shake your tail feather

Finally, I have managed to photograph my feathered headress! It's made from pheasant, macaw, peacock and wild turkey feathers. Thanks to my mother for hopping out of the car to make the most of a poor roadkill pheasant, and also to Marion, the proud owner of Custard the macaw. Couldn't have done it without you! Merry christmas everyone x

dear lovely {grey}

Taken from Anthropologie.

So like the rest of the world, I too have a deep affection for all things grey. However, I also believe that you can get it really rather wrong. There are cold greys, warm greys, blue greys and pink greys and on and on and on. My mother is particularly fond of grey woodwork, whereas I love how light can transform a grey wall into millions of dappled shades of this gorgeous colour. Though I do like a nice charcoal front door, it has become something of a painful cliche in London. The newly done up white facade, the lavender in the galvanized steel window box, the brushed steel door knocker and the glossy grey front door. I now associate it with rich generic style. Shame. But here are some interiors that offer a more unique use of that darling colour on the spectrum, grey.

More can be found here.

I love how the dark grey floor merges with grey tub. Very clever. I also adore the entrance below. Perhaps this is one grey front door I can forgive! I'm also coveting that table...

A cool grey, modern take. The wood windows, door and floor really help warm this up. Note also that the window wall is painted a warmer shade. This shade should be used in small quantities!

Thank you iSuwannee!

This is one of my favorites, but I think the secret is the molding, which breaks up that deep colour. Also it's incredibly cosy, and the headboard, lamp and rug are bright and heavily patterned which lifts it.

From the wonderful Emma Lee.

*greys & brights*

I present to you the wonderful interiors photography by David Cleveland! I love the grey walls, bright cushions and wellies, and essentially these lovely domestic still lives. Yum! What more can I say?

Love Love Love.

{blood wedding}

Taken from a Life Magazine from the 50s.

I have been designing for Blood Wedding as part of my costume design degree, and I thought I would share some of the images from my moodboards. It's been an intense process! Written in the early 1930s by Federico Garcia Lorca, Blood Wedding is saturated with symbology and themes that are still very relevant today. It is all the more poignant as this very month the Spanish authorities have allowed the mass grave that supposedly holds Lorca's body to be exhumed. Lorca was tragically murdered just before the Spanish Civil War picked up momentum, thought by many to have been targeted for being a radical and outspoken left wing writer who was very popular in the Spanish arts scene of the twenties and thirties. He is also well known as Salvador Dali's lover and a fim was recently made titled Little Ashes about Dali and his love affairs. All in all, it has been fascinating! Hope you enjoy the images below...

The Bride afloat in the current of her passions... and can be found here.

I love the pleating and the make up in this shot. Really inspiring... and can be found here.

So beautiful, and so haunting. More can be found here, which I found via here.

When I can remember how to track this down I will post it again! Isn't it wonderful?

A mold spore under a microscope - surprisingly beautiful, but then, decay is at the heart of the cycle of life so how could it not be? More can be found here.

A wonderful home photo of a 1930s bride...

I have a feeling that I found this still life either on Florizel or Ullabenulla, but unfortunately I gathered it for my image files a long, long time ago! It's one that has inspired me time and time again, so thank you whomever posted it!

Brave woman.

More underwater angels from here.

phoenix from the ashes

I feel moved to write about one of the greatest couturiers of our times - Christian Lacroix. The owners of his company laid off all bit 12 workers, leaving Lacroix in near impossible conditions with which to produce his Autumn/Winter couture collection. The seamstresses and embroiders chose to work for free out of loyalty to Lacroix, and the models were each paid a mere 50 euros - according to French law. Despite all of this, Lacroix has not only pulled through, he has triumphed beyond hope. His skills and mastery were all that were left to him, and is this that we see on the catwalk. His lavish, opulent creations of old are gone, leaving behind the elegant bone structure in view. Lacroix concentrated on wearability, and my goodness I would not mind donning one of his tulle evening gowns or russian capelets one jot! Despite the overall black and navy colour scheme, this is not Lacroix's funeral. Perhaps he is mourning the demise of one era, but only to come out and celebrate the new. Welcome back Lacroix!

Genius.

* * *

{mapping the globe}

Maps and globes - how i love them. When I first tripped my way down the Hall of Maps in the Vatican, I had to resist the urge to go home and cover my walls in poor imitation. I loved all the details - the lapping waves of strange seas, small citadels perched on high hills and unpronounceable names scattered across the land formations. There's a map shop near where i live, and i recently bought a small, unusual map of Trinidad for my father. Written across the near empty interior it says in scrolling script - All the Inland Part is covered with inpenetrable Woods. It harks back to when forests were deep, intractable unknowns. No one really new what lurked in the shadows. I think such unknowns are humbling - yet unfortunately the last of these unknown woods was chartered in Britain by the second world war, when most of our maps were drawn up.

When I was 16, planning my many overseas adventures, I dreamed of coming home and hanging up a world map. I would pin each of my destinations, then string fine red thread from each to mark the succession of my journey. I love the thought that my actions would dictate the eventual tangle and pattern of the thread. Perhaps I'll do it someday... for now, here are some mappish interiors!

Old school maps, maps as wallpaper, globe mobiles, framed and arranged with globes... so many possibilities. I also like the idea of painting your own map as a mural, with strange, dark shadows of forgotten interiors and impenetrable woods... they're magical.

* * *

{anthropologie} *retrospective*

Like many fellow bloggers, I too have been mesmerized by the window displays of Anthropologie. Now that they have finally arrived in London, here's a little retrospective of some of my favorite windows and displays. I love their use of collections - collections of books, balloons, jars, plants, and newspapers - everyday items transformed into exciting wonderful displays via the sheer amount used, and the ingenuity of their arrangement. The one below is so deliciously christmassy...

Book chandelier anyone? Moi, s'il vous plait!

{Riika Sormunen}

A new find that's really excited me to get drawing and use my chalks again! Riika from Oslo can be found here on her charming blog featuring her sketches, and here for some of her more finished illustrations and paintings. I've actually had a go at re-creating the colourful swan princess two drawings down. They say imitation is the best form of flattery... but being able just to draw and look without having to think about what to do next was very freeing. Now I can go on to draw my chalky characters... thank you Riika!

Terrible Beauty

I've been assigned a new project on my costume design course based on Lorca's play 'Blood Wedding'. In my research, i've found myself looking at the myths of the Greek goddess Persephone and of course, the wonderful fruit that is the pomegranate. I immediately thought of the work of Jane Wildgoose (my post titled 'Cabinets of Curiosity', March). Her fascinating on-going work a the Wildgoose Memorial Library is dedicated to:

Persephone, who delighted herself in contemplating beautiful views, flowery meadows and limpid streams*. And to Ceres, her mother, who successfully interceded for Persephone’s safe return to earth for six months each year, after her daughter had been ravished by Pluto and abducted by him to reign as Queen in the infernal regions.

During my research, I stumbled upon the moving-image work of Ori Gersht. Below you can see a still from a piece entitled Pomegranate. You can watch it here {it only takes seconds}. It actually shocked me at first - it's so simple, so obvious, and yet very brutal despite it being incredibly slow. Here's a description below...

In a carefully composed scene reminiscent of a Juan Sanchez Cotan sixteenth-century still life, a pomegranate fruit stands out from a muted, theatrical backdrop. After a few moments, this highly symbolic fruit is exploded by a high-velocity bullet; seeds spilling from its disintegrating carcass in extreme slow motion, and with an eerie and terrible beauty.

Terrible Beauty somehow captures it for me.

Take a look!