Ding-dong the bells did chime

Pre lippy and on the way to Westminster Register Office,
La Talia did indeed get hitched.

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Now playing on iTunes: Third World - Now That We Found Love (12" Version)
via FoxyTunes

Boxing clever

George III silver mounted cowrie shell snuff mull.
The plain lid with integral hinge, 6 x 4cm, London 1814.


A French tortoiseshell and specimen stone oblong snuff box.
The central oval aggregate and banded agate and lapis lazuli spandrel roundels in chased laurel mounts, 8.5cm wide, circa 1820.

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Now playing on iTunes: George Michael - Precious Box
via FoxyTunes

So many chairs, so little time

Victorian oak Aesthetic style spindle back dining chairs with turned and tapering front legs.


Eric Cohler's Darley horsehair in Bark




Regency pollard oak dining chairs with tapering turned reeded front legs.


Lee Jofa's Musetta Print in Grass




17th Century dining chairs with foliate and bird carving above a cane panel flanked by carved scroll uprights and cane seats, with scroll carved supports and stretchers.


Lee Jofa's Karsa Flamestich in Fall


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Now playing on iTunes: Simon Webbe - No Worries (Breakdown Mix)
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Duality

What Do You Want From Me?, Claude Cahun (1928)





Claude Cahun (1894–1954) the French surrealist artist, photographer and writer. Born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob, she was the niece of writer Marcel Schwob and the great-niece of Orientalist David Léon Cahun. She was raised by her maternal grandmother, Mathilde Cahun.

Cahun began taking photographic self-portraits as early as 1912, when she was merely 18 years old, and continued doing so through the 1930s. Her work, which was both political and personal, questioned the accepted notions of sexuality, gender, beauty, and logic. She collaborated with her stepsister and lover Suzanne Malherbe, who had adopted the pseudonym Marcel Moore.

In 1937 she and Moore fled France and settled in the Bay of St Brelade on Jersey. Forever the radical activists, they carried out acts of resistance against the occupying German force. In 1944 Cahun was arrested and condemned to death, but the island was liberated before the sentence could be carried out. She died on Jersey 10 years later.


Further reading:

Disavowals: or Cancelled Confessions by Claude Cahun
Don't Kiss Me by Claude Cahun, Marcel Moore


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Now playing on iTunes: Air - Left Bank
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So very Miss Marple

English Riviera



Blyth Beach

I have always wanted to do one of of these. Though I thought I would have to wait until we got one or our own. Not so, a client has asked for me to do theirs. Practice makes perfect.

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Now playing on iTunes: Men At Work - Down By the Sea
via FoxyTunes

More ways to waste time

Ash Wednesday (1973), featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Henry Fonda, Helmut Berger, Keith Baxter, and Maurice Teynac. Directed by Larry Peerce.

Can Barbara Sawyer (Elizabeth Taylor), a woman too old to be young and too young to be old, rekindle her husband Mark's (Henry Fonda) waning desire by submitting herself to the rigours of the plastic surgeon's knife?

Sadly, only available on VHS but well worth the effort.


Before.


And after - both are the work of makeup artist Alberto De Rossi .


Image from Dr. Marco's comprehensive site.



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Now playing on iTunes: Mary J. Blige - Beautiful Ones
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Long before Treacy there was Jones

Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones
24 February – 31 May 2009
V&A South Kensington


Portrait of Stephen Jones by Peter Ashworth, 2008.



Wash and Go by Stephen Jones
Image courtesy of Justinephotography



Straw boater by Madame Suzy c.1937




The companion publication to the exhibition, Hats: An Anthology
By Stephen Jones & Oriole Cullen, Foreword by John Galliano

Hats: An Anthology offers an unprecedented view of the world of millinery, drawing on the V&A’s extensive collection of hats, Stephen Jones’s own archive and iconic headgear from around the globe. Beautifully illustrated chapters examine the inspiration behind the creation of hats, the history of their construction, the lure of the hat shop and finally the etiquette and occasion of hat wearing for the client.




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Now playing on iTunes: Freak Power - Turn On, Tune In, Cop Out (Radio Mix)
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Bearable lightness

An early 19th Century Pennsylvania Sheraton cherry and mahogany games table.


Along with Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite, Thomas Sheraton ( 1751 - 1806) was one of the most influential English furniture designers. His designs were distinctive in their grace and delicacy, and noted for their extensive use of satinwood and elegant inlays. His furniture design manuals, published between 1791 and 1803, set the fashion of English furniture.




Thomas Sheraton style (1780 -1820) dining chairs with pierced lattice work backs, stud upholstered seats and supported on turned and tapering front legs.


The Edwardian movement owed much to the neo-classical Sheraton style.



An Edwardian satinwood Sheraton revival console table with painted foliate decoration on square tapering legs.








The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing-Book: Frontispiece and title page (vol. 1), plates 33 and 35 (vol. 2), 1793
Thomas Sheraton (British, 1751–1806)
London

From The Metropolitan Museum of Art




Thomas Sheraton-Cabinet-maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book and Repository

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Now playing on iTunes: Duran Duran - Finest Hour
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Goddess

Tilda Swinton wearing Lanvin at the 81st Annual Academy Awards.
Note, it is not Lanvin wearing Tilda Swinton. A lesson a good many of the Hollywood set (and those who take their cues from them) should heed. Neither over styled, nor over dressed for the occasion.

If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?
- Edith Sitwell


Image from fabsugar


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Now playing on iTunes: The Beauty Room - Soul Horizon
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It's just flowers (the fresh is redundant)

A large shallow glass cylinder lined with moss and planted with fritillaria (at least a dozen or so) makes for a very smart arrangement.





Fritillaria meleagris




A more casual approach from Martha Stewart using Fritillarias and Epimediums (native orchids) in vintage chemistry measures.


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Now playing on iTunes: Talking Heads - (Nothing But) Flowers
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Jam don't shake like that

The work of Bompas & Parr, fine English jelly specialists.



Jelly Mould No.227 ( England c. 1870 )



Jelly Mould No.365 ( England c. 1880 )



Jelly Mould No. 240 ( England c. 1870 )




From Jelly and Moulded Foods course by Historic Food


A Victorian variation on ribband jelly known as Russian Jelly or Panachee Jelly. It has been made in a nineteenth century succès mould and the opacue effect achieved by whipping the jelly to a froth . Each layer had to set, before the next was poured in.


This jelly was made from an Alexandra Cross mould with an inner lining that allows a white cross to be cast all the way through, like the wording in a stick of rock. The cross represents the Danish flag. Edward, who became king of England when his mother Queen Victoria died in 1901, married Princess Alexandra of Denmark in 1853. The Alexandra Cross mould was registered that year. - Ivan Day, Historic Food

Listen to Chef Claire Bassano and food historian Ivan Day discuss the merits and the history of the much overlooked dessert.



Nigella Lawson's Rhubarb and Muscat Jelly

Tyler Florence's Muscat Jelly with Blackberries

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Now playing on iTunes: Peaches & Herb - Shake Your Groove Thing
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Crown of light

jesus lamp by ricardo garza marcos
Kindly brought to our attention by Easy & Elegant Life.

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Now playing on iTunes: Foy Vance - Shed a Little Light
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Dolls

Marilyn's pills.

How one should use toile

Copiously.

Nest, Summer 2001 - This is a Genuine Emergency
Andre Leon Talley photographed by Jason Schmidt in his Lenox Hill Hospital room decorated by Mica Ertegun (MACII). Fran Lebowitz takes a cigarette break outside.

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Now playing on iTunes: Peggy Lee - Don't Smoke In Bed
via FoxyTunes

How one should use toile

Copiously.

Nest, Summer 2001 - This is a Genuine Emergency
Andre Leon Talley photographed by Jason Schmidt in his Lenox Hill Hospital room decorated by Mica Ertegun (MACII). Fran Lebowitz takes a cigarette break outside.

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Now playing on iTunes: Peggy Lee - Don't Smoke In Bed
via FoxyTunes

More ways to waste time

Ingmar Bergman's Oscar nominated Höstsonaten (1978), or Autumn Sonata (1978) as it was translated. Featuring Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, and Lena Nyman.

The tale of a mother's (Ingrid Bergman) regret and a daughter's (Liv Ullmann) harboured pain.


Autumn Sonata - Original trailer


Chopin's Prelude No. 2 in A minor

More ways to waste time

Ingmar Bergman's Oscar nominated Höstsonaten (1978), or Autumn Sonata (1978) as it was translated. Featuring Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann, and Lena Nyman.

The tale of a mother's (Ingrid Bergman) regret and a daughter's (Liv Ullmann) harboured pain.


Autumn Sonata - Original trailer


Chopin's Prelude No. 2 in A minor

Lost and found

Vintage industrial by AMERICAN FURNISHINGS


FRAME CART



WOOD SIDE CHAIR



RECYCLED TIRE BINS



CAST IRON & GALVANIZED TOP TABLE