She & Him

I have a crush on Zooey Deschanel! 

I first saw her in 500 Days of Summer, and I worshipped its quirkiness and her lovileness. 

Then I found one of her tracks and realised she is also the singer of the duo She & Him. I downloaded her first album and I like each and every songs - fine indie rock. She is coming to KOKO in May, but I will be in Italy. Too bad.

Her new album, Volume 2, is out now. And their video is a proper feel-good treat!

Sunday Art :: Lucia Portret

Portrait of Monica Vitti by Lucia Portret

A Renewed Interest

My yoga pal Lynne is a talented and multi-task lady. As well as being a yogini, she is an actress, a ski instructor, and a knitter. Between an asana and the other she was knitting a blanket for her grandmother using circular needles. She reminded me that I also like knitting and rounded needles just seem so discreet that I could knit everywhere with them - in the bus, at my lunch break or indeed between an asana and the next. 

When I {accidentally} found these two patterns on the net, I decided that it is time to dig out my knitting kit. It will be a challenge and it may just be another activity I add to my eclectic list, but it is worth a try. 

Coraline Goes Partying

Instead of pulling off a glamorous party frock, this year I decided to go to my company's Xmas party dressed as Coraline Jones, i.e. in yellow wellies and a blue wig. It was a way to make  up for the missed Halloween extravaganza.

And here with my button-eyed black cat and a pair of bold spectacles borrowed by Superman. 

It was a fun party, by the way. And my friends were super-cute.

Happy Birthday Wallace & Gromit

Google reminded me that today it is Wallace & Gromit's 20th birthday. It deserves a mention being my favourite cartoon!

The September Issue :: 60 seconds review

"Fashion is a religion and VOGUE is the bible"

Fashion-makers’ popularity has rocketed in recent years, boosted by street style hunters such as Sartorialist and Jak & Jil. Fashion editors and designers have replaced models’ role of fashion icons and erected themselves to the status of celebrities. That’s not all. They are now turning themselves into film stars. The first to lead the way is Ms Wintour, always a step ahead. In The September Issue, the reader is taken into an unprecedented journey into the world of Vogue and frenetic magazine publishing, this time not in fictional form (The Devil wears Prada) but in crude documentary style. 

I was thrilled by the making of the biggest issue of the year. Visits to designers and fashion shows, internal and external meetings, editors’ work and photo shoots and re-shoots followed each other and showed the exciting but intense labour in the run up to the publication of the fall issue. My attention, however, kept going back to HER. Hidden behind a wig-like bob and dark sunglasses, Anna Wintour came across as authoritative but always measured and collected. Her one-word comments, if arguable and glacial, were always unambiguous. In other words, she avoided that fashion jargon you hear so much in the fashion world. I liked that. 

Her decisive demure was counterbalanced by different characters. The flamboyant (André Leon Talley), the dandy (Hamish Bowles) and the ex-model turned creative director (Grace Coddington). This latter was the only one with the guts to stand up to Wintour's  high demands and icy disapprovals. They have worked together for two decades and, despite the differences in personality and opinion clashes, they also show a chemistry which has helped them evolve with the evolution of the fashion industry.

Always incredibly elegant and toned nearly to perfection, Anna also looks very conventional—exactly what is needed to run an institutionalised fashion magazine such as Vogue. Despite all their efforts to support young talents, Vogue remains in fact the bible for the high end of the market and the window for couture fashion. It was Grace's anglosaxon simplicity, non-conformism and talent in pulling together a breathless photo shoot that was revealing and gave the September issue (both in terms of documentary and physical issue) that wow factor. 

"Everybody isn't perfect in this world. I mean, it's enough that the models are perfect..."
Grace Coddington 

News from the fashion and design world

Anthropologie, one of my favourite American shops selling colourful prints, is opening a store in London, Regent's Street this Autumn! I shouldn't applaud so much yet another shop chain, but this will save me from fantasising of flying to NYC only to shop at Anthropologie!

Coco Avant Chanel will be released in London on 31st July!

And I am so curious to watch Antichrist by Lars VonTrier starring another French star: I bought a mirror from Graham & Green and some fake hydrangeas and peonies for my DIY project of redecorating the bathroom. The mirror is part of a Moroccan inspired collection of beautifully inlay furniture, which may result to someone heavy to the eye, but not to me: I find them so decadent, exotic and bursting with character. The colour palette I am using it's a bit bizarre: sage, ivy, pink and black. I took loose inspiration by the Hotel Chelsea's decor and I see this little project a surrealistic attempt of shaking and shocking the canonic function of objects. Makes any sense? Wait to see! In other news, I have been given a performance achievement reward at work in the form of vouchers and decided to use them in the most stylish store listed amongst the options: Selfridges. I still don't have clue what I am going to get but it has to be something durable and arty. Finally, I have just finished to watch the entire series of Gossip Girl, and I am hooked. It is more dramatic and passionate than SATC and more ironic and intrigued than Beverley Hills 90210, but it retains the same stylish taste of the former and the same basic story line of the latter (rich adolescents mingling or clashing with "normal" teenagers). At least, this is my three seconds take on it. I think this Philip Lim dress is one of the best pieces sported by Queen B. I admit though that it instantly loses all its charm when worn by tacky P.

I do I do I do

this past week has been a gown fitting tour de force. i decided to pack three appointments in a row and, as a consequence of this (bad call), i had to wake up bright and early (which i am not used to as i don't normally use an alarm clock) to leave work on time... i think i found the shape that suits me (and probably most of the bodies). i may have feven found the right dress. i am going to see some more in italy in november and then decide. this month i have three italian films booked (Gomorra, Quiet Chaos and A Perfect Day) and will finally go and watch The Dark Knight at the IMAX. valentina has invited me to a Diabolik night including a talk about "50's and 60's Western culture's fascination with exotica" and the screening of Diabolik indeed... intriguing. this afternoon i am going to use my tate membership for the first time to admire Rothko's works, and next week it will be Francis Bacon's turn. if time allows me, i would love to visit the new Saatchi Gallery which will reopen its doors on 9 october in the up-town area of Chelsea (and it's free admission). on 25 october the Affordable Art Fair is on again, but i am not sure whether i'll attend or not as last time i left my eyes on an artist whose work i decided not to buy with the prospect to purchase it this time around in the hope that my finances were more prosperous... but they are not. SIGH. this evening we are at Emiliano's house for a carbonara followed by drinks in Camden with Francesco & Hisano. i have two more dinners and a few drinks with work this month. food and drinks - the best way of socialising. next saturday we will be in Ascot but i have no hat. now, this is a BIG problem. it will be my first horse racing watching experience - steve took me to dog racing in one of our very first dates, but that was it. we have been climbing the ladder since. : ) i am going back to Brussels by the end of the month - potentially my last trip for a while and definitely my last business trip. we are going to celebrate the launch of a journal i commissioned last year, which should be fun, except for the early rise to travel back straight to work. and, dulcis in fundo, Koko is hosting a Battiato concert on 28th, which i can't miss... ; ) OK, off to dye my hair and finish off a few must-do chores... have a great weekend, blog readers!

80th Academy Awards

While the Hollywood stars are resting, here I am to reminisce about the 80th Academy Awards just passed, which has been a truly international success this year. Apart from The Austrian film the Counterfeiters who was awarded for Best Foreign Film, to my joy, French actress Marion Cotillard and Spanish actor Javier Bardem (first Spanish actor to win the Oscar) were crowned King and Queen of the night, next to a nonchalant Daniel Day-Lewis and an algid Tilda Swinton.

Possibly due to the US economic recession and writers’ strike, the red carpet was rather contained this year: many blacks, reds and strapless gowns patronned the event. The most opulent one was undoubtedly Heide Klum’s Dior dress, which was commissioned to Galliano for the Oscars and promised to charity auction soon after.

Expecting women sparkled on the red carpet: Cate Blanchet left her metallic choices for a wearable and soft navy blue dress with emerald embellishments on the neckline. Nicole Kidman was rather modest in her black dress and chandelier diamond collier. Jessica Alba was the shiniestbumpy lady in her aubergine Marchesa dress.

In Marchesa was also Anne Hathaway, whose deep red gown complemented very well her pale skin, as Superqueen rightly observed.


It is not a mystery that I am a fan of French actresses. Names such as Charlotte Gainsbourg (half English half French), Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (half Italian half French), and Eva Green (half Swedish half French and bi-lingual English/French) have all featured at some point in my blog. Marion Cotillard is not exception. Known to favour French designers on the red carpet, Cotillard, who modelled a white and silver prince frock by Chanel at the Baftas, rocked a stunning mermaid dress by Jean-Paul Gualtier at the Oscars and exuded confidence and regal deportment. Her smile and lyrical thank-you speech made her Star of the Night.

“Thank you life, thank you love, and it is true, there is some angels in this city."

Although Cavalli is my anti-hero, Diablo Coldy, winner for best orginal screenplay of Juno, looked striking in leopard print both at the Baftas, in cavalli, and at the 80th Academy Awards, in Dior. In this occasion she paired the dress with flat pumps defying all the Oscar etiquettes. To be noted is also her LAMU-style tattoo. Although I enjoyed Juno as a cunning comedy, my mention of her is homage to the fact that she is a blogger as well as a scriptwriter.

Allow me to drift away with my imagination for a moment. If I could have designed an Oscar gown (mind you – I did not say “if I could have worn an Oscar frock”), I would have chosen a green shade similar to Alberta Ferretti’s, sported by the young Atonement protagonist, Saoirse Ronan. The tint would have matched the colour of a green-eyed actress and it would have been made up of a structured bodice, to enhance a superb décolleté, and a toe-long high-waist skirt covered with light fringes and contrasted with some black touches: a black belt, black opaque tights and black platform shoes. It would have been feathery and a bold statement at the same time. In other words, it would have been an art-deco-inspired piece injected with a contemporary feel and softness. I would have coupled it up either with icing diamonds and bright red lipstick or warm yellow gold with rubies and cherry nail polish… depending on who was going to wear it, of course. ; )

You can admire a wider selection here and here.

60 seconds reviews

apart from my usual trips to the yoga centre and some other sporadic outings, which i will briefly record here, i have spent most of my time indoors, watching movies and... doing research. i have been offered to participate to an exciting fashion project, and i am seriously considering it. for obvious reasons, i cannot say much about it now, but it is very likely you will see more fashion-orientated posts in the near future. but in the meantime, i want to share with you the following 60 seconds reviews:

Only Yesterday

Director: Isao Takahata
Writer: Isao Takahata

This is a delicate and lyrical story of the bitter/sweet memories of infancy, which are universal despite being rooted in the '60s japan. it is certainly the most realistic japanese production i watched since Candy Candy, but without the intrigues and dramas of the latter. its verisimilitude and *intimist* approach makes this film a psychological analysis of the coming-to-age reality.


My Neighours the Yamadas

Director: Isao Takahata
Writers: Isao Takahata (writer), Leo ChuEric Garcia (English language adaptation), Hisaichi Ishii (comic)

My Neighours the Yamadas, by the same director of Only Yesterday, likewise offers watercolour sketches of japanese suburban life, with understated humour and irony. there is the working father who thinks he wear the trousers, the caring, if lazy, stay-at-home mum, the live-in savvy and direct grandmother, the fat son constantly inflicting irony and self-irony and the pretty daughter, each with specific features their more (in)famous american counterparts such as the simpsons and griffins. but, unlike them, there are far less cultural references and eccentricities here. although the Yamadas occasionally fly into a surreal dream, their life stays rooted in their everyday routine, and i believe this is the magic of this anime.

My Neighbour Totoro
Director: Hayao Miyazaki Writer: Hayao Miyazaki

this is japanese animation at its best - a lovely family cartoon with the fantasy element left suspended between the girls' imagination and the mysteries of the forest.

two over-excited girls (Satzuko and Mei) move into a derelict country house with their intellectual daddy, who is extremely positive and relaxed, to stay closer to their hospitalised mum. this element of drama in the background cast a shade into this otherwise idyllic scenario in which Satzuko and Mei - who reminded us our nieces Juliette and Ilsa for their expressiveness and comic behaviour – explore the surroundings until they come into contact with the spirits of the nearby forest. totoro, despite being a huge troll, is an enormous puff of sweetness and magnanimity and his *rain-dance* is the evidence of his regenerating powers. here it is a comic scene with its uplifting soundtrack:

my deco~ravelry~oblivious yogina~bad foot~juno

my deco

two interesting discoveries: the first is not a real discovery as my brother-in-law-to-be sent me this link. it's a portal that gathers together highstreet and designer online furniture shops! i had a hard time looking for something quirky and yet affordable until i browsed this. in less than a morning, i got three new pendant lamps for my tall flat, a floor light for our studio area and a cheap coffee table. little touches to improve our living space. next will be a new basin because i managed to break it! don't ask me why - i am not that strong but i am that clumsy.

ravelry
second discovery - a facebook-type community for knitters! it is not live yet, but i already registered to be in first line.

bad foot
i have a foot-ache which started in belgium. it is an on/off pain, whose origin is hard to identify. so, i booked a reflexology session next week, as well as my annual dentist appointment. it seems like february will be *check-up month*, so i may well visit also my doctor for a routine blood test. bring on the hypochondria that it's in me.

oblivious yogina

my yoga centre is magic - i keep forgetting things there and i keep finding them again. tonight i left on the yoga studio's floor my mum's yellow gold ring with ruby and realised about it only at the bus station. [digression - this is the engaged girl who is about to receive an expensive ring!] i ran back swearing to myself that i will no longer take it out. an angel had handed it in at the reception. previous to this, i lost and found there a pair of Dior glasses, my wallet, my credit card.

juno
tomorrow i am seeing sian, an ex-colleague of mine, and i want to propose to go and watch juno, which was presented at the london film festival and received incredibly good reviews despite the unoriginal theme. it is described as cunning, humorous and with cast talented actors. we'll see if it lives up to my pumped expectations.

the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford

directed by: andrew dominik

written by: andrew dominik and ron hansen (novel)

synopsis: robert ford, who's idolized Jesse James since childhood, tries hard to join the reforming gang of the missouri outlaw, but gradually becomes resentful of the bandit leader.

cast:

brad pitt as jesse james

casey affleck as robert ford

(c) imdb

this film was a torture - mind, for me and not for the victims of jesse james and his bandits. it felt like three hours of relentless prison. i kept looking around to detect the same edginess in other people. I was so sure that the film was a big flop that I was feeling sorry and embarrassed for the other fellow cine-philes. at home, i desperately googled the film in search of bad reviews proving that i had not completely lost my cinematic plot, but found an unexpected good balance of good and bad reviews.

don’t get me wrong, brad pitt was sensational in his complex role, and his reactions scarily unpredictable, but the story was incoherent, boring and slow. loftino enjoyed it and attributed my lack of interest to the fact that westerns is not my genre and that i did not know its background, namely the biography of one of the most infamous american outlaws. notwithstanding, to me it was neither a good psychological study nor a truthful account of american history, but a simply a mis-reading of mythologised hollywood westerns, to put it bluntly.

however, there are two aspects i appreciated in nearly three hours of enduring time:

1. “the errant homosexual attraction between ford and jesse who gifts him with a fateful custom gun. “you’re gonna break a lot of hearts”, jesse says with the blatantly phallic offering. when ford sneaks up on jesse bathing nude (and dominik lavishes attention on pitt’s bare back), the outlaw wonders: ‘i can’t figure it out. do you want to be like me or you want to be me?’” *

2. nick cave’s brief but lively intervention!

we saw nick cave live a few days earlier as one of barry adamson’s guest of honours, and his performance blew me away. he was so vigorous and unrestrained, even more so than immodesty blaize's performance, the dita von teese of the poor people, who delighted us with a striptease which drew the concert to a juicy close.

* The myth and men of the James gang go a little queer by Armond White.

BIG UPDATE

Hey, here I am... bright and sound. I have been quite caught up in the blog of life lately, but now I am back with a few stories to divulge... But, first of all, here are some highlights of the last two months you may be curious to nose:

Makeover: I have a new haircut - the usual sixties bob but with a long fringe thrown on one side - and a new colour: ^rich chocolate^. I also have - here I am going to be really personal - a Brazilian bikini. I had it done in August for the first time in my life and am now addicted to it - I have just had a second one this afternoon. I also began a laser treatment for permanent hair removal. Both are new territory for me, but, so far, I am v. happy of this ^smooth^ choice. Ah ah ah.

Social Life:
The 30th of August was my 31st birthday which I celebrated together with Richard's* leaving do at the local pub, which recently received a ^poncification^. I was lucky enough to find an Italian bar-woman who prepared me delicious Bellinis with freshly squeezed raspberries all night long. Despite the absence of some good friends, the party was successful. A group of us ended up crashing at Richard's, on the sofa, one on top of each others. Great fun. In the morning, four of us, with smudged make-up and aching bodies, decided to conclude the fiesta with an organic breakfast in Queen's Park. What a great birthday! Thanks to all, again!

*He is off to experience this world and I am following him with the atlas and my mind.

Sunday just past, we had a ^Haircut Day^ at Vale's, who, after 30 years of house-sharing, has finally got her own space and is over the moon (her, not her house). Four of us gathered for a Spanish-inspired lunch followed by a haircut session with a premier stylist from Tony & Guy.

Facebook - my blessing and my ruin. Thanks to Facebook (even if I was not here, I have always been there, BTW), I found two old friends: Eli, who I met when I had just arrived from Italy and she was about to leave for Milan, and Betta, a girl with whom I have been glued for the four months I have lived in Venice. She was a student at the time and I was an intern at La Biennale di Venezia. They are both back in London, one with a lovely English husband (what a coincidence!) and one with a new sparkling job! But thanks to Facebook, I also forgot to invite some friends to my party. Che figura!

Entertainment:
I went to Gwen Stefani concert last weekend and it was fun. She is so cool - an uplifting model of glam and energy. Both her style, burlesque and sophisticated, and her music, (hip) pop with a twist, distinguish her from the other crap artists such as Sugarbabes or Britney. She was really personal as well, a very well tailored approach to her fans, mainly scrappy teenagers, tasteful children, stylish gays, chameleon-type women, exuberant ladies and us (I am not sure where we fell into).

I saw Two Days in Paris at the cinema and loved it because it reflected, in many ways, the relationship between myself and Lofty, at both cultural and personal level. Lofty had the same impression and found this rather embarrassing. Ehm... ehm....

I also watched Atonement and its first crucial scene at the villa was exactly as I imagined it. Whereas the war scene, although slow going as it was in the book, on the big screen it kinda lost its rhetorical function of making the personal story epic. Admittedly, it would be a boring story had you not read the book, an inner path towards an horrendous awareness and a painful process of atonement, indeed.

I read three books by Kundera and am about to start his masterpiece, the Unbearable Lightness of Being, for the second time. Kundera and his quotes deserve their own raison d'etre.

I watched tons of Kusturica's films, including documentaries and interviews. I love that man. He is, artistically speaking, at the antipodes of my other idol: Almodovar. The former is manly, rough and chaotic, whereas the latter is stylish, feminine and fame-adamant. But both are colourful, folkloric, in love with their countries and uplifting.

Holidays: No holidays till Christmas. Sigh. But in three weeks I am doing a SPA Day in Bath and we have just booked a trip to Italy/Finland for Christmas/New Year. Yuppy! So, much of my time has been spent planning for this adventure with other 10 people from all over Europe. More to follow.

Family issues: My buddy has got a new job! Yu Hhuuu. And il culone is in gardening leave for nonetheless than three weeks. Scusate se e' poco! I proposed him to go to Italy for a couple of weeks to learn the language, but how can we plan accommodation, course and flight in three days? Unless he goes and stays at my parents... I threw the coin at him and I am waiting for a response... or reaction. Eh eh eh....

Shopping:
I bought myself a huge bookshelf which is doing my life much easier. I have started cataloging all my books by genre and sub-genre. Next pile to tackle will be CDs and DVDs, for which I bought a ^tower^.

As a good Londoner, I could not not to own a pair of Converse trainers, low cut in optic white (for now) framed by a red stripe (in other words, the most common shoes in London earth).

In August I spent a week with my mother looking for the perfect dress for the book launch we never did (it has been post-poned and trans-posed: it'll be some time in Jan and in Brussels instead of Florence). And the dress we found is unusually black and less than perfect. On the contrary, it was source of shame. A dedicated post will elaborate on this.

Finally, I got a tunic dress in silk and seventies print, which I inaugurated at Gwen's concert, and the longest earrings you can find in the market.

Next purchases: a powerful laptop, a duffle coat (or montgomery coat) from Gant and skii trousers by Stella McCarthy for Adidas - savings allowing. ; )