One year of The Red Handbag!

Dear all,
I have neglected you terribly, I know.
But there are times in our lives, where we cannot make all wheels spin and turn at the same time. We have to choose and the fleeting time does not always allow to do all we would love to do.

And now, yesterday, if I am right, this blog has had his first birthday. One year already!!!
All began with a flood of postings loads of things which wanted to be shared and thought about.  But then the last months have been rather dry: My scanner broke, the copie machine does not work and the photoapparatus had, when I needed it - no battery. In the evening, I just wanted to fall asleep and during the day, my job keeps me on my toes continuously.  Does this mean something? Perhaps the recognition of priorities indeed. And the knowledge that to be creative, you need the inner freedom and also a certain room in your mind.

Those priorities for the moment are my children and my job - I live in a Bermuda Triangle between Job-Children-Supermarket - literally. Therefore not really much inspiration to be shared with you about "some of my favourite things" - interior decoration, the good life, friendship and most important of all, Beauty. For me, the older I get, beauty in all its different shapes and possibilities is the main force of keep life vibrant and interesting - and I talk about the blue of the sky, the beauty of a child looking at you, the smile on a statue, singing of a Bach kantata, learning new things and the beauty of communication between all human beings of good intentions.
 Beauty is everywhere for us to pick up, for free. Don't forget this....

I go once in a while on the blog and see with tremendous astonishment, that you keep coming back to have a look into these scramblings - which makes me very happy and determined to continue the adventure if time and soul allows so:  I adore to write and it made me much more aware about the things I care.  And why not??

Remember my motto:
The cherry tree does not bloom because, but in spite of.

Well, a Happy New Year!

I know, I have not written a single post in those Christmas Hols - and today I am back to my job.... But I wish us all a very happy and wonderful new year, full of good experiences, good laughters, hope and glory, love and smiles, good health and a load full of plans. Optimism is the word of the moment! Jola

Bernar Venet at home

Merry Christmas to you all!

Dear friends and readers,

quite predictably I am here to wish you all a very happy and merry Christmas and also all the best for the new year 2012 - whereever you are in the world, may it be peaceful and quietly happy.

This year 2011 has been full of new challenges and changes for me personally - more are coming up for the next year, as  moving house, sending a child of to university ( well, let's hope so?), trying for getting a better job,with some more perspectives on the long run,  perhaps and hopefully some nice week-end travelling ( Stockholm? Wien? Lisboa? Paris? Cannes?), hopefully a new musical project, some coming back to charity work, etc. etc. I give up consciously on loosing weight and stopping to smoke. Life is hard enough!

My wish for this new year is to see more of the people who are dear to me and have time to spend with my friends and children. To be more patient and optimistic. To hear more to my inner voice. To laugh more. To have more courage and endeavour  - but where to buy if not to steal?

This Handbag business here has up to now been an adventure. Unfortunately I have right now so little time, that the source is quite dry. But I hope that circumstances will make it well up again and new posts and horrendous opinions will be thrown at you at a more accelerated pace.

And, last but not least, I thank you all for looking into this blog with an amazing steadfast regularity. I am thrilled to find you in all parts of the world - in South and Northamerica there is a growing number as well as regular visits from  China and Australia, the Philippines, South Africa, Oman and India!! The very  constant crowd though is in Europe - Belgium, France, Germany Portugal and Austria are regular visitors. The other day I went to my favourite hairdresser and he told me, that somebody had turned up at his place without knowing me personally, but had read my blog. Is this not great fun?

I am very humbled by this regular crowd who comes and has a look at my ramblings. There are in average 350 clicks every month, sometimes well more, sometimes a little less.
You can imagine, that I like it...

Thank you very much and all the best for the new year,

Jola

Hearing Music LIVE

It is "Christmas Time" again and concerts are showering upon us - the choice is dazzling and even my choir is having its share: one concert yesterday and another tomorrow  here in Brussels. We sing the "Messe en Si" or in german, as it should be, the "H-Moll Messe" by Johann Sebastian Bach. Great fun - and so dependent in its success on our public! Yesterday went well, the church was outsold and some people had no places to sit - I think we did pretty well. Doing a concert is always also question of nerves and the state of mind of the moment. Let us see, what will come out tomorrow!

In my older post about music I mused about the choice hearing music in the best available quality of interpretation and musicians out of the box or hear it, perhaps in lesser quality, live, with your ears, eyes and body.
With so many lovely concerts available I thought once again about this and come to the same conclusion every time. It is simply always a treat and a complete adventure to hear music "live", more adventurous then, to do it oneself. Sometime not for the fainthearted! Once we sang a concert, also in the Minimes, and for at 20 mesures we simply did not sing - but all the 30 people together kept silent, as if directed by a magic force. And we started all together at the most appropriate moment again, which very fitting was the exclamation "My God"! Apparently nobody noticed!! Afterwards great many laughters and also wonder about the fact, that we all did keep silent and nobody made a quack. These are the adventures of having music "done" in the moment....

If you go to a concert it is indeed a multitasking experience. Not only are you going to hear music in a condition, where it is not remixed and worked upon, but comes out and is consumed the moment it is produced. As it is human and made in the moment, it might well be that there is the odd hobble or a wrong tempo or even a false note sneeking in.

Fact is: you have many other people around you, some of them coughing, others talking and shuffling around. There might be a portable shouting out loud or somebody reading a newspaper. Sometimes smelling strongly of perfume or, worse, an used shirt.
Then you have to watch - or you can watch -  the musicians or the single person alone there on the stage. Everybody who has had the experience of being obliged to see a bored orchestra knows what I am talking about.You might even watch one of the soloists taking a little nap during the aria of her collegues ( I am not kidding!).

Last but not least: You cannot go out, if it not pleases you - bad disadvantage of you do like Beethoven, but have to sit through some Stockhausen first.
Actually, I think it is a good education in our impatient and fast world to sometimes sit through music you do think to find awful. Just give it a chance and be open to new stuff....?

But back to the roots:  the advantages are so much bigger: the feeling of communion with your other co- listeners, the immediate reaction of your body to great moments and the loosing  of oneself in the music is an experience you cannot buy or produce alone at home on your sofa. The utter fascination seeing such a star like Cecilia Bartoli wooing and playing the public or the animalic iciness of Philippe Jarousky singing on the top of his voice, or even being lost in tears with John Eliot Gardiner and the Brahms Requiem: Seeing and watching and feeling all together in this magic, immediately lost moments "makes" music. And this is so much more.

The Importance of being Groomed - Messieurs!

Life is unfair, we all know it. Therefore a little bit more fairness here in writing about grooming to you, gentlemen, as well.
When I was writing the post for the girls, it came only naturall to think about the men in our lives, the sons we educate and the friends we have. To be a male in these days is not always easy, we all know it. Therefore here a little support to your cause, to the boys out there.

Actually, it seems, historically seen, that in times past it was much more fun to be a chap.
The old egyptians would use all sorts of delicious oils, mascara and shaving themselves at all possible and unpossible places. The middle ages started with the myth that a real man does not need to be clean - poor ducks, all those women, who had to put up with smelly beards and feet...
Still, in the 17th century somebody like Louis XIV had it all: Not just a great house, nice tapestries, water in the gardens and a lot of lovely and funny women, but he also was using perfumes ( he was highly partial to Jasmin, did you know that? And as a matter of fact, there are still some of his original orange trees alive in the hothouses of todays Versailles...) and high heels and having glorious baths built in Versailles. Using make up was de rigeur for The Gentleman.
After that, right up to 1968, it was normal for a man to be clean and not to offend eyes and noses of their environment. Now, after a short relapse into the hairy world, it looks like, that grooming  "for him" is back.

Today, so tells us the telly, men are once more invited to take care of themselves. This is true, but also with a little twinkle: I do not believe, that the prediction made by a make-up artist last year, that men will start once again to use rouge and real red lipstick, will come true.... OR?

One thing is not to be avoided: men and their washing habits have become a huge industry - but the truth is, there is no secret. It has all to do with cleanliness and cleanliness again.

So, some thoughts, nevertheless.
First things first: we are all lucky to live in circumstances, which allow us to have a regular shower or bath. So please, make it a habit right from the early ages of manhood, to take a shower daily and use a bar of good smelling soap or douchgel. There are marvelous thing out there, and you can find good products in all prize categories, just shop around a bit. If this is the only beautyregime you follow, it is already great and your glamour factor will go up 56%. Cecil Beaton said, that for him glamour in a man is the "Cleanliness, nothing else". And right he is!

I will not come back on the imperative of brushing our teeth twice a day, this will be hopefully so automatic, that you even have to think about this.
But beware: bad breath is a super killer for elegance and good grooming.

If you smoke, please, for our sake, go regulary to the dentist and have your teeth cleaned. Who wants to kiss a man who smells of cigars or cigarettes? Many a man has lost his credits with bad breath - and it is so easy to do something against it, like drinking much more water ( very often bad breath has something to do with being dehydrated), having a little package of mints in your jacket and/or once in a while brushing your teeth during the day in the washroom of your office. Eating regularly enough is also a good idea...
Bad breath is a great and difficult theme to talk about, there fore it is much easier if I write it here and you just think about it.

Another not negotiable Fact: To wash your hair regulary. One is amazed, if you start to look around clean, shining hair makes all the difference - over all ages. Especially, if you like to wear your hair long, which can be lovely! But if you have long locks, then you have to take care of them. Nothing more revolting than long and dirty hair on a man - brrr! 
On the other hand I cannot understand this fashion of shaving off  a head completedly - I mean, if this is not a sort of political statement or something else, why would you??. It is simply not attractive and the economies you make on  time, shampoos and water is a joke. If your hair thins, then let it be thin, take good care of it and don' t go bald on a voluntary basis. Please.

A real big no-no for a gentleman is dying one' s hair. A man who needs to colour his hair is always suspect - sorry to be so blunt, but here it is. The mixture between Sugar Daddy and pimp comes immediately to the mind of every well educted woman.
If you have white hair, go to the hairdresser and have one of those treatments, which take the yellow shimmer out of white hair - by all means. White hair that is clean and shimmering is a great asset indeed.

Speaking of hair: please please take care of the woody hairs growing in your ears and nose as you grow older - do cut and trim them. Every good barbershop will do this for you at your regular cut. Another major sin: not having a haircut regularly done...And a welltrimmed beard, if it has to be, is neccessarily also a clean beard, which is smelling good and is soft and does not remind people coming in nearer contact with a bushy wildernis with a life of its own...

It is no shame to use some bodylotion on those very dry legs or arms. Please take care of your fingernails  - this comes without saying: not long and clean. All you need is soap, water and a brush. Nothing else. And toenails..... no need to put vernis on, but file them and clean them regularly. Especially the feet suffer quite often. It has never been presumed  that you are a coward  if you will have a pedicure once in a while and take care to slap some cream or oil on those poor old feet as well. Rather on the contrary. Many a loving relationship found its sudden death in poorly maintained feet and their toenails...

Using a good after shave is today quite normal. Even better, when it is discreet and not shouting out loud all over the chef-etage...

And last but not least: having not only clean underwear and socks, but also a clean shirt, which has made some aquaintance with an iron is helpful, as is a jacket, which is not smelling of the pub you spent the evening before or  which is sprinkeled with a lovely coat of whitish dandruff. 
If you get also your shoes right - (so lucky, you do not NEED so many variety as we do and can use shoes for 20 years, if they are well made..)  and clean them properly, than only more thing to be a real gentleman is only one: a wonderful smelling and clean and ironed cotton hankerchief. In case you have to console a weeping princess somewhere.


Fazit: Especially as we all grow older, good or bad mother nature is kinder to you, gentlemen, than she is to us. Most men, when well taken care of and discreetly groomed, are looking better with age. So, take advantage of this unfair fact and give us the pleasure to be proud of you.  Though it is really unfair, that an embonpoint and white hair give you more glamour than it offers for us poor women. For you, gentlemen, the silverfox existence means experience, wisdom and very often also financial security. For us girls it looks simply equal for old age. Mostly.

!

Some thoughts about fashion magazines

What would we do without fashion magazines?
We would be at a complete loss: not the faintest idea what happens in Paris, in London, in Milano and in New York. Full blown catastrophy: So essential to be informed!

Who would be otherwise so easily convinced, that painting your nails in a shade remembering more the glibber of a corpse in stagnat water than of a supposedly embellishing colour, is the utmost of stylishness, if you would not have seen it in all the major papers?
The hold those pages have over us - we all wait for the autumn issues of our favourite fashion magazines with the same impatience as we wait for school to begin again in september - to unveil all the secrets and must-have´s, do´s and dont´s of the upcoming season fall/winter. And every year it is the same stuff we see, the same counsel we take and the same ridiciulous readiness to believe it all.

By browsing for a first "overview" through this years paper harvest I had the distinct feeling once again, perhaps never so clearly expressed, of wondering, WHY do I read that stuff anyhow? Why do I look at those pictures of beautiful and heavily retouched young girls, in outrageous wardrobes, far away from my metro station and lunch cantine?

You will say, that this exactly is the appeal and magic of a good ( and I say good!) fashion magazin - it should make us dream and get creative about who we want to be and also the way we present ourselves to the outer world. (Ok, not very philosophical or intellectual, but then normally intellectuals are rarely well turned out.) It is meant to be an inspiration to the masses. An incentive to go out hunting for a little glamour at Zara´s - where you find the copies of all great inventions boiled down to wearability and affordable prices. A sacrifice on the altar of consumerism: the quality is bad, you throw it out after wearing 4 times and hop, off a new circle starts and our economy is happy and well.  Yesterday I went with my daughter to H&M and, I tell you, the place was buzzing. No crisis in sight, far from it.

Fair enough - let us not discuss this - it is obvious.Everyone of the people there hunting for some style and glamour, all on remote control of the imense fashion machine. Why would those magazines otherwise have such a hugh editorial number and be big bussiness? Why would I buy them all the same?

But to come back to my train of thought: How many times have I laid down a magazine - happens particularly often with french Vogue, which I do not even bother any longer to buy once in a while, so much it gets on  my nerves - with the distinct feeling of looking at a Bilderbuch for big girls, with no what so ever relation to my reality: the way I live, I look, I dream, I think,  I eat, I work - the environment I live in etc etc pp.  Said French Vogue is, in my personal dowdy view, so disconnected from reality  - and I believe also from french reality - that they miss the point totally.

Another interesting fact: For the last 20 years, models have been all about 15 years old and heavily underweight. Now, apparently there is a  new crop of Supermodels out there, in their glamourous 50ies,  selling us the fact, that 50 is the new 30. Hurray!
Just think about the huge  potential group of buyers with well equiped purses and the time at their hands to go out and shop indeed. At least, the beloved glossy pages make us normal people believe, that they do so. And off we go and buy the copie of the copie of the copie of that Galliano dress, which would not be recognizable to all but the insiders of the fashion industry. ( Remember the cool drydown Meryl Streep gave the newcomer Anne Hathaway about the colour "blue" in The Devil wears Prada?)


But to keep things straight: I love to read them all the same - my favourites being English Vogue and american Harper's Bazaar.
The magazines are a lifeline to glamour and an ideal projection of personage.  All of a sudden we are not mothers and cooks and drivers and secretaries and  but all in the grasp of becoming the next grace Kelly and it seems all right and only natural that the Valentino dress for 8000 £ is for us...
So even if we cannot wear almost nothing of the things we see, we go on buying the next issue and will read with utmost interest what is the latest in make-up and fashion for the upcoming season.
 And then go out and do as we like anyway.

As I said, information is all and  the query as old as humanity: Which fur is it this year Darling, Mamut or Seal?

Why I love Autumns

Finally it is autumn - even on the chance to repeat myself: it is my favourite season.
Not only are the days cooler and the skies bluer, the air clearer and the the promise of Christmas coming up, but there is some promise in the air of cosy days and a fire lit at home in the evening.

I always loved this time of year, already as a child. The colours of  the trees, the huge loads of fallen leafs we had to take care of in our garden at home, when all the family was out and about and we had a lot of fun. One of my brothers made huge tents, like indian tippies, where we could hide and play; my other brother threw my little brother and me into the huge mountains of freshly gathered leaves, us shrieking with pleasure. The smell of the freshly worked fields in the countryside. The smell of fresh apples in the cellar, stored there for the winter. The first autumn fog between the trees in the morning, the sun shining through the countless spidernets, glittering with dew. I loved this and miss it a lot in my urban existence.

A propos urban existence: October is also the ideal month for travelling - for example to the lovely and wonderful cities in Europe. Ever been to Venice in october or november? There is a tip, go there! You will love it. Almost no tourists, heavenly weather - not too hot, but sunny, all those stylish and beautifully dressed natives, empty shops and museums and the good small restaurants in the sideways producing the best food you can imagine. Or take Munich - ok, I bore you. Vienna? Great in autumn, I can assure you.  Ever tried Prague? Warzaw? Lisbon? Rome? Stockholm? All you need is a blue sky, slightly fresh temperatures and good company. Well, you get what I mean. On top of all this, the theater is open with the new seasons' programm and most cinemas show the latest films. Go there in the late afternoon and come out again when the day is getting small, buy yourself some maroni and a glas of white wine and prepare for a cosy evening in a good restaurant. Just an idea.

Speaking of travelling: The best season for serious shopping is also the autunm. Choice is abundant,  the weather helps to think about being "dressed" again: finally we can  admit, that elegance is only achievable when you put  clothes ON the body. Being really elegant half-naked in summer, is very very difficult and on the verge of exstinction....
Blessed opaque thights are de rigeur and also a good and wellcut jacket  now comes into its own right. Wonderful cashmere turtle necks will help you throught all the  hours of the day, dressed up or down from 6 am to 6 pm. A pair of chic boots does wonders for elgegance and your mood. In short: The Onion Look is a good one for the differing temperatures outside: just peel on and off what ever you need, to feel warm and stylish.