Fashion in Paper...

After writing the previous post about Chanel's Haute Couture show, I had a look at Chanel News, the brand's official blog and found this cute watercolours, painted by Clemence Poesy, the lovely actress (and apparently also painter) Who didn't  love her in Birdsong, Gossip Girl and In Bruges.  She has a fresh, uncomplicated, classic style mixed with that casual, I-didn't-look-at-myself-in-the-mirror-today French chic.

Paperfashion is another illustration blog I asiduously folow. Katie Rodgers is the artist behind it. Commissioned by companies such as Kate Spade and Coach, Rodgers  turned her  love for watercolours into a full.time career. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in Industrial Design, she worked in apparel design at Reebok and illustrated on the side until she was able to do it exclusively. Her company is called Paperfashion too. 

Samantha Hahn is also a pretty cool illustrator. She usually covers NY Fashion week but also does freelance stuff and collaborates with The Cut, Refinery 29, Tiffany's, Victoria Secret... AND also paints mouth-watering food. She has a blog called Maquette.

Here are some beautiful and inspiring books about fashion illustration

100 Years of Fashion Illustration

Masters of Fashion Illustration

New Icons of Fashion Illustration

XOXO

Melancholic Couture...

It is here again. That time of the year when anything is possible. When impossibly beautiful, delicate, intricate dresses walk the earth. It is Haute Couture. 

My eyes are always set on Chanel for these collections. There is nothing Karl Lagerfeld can't do. He can recreate any atmosphere he desires: an indian banquet, a giant iceberg, a fair... This time was no different, he brought a whole forest; tree by tree, into the Grand Palais. 

The guests wandered through the woods until they came across a "neo classical" amphitheatre. Karl was dreaming of Weimar, sylvan hub of German Romanticism in the late 18th century, home to Goethe and Schiller. The daytime tweeds sparkled and the evening looks and dresses were a hymn to the sequin. Anything that looked like a pattern was probably embroidery, which gives an idea of the work and dedication his house always has towards detail.

Hair and make up was dominated by feathery effects, as if the models were birds in the woods. The show also had a characteristic endind: two brides walked hand in hand down the runway. A hint of Lagerfeld's position when it comes to the controversy in France about gay marriage. 

The collection is beautiful but above all, melancholic. 

There is nothing more elegant than a certain kind of melancholia. And there is nothing that induces melancholia like the transience of beauty" K.Lagerfeld

XOXO

Snapshots. The Bell Jar. Dressing Room...

XOXO

Last performances today! Book at Apple Core Festival

20 years without Audrey...

Audrey and Mel Ferrer

Every year when it comes to this date, I always feel like writing or posting something. I feel it is my duty to remind the world of this beautiful woman that died 20 years ago yesterday.It is not like she has been forgotten, far from that, she has become the icon that she deserves. I´m not certain where my admiration for her comes from; could be from her movies, from her delicate looks but strong character, from all her humanitarian work she was part of before her death. She was one of a kind. 

I found this beautiful article in Vogue Spain and I immediately thought of posting it. I hope you like it. 

Some women, very few, have a magic halo, almost supernatural, which makes them seem earthly when they aren't. It is impossible. That natural beauty, savagely pure, that disarms with one glance can't be from this world. Audrey Hepburn was one of those women. Maybe she was the only one.

"If I am being honest I have to say that I still read fairytales and they are my favourites" once admitted the actress. Truthfully, sad stories where the protagonist finally becomes a princess have a lot in common with her own life. Audrey spent her first 20 years running away from the Second World War across Europe. Reading "Anna Frank's Diary" made a strong impact on her, the parallelisms between both of their lives were more than evident. Audrey took refuge in her great passion, dance, which would later be replaced by acting - profession that was then better paid than ballet - to try overcome her precarious economical situation.

With the 20th anniversary of her death, we look at the images from our archive - which correspond to mental images that we all cherish in our memories - that reflect best the actress' magnetism, as discreet as immense: features that made her style the epitome of classical and feminine elegance, the films that made her one of the best actresses of her generation, her great loves...

Because, at the end of the day, who hasn't fantasized with being a little like Holly Golightly when passing by Tiffany's windows, who hasn't imagined themselves flying through the streets of Rome in a Vespa, who hasn't fantasized that your own smile embosses some of her sad and sincere beauty. 

20 years are nothing, but without Audrey, are an eternity.

XOXO

Tech. The Bell Jar...

Rocking the 50s style...

XOXO

Photos by Will Bowden and I