Photo By victor Liu.

Francis Sultana Vision's

London Based Maltese Interior Designer Francis Sultana has created a elegant line of furniture. With his incredible vision which he honed at the wonderful David Gill Gallery over 19 years working there, his line is made with great attention to detail , clean lines and luxurious fabrics. Modern but yet traditional, the crafstmanship of his pieces stand out in this world of mass market furniture.

His collection can be viewed at David Gills former gallery on Fulham Road London. You must go and visit.

www.francissultana.com

Divine xo

P.s David Gill has moved to his new  gallery to Mayfair, also wonderful and on another posting will do a piece on him.

All photos via Francis Sultana website,1stDibs and Robb Report.

Happy New Year 2013

May your blessings be bountiful, your health sparkling and your love contagious.

2013 is the Magic Number, just believe. xo

Carl Kapp

South African born , Australian based Carl Kapp has designed a beautiful and fresh Summer 2012 collection . Having worked at Kenzo and Donna Karan to name a few, his pieces are draped sensually but elegantly on the body.

With a customer base of Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Rose Byrne who all wear his dresses with style, this young man has a  a gained a good following. The lucky people of Sydney were is shop and atelier is based can have his dresses made to order.

One on my list of must haves... shame Australia is not round the corner.

G'Day xo

www.carlkapp.com

London Culture Galore Autumn 2012

I love London in September & October the sun is shinning, no really it is! The city is really having an amazing year, Jubilee and Olympics and now Art, Design, Theatre and anything in between take centre court. This is just a very small selection of many upcoming exhibitions.  

For more information on and to purchase tickets click on the links below .

Let the Culture Games Begin! xo

www.somersethouse.org.uk

Valentino:Master of Couture

www.tate.org.uk

Pre Raphaelites Victorian Avant Garde

www.hamiltons.com

Murray Fredericks Hector

www.halcyongallery.com

Pedro Paricio Diary of An artist and Other Stories 2007-2012

A GEM in TANGIER

Bruno Frisoni found a house in Tangier and did it up together with Herve  van der Straeten and it turned out divine and basically  thats all you need to know. 

Sourced via Vogue where there is the storyline written by Hamish Bowles and photographed by Francois Halard, mais bien sur. Now there is a melting pot of very talented gentlemen. 

Oh c'est beaux x

The Light Aquatic

Aqua Creations Lighting & Furniture Atelier was founded in 1994 by designer-artist Ayala Serfaty who completed her degrees in Fine Arts at the Bezalel Academy of art in Design in Jerusalem and then at Middlesex Polytechic in London. Well known for her art creations Ayala and her husband Photographer Albi Sefaty collaborated to evolve their talents to develop Aqua Creations a Lighting & Furniture Atelier.

Based out of Tel Aviv where their pieces are all handmade by their team of skilled artisans who use their craft to create such unique pieces. They create, manufacture and design all out of these headquarters.

I am especially fascinated by the Light designs, there is something so modern but yet so soft to each piece, for some reason I see them as creatures from the universe both below in the depths of our oceans and above in our galaxies. They make me dream and escape into these worlds.. These magnetic pieces can be commissioned for a home, apartment, hotel, restaurant  I imagine they would blend in well with any type of lanscape sea, mountain, desert or snow. Fun to play around with and use your imagination with various colour and shape choices you will be surely transported to their world. 

I am floating xo

To commission a piece, Aqua Creations can be contacted in their offices in Tel Aviv or their Showroom in New york City,

Aqua Creations Head Offices

29 Ben Zvi road, Tel Aviv 68103, Israel

Telephone. +972 3 5151 222

Fax. +972 3 5151 223

Aqua Creations USA

200 Lexington Avenue, Suite #427

New York, NY 10016, USA

Telephone. +1 212 219 9922

Fax. +1 212 219 4042

All images via 

Aqua Gallery

The Incarnations of Kimiko Yoshida

LOUIS XIV AS THE RISING SUN IN "LE BALLET DE LA NUIT" AT VERSAILLES. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY PACO RABANNE

SULTAN SALADIN THE GREAT. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY PACO RABANNE

GODDESS OF WAR ATHENA BY KLIMT. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010.   COURTESY PACO RABANNE

WISE KING MELCHIOR BY MANTEGNA. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY PACO RABANNE

THE GOLDEN BRIDE FROM FEZ, SELF-PORTRAIT 2005. COURTESY OF THE ISRAEL MUSUEM, JERUSALEM

QUEEN OF FRANCE MARIE DE' MEDICI BY RUBENS. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY PACO RABANNE

EL CONQUISTADOR HERNAN CORTES AS EL DORADO. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY PACO RABANNE

LAST SAMURAI KATSUMOTO. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE.

THE TORERO BRIDE WITH A BLACK SUIT OF LIGHTS , REMEMBERING PICASSO. SELF-PORTRAIT 2006.

ASSOMPTION OF VIRGIN MARY BY TINTORETTO. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE.

SAINT AUGUSTIN BY EL GRECO. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE.

WOMAN OF ALGIERS BY DELACROIX. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2007-2009

PHARAON BY GUSTAVE DORÉ, SELF-PORTRAIT, 2007-2009

SISTINE MADONNA BY RAPHAEL. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE.

KING OF FRANCE FRANCOIS I BY JEAN CLOUET. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010.COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE.

JUDITH BY CRANACH THE ELDER. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE.

THE CAPRICIOUS GIRL BY WATTEAU. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE.

ZAPATA BY DIEGO RIVERA. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE.

QUEEN MARIANA OF AUSTRIA BY VELASQUEZ. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE.

HECATE, THE GREEK GODDESS OF THE MOON AND THE SPIRIT OF THE DEAD, BY WILLIAM BLAKE. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010

DON QUIXOTE BY PICASSO. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2010. COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE.

THE SILVER BERBER BRIDE, MOROCCO, EARLY XX th CENTURY. SELF-PORTRAIT 2005. COURTESY OF THE ISRAEL MUSUEM, JERUSALEM

THE MEXICAN BRIDE,  SELF PORTRAIT 2012

THE RED EGYPTIAN BRIDE (HARRY WINSTON). SELF-PORTRAIT, 2008

THE BRIDE GRAND COMMANDEUR DE LA LEGION D'HONNEUR. SELF-PORTRAIT 2006

THE RED PALESTINIAN BRIDE , EARLY XX th CENTURY. SELF-PORTRAIT 2005. COURTESY OF THE ISRAEL MUSUEM, JERUSALEM

THE MAO BRIDE RED GUARD RED. SELF-PORTRAIT, 2009

"A fundamental part of Japanese culture is linked to the notion of disappearance.

Unlike the West, in Japan we use makeup in order to disappear, to erase our identity. The basic idea behind my makeup is tied to the geisha’s traditional use of a ghostly-white makeup, called ” doran ” which leaves only the outline of her eyes and bright red lips visible. Makeup in Japan is not perceived as a way of making a woman become more beautiful, but rather as a way of transforming her into an abstraction of a woman. She becomes an “idea of a woman “, rather than an “ideal woman.” It is a way of dying." text by Barbara Oudiz

Transformation, Metamorphism, Shape Shifter. These are the words that come into my mind when I look at Kimiko Yoshida and her impacting self portraits. All the pictures use always the same setting, same subject, same lighting, same framing. She does her own make-up, lighting and design using a Hasselbald camera with no retouching or editing. 

I find these images so deep and mesmerising, the Series "Painting, Self- Portrait" where she transforms herself into people from famous historical portraits with pieces from Paco Rabanne's Haute Couture collections works of art in themselves are my personal favourites. 

Do go to her website and see her extensive portafolio of work I had a hard time not putting all her work on this post, then this would just be pages and pages long. I spent hours reading, there are also lots of in depth articles on her and great interviews, Kimiko you are a fascinating lady!

Am hoping that she will do a show in London someday soon. 

All images Via Kimiko Yoshida

Mirror Mirror in the Desert

“Lucid Stead is about tapping into the quiet and the pace of change of the desert. When you slow down and align yourself with the desert, the project begins to unfold before you. It reveals that it is about light and shadow, reflected light, projected light, and change.”

Take  a Desert, a Shack, some mirror, Led lights and the vision of a young man named Phillip K Smith III , put them together and voila you have this wonderful imaginative but yet so simple installation. it just fits perfectly with its location that you think that it should have always been there. 

Over the course of the day the Lucid Stead metamorphoses into different visions, the sharp and shiny mirror bands reflect back the shapeshifting landscape, one minute the mirror image is picture perfect and then slowly with the moving sun it starts to soften its mirror image and starts to glow within as the very clever use of LED lights come alive in its changing colours.  

Very well executed Mr. Smith, I so wanted to see this , as millions of others this has been posted all over the world!! I had to share too, its just too damn beautiful! I want one ! 

I wonder what the animals in the desert thought of this! 

For more info on the Phillip K Smith III see below, and for Miami Basel his work will be featured in Untitled Fair from today. Also the great photography are by Steven King and Lance Gerber all courtesy of Royal Projects in Palm Desert California. 

http://pks3.com

http://royaleprojects.com/

La Citroen 2CV par Hermes

Celebrating this weeks up coming Hermès exhibition in London, I got inspired to do a few posts on the world of Hermès and some of their collaborations.

In April 2008 Citroen 2CV celebrated its 60th Birthday during the Paris Motor Show, to mark this special event they collaborated with Hermès to design a made to measure outfit for this lady.

The 1989 2CV 6 Spécial, painted in tan brown , the interiors outfitted all in the instantly recognizable Hermès Tan Leather with that perfect stitch.  The seats are upholstered in Hermès beige cotton canvas and natural leather. As a finishing touch, the bonnet and interior trim at the rear of the vehicle also feature Hermès cotton canvas.

Elle est si belle! xo

Photos via ,

www.hermes.com

www.citroen.com