The Bastard Chairs of China

(...all images from here...)

I came across these beautiful bastard chairs the other day, photographed by Michael Wolf - previously posted over here on mintcar (thank you!).

They perfectly illustrate certain themes I have running around in my mind these days: D.I.Y., low-tech solutions in a high-tech world, eco-conciousness, the celebration of ingenuity and resourcefulness, delight in the hand-made, appropriation and the elevation of the mundane, uglypretty, accessible, inclusive design versus high-end luxury design, the joyous diversity and infinite possibility of human creativity...

Nice to be back. Missed you.

x

Vay-kay!

Long awaited summer vacation starting tomorrow!

Feel like I need the break - away from the Big City - away from our sweltering apartment. Back with the family.

Home is where the heart is.

See you around the 24th!

Hope the Dog Days treat you well.

xob.

Gif GIf

Here is a short video made by Stephanie Davidson of the Save 4 Web exhibition that happened last weekend. Wish I could have been there! Looks like fun. Opening credits are by Leslie Predy. Full list of contributers is here. Additional photos of the show are here. The gifs I included are over here if you are curious - just click on the image and you can see it animate in the comments...

Sorry to be such a bad blogger these days - our apartment is a sauna and it is hard to think straight in there...will be back to a more regular posting schedule as soon as things cool down!

xxxb.

Elsa Schiaparelli

(...all images from here...)

Beautiful, playful and inventive avant-garde fashion created by the formidable talent of Elsa Schiaparelli.

The failure of her business meant that Schiaparelli's name is not as well remembered as that of her great rival Chanel. But in 1934, Time placed Chanel in the second division of fashion, whereas Schiaparelli was one of "a handful of houses now at or near the peak of their power as arbiters of the ultra-modern haute couture....Madder and more original than most of her contemporaries, Mme Schiaparelli is the one to whom the word "genius" is applied most often". At the same time Time recognised that Chanel had assembled a fortune of some US$15m despite being "not at present the most dominant influence in fashion", whereas Schiaparelli relied on inspiration rather than craftsmanship and "it was not long before every little dress factory in Manhattan had copied them and from New York's 3rd Avenue to San Francisco's Howard Street millions of shop girls who had never heard of Schiaparelli were proudly wearing her models".

...wiki...
...2003 exhibiton at the Philadelphia Museum of Art...
...more info on Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site...
...What Happened to the Provocative Elsa Schiaparelli? Slate Magazine...