material concern

While, in general, I prefer the simple, I also am a little prone to the over-the-top. Mostly, I hate things that are “safe.” Mass-marketed design and fashion are liberating to a certain extent: but a little constricting too: we need some risk-taking now and again.

the nytimes today wrote about Tony Duquette, interior decorator extra-ordinaire.

he’s definitely the cure to the ikea home, and a major power player in the start of the high-low mix-up we all live today. I love the idea of Mr. Duquette balanced on a ladder spray painting twigs hot pink in some fancy movie star’s home.

There’s a new book coming out on Mr. Duquette: you can pre-order it on the cheap on amazon.

Gertrude Bell was a fascinating woman, and her middle-eastern wanderings shed light on the current shapes of the runway and current political state as well.

She grew up rich in England, and among other things, was one of the first foreign women to travel the middle east, refused to join the suffragette movement (for interesting semantic reasons), and is maybe part of the reason we’ve got trouble in the middle east: she and “lawrence of arabia” (t.e. lawrence) helped draw up the boundaries of todays iraq. And then she commited suicide with sleeping pills and died alone.
However, I’m always in support of adventuresome women: and those that leave their comfort zone. We can’t go into the problems of western paradigms interfering with other’s norms on a style blog, but we can recognize the traveler on the runway recently: looks like she went to asia and africa: balenciaga to anna sui: we’ve got a bit of west meets east.

who knows how much more trouble we’d have been in if gertrude’d helped out there as well:)

all pics courtesy of style.com and wikipedia.com

My party will rock.