Beauty merchant

Mme Helena Rubinstein

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Now playing: Frankie Avalon - Beauty School Dropout
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Saint or sinner?

Rob Forbes founder of Design Within Reach, the furniture company that made modern design accessible to a wider general public.

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Now playing: Grace Jones - Corporate Cannibal
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Déjà vu

The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it.
Diana Vreeland

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Now playing: Grace Jones - La vie en rose
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No particular reason

Antony and the Johnsons' third album The Crying Light is due out on January 19th, both on LP and on CD.




Antony and the Johnsons - Another World, track number 6 on the new album.

Dee groovy? No, dee gorgeous

A George II mahogany card table
The rectangular fold over top with rounded projecting corners, the interior with candlestands, money wells and a contemporary style petit point floral playing surface, drawer to frieze on round tapered legs headed by lapets.





A 19th century wing and roll arm gentleman's chair, possibly Irish
The upholstery worn, on block legs carved with harebells and with 'C' scroll corner brackets to the front and sides, the legs united by rail stretchers.

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Now playing: Deee-Lite - Power of Love (Zanizibar Vocal Mix)
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Domestic goddess

Georgia O’Keeffe, 1968.





Georgia O'Keeffe and the Camera: The Art of Identity





Georgia O'Keeffe, 1956 by Yousuf Karsh





O'Keeffe at Ghost Ranch, 1962



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Now playing: Grace Jones - Libertango
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More ways to waste time

The Lady Eve (1941)




Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck


The Lady Eve, co-written and directed by Preston Sturges. With Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, and William Demarest. Everything a film should be - snappy lines, great costumes, fabulous sets, and most importantly entertaining. La Stanwyck is at her absolute loveliest.

In short, it is about a lady cardsharp who tries to con an eccentric scientist only to end up falling for him.




The good girls are never as good as they seem to be, and the bad ones never as bad.

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Now playing: Ella Fitzgerald - Let's Fall in Love
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On my mind

Georgia O' Keeffe House In New Mexico photographed by Eliot Elisofon

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Now playing: Ray Charles - Georgia on My Mind
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Torero

Nineteenth Century Spanish Suit of Lights
Suit of silver thread on silk with glass beads. Exceptional workmanship. Deaccession in the 80s from a Museum in Seville, Spain.




Yves Saint Laurent's 1979 Fall Couture Collection was inspired in part by the corrida. In particular, the two ensembles to the right most strongly demonstrate the iconography.



Yves Saint Laurent 1979
The shocking pink evening cape owes its influence to the muleta, the small red cape used in the final act.

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Now playing: Malcolm McLaren - Carmen (L'Oiseau Rebelle)
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Goddess of the Bullring

1944 promotional poster




Conchita Cintrón & Horse by Henry Clarke
Vogue, September 1968








Image of Conchita Cintrón by Henry Clarke, 1968.




Taking a bow after dispatching her first 700-pound bull, Tijuana, Mexico, 1941.



La Diosa Rubia in action, 1945.


The bullfighter Conchita Cintrón (b.1922) was known as, La Diosa Rubia, the Blonde Goddess. The half-American, Peruvian raised Cintrón was one of the most famous and respected bullfighters of the 1930s and '40s. A professional rejoneadora, a horse-riding bullfighter, only because it was illegal for a woman to make a kill on foot.

Her final standoff in the ring came in 1949. In September 1951 Conchita Cintrón married Francisco Castelo Branco, the nephew of her trainer.They settled in Portugal, where she raised six children and established the Al-Gharb Kennels.




Goddess of the Bullring: The Story of Conchita Cintrón, the World’s Greatest Matador by Lola Verrill Cintrón (Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1960)

Memoirs of a Bullfighter by Conchita Cintrón (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968)

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Now playing: Georges Bizet - Carmen
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Dee lovely

A marble torso of Aphrodite, after the Antique
The nude goddess originally standing with the weight on her left leg, her right leg relaxed and slightly advanced, her upper torso bent slightly forward at the waist, 63.5cm high.

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Now playing: Deee-Lite - Groove is in the Heart
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Winter warmer

FrenchEntrée: A Favorite Recipe for Mussels


There is nothing simpler or more satisfying than moules mariniere on a cold winter's night.

Saute in butter/olive oil: finely chopped onion, garlic, fennel, sprigs of thyme, salt and pepper. Add the cleaned mussels, then the white wine (or juice of half a lemon), and very finely chopped parsley. Simmer for 5 minutes. Strain liquor through a fine sieve into a saucepan, add single cream and heat thoroughly. Place mussels in soup plates and add piping hot liquor. Serve with warm crusty French bread.




How To Make Moules Mariniere


How To Eat Mussels Like An Islander

And this is how one eats them.

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Now playing: Mel Tormé - Putting on the Ritz
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No particular reason

Other than the fact, I love it when a girl looks as if she could snap Anna Wintour in two without even so much as breaking a nail. This is the divine Miss Immodesty Blaize, Britain's very own Queen of Burlesque.





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Now playing: Ethel Merman - Everything's Coming Up Roses
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My Life So Far

The surprising and candid Jane Fonda addresses an audience at UC Santa Barbara. Tune in for her insights into her remarkable life - an Academy Award-winning actress, controversial activist, aerobics instructor and generous philanthropist. - University of California Television


With the exception of her performances in Barbarella and Klute, I have always had an intense dislike of Ms. Fonda. Not the message but the delivery, far too strident and brittle for my taste. While this talk did not necessarily change my opinion of her, it did give me a newly found respect for her.

I highly recommend taking the time to watch.

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Now playing: Duran Duran - Electric Barbarella
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Smart

Koji Hatakeyama (b. 1956)
2006, bronze, 7 1/4" x 7 1/4" (18 x 18 cm)
A cast bronze polygon box and cover patinated in mottled reds, browns and black, the inside with gold leaf




Molecolo - Ritsue Mishima (b. 1962)
2005, glass, 10" high x 9" wide (25.5cm x 23cm)
A tall oval glass vase applied with random attachments




Circuit Bird - Ayumi Shigematsu (b.1958)
2006, ceramic, 14" x 14" (36cm x 36 cm)
A large organic shaped clay sculpture




Naoko Serino (b. 1962)
2005, jute, 8 3/4" high x 10" wide (22cm x 25 cm)
An abstract sculptural roundish form made from jute fiber


Many of the dealers who have abandoned Notting Hill have done so to exhibit at the more prestigious art and antiques fairs. One such gallerist is the brilliant Katie Jones, a forerunner in the field of contemporary Japanese crafts.

Aside from her regular appearances at the June Olympia, Ms. Jones can also be found at The International Asian Art Fair in New York (which has been canceled this year) and the recently launched Collect at London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Now playing: Alphaville - Big in Japan
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Limbo

While it may not quite be hell, it is quite hellish. This sofa belongs in our dining room-cum-office. Yes India, people do use sofas with dining tables, perhaps not with great hulking ones, but they do use them. Until the chimney breast in the living room can be removed, here it must remain. On the bright side, it does give me time to choose a paint colour for the living room and change my mind a million times, or so.

It really is so much easier doing this sort of thing for others.



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Now playing: The Animals - House of the Rising Sun
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More ways to waste time

The V.I.P.s (1963), featuring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Louis Jourdan, Elsa Martinelli, Maggie Smith, Rod Taylor, Orson Welles and Margaret Rutherford. Margaret Rutherford won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the Duchess of Brighton.

A wonderful film for so many reasons, not least of all because it chronicles a time when travel still had an air of romance.


Now playing: Alphaville - The Jet Set

Exile by the shore

Truman Capote photographed at his Sagaponack house by Horst in 1965


The saltbox-style, two-story studio was intentionally weathered


Polished blue floors and book-lined walls brought a whimsy to the home’s stark lines


Truman’s writing desk


Upper level study

Hampton Style - August 15, 2008 for the full article.

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Now playing: Joni Mitchell - Blue
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Remember what Joan Crawford said to the Board of Pepsi Cola?

Dear hobac

I recently came across your anonymous "blog" promoting your market stall in Portobello Road. It is a well constructed "blog" making good use of the template provided by Blogger.

Most of the "Blogs of Interest" that you list on your "blog" are foreign so I assume you are not English. Despite that, you do have a keen sense of irony and have very wittily chosen to call your "blog", and possibly your market stall, "The House of Beauty and Culture". As your main interest appears to be old bones and dead animals I would have thought that "The Charnel House" would be a more fitting description.

I have no objection to hunting or the wearing of furs but I cannot understand how anyone could take seriously the tacky rubbish that you are trying to sell. Presumably most of your customers are American. Maybe you are familiar with the expression involving "money" and "old rope".

hey ho

an occasional "blog" viewer



Dear occasional "blog" viewer - P Adams(adamsp76@tiscali.co.uk)


Clearly you are not getting the tone. The only reason I highlight Portobello Road is to point out just how small and ignorant the general public can be. Thank you for helping to prove the point.

At no point have I ever promoted either my services as a decorator or as an antiques dealer. If that were my intention I would have linked the blog to my website. And, accepted advertising.

You are absolutely correct in your assumption that I am not English, but I am British. As you seem to posses such keen skills of observation, I trust you understand the difference. I am surprised that you, an Englishman, are not familiar with the origins of The House of Beauty and Culture. Perhaps you are just too young, too straight, and, or, too provincial to know.

Apart from our tacky rubbish, I hazard a guess that there are in fact far greater things that you do not understand. If I may be so bold as to suggest that you edify yourself with those things first.


HOBAC

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Now playing: Kevin Aviance - Cunty
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Haunt of intellect and daring

Cafe Royal London 1912 by Sir William Orpen

Café Royal was founded by French wine merchant Daniel Nicholas Thévenon. Fleeing bankruptcy in France, he arrived in England in 1863 with five pounds and his wife Célestine. A new country called for a new name, and he became Daniel Nicols. What didn’t change was his flair and Célestine’s thrift, and in just two years they were able to take over a small shop in Glasshouse Street and turn it into a café.

Good food, good service and Nicols’ knowledge of wines made the Café-Restaurant Nicols a success. Within ten years, he had created one of the most famous and cosmopolitan of establishments. Oscar Wilde made the Café his own and his followers — followed suit. And with them came the beau monde. Their sport was a battle of wits, but the real fights took place under the direction of the National Sporting Club whose boxing activities found a permanent home there in 1955.

On January 20th Bonhams will be auctioning off the contents of Café Royal. The ballrooms and suites with names such as Napoleon, Dubarry and Dauphin, are to make way for a new five-star hotel.

Just what the world needs.



Lot No: 1
Cafe Royal - The Front Hall
A pair 20th century cut glass tent and bag chandeliers.

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Now playing: Ron Goodwin - Café Royal Waltz Theme
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