L'Amour Fou art

I'm crazy about the opening and closing titles for the film "L'Amour Fou" as illustrated by Aurore Giscard d'Estaing after Yves Saint Laurent's own designs.










What did I think about the actual film? Well, it was interesting to see how much of a toll being in the background can take on a person. Pierre Bergé, partner in love and business with Yves Saint Laurent for 50 years certainly loved his husband, but the film painted a dark portrait of Saint Laurent as someone difficult to love and live with. In one part, Bergé says that he only saw Saint Laurent happy twice a year: at the close of his runway shows each year. Within 24 hours of the end of applause, Saint Laurent would descended into a deep, deep depression. Perhaps it's not surprising that Bergé would want to sell the artwork they'd acquired together over the years, that they did not bring good memories, instead a reminder of a bittersweet life. Who knows. For his part, Bergé seems quintessentially French: stiff, reserved, formal, unsentimental. Not really a fuzzy bear to come home to.

Yet, I thought about how much of Bergé's own ambition was set aside in order to facilitate the life and business of the manic artist. Another casualty, it seems of Saint Laurent was his "muse" Loulou de la Falaise who the Guardian called "a fixer, friend and supportive shoulder to" Saint Laurent, but, given other circumstances could have had her own fashion empire without living in the shadows.

Ahhh, fashion. It's really not so glamorous underneath it all.

Summer's Last Splash

Richard Christiansen is the fantabulous brains behind Chandelier Creative in NYC. His weekend getaway house in Montauk is bedecked with fabulous vintage linens, Anthropologie globes hanging from trees, witty phrases written in lipstick on bathroom mirrors, and on and on. It's a glorious place and not any of it, down to the Hawaiian shirts made into cushions lining the dock is a mistake or the result of happenstance. As Penelope Green of the NY Times describes him:

Having grown up helping his parents package “the authentic Australian experience” for Japanese tourists on their farm (putting frozen crabs into a river to be “caught”), Mr. Christiansen is adept at creating stage sets and finding shortcuts that read as authentic.

Having worked with Richard for almost two years in NYC, I can attest to his nearly insane level of creativity. It comes out of his pores and he lives and breathes his work. Quite inspirational really*. And authentic, actually. He really loves his friends and the (usually) gorgeous creatives that surround him. So if he had to work extra hard to create an authentic surf shack, it wasn't fake. There was a lot of heart in there too.

(I love what Richard does, but I couldn't live the life he does, or did back nearly 10 years ago when we worked together. But what's inspirational was that even back then he said he wanted to have his own agency and he worked his ass off and did it. And did it fabulously, I might add!)




Photos: 1-3 via Garance Doré, 4 & 5, the NY Times.

Roadtrip

It's that time of year, when it's cold, windy, and dusty gray here in the Northwest that I start dreaming of a road trip...

Images: anthropologie, rachelredlips.blogspot.com, Rob Hann via DesignSquish
Christophe Kutner

Lovely Jewels

I got a nice email from a new jewelery shop called 24Karas. I'm loving the delicate romantic feel of their line--lots of nautical and literary references.

Vintage oversized sunglasses. So cute!

I'm a huge fan of sun glasses. I love these vintage ladies and their specs!





(All from the LIFE archive. Photo #4: Carole Lombard from 1938 by Alfred Eisenstaedt)

My life would be so much better if I had endless amounts of money...

I was wheeling the baby through the Pearl District this afternoon and had to check out Anthropologie. Oh, that store makes me SWOON! It's like they've created all of the clothes that I believe I should wear and the home decor I believe I should own and then placed them in one gorgeous menagerie of a store to taunt me.

For instance this top:



I would be so much happier if I owned it.

(Flourishing Filigree Top, $68)

Aprons: What do they mean?

I have an automatic response to aprons: They make me uncomfortable. It's not that I disapprove of their function, rather I bristle at their implication that I should be in the kitchen AND looking good! To me, they are better left in another era, one when my grandmothers toiled silently dressed in colorful aprons they stitched themselves.

And yet, these adorable aprons from Jessie Steele might make me change my mind:

Pattern Making

I have a sweet 1960s top that just doesn't fit right. (Have you ever noticed that the necklines in vintage clothes are tight?) Anyway, I can't part with the shirt because I love the print so much.

In an effort to save the shirt and the pattern, I've been trying to replicate the pattern to print on another fabric. Of course, this meant I had to learn how to create a repeating patter for a length of fabric which is like, really hard. ;)

First I scanned the shirt and came up with this:
Then, I used a tutorial by Julia Rothman I found on Design Sponge and created this pattern:

Only, I haven't exactly lined it up perfectly, so this is only a snapshot of the whole thing.

Now that I've learned how to create a repeat pattern, I'm obsessed with it. I'm thinking of patterns all day long. I curse the Internet!

A Tower of Talent

Kate Towers is a fabulously talented designer here in Portland, Oregon. Her aesthetic, full of frills and feminine details, influenced a whole generation of DIY designers who aspired to sell their designs in her store, Seaplane. I stumbled on her etsy store and then took a closer look at her portfolio online. Pretty amazing stuff.