WOMAN'S BEST FRIEND + A ROMPER

On how to do Memorial Day weekend, (IN)DECOROUS TASTE style:

First, woman's best friend: obviously, a poodle. There isn't anything I don't like about this photo! Giant ornate cushions (whattt? I swear I saw this for the first time yesterday), bizarr-o bug bikini,  and a dog sheared like a topiary, getting a manicure. Image via Facebook's "Fashion Images of the 20th century".  EEE says it's a good way to pass an hour or two... or a whole lot more, embarrassingly.

Second, no one makes big hair and little clothes look as effortless as Brigitte Bardot.  How does she do it?

GLUTTONIZING

Of course I like jagged crystal teeth, and glimmering crowns fashioned from hands...  And so does Rupert Kojima, the designer behind Hotel Gluttony, and the creator of these seriously beautiful and very mad jewelry objets. (My kinda boy.)

Unfortunately, there's not too much info out and about on the web to be had— just that Kojima creates the pieces for the imaginary guests of "Hotel Gluttony."  Evidently, they're "sexually powerful" and "promiscuous" but they don't want to look like sluts. You know what?  It's high time for a vacation.



Images via Hotel Gluttony.

KRONIER CRAZY

I stumbled on German designer Kronier Creations a few months ago, after reading a sort of bitter comment on another post about how they'd been making these platform boots for decades before those Nina Ricci's broke onto the scene and became enormously popular.  I don't know that the Nina Ricci's were ever produced for the public, but these are a totally viable alternative! And Kronier makes them in blue metallic and a latexy type material.  How can one resist latex??

Images via Kronier Creations

UPSIDE DOWN

It was already during his studies at the Royal College of Arts that the London designer, Khashayar Naimanan, designed the Hidden Wealth service for Nymphenburg – a service which turns the conventions of porcelain painting on their head: Nymphenburg's mark is located on the top of the simple service with the complex paintings of Nymphenburg's designs being hidden underneath. Naimanan selected two floral patterns for HIDDEN WEALTH: one from the rococo period with naturalistic sometimes stylised blossoms in warm brilliant colours and leaves made from 24-carat gold as well as a classical empire design with a gilded vine that was originally used to adorn a tea service. Experts must usually check the marks on the bottom of porcelain pieces. But this design makes the actual value of the pieces immediately apparent on first inspection. While the splendour beneath the plain appearance of the mark remains concealed to cursory glances.

While I'm not crazy about the idea of plastering a logo on the TOP of a dish (yuck?), the painted undersides are genius, as is this lucite/mirrored dining contraption they obviously necessitate. I have a mirrored desk top with more brick-a-brack on it than Princess Margaret's had, and I often marvel at the undersides of the dishes and ephemera sitting on top of it.  It's a whole side of stuff you don't normally get to see.  It'd make for a novel dining experience,  at the very least...

Nymphenburg "Hidden Wealth" Service, by Khashayar Naimanan. Images via Nymphenburg and Stylepark in Residence.

PURPLE HAZE

Another enormous pillow in progress.  The leather I've been using is this wonderful powdery white shade, with a chalky appearance that lends itself nicely to hazy, dreamy pastels. Which is perfect, because as much as I loveeeee me some studded biker jackets, chaps and straps, lately I've been really into ethereal incarnations of the skin.

Painting and photography by (IN)DECOROUS TASTE.

HELMET HEAD

Ohhhh, the things one runs across on eBay.

This, a Imperial Russian cuirassier parade helmet, "Buy it Now" for $12,750.  Glorious, no?

ALL DRESSED UP, VINTAGE PHOTOS

These are photos of my grandmother from when she was very young (she's now 93!!).  What strikes me most are these amazing headdresses she's wearing, and particularly the flower sprouting from her head in the first image.

Oh, and the sailor collar, of course.  We all know I have a terrific weakness for those.

HEADING FOR RUIN

GEMS (in more ways than one!) on Peter Carl Fabergé.  I've been reading up like a madwoman.  I'm obsessed and heading for ruin (see "on heading for ruin," below).  Is it evident?

On Peter Carl Fabergé, the man:

...If we are to find some explanation for the goodness of Fabergé...we must go once again to his sense of humor, his sense of the ridiculous.  Shortly put, I would say this, when anything presented itself to be done, he never thought of it as 'bad' or 'good' as generally defined, but as silly and stupid or not silly and not stupid.

On "killing the diamond," rethinking luxury:

Carl and Agathon Fabergé drew in their horns when they made a departure from objects of jewelry to objects of fantasy. Alexander III drew in his horns when he commissioned Fabergé to make him a set of Easter eggs and not tiaras.... These three men virtually killed the diamond and all the other precious stones; not as objects of brilliance and beauty in their own right, but as those symbols of power and riches and magic...  From henceforth it was assumed that to offer any gift in which the value of the workmanship was exceeded by that of the materials employed, that is to say any article which had blatantly written across it 'I have cost a lot of money' was taboo.  To the rule there was one exception only, when the recipient was a near relative or very dear friend.

And, on heading for ruin (in style.  This is how it's DONE, yeah!):

[Alexander III, Carl and Agathon Fabergé] pointed [out] that only by the work of his own hands can man fully realize himself, that to obsess himself with those things in which he has had no hand in the making is to induce a state of creeping sickness leading finally to ruin.

Text from Peter Carl Fabergé: His Life and Work by Henry Charles Bainbridge.
Images from Russian Imperial Style by Laura Cerwinske.

BAT BOWS

Over the last few months, it seems that I've entered this, uh—relationship—with lucite (or, you know, PLASTIC. What the hell, let's call it like it is. Calling it lucite makes me feel only marginally better.), and I'm disturbingly committed. It was one of those things— it started out casually, I blinked, I opened my eyes, and suddenly I'm married to a lucite dude, living in a plastic palace and lounging in lucite pj's.  And I'm still in the honeymoon phase. Not only can I not stop wearing the stuff, but I can't stop fantasizing about all of the tactile experiences I can possibly have with my beloved lucite: lucite and leather, lucite and lace... Dear lord, it even SOUNDS good.

Sooo, when I got my hands on this delicious, thick pebbled chap leather, I KNEW where it was going.  Have I mentioned how much I adore shopping for leather?  I was particularly excited for this hide.  In fact, if I could, I'd wrap myself in a nice, thick layer of it and forgo fabric altogether, believe me.  But that's a story for another day.



Styling, photography and harness by (IN)DECOROUS TASTE.