Rembrandt's Collars.

• Undulating like ribbon candy - crisp and white - the collar of Nicolaes Ruts, 1631.
• Portrait of a Scholar's collar:  The scholar's head rests upon a frou frou frilly wedding-cake-icing collar, piped from a pastry bag.
• Martin Looten's 1632 broad, flat and white as a Pilgrim's collar.
• Dr. Tulp - wearing a prim, Judge Judy collar - dissects the arm of a man (wearing only a loin drape) - while Tulp's scholars and peers peculiarly observe, wearing - predominantly - automotive air filter collars, although one man flaunts a frothy toothpaste collar.
• Joris de Caullery (collar-y) wears a very punk or gothic-like studded metal - and perhaps black leather - collar, rock on.
•  Maerten van Bilderbeecq is wearing the largest automotive air filter collar.
• 1633, Rembrandt paints himself wearing a punk-y, chunky, goth vampire collar of draped black velvet edged in fierce gold chain.
• Portrait of Saskia van Uylenburgh's grey collar as engraved and embossed as an ancient silver doubloon.

And then emerges a period of elaborate lace collars, which must have taken years of arduous embroidery / crochet / weaving and assembly - and nearly as long to reproduce in paint (unless, do you think RVR might have painted actual lace and created a print image of it by pressing the painted lace against the canvas?)

• Oh, Maurits Huygens, I like your collar very much!  The perfect combination of Pilgrim / crochet and Hippie tassels going on - and may I say, you look pleased as punch to be wearing it.
•   1633, Portrait of a Young Woman with a Fan, and a collar like a Queen Anne's Lace / Bishop's Lace / daucus carota flower.  And cuffs too!
• Portrait of a Young Woman - is it the same collar and the same young woman?  It seems one would have to visit first the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston for closer examination, but there are similarities - including a superb ribbon cockade belt.
• Oh, Maerten Soolmans - you magnificent 1634 fancy pants - you are the fanciest of us all and to behold you is soothing salve for the eyes!  The Queen Anne's Lace collar, ribbon cockade, lacy jabots at the knee (!), clocked hosiery, and Queen Anne's Lace shoe ruffs.  Later, Gainsborough's The Blue Boy's top-notch finery might compare, but Rembrandt's Soolmans (with collar and stuff) is a sartorial must-see.
• Ah, Maria Trip - you are Maerten Soolman's sartorial equivalent - with your organdy collar, edged in delicate lace at shoulder and wrist... with jewelry and a sword - and you are possibly the same Young Woman - with Fan and without, and belted in ribbon cockade.

Rembrandt's great collar climax seems to occur around 1639, with another automotive air filter and the organdy of Maria Trip.

How the Heck the Hennin Happened.

The hennin, a fifteenth century headdress seems to mirror the highly revered steeples, towers, spires and heavenward architecture of that period.  

• Was popular reception of the hennin a phenomenon resulting from travel in distant lands during the Crusades? 
• Did the hennin stem from a Byzantine influence? 
• Was wearing the hennin a step toward looking more worldly and well-traveled... an effort to stand out and gain attention?  
• Did hennin-wearers adopt the trend subconsciously or was there a conscious and well-defined reason for choosing to wear it?
• Was the pointed hat a "trickle-down" trend - originating with holy men and women, then borrowed by society?

Though not on my head, the hennin has been on my mind. 

One thought:  During the Renaissance, arts and literature - even higher learning - were more accessible to members of the church and religious sects.  Simultaneously, much emphasis was placed on construction of very large and grand churches.  Perhaps the hennin was not only a subconscious reflection of steeples and spires - but also of the search for higher knowledge.  The hennin - a heavenward hat housing the divinity of the mind.

Another thought:  Why do we later see a similar hat shape worn by people associated with magical powers?

Albrecht Durer.

Collegiale Saint Quentin.

Domenico Quaglio die Kathedral Reims.

Albrecht Durer Innsbruck.

Albrecht Durer Aix La Chapelle.

Jean Fouquet Aix La Chapelle.

Rogier van der Weyden - for a Carthusian monastery near Brussels, 1445.

Leonardo da Vinci Ginevra Benci, 1474.

Maurice Quentin de la Tour - City of Saint-Quentin.

Jan van Eyck.

Fouquet - Charles IV and Marie Luxembourg.

Hans Holbein, 1500.

Hans Memling, 1480.

Hugo van der Goes - Maria Porinari, 1476.

Kaiser Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy.

Petrus Christus, 1450-60.

Margaret of York, Duchess Consort of Burgundy - 1468.

Rogier van der Weyden Seven Sacraments - detail.

Petrus Christus, 1470.

Vittore Carpaccio - St. Stephen.

Rogier van der Weyden.

Michael Pacher - Mary of Burgundy, 1490.

Rogier van der Weyden - Young Woman in a Pinned Hat, 1435.

Pisanello - Princess of the House of Este, 1449.

iO-robe: A Short Fashion Forward Fiction.

Intelligent Optic Robing, iO-robe, or just iO - solved so many sartorial conundrums regarding travel, parties, fitting in... . A bit of programming, then - the magic transformation. A digital fairy godmother. It came to mean the birth of ideas, the generation of life itself... iO... a small cursive letter i encircled / enrobed by a fat, round O.

You know, in the 60s - there was Mars and the paper dresses. Mars - the company, not the planet... and the paper dress was just another way to express freedom and being "with it" - fashionably and sexually. 

The digital dress was of the same ilk - another way to be "with it"... hip, chic, cutting edge - you name it - always the same thing, but a different name.

The Techie-Chics and the Techie-Geeks dreamed the entire scene. T-Chics wanted the style, T-Geeks wanted the notoriety... the challenge.

To the middlemen it was a surprise... no need for malls, no sweat shops, no child labor, no fighting for parking spaces - everything changed. Was it better? It was different.

Of course, there was the buffout... of 2020. Like a blackout or brownout - all to do with power / electricity, but so many people were left standing around with so few little wires and buttons dangling - it wasn't that big an embarrassment.

That outage though - created in the modest among us - a momentary return to the paper dress - which made for a better canvas, a smoother silhouette... like the vast screens at the retro drive-in cinemas.  

Then there was, once again, the move to fabric... aside from the digital gadgetry - that's all anyone needed - just a few solid-color dresses or coveralls of fabric - depending upon the "in" feel... soft, crisp, silky, plush, crackly... upon which the iO (robe or suit) was projected.

Eventually, digitally enhanced optics - DEO - also eliminated even plastic surgery - with all appearances hiding the possibility of illusion or facade.

Anymore, what was real?

If you like this story, let me know - with some comments.  Will this be the path of fashion in the future... who can say, but imagining the scenario produced the fiction you just read.  There's another quick fashion-y time travel fiction here.

Green Thumb, Striped Cat.

More of nature and the outdoors, rambling and wild:

• Here, a post mentioning my love for Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf's touch of au naturel - and a few snapshots of The Wild which surrounds me. 
• Or here, Rambling in The Wild. 

  

  Where we belong... the outdoors.  Toile La La.

 
 
 

People-Watching, SC.

Near a cantilevered bridge, under blue skies - prom photos:

• girl in short, strapless dress with turquoise mermaid-scale sequins, teetering in spike heels - moving as little as necessary.
• girl in short, strapless randomly-sequined coral dress, teetering in spike heels - moving as little as necessary.
• brunette in short, strapless electric blue satin with tulle tutu, descending stairs.

Near a park fountain:

• bridesmaids wearing two styles of gray taffeta dress - strapless or bow on one shoulder... abdomens slightly ruched, but dresses very fitted and above knee.  Everyone, throats adorned with big citron yellow plastic gems dangling - really a very attractive and eye-catching accent.

In front of a hotel fountain:

• bridesmaids wearing pale sea blue/green shot silk long, full-skirted formal gowns with peach corsages.  Men's ties also pale sea blue/green shot silk.

In front of a tree:

• a grouchy/grumpy-looking bride being photographed by a grouchy/grumpy-looking photographer.

High-low hemlines (short in front, long in back - like a mullet):

• one girl in an electric blue dress with high-low overskirt of diaphanous material.
• one girl in a dainty-looking cream lace high-low dress with double-tiered ruffle over the bust.

Two auburn scottish terriers reclining on a cafe table (placed there by their people) - panting, watching me go by.

A boy with glossy dark wavy hair wearing a plastic comb-like stretchy headband, making his hairline appear braided.

A group of five people - all with dark, thick hair - one girl, four gentlemen... looking as if they were a band, even if they aren't - all wearing denim shirts and jeans and black shoes... girl in long denim skirt, men with full hair and some with beards and mustaches, walking slowly - looking full of potential creativity.

Blues piano player wearing heavy-rimmed black glasses, a fannypack, and shorts with embroidered leaves.  His fingernails long... brown fingers with healthy pink tips, walking purposefully up-and-down mostly the black keys.


  

The Excellence of Real Mail.

Versus the Lackluster of Email, Real Mail Contains in Its Folds... your friend's handwriting, little extras such as photographs and artsy bits of sketching or stamping.  Real - snail - mail requires postage, which provides another chance to personalize correspondence... stamps add pizzazz... panache... an artful touch.

Here's another excitedly received letter from E - this one came with three small vintage black and white photographs... lovely bits of the past.  Among other things, E tells me of her affection for books with deckled, rough edges, her Uncle named Square, and her fragrant lavender and jasmine. 

We're true mail snails... choosing real over email anyday.

Real Snail Mail for Toile La La at Art Fashion Creation.

If you love the thought of real mail, you'll surely be inspired by Jennie Hinchcliff and Carolee Gilligan Wheeler's book Good Mail Day: A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art.  And, here's a link to Jennie's blog Everyday Should Be a Red Letter Day with a recent Tokyo correspondence post.

Pen, Envelopes, Stamps... Real Mail!

Toile La La correspondence - Real Mail.

Inspired by Good Mail Day: A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art (Jennie Hinchcliff / Carolee Gilligan Wheeler) - I've renewed correspondence with E, a college friend.  Off and on for many years we've exchanged letters - agreeing that email lacks the wonder and excitement of real mail.  Real mail is capable of offering the same captivating qualities of a good book or an intriguing painting.  

Receiving a real letter lets you know someone cares enough to make an effort to entertain, amuse, or delight you.

When I'm ready to write a letter, I like to assemble supplies:  odd or colorful postage, magazine pages, photographs, rubber stamps and ink, stickers - light a nicely-scented candle or sit near an open window with a fresh breeze and then allow my thoughts to flow.

In the photos above, you'll see my husband's harmonicas near the letter-writing supplies.  The Van Gogh card and the Eiffel tower card were sent by E.  (Her Van Gogh card with sky-bound birds prompted me to attach bird stickers to E's next letter.  The birds also made good mustaches for some sticker people from Bullett magazine.)  

After she sent me photographs of flowers she grows in her garden - along with a picture of a chicken, I carefully cut out the chicken and decorated its wing with a bouquet of her flowers - then glued it to E's envelope.  

I like her method of using creatively-illustrated pages from her London Review of Books as stationery.  Books are an affinity E and I share.  A keen paper versus digital observation recently from E:

"With the  popularity of the eReader I've been wondering about what it means to own a book.  I'm such a book lover... the feel and smell and look.... oh ... just to possess the book.  But an E book... what do you own.. my conclusion is that all you own is an idea.  The idea of the book.  The book just exists out there in the netherverse. Intangible. "

E introduced to me the word "netherverse" - which came to her out of the ether, heavens, thin air... stratosphere, collective creative consciousness.

I have enjoyed decorating her letters with stickers found in Bullett magazine's Spring 2012 issue and some Assume Vivid Astro Focus stickers from the coloring book Between the Lines.

The important and historic look of wax seals is something I appreciate, but the cost of the metal stamps can be quite high - so it was nice to discover my own do-it-yourself version of a wax seal stamp.  A crayon melted for just a minute or so over the flame of a small scented candle provides the seal wax.  The do-it-yourself seal stamp is a metal button with a high-relief design.  I slid a toothpick into the shank of the small button, then gently pressed it into the wax after the wax became slightly warm and opaque.  It is a good idea to practice making a nice, round, penny or dime-size dollop of wax before applying it to a stamped envelope and to practice just gently pressing the stamp against the warm wax.  (The postman explained wax seals require a bit of extra postage.)

For E's next letter, I'm thinking about making a 5-senses snail mail:  one to appeal to the visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile faculties.  In the last photo above, you'll notice an exploration of this idea with the Constant Comment tea envelope - which contains not tea inside, but a letter... which ideally absorbed the pleasant spiced orange scent.