Pastel Perfection

After seeing this photo last week on one of my favorite blogs, Long Hair and Modestly, I've looked at it everyday, just for the sheer wondrous joy of it!  Thanks lovely ladies, whoever you are: you made my week!  I love those big stripey hats and the ombre tie-dye scarves.  I want to know the story behind the picture... was it a birthday party on the water?  Did they buy the outfits all together?  What about the co-ordinated make-up - was this for a photo shoot?  Answer me, internet!

OK, I did my own homework.  It was worth it.  The outfits are by an Indonesian design company, Dian Pelangi, which specializes in Muslim fashion, using traditional techniques including batik, tie-dye and beadwork.  Their website is worth a look - lots of beautiful things in a context that is pretty foreign to me.

Colour Choices

My Arts and Crafts research and my kitchen painting research met at an fun intersection this week: historical paint shade charts.  It's so interesting that different eras had unique palettes.  The ones below are ones that I found that roughly corresponded with Arts and Crafts, and they are absolutely colours that I'm drawn to.  For our kitchen, we picked out a pale yellow for the walls and a sage-y green for the cupboards, but that makes it sound much easier than it was, of course.  Endless paint chips and appealing names to pick from...

So hard to find a good buggy paint these days, isn't it?  Aladdin, where have you gone?

Home Work

So, I've been a lazy blogger.  Well, an uninspired blogger.  Nothing going on in the fashion world is exciting me right now, and there's not enough daylight to take outfit pictures, and I'd just be wasting my time and yours if I tossed a bunch of random pictures up here a couple times a week.  

Then I though, never mind fashion, what do I love looking at?  Arts and Crafts interiors and textiles and design!  So much inspiration here; that's what the internet is good for.  I could never afford all the books and travel I'd have to invest in to see all of these pictures without good old Google Images.

    

The Arts and Crafts movement valued the beauty and integrity of everyday objects, not just what we think of as Fine Art.  That's why you see so many amazing household objects, perfectly integrated into beautiful homes, in harmony with natural landscaping.

The one thing that I have been thinking creatively about lately is my home.  You know how you kind of get blind to the stuff around you that you see everyday?  That's the case with the state of our house.  We've been living here almost five years, and I've gotten used to the scuffed paint and dingy details, but new year, new goals!  Paint the kitchen!  I've been picking out colours and making plans and it's really going to happen.

I'm also trying to replace some of the ugly stuff we have with nicer stuff.  Just cheap little things, like why do we have a junky old plastic cup holding pens and pencils beside the phone?  I'm on the lookout in thrift store for a nice hand-thrown pottery cup - shouldn't be hard to find.  I already found a perfect bigger ceramic canister to replace the plastic container that held our kitchen utensils.  I mean, if I have to look at these things everyday, why not have something pleasing to look at, when it just costs a few dollars to upgrade?

Valentina

Usually there's nothing much of note in perfume ads - pretty, safe, pastel.  This ad for Valentina by Valentino isn't all that different, but what caught my eye was the gorgeous detail of the dress.  I don't know for sure of course, but it looks like the lace detail is appliqued onto the chiffon blouse.  I hope so; that's couture.

Style.com has lots of gorgeous detail shots from the Valentino Spring 2012 Couture collection, like the one below.  I love being able to see some of those intricate touches that I'd otherwise never be able to see, short of an imaginary shopping spree.