Elsa Schiaparelli

I am currently reading the biography of Elsa Schiaparelli and have been utterly captivated. 

While perusing the biography section at the library I came across this blush pink cover and brought it home with me. After being in a bit of a literary lag this summer and not reading as much as I would have liked the past few weeks, I threw the biography in my tote bag when I went to the pool this Monday to spend some final hours sun bathing and page turning. 

Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography, written by Meryle Secrest, came out last fall. Covering the life & legacy of one of the most pivotal figures in fashion, I have had such an enjoyable time reading about the artist, her creative mind, her muses, models and devotees, her partners (artistic and personal) and the historical undertones that wove through her life & transformed not just the world of fashion, but the world as we know it.
The first time I heard of Elsa Schiaparelli was in my early days of blogging, although her influence came even earlier. As a young adolescent, I devoured the kate spade books (style, occasions, manners). In style, kate spade featured the infamous lobster dress, created by Elsa Schiaparelli and Salvador Dali, and worn by Wallis Simpson (blogged about here). That dress reoccured for a brief moment in college. It was the first or second weekend of my freshman year in college, one of those end of summer evenings when weather is in its absolute prime and I was walking around fraternity hill (probably in white shorts, a crew neck t-shirt and a flower pin), thinking about how absolutely delightful it would be to have a white tent party with twinkling christmas lights, a champagne fountain and a big band jazz band - right here on the hill. My outfit of choice? A lobster dress. But in reality what were the party venue options in college? I was headed to a gross fraternity house that reeked of stale beer with girls and guys that were far from stylish. It didn't take long for me to understand that my dreams of a champagne, starlight evening in a lobster dress might have to start on some ugly couch sipping Natty Light. Needless to say, my transition and journey through college, was quite interesting to say the least...and I guess Elsa Schiaparelli will always have somewhat of a lasting impression on my introductory college status quo :)
If you're looking for a book to read, I'd definitely recommend this biography. Listen to the NPR review below and you can purchase the book here.

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Celebrating 75 years of Madeline

Madeline, one of my favorite characters, turned 75 this year.

I have always enjoyed the books, in fact I think I love them even more now, than I did as a little girl. The presentation of twelve little girls in two straight lines running through Paris is marvelous. With beautiful illustrations, charming rhymes, and a fantastic depiction of a young girl's adventures through one of the most fabulous cities on earth - who wouldn't envy Madeline? 

She finds a way to get into trouble wherever she goes, but with a yellow coat and Eiffel Tower in the background, a fiesty red-head couldn't look better :) 

This past weekend, The CBS Morning Show had a wonderful segment on the beloved story books, that I have shared below. 

While researching the segment, I came across a couple wonderful articles that I would recommend checking out if you're interested in the history of Madeline, author Ludwig Bemelman and Madeline's legacy. 

New York Parenting: Celebrate 75 Years of Madeline

The New York Times: At 75, Still Stepping Out of Line

I took bits and pieces of an excerpt from The New York Times piece by Edward Rothstein for you to read below:

"Could anything be more steeped in the order and orders of the Old World than those 12 little girls leave an old house covered with vines, in two straight lines, in rain or shine? It has been 75 years since they made their appearance in Ludwig Bemelman's classic Madeline with their hairbows and yellow hats: models of propriety being led through the gradeur of touristic Paris (the Opera, the Place Vendome, Notre Dame, the Tuileries). Except, of course, for Madeline, who never quite stayed in place. 

"Many readers under the age of 95 have Bemelman's images and words inscribed in their consciousness: Madeline daring to 'pooh-pooh' a tiger in the zoo; Lord Cucuface thinking it disgraceful for 'young ladies to embrace a dog of uncertain race;' and, of course, Miss Clavel, the only woman in children's literature, who, when afraid of a disaster, could run fast and faster, and give the black habit of a nun the sweep of a superhero's cape. 

"Yet there are many particular aspects to the first and best of these books...Here is a tale about Paris by an Austrian immigrant to the United States, who began writing it on the back of a menu in Pete's Tavern on Irving Place in Manhattan. Madeline first appeared in Life magazine in September 1939, the same week World World II began, but she is immersed in a sacral, almost antique world...

This Paris certainly didn't exist at the time, and was doomed to become an even more distant memory in a matter of months...

"In fact, the books have not found a French audience the way they have found an American one. They show an imagined France, not an experienced France. The only hint of disruption in their fantastical vision of an old order is Madeline herself, whose spunky individualism is a mark of modernity, and whose mischief just manages to shake Miss Clavel's equanimity without the more serious consequences history was about to provide...

"Even the final lines of Madeline are meant with a wink, as we learn 'And that's all there is - there isn't anymore'...and though you aren't left deeply moved by the fascinations of this show, by the end, you feel an urge to applaud." 

read more here.

If you happen to be in New York, this weekend is the last opportunity to visit "Madeline in New York: The Art of Ludwig Bemelmans" at the New-York Historical Society. The collection honors the 75th anniversary of Madeline's publication, with an exhibition of more than 90 original artworks. Drawings from all of the Madeline books will be featured, in addition to Bemelman's drawings of the old Ritz Hotel in New York, murals from a re-discovered Paris bistro, panels from the Onassis yacht, and cache fabrics based on an early picture book, as described by the New-York Historical Society's exhibition announcement. 

Enjoy your weekend, toodles!

(via)

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The Legendary Images: Great Photographers And Dior

The book and exhibit, sharing stunning photographs of the Christian Dior label throughout the decades, launches in the next couple of weeks. As Harper's Bazaar writes, "it's difficult to imagine a house with more beautiful imagery than that of Dior - one that has always prioritized elegance and embraced drama." 

On May 3rd the exhibit will open at the Christian Dior Museum in Normandy. The book will be available on April 30th, but you can pre-order today!

In the mean time, enjoy a brief assortment of Dior's enchanting moments.

(via)

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Ten Best Sentences

I was listening to NPR last night while I dropped my brother back off at school. I was told that listening to NPR was just another one of the multiple reasons why I was "so weird" - or maybe it was "so lame..." Criticisms from my brothers all lump in the whatever pile after awhile.
 The perils of being the only girl. 

Regardless, there was a wonderful segment about the Ten Best Sentences in fiction and nonfiction works. I sometimes forget the beauty of literature beyond the plot development. Syntax, diction, vocabulary, and imagery are an art form on their own, but I rarely acknowledge them outside of poetry readings. It's easier, for me, to focus on the form of a dozen stanzas - rather than analyzing the same elements in a novel, especially when I'm swimming in sentences! I instead, progress with the plot, the story, the theme, the characters and focus more on the actions rather than the details. There are a couple of times where a particular quote or moment of literature stays with me - even years after the fact - but I don't give the art of writing as much credit it deserves. Although I can't imagine totally transforming my literary habits, I hope to recognize and appreciate the beauty of the composition a little more often. 

(via)

See the complete list from The American Scholar below:

Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

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I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

— James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

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This private estate was far enough away from the explosion so that its bamboos, pines, laurel, and maples were still alive, and the green place invited refugees—partly because they believed that if the Americans came back, they would bomb only buildings; partly because the foliage seemed a center of coolness and life, and the estate’s exquisitely precise rock gardens, with their quiet pools and arching bridges, were very Japanese, normal, secure; and also partly (according to some who were there) because of an irresistible, atavistic urge to hide under leaves.

— John Hersey, Hiroshima

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It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.

— Toni Morrison, Sula

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For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?

— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

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It was the United States of America in the cold late spring of 1967, and the market was steady and the G.N.P. high and a great many articulate people seemed to have a sense of high social purpose and it might have been a spring of brave hopes and national promise, but it was not, and more and more people had the uneasy apprehension that it was not.

— Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

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Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligation.

— Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

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There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.

— Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

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In many ways he was like America itself, big and strong, full of good intentions, a roll of fat jiggling at his belly, slow of foot but always plodding along, always there when you needed him, a believer in the virtues of simplicity and directness and hard labor.

— Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

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There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child.

— Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

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And a bonus:

Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there.

— Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

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Creative Workplaces

See The Workspaces of 14 Leading Creative Minds!

Where do some of the most inspiring artisans go to work each day? Photographer Todd Selby, scouted out creative minds and captured them in their working environments for his newest book, The Fashionable Selby.

See images of there fascinating work spaces below. 

Belgian designer Dries van Noten.

The studio of Japanese headpiece design artist Katsuya Kamo.

Brooklyn-based knitwear designer Lindsay Degan.

Diesel's artistic director, Nicola Formichetti.

Brooklyn artisan who has dyed clothes for Nike, Audrey Louise Reynolds

Ambika Conroy at her sustainable rabbit farm in upstate New York where she creates angora fur goods.

Virginia Bates luxe vintage store was outfitted like an old French boudoir.

Textile designer Natalie Gibson works on some dyes.

British designer Fred Butler's work is often graphic and sculptural. 

Christian Astuguevielle is behind the scents made by Japanese fashion house Comme des Garcons. 

Ben Kosters clothing studio.

Iris van Herpen's mood board in her Amsterdam office.

Eccentric jewelry designer Andrew Logan. 

(via Fast Company)

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SWANS

The Legends of The Jet Society, photographs by Nicholas Foulkes.

Kudos to the coffee table book for letting us live vicariously through this glamorous generation.

All photos are courtesy of a feature on Harper's Bazaar.

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Tommy Hilfiger does the Preppy Handbook

So obsessed with these ads by Tommy Hilfiger. What a great way for the Preppy Handbook to come back to life!! Not only are the looks fabulous, but the write-ups are especially witty. Which prep stereotype do you channel?I think the Social Chair (Mrs. H) is a shoe in for Twirling Clare :)

Toodles!

(via)

See the excerpt from the original Preppy Handbook:

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