Tuesday Morning at the Office!

It is Tuesday Morning here and it feels like Monday. We had a holiday here in Canada yesterday, so it is back to work today.

I have a lot on my plate this week, however I am so glad that I am not coming to work to face this! As an Executive Assistant I might have been lucky to avoid this by some degree, however I do remenber typing pools (not showing my age I hope) and the girls that staffed them were amazing!

Have a great week all!

The Power of Reflection!

I have always considered myself a reflective person in many ways. Remember the say that the 'eyes are the mirror of the soul' ? So being in a reflective mood and also short of inspiration and time to do a 'real' post, here are some mirrors to get you in the reflective mood or to mirror your soul.

Weekend Wear With Savoir Faire

I am a bit light on inspiration this week, due to a rather hectic schedule both at home and at work, which has seen me collapsing in a frazzled wreck in the evenings. However these clothes from Botegga Veneta are getting me inspired for a weekend of savoir faire!

Have a great weekend all!

It all Started With a Sketch

We are all so familiar with the work of Yves Saint Laurent, that it has almost become part of fashion’s vernacular. Saint Laurent was one of the shining stars of Haute Couture in the twentieth century and it all began with a sketch.

In 1953, Saint Laurent submitted three sketches to a contest for young fashion designers, organized by the International Wool Secretariat. He won third place and was invited to attend the awards ceremony in Paris, in December of that year. While he and his mother were in Paris, they met Michel de Brunhoff, editor-in-chief of the Paris edition of Vogue magazine. de Brunhoff, was impressed by the sketches Saint Laurent brought with him and suggested he become a fashion designer.

Saint Laurent then pursued a course of study at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. Again, Saint Laurent entered the International Wool Secretariat competition and this time won, beating out his friend Fernando Sanchez and a young German student named Karl Lagerfeld.] Shortly after his win, he brought a number of sketches to de Brunhoff who recognized in them close similarities to sketches he had been shown that morning by Christian Dior. Knowing that Dior had created the sketches that morning and that the young man could not have seen them, de Brunhoff sent him to Dior, who hired him on the spot.

I love fashion sketches as they are the germination of a couturier’s ideas into fully fledged collections. Saint Laurent was a prolific sketcher with him turning out 100’s of sketches per collection.

From even the most preliminary sketches his are easily recognisable with the finished product. The line and feel of each garment is perfectly represented by his sketches.

How I would love to have some of these and frame them as art, as this is what they are art. In this age of computer generated graphics and designs, these are a welcome relief that breathe life and savoir faire into the designer’s craft.

Autographed Savoir Faire!

With all the talk revolving around Cannes and the stars that attend, don't we long to see a star, such as the young Sophia Loren signing autographs in Cannes in 1961, with savoir faire.

Your Passport to International #$%@ Pleasure

Growing up in essentially a one horse town in outback Australia in the early seventies I had a constant stream of magazines and other sources which would fire my imagination. Glamorous far off locales and the jet-set was something that always inspired me, and I was very lucky that my family were great travellers.

Long before tobacco advertisements were banned from magazines one company’s ads always inspired me with their wonderful graphics and the phrase “your passport to International smoking pleasure”. Peter Stuyvesant ads had the most wonderful graphics that were entirely evocative of the era and the jet-set lifestyle.

I have no idea of who the artists were, however with their bold colours and images of airports and airliners they promised a lifestyle of savoir faire and sophistication. Promising Paris in the morning and New York in the afternoon the highly stylized images of airlines and airports pressed all my buttons.

Having never been a smoker, I would imagine that if was I would be smoking Peter Stuyvesant, just for the lifestyle.

Savoir Fact (Or Fiction)

Ah! Madame Rubinstein, how much did we really know about her? Everything we practically knew about her was either invented or embellished by Madame, so that it was hard to know where fact left off and fiction began. Read her autobiography and you would be forgiven for thinking that she was well born, well educated, and a genius where it came to the formulation of new skin care preparations. One thing was certain, however that she gave the illusion of all these things with savoir faire, as seen below in the series of photos of Madame, playing the role of chemist, in her laboratory and factory, or as he called them her ‘kitchens’.

Story goes according to Madame that she was born (we know that much, but when is under debate) in Cracow Poland (Fact) to a wealthy wholesale food broker (Fiction?). Her mother supposedly had a strong interest in feminine beauty and again taught her young daughter the important lessons of looking after one’s skin. Even more critical was the 12 jars of moisturizing cream from a chemist Jacob Lykusky (no records have been found for his existence) that she packed in her luggage when venturing forth to Australia in the later half of the 19th century. Supposedly after making her fortune in Australia she was able to ‘study’ with the best dermatologists and chemists that Europe had to offer. Whether she did or not the photographs below gives one the impression that Madame knew what she was doing and took a hands on approach that gave her company and advertising copy the personal touch. Women were more than happy to buy her products after seeing Madame at work.

Fact of fiction, she knew what she was doing when posing for photographs like these. She was selling an image and sell it she did!