Saturday 28 May 2016

My peasant blouse by Irving & Fine



Do you know the feeling to hold a new and special garment in your hands, designed with depth and meaning? My wardrobe got richer when I received such an item, the Embroidered Peasant Tunic, a classic Tangier peasant blouse by Irving & Fine. It was a surprise gift from textile designer Lisa Fine (earlier this month I wrote a piece about her textile designs), although I kind of knew what it was when she told me she was going to send me their bestselling peasant top. I have had it for a week and the fabric feels so soft; double gauze cream cotton with blue embroidery, made in India. The Irving & Fine label is a collaboration between esteemed textile designers and friends Lisa Fine and Carolina Irving (remember her Manhattan home on the blog?), who create embroidered peasant blouses, tunics, kaftans, coats and accessories. Their design is inspired by their travels to exotic places.

This is my ode to their peasant blouse, a token of my appreciation.

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Friday 20 May 2016

Modigliani in the morning light



This morning, as I was refreshing our home for the weekend, I walked into the living room to find Modigliani bathed in the morning light. Not Modigliani himself, obviously, but a framed reprint of his painting Woman with Blue Eyes (1918, oil on canvas). I removed it from the wall and placed it on the mantelpiece next to the carnations and bowl of dates. If you happen to be strolling the streets of Paris, and in the mood for art, you will find the original at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Wherever I may be in the future I will link artist Amedeo Modigliani to this house. The owner left two framed reprints hanging in the living room that were my first impression when I entered it for the first time. A good first impression.

It is Friday, which in our world means home-made pizza and red wine this evening; a tradition we started when living in the centre of North Zealand in Denmark six years ago. But now it's coffee and inspirational reading in a clean house. Have a wonderful weekend!


Tuesday 17 May 2016

spring gift: Ely Maple by JORD wood watches



When invited to be part of the JORD wood watches spring campaign this year I decided to give my younger daughter a watch. It would be her spring gift for simply being herself and fabulous. She chose one from the Ely series, the Ely Maple, which also shows the date. (Looking for a gift for someone? There's an e-gift card below.) We are not new to JORD and know what to expect, which doesn't make it any less exciting to receive their wooden box with a beautiful watch inside. It's been 8 weeks and my daughter is a happy customer.

It pleased me to see her pick the Ely watch that has a simple and timeless design. The other day we were talking about its qualities and I mentioned the timeless part. First there was silence and then she said: 'But that's just stupid, it's a watch, it tells the time!' It cracked me up; how right she was! Then I explained to her the concept of something being a classic piece, timeless in the sense it never goes out of style. The teenager agreed that it applied to the Ely Maple.


Honestly, my daughter hasn't given me a detailed review of the watch. Her words go something like this: It's a watch, it works, it shows the time, she likes it, she is happy with it. What's more to say?

Exactly! It does everything a watch is supposed to do. Plus, it looks good and it's handcrafted, by a company that values sustainability. As you probably notice, she wears the watch on her right hand, the hand she writes with, which I find interesting (I couldn't do it).


As a parent, I have one more thing to add, about quality vs. quantity. In the past we have bought watches for the kids, not the cheapest, that are usually colourful with a plastic strap. I don't know how often I have found one of those plastic ones at the bottom of a toy box, probably long forgotten. As kids grow older they of course learn to take better care of their things, but I believe we as parents can teach them early on to value quality. I have noticed that when my daughter isn't wearing her JORD watch it's either in the box on her desk or on the bedside table. She knows it's more expensive than the other watches she has had and obviously values it and takes good care of it without me having to tell her to do so.



I photographed my daughter wearing the watch while drawing her manga. (She's interested in pretty much everything Japanese and has even been learning Japanese all by herself.) I'm not much into comics but I love viewing the manga she draws in her sketchbooks and drawing tablet. As I watched the young artist at work through my lens I couldn't help but feeling a little mesmerised by the setting. I think there is an interesting contrast between the simple design of her watch and art.


The Ely watch is made of 100% natural wood, in this case maple, and has a scratch-resistant mineral glass. It runs on a battery and displays the hours, minutes and seconds, and has a date window. The buckle has push buttons, which makes it easy to put on and take off. The Ely is also available in red sandalwood, dark sandalwood, and green sandalwood & maple. You can read more about its features on the JORD website.


The Ely watch is named after a building in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, the Ely Walker Warehouse - now Lofts - that was built in 1907. JORD is based in St. Louis and ships the watches internationally.


Would you like to give someone a watch or a gift card? JORD is offering my blog readers an e-gift card. All you have to do is click on the link and enter your email, or a friend's email, and they will send an email with a $25 discount code. There is a limited number of the e-gift cards available, which are on a first come-first serve basis. Please keep in mind that once they are all redeemed your gift card will no longer work.


[This post is part of the JORD wood watches spring campaign. The featured watch is the Ely Maple, a spring gift for my artistic daughter. Words, images and views are my own.]


Wednesday 11 May 2016

Springtime on the patio



The Scottish spring kept us waiting until two days ago when it arrived in all its glory, sunny and warm. The patio was swept, the garden table scrubbed and the wicker chairs brought outside. It was time for our first al fresco dining this season. These last days have been heavenly, mainly spent on the patio under a cherry tree in full bloom. That's where I am at this moment, with a cup of coffee, books and magazines. In a recent blog post the tree was getting ready to bloom and then one morning I saw it through our son's bedroom window and it felt as if it had exploded. Sublime!


These days I'm reading The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia by American novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux. It's his first travelogue, first published in 1975. I had meant to read Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town but then I thought it best to read his travel books in chronological order - perhaps a foolish decision on my part with the latter being his twelfth! In The Great Railway Bazaar we travel with Theroux by rail through Asia, starting with the Direct-Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul. His style is wonderful and witty. He had me cracking up at regular intervals and frequently quoting him in my notebook. Before the end of chapter two I had realised that I would have to put my notebook aside if I were to finish the book before Christmas.


Speaking of Istanbul. I'm virtually on my way there from China, with the help of historian Sam Willis and the BBC Player. On BBC Four they are showing The Silk Road, where Willis takes us through Central Asia to Istanbul and Venice. On the programme's website you can view a photo diary of his journey. In the latest episode he was on Registan Square in the ancient city of Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, where he met craftsmen making tiles used for the restoration of the Bibi Khanum Mosque. It was fascinating. In the city of Khiva, farther west, he sat down with his guide to enjoy a meal in gorgeously decorated kitchenware. Even the flatbread had a pattern!


I don't post my Instagram images on my blog but today I had to make an exception, to preserve a precious moment. Yesterday I took the photo below with my tablet, just when my daughter and I were about to sit down to enjoy our lunch - a long lunch on the patio (she's studying at home these days; taking her final exams). It pictured the mood perfectly. I love how overexposed it looks and how there seems to be a blank space beyond the patio, instead of the ivy-covered garden wall.

Have a wonderful day!

Our lunch table (from my Instagram account, taken yesterday)


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Wednesday 4 May 2016

Lisa Fine Textiles



In a documentary by the late Albert Maysles about designer and style icon Iris Apfel, simply called Iris (2014), she has a conversation with photographer Bruce Weber. When they start talking about fashion designers that don't know how to sew - 'they are media freaks', Iris says - she mentions young designers that have 'no sense of history' (about 46 minutes into the film). Perhaps you find this an odd intro to textile designer Lisa Fine, the woman at the helm of Lisa Fine Textiles, but I think it is exactly a sense of history that drew me to Fine's work. There is depth to her design and her patterned fabrics have an exotic and mystical element.


Only reading some of the names of Lisa Fine's beautiful fabrics could take your mind to faraway places, or make you reach for the historic atlas (the links take you to the fabric on her website): There is Aswan, a city on the east bank of the Nile River in Egypt; Luxor, another Egyptian city where you will find the ruins of the ancient city of Thebes; Lahore, a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan; Kashgar, the historic oasis city in far western China, a stop on the old Silk Road; Bagan, an ancient city in Myanmar (Burma); Baroda, the old name of Vadodara in the Indian region of Gujarat; Malabar, a region on the western coast of India, furthest south between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats.

I could go on.

The Zoraya fabric in rose and monsoon

It has been years since Lisa Fine's textiles first cast their spell on me but I had never handled the fabrics (100% linen) until I received a collection of her samples in the mail. My high expectations were met. One fabric is called Zoraya (image above). I was curious about the origin of the name so yesterday, before publishing the blog post, I decided to send a request to the office, which was promptly replied with Fine's explanation of how she came up with the name for the pattern. Soraya was the name of one of the wives of the last Shah of Iran, who ruled from 1941 to 1979. Fine was in Andalucia in Spain and was reading the history of the North Africans and Persians in Spain when she came across the name with Z, Zoraya. 'I thought the pattern had a very geometric almost ancient Persian look and liked the name Zoraya.'

A designer with a sense of history for sure.

In the foreground: Malabar Reverse in Nordic blue

In the world of textiles and interior design it is unlikely that the name of Lisa Fine has escaped you. Quite recently in the American House Beautiful there was a feature on her mother's home in Dallas, designed by the daughter, of course. (There is a book called Iznik on her mother's coffee table that I want!) Her mother gave her free rein with the space and the happy customer had just one 'complaint' about the outcome: 'The only problem is, when people come over they don't want to leave.'

Lisa Fine's colourful flat in Paris has been featured in publications like Lonny (a pdf with the feature itself and larger images here) and The New York Times (more images from the NYT feature at Apartment Therapy). Her collaboration with designer Richard Keith Langham has resulted in stunning Indian dhurries. Then there is the collaboration with textile designer Carolina Irving, Irving & Fine, where you can purchase their patterned and embroidered tunics and kaftans.


Left: Samode in indigo/natural (also spotted in desert sand); Lahore in apricot. Right (in frame): Baroda II
in pomegranate (pattern with bird); Zoraya in monsoon; Luxor in pompeii on ivory (orange one)

Each time I see a feature on Lisa Fine I can easily resonate with the books she has read; like me, biographies and travel writing seem to be her genre. She has travelled extensively, e.g. throughout India, and her textile design is inspired by it. I remember this one particular feature that I came across online. It had a photo collage and she was asked all kinds of questions. The final one was where she would like to go and she said Isfahan in Iran, but added that she didn't think it would be possible (when researching for this post I found it on her website: Material Connection, Ultra Travel, Summer 2012). Now that the international sanctions on Iran have been lifted, and the US-Iran relations are improving, Isfahan (Eṣfahān) seems a possibility in the future. I can only imagine the inspiration she could take from the historic Islamic architecture, its splendours and gorgeous tiles. Especially with her sense of history.

In the foreground: Kashgar in spice. In the background: Chiara in sky blue/oyster. Also spotted: Bagan in indigo