This book is a brilliant introduction to poetry and contemporary art. Angelou’s fearless words and Basquiat’s daring paintings are carefully pared to create a powerful ode to courage. It is a place where every child can experience their own strength.
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn’t frighten me at all
Francesco Maccapani Missoni, the son of Missoni’s creative director, Angela Missoni, has been collecting family recipes for some time. In The Missoni Family Cookbook, he shares those delicious, well-guarded family recipes. This book invites you right into their dinner parties which they are known for through the fashion circles especilly during fashion week!… I havent recieved mine yet… I cant wait to try a few recipies especially the Gnocci verde!
Via Assouline
A few months ago I got this beautiful huge limited edition book, The Annie Leibovitz SUMO. In a nut shell it presents some of the most famed actors, musicians, artists, writers, athletes, and businesspeople of our time. And is available in four different cover photos, with an equally beautiful tripod bookstand designed Marc Newson that demands its own space in your home! … I’m still trying to find the perfect spot for it!
Just a few words about Annie Leibovitz for those of you who might not know much about her. Leibovitz is one of the most important if not the most important portrait photographers working today. In this book she collected photographs from over 40 years of her work, starting with the intimate reportage she created for the Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s and to the more stylized work for Vanity Fair and Vogue. She has presented her famous group portraits in a format that proved that she is the master of the genre. Her pictures are intimate yet iconic, they are uniquely hers. Annie Leibovitz is often imitated, particularly by young photographers, but her work is always immediately recognizable.
The Collector’s Edition is available in four different covers:
Via Taschen
One of my main inspirations for my personal style as well as my home style has been this single picture you see above of Betty Catroux taken in her home in Paris in the 70’s. The apartment was designed by her husband François…. That picture to me is everything. It could have easily been taken in the 70s, 80s, 90s or even today…. Catroux’s interiors from the 70s remain timeless because he knew how to mix the modern classics with warm or rustic pieces of furniture in a modern yet eclectic way.
Recently Catroux redid their apartment … I am not sure whether it was a full renovation or he just added on to the apartment because I recognize a lot of art work and furniture pieces from their 70s pictures that I came across on the net!.. I love that I can’t tell exactly what he did and where he did it… the revamped apartment feels like its continuing their story rather than trying to make a new one!
Here’s the living room, do you see what I mean? It looks so eclectic and modern. Again this could easily be a Catroux apartment from the 70s, 80s, 90s or even today!…
As always he not only mixed styles and periods but layered them in a way only he could do! There are pieces that the couple had for decades, such as the rustic colossal African mask and the 1995 portrait of Betty by Philippe de Lustrac.
I just love Betty’s office. François designed the built-in cabinetry all around the room. I love that she put a casual photograph of her late best friend Yves Saint Laurent in front of another photograph.
The painting above the sofa is by Emmanuel Gondouin from the 1930s. That Noguchi coffee table is one of my favorite tables. It’s so timeless and so fit for this beautiful library.
Even though that first picture will still be closer to my style than the current apartment, this is still my favorite home. It’s my favorite home for many reasons ( which I stated above) but mainly because it’s simply a home of a couple who have been married for 50 years (1968) who with the new renovations seems to be looking forward to living together for many years to come!
In celebration of the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the house of Dior
Assoline has puplished a series devoted to each designer of the couture house. The book above is the first of series. Its Dior by Christian Dior it is just beautiful and has pictures of the most iconic haute couture designs conceived by Christian Dior. Each book in this series is devoted to a designer of a couture house. The gowns have been carefully conserved in museums and institutions around the world, they have been photographed and exclusively compiled for this indispensable book collection.
I just cant wait to get my hands on this collection… I can imagine my self being lost for hours going through the details of each look with my eldest daughter!
As you know I hate spoilers so I’m going to strictly talk about the brilliant set design without mentioning anything else about the movie (which by the way is A MUST SEE!)
Director Kenneth Branagh and production designer Jim Clay have recreated the iconic Orient Express to match the grand history of the railroad and Agatha Christie’s most famous murder mystery.
The Orient Express was a high-class long-distance passenger train established in 1833; its most famous route connected Paris to Istanbul. To prepare for the movie, Director Kenneth Branagh along with everyone involved in the movie took a trip on the Orient-Express, from Paris to Venice because it still uses its original vintage train cars until today. This was a great experience for all of them. They managed to look at and take notes of every detail on the train and made notes of all the surrounding scenery.
Jim Clay also started his designing process by studying the 1974 film and early on decided that the new version needed a more modern look — “a more current style of shooting,” as he puts it.
By “a more current style” he did not mean to make it feel modern but rather a modern aesthetic that we have today! He meant cleaner lines so nothing ornate, and no Victorian furniture, with floral patterns in them!. He went towards art deco and lines that were more geometric rather than floral and this way he made sure that the backgrounds were still opulent and rich but not distracting.
“The idea was to try and give people a sort of sensual, sensory kind of experience of what all that wood feels like, all that marquetry, the crispness of the line, the degree to which they work out the precision of which cutlery is laid out, which was all done with little tape measures and things,” Branagh said in an interview.
Overall, Clay and Branagh succeeded brilliantly in giving the Orient Express the opulence for which it was known for. Just look at the first-class accommodation in the photo above, it looks like a luxurious hotel lounge which was grand yet comfortable!
photos via
In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop… There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth, stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white’
Almost a hundred and fifty years ago, Victorian readers opened Dickens’s weekly magazine All the Year Round to find the concluding installment of A Tale of Two Cities, and, immediately following it, the opening installment of a new novel with no author ascribed. They joined Walter Hartright on a night-time walk over Hampstead Heath, winding on moonlit paths until they reached some intersection. There they witnessed the first encounter between Walter Hartright and the mysterious Woman in White… Almost a hundred and fifty years later I got the same goosebumps the Victorian readers got when The Woman in White placed her hand on Walter’s shoulder!!!
It’s not difficult to see why the series was an immediate success with the Victorian public and made its 35-year-old author, Wilkie Collins an immediate celebrity!… and it’s not difficult to see why this Victorian novel continues to thrill us today!
Years ago I’ve created a mental list of the classic books I wanted to read … I decided to share it here today just in case someone out there is interested in reading more classic fiction! I’ve added a few more books here …. And I must admit that I haven’t read much from my list but seeing it on this screen is encouraging me to read this list …
I’ll write a little review about each one in my old Book of the Week section (which I’m planning to start up again) once I’m done reading a book (along with other books of course)… I do have other lists like historical fiction and modern classics etc which I’ll share here some other time … Meanwhile here is my Classic list:
So do you have any more suggestions?
I haven’t been consistent with posting about books! In fact, I haven’t been consistent with this blog at all…. I try to blog whenever I can or whenever I find something worth blogging about …. like for example this book! I think if you get only one book about art this year then this should be it! The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings… This book celebrates the greatest and most iconic paintings in The Met Museum collection. I found it very useful and think it’s an ideal introduction to the beautiful masterworks of The Met.
Murad III, left, Elizabeth I, right. Credit Ullstein Bild, via Getty Images (left); The Print Collector/Getty Images (right)
Jerry Brotton, a professor of Renaissance studies at Queen Mary University of London, is the author of the forthcoming “The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam.” A dear friend of mine sent me a summary of the forthcoming book that the Prof. Brotton has written…. I have copy pasted what he wrote as I thought that I simply couldn’t put it any better… I have pre-ordered my hard copy, it is coming out on the 20th of this month yay!
“Britain is divided as never before. The country has turned its back on Europe, and its female ruler has her sights set on trade with the East. As much as this sounds like Britain today, it also describes the country in the 16th century, during the golden age of its most famous monarch, Queen Elizabeth I.
One of the more surprising aspects of Elizabethan England is that its foreign and economic policy was driven by a close alliance with the Islamic world, a fact conveniently ignored today by those pushing the populist rhetoric of national sovereignty.
From the moment of her accession to the throne in 1558, Elizabeth began seeking diplomatic, commercial and military ties with Muslim rulers in Iran, Turkey and Morocco — and with good reasons. In 1570, when it became clear that Protestant England would not return to the Catholic faith, the pope excommunicated Elizabeth and called for her to be stripped of her crown. Soon, the might of Catholic Spain was against her, an invasion imminent. English merchants were prohibited from trading with the rich markets of the Spanish Netherlands. Economic and political isolation threatened to destroy the newly Protestant country.
Elizabeth responded by reaching out to the Islamic world. Spain’s only rival was the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Sultan Murad III, which stretched from North Africa through Eastern Europe to the Indian Ocean. The Ottomans had been fighting the Hapsburgs for decades, conquering parts of Hungary. Elizabeth hoped that an alliance with the sultan would provide much-needed relief from Spanish military aggression, and enable her merchants to tap into the lucrative markets of the East. For good measure, she also reached out to the Ottomans’ rivals, the shah of Persia and the ruler of Morocco.
The trouble was that the Muslim empires were far more powerful than Elizabeth’s little island nation floating in the foggy mists off Europe. Elizabeth wanted to explore new trade alliances but couldn’t afford to finance them. Her response was to exploit an obscure commercial innovation — joint stock companies — introduced by her sister, Mary Tudor.
The companies were commercial associations jointly owned by shareholders. The capital was used to fund the costs of commercial voyages, and the profits — or losses — would also be shared. Elizabeth enthusiastically backed the Muscovy Company, which traded with Persia and went on to inspire the formation of the Turkey Company, which traded with the Ottomans, and the East India Company, which would eventually conquer India.
In the 1580s she signed commercial agreements with the Ottomans that would last over 300 years, granting her merchants free commercial access to Ottoman lands. She made a similar alliance with Morocco, with the tacit promise of military support against Spain.
As money poured in, Elizabeth began writing letters to her Muslim counterparts, extolling the benefits of reciprocal trade. She wrote as a supplicant, calling Murad “the most mighty ruler of the kingdom of Turkey, sole and above all, and most sovereign monarch of the East Empire.” She also played on their mutual hostility to Catholicism, describing herself as “the most invincible and most mighty defender of the Christian faith against all kind of idolatries.” Like Muslims, Protestants rejected the worship of icons, and celebrated the unmediated word of God, while Catholics favored priestly intercession. She deftly exploited the Catholic conflation of Protestants and Muslims as two sides of the same heretical coin.
The ploy worked. Thousands of English traders crossed many of today’s no-go regions, like Aleppo in Syria, and Mosul in Iraq. They were far safer than they would have been on an equivalent journey through Catholic Europe, where they risked falling into the hands of the Inquisition.
The Ottoman authorities saw their ability to absorb people of all faiths as a sign of power, not weakness, and observed the Protestant-Catholic conflicts of the time with detached bemusement. Some Englishmen even converted to Islam. A few, like Samson Rowlie, a Norfolk merchant who became Hassan Aga, chief treasurer to Algiers, were forced. Others did so of their own volition, perhaps seeing Islam as a better bet than the precarious new Protestant faith.
English aristocrats delighted in the silks and spices of the east, but the Turks and Moroccans were decidedly less interested in English wool. What they needed were weapons. In a poignant act of religious retribution, Elizabeth stripped the metal from deconsecrated Catholic churches and melted their bells to make munitions that were then shipped out to Turkey, proving that shady Western arms sales go back much further than the Iran-contra affair. The queen encouraged similar deals with Morocco, selling weapons and buying saltpeter, the essential ingredient in gunpowder, and sugar, heralding a lasting craving and turning Elizabeth’s own teeth an infamous black.
The sugar, silks, carpets and spices transformed what the English ate, how they decorated their homes and how they dressed. Words such as “candy” and “turquoise” (from “Turkish stone”) became commonplace. Even Shakespeare got in on the act, writing “Othello” shortly after the first Moroccan ambassador’s six-month visit.
Despite the commercial success of the joint stock companies, the British economy was unable to sustain its reliance on far-flung trade. Immediately following Elizabeth’s death in 1603, the new king, James I, signed a peace treaty with Spain, ending England’s exile.
Elizabeth’s Islamic policy held off a Catholic invasion transformed English taste and established a new model for joint stock investment that would eventually finance the Virginia Company, which founded the first permanent North American colony.
It turns out that Islam, in all its manifestations — imperial, military and commercial — played an important part in the story of England. Today, when anti-Muslim rhetoric inflames political discourse, it is useful to remember that our pasts are more entangled than is often appreciated”.
Running In Heelz 