FOUR DAY WEEKEND COMING UP!!

JOSEPH

Joseph bag I know I won't be able to afford you but I want you real bad.

MORE HANDS

This is my second hands post in a short period, I enjoy how the hands in these images almost form a circle. Above Albrecht Dürer's Praying Hands (Happy birthday Albrecht, 471 today!) and a less far virtuous pair below.

Heaven/hell

Virtue/vice

Celestial joy, earthly pleasure etc 

ORANGE PLASTIC

Jil Sander must have clocked me on the way to the pool!

 Above Jil Sander SS12 acetate market bag (so sad I missed its 60% net-a-porter reduction), below 99p bag, Habitat towel, horrendous photoshop.

(Previous love of orange plastic.)

BEDROOM WALLS - PETER ARMSTRONG

Unframed images stuck on walls makes me think of teenage girls. My sister covered one huge wall in adverts from Vogue and posters of Eminem and during my teens I slept-over in endless rooms plastered with photos of weekends spent drinking smirnoff ice with camel blues shoved expertly down push-up bras.

Artist Peter Armstrong's Brixton house is a much more savoury version of this impulse to decorate. A work in progress, his walls clearly benefit from a distinct sense of colour and a coherent aesthetic.

In my current room I have managed to restrict my blue-tacking to this small patch by the mirror, let's see how long it lasts.

EYES

'...well into the nineteenth century, a few drops of liquid distilled from belladonna, a plant of the nightshade family, used to be applied to the retinas of young women about to be introduced to a suitor, with the result that their eyes shone with a rapt and almost supernatural radiance, but they themselves could see almost nothing.'


from 'Austerlitz' by W.G. Sebald.

HANDS

Hands hands hands.

Helmut Lang has done some fantastic campaign shots full stop but these two focussed on the hands are particularly wonderful. During the Renaissance masters had large workshops and relied upon several assistants to complete their epic works. The exception was always the hands which Masters painted themselves because they were considered to be the most challenging.

SNAP?

Comme des Garçons Play, wood knot

CRYSTALS

Crystals are having a moment. I picked up my own in Soho a few months ago. Chanel heels next...

Chanel AW12
Top left Celestite [image fyngyrz]
Bottom right Chrysocola [image Fool-On-The-Hill]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DELACROIX

The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827.

Sardanapalus could teach Hugh Hefner a thing or two.

TENDER IS THE NIGHT

I wish I had been able to get my hands on a copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night with artwork by Sam Taylor Wood - one of my favourite books beautifully redesigned. (Ignore the strange green lighter somebody photographed it with.) 

Sadly I don't have £100 for a book right now :( 

"It was a tradition between them that they should never be too tired for anything, and they found it made the days better on the whole and put the evenings more in order. When, inevitably, their spirits flagged they shifted the blame to the weariness and fatigue of others."

CARPET BOOTS

These SS12 boots by Maison Margiela are pretty great, just toe-ing (sorry) the line between incredible and eye-wateringly hideous.

I can imagine Talitha Getty having some similar items in her wardrobe.

RA RA RASPUTIN

Apparently Rasputin means "dissolute". It upsets me that the most villainous haemophilia-curing nun-raping cyanide-immune Siberian is so badly underplayed in his disney incarnation. In "Anastasia" he's essentially a Russian Jafar.


If you're interested there's a really good book about him by Edvard Radzinsky with an amazing section about the "Khlysty", potentially the best religious cult ever. They believed that only after a man had sinned greatly could he be truly repentant and pleasing to God. That basically means nihilism in the name of God, fun times.

TUESDAY, 2 DECEMBER 2008

POSTED BY RICH COSY AT 20:43

I have been re-reading the blog I co-wrote with Josie for a couple of years and this is one of my favourites posts. I think its high time I got back into Rasputin.

IF IT AIN'T BROKE

I wonder if Hirst ever got in trouble for this? 

SLOGANS

Reassuring, disappointing, foreboding... 

PROENZA GWYNNIE

Getting slight Proenza Schouler SS10 vibes from Gwynnie's outfit in 2003 romcom 'View From the Top'.

(Please excuse the pink+green eye-ache I couldn't help myself)

PILLS PILLS PILLS

I am curious about a lot of questions that can't be answered accurately enough to be satisfying facts.

The acutely personal are most interesting - for example how much money have I hoovered up by accident, how many texts have I sent to my dad, precisely how many vodka tonics I have consumed, emails written, nail polishes bought (too many)? Unanswerable and no doubt only interesting to me.

left A Cautionary Tale, 2007, right Cradle to Grave, 2003 [Image Pharmacopoeia]

However, the Pharmacopoeia collective come close to answering how many prescription pills we consume. Cradle to Grave is the lifetime consumption of prescription drugs by average Brits stitched into mesh while  A Cautionary Tale compares the annual drug intake of two middle aged men - an obese driver and a frequent cyclist.

As well as being educational pills also make some beautiful textiles.

Chanel pill dress SS07

  

Pill Scarf on sale to accompany the current Damien Hirst exhibition at Tate Modern

Not so keen on the Jeremy Scott x Longchamp pill-print bag.

GRAPHIC WEAVE

Topshop Boutique's 'Graphic Weave' print looks a lot like the sofas in the Earl of Lonsdale pub.... just saying.

WAXED FABRIC

I grew up opposite Kensington Temple and the congregation at the 8am service were always spectacularly dressed in prints like this.

I find it fascinating that this fabric which in England is so culturally associated with West Africa originates in Indonesia via the Netherlands. (Yinka Shonibare does too).

For those interested in the history of this fabric, Julia Felsenthal's article is great.

On sale at Shepherd's Bush Market...

LIZA LOU

Liza Lou's quieter pieces such as Tiara (above) and drawing Cell (both 2006) often impress me as much as her large scale works.

Her latest show is opening this weekend at White Cube Hoxton Square, I can't wait.



 Tiara (above) and Cell, both 2006.


The idea of brides wearing tiaras usually makes me nauseous but to wander down the aisle with this work of art would be quite something else. I wonder what kind of kingdom the owner of  Tiara would preside over...

FURST BASE

This is a great example of tabloids doing what they do best - poor Yang Guang and Tian Tian. I love the style of this page as much as the content - for me red black and white in print  is usually a surefire winner.

The Edinburgh zookeepers need to take note and  play them some Marvin Gaye.

BLACK BRITAIN

A few great images from my bank holiday read - Black Britain: A Photographic History by Paul Gilroy. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone interested in social history, good clothes or photography.

ASCENSION SKY

 

The sky looked incredible this afternoon as the weather switched fitfully between bright sunshine and grey showers. If I was religious I would definitely attribute it to the Ascension.

DUSTY DAY

Love this gif from the IRIS & DANIEL blog, the interviewee Cole Mohr looks very chilled.

It reminds me of my earlier post of a young Leonardo Dicaprio running through a field of flowers.

ROSES

My grandmother consistently has the loveliest roses in her kitchen. Pink for Valentine's day, yellow for Easter...

TREES

Gilbert and George and teen photo-novels...

APRIL IS THE CRUELLEST MONTH

according to T.S. Elliot, I'm not so sure.

REPAIRS

Poundland epoxy = poor girl's cobbler.

EMBROIDERED EGON

Schiele drawing nude before mirror, 1910

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Crisp white linen is great but I get bored easily so I embroidered some pillowcases with naked ladies and Eastenders quotes. The first is after one of my favourite Schiele drawings.

The second is Albert Square's most stylish resident Dot Cotton chastising her sister.