A Century of Street Style

Posted on 2 October, 2014 by María López Linares

The fact that the street photo style phenomenon was born with Scott Schuman is like saying this gentelman invented the hot water. “There is no news under the Sun” and the only exception to this proverb is Steve Jobs who is probably pointing at his iPad and smiling at me from somewhere up there…

It’s also popular the saying that the ideas don’t know further onwer than the one who dares to actually make them real. So according to this, we do have to recognize Scott Schuman’s the achievement of getting benefits from an old idea such as the street style. You’ll probably have read enough about this photo discipline and I have no much to add. There are many blogs with an only section dedicated to the style of the streets, which goes much further than the catwalks.

When this style started being famous online, the argument to justify the excessive enthusiasm was to affirm that the designers looked to these pictures in order to find some divine inspiration to create their collections. However, the style has reached such a renown online that now brands use this sort of pictures that seem to be very natural shots, which works as a gold mine to get their online customer’s attention. We are again admiring an art that imitates life, or life that imitates an art.

The momentum of the street style on blogs has already passed and now it’s turn for magazines that prefer to pay for pictures of around the catwalk rather than the ones of the fashion show. Then in this case protagonists have nothing to do with the original spontaneity of this discipline.

And before I leave you with these wonderful images from the beginning of the 20th century by the photographer and illustrator Edward Linley Sambourne, I’d like to add my point of view about the “egobloggers”, those young girls who love to publish their fashion designs in a blog. I’m convinced they shouldn’t be considered as a part of the street sytle, although they tried once and again to incorporate this word to their post titles.

The especial situation of the real street style is the luck of premeditation, the spontaneous and unexpected shot and definately not in the creation of a “casual activity” wearing a design to show it in a blog. Said that, please, enjoy the following images. Also try to swap the books in their hands with an iPhone or a Blackberry and you’ll realize these trendsetters’ poses have not changed that much along a hundred years.

Photographies | The Library Time Machine

http://labrujacontacondeaguja.com/2012/04/17/un-siglo-de-street-style/

A vintage wedding gown with courage and sensitivity

Posted on 18 September, 2014 by María López Linares

Why a daughter would want to wear her mother’s wedding dress? I’ve been thinking so much about this lately that I’ve decided to start a few posts around this theme: old bridal gowns and the stories and protagonists behind.

And the first story I want to share with you today is all but boring. I’ve been looking into the full story and I’ve been amazed with so many odd anecdotes. You know how I love digging into old stories from the past…

This time it wasn’t the lack of money what took Mary Mulenberg Hopkings into wearing the same gown her mother Mary Barr Denny Muhlenberg had worn 28 years ealier. Back in the time Mary (daughter) got married with one of the inheritors in the area. It was clear to me though her motives were sentimental.

The fashion trends had totally changed since then but the daughter only touched the neckline a bit in order to make it more modest and also changed a little the design of the sleeves, but nothing else. I assume they should have had about the same size.

Mary the mother had been a woman surprisingly well prepared for the time. She stood up over the rest of the students in the prestigious Parcker Institute, in Brooklyn, where she joined advanced Maths and Astronomy, among other subjects. This knowledge along with her personality allowed her to continue working on the projects her husband left unattended when he died.

She inherited a huge fortune which didn’t stop her from becoming into an incredible philantropic for the rest of her life. Hospitals, medical institutions, orphanages, schools and universities were a few of the projects Mary started besides her shy and discreet nature.

Mary made real the most ambitious project ever built by a woman in the time, the creation of the Mariemont Village in Hamilton, Ohio. It was a very advanced city with all the amenities you could imagine.

But Mariemont’s story goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, when her husband bought a ranch near Newport, Rhode Island. He called it Mariemont. There the couple spent wonderful times and started dreaming of how the project would be.

After Thomas’ passing, Mary spent over 7 million dollars to adquire all lands around her ranch. She needed a lot of space to build her dream city: a model place ready to embrace people from all levels, either buying or renting family houses.

Mary placed the first stone of Mariemont Village on April 23rd 1923, but she died four years later leaving her heirs enjoying her magnanimous creation: one of the biggest construction in the beginning of the 20th century that employed the most prominent professionals.

I’m sure her mother would have been very proud of the role Mary played in the development of the US. She, a woman with the sensitivity of wearing the same wedding gown as her mother did had the courage of build one of the most ambitious constructions of the time.

Here’s a mosaic with the two bridal dresses, the original one and then with the changes Mary did. Which one you like it more? I’d rather prefer the first option… The new neckline and sleeves don’t convinced me. How about you?

Images and Bibliography

Findagrave.com

Google.es

Mariemontpreservation.org

Wedding Perfection- Two Centuries of wedding Gowns- Cynthia Amnèus.

Cincinnatiartmuseum.org

Some Like It Hot

Posted on 23 July, 2014 by María López Linares

Year: 1959

Director: Billy Wilder.

Stars:

Marylin Monroe (Sugar Cane).

Tony Curtis (Joe).

Jack Lemmon (Jerry).

George Raft (Spats Colombo).

Joe E. Brown (Osgood).

Awards:

It won one Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White. In addition, the movie gained many other prizes you can check in the IMDB profile.

Curiosities:

When the designer was having mesurements from the three protagonists he said to Marilyn that Tony Curtis “had a better butt”. Marilyn didn’t hesitate to putting off her shirt and show him her breasts saying “he might have it, but he doesn’t have these ones”.

Marilyn has trouble memorizing sentences. There’s a very famous scene where she just had to say “where’s the Bourbon”? and after more than 40 repetitions in which Marilyn always said it wrong (“where’s the whisky?”, “where’s the bottle” or even “where’s the bonbon”? Billy Wilder opted to writing it inside the drawer she had to open. But Marilyn was smarter than that and started going to the wrong drawer. They had to write the sentence in all of them. It took her 55 shots to make it right.

In the scene where she says good bye to Tony Curtis on the pone, she is moving he reyes from one side to the other. It was pretty clear she was reading the sentences in a board in front of her. She also used to be around 2 or 3 hours late and sometimes she didn’t even leave her dressing room.

Tony Curtis asked Billy Wilder if he could imitate Cary Grant to properly performance the role of a millionaire. They did so and it seems Grant liked the scene, although he admitted “I don’t speak like that”.

The first time Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dressed up as women, they walked through the studio to find out if someone could identify them. Nobody did. Then they went straight to the female restroom but nobody did either. A scene in a train reproduce this moment.

This is one of the few movies qualified as cursed by the American Catholic Legion of the Decency. In Kansas was actually censored.

Marilyn wanted the film to be shot in color, but Wilder convinced her of the opposite. He explained the make-up on Lemmon and Curtis would be seen in a green tone.

The team hired a cabaret dancer in order to teach the main characters to walking over heels. After one week, Jack Lemmon said he didn’t want to learn that since he wanted to walk as a man imitating a woman.

According to Jack Lemmon, George Raft spent hours trying to teach him (and Joe E. Brown) how to dance tango.

Jerry Lewis was offered the role of Jerry, but he rejected it. Later he regretted.

Tony Curtis’ voice as a woman is doubled.

In order to do the role of Josephine, Tony Curtis thought of her mother, Grace Kellly and Eve Arden.

If a movie is worth of being in the history of cinema as THE COMEDY is this one with no doubt.

Billy Wilder, to me the god of cinema, makes again a master piece where drama doesn’t fit at all. The only purpose of this film is allow viewers to laugh out loud during the whole tape. Marilyn is sensational, although she already was suffering from all the excesses in her life. She is sexy, swindler and a bit inocent. That way she turns to be the goddess in every scene where she appears.

The moment she appears with Jerry and Joe at the train station right when the steam was coming out (that wasn’t on purpose) is just ingenious, just masterful.

The end is pretty amazingly funny too… Don’t miss a second!

This is possibly the best comedy of all times. A movie that still has the same funny over the years and that will make you spend a really good time.

Trailer:

Images:

Blogdecine.com

Serueda.wordpress.com

Cicus.us.es

Locureandovoy.blogspot.com.es

Atopedecine.blogspot.com.es

Sospechososcinefagos.blogspot.com.es

Mubis.es

The Garden of the Angel

Posted on 13 June, 2014 by María López Linares

Thinking of coming to Madrid soon? Then, you should come over and see the space I’m recommending today. You’ll know why in a few seconds.

I’m talking about a florist that offers much more than flowers. An elegant and quite corner within the old Madrid, in the downtown with a history behind that deserves to be told by the owners themselves.

I discovered this lovely place when I was walking around the Barrio de las Letras, during a nice Sunday morning. I’d never seen it before, or at least, I had never paid attention.

Its history has a very long tail… It’s a three centuries history actually! That long ago this little spot was the cemetery of the San Sebastian Church. The graveyard kept existing the same way until the last years of the 19th century. It was 1889 when the Martin family (owner of the site) decided to rent it to the church to make a garden center. From then onwards its walls made on glass could tell us a lot about loads of adventures and misterious stories.

It was mentioned by Benito Pérez Galdós (Spanish writer from the 20s) in his novel “Misericordia” and the place still keeps the intimacy of the old cemetery along with the essence of its great past. The business never closed its doors, not once. It was open even during the Civil War in Spain.

Nowadays is a dream place, a lovely garden where besides purchase beautiful flowersm you can enjoy arquitectura and the peace that comes out its walls. Imagine being surrounded by calm, serenity, green color and the most amazing style, in the heart of one of the most fabulous neighborhoods in town.

El jardín del Angel (The Garden of The Angel)

C/ Huertas 2

Madrid 28012

www.jardindelangel.es

Your dreamy vintage wedding dress… Now in our new window

Posted on 6 June, 2014 by María López Linares

We’ve just realeased a new shop window design! Since we are in the favourite time of the year for couples to get married, we’ve decided to add a touch of a vintage wedding to it, a retro wedding from the 50s.

Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of a very good friend of my family, Paula Vallejo Rey del Castillo, Mrs Esteban, we have today one of the most refined and exquisite wedding dresses from the late 50s. We asked to much of her, we knew it. We were asking to show not only her lovely dress but also the memories that entails to take out such a piece. But she gladly agreed and I think her effort was really worth it. This magnificent dress deserved to be shown to the world, don’t you think so?

This piece was made back in 1957 in chantilly lace and silk tull in the sewing workshop own by Purificacion Sepulveda in Madrid. What really caught my attention was the spectacular 2 meters-long tail in chantilly lace and tull. That detail gives the dress an unusual fall and movement. It was so difficult to make it fit in our shop window!

It also was a bit tricky to take these pictures since the dress, my camera and I didn’t fit in the shop window all at once! You can imagine how superb this piece is.

We’d love to show it to you in person, and chat with you about how fashion was that time. So don’t hesitate to come and see me at C/Claudio Coello, 60 in Madrid if you plan to be around any time soon!

If you also have a vintage dress like this one and you’d love to see it in our shop window, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’ll be glad to show it to the world if you take part in our iniciative.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

With H: “Huevo de Pascua” (Easter Egg)

Posted on 26 May, 2014 by María López Linares

A “Huevo de Pascua” (Easter Egg) is a unique jewel for exhibits made by the Russian jeweller Carl Fabergé. Those eggs were made in gold, glaze and precious stones.

This artisan created 69 easter eggs between 1885 and 1917. 61 out of them are still well preserved.

By Easter in 1883, Tzar Alexander III ordered to the artisan jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé a very special egg to give away to his wife, the Tzarina Maria. The eventual gift was an egg with a Shell in platinum that had a smaller egg in it, this time in gold. This last egg had inside a hen in miniature wearing the Russian Imperial Crown. The Tzarina liked it so much that Alexander III ordered Fabergé to make a new one every Easter.

In total, Tzar Alexander gived 11 eggs to his wife. Then, his son Nicolas II kept this tradition ordering more eggs to give away to his wife and mother.

The 57 eggs made by the Fabergé House had a little gift inside: a replica of a Tzar’s belonging.

Lately a Fabergé egg made under the order of the Rothschild family reached a price of 18 million dollars in an auction in the Christie’s House in London.

The surprising anecdote heppened when an American scrap dealer bought with no knowledge one of those eggs: a jewel carved in gold and decorated with diamonds and zaphires ordered by Alexander III as a gift for his wife, the tzarina Maria Feodorovna in 1887. The merchant bought it in a street market with the purpose of selling the gold by weight. Afortunately he couldn’t do it since nobody paid as much as he did to buy the piece.

Over the years, thanks to the Internet, this man found the origin of the piece and decided to travel to London to sell the jewel for the breath-taking amount of 20 million pounds.

Here’s the link to this incredible story: Dailymail.co.uk

We have miniature replicas of this jewel. They are actually among the most liked in our space!

With G for “Gemelos” (Cufflinks)

Posted on 14 April, 2014 by María López Linares

Cufflink: A fastener made with two pieces linked to a little rod or through a small chain. It’s used to close the cuffs in a shirt.

The cufflinks are designed only to be used when the shirt has buttonholes in both cuffs but they don’t have actual buttons. These cufflinks can be single or double and you can wear them either one in front of the other (like kissing) or overlapped. The most preferred ones are the first kind.

These pieces of jewelry are tipycally used by men. However, women have also adapted them to their style.

According to the National Cufflink Society there is proof of use of cufflinks in ancient hieroglyphs found in the King Tut’s tomb. Nevertheless cufflinks as we know them today started being used during the 18th Century.

It was the invention of the stamping machine with vapor along with the electrometallurgy and the Guilloché’s turning machine that the kind of cufflinks we know today were able to be created. As for that moment, the process was handmade.

By the middle of the 19th Century this piece was popularize when French cuff shirts were fashionable – they still are today -. In that epoque was common to save a hair lock from a missed lover within the cufflink as a sign of shame and nostalgia.

In 1880, George Krementz registered in America a device to mass-produce buttons and cufflinks. As a consequence, from the mid 19th century onwards men in the middle and upper clases wore cufflinks. All of a sudden, most businesses in the US were ordering cufflinks for advertising purposes or as a gift for their clients.

Already in the 20th Century the fashion was to wear glazed coloured cufflinks made from gemstones. Artisans from Fabergé House travelled to America and Europe trying to teach worldwide this technique to be used in men jewelry.

If you are interested in the history of cufflinks and how they evolved over the years, don’t miss the Cufflink Museum in Conway (New Hampshire) where you’ll find over 70,000 pairs. I couldn’t find the website but if I finally do it, I’ll add it here as soon as possible.

One of the most completed collections I’ve heard of is the one belonging to the English Royal Family. There are three generations of kings in just one show of cufflinks, including the Eduardo VII, Jorge V and Eduardo VIII’s regins and their heirs. Nowadays is being extended by the current Prince of Wales.

Cufflinks are an elegant, discrete and long-lasting gift. It’s a memory for a whole life, a jewel that will pass from you to your heirs. They will live on.

Santoña MasterPalace

Posted on 3 March, 2014 by María López Linares

At Huertas Street number 13 stands the imposing Santoña MasterPalace. Today the Foundation hosts the Chamber of Commerce , but not always served this function.

In the sixteenth century there was in this area a palace, occupied in 1593 by the ” black prince ” Muley Xeque then named Felipe Africa, but it was more or less a mansion when it was purchased in 1731 the Marquis de Goyeneche, Philip V and Elizabeth Farnese banker, and his choice for remodelling was Pedro de Ribera, architect of the imposing building of brick and white stone from Colmenar de Oreja currently admire.

Palace Santoña met its splendor under the duke of the same name, which was, at the time Don Juan Manuel González Manzanedo, humble Indian family who amassed a fortune in Cuba, and to Alfonso XII who created the title because of its great skill in finance, and its contribution to Madrid improvement.

The duke lived in Cuba with his daughter Josefa, born of his relationship with Luisa Serra Intentes who did not get married. Once was alone there because his daughter moved to Paris he decided to marry María Del Carmen Hernández Espinosa de los Monteros, and returns to Spain. After living in Cadiz arrives in Madrid, where he acquired as gift for his wife GoyenechePalace. From that moment becomes the epicenter of social life in nineteenth-century Madrid aristocracy, they adapted to the tastes of the time, exotic décor with oriental influences, Party Hall, Pompeian Hall with its famous rotunda. This was due, among other things to the dedication of the duchess, who was called familiarly the ” Señá Mariquita Hernández”

The Duchess of Santoña was godly woman. Deeply moved by the situation of children’s medicine , prompted the construction of the Hospital del Niño Jesus, to this effect was responsible for organizing a raffle with the intention of raising funds , calling it National Raffle Child , which ranks as the first step was given for the current draw of the Lottery Child.

At death, the Duke, his daughter, inherited the bulk of his father’s vast fortune, valued at more than 2 billion regales at the time, strikes up a long legal battle in getting his stepmother strip of property that she had received, including the palace, which widow Duchess is in utter destitution, host to charity until his death on October 14, 1894. A pity, knowing his affable and gracious character.

The property then passed to Joseph Canalejas, Liberal Party politician, who lived until the day of his death on November 12, 1912. His widow continued to occupy the palace until her death, when it became one of his nephews, who in turn sold the property on June 6, 1933 at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Madrid, its current owner.

Post written by María Romero de Cuenca, art historian, curator and cultural guide. You can follow her work at her blogs: Arte al Instante and Artendencias.

Francesca Woodman

Posted on 24 February, 2014 by María López Linares

Each month will come with its own difficulties, I have that clear. Sometimes it’ll be tech issues, some other times problems with the team, knowledge concerns or emotional worries.

Last February the issues I found on my way were almost all emotional. Technically I had no problems to reach something similar to what the photographer Francesca Woodman did… She is our VIP character this month and I’d love to introduce her to you all.

Francesca Woodman was a very Young American photographer born within a family of artists. When she was only 22 she sadly decided to end her own life. This fact was the first one that catched my attention when I started studying her work. Her parents, still alive, never got the notoriety she did get in just 8 years of an art career. Neither Betty Woodman or George Woodman will ever have a retrospective in the Guggenheim Museum as Francesca did.

Previously I hadn’t heard about her work, neither her life or her story. I just realized how much her work impacted on me when I looked for their pictures… I was speechless. I felt a feeling of intranquility that I can’t explain with words. Francesca was only a 20 years old girl when she already got naked in front of a camera with no complex, very determine to not to hide. In a few of the pictures she looks like frightened, worried, In others however you can perceive her calm, her peace, she seems to be so tranquil.

Francesca, smart, sweet and fragile…

It was difficult for me to deeply understand her work. I only achieved that purpose when I saw the documentary their parents narrated about her life. I’m adding the link at the end of this post in case you reader, want to watch it. I was in awe to hear them talking about her daughter with such serenity.

After that it was even more difficult to select the pictures I wanted to reproduce. I beginned with the ones about the hands, then I followed imitating those with shoes. I finished my work trying to simulate the picture where she is sat down close to the window surrounded by frames over a small table. All of them were done from the total admiration to her work.

Her pictures take you back to that lapse of time. Her images seem to be pulled out from the Victorian epoque of the end of the 19th Century. You’ll be able to see phantasmagorical shadows moving around inside the image in lost scenerios. Human figures appear blurry or under the shadow of the old places she always chose for the scenes.

She was just a girl with a prodigious mind who in just a few years gave us more than 800 pitures. Her parents are the legal owners of her work. We are allowed to see less than a 25% out of the total collection.

My Friends from “El Objetivo Magico” had the great idea to give me away a book about her work as a present for my birthday. A gift that has already become an unforgettable memory about this whole month of hard work.

Before she ended her life, Francesca sent a letter to a friend in the school with these words on it: “My life at this point is like very old sediment in the bottom of a cup of coffee. I’d rather prefer to die young leaving a few realizations […] than hastily erase all these delicate things…”

With all my respect, admiration and appreciation to her, here are my images of February.

Here’s the link to our Blog, together with one of the artwork of each of us (The Magic Lens): Verónica de Prado, Eva Menacho, Iratxe Cieza, Araceli Calabuig, Beatriz Pina, Sylvia Parés, Mima Molina y Sara Lagunas. It’s really worth watching what they have done this past February.

All posts images are inspired in Francesca Woodman’s artwork included within the book “Francesca Woodman” by Chris Townsend.

Here’s also the link to her life: Francesca Woodman. Don’t hesitate to watch it if you have the chance. It’s over 30 minutes long but it’s worth it. más de una hora pero de verdad es impresionante.

You can find more info:

https://www.artsy.net/artist/francesca-woodman

A vintage treasure burried in London

Posted on 18 February, 2014 by María López Linares

What a show in London until April 27th! It’s one of those exhibitions I’d love to visit.

Sadly I’ll have to see the videos I’ve found on the Internet instead.

I’d like to tell you the amazing story around this place, just in case you have the chance to pay a visit.

Back in 1912 a worker found by chance a box full of jewellery down in a house basement. Let’s say he found a treasure! Almost like a dream… A total of over 400 pieces… Is it not incredible? I can’t imagine his face when he opened that little case and found with a collection from the Isabelline and Jacobin era.

There were all kind of gems: Colombian emeralds, topaz and amazonites from Brazil, spinels from Sri Lanka, Indian rubies, lapis lazulies from Afghanistan… Also he found Persian turquoises, peridots found in the Red Sea, opals, garnets, Bohemian and Turquish amethysts and finally, pearls from Bahrein. Oh my God! An impressive collection of precious jewels!

Four out of them highlighted over the rest:

A Colombian emerald with the size of an Apple. It had been emptied to host a Swiss clock from 1600.
A Byzantine cameo and one more from the Isabel I era.
A magnificent parrot made in emeralds.

It seems the first Viscount Stafford originally owned the collection. Stafford was buried there some date between November 1640 and the Great Fire of London in September 1666. The box was sent to some jewellery shop that kept it hidden in a basement during the Civil War.

This marvellous collection can be visited at the London Museum until April 27^th. If any of you can go for a visit, please, give me a call later or email me to tell me how it was. For now, I only can share with you all the information I’ve found on YouTube. Don’t miss it!

Images: Museum of London

Vintage by López Linares

Pure vintage Blog

Tag Archives: Curiosities