I don’t have TV so I haven’t seen the latest episode yet – please, no spoilers! In the meantime, I’ve been stalking about some photos of the unfairly beautiful Jon Hamm and January Jones. I’m particularly enamored with this spread they did for Vanity Fair a few years ago. Enjoy the photos!
Happy Fourth of July! I have to say, this is my favorite holiday of the year, followed by Halloween. There’s something about watching fireworks that just makes me so happy! I got to see some last night, and I’m planning on the big show tonight. Hope everyone has a fun BBQ and firework filled holiday!
I’ve always been a big fan of aboriginal artwork – I love the dots, the colors, their expressive nature. I’ve been fortunate enough to see some really great exhibits over the years, both in Australia and the US, of traditional aboriginal artwork, but what always stood out the most for me was the bark paintings.
I feel like they boil down the artistic genius of this style to its very basic elements. Something about them just grabs me. You can read more about bark painting here.
I just wanted to share these pictures with you guys, because I thought that they were pretty shocking and cool.
I was driving to my grandparents’ house a week or two ago and noticed that all of the mountains had an impressive amount of dirt that had accumulated on the snow. I had heard that Bejing had massive dust storms the week previous and hypothesized that maybe, just maybe, that was what was coating the mountains in Colorado.
Amazingly, it was Chinese dirt!
I know it’s hard to tell in these pictures but it was a pretty serious layer of dust that was covering the snow. Really makes you think.
Or something like it.
Yep, it was 60 and sunny yesterday morning and probably will be tomorrow. Oh, Colorado, you kill me.
There was a church in Venezuela that was submerged when a hydroelectric dam was built in the valley where it was located. Now, due to a severe drought, it has made a dramatic reappearance from far below the water’s surface.
How amazing are these pictures? It’s a little bit magical to me. You can read the whole story here.
This genius online curator displays here collections on her living room wall, presenting them in unique and interesting ways, then photographs that wall and allows you to buy things off of it, just by clicking on the items.
How clever is that? You can see her site as well as purchase some of her goodies here.
OK, this is taking tilt-shift photography to the extremes of awesomeosity. I’m not sure how you would go about accomplishing something like this, but I really enjoy the result.
This lovely pattern has been all over the blogs lately, and for good reason. I love the way that it looks in a number of applications, from upholstery to handbags and floaty blouses. I like to look at it just for the lovely colors and patterns however.
Since Felix is in Central Asia, I’ve got him tracking down some of this fabric for me. If he manages to find some, I might have to buy them out. The possibilities are endless. What I’ve really got my heart set on is this coat:
Can you imagine walking around wearing one of these? Be still my heart!
I’ve been on a bit of a Carnival kick lately (I blame lent) and I’m really interested in the costumes and masks of the Venetian Carnival. They’re so amazingly intricate and baroque, and very over-the-top (unlike in Rio where the tradition seems to be to wear as little as possible). My favorite are the gold masks – there’s something about not being able to see a face, only a stern mask, that’s very creepy.
I tried looking up some information about where this tradition started and what it was supposed to symbolize, but it’s surprisingly hard to find information about this. From the best I can tell, the carnival is a typical lent celebration designed by the wealthy Venetians to show off their money and power. They would then basically cruise the strip (in this instance, the Piazza San Marco) like a bunch of teenagers and try to impress each other. The masks came about to hide the identity of the wearer so that the upper and lower classes could mingle without fear of repercussion.
Whatever the purpose, the mask has really taken on a life of its own. There are hundreds of vendors selling cheap imitations to tourists all over Venice, but I don’t think that it makes the real thing any less special. I’d love to be able to go and see this in person one day. What is life without a little pageantry?
All throughout high school, I carried a big container of trail mix that I made with me. The contents varied widely depending on what was in the pantry at any given time but it was a great way to snack because I never really had time for meals. Finding an appropriate container was always the most difficult part – ziplocs were too flimsy, tupperware too home-ec. What I would have given to have one of these awesome aluminum snack boxes instead:
Great for lunches or for a DIY doggy bag – no more waste for you! Find them here.
I’m loving these super-simple, elegant logo designs from Louise Fili. It always inspires me to see designs that are so classic and timeless – a lot more thought has to go into these than something that is just trendy and thrown together.
You can see her whole (seriously impressive) portfolio here.
When I was in college I only got to take 2 electives in order to graduate on time. One of the ones I took was African Dance. It was probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. You have so much fun, learn to let yourself be free, learn how to dance and shake and groove and generally have an all-around good time. Our teacher was from Ghana, and so he made sure that we all wore traditional wraps made with wax-print fabric from Ghana to dance in. He also used to dance around us whipping people with his towel who he complained of having “a sad ass” when what you needed was a “happy ass” which he then proceeded to demonstrate. Awesome, but neither here nor there.
I really became enamored with the look of the wax print fabric out of Ghana. The technique originated in Indonesia but was brought to the gold coast many years ago and spread out from there. Africans have taken this technique and really made it their own, infusing the textiles with colors and stories that are important to them. What’s really interesting is that a lot of the designs that you see on these textiles are actually of Dutch origin (see an interesting article here). No matter where they come from, I think they’re fantastic.
You can buy many different patterns online – here and here are the places that I found the prints above from.
Though the fabric is beautiful by itself, there is some clothing being made from it that’s really interesting and innovative. One such company is Wafrica, that creates Kimonos from this fabric.
I don’t know when I would have the occasion to wear one of these, but I love the concept.
The Dutch company that is apparently responsible for the vast majority of these designs is called Vlisco – I think that their ad campaigns are simply awesome.
Stay turned – more about African wax print fabric coming soon!
My friend Robyn pointed this out the other day after seeing my post about the beautiful ball installation, and I’m a little lost for words on this one. I’m not sure if it’s the music, or the slow-motion, or the fact that they actually did this, but it gets me a little worked up. It’s always the things you least expect.
Sony Bravia from Laurent MAKOWSKI on Vimeo.
