Friday, 29 July 2011

Best thing since sliced brioche.

At long last...


 Patisserie with pomp. Coffee the French way; Don your couture, light yourself a Gauloise and get down to Ladurée. Oh how wonderful. Sorry, I mean "hideous". 

Wednesday, 27 July 2011

Ballet Russes

Anna Pavlova...


And I ain't talking posh desserts. 
Next proper post subject: Diaghilev.

1000 words.

Sometimes a photograph can tell you more about a person than words. Especially when you know them well. 



And sometimes stumbling across a photograph of your Grandfather, pseudo molesting the Wall Street bull in a rather fetching pink jumper, is enough to keep you happy all day. Grandfather Buckle: in a nutshell. For me anyway. 

F**k I'm feeling humble. 

We are family

The Mitford sisters

Baron & Baroness Redesdale, Thomas and the six sisters
Probably the most influential aristocratic family of the 20th century. 

Ben Macintyre of the Times condensed the sisters characters effectively in one sentence: "Diana the Fascist, Jessica the Communist, Unity the Hitler-lover; Nancy the Novelist; Deborah the Duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur". 
Who would you invite round for tea first?

The sisters epitomised the high society glamour of the 1930's, brushing off the dowdy, tweedy image of the landed gentry; bringing an element of hollywood exoticism to a grey Britain in the midst of a financial crisis.

Each had their own attraction. Although I'm not sure whether Fascism or indeed a passion for poultry are classified as attractions?

Place one's hand on one's hip. Makes
for a more flattering photograph Diana.

Regardless of the sisters themselves, the family have produced a few of the biggest names in fashion today. Daphne Guinness is the great granddaughter of Diana, wife to British union of fascists leader Sir Oswald Mosley. Stella Tennant, "discovered" by Isabella blow, the best friend of Ms Guinness, is the great granddaughter of Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire.

The girls are collectively and individually fascinating. Hitler and all. Even if they were effectively on giant PR disaster. Oh Unity why did you choose Nazism over poultry!?
 

Tuesday, 26 July 2011

Via ducere

Victorian engineering so good it makes me weak at the knees...

Around Brighton/ hove. Can't exactly remember.

I love viaducts. I'm not entirely sure why. Again I think its because they are built entirely for function and yet are so beautiful and almost elegant in an odd industrial way. 
*Sorry for the awful picture, through a windscreen at 30mph.

Now Voyager

Lauren, Katherine, Lana too
Bette Davis, We love you.



Swiss made

 I love objects that have a sense of utility. I find them the most beautiful.  I think this is what I find so attractive about watches. Jewellery is dead. It merely adorns the body as a status symbol or object of beauty. Of course there is a certain amount of sentiment one can attach to jewellery but for me it'll always be stagnant. 

Longines Trench watch, 1918
Watches manage to embody first of all my love of utility and secondly my love for the mechanical. Winding my manual watch is one of my great simple pleasures; possibly the finest example of micro engineering in history. Batteries die, my watch is over 50 years old and works as well as the day is was made. And there isn't much now that you'll be able to say the same of in a few years time. Let alone 5 decades. 


The above is an example of a trench watch. Yes thats right, these were worn on the fields of the Somme in the great war. The actual casing hasn't changed much from the pocket watch. The idea of adding a strap was purely out of convenience; Much easier to glaze over your wrist than pull out your cumbersome pocket watch from 3 layers of tweed and risk suffering a shot to the head. So actually more necessity than convenience.

Monday, 25 July 2011

l'apathie de la bougeoisie, Henrietta Tiarks

Henrietta Tiarks, Dowager Duchess of Bedford

I don't know the exact date of this photograph, or the whereabouts of its setting. I'd imagine its around 1958 and appears to be by the photographer Mark Shaw, although I'm not certain. There are very few pictures of HT as a model. Most of which are also taken by Shaw. 

Henrietta Tiarks, Duchess of Bedford


Angelica Houston was once told; "you'll never be pretty but you'll always be magnificent." This is perhaps the secret of Ms Tiarks. Imagine her drifting into a smokey cocktail bar. Now imagine Kate Moss stumbling out of Boujis, nipples to the wind at 3.15 in the morning. 

"I still have some beautiful ball dresses, but they live in a cupboard — nobody gives balls any more. I haven’t worn a tiara in 25 years. Times have changed. The aristocracy has no point any more."  



Sunday, 24 July 2011

Indifferent taste

Marcel Duchamp 




In between signing urinals and cross-dressing he spoke a lot of sense.