Cabana Curated

If for nothing else than the singular covers each CABANA issue wears, the magazine itself is a design voyeur's dream.
Am I a voyeur?
Yes—a design voyeur and my dream would be to curate an issue of CABANA—or even a few pages.

The latest covers of CABANA are fabrics from my favorite fashion designer Dries Van Noten. Past covers are from the Dedar, Kravet, Pierre Frey & the F. Schumacher fabric libraries, and Gucci and Ralph Lauren's fashion house fabric collections.

INSIDE? Classic interiors, Classicism,  Chintz, French Lampas, Baroque, Americana,  Nomadic tents, Monticello. It's the way editor Martina Mondadori Sartogo lays them out—the pages of Cabana blur all the lines of design. The sacred becomes profane and then turns back on itself.

images above in no particular order, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema -Townshend House 1885, Louis Comfort Tiffany-Near Eastern Interior, Portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu detail, paper cutting of flower urn from the American Folk Art Museum, Mantua from the Victoria & Albert Museum, Portrait of Dorothy Quincy by John Singleton Copley,18th c. Traditional Dress of Holland, Anthony Van Dyck self-portrait, Leonard Campbell Taylor-The Sampler, Dinka Mans beaded Corset- Southern Sudan, Ladies Album-signatures of textile cut-outs, Eileen Agar-Woman reading,cut-out 1936, Quilted Petticoat 18th c., Patchwork Caraco 17th c., Ellsworth Kelly, Ghirlandaio detail from the Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, French Textile Sample book 1825, Armenian bride, 19th c. Marble Paper, Portrait of Polish nobleman Kazimierz Ossoliński1720s, Gheeraerts Detail from a Portrait of Anne of Denmark,1614.

Princely

Rodarte Fall 2015

I love the use of a classic pattern, in this instance the Prince-ly Prince of Wales Check , and  variations thereof on houndstooth- in the Anorak. Easily done, and equally well done by Michael Kors (the quintessential American sportswear designer), in the Trench.

Michael Kors, Fall 2015

the ORIGINAL

Designed by his King Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales, as livery for his hunts at Abergeldie Castle on Scotland’s Deeside it was popularised by his grandson the Duke of Windsor when he was Prince of Wales. Its authentic colours are red-brown on a white ground with a slate grey overcheck.

the one time Prince, Carte de Visite of King Edward VII c.1902.

& his Princely Grandson,

 Edward, Prince of Wales

Prince & Consort

Finally, Both designers get high marks for beautiful evening wear with the Ease, coincidentally, and familiarly, of The Duchess of Windsor.

KORS 2015

Rodarte 2015

fashion pictures from style.com and vogue uk.

the ATELIERS

Tzuri Gueta for Yiqing Yin

Branches of coral in silicone-fed fabric and applied to silk tulle for a Chinese-inspired red wedding dress

Helene Farnault has opened the doors of the HAUTE COUTURE ATELIERS in her new book by the same name. It's more than a glimpse inside the Artists that make fashion's Haute Couture the unique world it has been for decades. With a foreword by Hebert de Givenchy, who after many years as a designer is still quite amazed at the level of the craft. The Haute Couture artists of Lemarie and Desrues are two he particularly favors.

Introductions to couturiers like OSCAR CARVELLO open Farnault's book and indeed his work is quite extraordinary. True, much of haute couture is-with designers taking their work to high art on Paris runways. Carvello seems to go a step further though, lavishing each of his works with details from many of the ateliers, yet his creations show great restraint simultaneously-a wonder with the entirety of choices available to him. His high art evokes the old world Erte drawings, and designs of Paul Poiret.

A Carvello gold brocade dress, with fur epaulettes and bead embroidery

Each of the Ateliers, artificial flowermakers, featherworkers, pleaters, embroiderers, passementerie makers, leather workers, & costume jewelers are delved into by chapter. This is where the photography by  Alexis Lecomte captures the workers at their craft, photographing their premises and their hands at work.

at BRODERIES LANEL

Black organza embroidered with matt silver and gunmetal cup sequins. Relief applique embroidered petals.

Feathers at NELLY SAUNIER

Design notebook containing lists of materials, colours and dye references, as well as feather samples

 Fur by MARION CHOPINEAUR, and SOPHIE HALLETTE Embroidered Lace

a confection of fur and embroidery by Yiqing Yin Haute Couture

PRELLE Weavers

Colour Sample Books with skeins of silk yarn used from 1898 to 1900

Raf Simons of DIOR seems to capture a modernity, and unite the fine embroideries of haute couture as current director of Dior. His Spring-Summer 2012 Haute Couture Collection, (above & below) show just that. Fabric flowers with bead centres on tulle with black chainstitch stem.

 photograph from Style. com

"Like planets in motion around the sun, fashion designers, especially those in the field of haute couture, carry thousands of workers in their wake. All the crafts in the fashion industry are satellites within this solar system." - Helene Farnault 

Easily getting lost in space, HAUTE COUTURE ATELIERS will take you amongst embroidered stars, beaded planets, and gently drop you back to earth. You'll only wish to return in haste to any of its pages for a few moments of cosmic bliss.

principal photography by  Alexis Lecomte

available from Vendome Press

one of the many books I selected from the offerings from Vendome

125

Schumacher is celebration 125 years in Design.
I'm impressed with some of their offerings accompanying this milestone.

With great style, Schumacher's ad campaign embodies what makes a 125 year old company so relevant in a world of textile design house takeovers-consolidations and closures.

Boughton House, from a circa-1870 fragment of fine cotton in the company's archives.

Shock Wave, crafted in Italy at one of the finest silk mills in the world.

Iconic Leopard returns from the 1970's when Schumacher first ran the pattern.

Les Gazelles Au Bois, by artist Pierre Pozier, nephew of Schumacher founder, c.1927.

Citrus Garden, an archival print designed for Schumacher in 1947 by Josef Frank.

Happy Birthday Schumacher!

CLAN TARTAN I

There's nothing more pleasing than wearing the plaids of an ancient tartan, while every year it crops up on the runway-and in rooms.

For Fall 2014 Simone Rocha took cues from “Elizabeth I & Her People,” the National Portrait Gallery exhibition about Queen Elizabeth I and her courtiers- their costumes and jewels. The 27 year old Irish Rocha modernized the look but never wavered from beauty, and details like encrusted glass bead embroidery with tartan or Elizabethan ruffles in tartan.

ELIZABETHAN TARTAN

tune in all this week for more CLAN TARTAN at little augury.

more adoration, patchwork reprise xiii

.

 yet another reason to convert. 

man's dressing gown, 1830-1840, hand made with tiny triangular patchwork cutouts.

Dressing gown with centre front opening, fastened with single button at the waist and decorative buttons at breast. Wide olive green turn back collar and lapels. Long straight sleeves with deep velvet turn back cuffs. The fabric is made from small handsewn patchwork blocks of multicoloured plain & brocaded silks and silk velvets. Each patchwork block is made from triangles joined into a larger square block forming repeating diamond shapes. Lined with green silk lining, interlined with padded wool felting.

text linked to powerhouse museum

.

MET meets Twelfe Night, Or What You Will

.
A week long trip to New York culminated with a trippingly on the tongue production of Shakespeare's Twelfe Night on Broadway. The Globe Theatre's troupe is putting on a show-and I do mean a show-it's stellar- exultant.

Time at the Met is always important when I'm in New York. I never cease to be awed by the collections. Their Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800 Exhibition is one not to be missed. I am often discussing the overlap-the sharing-the trading of countries to my clients. China creating Chinese porcelains for the French- Palampore textiles sent from India to the European market.  
It's the exchange of these cultural gifts that makes a room-a design- exciting-and invariably authentic. 

"When in France-do as the Chinese do"-or something like that. 

AT the MET

(all selections below are from the MET Exhibition site, and linked to each work in my text)

 

Joshua Reynolds paints Mrs Baldwin, British subject born in Turkey, in the style popular with women of the 18th century- a la Turk.

 Mirror with intricate stitching framed in tortoise-English 1672

The power of  the Past-the AUTHENTIC-is, well-powerful. Surprisingly, this is the Met's first major exhibition devoted to the grand tour of textile design over three centuries. 
It is something to see-it is stellar- exultant-
 

 Chinese hanging made for the European market, second half of the 18th century, Qing Dynasty

Morning gown made in Japan especially for Dutch traders, early 1700's

Robe à la Française, 1755 French or Dutch, restyle in 1770.

A rare silk European quilt with a masted ship in its center, 17th century

Robe à la Française,Chinese silk made for the French market, c. 1770

AT the THEATRE

 

Paul Chahidi as Maria in Twelfe Night at the Belasco Theatre

Get thee to the Belasco-and get there early. The Globe Theatre's Shakespearean troupe is getting into costume and makeup on stage in front of the audiences very eyes each night before one of their two alternating productions at the Belasco Theatre. A sight to behold, the company is doing it all authentically-just as if Shakespeare was watching from the wings. It's mesmerizing to see the pains these actors-an all male cast-go through to become the ladies of Shakespeare's Twelfe Night. Dressers discreetly tuck, trim, sew and lace actors into ruffs, cuffs, skirts-not to mention spackle and powder them into mask like Elizabethan maquillage. There's no other way of saying it-it's as authentic as it gets.

 Mark Rylance being womanized

Before...

and Aft.

"And all is semblative a woman's part." WS- Twelfe Night

Mark Rylance as the mourning and lovesick Olivia

The costumes-too-are equally authentic-painstakingly so. All the materials for them have been matched closely in fiber content to what was available in London during the 1590's and 1600's. Layers-linen to start for both men, and men playing women- followed by a farthingale, a silk petticoat, a corset, a gown, a neck ruff, wrist ruffs, a girdle, stockings and garters but only for the lady men. They must feel duly womanized by the time the play begins.

 In addition to these trappings-Countess Olivia-played by Rylance, a performance not to be topped I say, dons a silk veil, coronet, lace hat, a jeweled head-tyre, a wire rebato, white gloves with jet beading, a silk velvet cloak, sleeve panels and an embroidered  forepart-hand made, or hand stitched or both-of course.

Portait of Anna Rosina Tanck,1642 painted by Michael Hirt, (in a wired rebato)

Authenticity is the byword of the Met's exhibition-Shakespeare's Twelfe Night, and this fall's New York trip on a whole.
Oh-
I did get to see her too-and it doesn't get much more real than that.
She, by the way, is playing at the Frick.

The Girl with the Pearl Earring, by Vermeer

 "Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis."

about the play's costumes: from the Playbill notes by Jenny Tiramani, Designer
images of the play from Broadway.com, NY Times, NY Daily News, Portland Theatre Scene
Interwoven Globe at the Met here
Broadway's Twelfe Night  here



.