Revolutionary Prom Idea: The New Prom Date.

Prom - Please now Imagine the word Prom spoken by Tim Curry - perhaps after he's eaten too many wonderful, sticky, gooey, yicky candies and is offered yet one more.

Prom spoken by Tim Curry using his A Series of Unfortunate Events reading-voice.

Prom with its scurrying and hurrying flurry of excitement about who will be seen with whom and the plight and the doom thereafter.

Prom with its too tight too shiny too too too-ness whizzing by in a stretch limousine woofers-thumping hot-tubness.

Prom with its unfortunate accidents of excess indulgence.

Now Please Imagine the New and Improved Prom Date: A Stack of Books.  No worries of the cummerbund or tie or boutonniere matching your dress and corsage.

The books won't vomit on you after too many post-prom liquor-infused melon-balls.

The books won't grope you as the lights dim, or sneak a feel as they pin your corsage... they have no hands with which to do these things.  Books are full of page after page of goodness and knowledge.  Books don't look at you - with disappointment because you don't want to do what they want you to do and they do not frown when you don't look like they want you to look.  A book is a book and you are in charge of choosing it wisely and can very easily drop it in the library's book-drop if you don't like it.  Can you do that with any other prom date?  I think not... although, it might be nice.

For a start, if you'd like a prom date who does all the talking - look for any of Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events audiobooks - some are narrated by Tim Curry.

Here is an imaginary prom photo - imagined by Toile La La... maybe it is Toile La La - in another time, or dimension... all the details are not quite there... the scene (typical of imagined time) is hazy.

Books:  The New Prom Date - illustrated by Toile La La at Art Fashion Creation, February 2013.

A large park - somewhere in France, not in the hustle and bustle... but somewhere discreet.  The early morning is crisp with fog - with droplets of moisture in the atmosphere.  It's chilly enough for the complexion to produce a natural blush and glow. The sky: grey-white with puffs of dove-blue clouds - rain is in the forecast, but still hours away.

Someone has thoughtfully canopied a grove of trees. Lush, green nature provides the prom scenery. Scattered among verdant leaves and fragrant flora are elegant sofas.

Birdsong and the sound of fountains decorate the air.

The Look Here:
Hair - Marie Antoinette piled-high with powder. Embellished with pink velvet flowers and silver leaves.
Maquillage - Silver eye-gloss, silver lip-creme... nothing else.
Scent - peppermint, spearmint, clove.
Sofa - Porcelain-pink high gloss scrollwork, linen vintage toile print.
Dress - Bisque white taffeta with pale tulle overlays, black velvet ruched waist - accented with dove-blue velvet rose and black tulle flourish.
Gloves - Porcelain pink soft, brushed cloth.

The Footwear and The Books are concepts with potential, still being imagined. 

This imagined foot attire is - in concept - like boxer's fist-bindings, but the fit is comfortable and secure... "mummy boots" is a name that comes to mind.  Mummy Boots are soft and suede-like with visible wrappings, zip-on or slip-on:  a dancer's best friend.  Dance in them for hours, then get back to your books.

Why don't you create your own date?  Write some books or fill them with sketches or make fake books from trompe l'oeil-ed packages or papier mache.

Stay tuned for DIY prom-formal fashion ideas in an upcoming Art Fashion Creation post. 

(And here they are - all 25!  Ideas for creating your own look from head to toe... you don't even have to sew.)

And now... a poem:

PROM... it

rhymes with

VOM... IT.

But not with a stack of books for a prom date.

Think Like a Man - Part 1 - Lane Motor Museum.

When my husband excitedly revealed we would be visiting Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tennessee - my genuine (internal) reaction was, "I'll have to make the best of it."  What a delightful surprise when the museum proved me wrong:  Instead of being bored to tears, I was greatly disappointed when it was time to leave!

At the end of this post, you'll find the museum link - with history of the collection and photographs of a large portion of Lane's holdings. To whet your car-museum appetite, here are a few of my own photographs from inside the museum.

Whereas my lovey was most enthusiastic among the motorcycle exhibits, my Lane favorites were the microcars - but you will see instructions for a wind-powered vehicle... absolutely fascinating - like a Wright Brothers/da Vinci-mobile.

Lane Motor Museum microcars.  Photo Toile La La.

Lane Motor Museum microcars.  Photo Toile La La.

Lane Motor Museum microcar.  Photo Toile La La.

Lane Motor Museum microcar.  Photo Toile La La.

Lane Motor Museum microcars.  Photo Toile La La.

Lane Motor Museum vehicle - windpower! 1932 Helicron.  Photo Toile La La.

I would love to have a test-ride in this wind-power-mobile, but do question the clarity of visibility with a propeller whirring at the car's snout.

Want to try building your own propeller-car?  Near the car pictured above - and a 1919 Leyat Helico - was this 1925 Popular Mechanics Press "Building a Wind Wagon" magazine excerpt:

Lane Motor Museum Wind Wagon display.  Photo Toile La La.

An aerodynamic 1936 Harris Steam Car.

Puttering around in my wee microcar, I would not want to tangle with this behemoth-of-an-automobile: the 1936 Harris Steam Car.  At the large end, you will see the headlights of the Harris.  It looks to me as if it were designed by the Italian Futurists of the past - and it does not look aerodynamic - with that honking-big prow.  Ouch!

 Here's a Lane Motor Museum link, so you can visit online.

Diana Vreeland Companion Post.

Her peers have compared her to "a toucan", "a bird of paradise", "an aztec crow", and called her "super-fresh".  Diana Vreeland said of herself - "I've always had a strong kabuki streak".

I yearned to see Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel - and was willing to travel to see it.  Alas, what a travesty... there wasn't a movie theater within driving distance showing the movie - too bad, the world could use a lot more Diana Vreeland thinking.  So until the movie arrived in the mail, the next best thing was to read D.V.: Diana Vreeland.  And I did - ravenously, which fired my desire to see the movie - so I read the book a second time.  The book inspired numerous little studies, because Vreeland references such a wide variety of... everything you can imagine.

But let's just examine a few:

her passion for the beauty of armor - 

Metropolitan Museum of Art helmet.

Metropolitan Museum of Art helmet... notice the mermaid.

See Josephine Baker and her pet cheetah Chiquita.

Mistinguett - 

the particular shade of red found in the caps of children in Renaissance paintings -

John Singer Sargent's The Mosquito Net - 

D.V. says, "the expression on the woman's face is the most delectable thing..."

"mad" King Ludwig and Swan Country in Bavaria, Germany -

D.V. tells us he dined with the busts of royalty... and floated in a golden seashell boat.

 Bakst - who designed many costumes for Les Ballets Russes - 

The beauty of Maurice Chevalier - 

nineteenth century Hungarian military uniforms - 

 Grace, charm, and manners of the Geisha - 

Kabuki theatre -

Memorial for Danzo Ichikawa IV by Shibakuni Saikotei and Hokushu Shunkosai depicting 1824 Heike Nyogo-ga-shima at Osaka Sumi-za.

John Singer Sargent's Lord Ribblesdale - 

Ida Rubinstein - When Diana Vreeland was a child, she saw Ida... Ida with her Medusa head of curls tamed by black tulle veiling her kohl-rimmed eyes... Ida with her hands hidden in an enormous, black fox muff.

 the demimondaines of Paris - 

La Contessa Castiglione.

And We Cannot Forget All those colors in D.V.'s head - 

Toile La La searches for Diana Vreeland's colors mentioned in D.V.: Diana Vreeland.

Vreeland speaks of dull ochre, cobalt blue, greige, Renaissance child's cap red, Bahia sky blue, Persian pink.  There's jade green, Bakst orange, taxicab yellow, Japanese purple, cafe au lait, violent violet.  Scotland-rose pink, beloved brown, snuff, Molyneux gray, and Incan pink.

She loved the colors in Leningrad... of the onion domes in medieval Russia - Moscow.

Remember the green of England is "a little deeper" than that of France.  

Vreeland was a fan of nineteenth century Regency colors - buff, sand, fawn, snuff.

D.V. tells us the Eskimo does not think of one shade of white, but seventeen!  She tells us color "depends on tonality" and upon light.  Diana was mesmerized by the pink to blue shifting colors of Mont Blanc and felt the constantly transforming Mont Blanc reflected - in a sense - her own temperament - and really, everyone's.

She found Balenciaga's colors at their best in the light of Basque country.  She noticed the sky of Bahia was the same color as that of Hong Kong.  She tells us the Japanese imagine a different purple - one that is currant red with a smidge of violet.  Vreeland loved color - and painted all the doors in one house different colors.

Diana's presence is almost tangible in her words, delivered with the rhythm of an upbeat, worldly, confidante - who just happens to be part of the three-steps-ahead In-crowd.  Dancing, rhythm and movement - she says, allowed her to Dream.

She says she was told she was ugly... by her mother - of all people!  Not So!  Diana is Magnificent.  She patterned herself after the charming kabuki actors, particularly Tamasaburo Bando - a man who knew how to be a very feminine woman.  She took to heart 'the first rule that a Geisha is taught is to be charming to other women'.

Diana believed in glorious artifice, and that one's faults should be turned into assets... "a strong face comes from the inner thinking" when it comes down to the nitty-gritty.  "Don't be boring, be inventive" - she encourages us all.

Diana thought vulgarity had potential... it could be genius - "Vulgarity has vitality!"  She wasn't afraid to be a wee-bit naughty - visiting the off-limits museum in Pompeii, where she was inspired by a thong-sandal.  Or visiting the Tunisian red-light district, which sounds like something from a movie... Klimt perhaps.

Her compliments can be interesting... Vreeland praises Clark Gable's shetland pony eyelashes, but then - too bad, his head was "too big".

As she chats, there in D.V., we learn about her idea to publish a backwards Vogue, hear her praise chutney... and consomme too, and contemplate seeing sixty-five thousand brown eggs.  A larder would be a fine place to dwell:  Diana has a way of setting one's brain-cogs spinning.  So many things... she finds fascinating:  clothing of the '30s, bias-cut, Queen Mary's up-up-up posture, zebras, white peacocks, Elsie Mendl's topiary animals, snoods, jousting, blue jeans, freckles, purifying rain, purifying music, the tango, De Gaulle, science - "the only thing that brings us forward", bushy-haired men in hats, red camellias, rouge.

She tells us about her friend - Christian "Bebe" Berard - their walks to see the wall of animals at a rundown chateau... we can see the animals too, she says, in Jean Cocteau's movie La Belle et La Bete.  Vreeland says Berard's eyes were the clearest in the world.  Eyes that gazed to the heavens.

Clack-clack-clack, Vreeland remembers the sound of post-war Parisian wooden-soled shoes.  She speaks of times past, but also imagines surfing - and in the movie, we learn she has a penchant for skateboards too.

One thinks perhaps she may have presented armadillo-armor outside, but inside - she cared.  Through description alone, we know it was very sad to know the demise of Margaret Case... with her buttoned-up raincoat, handkerchief, and slacks. "Neat as a pin."

She wasn't skimpy with perfume:  "Do you notice any scent on me now?... if you have to sniff like a hound, it's not enough!"

I don't think I've read any autobiography with such interesting and ryhthmic banter... her friend's names, the place names, the way she presents this life of hers is fascinating to hear:

Sidi bou said, sadi-bey, legs diamond, baby face nelson, pretty boy floyd, lulu, fruity, chips channon, leo, mona, villa malcontenta, dodero, morvyth, buzo, dolly, penati, frisco, babs... Andy Warhol's friend Ming Vase. My...dear...sir...said slowly. "Listen! Can a duck swim?"... that's her way of saying - yes. You just have to read about it all yourself - including her cure for the hiccups called "Worshiping the Moon".

One is mesmerized by the descriptions:  An Aubrey Beardsley white palace with white peacocks - on the Mediterranean, with orange and lemon trees and oleander, with birds flitting in and out of stone lace columns, and gardenias floating in a rivulet in the hall, and outside - the moon reflecting in the sea.

Or... the polar bear is white, the ice is blue, and the sky is midnight blue.  Sometimes her conversation is fairytale dreamy.  When you see the movie, watch her eyes... dreamy and imagining, thinking, thinking, contemplating.

After reading D.V.'s book, I too - want a bathtub-desk covered in papers - like that of the Duke of Windsor.

Here are a few of Diana's beauty and health secrets:

• The French language - a very facially-physical language - is naturally face-lifting.
• Healthwise - "Never lose sight of your gallbladder!"
• The secret of the beauty of the great cocottes and demimondaines is "...they took in the morning air."  They were outside by eight-thirty in the morning and in the bed early.
• A love of music is a great purifier.
• Stretching, a good massage, alternate-nostril breathing, and tea are recommendations.
• Establish goals:  People become "stooped... if there is nothing toward which they are walking".

Then, see the movie -  Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel.  You hear the fantastic, dramatic, unique voice.  You see her.  You see her accomplishments, her visions realized.  The soundtrack is perfect.  And if you watch the dvd, it is wonderful to know there are bonus interviews with people closest to Vreeland.  Watching her friends - reveals other facets of Vreeland... they remember her voice, her mannerisms, her quirks, her individuality... a true pleasure.

She had the moon and sixpence, the world was her oyster, she was hunky-dory, a bit of all right, unafraid of the risque or the outre - Diana Vreeland... Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like my Why Don't You Breathe Like Diana Vreeland Post which explains how to practice alternate-nostril breathing... Vreeland's health secret mentioned on pages 90 and 91 of her autobiography D.V.



 

Savion Glover: Sound Your Shoes.

The crowd has gone and I'm still clapping for Savion Glover's SoLe Sanctuary.  Rhythm-rhythm-rhythm is smack-dab center spotlight in Glover's show - but, there is the conscious balance of stillness too.  No Busby Berkeley pretty girls, no glitz and dazzle - or musical shenanigans to pad the performance... because here - with Savion Glover - are the feet and the legs and the heartbeat, ears and memory of a tap-dancing hoofer who knows his art - the art of pure rhythm pouring forth from his soul to his soles.

Savion Glover SoLe Sanctuary program flyer - with addition of blue.

Reading the program flyer, prior to the show - there was promise the performance would be good - for the text itself was full of rhythm and thought:  "Entering the Monastery of His Out'ness, Gee Oh Dee, Tranes Tribute, Holy Strings, The High Priest of Gone, Improvography, Directed and Choreographed by Spirits Known, Meditation on the Art of Tap" - and listen to these rhythmic names... "Little Nuk Nuk, Cat Daddy".  And the performance overview:  "Savion Glover's Reverence for the Art of Tap is Put to the Stage Literally in the Form of a Living Altar... ."

If you are a fan of tap, rhythm, percussion, drum, bass - You just have to see SoLe Sanctuary for yourself.  The miraculous, glorious racket Glover - and hoofer Marshall Davis Jr. - make with their feet, I can only aspire to create with my typewriter.

As a Bravo-Encore-Shout-Out, here is my ode to SoLe Sanctuary:

Savion Glover, Sound Your Shoes

Shiva Nataraj of Clackety-Clack

Train on Track

Percussive Locomotion

Mediatation of a Hoofer's Soul

Circle and Slide

on Life's Rhythm-Ride

Tic Toc

Clip Clop

Drum Staccato

Pizzicato

Whisper-Crash and Clatter

pitter-patter-Morse Code 

Ode

to the Universe Pulse

Om

All Sounds 

Yin-and-Yang-of-Still-and-Quick

Quick and Still, Yang and Yin

Song Stepper

Hands Together

Franz Marc's Audible, Living Color.

Franz Marc's 1914 Animals in a Landscape, which you can see here , reflects the artist's reverence for and strong connections to color.  Marc - perhaps a synaesthete - saw a world in which color contained vital emotions - and even sound.

Depicting cattle yoked to an environment of "prismatic forms" - Animals in a Landscape, recently displayed as part of Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts Detroit Institute of Arts German Expressionism exhibit, is said to "symbolize the integration of all living things" within the cosmos.  Marc and other members of The Blue Rider - Der Blaue Reiter - believed colors to be imbued with spiritual values capable of battling the "corruption and materialism" of their time. Text in quotes - Frist Center for the Visual Arts audio tour commentary.

Do your color perceptions coincide with those of Franz Marc?  Here are a few of his color theories:  BLUE is male, penetrating, and spiritual - YELLOW is female, joyful, and spiritual - RED feels heavy and fierce and must be kept in check through a balance of the male and female.

Do you feel the energy or emotions of color?

Flachen-Schmuck, Rhythm, and Optical Art in Clothing.

Synchronicity, convergence - it happened after I'd been researching works of Wiener Werkstatte artists - reading about Klimt and Floge, while free-falling into Sonia Delaunay wholeheartedly:  a page 103 photo in February 2013 Harper's Bazaar literally sprang from the page, like an accordion-fold... geometric, angular, and going-somewhere.

Harper's Bazaar, page 103, "The Style: Bold Prints, Pattern Up". February 2013.

You understand what I'm talking about here - don't you? - it's that tunic and pant combo, with the jump-off-the-page zig-zag-chevron-diamond-stripe flachen-schmuck, (flachen-schmuck is German for surface decoration... this I learned while reading about artists of the Wiener Werkstatte - who were experts in flachen-schmuck).  I love the term flachen-schmuck, by the way - and have been using it whenever possible to describe anything that zing-zing pinballs my eyeballs.

Flachen-schmuck has become a flexible part of my vocabulary though, because as you well know surface decoration can be good or bad - an example occurring recently as I thought "too much flachen-schmuck" recently when I stood before a 40-foot statue - gilded and painted like Priscilla Queen of the Desert. (Not me, but the statue.)

Here's another beautifully mesmerizing example of flachen-schmuck.  It's a graphic look over which I waxed enthusiastic in this March 2012 post, when the same zing-zing pinballing of my eyeballs occurred.  At that time I was unaware of the term flachen-schmuck, but the graphic-optic patterns of the coat and curtain in Vogue's Francoise Gilot feature were eye-engaging in precisely the same way.

Francoise Gilot - Vogue, March 2012 - Tina Barney photograph.  Oscar de la Renta coat.  Gorgeous!

Since reading about Sonia Delaunay and her idea of simultaneity - which recognizes the behavior and interaction of color groups and the perceived movement that colors can create - I've been brainstorming such theories frequently.  

Look at the curtain there behind Gilot.  

Scroll up and look at the zig-zag-chevron-diamond-stripe tunic and pant ensemble.  

What's causing that rhythm?  

Maybe the colors, but as I see it - perhaps much of that graphic-optic art rhythm is a result of black and white contrasting pattern - with color introduced to the mix.  The red and orange/yellow do vibrate because they're such similar colors... one feels the heat of red and orange... a flame-like flicker.

Then, of course think about the works of Klimt - all that surface decoration.  Not really like Delaunay at all, because with Delaunay - there was more emphasis on surface interruption... interrupting the perceived planes and giving a sense of multi-dimensional depth.  Klimt's rhythmic surfaces seem - to me - more two-dimensional... a gently undulating, albeit psychedelic, plain/field.

Summing up all this flachen-schmuck, it appears there's a Wiener Werkstatte, Delaunay, Klimt, (and perhaps Futurist), surface-decoration trend already pinball-rolling.  

By the way, I would attribute the designer of the great tunic/pant combo - and have tried diligently to discover the designer - but still no answer.  If you know, please comment.  I think it's a fantastic look!  Not subtle, not discreet, not for the timid - but it absolutely emits energy.