The mother of the muse

 I'm don't consider myself too much of a nostalgic person.
I don't mourn the slow disappearance of the last golden summer, or regret that the beautiful experiences of years past have passed me by, but look forward to the future .  At the same time, I have very lucid visual memories. They often "surprise" me at unexpected times when my head is clear of worry, when a smell, a certain type of light, a touch or a texture reminds me of something I have experienced before. 
I often wonder how memory works, to what extent it is faithful to actual experience and how we may actually subconciously manipulate it. Memory is a strange thing. But off all the things it can do, solve a crime, brighten or darken one's day, send you into mental anguish, I think that one of the most beautiful things it can do is inspire. 


The Ancient Greeks devoted an entire history to the inspirational aspect of memory. 
After purportedly sleeping 9 nights with Zeus, Mnemosyne, daughter of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Sky), and titaness of memory, gave birth to the nine muses: Calliope (Epic Poetry), Clio (History), Erato (Love Poetry), Euterpe (Music), Melpomene (Tragedy), Polyhymnia (Hymns), Terpsichore (Dance), Thalia (Comedy) and Urania (Astronomy).


Coinciding with the launch of her scent DAPHNE created in collaboration with Comme des Garçons, Daphne Guinness' short fashion-focused film 'Mnemosyne' takes its name and inspiration from memory. Created with co-Director David Parker, the film captivates, haunts and entrances us with 'phantasmagoric swirls', luminous colour and a mythological, dreamlike feel set to ambient music. It does not feature logos or any product placement, but stays in the memory and will hopefully arouse the curiosity of potential customers. 





Inspirational.. yes. 
You can vote for Daphne's film and view many more films online at the Webby awards website. 

Information obtained from showstudio.com and little look at a wiki. :)

Jigsaw of experience

 Do you ever look around yourself, among a group of people and wonder what they could all be thinking? How it is to see the same thing you see, at that moment, through different eyes? What is it like to experience life as another person? Why is it that you are you and no one else? What if we could communicate with each other, with things - the teapot, your computer, your biro... on a neural, telepathic level? What would we hear and see? If Time is, as Kant said, a “subjective constitution of the mind”, then do others perceive time/movements/the present differently?

How can this be expressed? How can it be made concrete in fashion? 

Ideas slowly start to form...

I love the fragmentation of light and of the environment around the literal "Man in the Mirror".

Amazingly brave and overheated busker in LA. Images courtesy of Materialiste. 

Cake and Barbie

 Strange how my last few posts (and those of others) just seem to be saturated with screwed-up girliness. I never considered myself a girly girl, but I guess its part of me. As they say, you are what you eat, like, wear... your taste truly does reveal who you are.

Floral calorie explosion

 My favourite perfume and a favourite food item in one. Yes please! 
Unveiled at the Hotel Meurice in Paris for the fifth Anniversary of Viktor and Rolf's perfume Flowerbomb, these tiny cakes are perfect for any modern day Marie Antoinette.  

My love for imaginative, fantastic and sophisticated plating and presentation in food is here combined with the provocative and gentle flavours of my favourite perfume. I for one adore floral flavours in food (violet ice-cream, sakura blossom tea and mochi, jasmine tea, rose bavarois, rose-hip jam, rosewater, hibiscus syrup, lavender crème brulée, orange flower water ... the list goes on, i've tried it and loved it) These little beribboned packages house a praline, rose, bergamot and lime millefeuille with just a hint of jasmine and vanilla, topped off with a green tea biscuit and Viktor and Rolf's seal in chocolate... just what i like/LOVE!

The subtly flavoured mini-mouthfuls, created by Yannick Alléno et Camille Lesecq (head chef and head pastry chef at Le Meurice) will be on the menu for another two months... Someone get me a ticket to Paris!  

Or should I take the challenge upon myself to recreate it?


IT'S FANTASTY! 


(I just had to write that, after making that mistake so many times when trying to write "Fantasy".. the word was begging to be used... It's pretty apt isn't it?)

Let Your Heart Decide

 Indicisive? I sure am. 

It might be the negative side to being open to suggestion. It could be that you like too much or that you simply just don't know what you want. So, let your heart decide....

Time and Layers and Stencils - StenLex

 I'm fascinated by time. 
I'm one of those people who find it very easy to drift off into reverie, to distance myself from the cares and worries of the modern world and sink into that giant hole of contemplation that can either swallow you up and confuse you or lead you somewhere unexpected, enlightening, challenging or exciting. 


As you'd no doubt find, if you tried, trying to define time is extremely complicated. 
We don't usually think about it as the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades (although i have seen very few of them yet) pass us by, yet it affects us so much. Different times involve different spaces, places or situations, frames of mind, states of being... We are chemically different at every single moment. 


Time can be linear (the way most of us understand it - coming from a Newtonian, Judeo-Christian influenced modernity), it may be unreal, or as Kant would have it 'an abstract dimension'; It is not a thing, event or container through which things can flow and be measured, but an intellectual structure. 


Most of us experience time in a linear manner. We look back into the past and forward to the future. Moments in time accumulate,  metaphorically it could resemble a tutu or a stack of paper, one moment on top of the other like layers, and the top most layer is now. 


For this reason, work such as these poster/canvases by StenLex (Sten and Lex), really interest me. The multi-layered pieces combine traditional and modern methods and styles and illustrates the time and effort put into them. It goes without saying that they look amazing! 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/-sten-/

Illusive and intricate but with a visible, obvious subject, at first I thought that they had to be computer generated. The video and further information however illustrates otherwise. Large format street art - there is nothing overly technological about these. It's time consuming, highly technical work - cutting strips out one by one with a scalpel to create a stencil, lifting up the final delicate frame and somehow managing to place it over a canvas without twisting, bending or breaking it... it'd probably drive me insane! The work is then painted over entirely and then the strips are carefully peeled away to reveal the final image. 
The stencil is left on, curling at the edges, illustrating the time and effort of the artist, the stages of the artwork's growth all left intact. Historic photographs reincarnated, an old method, a new style. Time, narrative, experience, history, material and effort are combined in an art form that can be applied anywhere.


This is how it's done.

STEN LEX stencil poster from STEN on Vimeo.

Heston's magic potion

I love food. Really adore it. A lot. 
It's much more than a stomach filler, its a skill, a craft, an art, filled with history, a social activity and not to mention - Extremely important for our survival!! its everything basically...


There is one chef's work which I absolutely adore... and that is Heston Blumenthal. If I may, I'd compare him to Alexander McQueen... Taking magical elements from the past and reinterpreting them into up-to-date, of the minute, palette punching and intellectually challenging dishes - with a touch of romance, brutality and whimsy. 


Like McQueen, Galliano, Lagerfeld... lets say, most other designers who reference the past... (Ghesquière i'd put on par with maybe...Adria?)  Heston Blumenthal is a ragpicker - in Walter Benjamin's sense, elucidating things in the present that echo the past, or reinterpreting the past to create something slightly novel, unheard of in the present. He plays with nostalgia and familiarity to create something awe inspiring and challenging at the same time.

Edible Victorian Garden with bread, anchovy and herb undersoil; olive, grape nut and pumpkin seed soil; tapioca and fried eel gravel path; baby vegetables, potato pebbles and... wait for it, fried insects injected with tomato concentrate "to give a realistic ooze when bitten into". Hahaha.. ok, maybe the insects are too much, but I'd try it just for the insanity of it. Besides, as my father says...it's just protein (after i accidentally swallowed a fly). 

Minifood1: eggy benediction

  A benediction (Latin: bene, well + dicere, to speak) is a short invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance, usually at the end of worship service. 


When life is getting stressful, when fatigue sets in and the heart starts to hurt, when there seems to be no place to go... no matter what we believe, most of us ask for benediction... whether to ourselves, to some sort of divine being or maybe our loved ones. Some of us may turn to food for comfort... 


I'm not religious, but I do believe that eggs are divine. 

A full meal in a shell, eggs are a great source of protein and choline (grouped with the B-complex vitamins used for neurotransmission  etc etc - i'm no nutritionist)  and these little Quail eggs I have always adored. Good things come in small packages. 


Whilst most of us would only think of ordering Eggs Benedict in a café, they're really quite easy to make at home. Poached eggs, ham (or avocado/spinach/asparagus if you are feeling virtuous/vegetarian) and the divine but somewhat devilish Hollandaise sauce. Eggs Benedict is a perfect mixture of naughty and nice. 

GAFFA 2: Artist/Jewellery Designer in focus

 Moving on up!
The second level of the GAFFA (see previous post) has more of a traditional gallery set up. The three main galleries in addition to the "Keeper Gallery" house an array of interesting works in a variety of media by emerging Australian artists from around the country. Gallery one currently showing the exhibition;  five eight five: volume two, shows the work of 16 artists in media ranging from watercolour, jewellery, object design to photography.

Unfortunately many of these artists have very little web presence (I actually asked one artist at the exhibition is she had a website and was greeted with a quite decisive "no") but it just so happens that this is not the case for the work that really did catch my eye ... about which I'll write about further over the next few posts. (Just goes to show that the web is a first point of reference these days and if you want to get your work out there, work on your website!)

On the night of the exhibition, although there was a lot of good quality work fighting for my attention, Momoko Hatano's jewellery really caught my eye. Educated at COFA Sydney, her blog tells us that she initially majored in drawing/painting until she left uni and started work for a jewellery company. Her pieces for the "equus" range are quite graphic and strong but with whimsical and delicate details, horses bowing their heads to each other, galloping in pairs or nuzzling one another are worked into organically shaped silver bracelets and bold, oval shaped rings.

(own photo)

Image from Moose Designs (http://www.shopmoose.com.au/pieces/equestrian-romance-ring)

Similar in concept is her line of bird rings. Made from Sterling silver, they come alone or in pairs. Are you a solo flyer? Or one of those happy birds that are lucky enough to swoop and circle with a partner? Either way, the thought of a silver bird alighting on my hand brings a content smile to my face.  

image from: http://www.shopmoose.com.au/artists/momoko-hatano

Image from momokohatano.blogspot.com

If you were the type of girl who always wanted a pony or a dove, are an animal lover, free-spirit or lover of miniatures and small whimsical details, this jewellery may appeal to you. It has personality but is also  inobtrusive and romantic,  easy enough to wear everyday.

Her Jewellery is available online at Shopmoose and you can check out her blog: http://www.momokohatano.blogspot.com/ Have fun!

GAFFA 1

Here’s somewhere I’ll gladly while away the hours.

 Re-opened in February following a relocation to Clarence Street, Sydney, the Gaffa, a three level space devoted to showcasing the work of emerging artists and designers, is the kind of venue that the Sydney CBD has been waiting for.

‘A community platform for contemporary arts’ situated quite conveniently near my ugly bus stop at Town Hall, the Gaffa houses 4 separate Galleries, a café, an Arcade space and a Studio/Workshop on the 3^rd floor to house resident studio artists (object and jewellery design).

The first trip here was actually a few days ago for the latest group exhibition opening on the 8^th of April (running till the 20^th) and while I did get stuck right in (snap snapping away) I’ll talk about each floor separately, because there is A LOT to get through… The Gaffa, while small has an amazing array of artists with completely different approaches and not much escapes my attention. Anyway, so lets start with the ground floor…

Cédric Rivrain

 He's worked with so many well known clients that I'm sure you've seen his work before... You just didn't know who the master hands belonged to. Cédric Rivrain's latest reverie inspiring work for French millinery house Maison Michel is just so so pretty and delicate it makes me want to go have a tea party and stuff my face with flowers and choux à la creme drawn with HB pencil (at least it would eliminate the guilt). It also make me want to ask Sasha why she looks even more scared that usual...Is it the cat? 

Clockwise from Left: Sasha (Accessories: Melanie and Gabrielle), Irina, Lou Doillon (love) and Mary-kate and Ashley. 

Above: Sasha in Balenciaga


The artworks below, as part of his Paris L.A no.3 series are, in my opinion, even more interesting. I'm enamoured!!  A exploration of the human body, in graphite, it speaks of objectification and docility, space and time and (in the last image) the inevitability of death (sorry guys) following from the Northern European tradition of Vanitas. 

All images by Cedric Rivrain - from cedricrivrain.com and on facebook.com 


Wonderful? 

Oh and in case you were considering acquiring one of the lovely headpieces, they can be purchased at colette (But of course!) from upwards of 130 Euros a pop...     ....       ..      

Coca Chanel

 Its not entirely surprising that one of the most refreshing (refreshingly honest, un-pc,  intelligent... ) personalities in the fashion industry now has a refreshing boisson dedicated to him. Yes, Mr Karl lagerfeld's latest collab is with Coca Cola - Diet of course. 

The 'asexual' genius that has inspired a bearbrick, numerous T-shirts and outrage and controversy in every discussion he has ever entered, comes Diet coke à la Lagerfeld.

I suppose it is only fitting for a man who practically lives on the beverage and now has his own diet-coke butler!

Pic from Hypebeast.com

 After having famously combined it with tic-tacs and steamed vegetables to form the core of his weight loss regime, the addition of his image will no doubt boost sales of diet-coke among collectors, fashionistas and aquaphobes. 


The aestheticization of the everyday has reached phenomenal levels. Has anyone else noticed the gradual "rejuventation" of McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, KFC and even 7/11? Corporate giants have long understood the value of a fine piece of art in the lobby (which are supposed to  show their commitment to humanity, arts and culture), but what of those gigantic fast food chains? Sugar, Fats and and Carbon Dioxide are not exactly human friendly food additives - well at least in the capacities found in Fast food - so how can you boost your company's image? 


Aestheticize... Give your packaging a makeover, collaborate with someone cool and if it doesn't get you a Heart Foundation tick, it will make you look cool. Industries that cater to 'wants' do seem to have a problem with this... High heels = womens' dreams = podiatrists nightmare. Not that I'm against it, but it's an interesting thought. I'm all for heels actually! 


I only wonder what Karl could do for the other struggling food groups that form part of his regimen. What do you think?

Karl Lagerfeld tic-tacs?

Karl Lagerfeld Broccoli?

Maybe we should ask Fake karl?

 Disclaimer: All food items are entirely fictional...and I do love broccoli! 

Thanks to Mr Lagerfeld,  ktimeout.com and stylehop.com for Mr Lagerfeld's image. The Dailymail.co.uk for the tic-tacs. 

The Number One.

Megamania starts now. Or has it already started?


Modernity is megamania. 'A craze, excessive excitement or enthusiasm of a transient nature.' (Dictionary.com). We experience time as it flits from moment to moments at a maniacal pace and are whipped into a frenzy by the latest, newest things, whether they are truly new or recycled.  In other words we are eating our way through a complex, multi-faceted sandwich that stretches from the past to the infinite future. Every layer holds something new and different to be savoured and this is what its all about. 


 Take a bite of my sandwich. I hope it's tasty.