Mary Waters’s Spitafields silk bride dress

Posted on 13 January, 2015 by María López Linares

She chose a very daring wedding dress design for the time. A fascinating dress made in silk from Spitafields in green decorated with flowers in salmon, pink, golden, olive green and blue. Something definitely not usual at all back then. It actually showed Mary Waters family’s economic status when she got married with Anthony Sigourney in Boston in 1740.

Mary Waters picked this beautiful and truly expensive fabric, imported from London (Spitafields), where the most high-quality silks were made in the time.

The dress was completed by a pretty front with the form of a cone embroidered with golde thread that helped embellished her figure, and also by the squared neckline with a laced flounce made of linen, the same material used in the sleeves. The skirt was huge, exceedingly bulky and with a lateral opening. It was with no doubt a very colorful and different wedding dress.

Many women used to choose the white color. Not her, because this way it was more convenient for the purpose. Any spot or stain wouldn’t be noticed, while a tiny incident used to ruin any white dress, in a time when washing systems were not as good as the one we have nowadays.

Mary Waters’ election ended up being such an investment. Twenty years after the gown was still in perfect conditions to be used by her own daughter.

Spitafields silk

The history of this area of London is worth of being told. By the end of 1687, over 13.000 French Protestants came to stay as refugees in that part of the city. They started there one of the most profitable actions in the time: silk manufacture. In just a few years it became into the best business in town. Most of the women from Europe and the States would want to have one of the famous Spitafields silk.

Over the 17th and 18th centuries that area was over developed with houses and buildings to let master weavers to work from there, as well as houses of all kind like huge mansions and also smaller properties for weavers of the area. Spitafields grew very quickly.

By the beginning of the 18th century, Irish weavers arrived to Spitafields running away from the linen industry decline in Ireland. The crisis over the field in London was actually very crude along this century, due to the peak of the French silk market, a terrible competence. By half the century, weavers started fighting each other and against their managers because of the low salaries and precarious life conditions.

By the Victorian era, the silk industry had already started a long decline. Spitafields neighbourhood turned into an unhealthy area with houses that fell apart.

By 1860, the customs opened and the imports from French came to stay, so many weavers from Spitafields became homeless. Some of them tried to redirect their businesses into other fields such as woodwork, but the situation was unsustainable. And the area became into one of the poorest of London.

This together with the lack of hygiene and security caused the demolition of part of this area in the 19th century.

By the end of the 20th century, from the 60’s, this area is most well-known by the capital of the curry and it’s living a new hit with new artists coming around.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Jordi Gual’s style is disturbing at the very least.

Posted on 8 January, 2015 by María López Linares

2014 ended a few days ago. So did my Project “12 meetings with Photographers” with the last master I’m reproducing and writing about; Jordi Gual.

It’s been a very special year for me and this Project has turned into a rewarding experience that has made me become a better person, both, personally and professionally.

From here on out, all of us members of “The Magic Lens” will spend our spare time in many other pending personal jobs, not together anymore though.

However I didn’t want to finish it without thanking you all for your support along 2014. Special thanks to Monica Giannini, Mapy Dh, Malén Martinez, Raquel Queiruga, Carola del Alisal, Fernando del Alisal and Rodrigo del Alisal, who made this Project feasable. A thousand thanks!!!

With Jordi Gual I definitely close 2014 and also “The Magic Lense”.

In just a few days you’ll know the new projects I have in mind for 2015. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my last art work of this Project:

Jordi Gual

Jordi Gual’s style is disturbing at the very least. He chose his daughters to be his musas. His older daughter who is blind, is the heart of his work because, according to his own words “Natalia’s eyes taught me how to see with a glance full of tension and ambiguity. I hate the fact that she is blind and love her with all my heart.”

However since there is no much Gual’s work on the Internet and December is for me specially hard in our vintage space, I only had time to make one picture. Hope you enjoy it!

With “B” for “Brooch”

Posted on 6 January, 2015 by María López Linares

The root of a brooch is the fibula, a piece as old as the Bronze Age.

The use like we know it today – piece of jewelry – started during the Classic period. It was used to hold or fasten the traditional heavy clothes.

Over the years, this piece became into an ornament with the only purpose of decoration. Nowadays it’s a considered a vintage jewelry for women to be worn over the lapel, dresses or a scarf.

It’s made of two solded pieces: the decorative part and the safety pin to clip it to the fabric. And I say “safety” because brooches usually have a security system to help keep it fastened to the clothe and therefore avoid the loss.

It’s also usual to find a hidden piece into the brooch. We have a few of the kind in our vintage collection. It’s a sort of ring that can be opened in order to pass a chain that will allow you to use it as a necklace.

Many women collect them, and it’s frequent to find brooch collectionists specialized in just a given form of the piece, like bows, ladybugs, dragonflies and the kind.

It’s a gorgeous piece of jewelry that will always match your gown to help make it more elegant and timeless.

In oder to show you how a good choice of a brooch can be your ideal accesory to finish your attire more elegant, let me use the well-known saying “to close with a golden brooch”, which means that the matter you are talking about needs that final touch to make it just perfect.

Images: @María Vintage Photography

Virginia Woolf: The art of writing that only lost against illness

Posted on 16 December, 2014 by María López Linares

The big screen brought to us a few years ago the image of one more woman ahead of her time: the British Virginia Woolf (played by Nicole Kidman). She was a novelist, essay writer, editor, an active feminist and one of the most representative personalities in London in the beginning of the 20th century. Nowadays, she is considered among the best and most innovative writers of that time.

Born within a well educated family, she was in constant touch with the cultural environment. “A woman should have money and own a room if she means to write fiction”, she said, because her life wasn’t easy – in spite of the fact that her family was wealthy – The life of the writer of Orlando (her biography) was troubled with mental illness. Her parent’s death (specially her father’s) was the beginning of several mental breakdowns and a depression that lead her to commit suicide years after.

Virginia Woolf always suffered from bipolar disorder, but the severe moral in the time stopped her from talking about these episodes in her autobiographies. However, she was strong enough to beat the illness for a while only with her writing. Her husband, Leonardo Woolf also was always a big support. He was an economist and writer, member of the well-knkown group Bloomsbury. They got married whe she was 30 and they always had a huge affinity. They both together launched a publishing house that published, among others, Sigmund Freud or T.S. Eliot’s biggest hits.

In 1941, with Europe in the middle of a war, Virginia Woolf threw herself to the river Ouse. In her emotional suicide note she showed once more time her loyalty to her husband with these words: “You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer (…) If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been”

Despite her important literary work and her being in the cultural life of the time, after her death Virginia Woolf’s writing dissapeared, until the feminist movement recovered it during the 60’s. It was then when her work revived to become into one of the English biggest novelists. She was terribly engaged wiht her time and other people who, like her, loved the writing. Virginia Woolf was a model of personal and professional development and she passed on us a magnificent work of fiction writing and essays.

“Givenchy, the history of a genious”

Posted on 11 December, 2014 by María López Linares

This is something I was looking forward to this November, a visit to the first retrospective about the French fashion designer Hubert from Givenchy, a leyend in the history of fashion.

This is the first Givenchy’s exhibition in Spain, in the Thyssen Museum, and it’s also the first time this museum shows fashion. The show is comissioned by Givenchy himself and it’s a walk through the history of this great genious along the second half of the 20th century, since the first store was opened in 1952 in Paris.

A selection of almost 100 pieces coming from several museums and private collections from around the world, many of them still unpublished. They share the room with exquisite paintings from the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection.

I had the priviledge of pay a visit to the show with Maria de Cuenca and a distinguish group of art lovers. Maria is a tourist guide and expert at Art and History, so the walk through the collection was even more entertaining thanks to her explanations and comments.

Among the pieces we enjoyed are a few designs from the high society along the 20th century. Iconic women like Jackqueline Kennedy, the Windsor duchess, Caroline of Monaco or even her muse and friend Audrey Hepburn. The master was Audrey’s designer in most of her most important movies, such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s. There it was the black dress I’ve dreamt of so many times…

This dress has a very interesting background. I’ve read in many specialized pages some doubts that expert had regarding this dress: the fact that the dress that appears in the beginning of the movie didn’t have the cut in the skirt. This is even more obvious in the scenes where Audrey walks towards Tiffany. She moves very graciously but in short steps so it’s evident the dress is pretty tight. However the dress that appears in most of the promotions let Audrey shows the left leg.

Is this dress the one Givenchy designed for Audrey’s movie? Or maybe it’s an adapted design that Edith Head, Paramount Pictures Manager Designer did in the very last minute? Is it possible that the Givenchy’s model was considered too provocative and they decided to make it more demure?

I’m determined to find out more about this mysterious. If I get the correct answer, you’ll be the first ones to know.

In the meantime, if you have the chance, don’t miss this show, specially if you are a fashion art lover.

Bibliography and Timetable

@Museo Thyssen

Photography @María Vintage Photography

With “A”: for Aljófar Pearl

Posted on 9 December, 2014 by María López Linares

That curious name “aljófar” comes from the Arabic language. It means: small pearl or group of them with irregular shape. The poets use this word more often to describe the tiny dew drops that cover plants and grass early in the morning. These pearls are generally of not much value.

You can distinguish between two different aljófar: the “poppy” (usually more esferic) and the egg-shaped “seeds”, more irregular.

This name is also given to jewelry pieces made with this kind of pearls like earrings or necklaces, or even to those pieces used to decorate the wealthiest silks during the Renaissance.

Nowadays is not frequent to find jewels made with these pearls, since it’s very complicated to work with them due to their tiny size.

When they are well attached, both over gold or silver, they have a very beautiful and elegant look.

Key after key

Posted on 4 December, 2014 by María López Linares

In a chapter from the acclaimed series House of Cards, a crafty Kevin spacey has to write a very important letter and he decides to do it with a Underwood writing machine that his father had given to him. We can see his fingers hiting each key and how every word is printed over the paper almost in a solemn way. There’s no screen or cables around, only the indelible ink.

This scene wouldn’t have had the same impact with a computer, laptop or an iPad. It’s not about rejecting the new technologies now but about defending that magic within the printed words that will never be deleted, within the smell of the ink, within the rhythmic sound of the keys hiting the paper.

The first writing machine I can remember was a Rheinmetall in my grandparent’s house. It was portable or, at least, the instructions said that, because the heavy weight made it imposible to carry around. My grandfather, who was a woodworker, made a cover in wood for it. Thanks to that box, the device was able to cross the Atlantic from Venezuela to Spain with not even a scratch. It wasn’t really portable but it was a traveller indeed, because its origin was German. The Company in charge of the production was founded in Dusseldorf by the end of the 19th century, and in 1931 released the first writing machine, although the real business was totally different.

But that tool wasn’t mine, but my father’s, who some day realized my devotion was writing and suddenly gave me away a Canon Typestar 110. I know he brought it from one of his many trips. It was a total revolution since it was electronic and had a little screen that showed the whole line you’d just written before print it over the paper.

Also, my skills as a writer had got much better after waste lots of packets of El Galgo paper. However, even though the Canon was very useful and ecofriendly, it lacked of that rhythmic and evocative sound I needed every time I wanted to write something on my own. It was perfect for my homework though, but muses need their own sound track to be called.

I still keed those two machines and not long ago, a third one came to accompany: a beautiful Underwood (like the one Kevin Spacey used but a bit dirtier) that a friend of mine found in his parent’s basement. He decided to give it to me and I really think he didn’t realize what he was giving to a literary mythomaniac like I am. Kerouac, Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Raymond Chandler, Arthur Conan Doyle… Even Orson Wells in Ciudadano Kane… All of them used this exact machine. A treasure I still keep safe in my library surrounded by thousand of books because I think that’s its proper place. When I feel I’ve lost the battle against a blank paper (or better said, a blank screen) I caress its keys trying to invoke just a few voices that I know are behind it.

Because the writing machines have something very special and magic that computers lack of. Ask Paul Auster who dedicated his book to his old Olympia. The author of the Trilogy of New York or Winter Diary speaks about it like a devoted lover, about the company that it meant and the charming dents and scars. He tells that when he suspected the tapes would stop being manufactured, ordered all of them available to his stationery shop in Brooklyn and now he tries to ration them carefully.

It’s true the modern devices have made our lives easier. They have also given us many shocks though… I’m sure you’ve all been terrified while quitting without saving the document! But the writing is an artisan profession that needs a dose of romanticism and magic. A writer is fetishistic by definition and there’s no major fetish that an old and heavy writing machine with a story behind and another one to be told for those who silently want to plait.

“Post written by Maria Cereijo, Journalist and Writer. Find her on Twitter @capitulosiete or as a juvenil authour @LabAmy

Pictures by @Maria Cereijo

The Ava’s Jewelry Collection

Posted on 2 December, 2014 by María López Linares

Ava Gardner was a extremely beautiful, strong and impulsive… She also was glamous and sensuality, and over all, a huge jewelry collector.

The actress was owner of a classic collection of jewelry most of them dated in the 60’s and 70’s. The style – surprisingly – is very discreet, opposite to Ava’s character.

One of the first jewels that was gathered was the engagement ring Mickey Rooney gave to her the day they announced their wedding. That happened in a party in Romanoff. The fabulouse piece had a stepped brilliant with a weight of 6.35 carats.

Other of the most emblematic pieces among her collection was a very elegant set of diamond earrings, designed with the form of a bouquet, with intercangeable pendants: diamond drops with the form of a pear, jadeite pearls, impressive drops of emerald and diamonds or pearl crowned with diamonds. In the movie The Cassandra Crossing she wore these earrings with drops of pearls. It’s such a versatile piece with a classic and beautiful design.

Ava also had in her collection a magnificent ring with a Kashmir sapphire, a gift from Howard Hughes who the actress returned it to when they broke up their relationship. A Kashmir sapphire is not a normal gem. They are the most famous and wanted sapphires in the world since they have a superb blue color that gave them the name of “sapphires of velvet”. Due to the rarity of these stones, they are considered almost mythical.

Kashmir sapphires are not usually shown to the public, not even in the most important auctions. For you to have an idea of the price and rarity, the last piece sold in an auction was at Christie’s, where one of these 22.66 carats treasures was sold for over 3 million dollars to an anonymous buyer.

Like the rest of the women in her generation, Ava loved the pearls. For her wedding with Frank Sinatra back in 1951 she chose wearing a pearl necklace together with earrings matching.

But the best piece in the collection was a ring with emerald and diamonds designed by Van Cleef&Arpels. The emeral, a piece of 4.6 carats with a perfect definition and a brilliant green color, was set into a circle of diamonds in 1961 in New York.

Some other highlighted pieces in Ava’s collection were:

An appealing bracelet of diamonds designed by Cleef&Arpels in the beginning of the 60’s. This same brand also made two brooches of diamonds with the form of a flower. The center of one of them had emerald set.
And one more brooch made with diamonds and cultivated pearls from Mississippi. The form of this brooch was beatiful: An angel sat over a cloud with rubies as hearts.

It’s clear so far that the Ava’s preferred jeweler was Cleef&Arpels. They were the designers of almost all her most important pieces.

However, in comparisson with other contemporary actress, Ava’s collection was quite small. Small but the most beautiful and one of the best of the time.

In 1989 she decided to sell part of her collection in New York. The rest of the jewels was auctioned not long after her death in London.

She’ll be always remembered like “the most beautiful animal in the world” and her jewelry collection like one of the most distinguished in the time.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Avagardnermito.blogspot.com

Gemselect.com

“Hollywood Jewels” by Penny Proddow, Debra Healy and Marion Fasel

Images:

Sam Levin

Helmut Newton, the polemic photographer

Posted on 27 November, 2014 by María López Linares

Here I am again, one month more, working on my project with El Objetivo Magico (The Magic Lens)

Sometimes it’s overwhelming to face how quickly the months pass… Only one month to go to the end of this productive photographic period of my life.

This month the protagonist is Helmut Newton, our master to replicate. And I’ve had again the help of my dearest friend Monica Giannini as a model. Believe me, if it wasn’t for her this challenge wouldn’t have been the same.

Helmut Newton probably is the photographer who made the erotic photograph glamorous. I’ve read he was called the creator of the ”Chic porno”, and I really think these two words define his perfect style. He is the top representative of the “vouyerism” style (applied to professional photography, of course)

The jump to the fame came when he was 50 already. He had started a few collaborations with Vogue Australia that lead him to Paris to work for the French Vogue.

In 1976 he published his polemic book White Women, where he tried to picture the life of the prostitutes who used to live in the street Saint-Denis. All in his images evoque provocation and sexuality, mixed with a cocktail of glamour and a pinch of violence. It’s been very difficult for me to choose the images to copy and replicate, pictures I felt comfortable with. To be honest, I find his work too much provocative and even violent.

Manolo Blahnik said about Newton’s work: “The Newton’s feminine aesthetic was unique. He was a men who knew how to photograph women looking like women”.

This is the summary of my work this month. Once again, I can’t thank enough to Monica for her help and it’s very special for me to appear with her in one of the photos.

Hope you enjoy our work…

With “T” for “Tiara”

Posted on 25 November, 2014 by María López Linares

First of all, I’d like to differentiate “tiara” from “diadem”, although the origin is the same. The best place to wear a tiara is the front of the head, where it’ll be better seen. A diadem is placed on top of the head to hold the hair.

This is an elegant and fascinating jewelry usually linked to old European royal families that played a relevant role in History. Many of these tiaras were dissambled when they stopped being in style and added the gems to other jewels.

Romans played a very important role in the evolution of the tiaras. They started this fashion and used precious stones like amethysts, pearls, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds to make them. In Greece, on the contrary, they were made out of leaves and flowers. Their designs are used still nowadays.

Lately, the tiara has been adapted to be used in weddings. It’s the most elegant and sophisticated jewel for a bride since it’ll give her a especial shine that day. In my humble opinion there’s nothing that can make the bride feels so especial like tiaras. For many this is the only time in their lives when they’ll wear a jewel like this.

This habit – top the head of a bride in her wedding day, that is – has a meaning: The loss of her inocence and the triumph of love.

It’s also frequent to see how has been used the “language of flowers” through the years, as well as the “language of the stones”. That is something a jewelry artist has in mind when makeing new designs. The selection of the stones is particularly very important, since according to the old tradition of the lapidary, each stone has a meaning. Exactly the same happens with flowers. That is why the flower design and colors are so important in making tiaras, especially those made for brides.

Let me give you a bite of the principal meanings:

Images: María Vintage Photography

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