

 

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Anouk Aimee

I love Daul Kim, and am oddly loving her even more as a blonde, despite my habitual knee-jerk loathing of brunettes hitting the bottle. I’m also really into this editorial she did for Russh Magazine #31. Her looks throw a kink into the dirty-motel, middle-America where she’s portrayed, to wonderful effect. The photographs bring out a sense of nostalgia for road trips not taken and seedy underbellies not explored.

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and Daul’s wonderful blog can be found here.

Dressed Down

I feel like this portrait of Daria by Hedi Slimane is pretty close to the Platonic ideal of casual beauty that all things like Gap ads and so on shoot for. I never really noticed before quite how beautiful her face is. Obviously I was aware that she is beautiful, but it had not really struck me until now.The contrast against the sloppy clothing really brings it out. Hedi is usually able to bring out new details from his subjects, though, so this revelation ought to come as no suprise. I’m really quite fond of this photograph.

Daria Werbowy by Hedi Slimane for Paris Vogue August 2007.

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