Sonia Delaunay (Russia 1885, France 1979) at the Cooper Hewitt

One more good reason to visit NYC this spring; the Cooper Hewitt is opening "Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Saunia Delaunay". According to their website, "this exhibition will focus on fashion designs from her own Atelier Simultané in Paris during the 1920s, as well as textiles designed for the Metz & Co. department store in Amsterdam in the 1930s. On view will be examples of designs, textiles, garments and photographs from the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, the Musée de l'Impression sur Etoffes in Mulhouse, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France and private collections around Europe and the United States." 

There's no other image on their website yet but here's a few I could find online that are fashion or textile related:

I like her bold style and the way she uses gouache.

And I think I'd be dazzling in one of those...

At the Cooper Hewitt from March 18 through June 5, 2011.

Paper Dress at Anthropologie

Love that dress made out of paper towels dipped in ink/pigment/dye.. It should have made the Oscars.  In the Anthropologie store on Boylston street in Boston. 

Bring Headdress Back

Sometimes I think I live in the wrong century - what happened to wigs, mantillas or hats (and by hats I don't mean just your winter bonnet no matter how cute it is)..  For example what's wrong with this mantilla:



Arabel Lebrusan, Mantilla, via HandEye

 I'll give you that the fact that it's made of silver might make it a bit difficult to wear but I think the look would be so worth the effort..



Mantilla detail

 For softer feel (and the dual purpose of keeping your head warm), what about those hats by Jean Paul Gaultier:

I can hear the pragmatists commenting on the difficulty of getting in the car or riding the subway so I'm looking into turbans.. I love that one but haven't figured out how to make it stand on your head yet, without giving you a headache so I'll keep working on it.

Henry Moore (English, 1898 - 1986) Textile Designs

This week, I'm trying to go back to doodling using pens and pencils instead of thread, and it hasn't been the easiest thing... This textile design by Henry Moore is a good reminder of how fun and playful it should be..



Caterpillar and Insect Wings, 1947 - Serigraphy in 3 colors on rayon, 330 x 650mm



These other two might be less playful yet they are very lose which I envy:



Four Heads, Half Figures and Animal, c. 1946 - Serigraphy in 7 colors on rayon 320 x 720mm





Figures and Symbols, Page from a Design Notebook, 1943 - 203 x 165mm

 See more of Henry Moore's textile designs in this book.

Isamu Noguchi Worksheets for Sculptures at Moma

1946 Worksheets for Sculptures at Moma last month..

Pencil on cut and pasted graph paper on black paper

The description makes it sound so easy, doesn't it?



detail

And since we're talking about him, here's my favorite lamp design of his:



which can be purchased at the Noguchi Museum shop here.

How to Wrap Five Eggs

I was lucky enough to be gifted that beautiful  book last year for Christmas and it somehow feeds two of my recurring concerns/interests.

First, that our society has, by focusing on mass production and cost efficiency, sacrificed beauty in almost every area of life. Designer George Nelson wrote this introduction when the book was first released in 1967:

"We have come a long, long way from the kind of thing so beautifully presented in this book. To suit the needs of super mass production, the traditional natural materials are too obstreperous . . . and one by one we have replaced them with the docile, predicable synthetics. . . . What we have gained from these [new] materials and wonderfully complicated processes to make up for the general pollution, rush, crowding, noise, sickness, and slickness is a subject for other forums. But what we have lost for sure is what this book is all about: a once-common sense of fitness in the relationships between hand, material, use, and shape, and above all, a sense of delight in the look and feel of very ordinary, humble things. This book is thus . . . a totally unexpected monument to a culture, a way of life, a universal sensibility carried through all objects down to the smallest, most inconsequential, and ephemeral things.”

 

I hear that packaging in Japan is still an art so I don't know why we haven't been able to preserve it here...



Mochi (rice cakes) wrapped in bamboo leaves



Candy bags with brightly dyed silk drawstring

The second thing the book addresses is my ever-growing attraction to bundles which I already displayed here and there... I still can't explain why I'm so drawn to them  but I can't get enough..

Fish set out to be preserved by drying them and stringing them with straw

Paper packages that accompany engagement gifts; they are designed to contain lists of the gifts presented, and their decorations, as well as their shapes

Containers for Yokan (jam made of sweet beans); made of banmboo leaves.

So what about if this year you remember those when you set out to pack your lunch... yes, even you, PB&J lovers (you know who you are..), there's no reason why you couldn't wrap that sandwich beautifully.. 

 

Karen Nicol Fantastical Animal World

I love how British Designer Karen Nicol transformed these familiar creatures into magical ones:
 

And my very very favorite, the winged squirrel, which would explain why Oops can never catch them:

Want to see more? go there.. Enjoy!

Gallery for Oceanic Art at the Met - NYC

One of the hightlights of the week end was to walk through the "new" gallery for Oceanic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (it reopened in 2007).  In the early 70's, the Met commissioned 24 Kwoma artists to paint the panels needed to make the roof of a tipical ceremonial house. The Kwoma are a group of people living in the northeastern part of New Guinea. Most Kwoma villages have at least one ceremonial house where rituals take place. They consist of a roof supported by posts and the sides are left open. This roof in the gallery is over 80 feet long and 30 feet wide, and is composed of more than 270 individual paintings on bark-like panels, painted by those 24 artists..

That should be plenty to get me started on textile designs, right there...

I also loved the line patterns on these bark clothes from Futuna Island:

and those amazing totems:

Alison Willoughby... where have I been?

I am sure some of you will relate to this: you always wear the same thing, you need a new wardrobe, you're ready to shop, you are willing to splurge, you actually go shopping, you look around...around... and around, and... you come back not only empty handed but bored to death... Then you feel like you've wasted a perfectly good couple of hours which you could have used to do something much more productive, or even better, CREATIVE...  Then you see British textile designer Alison Willougby's skirts and you want them ALL...

It doesn't matter that they are from a couple of seasons ago - you still want to wear them..  They are so refreshing and inspiring  that you want to make your own!

Well, guess what, you can still buy some of them there (if you do, I want to see it!).  She also has a book out that you can find here and gives you tips on how to alter used clothes into your own creations. On my end, I might just dive in and make one for meeself...

See more and read more about Alison on her website or her blog. I think she qualifies for my hero of the month...

What are they thinking??

Hasn't the whole thing about the VW Beetle always been about being round and cute?  sweet and soft?  I just ran across a picture of the 2011 model and it looks like it went under a truck:

Very sad... especially when they could have gone like this instead:

Now we're talking.. that would be my next car if it was available...

I might give it a try on my old Civic but the roundness cuteness factor isn't quite there..

Photos from  the vintage laundress and  Auto Motto