love

this
 

song

Mission: Impossibly Smart

Boiled leather and stainless steel chair

by

Simon Hasan

 

Johnson Trading Gallery

Now playing: Sade - Skin

Peek-a-boo

I've been doing my washing today, haven't got a stitch on except my shoes.
I'm all in the rude under this dress...

I only tell you 'cause you are bound to have noticed.

Imperial Chinese court summer robe of embroidered gauze

You...uh...you can't see through this dress can you? 

I have been worried for fear of embarrassing you...

Oh, Mr. Sloane! Don't betray your trust...

Kath in the film version of Joe Orton's Entertaining  Mr. Sloane

Now playing:  Siouxsie and the Banshees - Peek-A-Boo

Make room for ...

Oliver Messel: In the Theatre of Design

 Edited by Thomas Messel 

Introduction by Lord Snowdon, epilogue by Anthony Powell with texts by Stephen Calloway, Keith Lodwick, Jeremy Musson, and Sarah Woodcock. 

Now playing: Tchaikovsky - The Sleeping Beauty, Act II. Panorama

S is for...

Serpent

and...

Salviati

Now playing: Blondie - Heart of Glass

Circles

Atsuko Tanaka
(1931-2005)

The formally trained Japanese artist who rejected the traditional notions of art 

and went in search of what she called... unknown beauty.

Untitled, 1964

Museum of Modern Art

Golden Work A, 1962

87H, 1987

Untitled, 1961

Round on Sand, 1968

Now playing: The Beauty Room - Don't You Know

Reformation of a minimalist

There are deep gouges in the parquet flooring, and paint flakes off the ceiling in the fashion designer Sacha Walckhoff’s fifth-floor apartment. He describes it as 'a little shabby’, and explains that the hairline cracks that creep their way up the walls are the result of this part of Paris’s 9th arrondissement being built on swampy ground above a small underground lake. Thus the building, from the 1820s, has been subjected to a fair bit of movement in its lifetime. 'When my mother visits she always says that we should repaint. But I love this. It feels so Parisian. - 

Sacha Walckhoff's eccentric Paris apartment by David Nicholls, The Telegraph

Now Playing: Julie Driscoll - This Wheel's On Fire

Vintage

Miss Hendryx

Above all else...

Jacqueline de Ribes  

by 

Richard Avedon 

Shortly after meeting Diana Vreeland, de Ribes was photographed for the Beauties of Our Time feature which appeared in Harper's Bazaar, April 1956. On working with Vreeland, de Ribes recalled -

 She taught me that day to be very self-confident, and she told me something very important: 
Whatever you are going to decide for yourself is going to be the the right thing. Don't get influenced. -

from,  Diana Veeland: The Eye Has To Travel

Now playing: Nona Hendryx - Now That I Know Who I Am

Let the mind and heart follow

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel

by 

 Lisa Immordino Vreeland

The book that inspired Immordino Vreeland to direct her first film, a documentary by the same name.

Last year, as I was conducting research for a book I’m writing on Mrs. Vreeland, I realised that her real strengths and subtleties needed to be conveyed in a three-dimensional platform in which she could come alive. Film is the most obvious and effective medium to communicate Mrs. Vreeland’s unique and visual journey. Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel will be more than just an intimate portrait of the legendary fashion icon. It will capture Vreeland’s life visually through a multitude of media. Vreeland’s own voice and persona – strong, eloquent and often very exaggerated – will guide us through her life, adventures, accomplishments and passions.

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 3rd September, 2011.

Now playing: Blueboy - Remember Me

Ab Fab

In the 1980s and 90s Sara Thorn was Australian clubland's answer to Zandra Rhodes.

Galaxy,  Melbourne

photograph by Kate Gollings, 1986

The joint venture that Bruce Slorach and Thorn (pictured reclining) established in 1985.  

Galaxy was Thorn's and  Slorach's first shop selling their Abyss Studio label. 

I see textiles not just as fabric, but as a form of cultural communication. - Sara Thorn

Thorn's latest incarnation is WorldWeave, a collaboration with Piero Paolo Gesualdi.

Mermaid Throw

Embroidered Felt Throw

Now playing:  Eskimo Joe - Sarah

Lost and found

The New Cars 1964 

by Lee Friedlander

In 1964, the then up-and-coming  Friedlander was hired by Harper's Bazaar art directors Ruth Ansel and Bea Feitler to photograph the year's new car models. As Friedlander's album covers (for many of the jazz artists at Atlantic Records) had already proven his ability to work on assignment and wishing to obtain his best work, Ansel and Feitlier decided that he should be left to his own devices.

Rather than glamourising  the then ultimate symbol of success, Friedlander ...just put the cars out in the world, instead of on a pedestal. The then editor-in-chief Nancy White was less than impressed and well aware that offending the car manufactures could ultimately harm advertising revenue. 

Though Friedlander was paid, the shots were never used and all but forgotten. That is, until Friedlander rediscovered the negatives in 2010.

Now playing: Gary Numan - Cars