Collage Postcard for E.

The female image is from a vintage museum postcard - Musee du Luxembourg - called "Au Crepuscule" - twilight, by Paul Chabas. She was standing in a shallow pool of water, looking cold - so I transported her to a forest, interlocking foliage and postcard - clipping in a way which left the girl free, so that she projects ever-so-slightly from the green background. The stump and bush are courtesy of a Giorgione colourplate from a vintage art book in my stacks. The garden belongs to someone featured in Architectural Digest - with a wonderful green thumb, or a talented gardener.

Collage Postcard by Toile La La.

I found the vintage postcard in an assortment of maps, postcards, and interesting antique ephemera which I purchased from Kathleen Sawyer's the back of the boat shop at Etsy. The blue link will take you there - where you will enjoy Sawyer's collage artwork and her amazingly affordable collage art kits - (5 dollars!).

Mail Art - Creative Correspondence.

Lately, my mailbox bulges with happiness... lots and lots of mail, and my camera is stuffed full too. More mail art, and more posts to come soon - and, perhaps - a guest, but for now - some photos, and Number One Good Luck - my Project Inspector tabby.

The seal of approval from my Project Inspector - Good Luck Number One.

Toile La La stitch-altered story for mail art correspondence. Image Toile La La.

Toile La La button collage.

E, my most long-standing mail correspondent sent me a Keats poem on a vintage envelope with stamps dated 1944 - and she sent a card bearing 3 pearlescent buttons. Sometimes she returns something I've sent her - with commentary. I had mailed her a snippet of an antique photo strip with 2 men and we wondered if they were brothers - maybe even twins. One frame bore only one man, so I decoupaged him to a pearly button. I mailed to E, along with the button collage, a page from a 1930s story - which I edited with machine-stitching and paint (to create a poem of sorts). And, I included a china fragment from my grandmother's back yard and a china fragment I found on the riverbank while canoeing. In the second photo, you can see E's very clever envelope closure she created - using a metal button, attached with a cotter pin. That was one of my favorite things!

Toile La La Book - Part Two.

Windblown.

From that library...I was transported...

...the Pierrot - with its black-rimmed eyes and red lips...

What fragrance would a plaid flower create...p.48 80s Fashion Design Book 1: Drawn, Toile La La

Now, even the sound of the word bling seems too flashy.

Dancers, acrobats, and aerialists modelling clothes would be sublime.

Occasionally, unexpected drawings...mysterious creations - just materialized for no apparent reason.

Sometimes the drawings are like ghosts...

apparitions, shadows, or reflections...

poets, artists, flappers.

Part one is here, at Toile La La.

Magritte: Norine Fashion Illustrations.

Looking for other-things-Magritte today, I serendipitously discovered Magritte's 1925 fashion illustrations for Belgian fashion house Norine. With great Art Deco elements such as spotlight rays and colliding geometrics, Magritte's Norine sketches share the great avant garde look and colors of contemporary Sonia Delaunay - and even hint at things-to-come from the Italian futurists. Arlequinade, Nuit sans Fin, Belle Inconnue, La Festa, La Robe Musette, Lord Lister, and Adieu New York... these are the names of the garments Magritte depicted for Norine. Read more about Magritte's Norine illustrations and his work in advertising graphics here, or about the fashion house Norine - here and here.

Too, search for Magritte's advertising sketch for "strange perfume" Soir d'Orage by Mem. As a fan of fragrance oddities, this really piqued my sniffing curiosity. I like the idea of the scent of a stormy evening. Location, of course, would matter. Was Mem's stormy evening near the sea, a city, a fruit grove, or a forest - I wonder. I like to imagine scent molecules preserved from this particular evening contain the essence of rich, rain-soaked dark forest earth imbued with the bark and needles of evergreen trees, the fiber of hardwoods, and the fruit of apple and pear trees - with a flashing whiff of moss zapped by lightning.

Note Found on Desk.

Currently tending Etsy shop, favorite loving, and curating spectacular Treasuries. Do visit...convo!  TLL

Futurepast, Perspective - Advance F/W 15/16.

With last summer's Romantic Souls A/H F/W 14/15 advance collection setting precedent, Toile La La now releases L'Oeil Creatif a L'Avance A/H F/W 15/16 fashion collection.  Whereas the Romantic Souls collection was inspired by "atmospheric conditions, clouds, twilight silhouettes, colors of shifting sky, large pastoral toiles, all the romantic souls - including the geisha and pierrot, and the equality of shadows" the Creative Eye collection is based on the concepts of "futurepast" and perspective.  

Toile La La explains, "Creatively, in the blink of an eye, visual concepts merge to appear timeless - neither future or past... or even something of the future which would be viewed as from the past.  It is all based upon perspective and perception.  Things of the past have potential to be timely again.  I even like the idea of "per" as a root... meaning "for each" and "by" - how this relates to personal point of view."

Toile La La predicts for A/H F/W 15/16: the bateau dolman-sleeved pullover, a Dior New Look-length A-line skirt, magnified tartan or plaid, the shawl-collar blouse, a chic striped toboggan, and a short A-line skirt atop a hi-lo skirt. The hi-lo skirt brings to mind a Poiret-style silk harem skirt and breezily follows the wearer - emphasizing the art of motion.

Colors are rainy day primaries - of a limited palette, says Toile La La - who has in the past tired of "anonymous city-black-and-grey", but has now returned to "an admiration for a mascara-black or lamp-soot-black paired with an oatmeal-sort of neutral and a rainy/foggy-sky blue as backdrops for these toned-down Cezanne colors".

A/H F/W RTW 15/16 Cezanne Palette - Toile La La fashion collection at Art Fashion Creation.

A/H F/W 15/16 RTW: Tartan, Fleur, Apple.

A/H F/W 15/16 RTW Preview, Toile La La.

Fashion, Styling, Photography - Toile La La.

Fleur wears a repurposed vintage 70s quarter-scale Erika Elias Charlie's Girls apple sweater upcycled as part of the Toile La La L'Oeil Creatif a L'Avance collection.