Happy Birthday, Katharine Hepburn ...

There are not plenty of adjectives in the English language to describe Katharine Hepburn. She was a complex woman with as many facets as a diamond. Intelligent, well spoken and feminist icon of her time, she challenged the role given to women in Hollywood and the film industry, filling her career with strong, independent characters. Hepburn elevated the suit to a whole new level, making it her uniform and a fashion staple in a time where women were always expected to wear a full skirt to dinner. In 1951, during her stay at the Claridge's hotel in London, she entered and exit the hotel through the staff entrance, due to the established dress code of no-trousers in the lobby.

 Fearless and outspoken, the redhead managed to become one of the most successful and beloved actresses of all time by being herself and never bowing down to men or tradition. 

Happy Birthday Miss K. 

Live dangerously. There's a lot to be said for sinning

XOXO

New Discovery. Cereal Magazine ....

Nothing makes my inner book-worm happier than finding a new magazine to lay our eyes (and hands) on. 

I found Cereal Magazine by chance, gazing absent-mindedly through the never ending shelves of publications at Magma; as soon as I eyed its greyscale cover, with Paris photographed in black and white and the simplicity of its font, I knew it was love at first sight. 

The inside didn't disappoint. With the majority of lifestyle/fashion magazines nowadays we are used to being bombarded by colour, graphics, striking and attention- grabbing text; everything over the top, magnified. Cereal has a soothing effect in my eyes. I can feel my mind quieting down from all the noise we are fed everyday through the media and entering a zen state of mind, flipping through its thick, textured pages with incredibly beautiful photographs of the Cornish seaside to black and white Paris. The text also provides an escape from my mundane day-to-day, transporting me to Helsinki's architectural scene or a secret rainforest in the Scilly islands. 

I do not know how I will survive until the next issue comes out. My hunger for what I call "beautiful journalism" will have to be quenched by their blog, overflowing with equally-stunning images. 

Enjoy

XOXO

P.D. You can read here the editor's letter from Issue 5. It is a love-letter to travelling (and travellers)

Winter Solstice...

To welcome Winter, here is a beautiful poem...

The Sky is Low, The clouds are Mean

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,

A travelling flake of snow 

Across a barn or through a rut

Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day

How some one treated him;

Nature, like us, is sometimes caught 

Without her diadem.

Emily Dickinson

XOXO

Snapshots. London's Wintry Landscapes...

XOXO

Blumenfeld Studio...

Anyone who has an interest in fashion photography will know who Erwin Blumenfeld is. He created the beautiful stills of Grace Kelly posing inside a picture frame or the characteristic red lips blowing smoke. What many people don't know is that he already was a great artist before entering the world of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. His work was very intimate and avant-garde. He played with shadows, distortion, colour... and still managed to instill some of these techniques later into his fashion photography. The exhibition Blumenfeld Studio: New York 1941-1960 presents a range of his work including his most famous Vogue covers, advertising campaigns but also work he did outside the fashion world which reflects his truer nature as an artist. 

Berlin-born photographer Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) was one of the most internationally sought-after portrait and fashion photographers in the 1940s and 1950s. America's leading magazines, including Vogue and Harper's Bazaar hired him for imaginative and highly individual shots. The show focuses on the little-known history of his photography studio at 222 Central Park South in New York. Around 100 colour photographs and originals of Erwin Blumenfeld's works in fashion magazines provide insights into this key artistic phase in his life.

XOXO

Blumenfeld Studio is on at the Somerset House East Wing until 1st of September