Icon Tuesday. Tuesday’s intense gaze… Joan Crawford Tuesday.
Her charisma, her cats eyes and ability to embroider the dramatic roles made her one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
I, personally, prefer her role of bad, very bad in the movie ¨ What happened to Baby Jane?¨, next to her declared enemy Betty Davis.
Images: Wikipedia y Tumbler
Icon Tuesday. Tuesday’s tap dance… Tuesday’s Fred Astaire
His impeccable elegance, originality, grace and rhythmic precision made him the best dancer in the history of Hollywood.
With an amazing technical control and a sense of rhythm, he was able to transform his dances into a living representation of the joy of living.
His eternal and unforgettable couple was Ginger Rogers.
Tuesday’s icon. Tuesday for comedy… Tuesday for Doris Day.
Three comedies: “Pillow Talk” , “Lover Come Back” and Send Me No Flowers”, all of them performed together with Rock Hudson and in which she played an innocent woman, warm, a bit childish… but with a touch of glamour.
A series of comedies that frame her career and that we will always remember.
Images: Tumbler
“I had a house in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills…” just hearing this phrase already sounds like a melody to me.
I can’t speak about this film without getting emotional, i think I’ve seen it more than 20 times and there are some scenes that still give me butterflies in my stomach, exactly the same feeling as I had the first day I saw it. So romantic, so sad, so intense…
The film, which has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, narrates the life of Karen Blixen, a Danish writer that arrives in Kenya at the beginning of the Twentieth Century to manage a plantation alongside her husband, an incurable womanizer, to whom she is married but doesn’t love.
The relationship that Karen establishes with Africa and its people; the striking contrast between the indigenous kikuyus against the forever strict British society in one of its colonies; and, above all, Karen’s love story with the hunter Denys Finch-Hatton, these are the main driving forces behind a simply charming film.
The winner of seven oscars, amongst which, the best film and the best director (Syndey Pollack), the film was enormously successful with the public, qualifying as a “masterpiece” and “unforgettable jewel”, making it an all-time cinema classic.
For me Meryl Streep, in her role as a high society Danish lady, is magnificent. I Iiterally fell in love with her from the the first minute and since then I don’t think I have ever missed a single film appearance by her.
Not only Karen but also the majority of women we see in the film fall in love with a Robert Redford that plays the role of an attractive, well-educated, charming and gallant with a touch of liberalism and adventure.
The photography is the work of David Watkin. For me the photography and the music are the strongest success points of the film. It seems as if we were watching a National Geographic report. The journey made in Denys’ plane by the two of them from Nairobi to Mombasa flying over the hills of Kenya is absolutely breathtaking. Who hasn’t dreamt of a similar experience accompanied by someone very special in your life? I have, of course, although I don’t think I will ever manage to make it come true. I will stick to and cherish the scene from the film that makes me live it as though the journey were my own.
There are thousands of warming, romantic and emotional scenes. however, the scene that stays with me most of all is when, in a break from the Safari, Denys washes Karen’s hair using a sheet and the water runs through her soapy hair, meanwhile she closes her eyes, freeing herself to countless pleasurable sensations… it’s a simple scene with an enormous sensual charge.
A few days after being released in the cinema in 1906 I already had the soundtrack in my possession.it was a very special gift from someone who continues to be an essential part of my life. Since then, every time I listen to it I close my eyes and can feel the breeze, visualize the colour and the aromas of the hills of Ngong…it takes me to Kenia, transporting me to a different time, to live in another period…waking up incredible, intense and marvelous memories in me. It’s a soundtrack compiled by John Barry with a wide variety of melodies that seem to flow from the different places from where the work was filmed.
I have a 22 year old daughter who still hasn’t seen the film and I thought about giving it to her this month as a gift. I am extremely curious to know what impression the film will make upon her, given that she is nearly the same age as I was when I first saw the film. I am intrigued to know if the film that I consider to be a cinematic masterpiece will awaken the same feelings in a young girl of this century, as the ones that it awoke in me.
I will let you know…
Icon Tuesday.¨The blond Venus¨…Tuesday, just Marlene Dietrich.
With her dazzling presence, her matchless glamour and that cold distant and unattainable halo she became a true diva in the history of cinema.
We will always remember her singing ¨Lili Marleen¨
Images: Wikipedia
We have now been continuously hearing this word for years. We hear it in relation to fashion, decoration, cooking, art, crafts, floristry and design in general… From cars to electrodomestics everything can qualify under this term. Vintage sells.
However, what is so attractive about vintage items? Why has this special style of pastel tones and perfect finishes returned yet again?
For me, Vintage is a synonym for exclusivity, quality, good materials and, of course, craftsmanship. Vintage is a synonym for something well done or well made in the past.
If you think about lace, velvet ribbons, wild flowers, antique books, black and white photographs, hidden treasures in a chest, furniture stored in an old loft, you’re thinking about Vintage.
Thanks to this love for handmade things, and for unique and irreplaceable pieces, we have recovered a great deal of lost traditions. We knit and do crochet and bobbin lace making. I know various clubs and societies in which lovers of the art of knitting can get together once a week in order to share patterns and chat about wools, needles, scarves and fabric slippers.
We baked cakes and cupcakes so colourful and detailed that it was a shame to eat them, yet they had come from recipes recovered from our grandmother’s forgotten cookbooks.
The art of calligraphy has returned, we have started to write postcards and cards again, classes are given on how to write with a quill pen or on how to make wax seals. What would make you especially happy, receiving a card by post or by email? In my opinion, especially if the address of the card delivered is written by hand, it would seem as if the best present had just arrived for me.
Vintage photography is a contagious fever. Editing in black and white, sepia or with textures is all but an art that takes us back to the beginning of photography, when each photograph was revealed without really knowing what you were going to find.
Different sensations are recovered and shared. The “Do it Yourself” is in fashion and goes hand in hand with Vintage. You can disconnect, chat and exchange ideas, whether its face to face or over internet forums.
This is the secret of Vintage. You can recover human contact, passionate recoveries and values which had been buried with the passing of years. Manual work, well made things, eye for detail, perfect finishes…
It’s due to this that we like designs from the 20s, 30s, 40s… These years reunite all of the characteristics of which we had previously spoken, each and every one of them belongs to these years. It is because of this that we search for this aesthetic, and that’s why these great designers continue to look at these years when the time comes to launch a new collection.
Vintage is a style marked by the retro exclusivity and by the magic of well made things, that’s why Vintage sells. It has been selling for years and everyday it sells more and more.
We will continue enjoying this style and go with its flow…
Tuesday´s icon. Tuesday of goodness, honesty and naturalness.
Not in vain called ¨The prince of non-actors”, for his naturalness to act.
Spencer Tracy had a difficult personality, but that did not stopped us to keep in our memories all the comedies that he made with Katherine Hepburn, with whom he had a long and not very secret relationship .
Personally i never get tired of seeing them.
Images: Wikipedia
I already told you in my January log that I’d started the year by attending a portrait workshop called “I love me”. The workshop is lead by Rebeca López from “Kisikosas”, and this was the workshop’s first edition, however Rebeca has already started a second, and I’m sure a third will come soon or later.
One month spent sharing moments with 15 women: Ampario, Araceli, Bea, Mima, Ira, Sara, Sylvia, Verónica, Eva, Beatriz, Karola, Maria José, Natalia and Eva. Some of them are highly recognised photographers, and to share this workshop with them for a whole month as friends and colleagues has been a real honour for me. We’ve shared doubts, concerns and moments filled with happiness and laughter… a lot of laughter.
The workshop is very personal, and aims to be more of an intimate meeting with your inner self than a mere photography course, originating from the creativity and way of expression that each of us carry within. From “I ♥ me” Rebeca’s objective is for us to speak out about ourselves, who we are, who we would like to be, what we like and don’t like, what we speak about and what we would never speak about.
The third week’s work was titled “Pretending to be…”
My idea was to represent the different characteristics of women in the Twenties. I decided that that week’s work would be to try and change my own expressions. I would use the same setting but every take would try to represent something different. A 20’s woman varying with every take.
Lo primero es identificar a la mujer de los locos 20s:
The first thing was to identify the Roaring Twenties woman:
The 20’s decade put the start of our emancipation into progress. The fact that in this decade, after a great battle, we gained the right to vote freely for the first time, liberated us from numerous ties to which we had been previously submitted.
The freedom of the vote came with freedom in many other areas. We managed to abandon the corsets, the complex and awkward hairstyles, the thick black tights and the ankle length skirts of the nineteenth Century, giving loose reign to a new woman. We passed from being submissive housewives to unarguable limelight stars at important social events. We started filling universities and we turned into Queens of the night. The big parties, jazz concerts, theatres and casinos were amongst some of the places where we let loose to our new lifestyle.
Smoking, driving fast cars, playing sports such as golf or tennis, dancing a Charleston or a tango were some of the activities that we had never even dreamed of doing, and of which, from this moment on, would turn into something compulsory for any woman that gave importance to being up to date on the latest trends.
After my small reflection on this Golden period I will leave my personal view and idea of the women from these years…
Submissive, innocent, sensual, shameless, promiscuous and sophisticated women…
I am lacking a lot of technique, I’ve been taking manual shots for barely three weeks. However, I wanted to share my vision of the Twenties with all of you, and above all, I wanted you to know about Rebeca’s work.
I hope you like it…
Icon of Tuesday, tuesday for the Diva with capital letters. This tuesday with ¨The Little Wolf¨
The queen of melodrama, with an intense emotional and dramatic expressiveness.
She knew how to communicate with her gaze a clever charming and a very singular beauty.
She never retired,she knew how to adapt over the years her strong personality.
Bette Davis is for me…one of the greatest
The Eisenberg Company was founded in Illinois, Chicago, in 1914 by Jonás Eisenberg, an Austrian immigrant who arrived to the United States around 1880.
At the beginning the company only produced high quality women’s clothing; however every one of its dresses came accessorized with a very special piece of costume jewellery. These accessories were brooches hand sewn onto the dress by the company with Swarovski crystals imported from Austria, as well as rock crystal and fake pearls.
The idea was a novelty at the time and managed to change the company’s history.
This detail, which every one of its designs included, created a different look to the rest of the dresses that were being sold at the time, and before long Eisenberg’s designs were nearly more famous for the accessories that they sported than for the actual model itself. His brooches were so sought after that people started stealing them off the clothes. The clients wore the dress’s brooches to show them off on their own pieces of clothing.
This made the company rethink certain things, finally leading to Eisenberg’s first collection of brooches in 1930. Soon after, the collection expanded and started to include necklaces, bracelets and earrings.
Eisenberg has never been a cheap brand. Its pieces have always been distinguished for their quality, design and high price. In the Fifties the prices for the pieces of jewellery were already marked around 10 to 30 dollars.
The first collections of the “Eisenberg Originals” were great designs and loaded with stones. However, in the Forties, due to a restriction on metals during the war, Eisenberg used sterling silver and the pieces became lighter and more detailed. There were rumours during wartime that the diamonds were smuggled into the United States, hidden as precious stones from Eisenberg jewellers, yet this has never been proved.
From 1940 to 1972, Ruth M. Kamke was the chief designer. She practically created all the pieces from the “Eisenberg Ice” and “Eisenberg Originals” brands.
Eisenberg designed so many necklace, earring and bracelet sets in the Forties that they currently reach extremely high prices on the Vintage market.
His motto during the Forties:
“The jeweller’s of the future, so clear and radiant like an iceberg under the light of the sun.”
