To commemorate your third year of life, I found a pair of handmade leather sunglasses, fulfilling both the traditional (glass) and modern (leather) anniversary gift requirements.
If you were a three year old person you'd break these in 2 seconds. Good thing you're a blog.
And to all our readers out there, here's to many more years of inspiration together!
I'm usually a total sucker for bright colors, unusual materials, and multi-layered content. But I can appreciate subtlety too. This work by Swiss artist Simona Pries expresses a beautiful and delicate danger. I like the reflection of light that plays off the surface of the glass depending on where you stand to view the work, and the subtle lines created by the jagged edges against the white walls.
I also just discovered that she is the author of the piece that I used as my desktop background for the two years I worked at SVA. Huh! Maybe I like minimalist work more than I thought.
Ha·lo·na Glass makes gorgeous stained glassware for hanging in windows and catching the light, or sitting on shelves and catching the eye. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Michelle Levy takes the traditional leaded glass art to new frontiers with modern shapes and fresh colors that customers can customize! And for the animal lovers out there, she even does pet portraits. Her work has already been featured on numerousdesignblogs, but you can check out her full line of products on www.etsy.com/shop/HalonaGlass
Try as I may, I am not the best at keeping plants alive in our non-temperature controlled apartment. So I've decided to investigate some artificial greenery that will liven up the place without the yucky silk flower look of most grandmotherly arrangements. These beauties will survive FOREVER without water and sunlight! AND they are all made of totally different materials!
Glass jewelry is so elegant and delicate. I received the bubble necklace down below as a Christmas gift from my grandma a few years ago after admiring it in the jewelry cases of the MoMA gift shop for years. I'm half afraid to wear it because I imagine the worst: someone going in for a hug hello and the whole thing smashing against a major artery and making a real mess of things. Of course that'd probably never happen. With that in mind, I've rounded up some particularly pretty baubles that are perfectly safe, their makers assure us. Here's to overcoming fears for the sake of beautiful accessories everywhere!
Alexander McQueen was a brilliant British fashion designer who committed suicide last year at the age of 40. Despite the fact that his life was cut short far too soon, he managed to produce a vast amount of incredible work, and after his death, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum immediately set about organizing a retrospective of his oeuvre. According to the New York Times, by the time it closes on August 7th (after having been extended twice), the exhibition is expected to set attendance records and will be among the 20 most popular shows ever held at the museum. Because of the crushing crowds, the Met has also decided it will stay open until midnight on the last two days of the exhibition to accommodate last minute viewers, something they have never done in the history of the museum. Pretty impressive, huh?
So last Friday, after receiving the wonderful and unexpected gift of an afternoon off because of the heat crisis plaguing the city, my coworker and I decided to head uptown to check out the Alexander McQueen show. I heard the wait to get in was over 2 hours long, something I was not looking forward to, but totally willing to put up with. Surely 1 o'clock on a Friday afternoon wouldn’t be so bad though, right?
The museum was mobbed, and immediately upon entering the building, I accidentally separate from my coworker. Ten (near frantic) minutes later he appears with two tickets and says he bought a membership so we were allowed to skip to the head of the line. It seemed too good to be true! We made our way up the grand staircase and followed the looooooong winding row of wait-ers in and out of the museum’s halls. Once we finally found the front of the queue, JP flashed his member’s only receipt and we were ushered right past the velvet rope.
First, there was the ombre-dyed ostrich feather dress with a bodice made of microscope glass plates that were colored blood red. Along with McQueen’s fascination of juxtaposing various textures and materials, an interesting interplay of hard and soft, I found a shared affinity in his appreciation of the dark and macabre.
Back in the day, the spray paint dress was really the one that first inspired me.
The video of the dress being made was on view in this amazing charred cabinet of curiosities room. As soon as I got home, I tracked down as many of his runway shows on Youtube as I could. Every one of them was more like highly orchestrated performance art than some tired old parade of dresses.
Then there was the dress with mud on the hem. The dried muck curled, unfurled away from the fabric of the skirt, looking like growths of moss or bracken lifting off the fabric, tendrils reaching out into space. Of course the top of the dress was also very striking, intricately beaded and draped, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the grit.
And my favorite favorite, the razor clam shell dress. It looked like a beautiful bunch of long, white Lee Press On Nails.
