Coveting 11.3.10

I would like this bookcase, please. Thanks. That will be all. Oh, and an apartment to put it in too, please. Think you can take care of that for me?

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2.20.10 Coveting

There is something about this room that has weirdly captivated me. I think I’ve returned to it at least 8 or 9 times since I first saw the slideshow the of the house (which is in itself entirely covetable. Anyone want to help me turn some poor Dutch family out of their awesome modern home so I can take up residence? I’ll buy you beer.)

I never thought I’d be this into a bathroom, of all things, but there’s something about the combination of the clean lines of the fittings against the big pane of glass that just makes me want to grab a glass of wine and a good book and lounge around in the tub all evening.

Here’s a picture of the house itself, and the orange kitchen counter, another attractor. I strongly encourage anyone inspired by this to go look at the rest of the slideshow.

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Past Fashions: Techno

I think we can all agree that Amber Valletta is a golden goddess. For the Techno editorial in i-D October 2002, photographer Craig McDean brought out another side of her– badass and sharp, drawing attention to the almost-masculine strength of her features rather than focusing on her blonde beauty. The effect is so stylised as to be almost cartoony, in the best possible way– highly graphic, with the three-colour scheme forcing the editorial to the viewer’s attention. I love this image of her as a butt-kicking, leatherclad troublemaker.

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Never thought I would meet an object that so thoroughly would fulfil my loves for both furniture and typography. I think the only way I could love it more would be if the letters were backward. Sooooo very cool however.

from Kent and London. Yours for a mere £2700.00.

(Aside: I love the way pound signs look in this font. £££. ££. £. Yay!)

Leon Bakst

I’m a not-so-closet ballet devotee. I’m amazed by the strength dancers have, and the incredible grace and control they have over their bodies. This interest coupled perfectly with my love of Russian history to allow me to discover the designs of Leon Bakst, one of the major set and costume designers for the Ballets Russes.

I first discovered Bakst while spending the summer studying Russian in St. Petersburg. During the White Nights Festival, theatre, opera and ballet tickets are ridiculously cheap. I took the opportunity to glut myself on culture, attending a different perfomance every night and emerging afterwards into a magical world where the sun still blazed overhead at eleven pm. The atmosphere combined perfectly into an aura of fairytale. I made a lot of ballet converts that summer. In the middle of this, I found myself talking to one of my Russian teachers about my theatre-going experiences. She replied that I must, then, know about the Ballets Russes. When I confessed my ignorance, she shook her head impatiently, frog-marched me to the library and thrust a book on the subject into my hand. The book fell open at the illustration above and I fell in love.

Bakst’s work is redolent of the magic of the theatre for me. It carries all the imaginative, folkloric qualities that so seduced me the first time I went to a performance as a child. Looking at his work makes me think of a peek into the Arabian nights or a book of Russian fairy tales, rich and over-the-top with precisely the right amount of fantasy and humour. Added to all of that is the incredible lushness of his colours and the amount of detail he went in to with his designs. I could go on about him– and the Ballet Russes in general, for tha matter– at greater length, but I’ll stop here and let the designs speak for themselves.

Above image: Nijinsky, for L’Apres-Midi d’un Faune

Costume design for Tamara Karsavina in The Fire-bird

The Fire-Bird

Le Dieu Bleu, Bayadere with Peacock.

Le Dieu Bleu, the Bride.

Le Sultan Samarcande

Le Sultan Vindicatif

Narcisse Bacchante

Sadko

from Scheherazade

from Scheherazade

The Wolf from Sleeping Beauty.

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If you’re anything like me, you might occasionally have trouble defining yourself, figuring out who you really are. You might be able to don an identity for a day, depending on who you’re meeting and what you’re doing, but come time to label yourself in one manner or another, your mind goes blank. Thank goodness that we have perfume around to define us in ways that we cannot.

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These last three really dig into the meat of what it means to be a woman. Thank heavens for perfume!

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Do the Skate.

This ad above easily could have been the inspiration for American Apparel’s advertising campaigns. Minus the hearty dose of wholesomeness that seems to come with doing the skate. These kids are so white and all-American that they clearly will never be engaging in any of the deviant acts that the AA models seem to engage in on an hourly basis, between spates of thrusting their crotches out at you from the pages of magazines and unzipping their jumpsuits on website sidebars. Yes, little bit  annoyed at the fact that I feel as though I’m looking at soft-core porn whenever I use a website with one of their ads on it.

Rant aside, I am now sorely saddened that I am not among the elect that is blessed with the knowledge of how it  is exactly that one does the skate. Is it like the mashed potato? Or am I displaying my sore ignorance of eras and their dance movements? I fear I will never be able to capture the ideal of joy, as seen in the strangely awkward poses here. I shall have to temper my sadness with viewings of the other ads below, in their full cheesy vintage glory.

[source] Just look at these two thugs. A regular pair of Bonnie and Clydes.

[source] I think I used to own this very shirt, as a joke.

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Divorce Rings

In these days when divorce is so prevalent, it’s good that someone has thought of a way to make something beautiful of a depressing subject.

Gisele Ganne takes inspiration from traditions of marriage, divorce and mourning to create beautiful, subversive jewelry. These knuckle-dusters pictured are from her “Divorce Jewelry” line, playing on such things as the Bride Globe, a traditional French present to the bride at her wedding. She also draws heavily upon traditional symbols related to these themes, such as roses, forget-me-nots, ivy, and more macabre things like skulls.

Associations aside, these rings are just plain cool. You may have noticed that I have just the slightest bit of a penchant for big unusual statement-y jewelry, and these rings absolutely fit the bill. The macabre themes are a bonus, with my love of all things creepy. I came across them while looking for knuckle-dusters in general. Could I just get over my vague feeling of bad luck with the themes they’re representing, and had I 2000 pounds to drop on a ring, I would definitely pick one up.

The three rings below are from her Mourning series, and definitely more affordable and suited for everyday use. I love the silver “diamond” supported by the two skulls. Beautiful!

Should you find yourself less financially limited than me, her rings are available for purchase at Kabiri.

The start of an infinite recursion

One of this generation’s eccentrics with one of the past on her shirt. Delightfully mind-blowing.

Agyness Deyn (I hate writing out her name) wearing House of Holland’s Anna Piaggi shirt. I’m hoping Deyn is wearing the flower hat as an homage to Piaggi and not of her own volition, else I might have to smack her.

via know magazine.

Saul Bass

Posting the Blow-Up poster the other day made me think of other favourite movie posters, which then of course made me think of Saul Bass. Here’s a collection of some of his works.

This poster below was made for The Magnificent Seven, but never used. It’s my favourite of the lot.

He was also famous for his title sequences.

Here’s the fantastic sequence to Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder:

The Seven-Year Itch

Bunny Lake is Missing

North by Northwest