Well, I say! Impossible to refrain from commenting on The Royal Wedding yesterday - admittedly quite daunting to be in the company of 2 billion watching what in the end was a perfect and simple and happy country wedding.
Apart from the millions in the street, 2000 people as guests in Westminster Abbey and the fact that a future king got married, it really was a charming and very intimate affair, a as far as possible "normal" wedding, not really such a hollywoody stuff thing. Who does not with a shudder remember for instance the funeral of Princesse Diana? Elton John and "Englands´Rose"????
This time it felt more true, sincere and happy. If one may mention, it felt like what we all have seen 100 times in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" - a beautiful and happy event, where you and me could have been guests too.
One thing is very important and never to forget in this context: this wedding was a family affair for the world - the british monarchy of all monarchies has the quality (and the burden..) to be our all subsitute family - we all feel, as if we had a right to discuss their lives, their plans, attitudes and holidays - as if they were indeed our nearest and dearest. A President of the Republic has by no means such impact on our private lifes: Who would comment, if Präsident Wulff of Germany would get married, again? Very few people indeed.
Today, we all treat Royals by their christian names and it will from now on be always "Kate" and not Princesse William or the Duchesse of Cambridge - no doubt about that. The peoples of the world have taken them into their families.... for better and worse.
Just remember the outcry and implosion of family values, when Prince Charles and Lady Di divorced, or the real grief and sadness, when such an iconic person as the Queen Mum died. Simply the nicknames are speaking for themselves...
In a time, where most people live alone or in very small comunities, with less and less family ties or emotional perspectives, the royal family and their lives, sorrows, joys and duties brings people together and gives a sense of "us", of belonging. That is what today the purpose of a monarchy is - to give moral, emotional and national indentification. If a country has a monarch whom it respects and loves, the indentity of the people is secured - perhaps not very fashionable and even less political correct to say so, but there it is. It is as simple as that. Just look at Queen Margaretha of Denmark, another formidable example of a real Queen!
For a proof of this just look at the millions of people who watched yesterday, the press coverage, the emotional participation in streetparties, the elation and jubilation at "The Kiss" - a promise to all of us, that we too can be happy and that life is good, after all.
I was really touched by the incredible joy and participation of the crowds, the very contained and discret attitude of the young couple and the most marvelous preparation of this event which does Britain really proud. No other country could have pulled off such a perfect organization, clockwork running and then looking so effortless and relaxed with it. I am deeply impressed and in awe.
Then the simplicty of it all! Westminster Abbey could be cold and unwelcoming - but the idea of putting real trees in the church is of such genius, that this alone is one of the highlights of this lovely day. How beautiful!! The dress - stylish and classy at the same time - not too long a trail, a beautiful old-fashioned veil, a smallish bouquet - no theatrical effects, very down to earth and simple in all its glory; not 24 children running after the bride, but only some little people and her sister. The arrival in a car - it could have been a scene taken out of "4 W&aF", really. The best man, Harry, making jokes and looking more nervous than the groom, afterwards with a broad grin sitting in the states coach home via the Mall. The whole church, all 2000 guests, singing welknown hymns together, as it would be a sunday...
And have you seen the you-tube film about the priest, after the wedding in the empty Westminster Abbey? Is this not lovely?
I liked the sermon of the bishop of London very much. It is so difficult in such circumstances not to be pompous or just boring. He seems to be a man who knows life and spoke warmly and kindly to the two in question. Both looked together and very discreet, no tears and no kitsch coming up. A little discreet glance, here and there, all very familiar and cosy. The Queen being a real grandmother and happily looking on her grandchild - as every other grandmother would. The procession in the open carriages belongs to the royal tradition, but had a natural feeling - as was the appearance on the balcony and we all could read William saying to Catherine before kissing her: "Shall we?"
The going away in a open Austin - ju5t wed - anything more simple and convincing? Also the bride´s outfit for the evening: another lovely dress, no tiara, open hair - she could have been a guest together with the groom at a friends wedding as well.
After a day like that it seems, the british monarchy has had again a Bingo Moment - this young couple is down to earth, happy together, they know exactly, what they have in front of them and decided to make it work. They will do a good job, I think.
If this it not a happy end, that I do not know, what is.
May they live a long and happy and fullfilled life together.
Saturday 30 April 2011
Friday 29 April 2011
St. Trinians 1 and 2, by all means an English Film...
If you have been thinking of sending your daughter to a boardingschool, this is the film for you.
I found it last year in Portugal, in a box of films to
be sold of for 1€ and as it was featuring
Colin Firth there was no choice than to buy it.
And I had digged gold!
My daughter would positively attend this school, if it would not be, alas, only fiction. An "Institut for Young Ladies", as it should be - and one which prepares you allright for real life.
And more: if you have not been a fan of Rupert Everett, than it is here, where you will become one - his role als Miss Camilla Fritton, with not only the original Camilla Hairdo and wonderful accent is already enough to make this film a hit and him/her a Style Icon of herself. The part Colin Firth has to endure as "Geoffrey"endears him to us even more - especially in the follow up film - ever imagined him as a tramp? Have a look. And be surprised of the whole bunch of great and famous british actors coming in one after the other..., good old "Duckface" and also "Dr. Who" being old aquaintances of us.
The schooling brings all sorts of interesting accomplishments, I mean, quite useful for The Good Life, positively to be recommended to old and young, preferably anglophiles.
My children love this film and its quirky humor.
Highly recommended!!
Wednesday 27 April 2011
Paris and Parfums Jovoy
We had the most fascinating time with Francois, who himself had, together with a group of friends taken on the idea of a revival of Parfums Jovoy - and some other, wellknown or not so wellknown scents, which, indeed belong to the family of parfums rares...
 |
| This is the shop in the morning, just open... |
On our way to a light supper, after having been running around Paris for a whole day, we passed by accident a small shop, "Parfums Rares" - stop and look! This was something to be explored with more time!
Next morning, after some well earned rest and a lovely breakfast we went straight back and wanted to know more about our find of the night before.
What we found, was this most charming scene of a fresh and lovely morning in Paris, the shop just open and the smell of fresh coffee and clean streets - the joy to be alife.
The owner, Francois Hénin, welcomed us with a open smile and all prepared to explain what was his idea behind this marvelous little shop around the corner or Place Vendome...
And it was heaven - a Ali Baba´s wonderous Cave, full of scents and wonders we had hardly heard of before. To my shame, I have to admit, that I never before had heard of Parfums Jovoy - but, it is never to late to learn that it was a "Maison" already founded in 1923, with a rich history in the french scent landscape...
Next morning, after some well earned rest and a lovely breakfast we went straight back and wanted to know more about our find of the night before.
What we found, was this most charming scene of a fresh and lovely morning in Paris, the shop just open and the smell of fresh coffee and clean streets - the joy to be alife.
The owner, Francois Hénin, welcomed us with a open smile and all prepared to explain what was his idea behind this marvelous little shop around the corner or Place Vendome...
And it was heaven - a Ali Baba´s wonderous Cave, full of scents and wonders we had hardly heard of before. To my shame, I have to admit, that I never before had heard of Parfums Jovoy - but, it is never to late to learn that it was a "Maison" already founded in 1923, with a rich history in the french scent landscape...
 |
| The houses own parfum collection |
Few things are nicer than to be in Paris and to spend a blissfull hour trying and testing, talking and discussing our new finds: Dorin, Grossmith, Frapin, Coudray, Histoires de Parfums, Isabey, Mille et Une Histoire and many more - I bet, most of those names are also new to you. Rancé is better known, as is Parfum d`Empire and Amouage.
But who of you knows already the japanese parfumeur Masaki Matsushima?
I fell immediately for the wonderful and heavy Grossmith scents - also a happy story, as it is an old and wellknown House in London, which has, much alike Parfums Jovoy, been restored to old glory and looks ahead full of confidence into the future.
Scent is well alive - a paradise for One!!! The pleasure of the eternal search of THE SCENT. Not to be missed on your ( and my) next visit to Paris and highly recommended.
Francois Hénin, Parfums Rares Jovoy,
29, Rue Danielle Casanova,
Paris 1ier
Tel. +33(0)1 40 20 06 19
contact@jovoyparis.com
But who of you knows already the japanese parfumeur Masaki Matsushima?
I fell immediately for the wonderful and heavy Grossmith scents - also a happy story, as it is an old and wellknown House in London, which has, much alike Parfums Jovoy, been restored to old glory and looks ahead full of confidence into the future.
Scent is well alive - a paradise for One!!! The pleasure of the eternal search of THE SCENT. Not to be missed on your ( and my) next visit to Paris and highly recommended.
29, Rue Danielle Casanova,
Paris 1ier
Tel. +33(0)1 40 20 06 19
contact@jovoyparis.com
Monday 25 April 2011
A Must for Soul Searching Scent Amateurs
As always, a lucky find. As you perhaps already know, I love scent. And I am always on the outlook for THE scent for me, for the next 10 years, or 40 years, even better. ( I can tell you, I have 3 frontrunners quite now, and one of them will be IT...)
This book is truly a find - but to be taken with a small smile at times. Naturally, scent and perfumes is something very personal, what smells divine to one person, stinks to the other and so on. Here I would suggest some caution, because sometimes I do not really approve with those two specialists in their judgement - scent is handled here as it were a form of Art in its own. Which, beware, it may well be - who am I to say otherwise? But then, perfume is something so personal, that it is really almost impossible to make a general judgement, if a scent is good or not. Everybody has a different connotation anyway. Here, for once, it lies really in the nose of the one who wears it and also in the nose of the one who smells it. Sounds complicated, but isn´t.
What is great and fantastic in this book though is the very interesting introductions and historic overview about the art of perfumery and its development. There is a very interesting section of feminine and masculine fragrances, about the "families" which exist in each section and how and why things are done or perceived as they are. This is certainly the great merit of this book, we learn so much interesting things in a pleasant and very readable form.
But then the real fun starts: there are a huge number of scents reviewed and judged and it is great fun to look up your favourites - but beware of disappointment, it could well be, that a scent you have worn over years ( like I did with Eau du Soir...) get simply horrible comments. Even more fun is then putting your new learnedness into practise and head for the next well sorted perfumery to smell the scents about which our authors get enthusiastic - and then take the liberty of not to agree. It has happened to me more than once. I could start to doubt my own judgement, but then, it is me, who has to wear this scent - and there, selfconsciousness and adulthood kicks in. I do not care, if Luca or Tania thinks the scent is boring or detestable.
If I like it, I like it.
But the book has tremendous entertaining qualities and it offers hours of good conversation. It is a must for everyone who has got a remote interest in scent!
I do hope, that a new edition, with other reviews of other scents will follow up. Apparently there is a paperback edition in the States available, which says, that there are updates within. I have not seen it, but would like to know. Anybody over there, have an idea, please?
 |
| Perfumes, The Guide, by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez USA 2008 |
As always, a lucky find. As you perhaps already know, I love scent. And I am always on the outlook for THE scent for me, for the next 10 years, or 40 years, even better. ( I can tell you, I have 3 frontrunners quite now, and one of them will be IT...)
This book is truly a find - but to be taken with a small smile at times. Naturally, scent and perfumes is something very personal, what smells divine to one person, stinks to the other and so on. Here I would suggest some caution, because sometimes I do not really approve with those two specialists in their judgement - scent is handled here as it were a form of Art in its own. Which, beware, it may well be - who am I to say otherwise? But then, perfume is something so personal, that it is really almost impossible to make a general judgement, if a scent is good or not. Everybody has a different connotation anyway. Here, for once, it lies really in the nose of the one who wears it and also in the nose of the one who smells it. Sounds complicated, but isn´t.
What is great and fantastic in this book though is the very interesting introductions and historic overview about the art of perfumery and its development. There is a very interesting section of feminine and masculine fragrances, about the "families" which exist in each section and how and why things are done or perceived as they are. This is certainly the great merit of this book, we learn so much interesting things in a pleasant and very readable form.
But then the real fun starts: there are a huge number of scents reviewed and judged and it is great fun to look up your favourites - but beware of disappointment, it could well be, that a scent you have worn over years ( like I did with Eau du Soir...) get simply horrible comments. Even more fun is then putting your new learnedness into practise and head for the next well sorted perfumery to smell the scents about which our authors get enthusiastic - and then take the liberty of not to agree. It has happened to me more than once. I could start to doubt my own judgement, but then, it is me, who has to wear this scent - and there, selfconsciousness and adulthood kicks in. I do not care, if Luca or Tania thinks the scent is boring or detestable.
If I like it, I like it.
But the book has tremendous entertaining qualities and it offers hours of good conversation. It is a must for everyone who has got a remote interest in scent!
I do hope, that a new edition, with other reviews of other scents will follow up. Apparently there is a paperback edition in the States available, which says, that there are updates within. I have not seen it, but would like to know. Anybody over there, have an idea, please?
Sunday 24 April 2011
Saturday 23 April 2011
A Manifesto for Dressing Better
People of the world! Take more care about the way you dress, wash and look out of your eyes! This is not a superficial, neglectable attitude, but it represents much more about you and your world, than you might think.
We have had a lot of luck recently, the weather has been wonderful here in Brussels. Like summer, indeed! Bad tongues have already uttered doom: most probably, this was it for the year 2011 - all awaits us is rain from june on.
But this is not, what I wanted to write about. I was in town this week, twice. And in a good part of town, lovely shops, good restaurants, trees and expensive cars to be seen. But I was devastated by the sheer ugliness of how people feel compelled to dress. I know, everybody can dress as he or she likes, no discussion about that. Right of indivudual expression. Right to do what one feels right for oneself etc etc.
But I mean, is it forbidden to think just a little bit about other people might see you? Do you dress really only for yourself? Heaven forbid - if one dressed only to please oneself, chances are high, that you are or a genius or simply, sorry, a person who lives on the moon. Or not so very clever after all. Or have misantrophic tendencies?
But coming back to the shockwaves. I wonder why people, when the sun comes out, dress like they are on the beach ( about dressing for the beach, I am pondering already a post, beware...) - shorts, miniature t-shirts, transparent plastic on the shoulders, practical footwear. Sometimes, if you are lucky, a nice pedicure to be seen, but rarely. Colours are not taken into consideration - perhaps most of the population is colourblind? Ever heard of the rule of max 3 colours in an outfit? Foolproof. But no, apparently not.
Even the very young and beautiful can only pull of that neglicence look if they have thought about it before they dress, and having it seen twice, it is only boring. Big yawn. apparently not a thinking person - more of a amoeba?
Why is it so difficult to dress in a way, that might be pleasant for other people to look at? It makes your day, if you see a beautiful person, who had a little bit of thought put to her appearance - to utter this not political correct word. If the person smiles, is clean and smells good too - wow. There you have a species in danger of extinction!
May it be a jeans, a unicoloured shirt, preferably ironed, some flats, a bag, sunglasses, clean hair, some lipgloss. If the clothes are wellfitting, they will do the talking. And it does NOT cost a lot of money, believe me.
A simple skirt, some heels, a blouse and a cardigan - good bag - will do the trick. If you have a necklace, leave out the earrings. If you have earrings, a watch will be sufficient, etc. Less is definitively more.
For the weekend of a three-piece-suit-bussinessman: shorts, boatshoes, a Poloneck. No need for fleece sweaters with teddybears. Definitively not.
Basic rules, to remind the mindless:
*No more than three colours on the person - haircolour is one of them!
*Cleanliness for hairs, face, shoes and clothes. Smile.
*Maximum 2 (two) pieces of jewellery; only one finger per hand with rings.
*No Battle of the Patterns - keep an eye of those combinations...
*Less is always MORE
*Being good dressed is not expensive. Basta.
Please, please let us all set an example to make the world in our little ways more beautiful. Say no to applications or wild patterns - they belong in the hand of an expert, and there also quite rarely. Please do buy good quality, instead of 14 t-shirts which will not survive a tumbledrier, let alone be washed by something hotter than cold water. Have only 4 colours in your wardrobe and make sure, they like each other. Have a decent handbag and if you need a rucksack, let it be a nice one - not one with 14 colours and 67 applications. Get some new white t-shirts - Petit Bateau is NOT expensive for the quality you get and go to Massimo Dutti for white t-shirts and affordable poloshirts. I have bought wonderful slacks at Carrefour for many years. At C&A, H&M, Zara, you find the most amazing things, if you have time to graze and only little money to spend. Some really nice stuff. Sometimes the fabrication is cheap and badly made and this shows, have a good look before you get carried away. Always.
Please let us be aware, that we are not alone on this planet - that the poor eyes of our neighbours, co-workers, friends and next of kin have to endure Hawai shirts, greyishbrownblack nontrousers, too baggy or too tight t-shirts with slogans, socks in sandals, too much of flesh rolling around that buried navel. I have to stop, otherwise...
All of this is too much a clear sign of neglicence, because this cannot be selfassurance, to be endured. Life is already pretty hard itself.
Let us start to become more aware, that WE DO PRODUCE BEAUTY OURSELVES. Not the others, we are responsible for the picture we present to the others and the world we make around us. Too busy and tired? Give it a try, it does not take so much energy and time and you will feel rewarded on a big scale.
One last word of doom for the eager tourist: Why is it, that people do dress completedly out of good senses when they are in holidays, visiting a foreign country, pretending to "relax"? Do they feel "anonym", or are they playing Mr. Jenkyll and Mr. Hide? Or do they think they belong to the Invisibles? Is comfort standing for ugliness one wonders? I mean, hello???
I repeat: Everybody, who has a brain, some eyes and a little bit of education can dress good and well. Well dressed does not mean expensive. Badly dressed does not mean cheap. Dressing for oneself alone has no style. Dressing only for others has no style too.
I do not want you all to be dressed in slacks and polonecks, but you get the point? Next time you buy that lousy t-shirt, stop, think and do consider...
At least I hope. PLEASE!
We have had a lot of luck recently, the weather has been wonderful here in Brussels. Like summer, indeed! Bad tongues have already uttered doom: most probably, this was it for the year 2011 - all awaits us is rain from june on.
But this is not, what I wanted to write about. I was in town this week, twice. And in a good part of town, lovely shops, good restaurants, trees and expensive cars to be seen. But I was devastated by the sheer ugliness of how people feel compelled to dress. I know, everybody can dress as he or she likes, no discussion about that. Right of indivudual expression. Right to do what one feels right for oneself etc etc.
But I mean, is it forbidden to think just a little bit about other people might see you? Do you dress really only for yourself? Heaven forbid - if one dressed only to please oneself, chances are high, that you are or a genius or simply, sorry, a person who lives on the moon. Or not so very clever after all. Or have misantrophic tendencies?
But coming back to the shockwaves. I wonder why people, when the sun comes out, dress like they are on the beach ( about dressing for the beach, I am pondering already a post, beware...) - shorts, miniature t-shirts, transparent plastic on the shoulders, practical footwear. Sometimes, if you are lucky, a nice pedicure to be seen, but rarely. Colours are not taken into consideration - perhaps most of the population is colourblind? Ever heard of the rule of max 3 colours in an outfit? Foolproof. But no, apparently not.
Even the very young and beautiful can only pull of that neglicence look if they have thought about it before they dress, and having it seen twice, it is only boring. Big yawn. apparently not a thinking person - more of a amoeba?
Why is it so difficult to dress in a way, that might be pleasant for other people to look at? It makes your day, if you see a beautiful person, who had a little bit of thought put to her appearance - to utter this not political correct word. If the person smiles, is clean and smells good too - wow. There you have a species in danger of extinction!
May it be a jeans, a unicoloured shirt, preferably ironed, some flats, a bag, sunglasses, clean hair, some lipgloss. If the clothes are wellfitting, they will do the talking. And it does NOT cost a lot of money, believe me.
A simple skirt, some heels, a blouse and a cardigan - good bag - will do the trick. If you have a necklace, leave out the earrings. If you have earrings, a watch will be sufficient, etc. Less is definitively more.
For the weekend of a three-piece-suit-bussinessman: shorts, boatshoes, a Poloneck. No need for fleece sweaters with teddybears. Definitively not.
Basic rules, to remind the mindless:
*No more than three colours on the person - haircolour is one of them!
*Cleanliness for hairs, face, shoes and clothes. Smile.
*Maximum 2 (two) pieces of jewellery; only one finger per hand with rings.
*No Battle of the Patterns - keep an eye of those combinations...
*Less is always MORE
*Being good dressed is not expensive. Basta.
Please, please let us all set an example to make the world in our little ways more beautiful. Say no to applications or wild patterns - they belong in the hand of an expert, and there also quite rarely. Please do buy good quality, instead of 14 t-shirts which will not survive a tumbledrier, let alone be washed by something hotter than cold water. Have only 4 colours in your wardrobe and make sure, they like each other. Have a decent handbag and if you need a rucksack, let it be a nice one - not one with 14 colours and 67 applications. Get some new white t-shirts - Petit Bateau is NOT expensive for the quality you get and go to Massimo Dutti for white t-shirts and affordable poloshirts. I have bought wonderful slacks at Carrefour for many years. At C&A, H&M, Zara, you find the most amazing things, if you have time to graze and only little money to spend. Some really nice stuff. Sometimes the fabrication is cheap and badly made and this shows, have a good look before you get carried away. Always.
Please let us be aware, that we are not alone on this planet - that the poor eyes of our neighbours, co-workers, friends and next of kin have to endure Hawai shirts, greyishbrownblack nontrousers, too baggy or too tight t-shirts with slogans, socks in sandals, too much of flesh rolling around that buried navel. I have to stop, otherwise...
All of this is too much a clear sign of neglicence, because this cannot be selfassurance, to be endured. Life is already pretty hard itself.
Let us start to become more aware, that WE DO PRODUCE BEAUTY OURSELVES. Not the others, we are responsible for the picture we present to the others and the world we make around us. Too busy and tired? Give it a try, it does not take so much energy and time and you will feel rewarded on a big scale.
One last word of doom for the eager tourist: Why is it, that people do dress completedly out of good senses when they are in holidays, visiting a foreign country, pretending to "relax"? Do they feel "anonym", or are they playing Mr. Jenkyll and Mr. Hide? Or do they think they belong to the Invisibles? Is comfort standing for ugliness one wonders? I mean, hello???
I repeat: Everybody, who has a brain, some eyes and a little bit of education can dress good and well. Well dressed does not mean expensive. Badly dressed does not mean cheap. Dressing for oneself alone has no style. Dressing only for others has no style too.
I do not want you all to be dressed in slacks and polonecks, but you get the point? Next time you buy that lousy t-shirt, stop, think and do consider...
At least I hope. PLEASE!
Friday 22 April 2011
Why don´t you...? 6
- introduce a TV and Computer free day a week - at least?
For everybody: children, mothers, brothers and grandmothers, uncles, nieces etc. The computer at work is another thing, hardly to be switched off nowadays. You will be amazed, how much time you have all of a sudden at your hands. And the world will not collapse neither. Then slowly increase those "free" days and start to do other things instead.
- stop being that Coach Potato?
Go for a walk, 30 minutes a day - no excuses, because there are no excuses.
Take a camera and take pictures, which you can delete later. This will help you learn how to LOOK.
- quit Smoking, for good?
Just do it.
- drink more Water instead of Coffee and Tea?
Water is good for you and your "system" - waterdepletion can have serious consequences for the ageing process. Our brain needs a lot of water to keep up - it is, after all, quite a jelly... And we need to keep up not to be boring when old...
- eat Better and Less?
Easier said then done, you say. Give it a try. It´s a conscience thing.
For everybody: children, mothers, brothers and grandmothers, uncles, nieces etc. The computer at work is another thing, hardly to be switched off nowadays. You will be amazed, how much time you have all of a sudden at your hands. And the world will not collapse neither. Then slowly increase those "free" days and start to do other things instead.
- stop being that Coach Potato?
Go for a walk, 30 minutes a day - no excuses, because there are no excuses.
Take a camera and take pictures, which you can delete later. This will help you learn how to LOOK.
- quit Smoking, for good?
Just do it.
- drink more Water instead of Coffee and Tea?
Water is good for you and your "system" - waterdepletion can have serious consequences for the ageing process. Our brain needs a lot of water to keep up - it is, after all, quite a jelly... And we need to keep up not to be boring when old...
- eat Better and Less?
Easier said then done, you say. Give it a try. It´s a conscience thing.
Wednesday 20 April 2011
Tell me which car you drive and...
This saying is pure nonsense. Or only to be applied to the half witted. If one drives a Rolls Royce: what does this say, nowadays, where references are gone and all is possible?
Depending of the plate, it could be the Queen, if you are lucky and life in the UK. Or some rich ( alas, not even has to be excentric) person - or just a rented car to impress the non-existing audience. The same is possible in the other direction: you can drive a small and unpretentious car for the sheer practicality of it -parking space, taxes, fuel, discretion - and be a millionaire. Old money seldoms shows off.
My dream car has been always the same sort of car: first a cabriolet VW - my brothers and sistes had one, and I remember the most wonderful drives in summer, driving through the glorious green valleys and forests of my native Bavaria. Or, as there were still nostalgic white winters at that time, long long ago, we would have had the deck open, all be packed in warm clothes, hang some sleigh behind at the car and had the most funny time of our life. I still remember one of my older brothers making the sleigh swing so much, that he almost in every curve fell out and we all laughing loud in the backseat of the car. I loved that time, it is a happy memory. The VW Cabrio was of light blue colour.
Then I dreamed of a black morris. Later then I got back to dream about a dark green MG.
What I was driving at that time in reality was a bycicle and I got my first "own" car only in 2002, by then well in my 30ies, when we moved to Belgium - a Peugot 806, which was called Annabelle.
We bought it from dear english collegues, a family with 4 girls and the condition for the sale was that we would keep the name. Until this day, all Peugots 806 are Annabelle to us. It is a pity that we lost contact with those friends. If somebody of you know where they are, have the Courage and let me know!!
After Annabelle died a death of exhaustion I got another car - which has nothing to do with my dream car: a person carrier - for driving all that long journeys to Bavaria, I thought. In fact I go there by car once a year. And driving a tank in town makes you look as silly, as being dressed for a shooting party and driving a Land Rover to do the supermarket. No offense, but it is ridiculous.
Big cars, beautiful women and powerful men is still a picture much cherished by the yellow press and makes sales get up, foolproof apparently. If you watch "The Sopranos" they all drive as huge and important car. I wonder...
But there is in fact, that the Herat and soul of a racing driver beats in each VW Polo, I know - I have had those feelings as well when I was younger and dashed far too quickly with my mothers old Golf through the countryside. I was lucky, not to have had an accident at that time - 120km/h in a village is only cool, when you are 20 years old. I shudder, when I think of it and do appologize to my guardian angel still today.
But what is my dream car?? Now, that I have arrived in ripe middle age and know a lot more about life and its possibilities?
You might laugh: a Citroen DS. I would love to have and drive one.
Perhaps I have seen too many french films with Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider at a certain age? There is one film, "Les choses de la vie" de Claude Sautet, where Michel Piccoli drives a DS and dies in the end in an accident, remebering his love affair with Romy. I do remember very clearly the lovely clothes on Romy Schneider - must be in the early 60ies somehow...
This car would be fun. Indeed. Colour? In any case cognac coloured leather seats and for the car: or dark racing green with a black top or, even chicer, dark cinnamon with a creamcoloured top? Or dark cherry, but then the seats in cream... or greyish, with a black top and cream seats.. mh. Have to think about it - even if the danger of once in my life being in possession of a DS is very very small. Neglectable, so to say.
Depending of the plate, it could be the Queen, if you are lucky and life in the UK. Or some rich ( alas, not even has to be excentric) person - or just a rented car to impress the non-existing audience. The same is possible in the other direction: you can drive a small and unpretentious car for the sheer practicality of it -parking space, taxes, fuel, discretion - and be a millionaire. Old money seldoms shows off.
My dream car has been always the same sort of car: first a cabriolet VW - my brothers and sistes had one, and I remember the most wonderful drives in summer, driving through the glorious green valleys and forests of my native Bavaria. Or, as there were still nostalgic white winters at that time, long long ago, we would have had the deck open, all be packed in warm clothes, hang some sleigh behind at the car and had the most funny time of our life. I still remember one of my older brothers making the sleigh swing so much, that he almost in every curve fell out and we all laughing loud in the backseat of the car. I loved that time, it is a happy memory. The VW Cabrio was of light blue colour.
Then I dreamed of a black morris. Later then I got back to dream about a dark green MG.
What I was driving at that time in reality was a bycicle and I got my first "own" car only in 2002, by then well in my 30ies, when we moved to Belgium - a Peugot 806, which was called Annabelle.
We bought it from dear english collegues, a family with 4 girls and the condition for the sale was that we would keep the name. Until this day, all Peugots 806 are Annabelle to us. It is a pity that we lost contact with those friends. If somebody of you know where they are, have the Courage and let me know!!
After Annabelle died a death of exhaustion I got another car - which has nothing to do with my dream car: a person carrier - for driving all that long journeys to Bavaria, I thought. In fact I go there by car once a year. And driving a tank in town makes you look as silly, as being dressed for a shooting party and driving a Land Rover to do the supermarket. No offense, but it is ridiculous.
Big cars, beautiful women and powerful men is still a picture much cherished by the yellow press and makes sales get up, foolproof apparently. If you watch "The Sopranos" they all drive as huge and important car. I wonder...
But there is in fact, that the Herat and soul of a racing driver beats in each VW Polo, I know - I have had those feelings as well when I was younger and dashed far too quickly with my mothers old Golf through the countryside. I was lucky, not to have had an accident at that time - 120km/h in a village is only cool, when you are 20 years old. I shudder, when I think of it and do appologize to my guardian angel still today.
But what is my dream car?? Now, that I have arrived in ripe middle age and know a lot more about life and its possibilities?
You might laugh: a Citroen DS. I would love to have and drive one.
Perhaps I have seen too many french films with Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider at a certain age? There is one film, "Les choses de la vie" de Claude Sautet, where Michel Piccoli drives a DS and dies in the end in an accident, remebering his love affair with Romy. I do remember very clearly the lovely clothes on Romy Schneider - must be in the early 60ies somehow...
This car would be fun. Indeed. Colour? In any case cognac coloured leather seats and for the car: or dark racing green with a black top or, even chicer, dark cinnamon with a creamcoloured top? Or dark cherry, but then the seats in cream... or greyish, with a black top and cream seats.. mh. Have to think about it - even if the danger of once in my life being in possession of a DS is very very small. Neglectable, so to say.
Tuesday 19 April 2011
Sophie D´Hoore - a new find!
I was just in Paris and the obligatory strawl in the beloved "Bon Marché" was on the programm. We did not look for something special, just browsing and inhaling style here and there and felt like the world was at our feet - the sheer choice of wonderful and beautiful clothes, shoes, hats, in short all sorts of things is again and again a true pleasure.
But then something caught my eye: Clean and nice clothes, great colours, easy cuts and a simple but very effective chic. I was particularly attracted by this dress, which is not very well fotographed here, but is simply divine in its cut and popeline material. I tried it on and it looked like I stepped out of a film with Ingrid Bergmann, going out to meet Gary Grant for lunch in the garden of Palais Royal..
Susanne went also to have a look and she, being her, found also the most marvelous pieces - a little blue pullover made of such a good quality, that you were just grasping your breath. La gamine parisienne par excellence! We both - looking quite different in our morphologie, I have to admit - were happy trying and looking and commentating and feeling wonderful. I tell you, that I even did NOT have to try on the biggest size - I fit snuggly into a perfectly normal dress here - finally great and modern and timeless clothes for all womankind! So, it IS possible after all... congratulations, Sophie!
This is one of the moments, where you wish to be a millionaire and just be able to buy those wonderful little pieces, which make you feel a chic and happy woman, living her life of everyday and feeling well in it. It is not cheap, but the quality, cut and beauty of the garmets should give us a quiet conscience: to be used for ever, no fashion fad. Good investment.
The lovely sales lady brought one thing after the other, one more beautiful than the last. And then we learn, that Sophie D´Hoore is in Belgium, in Brussels! Oh wonder!
I just googled her address and will get there to have a look and perhaps even talk to her. Can´t wait! The website does not say much, unfortunately - only the adress. But I will explore and let you know!
Monday 18 April 2011
In Praise of Cold Water
Actually taking a cold shower is torture, especially in wintertimes, when you have to get up too early to see the day of light, the bathroom is still freezing and all you want is to stay another hour in bed. Now, as spring is arriving in its full glory we can reconsider...
Forcing oneself to take a cold shower first thing in the morning goes probably with the weird attitude, that if a thing is good for you, it MUST hurt. But I will not go further into this direction, not my cup of tea at all.
Let´s face it: Cold water is indeed good for us. Not for drinking though - no, there it is best in a mild temperature, can be absorbed much easier and does you really good. Actually drinking warm water is the best way of hydrating your body thoroughly. The idea of drinking ice-cold water to burn more calories is simply nonsense. Ice cold water inside is not good for your shocked body. Warm water is. Unfortunately I cannot cite here some 3473years-old-wisdoms, coming from the holy mountains and a nice monk, but this is simple common sense.
It is also matter of fact, that cold water is good for our skin - outside - it heightens the bloodflow and you get a rosy glow in your face, after splashing happily around with cold water. In some cosmetic lines the cold water is even expressedly asked to be employed in the cleansing process: Eve Lom and Erno Lazlo do actively use cold water as a last splash before you put your cream on. Clarins needs cold water to make its body oils really effective - for example the Huile Tonic is great with a cold shower and does really work if followed religiously.
Also giving your hair a last and very good blast with ice-cold water after rinsing out all residues of shampoo and conditioner makes your hair more healthy: again the bloodflow in the skalp is encouraged, your hair will be better nourished on the long term - so, this is much more effective than putting 1000 products on your head: good circulation - and good food - makes your hair shine at its best.
Swollen feet need cold water - let me tell you! I am a martyr in hot summerclimats - my feet get the size of a Yeti in Puschen, i.e. houseshoes. Cold water and cold compresses are the only way of getting them back into christian forms.
Varicous veins also do not like cold water - old Pfarrer Kneipp has a point here: stalking like a storch in a basin of coldest water is really good for your legs, really.
And then there is nothing like the good feeling of going into the sea and taking this first swim of the summerseason - glorious! But I admit, that the sea here in the north is too cold for me - I have learned since long, that a lovely bath in the Algarve is the thing for me, concerning seasides in any case. I advise a swim or in the early mornings, when the sun get up, or at 8.pm, when the beach gets empty and quiet. This is real luxury. For free!!
Forcing oneself to take a cold shower first thing in the morning goes probably with the weird attitude, that if a thing is good for you, it MUST hurt. But I will not go further into this direction, not my cup of tea at all.
Let´s face it: Cold water is indeed good for us. Not for drinking though - no, there it is best in a mild temperature, can be absorbed much easier and does you really good. Actually drinking warm water is the best way of hydrating your body thoroughly. The idea of drinking ice-cold water to burn more calories is simply nonsense. Ice cold water inside is not good for your shocked body. Warm water is. Unfortunately I cannot cite here some 3473years-old-wisdoms, coming from the holy mountains and a nice monk, but this is simple common sense.
It is also matter of fact, that cold water is good for our skin - outside - it heightens the bloodflow and you get a rosy glow in your face, after splashing happily around with cold water. In some cosmetic lines the cold water is even expressedly asked to be employed in the cleansing process: Eve Lom and Erno Lazlo do actively use cold water as a last splash before you put your cream on. Clarins needs cold water to make its body oils really effective - for example the Huile Tonic is great with a cold shower and does really work if followed religiously.
Also giving your hair a last and very good blast with ice-cold water after rinsing out all residues of shampoo and conditioner makes your hair more healthy: again the bloodflow in the skalp is encouraged, your hair will be better nourished on the long term - so, this is much more effective than putting 1000 products on your head: good circulation - and good food - makes your hair shine at its best.
Swollen feet need cold water - let me tell you! I am a martyr in hot summerclimats - my feet get the size of a Yeti in Puschen, i.e. houseshoes. Cold water and cold compresses are the only way of getting them back into christian forms.
Varicous veins also do not like cold water - old Pfarrer Kneipp has a point here: stalking like a storch in a basin of coldest water is really good for your legs, really.
And then there is nothing like the good feeling of going into the sea and taking this first swim of the summerseason - glorious! But I admit, that the sea here in the north is too cold for me - I have learned since long, that a lovely bath in the Algarve is the thing for me, concerning seasides in any case. I advise a swim or in the early mornings, when the sun get up, or at 8.pm, when the beach gets empty and quiet. This is real luxury. For free!!
Saturday 16 April 2011
On Beauty
Beauty is a fleeting thing. But without beauty we could not exist. Developping and educating a feeling and knowledge of beauty is a lifetime of learning - and it is such a blessing that we always change, subtely, our point of view. This means, we are alive and do move on.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - ok, right. So, what Gaugin thought beautiful must not be the same thing as Elvis Preslec thought, or Mother Theresa, if you get what I mean.
But then "the eye" can be educated, should be refined and developped. The one who has never seen beautiful things, can recognize them all the same if he has the chance to see them. Look just at all those horribly bad dressed people who wander in silence through a museum like the Louvre in Paris. It is amazing, the need for beauty.
Most probably I am too old fashioned and grew up in an environment, which was much influenced by a multicultural background and some generations of people living with beautiful things. I was taught to look at a lightning and at the stars, to describe what colours the trees had and how to feel a room - so that it was livable, comfortable, a "home" in the best sense of the world. I have relentlessly tried to recreate a beautiful home whereever I was. It is my first love and enduring passion. In an ideal world mine would be the beautiful house in the country...
When we stayed for a short while in India, I was so impressed by the beauty of the people in the streets. What an affluence of beauty I have seen there, nature just totally and regardless throwing beauty around. There is so much beauty and how sad, that it was so often not appreciated, taken for granted.
The same I could say, for example, of the light in Portugal - Lisbonne is a delightful city, with a wonderful light and has one of the most beautiful city centers one can imagine. But then the houses are so often not taken care of - the beauty is there, but not seen, not appreciated?
Is the concept of beauty a question of having the time to stay and stare, to let it be impressed on our mind?
Beauty in people has much to do how they look out of their eyes. Intelligence and benevolence is always beautiful, as is wisdom and calm of heart and mind. The quest for beauty in having a slim figure is only a fad in comparison with this sort of beauty.
A garden is beautiful - wilderness as well as the french garden with its boxhedges and controlled figures. Flowers are always beautiful and rarely flowers of different colours do clash, when they are not meddled with. Who wants blue tulips anyway? The natural is always beautiful, more so if the natural is tamed in a way that we do not see on the first glimpse.
A small child is beautiful - the Kindchenschema, yes I know, big head, big eyes - but then it is the grace of uninhibited and unconsciencious movement, of curiousity and calm in little eyes who sometimes look as they have all the wisdom in the world.
I wonder why there is this necessity to destroy beauty? Pulling down a perfect good house, which needs some elbowgrease and paint to live again and breath, and instead to build something which is agressively and not human? A big black closed cube, without a soul to be seen, uninviting, supermodern (I have nothing against modern!!!!) - the people living there as a mere accessory to the place? Building houses with bathrooms without a window and only 1 squaremeter, kitchens without a window? Hello?? Who can live there??
We all search for beauty, it is in our genetic makeup. If we adorn ourselves, put make up on, cook a nice looking dish, hang that pictures or print on the wall and chose with a lot of care the curtains for the guest bathroom, clean/polish that car and work in the garden - we actively want things to be beautiful. This need of beauty is inherent, but it dies, if not nourished. Often people, who live in horrid surroundings simply stop to care - and stop to care for themselves too.
I ask you, whether you are conscious of that? And do you do it?
I plead for giving beauty a much much bigger part in our lifes. After all, we only have to look at nature, each year it renews itself and each year the blossoms on the trees are breathtaking, like a promise of better times ahead. The cherry tree blooms not "why" but "in spite of".
Sometimes when I wander through a city and see in which appaling environments people have to live - often they do not really "choose" to live in a desolate part of the town - I feel sad. How should the young know what is beautiful and what not? You will say, that this is a luxury problem I am talking about. I don´t think so. We are much more affected than we could imagine by our surroundings.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - ok, right. So, what Gaugin thought beautiful must not be the same thing as Elvis Preslec thought, or Mother Theresa, if you get what I mean.
But then "the eye" can be educated, should be refined and developped. The one who has never seen beautiful things, can recognize them all the same if he has the chance to see them. Look just at all those horribly bad dressed people who wander in silence through a museum like the Louvre in Paris. It is amazing, the need for beauty.
Most probably I am too old fashioned and grew up in an environment, which was much influenced by a multicultural background and some generations of people living with beautiful things. I was taught to look at a lightning and at the stars, to describe what colours the trees had and how to feel a room - so that it was livable, comfortable, a "home" in the best sense of the world. I have relentlessly tried to recreate a beautiful home whereever I was. It is my first love and enduring passion. In an ideal world mine would be the beautiful house in the country...
When we stayed for a short while in India, I was so impressed by the beauty of the people in the streets. What an affluence of beauty I have seen there, nature just totally and regardless throwing beauty around. There is so much beauty and how sad, that it was so often not appreciated, taken for granted.
The same I could say, for example, of the light in Portugal - Lisbonne is a delightful city, with a wonderful light and has one of the most beautiful city centers one can imagine. But then the houses are so often not taken care of - the beauty is there, but not seen, not appreciated?
Is the concept of beauty a question of having the time to stay and stare, to let it be impressed on our mind?
Beauty in people has much to do how they look out of their eyes. Intelligence and benevolence is always beautiful, as is wisdom and calm of heart and mind. The quest for beauty in having a slim figure is only a fad in comparison with this sort of beauty.
A garden is beautiful - wilderness as well as the french garden with its boxhedges and controlled figures. Flowers are always beautiful and rarely flowers of different colours do clash, when they are not meddled with. Who wants blue tulips anyway? The natural is always beautiful, more so if the natural is tamed in a way that we do not see on the first glimpse.
A small child is beautiful - the Kindchenschema, yes I know, big head, big eyes - but then it is the grace of uninhibited and unconsciencious movement, of curiousity and calm in little eyes who sometimes look as they have all the wisdom in the world.
I wonder why there is this necessity to destroy beauty? Pulling down a perfect good house, which needs some elbowgrease and paint to live again and breath, and instead to build something which is agressively and not human? A big black closed cube, without a soul to be seen, uninviting, supermodern (I have nothing against modern!!!!) - the people living there as a mere accessory to the place? Building houses with bathrooms without a window and only 1 squaremeter, kitchens without a window? Hello?? Who can live there??
We all search for beauty, it is in our genetic makeup. If we adorn ourselves, put make up on, cook a nice looking dish, hang that pictures or print on the wall and chose with a lot of care the curtains for the guest bathroom, clean/polish that car and work in the garden - we actively want things to be beautiful. This need of beauty is inherent, but it dies, if not nourished. Often people, who live in horrid surroundings simply stop to care - and stop to care for themselves too.
I ask you, whether you are conscious of that? And do you do it?
I plead for giving beauty a much much bigger part in our lifes. After all, we only have to look at nature, each year it renews itself and each year the blossoms on the trees are breathtaking, like a promise of better times ahead. The cherry tree blooms not "why" but "in spite of".
I feel quite melancholic about that.
Friday 15 April 2011
Erinnerungen an Rilke
 |
| Drawing by Gotthard Montgelas, 2011 |
" Rilke liebte alte Häuser, Einrichtungen und Gärten.
Am Ende seines Lebens plante er einen Rosengarten in seinem kleinen Schlösschen in der Schweiz anzulegen.
Die Zeichnung ist eine Erinnerung an die Welt, die er in seinen Gedichten und Werken geschaffen hat."*
For more information about his drawings and his work have a look at http://www.montgelasbauforschung.de/ and also at http://www.boxgallery.de/ - both based in Regensburg, Germany.
*Translation: "Rilke loved old houses, interiors and gardens. Towards the end of his life he planned a rosegarden at his countryhouse in Switzerland. The drawing is a remembrance to the world he created in his work."
Wednesday 13 April 2011
My favourite Hairdresser in Brussels
Here you see David, the owner and one-man-show in his salon in the most beautiful part of Brussels: the Quartier Brugmann. I found him and his premises by accident, as always. I had an hour on my hand and a terrible need to get my hair done - and I had noticed the facade already several times, passing by: my kind of "Salon"! No loud music, not funky people, no overcrowded population of badly dressed and even worse coiffed women, but a stylish, elegant and kind sort of place. I was lucky and there was a gap right for me, off I went, was most happy with the result and decided to come back for a cut ... And I loved it!
Finally a person who had no need to cut all my hair away, but told me to let it grow - wow!
And, as it happened often enough, I get a horrible haircut (like the one I got some weeks ago at another wellmeaning place and overactive hairdresser) somewhere else, I always rush, with ashes on my head, back to Caryss and leave after an hour of nice conversation and a good cut again as ME.
Lovely!! Mille merci, David!!
Here is the address:
"CARYSS"
Rue Franz Merjay 161 ( right around the corner of Place Brugmann) 1050 Bruxelles
Telefone: 02 375 55 02.
As David works alone, it is absolutely necessary to book well in advance!!!
Friday 8 April 2011
Thursday 7 April 2011
Sprüche, thoughts and pensées
" I´m living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart." E.E.Cummings
"The important thing is to take your time and not get stressed." Diane von Fürstenberg
"Change is the only evidence of life." Evelyn Waugh
"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." André Gide
"Style is a simple way of saying complicated things." Jean Cocteau
"The important thing is to take your time and not get stressed." Diane von Fürstenberg
"Change is the only evidence of life." Evelyn Waugh
"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." André Gide
"Style is a simple way of saying complicated things." Jean Cocteau
Wednesday 6 April 2011
Shoes...
Women and shoes - the despair of men, as it seems. Well, they have other problems. In fact, if a man buys a really good pair of shoes and takes good care of it, it may last him well some 30 years. I speak of Aldens, Church´s etc.etc. Handmade shoes for the gentleman are widely envied, I understand. A powerful sign that "you´ve made it".
We knew it: Life is not fair after all. If a woman runs around in perfectly maintained shoes for 30 years it might be a problem. Or you start to become a style icon yourself. Even the great Diana Vreeland - wearing always the same model of custom-made black shoes - had them substituted regularly for a new pair and did indeed change her style of shoes slightly during the whole of her life. So..
We women do have another approach - we love shoes. Basta. We need shoes.
To be able to buy a pair of really great shoes, let´s say, perhaps the ultimate Manolo Blahniks or some latest newest Roger Vivier´s comes near the feeling of "having made it". But not only: to have a really great pair of shoes on those poor old feet is some sort of a Cinderella moment, just only that you don´t become a pumpkin after taking them off. You step out of one personality, throwing the high heels from your feet and getting in a pair of walking shoes. We all have different aspects of ourselves and different situations in life require very simply different pairs of shoes - that might be a reasonable explanation, why women need more than just "shoes for walking, keeping warm and feel comfortable in"?
And one thing more: shoes have the big advantage that the weight issue does not really impede the aquisition of a wonderful pair of shoes and therefore provide a sudden miracle in the self-estimation. Lovely, difficult word. But you all know what I mean. Allthough I hasten to say, that a great pair in size 41 is more difficult to find than let´s face it, 38. (Sadly the same goes for clothes...)
I love shoes, as I said already, and I am in good company. I know.
One wonders though about the uncomfortability women inflict upon themselves in walking around in 10 inch stilettos. I just can´t imagine, that this makes one feel better, great or especially chic. At least I am not capable of surviving a day running around in high heels, perhaps a genetically inflicted fault in my perception of feeling well.
It just hurts and the way the lady walks is not attractive - in my view.
I ask myself soemtimes, if someone who adores women on breathtakingly high heels is not otherwise someone who would be afraid that the object of desire (i.e.the girl) might run away if wearing a pair of "normal" shoes. So, difficult connotations between sex and shoes....
Perhaps shoes do give us, deep deep down in our subconsciouness, the illusion, that we really are in control, can really dash off, if we want to? "Walk out" on something or someone, "take a step" to somewhere? At least do it in style and not in trainers.
We knew it: Life is not fair after all. If a woman runs around in perfectly maintained shoes for 30 years it might be a problem. Or you start to become a style icon yourself. Even the great Diana Vreeland - wearing always the same model of custom-made black shoes - had them substituted regularly for a new pair and did indeed change her style of shoes slightly during the whole of her life. So..
We women do have another approach - we love shoes. Basta. We need shoes.
To be able to buy a pair of really great shoes, let´s say, perhaps the ultimate Manolo Blahniks or some latest newest Roger Vivier´s comes near the feeling of "having made it". But not only: to have a really great pair of shoes on those poor old feet is some sort of a Cinderella moment, just only that you don´t become a pumpkin after taking them off. You step out of one personality, throwing the high heels from your feet and getting in a pair of walking shoes. We all have different aspects of ourselves and different situations in life require very simply different pairs of shoes - that might be a reasonable explanation, why women need more than just "shoes for walking, keeping warm and feel comfortable in"?
And one thing more: shoes have the big advantage that the weight issue does not really impede the aquisition of a wonderful pair of shoes and therefore provide a sudden miracle in the self-estimation. Lovely, difficult word. But you all know what I mean. Allthough I hasten to say, that a great pair in size 41 is more difficult to find than let´s face it, 38. (Sadly the same goes for clothes...)
I love shoes, as I said already, and I am in good company. I know.
One wonders though about the uncomfortability women inflict upon themselves in walking around in 10 inch stilettos. I just can´t imagine, that this makes one feel better, great or especially chic. At least I am not capable of surviving a day running around in high heels, perhaps a genetically inflicted fault in my perception of feeling well.
It just hurts and the way the lady walks is not attractive - in my view.
I ask myself soemtimes, if someone who adores women on breathtakingly high heels is not otherwise someone who would be afraid that the object of desire (i.e.the girl) might run away if wearing a pair of "normal" shoes. So, difficult connotations between sex and shoes....
Perhaps shoes do give us, deep deep down in our subconsciouness, the illusion, that we really are in control, can really dash off, if we want to? "Walk out" on something or someone, "take a step" to somewhere? At least do it in style and not in trainers.
Monday 4 April 2011
Sunday 3 April 2011
Handbag Dilemma
This is a dilemma - not a really real one, but a dilemma after all: I have to think about it and cannot just move on, doing other, more interesting and urgent things.
I need a new handbag. For the summer; one, which goes with everything (though not for evenings, bien-sure). It should be at ease with a wardrobe in light grey, white, terracotta, some little blue, a lovely olive green and quite a lot if browns, camel and cinnamon. And a bit of black. And white/grey hair. Green/brown eyes.
So, you see, not easy....
For the last weeks, the dilemma has been getting even bigger: My budget and my ideas do live in different space galaxies. At least on the first and second look. I have done some real soul/wardrobe searching and walked around with my eyes wide open in this city of Brussels. Up to now, very diffcult, not really successful.
What do I need? I need a bag with handles - my beautiful slopping Biedermeier Shoulders do not support a bag which hangs on your shoulder. I look like the hunchback of Notre Dame and get definite pain in my back. I need a bag with handles, like the Queen.
Good models: Birkin Bag and some very nice things done by Celine. I immediatedly refer here to the budget dilemma.
I have the form. Now: Which Colour?
I have had for years and years always a summer bag in a "tan" - going very well with white, browns, terracotta and grey. But I feel, that I have to move on - thinking right now about some grey or beige handbag..... But this could be dangerous, I could look within a minute dowdy and frumpy and just "passée".
Perhaps in Patent leather? Bearable, but not really for me, and not easy to pull of. And not really a classic for the next years to come up. I am not rich enough to buy several bags in the next years. So, be clever and buy well.
I have the shoes to consider as well. All the magazines tell us this season, that putting shoes and bags together is boring. Last season it was still ok, if I remember my english Vogue right. I still think it makes my life easier and looks pulled together. The only NO-NO: A white bag with white shoes looks defintively like a first communion outfit, so don´t go near this.
And then, who wants to change every day his handbag? I search for one and for all, going through the summer with me..
A red handbag, you will say! I have one, but in a cherry red, which I love, an old model by " Le Tanneur", of the times when they were not yet back on the market, being revamped. A very nice and good structured bag, then very affordable and still much beloved. It will come out in october to see the autumn season again and go with my black coat and boots. No dark red bag for summer for me.
For the last 20 years I have bought and rebought the classic tote bag made by "Longchamp" - great quality there was to be got for a great price.
But in the last years they have also started to vamp the label up, and out go the structured bags, in comes Kate Moss and the zippers and embellishments, which gives me no desire to possess these bags any more. Also, the quality of the interior has dramatically got worse.
I want a plain, good leather bag, well executed, with preferably a nice interior, affordable, discret, elegant, a bit special all the same and a workhorse to be relied on. I know, this is impossible...
Next week I will be for a day in Paris and will have a close look there. Perhaps I am lucky and some bag simply sits there and waits for me - and I will recognize it the moment I see it. But then, with my genetic ability to always fall instinctively for the most expensive thing in the room, I am doomed from the beginning.
Another problem is still this colour question - greige, beige, grey? Or simply, again good old tan? Dark grey? (Looks good with white, though..) - Any ideas? Any place in Paris to be recommended for the handbagsearcher?
Well. I could also start seriously to save for that Birkin thing, for my 70th birthday. There would be some time still to consider the colour and change my mind. But then, I will have to live for the next ... years out of my already existing handbag collection. And that is not a nice, not a really elevating thought.
I could go on to bore you with the bags I have collected over the years, why, where and when - make even pictures of them and then ask my readers to vote for the "Existing Bag of 2011". But I will do it only, if you ask me to do.
I need a new handbag. For the summer; one, which goes with everything (though not for evenings, bien-sure). It should be at ease with a wardrobe in light grey, white, terracotta, some little blue, a lovely olive green and quite a lot if browns, camel and cinnamon. And a bit of black. And white/grey hair. Green/brown eyes.
So, you see, not easy....
For the last weeks, the dilemma has been getting even bigger: My budget and my ideas do live in different space galaxies. At least on the first and second look. I have done some real soul/wardrobe searching and walked around with my eyes wide open in this city of Brussels. Up to now, very diffcult, not really successful.
What do I need? I need a bag with handles - my beautiful slopping Biedermeier Shoulders do not support a bag which hangs on your shoulder. I look like the hunchback of Notre Dame and get definite pain in my back. I need a bag with handles, like the Queen.
Good models: Birkin Bag and some very nice things done by Celine. I immediatedly refer here to the budget dilemma.
I have the form. Now: Which Colour?
I have had for years and years always a summer bag in a "tan" - going very well with white, browns, terracotta and grey. But I feel, that I have to move on - thinking right now about some grey or beige handbag..... But this could be dangerous, I could look within a minute dowdy and frumpy and just "passée".
Perhaps in Patent leather? Bearable, but not really for me, and not easy to pull of. And not really a classic for the next years to come up. I am not rich enough to buy several bags in the next years. So, be clever and buy well.
I have the shoes to consider as well. All the magazines tell us this season, that putting shoes and bags together is boring. Last season it was still ok, if I remember my english Vogue right. I still think it makes my life easier and looks pulled together. The only NO-NO: A white bag with white shoes looks defintively like a first communion outfit, so don´t go near this.
And then, who wants to change every day his handbag? I search for one and for all, going through the summer with me..
A red handbag, you will say! I have one, but in a cherry red, which I love, an old model by " Le Tanneur", of the times when they were not yet back on the market, being revamped. A very nice and good structured bag, then very affordable and still much beloved. It will come out in october to see the autumn season again and go with my black coat and boots. No dark red bag for summer for me.
For the last 20 years I have bought and rebought the classic tote bag made by "Longchamp" - great quality there was to be got for a great price.
But in the last years they have also started to vamp the label up, and out go the structured bags, in comes Kate Moss and the zippers and embellishments, which gives me no desire to possess these bags any more. Also, the quality of the interior has dramatically got worse.
I want a plain, good leather bag, well executed, with preferably a nice interior, affordable, discret, elegant, a bit special all the same and a workhorse to be relied on. I know, this is impossible...
Next week I will be for a day in Paris and will have a close look there. Perhaps I am lucky and some bag simply sits there and waits for me - and I will recognize it the moment I see it. But then, with my genetic ability to always fall instinctively for the most expensive thing in the room, I am doomed from the beginning.
Another problem is still this colour question - greige, beige, grey? Or simply, again good old tan? Dark grey? (Looks good with white, though..) - Any ideas? Any place in Paris to be recommended for the handbagsearcher?
Well. I could also start seriously to save for that Birkin thing, for my 70th birthday. There would be some time still to consider the colour and change my mind. But then, I will have to live for the next ... years out of my already existing handbag collection. And that is not a nice, not a really elevating thought.
I could go on to bore you with the bags I have collected over the years, why, where and when - make even pictures of them and then ask my readers to vote for the "Existing Bag of 2011". But I will do it only, if you ask me to do.
Friday 1 April 2011
My Favourite English Cookbooks
Forget Nigella. After her latest book, she´s out: it is only a compilation of her recipies taken out of her former books and meddled with a bit. I have read all her books and have cooked some of her food, nice, but then not really mindblowing. And I do not like to get served the same aahs and oohs 54 times again and again.
My children can´t stand her any more - and they are avid viewers of "The Great British Menu" - we all sit religiously every day in front of the telly and watch this 30 minutes - already in our 3rd season.We have favourites and we can judge. Can´t wait, that it starts again - now, in April? Will have to look it up. I even dare to come 5 minutes late for the choir rehearsals in April and May....
As I have already promised, I will be kind and share with you my really really favourite cookbooks - this time the english ones - basically there are three authors and their works. Sorry to say, that they are all women: Anna del Conte, Elizabeth David and Diana Henry.
But this woman thing is pure coincidence. What all three of them have in common is this:
Elizabeth David I discovered in a turkish bookshop in Ankara, 10 years ago, in a box with used old books. It was "A Book of Mediterranean Food" and I enjoyed it so much, that I in time got all her books and have read all of them. I have even read her biography, "Writing at the Kitchen Table" - what an interesting character and what an adventuress she was. What I adore in reading her, is her ability to chat to you - never being pedantic, never tell you what to do, always suggesting and never being too precise on the ingredients - this is possible, and that. No difficult measurements and no fuss. And she loves wine. What else do I need?
Recently there is a compilation of "Her very best everyday recipes" under the title "At Elizabeth David´s Table" - have a look at it, the photographs are delightful and of course, it is again a Penguin Book.
Anna del Conte is italian but has been living in England for most of her life. She writes with so much heart about her memories and love of italian food, that you want to hug her. This is for me the ultimate italian cookbook: "Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes, The Best of Anna del Conte" - alone the title is a hit. No pictures here to wet your appetite, but it is so well written, you learn so much, that it is one of my favourites by far. Cosy and lovable, delicious, most inviting and never ever boring. A great italian Mama.
The youngest of those three Ladies is Diana Henry. The first book I bought from her was a wintery cookbook - "Roast figs sugar snow - food to warm the soul" - and this is exactly what you get. I ordered it simply because the cover was so beautiful - and what a nice surprise it was!! Her cooking is again not haute cuisine, but feasable good food, looking good and tasting even better. I then bought "Cook Simple" and there is a new one, which I have not yet studied, called "Food from Plenty". She is different from the others, as she marries very different sources together - food from Georgia, from the old Austrian Empire, very european indeed, very relaxed.
Good food should be no stress, but a joy. This is a manifesto that more people should write behind their ears...
My children can´t stand her any more - and they are avid viewers of "The Great British Menu" - we all sit religiously every day in front of the telly and watch this 30 minutes - already in our 3rd season.We have favourites and we can judge. Can´t wait, that it starts again - now, in April? Will have to look it up. I even dare to come 5 minutes late for the choir rehearsals in April and May....
As I have already promised, I will be kind and share with you my really really favourite cookbooks - this time the english ones - basically there are three authors and their works. Sorry to say, that they are all women: Anna del Conte, Elizabeth David and Diana Henry.
But this woman thing is pure coincidence. What all three of them have in common is this:
- recipes are simple, never a too difficult ingredient, no need to weigh 12,7 grams of those rare chinese mushrooms you get only in a special market in New York. Here, things are what they are and mostly not too many ingredients are needed.
- all three of them are a tremendous read - best of all, of course, Elizabeth David. I am happy with a cookbook on my lap instead of a newspaper on a lazy saturday morning. Not so many dead people and catastrophies...
- the pictures are lovely and so appetizing, that you would like to throw yourself in your kitchen, put this sleeves up and and get going this instant
- the food is simple, clear, appetizing and do-able, even for such a terribly lazy cook like me.
- the food looks truly beautiful - important for me in any case: it makes want to eat it all!
- no TV shows, not celebrity humdrum about those three ladies - long live the understated professional.
Recently there is a compilation of "Her very best everyday recipes" under the title "At Elizabeth David´s Table" - have a look at it, the photographs are delightful and of course, it is again a Penguin Book.
Anna del Conte is italian but has been living in England for most of her life. She writes with so much heart about her memories and love of italian food, that you want to hug her. This is for me the ultimate italian cookbook: "Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes, The Best of Anna del Conte" - alone the title is a hit. No pictures here to wet your appetite, but it is so well written, you learn so much, that it is one of my favourites by far. Cosy and lovable, delicious, most inviting and never ever boring. A great italian Mama.
The youngest of those three Ladies is Diana Henry. The first book I bought from her was a wintery cookbook - "Roast figs sugar snow - food to warm the soul" - and this is exactly what you get. I ordered it simply because the cover was so beautiful - and what a nice surprise it was!! Her cooking is again not haute cuisine, but feasable good food, looking good and tasting even better. I then bought "Cook Simple" and there is a new one, which I have not yet studied, called "Food from Plenty". She is different from the others, as she marries very different sources together - food from Georgia, from the old Austrian Empire, very european indeed, very relaxed.
Good food should be no stress, but a joy. This is a manifesto that more people should write behind their ears...
Sprüche, thoughts and pensées
"I don´t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one´s aspect of sun." Virginia Woolf
" Be yourself, no matter what they say." Sting
"Glück scheint zum Teilen geschaffen zu sein." Jean Racine
"Zest is the secret of all beauty. There is no beauty that is attractive without zest." Christian Dior
"I tell the truth, as much as I dare - and as I grow older I dare a little more." Michel de Montaigne
"Big girls need big diamonds." Elizabeth Taylor
"Je älter der Freund, umso besser." Plautus
"Eine gute Tat ist immer eine Unvorsichtigkeit" A.
" Be yourself, no matter what they say." Sting
"Glück scheint zum Teilen geschaffen zu sein." Jean Racine
"Zest is the secret of all beauty. There is no beauty that is attractive without zest." Christian Dior
"I tell the truth, as much as I dare - and as I grow older I dare a little more." Michel de Montaigne
"Big girls need big diamonds." Elizabeth Taylor
"Je älter der Freund, umso besser." Plautus
"Eine gute Tat ist immer eine Unvorsichtigkeit" A.
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