26 May 2017

Frills and Thrills

In her day job, New York Times fashion writer Charlotte di Carcaci ravishes her readers with fashion that goes beyond skindeep - with a researched historical bias. In her leisure, she ravishes her Instagram followers with a delightful riot of frills and thrills of the painted portraiture kind, captured in cropped detail.

'Portrait of Lady Hillingdon', oil on canvas by Sir Frank Dicksee (1905)

Plunging necklines sparkling with bevelled jewels, captivating bosoms hemmed in intricate lacey patterns, fine and delicate shoulders draped in shimmering brocade, virginal waists corseted in acreages of soft ribbon, puffed up sleeves made out of silk, powdered-up diaphanous skin and cascading curled-up locks as canvasses to seamstresses, gold-threaded embroidery turned to an art form, shimmering vaporous fabrics floating about like peony blossoms... And all artistically immortalised by talented painters.

Uncredited
'L'Innocence', by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (circa 1893)

All in all, this is a tale of aristocracy and fine living, old European money that watches its Ps and Qs... on canvas. It almost makes us yearn for the good old days until we remember the privileged lifestyle was essentially out of reach for those outside the tight circles. Unfortunately the portraits are left uncredited by the curator for the most part but we guess that Madame de Pompadour, Pauline Borghese and portraits by Jean-Honoré Fragonard might hide in some of them.

Uncredited (timewise the empire dress hints at early 1800s)
'Young Lady with a Small Dog', by Vittorio Matteo Corcos (circa 1895)

In any case, the carefully-curated catwalk is of a high calibre and depicts how fashion in those days was at least as extravagant and opulent as it can be today. It is also a playful, instructive, delicious and visual-pleasing way of (re-)acquainting oneself with museum treasures of bygone times, all in the noble name of art and fashion. An ode to elegance, to feminity, that is a delight for the eyes!

Uncredited
Uncredited

Sources: (1-8) Charlotte di Carcaci Instagram. If you are able to credit any of the above (uncredited) portraits, please do so in the comments, this would  be so appreciated! (9) 'The Souvenir' by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, via The Athenaeum.

'Queen Charlotte', oil on canvas by Thomas Gainsborough (circa 1781)

Mirabelle couldn't help it! Here are some suggestions - we'll leave it to Charlotte to crop the images:

'The Souvenir', oil on canvas by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1776-1778)
'Ianthe', oil on canvas by John William Godward (1889)
'Portrait of Anna Pitt as Hebe', oil on canvas by Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun (1792)
'The Mischievous Puppy', oil on canvas by Emile Vernon (1915)

18 May 2017

Investment Pieces for the Home

I have finally been able to make some space in my place! Thus last week, the storage company brought all my belongings (furniture, kitchenware, electricals, books, tools, clothes and shoes) that had been locked away in storage for over seven years (you read this right, 7 years!) after I moved from the UK to Corsica. At that point, it was a matter for me of rediscovering what was hidden in those boxes because I could not exactly remember what I owned... Talk about the little girl in the treasure trove moment! Yet this made me realise how important it is to keep belongings to a minimum and focus on quality rather than the flat-pack self-assembly combo that is no statement for durability, especially after just one house move.

Flora Pendants by Rothschild & Bickers

Nip clutter in the bud and don't let it build up and control you. In my case, I have never been keen on ornaments but was still surprised to find out I still own way too many of those; they end up being begrudgingly cumbersome as space occupiers and dust collectors - not a good prospect when you live in an already-cluttered house and in the path of the dusty, desert-borne sirocco winds!

A cluster of Flora Pendants in Jade at Motel One München-Sendlinger Tor

I decided years ago that life is too short to be cumbersome and too precious to be cheap. Sometimes you need to carefully splurge on a select few investment pieces that will accompany you down the journey of life and beyond, passed down to the next generation. Quality pieces that do not necessarily shout out hefty price tag, antique heirlooms and vintage memorabilia but that spell out design, elegance, timelessness per se, and a certain uniqueness, in that 'upper' high street parable.

Twinkle, twinkle little light...

First for the cheerful and edible stuff (7 years later, I betcha!), I have happily found a box of designer coffee, upmarket English tea, and fancy sugar cubes neatly packed up. Those will come in handy, and needless to say sprinkle tea-time with a generous spoonful of English nostalgia.

Standing Pendants by Rothschild & Bickers

I'm still not done with my treasure finds, yet I have unwrapped some of what I consider my investment pieces (two of which were cheap as in even a cash-stranded student could afford those!):
  • a Mexican bedframe in repurposed vintage pine and custom-painted (bought from John Lewis before the retail store started losing its edge to the mainstream)
  • a pair of reproduction cast-iron book-ends (cast in original Victorian moulds, and purchased in Ironbridge, Shropshire, a good 20 years ago)
  • a French rococo gilded crystal chandelier, circa 1910 (a bit of a fancy purchase in relation to my budget at the time, from a specialist antiques shop on the Hale end of Altrincham, Cheshire) - yeah the posh end of town...
  • an original copy of Salome by Oscar Wilde, which I randomly came across in some charity shop in Didsbury Village, Manchester (cost me a fiver and at the time was already worth at least £80).

Steel Standing Pendants

Not all my finds were happy finds. I cringed at some of the clothing I had forgotten about (which will be heading the charity shop way soon enough!). I despaired about knick-knacks (presents from friends and family), books (Marketing for Dummies and Photoshop for Beginners type of books that shall not grace any shelves and thus remain tightly packed in boxes until disposed of via eBay).

Opulent Optic Pendants

Source: If you are seeking bespoke investment pieces rooted in European manufacturing, traditional handblown glass craftsmanship, and period-inspired pieces revisited through a resolutely clean and modern twist, Rothschild & Bickers is your port of call. The small English company has made it its speciality to turn the mod-con of lighting into an object of desire that will sit at home in antiques-furnished abodes, stately homes, modern environments... and retail outlets alike. Rothschild & Bickers lights will stand the test of time and fads and still spell out a statement steeped in history with a forward-thinking standpoint. No shadow of a doubt about this. My favourite pieces include the (1) Flora Pendants range, retailing at £370 (small) and £440 (large), and (4) the Standing Pendants range, retailing at £520. (2-3) The Flora range blossoms at Motel One München-Sendlinger Tor, Munich, Germany. (5) Bespoke Steel Standing Pendants, photography via Rothschild & Bickers' Instagram account. (6) The Opulent Optic range retails at £370. (7) The Vintage Light (see below picture, to the right) is a styled reinvention of the fringed mid-century affair found in your nan's sitting room and the jumble shop down the road... Attention please! No tired mustard velvet and no dusty chintz here: colours are sharp, the glass dome may be wiped clean with a damp sponge, and the light comes with a wispy fringe of your choice! Make mine the Satinwood Gold. The Vintage Light retails at £440. (8) Talk about customising that investment piece: over 90 flex types available! Photography via Rothschild & Bickers' Instagram account.

A fringe to frame that face
Flexes of your choosing

Investment Pieces for the Home is to become a regular Mirabelle feature. We'll review objects of desire that are set to last the distance and become heirloom pieces in their own right. God forbid, those items you might even profit from, should times get dire and your household require an instant cash injection. Further inspiration from Mirabelle's Pinterest board, Interior Design Delight.

5 May 2017

Humbled by Hubble

Whenever you feel confined, restricted, by the paradigm of modern life, the Deep State and the fake news and the rigged financial system and the pettiness of politics and the media circus, when all of this gets to you... Look up the sky and reach for the stars!

Orion Nebula
Hubble Captures Wide View of Supernova 1987A

Unlimited, free-flowing, unbiased, space transcends imagination. Gases, dust clouds, fired-up rocks, molten matter, hazardous fluids and solid ice in movement, forming, expanding, fusing, travelling, spinning, clashing to breaking point, recomposing and splitting some more... A composition piece made up of velocity and timelessness and never-stunted evolution. A humbling sight, even from a safe distance - light years away - from the safety of the telescope or the computer screen, (relatively for now) sheltered as we stand from the brutal, hostile, unredeeming, all-consuming and seemingly unpredictable mass-scale action of titans devoid of our human proclivities of reason and emotion.

"Dust is a really critical part of how a galaxy works, how it forms stars" - Dr. Karin Sandstrom, University of California, San Diego

NGC 248 in the Small Magellanic Cloud
Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635)

Hubble Space Telescope and Cassini and countless other shuttles are on a scientific mission of discovery, with aha moments and wows of wonder guaranteed every step of the way! And more unanswered questions popping up too! The viewer and the observer get sucked into the mermaid-like eery and dangerous beauty of nebulae and cosmic clouds, faraway, unnamed galaxies sitting on the edge of time and space, defying human comprehension just by their stark, blank, matter-of-fact presence, while putting us firmly back in check. No, we humans are not at the (epi-)centre of the Universe. Merely an adjunct fluke form of intelligence oblivious to the wider macrocosm made up of stellar births and meltdowns, black holes and intergalactic chaos.

M101 (HST) Spiral Galaxy
Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant

Source: All photography via HubbleSite, laid out chronologically, with most recent first.  

(1) The Orion Nebula, credits: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team. No picture caption provided.

(2) Hubble Captures Wide View of Supernova 1987A, credits: NASA, ESA, R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), and M. Mutchler and R. Avila (STScI). The picture caption reads: 'Supernova 1987A within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring galaxy to our Milky Way. Distant stars serve as a backdrop for Supernova 1987A, located in the center of the image. The bright ring around the central region of the exploded star is composed of material ejected by the star about 20,000 years before its demise. Gaseous clouds surround the supernova. The clouds' red color represents the glow of hydrogen gas, which is fueling a firestorm of star birth.'

(3) NGC 248 in the Small Magellanic Cloud, credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, K. Sandstrom (University of California, San Diego), and the SMIDGE (Small Magellanic Cloud Investigation of Dust and Gas Evolution) team. The picture caption reads: 'two festive-looking nebulas, situated so as to appear as one. They reside in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is a satellite of our Milky Way galaxy. Intense radiation from the brilliant central stars is heating hydrogen in each of the nebulas, causing them to glow red. The nebulas, together, are called NGC 248. They were discovered in 1834 by the astronomer Sir John Herschel. NGC 248 is about 60 light-years long and 20 light-years wide. It is among a number of glowing hydrogen nebulas in the dwarf satellite galaxy, which is located approximately 200,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Tucana.'  

(4) Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635), credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). The picture caption reads: 'For the 26th birthday of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are highlighting a Hubble image of an enormous bubble being blown into space by a super-hot, massive star. The Hubble image of the Bubble Nebula, or NGC 7635, was chosen to mark the 26th anniversary of the launch of Hubble into Earth orbit by the STS-31 space shuttle crew on April 24, 1990. "As Hubble makes its 26th revolution around our home star, the sun, we celebrate the event with a spectacular image of a dynamic and exciting interaction of a young star with its environment. The view of the Bubble Nebula, crafted from Wide Field Camera 3 images, reminds us that Hubble gives us a front-row seat to the awe-inspiring universe we live in," said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, in Washington, D.C. The Bubble Nebula is 7 light-years across – about one-and-a-half times the distance from our sun to its nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri – and resides 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia.'

(5) M101 (HST) Spiral Galaxy, credits:  NASA, ESA, K. Kuntz (JHU), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Lab), J. Mould (NOAO), Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana), Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/J.-C. Cuillandre/Coelum, and G. Jacoby, B. Bohannan, and M. Hanna/NOAO/AURA/NSF. No picture caption provided.

(6) Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant, credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). The picture caption reads: 'NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. Called the Veil Nebula, the debris is one of the best-known supernova remnants, deriving its name from its delicate, draped filamentary structures. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan.'

Westerlund 2: Detail 3
NGC 2174

(7) Westerlund 2: Detail 3 (pictured just above), credits: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team. The picture caption reads: The pillars in the star-forming region surrounding Westerlund 2, composed of dense gas, are a few light-years tall and point to the central cluster. They are thought to be incubators for new stars. Besides sculpting the gaseous terrain, intense radiation from the most brilliant of the cluster stars is creating a successive generation of baby stars. The bluish haze is an indicator of oxygen gas in the nebula.'

(8) NGC 2174 (picture just above), credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). The picture caption reads: 'In celebration of the 24th anniversary of the launch of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (on April 24, 1990) astronomers have taken an infrared-light portrait of a roiling region of starbirth located 6,400 light-years away. The Hubble mosaic unveils a collection of carved knots of gas and dust in a small portion of the Monkey Head Nebula (also known as NGC 2174 and Sharpless Sh2-252). The nebula is a star-forming region that hosts dusky dust clouds silhouetted against glowing gas.'
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