Harlequin Bunny, Q. Cassetti, 2011, pen and inkAnother perfect day. A bit overcast…but brilliant green popping out. TJ is sitting on my office window sill, watching the birds from our higher perch while giving himself a bath.
Apropos of nothing, I
Isabella Blow was inspired by yesterday’s nugget. I learned about Philip Treacy, the imaginative milliner who created many of the hats we saw at the Royal Wedding (Princess Beatrice’s beige wreath and ribbons as the most noteworthy). Check out the hats, gallery on his site. Treacy uses the head as just an element in his scupture using felt, straw, and fabric. His work is elegant and yet can be outlandishly Grace Jonesy…Theatrical but still in the zone of fashion versus costume. Just take a little tour on his site, and you will see what I mean.
In addition to learning about Treacy, I found out about his muse, Isabella Blow (1958-2007), English magazine editor and “international style icon”. (Interesting article from The Daily Mail written by her ex-husband).
“If you don’t wear lipstick, I can’t talk to you.”
— Isabella Blow
Isabella Blow spurred some of the most interesting British fashion….Wonderful…even down to her funeral complete with a willow casket with over the top white roses, millinery ribbon and a black hat perched on top of the whole shebang. Her casket was taken to the cemetery in a victorian glass hearse- very Edward Gorey-eque. If you search it, Treacy designed very beautiful ostrich plumes for the horses that pulled the hearse….totally stylish.
Onward to the ordinary.