The NEW Adornment Experiment.

So, I have a proposition for you all: I want to do another Adornment Experiment. But this time, I want to actually make a short documentary film about it.

I'm putting the call out for all my readers/viewers who may like to be involved: I want photos of your special adornments (they can be anything at all: anything that you wear consistently, or on occasion), and a short, or long story for how you came about said adornment. The stories can be fictitious; if you've bought some accessory that you really love; you can submit that, and tell any story you like, as long as it pertains to that actual adornment.

As I'm making a film; I need all those who submit to specify if they would be happy to be interviewed on film about their adornments - regardless of whether you live in Australia or not - as I have the means to travel to meet with you and film you wherever you are. All those who are happy to submit photographs and/or be interviewed online, are MOST WELCOME.

As this is an art project I want to share my abstract with you:

"A project that considers the importance and necessity of the jewellery we wear on a daily/or otherwise basis. A considered approach to the sentimental significance we place on pieces of jewellery/bodily adornment, and the emotional attachment we have to these specific pieces of adornment."

Please email me at:     la_belle_divine@hotmail.com     for details.

Welcome one and all!

Rolling In The Deep

This gorgoeus woman has some serious pipes. Love this song; soundtrack for my new feather-fan routine.

"Innocence" by Alexi Lubomirski for Vogue Germany, 2010.

Alexi Lubomirski is amazingly good at taking photographs.

Rita Coolidge

When I was growing up, this woman was almost mythical to me. I listened to her on vinyl, and looked endlessly at the photos of her on the record cover.

The song that has ruined me for any other song, (thus far at least), was her cover of the Carpenters hit, 'Superstar', which she performed on Joe Cocker's live album for his 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' tour (this has been my favourite record of all time since I was about 15 years old. Seriously. I listen to it everyday).

She was his 'Delta Lady', and I actually would like her version of this song to be played at my funeral: that's how much I love it. I've never been able to find it online: Youtube or to download it to my ipod: if anyone has any hints; I'd be beyond appreciative.

Anyway... there were lyrics on the inside of the cover of her record; and they have repeated themselves to me since then; since the first time I read them as a young woman.

From 'That Lady's Not For Sale':

She ain't ashamed to show her soul;

She'll sell it for a song.

But free don't mean she's easy
Or ripe for goin' wrong.
So let her be the lady, Lord,
She wants so bad to be.
Let her win the gentle man
That she was born to please.

Amen.

This is lovely!

Dash at French Sampler gave this blog a tremendous shout-out, for which I'm hugely grateful!
Her blog is delicious and I've been following it for ages now - she recently published posts on french pouts and the amazing Natcha Rambova: enough said! Dash is the high-priestess of un-earthing the lives of forgotten artistic and cultural figures. So please go check it out, and here are some beautiful images to speed your journey which I got from Dash's blog. xoxo

Tenzin Palmo and the mind

This is an excerpt from Cave In The Snow by Vicki Mackenzie (the book she wrote about renowned Buddhist nun, Tenzin Palmo: the first Western woman to ascend the hierarchy of Buddhist tradition and practice in the East), lent to me by my beloved.

"When she was not doing her preliminary practices she worked on her Single Pointed Concentration - the meditative discipline which trains the mind to focus single-pointedly on one subject without interruption. Yogis were said to be able to stay in this state for days, weeks, months even, without moving, their mind totally absorbed on the wonders of their inner reality. Single Pointed Concentration, or Samadhi, was essential for penetrating the nature of reality and discovering absolute truth. It is also exceedingly difficult, the mind habitually wanting to dance all over the place flitting from one random thought to another, from fantasy to fantasy, perpetually chattering away to itself, expending vast quantities of energy in an endless stream of trivia. The mind was like a wild horse, they said, that needed to be reined in and trained. When the mind's energy was harnessed and channelled like a laser beam on a single subject, its power was said to be tremendous. Ultimately that was the high-voltage power-tool needed to dig down into the farthest reaches of the mind, unlocking the greatest treasures buried there."

Norman Parkinson

Norman Parkinson, Jan Ward in a Jean Muir dress, Monument Valley, Utah, 1971 from British Vogue.

Grace

Grace Coddington for Vogue UK, August 1969. Photograph by Barry Lategan and styled by Bernard Nevill.

Via Sighs and Whispers.

Leland Rice, Untitled, 1973

Backstage

"It is quite something to see a grande collection explode backstage. The model girls, stripped to pants and brassieres, always put on hats first: incredible hats. Marie-Thérèse, one of our great stars, chews gum monotonously. Eight girls step into fabulous dresses. Eight girls fight to get into a gap in the show line. They swear. They pull in their waists. They brush their hair for the evening dresses. They cry. The dressers scream at them. The chef de cabine screams loudest of them all.

The girls dress at fever speed. The professionals among them seem calm. This means nothing. Underneath they erupt like volcanoes. From snapping and behaving like fishwives they draw themselves up to become public idols and slide through the curtains..."

Via my new favourite blog Sighs and Whispers.