Five minutes to eleven

Used this early 20th century (possibly 1950s) leather wing chair for a client who was less concerned with period than with effect. This type of clubby chair  was very popular up until the 1980s.

While visiting Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler another client expressed a desire to have this chair.  A chair of his own. In principle, I agreed. The room would benefit from the variation in height. However, this was not the right chair.

Searching for the right chair, I came upon this late Georgian example in Scotland. It needed to be relatively inexpensive, and luckily it was, to rationalise the cost of turning it into the right chair...

And here it is, exactly as I imagined it would be, traditionally reupholstered in a hand dyed and finished leather.  In fact, I am so pleased with the result I have decided to put it into production. With a couple of minor tweaks, that is.

There is always time for a smackerel of something.


Now playing: Yello - Goldrush

Butch Queen Vogue Fem

 

Louis Vuitton Vienna ankle boot 

Traditional English Clog

 

 
Nivaldo de Lima - Brazil Bag

 dark brown oiled calf leather trimmed with washed buffalo leather

Now playing: Ultra Naté - New Kind of Medicine

Spirits!

 

Tumbler

 

Sherbet glass

 

Knickerbocker pattern

Designed in 1933 by former Tiffany executive Arthur Douglas Nash for the Libbey Glass Company.

The golden age of Libbey-Nash.

Now playing: Arcanta - Goldensong

Talking heads, II

Like favourite books, film too provides a commonality of language.

Film History by Decade: 100 Years of Movies written and edited by Tim Dirks

The Petrified Forest (1936), 83 minutes, D: Archie Mayo

A screen adaptation of Robert E. Sherwood's play. Vicious killer gangster Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart, in his first major movie role), flees from the authorities with his gang, and holds out with a group of hostages at an Arizona desert roadside service station cafe, the Black Mesa Bar B-Q. Hostages include an idealistic, but disillusioned intellectual/writer Alan Squier (Leslie Howard) and the diner owner's daughter/waitress/poet Gabrielle Maple (Bette Davis), who dreams of a better life and falls in love with him.

The Good Earth (1937), 138 minutes, D: Sidney Franklin

MGM's beautiful film production of Pearl Buck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a peasant couple in rural China. A simple, poor Chinese rice farmer Wang Lung (Paul Muni) weds O-Lan (Luise Rainer) in an arranged marriage. They must endure hard labor, poverty, and a severe drought and famine. During government strife and a revolution that sweeps through the land, their lives are transformed and he becomes the wealthiest landowner in the province. Their efforts and their family disintegrate from his all-consuming greed for money and the devastating effects of a swarm of locusts. In the end, he learns too late that his long-neglected, self-sacrificing wife was the one who had held everything together.

Topper (1937), 98 minutes, D: Norman Z. McLeod

A delightful comedy/fantasy about a free-spirited, wealthy, fun-loving couple George (Cary Grant) and Marion Kerby (Constance Bennett) who are killed in an auto accident. Before they are granted entrance to heaven, however, they must perform a good deed for their bank president - to teach mild-mannered, stuffy and proper Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) to relax and enjoy life's pleasures. They appear at will as haunting ghosts, often at awkward moments, but only to Topper, taking pleasure at embarrassing him in humorous predicaments.

Stella Dallas (1937), 106 minutes, D: King Vidor

A classic and popular dramatic tearjerker/soap-opera, the best version of three attempts (also in 1925 and 1990). The film is the touching portrayal of an upwardly mobile small-town woman Stella Martin (Barbara Stanwyck) who marries an upper-class husband Stephen Dallas (John Boles) and enters into money, but is never able to escape her vulgar and coarse middle-class ways. She loses her husband when he leaves her for a former love, the widowed Helen Morrison (Barbara O'Neil). She then gives up their daughter Laurel (Anne Shirley) to her wealthy father, in a supreme act of self-sacrifice and selflessness, so she will not be in the way of her daughter's happiness or her social and romantic aspirations.

Jezebel (1938), 104 minutes, D: William Wyler

Bette Davis in a magnificent performance often compared to Gone With The Wind - offered to her as consolation by Warner Bros. because she was denied the role of Scarlett O'Hara. Headstrong, spoiled, self-centered Southern belle daughter Julie Morrison (Bette Davis) of a Southern aristocratic family in pre-Civil War New Orleans loses her fiancee Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda) when she stubbornly defies the convention of the day by wearing a scandalous red dress to the Olympus Ball. Embarrassed, he leaves and unbeknownst to her marries a Northerner Amy (Margaret Lindsay). When Preston returns three years later, she begs forgiveness but it is too late, and she suffers hurt and rejection. When an epidemic of yellow jack strikes, she begs Amy to accompany the mortally ill Preston to an island for quarantine and care for him. Davis won her second Best Actress Award for her performance.

The Lady Vanishes (1938, UK), 97 minutes, D: Alfred Hitchcock

Set just before WW II, a young woman (Margaret Lockwood) traveling on a train moving through Europe returning to England, with the help of fellow passenger Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave), seeks to locate a charming elderly lady Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty) who has suddenly disappeared. A suspenseful film, when it is discovered that no one is willing to believe or accept that the lady has disappeared or that she even existed, and when her missing is linked to an espionage plot.

Pygmalion (1938, UK), 96 minutes, D: Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard

A delightful romantic comedy, the first film version of George Bernard Shaw's stageplay and screenplay. A stuffy diction/phonetics teacher, Professor Henry Higgins (Leslie Howard) makes a bet with a friend Col. Pickering (Scott Sunderland) that he can educate and transform a common, coarse Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller) to pass as a captivating English lady/duchess of upper class breeding - within three months - at the Ambassador's Ball. In the process of transforming her, he falls in love with her.

Dark Victory (1939), 105 minutes, D: Edmund Goulding

A melodramatic tearjerker with Bette Davis in one of her most powerful roles. A high-living Long Island socialite/heiress Judith Traherne (Bette Davis) whose eyesight is starting to dim is diagnosed as having a brain tumor. After a seemingly successful operation by her surgeon, Dr. Frederick Steele (George Brent), she falls in love with him and finds happiness, only to discover that she actually has only one more year to live. First resorting to more meaningless parties, rejection of the doctor, and despair, she then finds true meaning and happiness in her life and adds great substance to her final days and dies with dignity.

Gone With the Wind (1939), 220 minutes, D: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, and Sam Wood

de Havilland), and the ineffectual character of Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), the story is told through great spectacle, romance, despair, conflict and travail. With a terrific, lyrical musical score by one of the greatest film composers of all time, Max Steiner.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), 114 minutes, D: Sam Wood

A sentimental romantic drama, the portrait of a caring, well-meaning, but shy and proper Latin schoolmaster Mr. Chipping ("Chips") (Robert Donat) at an English boys school, Brookfield School, in the late 1800s who devotes his life to his students. On a vacation, he finds romance with Katherine Ellis (Greer Garson in her American debut), his future wife, and she transforms his life. With her gentle and kind love and humanity, she is one of the few individuals who truly understands him, and helps him to overcome his shyness and rigidity. Although she passes away during childbirth, her lessons endure and he becomes a popular institution at the school until his retirement and death in his eighties.



Now playing:  Ennio Morricone - Cinema Paradiso

Moderne

Display from the Le Corbuser exhibition staged in Liverpool 2008

The home should be the treasure chest of living.  - Le Corbusier

Now playing: Arcanta - The Solitary Pilgrim

Ox tale

 

Musk Ox rug

Le Corbusier, Model LC3 manufactured by Cassina

 

Reclaiming the moderne.

Now playing: Johann Strauss, the Younger - Russicher, Op 426

She never walked alone

 

Shirley Verrett 1931-2010 

New York Times

Talking heads

 The commonality of a language. Here are some of the building blocks of that language.



Film History by Decade: 100 Years of Movies written and edited by Tim Dirks

 Anna Christie (1930), 86 minutes, D: Clarence Brown

Film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play. One of the earliest talkies, noted for the film in which silent star Greta Garbo first speaks. Her first line of dialogue: "Gimme a viskey..." Garbo plays an ex-prostitute who returns home to locate her barge captain father. She falls in love with a seaman (Charles Bickford), and must tell him and her father about her past.

Blonde Venus (1932), 92 minutes, D: Josef von Sternberg

A camp classic. Helen Faraday (Marlene Dietrich), a cabaret singer, is also a loving mother and wife who sells herself to nightclub owner and wealthy playboy Nick Townsend (Cary Grant) in order to pay for her scientist husband Edward's (Herbert Marshall) medical bills so that he can go for treatment in Europe. Her husband is an American chemist dying of radium poisoning. Upon his return from treatment, he discovers her liaison with Townsend and files for divorce and custody of their son Johnny (Dickie Moore). In the end, her husband realizes that her sacrifice was for his cure, and they are reconciled.

Grand Hotel (1932), 112 minutes, D: Edmund Goulding

An MGM all-star classic film and soap opera - Best Picture-winning film. World War I is over, and Berlin's beautiful, art-deco Grand Hotel is busy with the intersecting lives and destinies of its glamorous guests in a 24-hour period. The dramatic ensemble cast includes a weary, unloved and lonely ballerina Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo), a financially-destitute nobleman and jewel-thief Baron Felix von Gaigern (John Barrymore) who she falls in love with, a sexy hotel stenographer Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford) who meets a dying clerk Otto Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) searching for a last fling, and a crude industrialist Gen. Director Preysing (Wallace Beery).

Dinner at Eight (1933), 113 minutes, D: George Cukor

A star packed classic masterpiece. A Park Avenue snob Mrs. Oliver Jordan (Billie Burke) invites an assortment of guests to come to a formal dinner party, ignoring the ailments of her husband (Lionel Barrymore). From the time of the invitations to the actual dinner party, vignettes tell the story of the invited individuals, including forgotten stage star Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler), fading matinee idol Larry Renault (John Barrymore), and the battling Packard couple including brassy blonde Kitty (Jean Harlow) and entrepreneur Dan (Wallace Beery)

I'm No Angel (1933), 87 minutes, D: Wesley Ruggles

One of Mae West's funniest films. The star of a side show act is carnival dancer and lion tamer Tira (Mae West). She pursues playboy Jack Clayton (Cary Grant), but later sues him for breach of promise. In the hilarious courtroom scene, he counters by assembling all her ex-lovers, but then allows her to win the case.

Little Women (1933), 117 minutes, D: George Cukor

Regarded as the best of all versions. A delightful and faithful screen adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's classic American story of the March sisters and the sorrows and joys of the New England family. Father March has gone off to fight in the Civil War, so the family is left with four very independent sisters who are all coming of age, including an outstanding Katharine Hepburn as tomboy Jo, who wants to be a writer. Each of the sisters finds independence and strength, and some find romance.

Cleopatra (1934), 102 minutes, D: Cecil B. DeMille

DeMille's extravagant production of the spectacular historical epic of the Egyptian Queen of the Nile. Seductive, mysterious, and voluptuous Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) flirts openly with Roman lovers. After the death of Julius Caesar (Warren William), she focuses her attention on Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxon).

Imitation of Life (1934), 106 minutes, D: John M. Stahl

The film adaptation of Fannie Hurst's melodramatic novel. A sentimental soap opera about an ambitious widow/working girl Beatrice Pullman (Claudette Colbert), her daughter Jessie (Rochelle Hudson at age 18), her black housekeeper/maid Delilah Johnson (Louise Beavers), and her maid's daughter Peola (Fredi Washington at age 19) whose light complexion enables her to pass for white. Beatrice goes into a successful pancake restaurant business with Delilah. The film deals with disappointments in personal relationships and questions of identity and racial confusion.

The Thin Man (1934), 93 minutes, D: W.S. Van Dyke

Based on the Dashiell Hammett detective story. The first (and considered the best) in the entertaining series of six films, the debut of the charismatic, beloved team of Powell/Loy as the suave, sophisticated, happy, and fun-loving detective couple. Retired police detective Nick (William Powell) and wealthy wife Nora Charles (Myrna Loy), with the help of their dog Asta, are asked to investigate the disappearance/murder of Dorothy Wynant's (Maureen O'Sullivan) missing father, screwball inventor Clyde Wynant (Edward Ellis). With witty dialogue, clever bantering between the two, wisecracks, sophisticated humor, romance, and an intriguing plot.

The 39 Steps (1935), 87 minutes, D: Alfred Hitchcock

One of the all-time great thrillers, Hitchcock's first great masterpiece. In London, a visiting/vacationing Canadian rancher Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) attends a Palladium vaudeville act. When a shot rings out, he ends up in the company of a frightened woman, a female British agent Miss Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim). He is given a map of Scotland and told about an international spy ring (with vital national security secrets) run by a man missing part of one finger. Sheltering her for the night, she is murdered, and he finds himself as an innocent man who must avoid police authorities (who suspect him of the murder) and avoid pursuit by spies (who want to silence him). He takes on her mission, and following the only clues he has, ends up in Scotland. On the way, he is handcuffed by the spies to a strange woman Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), who at first hates him believing he is a criminal, but ends up in love with him and helping him solve the case.

Camille (1936), 110 minutes, D: George Cukor

The film version of Alexander Dumas' novel, with Greta Garbo's greatest performance in one of the best romantic films of all time. Marguerite, "lady of the camellias" (Greta Garbo), a lovely Parisian courtesan (prostitute) is a kept woman by wealthy Baron de Varville (Henry Daniell). She falls in love with Armand (Robert Taylor), a young innocent man, but then sacrifices herself for him when his father (Lionel Barrymore) asks her to give him up. With a classic, tearjerking death scene conclusion.

My Man Godfrey (1936), 94 minutes, D: Gregory La Cava

One of the first and best of the screwball comedies, a very zany, humorous classic. A group of extremely wealthy Park Avenue socialites holds a scavenger hunt, and one of the participants, ditzy blonde Irene Bullock (Carole Lombard) finds a "forgotten man" at the dump for her list of odd items. The down-and-out, unemployed and homeless bum Godfrey Parke (William Powell) is in fact a blueblood who has had a run of romantic bad luck, a product of the Depression. Back at the party in the hotel, he speaks to the crowd about the insensitivity of their quest. She gives him a job as the family butler and brings him home. In the wealthy, snobbish household, he attempts to set things straight, teaches them a few lessons, and ultimately marries Irene.


Now playing: Morrissey - That's How People Grow Up

Winter requisites

BLAAK HOMME - Goggle sunglasses

 WOOLRICH WOOLEN MILLS - Multi-pocket lumberjack jacket

 

BLAAK HOMME -Donkey jacket

 

LVC: LEVI'S VINTAGE CLOTHING - 1936 Type 1 jacket

 

 ISAAC SELLAM - Deer skin gilet

 VIVIENNE WESTWOOD - Banana jeans

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD - Low crotch cuffed jeans

 

  VIVIENNE WESTWOOD - Alcoholic check trousers

 

CHANEL  -  Coromandel

....an olfactory depiction of the lacquered Coromandel screens Mademoiselle cherished. Created by CHANEL Master Perfumer Jacques Polge in 2007, the elaborate scent unfolds in undulating detail, starting with an amber vibrato, followed by dry notes of Frankincense and Benzoin, then, soulful woody notes that add elegance and depth to the sensuous accord's striking trail.

Now playing: Nat King Cole - Autumn Leaves

Children!

Kevin Aviance - Freak It

They say It Gets Better. The truth is, it gets fucking amazing. One just needs to be open -  what is needed is not always the same as what is desired.

What'll it be, Four Roses, Old Grand-Dad or Wild Turkey?

Like I told the bartender in the last club of the night, Darlin' at this point it really dosen't matter.

Bourbon Glazed Chops

Bourbon - 3 fingers, 4 if you have small hands or glasses

Brown Sugar - 2 tablespoons

Grainy Mustard - tablespoon

Salt and Pepper

Marinate for an hour 

Pan fry in a heavy skillet, turning once and deglazing pan with the remaining marinade. Finish under a hot preheated grill.  Serve with a hearts of Romaine salad with blue cheese dressing.

Donna Hay's Blue Cheese Dressing

Blend:

• ¼ cup (75g) whole-egg mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons water
• sea salt and cracked black pepper
• 100g soft blue cheese, chopped

Now playing: Billie Holiday - One for my Baby

This too seemingly went unnoticed

 

The greenhouse with its trompe l’oeil murals by Fernand Renard.

 

A detail from the Renard mural. 

View of the arbor from the greenhouse

 The basket house replete with its painting by Georges Braque.

Mrs. Paul Mellon’s fabled Virginia estate, Oak Spring, photographed by Jonathan Becker

 Bunny Mellon’s Secret Garden  

by James Reginato

Vanity Fair, August 2010

Now playing: Dinah Washington - Blue Gardenia

Why?

Pink Cadillac by Natalie Cole

Mrs Blandings and Easy and Elegant Life can tell you.