Caroline Wolfe Papocchia - It's not news that technology has leveled many industries in recent years, and stationery is not exempt. Email has dramatically decreased postal service and has decimated the once de rigueur practice of sending personal notes on personal stationery.
Despite these trends, however, wedding invitations remain squarely in the physical realm. These days couples have endless invitation options, from elegant letterpress to laser-cut paper and etched lucite. And we note that today's invitations are bolding entering the realm of fine art.
We have seen a lot of cool invitations, but we truly drooled at the rust and wood offerings from couture paper studio Twig & Fig of Berkeley, CA. Rust and wood? Seriously? Yes, rust and wood - shades of brown, orange, and burgundy; perfect for Fall.
Christina Bohn from Twig & Fig explained that the wood is laser-cut with a specific design and the invitation itself was a thin acid-etched, rusted, and screen-printed steel plate. Wow? Wow.
Balenciaga 1951 Red Coat, Photo: Nova Colette BronsteinNove Colette Bronstein - If you're excited by bold sculptural forms and evocative color, then Balenciaga and Spain is for you! This spectacular exhibit on display at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, chronicles highlights from the prolific Spanish fashion designer, Cristobal Balenciaga.
Balenciaga 1952 Tweed Suit, Photo: Nova Colette Bronstein
Fashion is a tumultuous stage for creation and has a very short memory. What makes the most profound impression about this exhibit is how many of Balenciaga's creations, from (for example) the 1950's still strike a modern and covet-worthy chord. Echos of these suit, coat, and dress silhouettes created by Balenciaga during his half century contribution are among the most dynamic fashions hitting the runway today.
Cristobal Balenciaga started designing fashion early. In Spain, he first started working at a tailor shop at the age of 13, moving along to apprentice during World War I, and had his own dress shop by 1918. Relocating 3 times within the country he fled Spain for Paris before World War II. His early success in Spain only grew upon his settling in Paris. This location apparently stuck, as 10 Avenue Georges V is now the flagship store in Paris.
He kept his Paris couture house open during the German occupation in Paris when others, like the house of Chanel shuttered their doors and was the only designer of the day to truly challenge the house of Dior.
One has to be reminded of both the ration on fabrics in the late 1940's during World War II and the dominance of Dior's 1947 “New Look” that sprang forth as rebellion with its dramatically pinched waist and near explosion of fullness at the hem. Only Balencaiga began to turn the tide of silhouette by broadening the shoulder and letting out the waist for his 1949 coats and dresses. His mastery of line and form as expressed through fabric was nearly unsurpassed. Even Christian Dior acknowledged Balanciaga as, "the master of us all," according to Fashion of the Twentieth Century, Francois Baudot.
Balenciaga made clothes that appeared effortless on the wearer and using the body as a spring board to push off of with dimension. The effect was always dynamic and worked with, rather than against a woman's body.
Harnessing the bravada of the Spanish people, Balencaiga constantly chose as inspiration references to his native culture.
(Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, FL)Janet Ramin - Slithering across the humid, subtropical landscape like the pocket watches in Persistence of Memory, the Dali Museum recently opened its new building in St. Petersburg, Florida. The surreal architecture boasts of a glass geodesic structure flowing freely in and out of a box building. Architect Yann Weymouth of HOK Architects who conceived the design was inspired by the organic dreamlike paintings of Salvador Dali.
(Salvador Dali)Dali was born in Catalonia, Spain in 1904, studied at the Academy in Madrid, and eventually moved to Paris where he met Picasso and artists of the surrealist art movement. Influenced by these artists, Dali began to move away from his more rigid art training and develop his own expressive technique. In the 1920s, surrealism was a cultural movement affecting art, poetry, literature, film, and philosophy that dealt with what was beneath the façade of man, the unconscious and dreams. In his most famous work,