Daydreaming...

I feel like partying! To this party I would wear the dress in the picture below. It was created in 1998 by John Galliano for Dior and goes by the name "Maria Luisa". It now resides at the Metropolitan in New York. In this daydream it resides in my closet!

A few diamonds wouldn't really do any damage to my outfit, so I might add some of those too.

But let's not overdo it!

Dressed, bejeweled and coiffed, I would then float down a very fitting staircase. Like this one at the Paris Opera for example. If you're going to float down stairs in a dress like this, you will need one of those staircases that are just made to be the scenery for a grand entrance!

Then I'll be off to the ballroom. Splendid and candlelit of course! The hall of mirrors at Versailles would be a good location. And now you might wonder how the heck I'm going to be able to fit the Paris Opera staircase into Versailles?! Well, my darlings, don't forget this is only a dream. Anything is possible!

And there will of course be at least one champagne fountain involved!

Then I would dance al night long, in these shoes by Christian Louboutin - without any foot pains whatsoever! Yep. This really is only a daydream...

Dance, dance, dance! With only a short brake for the magnificent firework show.

Then back to the dance floor. Until the sun rises in the east...

...and it's time to close the curtains and fall into bed...

...too tired to take my dress and diamonds off...I'll have somebody else do that for me...

Metal bag

Found this metal vintage bag at Beyond Retro in Stockholm. The girls in the shop said they thought the mods had been carrying bags like this in the 60s. To me it doesn't look like a mods bag at all. But I'm no expert in that certain culture, so I'm going to keep my mouth shut about it. I haven't found anything about it on the net either, and there's no engraving on it to give me a hint of where it comes from. But if anyone has seen anything like this before please tell me!

It's made of metal, with a dark blue velvet lining, has a rope with tassels as a handle, and can probably be used as a pretty effective weapon for a girl walking home alone in the middle of the dark night. I just know that if someone attacked me at a time like that, he would probably wake up the next day with a serious headache!

Christian Dior

I'm not a brand-snob. I never by anything just because it has a certain name attached to it. Since I love fashion I like looking through a few magazines once in a while to see what different fashion creators have been up to lately though. I recognize many of the names, and sometimes I can even see what designer did what just by looking at photo from someones fashion show. Most often not though...But of course there are a few I like more than others. My absolute favorite is Christian Dior. J'adore Dior! Ever since Monsieur Dior started his own fashion company in 1946, this man and his designers have managed to create exactly the type of clothing I personally fall for. In 1947 his first collection named "Corolle" ("circlet of flower petals") was shown. Dior himself said about this collection: "I have created flower women". His creations were almost architectural, with cinched in waists, padding around the hip and breast areas, and longer skirts that would flare out from the tiny waists. The amount of fabric that went into these dresses and skirts was outrageous after the long war years, when women had to "make do and mend" as it was called, and fabrics had been rationed. Some people complained about this. Others loved it. The luxury of being able to wear beautiful clothes again after the spartan days of WWII was welcomed by many. It was this "Corolle" collection that got the name "The New Look", and the essential traits of what denoted this can be seen in the first picture below, followed by some other masterpieces I wouldn't mind having in my closet.

Christian Dior died in 1957, and in 1996 John Galliano took over as head designer of the company. Sadly he was fired from the company earlier this year for the anti-semitic little speech he held at a bar on a drunk night out. Of course I don't agree with his racist beliefs, but we all have our faults, and if everyone got fired after blurting out stupid things when we were drunk. Well. Let's just say a frightful amount of people would have to look for new jobs very, very often...When it comes to creating amazing clothes though, Galliano was (and hopefully still is) a genius! His influences are his love of theatre and femininity, and he has said that his "role is to seduce". Below follows a few pictures of his lovely creations.

Full moon

Tonight the moon is full! I love the moon which, I guess, makes me a bit of a lunatic - more or less. So today I leave you with a story by one of my favorite authors; Charles Baudelaire:

The Favours of the Moon 
by Charles Baudelaire - Published 1869

THE MOON, who is caprice itself, looked through the window while you were sleeping in your cradle, and said to herself:'I like this child.'

And softly she decended her staircase of clouds and, noislessly, passed through the window-panes. Then she stretched herself out over you with the supple tenderness of a mother, and laid down her colors on your face. Ever since, the pupils of your eyes have remained green and your cheeks unusually pale. It was while comtemplating this visitor that your eyes became so strangely enlarged; and she clasped your neck so tenderly that you have retained for ever the desire to weep.

However, in the expansion of her joy, the Moon filled the whole room with phosphorescent vapour, like a luminous poison; and all the living light thought and said: 'You shall suffer for ever the influence of my kiss. You shall be beautiful in my fashion. You shall love that which I love and that which loves me: water, clouds, silence and the night; the immense green sea; the formless and multiform streams; the place where you shall not be; the lover whom you shall not know; flowers of monstrous shape; perfumes that cause delirium; cats that shudder, swoon and curl up on pianos and groan like women, with a voice that is hoarse and gentle!

'And you shall be loved by my lovers, courted by my courtiers. You shall be the queen of all men that have green eyes, whose necks also I have clasped in my nocturnal caresses; of those who love the sea, the sea that is immense, tumultuous and green, the formless and multform streams, the place where they are not, the woman whom they do not know, sinister flowers that resemble the censers of a strange religion, perfumes that confound the will; and the savage and voluptuous animals which are the emblems of their dementia.'

And that, my dear, cursed, spoiled child, is why I am now lying at your feet, seeking in all your person the reflection of the formidable divinity, of the foreknowing godmother, the poisoning wet-nurse of all the lunatics.

Wrap-around girdle

I have always loved lingerie! Especially the lingerie women wore in times past - corsets, girdles, slips etc. I remember watching old movies in Technicolor when I was little. My favorite scenes was when there were clips of showgirls backstage of theaters, where you could catch glimpses of their pretty underpinnings. I just thought the colors, fabrics and lace looked so pretty!

A while ago I stepped into a boutique called "Devil's Delight" in Stockholm. They sell vintage, and vintage inspired, lingerie. And what do I find?! A lovely, salmon colored wrap-around girdle from the 40s/50s! It was bought up from the stock of an old shop in Paris that closed a long time ago, so it had never been used. I tried it on and it fit me really well. Just imagine - it had been created about 70 years ago, waiting that long for someone to come pick it up and put it to use!

It opens and closes in the front on my left side with hooks and eyes along the whole edge, and then ties in the back. There are several metal bones in it to help shape the body. This is something that would have been worn underneath a wiggle dress or a pencil skirt to get the right shape. Women didn't really use workout as a means of shaping their own bodies in those days, and relied on different kinds of lingerie pieces to do that for them. When you read about how underwear has evolved and been used through history you realize it comes very close to science, and it still changes. But I have to say I personally prefer the older times when it comes to this subject...

Nicola Samorì

The Italian painter Nicola Samorì composes his portraits with close reference to techniques of the Italian Baroque. Historical figures are precisely applied in chiaroscuro onto obscure backgrounds on wood, canvas and copper. However, Samorì then peels whole layers of paint off again, garbles mimics and gestures, thus revealing layers and priming below. Samorì (born 1977 in Forli, Italy) studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna. Samorì lives and works in Bagnacavallo.

GMC

Hans Holbein - écorché (estasi)

La Storia

Buen Retiro

J.V.

Terzi

Reverzo

I like this! The people in his portraits looks like they died and started to decompose, not only in their graves, but also in their portraits. Or like they were inflicted by weird diseases, or like their twisted mental states seeps through the canvas to reveal a more horrible - but possibly truer - portrait. Feels like I need to steal an expression from a friend here, and call these paintings "deliciously sick"...

Pin-ups of the 20s

Ever since the camera was invented, there has, obviously, existed a need to photograph naked or half naked women. I'm actually pretty glad about this. I think it's really interesting to see how people's view on what's beautiful and sexy has changed and evolved during the years. If it has changed at all...

During the 1920s young women got to experience a freedom unimaginable to earlier generations. They openly bobbed their hair, went out to jazz clubs, smoked, drank alcohol, drove cars and wore short skirts. Although people usually think about painted posters from WWII or Bettie Page when they hear the word pin-up, these girls have existed longer than that! In the 20s they were for the most part movie stars who represented this new class of liberated young women. Here are a few of them:

Vilma Banky

Bebe Daniels

Ruth Etting

Gloria Swanson

Mary Pickford