{oh joy}

Possibly the best dressed children I have ever seen! I come back to this image again and again for inspiration...

{bat woman}

Albert-Joseph Penot, Bat Woman, 1890.

{people}

{a dash of japonisme}

Japonisme galore! I love a hint, no a DASH of the Orient. The colours, the layering of patterns over more delicious prints, fruit blossoms and embroidered silks. The kimono, haori and obi are phenomenal canvases for some of the most beautiful textiles in the world, and yet still somehow conform to the petite frames of their wearers without overwhelming themI. An endless source of inspiration.

{black + metallics}

The Penguin F. Scott Fitzgerald Collection designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith is utterly delectable. Bickford-Smith is also the creator for the very popular clothbound Penguin classics series. They change the whole experience of reading these beloved novels and prove that a Kindle or electronic book cannot compete with the real thing. At least, I don't think so! The smell of freshly printed pages on yellowed paper, the texture of shiny metallic foils and printed cotton is unique and should not be missed!

{collecting}

{things i heart}

A little colour story for your delectation. I adore saturated reds, pinks and cyan together, sharpened up by crisp white. This post is also here to announce a weekly theme entitle *Things I Heart*. Images that float around in my collection that defy categorization, and yet stimulate and move me. So now they have their place, right here. In my heart. Awww.

Other than that, there aren't too many links between the subjects, thought I've noticed there are many nature-inspired prints and patterns that I find dizzyingly delicious.

Hope you enjoy this moodboard of sorts!

Sighhhh... or *dribble* as Ali from Speak Easy Loves would say.

{cottage industry}

I just re-read an old post, and notices a comment at the end about J. Morgan Puett from lovely Charlotte! Thanks for the link - I'd seen images from Mildred's Lane, but I wasn't aware of the extent of Morgan's work, and here's a fascinating excerpt from her artist's statement:

In 1984 I was attempting to research detailed aspects of working people's clothing from 1900-1930 in the costume archives of the Metropolitan Museum, and I was told that no specimens of these clothes survived. The actual reason for this was a shock to me – the clothes had been worn to dust, altered, patched, turned into quilts, chair backs, and curtains, passed down, and eventually used as rags. It was the fact that everything that was part of early vernacular culture was constantly being re-used, re-shaped, and re-worked – in a continuous act of invention that permanently shaped my practice. Categories shifted – clothing became furniture became architecture and vice versa – this changed my thinking about material culture and the inherent fluid nature of things. I realized that these histories and practices needed to not only be preserved and represented in museu

ms but also activated in contemporary public life.

I can't think of a more interesting, relevant attitude to working with our environment.

The images below are from a project Puett collaborated on entitled 'Cottage Industry': In Cottage Industry Puett draws from a deep local rootedness of history and imagery to evoke, through textiles, stories of feminine pursuits at home, women's work and roles, and industrial sites of exploitation. For this project she takes female garments through making and through history -- from designing to dyeing to sewing to marketing, from the 18th century to the present -- employing extensive research and extended collaborations with artists and others from the city and region.

Who wouldn't create something wonderful in this space?

{stormy} grey's

*abundance* and *florizel*

I just love the palette's in these images. They're part of my inspiration moodboards that I've assembled for various design projects I have going at the moment. There's a melancholy mood, except for the interior shot which has a more whimsical, fresh feeling. The rough boards next to the chandelier are so happy-making!

This hat is so divine.

Sighh. I'd like to make that dress. And strew the dried flowers over her. And then pen a poetic sentence underneath it. Heaven.

{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.