Exhibtion roundup - Paris & St. Gallen

Before they're all over again, I guess I should make a quick round-up of great exhibitions I've seen lately or will hopefully see soon!

Paris
La mécanique des dessous, Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris
One more gorgeous fashion exhibtion by this museum! The focus is on the workings of undergarments that will shape your body in one way or another. It starts with a few pieces of the 16th century and then goes right through to modern times. Modern reproductions show how they work "mecanically". Lots of things I've never seen before anywhere else. There's also a big book, but it's in French only and there's a lot of text to read, so buying it is I think only worth it if your French is good enough to understand all those technical terms.

Azzedine Alaïa, Palais Galliera, Paris
The Galliera is the fashion museum of the city of Paris, which only opens for special exhibition, there is no constant collection on show. This one was well worth the money. I wasn't overly familiar with Alaïa before, and I did not like everything there, but it was well presented, nothing behind glass, the incredible Haute Couture workmanship was well visible - and there were some outfits worn by the likes of Tina Turner and Grace Jones in there as well!

Virgule, etc., Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Just a hop, skip and jump across the road from the magnificent Palais Galliera is the modernistic Palais de Tokyo. It's currently under renovation and doesn't look very inviting, but this exhbition is free and every shoe lover's dream! On show are about 140 shoe and boot designs by Roger Vivier from the 1930s til today. Ok, the modern stuff isn't too exciting in my view, but the vintage designs are mind-blowing. Those delicate, elegant, sequinned evening shoes he did for Dior are the most amazing shoes I've ever seen!

Jordaens 1593-1678 La gloire d'Anvers, Petit Palais, Paris
Something for the art fans out there. Though he never made it to quite the fame (at least today) as his contemporaries like van Dyck or Rubens, this Flemish painter was in his time just as well-known, and there are a lot of great paintings by him to be seen. What I found even more impressive though were his drawings and sketches - these quickly, but so accurately drawn pictures are absolute masterpieces!

St. Gallen
Lisbeth & Robert J. Schläpfer Textile Innovationen 1965-1995, Textilmuseum, St. Gallen
This one I have to see yet but I am sure it's a excellent as all the other exhibition I've seen at this museum so far. Companies like Schläpfer and Forster Rohner took the textile production in St. Gallen, that started with linen and came to the famous lace, to a whole new level. Their amazing machine-made embroidered, lacey and otherwise unsual fabrics are what you see on Paris runways. Schläpfer specialised in embroideries with sequins, Swarovski crystals and such. This exibition shows what incredible innovations and ideas they came up with under the aegis of Lisbeth and Robert Schläpfer. There should also be dresses on view that were made by their in-house seamstress to showcase their fabrics.

Just a quick one for the weekend...

If you're interested, I'm now also to be found at Pinterest... still putting my boards together, but I'm getting there: http://www.pinterest.com/karinmarty/

In case you're looking for a good book on 60s fashion, there's a new one coming out from Jonathan Walford - highly recommendable: http://astore.amazon.com/thevinfasgui-20/detail/0500516936

Speaking of 60s... here's a neat new way of doing a fashion show - and it's very, very 60s inspired too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY3qQ8QQUjw

I've been to Vienna again last week and managed to find a really neat and versatile little ca. early 60s dress:

Just a year before the 60s... in 1959 is the TV series "Magic City" set. SRF 2 TV has started to show it, as usual with the possibility to watch in English. Okay, it looks good at first glance, and Olga Kurylenko is beautiful, but I have spotted so many cringe-inducing costuming errors already... so don't watch it for that. The plot is about a hotel owner in Miami Beach and his tie-ups with the mafia etc. I don't know if I'll keep watching just because of that to be honest... as said, the costuming is shaky. Some of it is quite good, others... all bras, bikini tops etc. are the wrong shape. And there are push-ups involved (grrr), too-skimpy, modern-looking bikinis, wrong shoes... Yes, yes, details, but distracting details! Mad Men isn't error-free either, I give you that, but it's still a lot better than this.

Also in Vienna we came across an excellent gallery, Printa, that lots of interesting things on sale: https://www.facebook.com/PrintaWien What we liked most were these wonderful big silk screen art prints, like for example by finnish artist Lotta Nieminen. Check out her illustration work!

Cultural roundup - and scent of something different...

So, after the holiday that didn't quite go as planned, my first business trip in my new position and other stuff, I'm finally getting around to taking care of a few things. So while the hair dye is doing it's job on my head, I'm taking the time to write a quick entry here, just a roundup of random things.

Not much happening in my little vintage fashion world lately, but I have just received yet another comment on my Story of a scarf entry, which is kinda incredible. It seems Fisba scarves have made it all over the world, and there is not much information around in this whole wide WWW...

Also, I have a pile of vintage doll outfits and pretty Sindy dolls on my table, all waiting to be restored, identified, blogged etc. This is the result of a cosy afternoon spent with a good friend. Whenever I think that my doll collection is probably not going to be growing a lot anymore... a doll or two come from somewhere ;-). Well, this will keep me occupied over Easter I am sure. Sindy dolls are pretty good restoration objects - they usually clean up quite surprisingly well, so I will certainly blog some pics of the process here.

There are lots of interesting exhibtions on all around, so I had better make sure that I still get those for which I haven't yet planned a visit. I have already seen the "Winter Tales" exhibition at Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum last autumn, but now the exhibtion has moved on to the Kunsthaus here in Zurich (minus the Breughels of course - I would have been very surprised indeed if they would have let them go anywhere...). The Rietberg Museum has an interesting exhibition on African art on, which will certainly be well worth a visit too! The Landesmuseum meanwhile is still showing press photographs since 1940, which I think would be interesting to see too. And finally, just starting, is an exhibition on Renoir's early years at the Kunstmuseum in Basel, which I certainly don't want to miss.

At least I've been able to catch up on my "missed it at the cinema" list on the plane. Loved "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and can only recommend it to anybody! "Tintin" was lotsa fun and certainly well made. La Castafiore made quite the entrance! They have captured her like none of the cartoons ever could! Being warned that animation films that are mostly geared towards kids (but contain the kind of humour that adults enjoy at least as much) usually show up on cinema screens here in English for a week or two, and then are being shown only in German anymore, I trekked across town yesterday to see "The Pirates! Band of Misfits!". Great fun. Don't believe a thing in bad critics you read, it's lots of fun, and the jokes and the humour are often in the details. I have to admit though, this one probably has more laughs for adults in the end - so I'm not sure that the little kids in the cinema yesterday really enjoyed it that much or that the film company is doing the right thing by it by marketing it towards smaller kids, and seemingly not putting an age limit on it...

I admit to being one of those persons who always takes the little amenity items at hotels with her - like the little shampoos, shower gels, soaps etc. Why? Well, I paid for the room, I might as well... ;-) and sometimes, depending on the hotel, you get really nice stuff - like Pure Fiji or L'Occitane. Why not enjoy it. Okay, some of the standard stuff that mid-range hotels have really isn't very exciting, but every now and then there's a really pleasant product between all the other ones (like the stuff the Great Divide Lodge in Breckenridge has). Or hotels have their own brands with interesting stuff. I like scents and differently scented toiletries, so this too is a way to try interesting stuff. Be it perfumes, body lotions, shower gels or whatever, my taste tends to veer more to the spicy, tangy or "unusual" smells. Fruity and/or flowery, is with a few exceptions (like Pure Fiji's Starfruit Infusion products or Lauder's classic Pleasures scent, my summer perfume) less my thing. So I revel in all the L'Occitane stuff that I can get my hands on, I admit. Love that "fresh" scent. A friend had small toiletries from Hermès' Eau d'Orange Verte. Heavenly! This puts anything you've ever smelled that's supposed to smell of oranges in the shade. This isn't sweet, it's tangy and spicy and fairly strong, but utterly gorgeous. I guess it would be nice as a cologne for summer, but it's just as expensive as my "winter perfume" L'Heure Bleue. Yes, of course I alway pick the most expensive stuff! Getting even a little more unusual, the Hyatt hotels' own spa brand has "White Ginger" scented amenties - and boy, do they smell of ginger! But nicely. Too bad there was, this being typically American, no shower gel (but a soap instead). Just imagining what that would be like... on a really hot summer's day, that's what I'd like to have! Reminds me of ginger beer... nothing nicer to revive one's spirits by drinking on a really hot day... And if you ever needed anything to get you going in the morning, Yves Rocher actually has a coffee-bean scented shower gel. Not kidding. It's actually quite nice ;-). Having received a giftset of fabulous Weleda bath essences with natural scents for my birthday, I've also been spending lots of time in my bathtub lately. They're all gorgeous, and they smell actually the way they should smell - not artificial, but "real". My first try was the wild rose essence, that was just gorgeous. It smelled just like real roses and didn't lose the smell as long as my bath took. This morning I went for citrus, which is to me a bit unusual for a bath but it was beautiful. Rosemary was nice, kinda spicy, chestnut was unusual, but did it's job... now left are the two relaxing ones, lavender and fir tree, but I've not had a real reason to try them so far. Still, can't wait to try!

Monet & the indian summer

Having a week's holiday at home, I decided to use the time to its best and do a few things that I usually don't have the time to - at least not on a weekday.

Top of my list was the Monet exhibition at the Fondation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny. It's a 3-hour train ride here from Zurich, so usually the only time to go is on a weekend. The problem is just, with the high-profile exhibitions they like to mount, publicity for them is everywhere, and everybody goes. Especially if our national train company also puts up a specials including fare and entrance fees. I admit, they get some of the best things down there, but I know what it is like when it gets crowded, so any way to avoid that is good. Leaving the grey, foggy Mittelland behind me, the sun came out just before the train went through the new Lötschberg tunnel, and was out in full force when the train left the tunnel after 34 kilometers and almost 20 minutes in the dark (what an experience, by the way). I arrived in Martigny just before 10 a.m. - and not a minute too late to see the exhibition without too big a crowd. With 70 works from the Musée Marmottan in Paris, from private collections (that is almost the most interesting, because these are a rare sight to be seen in public) and from Swiss museums in Zurich, Basel, Berne, Lausanne and Geneva, this was quite a show. It was beautifully lit, bringing out the incredibly brilliant colors in the vibrant paintings, and also showing the less colorful scenes to their best. My problem with the exhibition is just - the exhibition space they have is actually not enough for 70 paintings this size! It's a simple square inside this 70s building, with tiny niches in the corners. These niches get crowded when there's 3 people in there, and barely give one enough space to step away far enough to really see the paintings, unless they're very small. Monet paintings are best viewed from a distance, and the people at this museum should know that - it's not their first Monet/impressionist exhibition by far! In some places, there are also short walls opposite the all-around all where most of the paintings hang. These walls were hung with paintings too (they were generally hung extremely tightly - never seen quite anything like this before!), so there to is not enough space to step away from them. So, basically, with a good crowd, there is no way to really appreciate these paintings, because there will always be someone standing in your way! It really is too bad, because the paintings are spectacular. I have definitely found some new favourites. One certainly was "La neige à Argenteuil" with its pale glowing winter sun (that glow seriously reminded me of some Turner paintings that have the same quality). Another one was his "Route près de Giverny" (colors are much more brilliant in the original - he actually used a lot of pinks in this one), as well as two paintings of cliffs in foggy weather - "Falaises, temps gris" and "Mauvais temps, Pourville". The effect of the last two is just stunning. The colors are so delicate, and it feels so "real" looking at them. Sadly, and reproduction in print or on the internet can never do these justice. The second and third from top on the exhibition's web page are also absolutely gorgeous in reality. There were also some nymphéas or river theme paintings that I hadn't seen before and which seemed different from the best-known ones, which I thought were fascinating, like this one. I am definitely very glad to have gone there, and somehome I feel I have had a "fresh" look at Monet, seeing not just well-known paintings but to the best part ones that I had never seen before. What really struck me was the brilliance of the colors, and the light in some them. Again and again these are things that draw me to certain painters and paintings.
There was also a small side exhibition with japanese wood block prints from Monet's personal collection. They were just gorgeous too.

So I finished just before noon, having even take the time on the stroll through town to the museum, to visit the roman amphitheater.
The Fondation Gianadda also holds a permanent exhibition of roman artefacts and the roman history of the place. Ruins that have been excavated can be seen all over the town. Situated in a small sunny plain surrounded by mountains, and at a crossroads (which it still is today - the roads south of Martigny lead either to the Great St. Bernhard and Aosta/Italy or to Chamonix/France and the region of the Mont Blanc), it was probably seen as the ideal place to build a fort and and all that went with it.
Anyway, as the weather was still as sunny and beautiful and the air was just getting warmer, I decided that I had rather spend my time exploring some more and putting my day-ticket to full use, which I could use on almost every train in this country for a whole day. Only Martigny isn't quite the place to be... lots of architectural sins from the 60s and 70s and a general feeling of drabness in most places... except a short stretch on its main street, which really is pleasant:
Ater asking at the train station for suggestions, where they looked at me as if I had asked for the moon, I finally figured the solution out myself. On I went by regional train to Montreux, which is a different from the region that I had just come from as it could possibly be... glamourous, also a bit touristy, and that feeling as if one was on the French Riviera somewhere (the temperatures were like that too!). I had some time to spare for a walk along the promenade on Lake Geneva, and to have an ice cream.
And then, I was off on the GoldenPass train from Montreux to Zweisimmen. They have modern panoramic wagons, but also one Classic Train, which has older wagons done up in 1930s Pullman-style - just gorgeous:
... and this is "only" second class! Anyway, this narrow gauge train first winds up along the mountain above Montreux (which you see on the right side on the picture above), through countless vineyards and giving an incredible view of Montreux and the lake. Then it passes through a tunnel, and comes out in what seems to be a wholly different world! First it's the Pays d'Enhaut, green, mountainous, with sleepy small villages, and then passing on to a wider valley, the language changes from French to German from one village to another, in Saanen there seems to be a cow-auction or something like that near the train station (and these cows all still have their respect-inducing horns - not like down here!), and soon follows glamorous Gstaad and the small villages that belong to it, and again the train climbs up and dips down again into Zweisimmen, where the train has to be changed. From here on, the trains run on normal gauge again, towards Spiez and on to Interlaken. There's a whiff of manure in the air at the train station there, making sure you won't forget that you're still "in the country". From here, the ride was one flash-back after another from me. The new seats in the wagon couldn't hide how antiquated it actually was - one visit to the bathroom assured that. They used to have these funny containers with soap powder, and you had to turn a wheel at the bottom so the powder would drizzle in your hand. Once, as a small kid, me and an older girl once probably emptied one of those more or less on another regional train up another mountain valley. Our game was to "clean the sink"... Then there were the church towers, all built in the same distinctive way which seems to be particular to this region. It looked the same like the one in Spiez, where my grandparents once lived and which I remember well from the times I stayed with them on holidays. Only I had never noticed before that this must be a regional tradition. Of course you don't notice this as a kid (and the last time that I think I did this train ride, I was too small to remember it even now). And the scenery - I then remembered that this must have been where my grandparents once took me up by car - just a sunny summer afternoon excursion. Only we didn't take grandpa's usual car (a then already unusual 1970's Triumph that looked harmless but had quite a motor), but "Hueschti", the car that coughed. No kidding. It might have been a Triumph too, can't say for sure, it was white too, but it didn't have dowdy black and beige fabric seat covers of his usual car, but the seats were covered in dark red leather! It usually stayed in the garage and rarely got an outing. I can't remember why we took it on that particular day - but we did, and that just added to the fun. As I said, the car "coughed", hence it's name. I can't possibly say what it's problem was, but every now and then it would make a move and a sound that would feel like it coughed. Maybe it wasn't overly save even to drive a car like that, but to me as a kid it was just plain fun. And we certainly didn't take it very far.
So that's for the trip down memory lane. In Spiez, the intercity train back to Zurich already waited on the other side of the platform, and so I was off on the way back home. What an enjoyable day! If it hadn't been for the trees already turning colors, one could have though it was still summer. But like this, it felt a little bit "Indian Summer"-like, at least after leaving Montreux.

And if you feel like the Indian Summer too now, check out the VFG's latest Etsy treasury, which also features this theme!

Scarf of the month - April, new stuff on Etsy & Segantini

Thankfully, I have a week off work - it's been less bizzy lately, but somehow things keep piling up! Anyway, first this month of course is the scarf!

This time, a beautiful dark green one with an interesting pattern:

Furthermore, I cleaned my closet out on Sunday. The weather has been exceptionally beautiful and warm lately, so it was about time I did this. Have once again been surprised how much stuff I have! About two trash bags full of stuff was the net worth of both summer and winter wear of my cleaning action. One bag full is waiting to be taken to the Caritas shop around the corner. A great deal sadly was in no condition to go to next good home... talk about t-shirts with staining under the arm. It's a sad fact, no matter what deodorant you buy, it still happens! A few things though have already gone for sale. I love wild, bold poly garments from the 60s and 70s, but maxi dresses are not really my thing, and poly is definitely not my fabric of choice for hot summer days, which is why I'm parting with a few things that I have just put in my Etsy shop. Here's a little teaser:

Taking advantage of having a few days off, I also managed to visit the Giovanni Segantini exhibiton at the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen by Basel. He might not be everyone's kettle of fish, but I find his later style (though not that of his last paintings) extremely interesting. I'm not much a fan of those paintings that seem to have symbolist theme either, but their style is hypnotising. His huge landscapes have a 3D-quality to them that I know of no other painter. And somehow, these scenes of every day life in the mountains seem less kitsch than what other painters have brought to their canvases. His very early paintings, of which I have never seen any before, and some of which show scenes from Venice, are quite interesting too, though they clearly show the artist who hasn't yet found his unique style.

Christmas presents, a scarf a month, pirate silk & the laugh of the day

So, time focus on those Christmas presents for a bit. This year, there were two beautiful pins and a retro-style dress clip in for me... and a very interesting and informative book about advertising posters in Vienna in the 1950s ("50er - Plakate aus der Sammlung der Wienbibliothek"). Sound boring? It ain't! There are many well-designed posters, but there is also quite a bit of text to ready about life & society in post-WWII-Vienna, and a thought-provoking look at how some poster designers clearly borrowed from or picked up pre-war or even war-time design ideas...



One other very special pressie reached me from Vienna - the all-year-long-present! It's a pile of twelve differently-wrapped pressies, each marked with a month, and held together with a ribbon.
The idea? Of course, there's one to be opened each month! Well, curiosity killed the cat or whatever they say - I allowed myself to open the first one already now, and I promise I shall open the other ones when I should - and I will blog them, so stay tuned! The first one is a pretty combination of reds and pinks - very becoming.

Since it will be open only until the 13th of February anymore, mom and I visited the "Soie Pirate" exhibition at the Landesmuseum (Swiss National Museum) today. Turns out - today was get-in-for-free-day too! Well, lucky us! The exhibition was built around the Abraham fabric trading company's archive, which was given to the museum some two years ago. First, there's a quick re-telling of the company history, but then it's first and foremost about the fabrics. It seems that also the archive is most about fabrics - books and books of fabric samples, old 19th century sample books from Lyon that served as inspiration-givers, and so-called scrap books. From 1955 onwards, books upon books were meticulously filled with magazine cuttings from every possible fashion magazines showing clothes made from Abraham fabrics. While the archive seem to be thin on actual company papers and actual history, they seem to contain everything there is when it comes to the fabrics. Furthermore, the company each year kept a roll of 4 meters of their "best" fabrics - so there were plenty of fabrics that could be displayed in all their glory. Among their main or most faithful clients were Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy and Balenciaga, so there were also a couple dresses on display from these three designers (and not behind glass - whoopeee!). One of the best parts also was seeing the actual fabric, and the pictures of the Haute Couture outfits made from them. On the exhibition's German website, there is a short video too, which shows a bit of the exhibition.

The Landesmuseum has also published two books to go with the exhibition. One is strictly on the company's history, the other one features just a short introduction and then focuses solely on 100 of their best designs - pure eye-candy! Although the books don't come cheap at CHF 69 each, I think it's a good idea and they certainly were beautifully made. Someone like me who is most interested in pictures can opt to buy only the second book. It goes by a simple principle - it's done chronologically, and the right page always shows the fabric (mentioning also name, year and material), while the left shows either a big photo of one Haute Couture design made from it, or pages and details from the scrap books which feature a dress (or sometimes even two different ones) made from that fabric.

Of course I realised that a lot of the clothes that I saw in the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition in Montreal in September 2008 must have been made from Abraham fabrics. In fact, I even recognised a fabric or two - or pictures of actual outfits (if you click on the exhibtion's link - for example, the black-and-white dotted dress with the big hat). At home I picked up the exhibition catalog, and lo and behold, it actually mentions who by the fabrics were for each design shown! And yes, Abraham does feature a lot (btw - of course Schlaepfer is there too - they were featured amongst others at the Landesmuseum's Bling Bling exhibition a few years ago). Ok, so there's a dress that I saw in the exhibition, in the book, YSL's sketch of it is shown, where a small swatch of the fabric is tacked to the sketch. In the exhibition today, I saw the 4-meter "leftover" of the self same fabric displayed - and the Landesmuseum's book, the dress is shown in an original color photo.
How cool is that? On some of the sketches shown in the book, he actually wrote "Abraham no. ....." on it, as an instruction which fabric was to be used.

Being who I am, slightly OCD on finding the "connection" between things, I grabbed my October 1958 edition of "Elegante Welt" - I guess this must have been Germany's first and foremost fashion magazine at the time, showing all the latest Haute Couture goodies. I had noticed that the scrap books shown in the exhibition often showed cuttings from this magazine, and I remembered that my edition showed the latest from the Paris winter collections, mostly the latest from Christian Dior - one of the first collections by the young Yves Saint Laurent actually. The photo of this outfit actually mentions the fabrics being by Abraham:
And the dress on top here actually turns up in a tiny shot on the scrap book page above too - no doubt this is all from the same collection:The magazine also shows a Balenciaga dress, that is obviously being modeled by the same model as in the Dior dress on the bottom left of the scrap book page - and with the same props that turn up in the smaller shots just above...
I admit, I like seeing things "come together" like this. I'm also still trying to find the painting that's on the prop stand. The scrap book shot shows it relatively clearly, though small - it looks like the 15th century portrait of a woman wearing a hennin, and somehow it feels familiar. I wouldn't be surprised if I found it in one of my many art books!

After all the "heavy research", I took a detour to a blog that sounded fun - Smart Bitches Trashy Books. Those who know me well know that I'm an unapologetic reader of (historical only) romance novels ever since my teens. I will read almost anything from Dickens to Clancy, but every now and then, my brain needs some sugar too, just like my taste buds. My taste buds get chocolate, my brain gets romance novels. Nothing better to read on a long flight, when I'm sick, when life generally sucks (sorry!), or when I've read something rather "heavy" like the latest by Steven Booth or the biography of Sir Richard Burton (not the actor - the other one!), just to air out my brain. Let's be honest, we all need a good, soppy happy ending every now and then! Anyway, the blog is about all kinds of romance novels, and the ladies there love straight talkin' which I like. And they provided my biggest laugh today - this post on a romance whose title already sounds completely ridiculous (honestly, I would have thought that in today's world, a title as bad as "The Playboy Sheikh's Virgin Stable Girl" could only exist in cliché!) had me in stitches. Click on "more more more..." at the bottom and read all about the "complete tool". Geee, I'm starting to laugh again even while writing this!

Karin

Creativity...

I think sometimes - what would all these incredibly creative people out there (especially those on a small budget) do without the internet?

It's incredible what one finds... sometimes I stumble upon something on Etsy, sometimes I get sent a link or quite literally one thing leads to another.

Today's Etsy newsletter didn't have an exact theme - it was in fact a colorful mix of all sorts of creative things. One thing sprang to my eye immediately: Margaux Lange and her Re-membering Barbie Fondly jewelery. There's more, and even more incredible stuff, on her website as well. As much as I am a Barbie doll collector and love my dolls to bits, I have nothing against people who find other creative uses for dolls. And I think her saying "re-membering Barbie fondly" shows a love for our gal too. Margaux gives her a new "life" as jewelery that will be cherished to by the owner, whilst I sometimes give played-with old dolls a new life by way giving them a makeover or at least cleaning them up and re-doing their hair etc. (which is something I really, really love to do). Seeing this jewelery also reminded me of an exhibition a few years ago at the Froschlocke art gallery here in Zurich. They had all kinds of works made from or inspired by Barbie doll(s) from several artists. There was jewelery too - charm bracelets with Barbie shoes, a cigar cutter made out of Ken's butt, or loose Barbie legs packaged like meat in the supermarket. A bit of digging unearthed a few pictures that I took then:

The "Barbie-Q"

I had fun there and a good laugh at the ideas some people have about what one could do with a Barbie doll. And yes, of course some of these people have also thought about how they see Barbie, or about things like materialism, body-image and so on, while other things were just plain tongue-in-cheek. Whatever. It was interesting, funny, inspiring - I have no problem with this.

Further browsing in the "archive" of my time as editor of the Fashion Doll Club Switzerland's archive also led me to the photos of the works by the Austrian artist Andrea Holzinger, whose exhibition I visited in Vienna in May 2003 (I reported on it in the same issue as on the Froschlocke exhibition). She did a series of photo-realistic oil paintings of Barbie dolls and accessories. My ultra-favourite was this very colorful, very pop-artsy (and, sadly, very huge and way beyond my budget) painting:
Isn't it gorgeous? I guess it shows my love of pop art and bold & colorful things.

Here's another one: The one painting that I did buy (and could afford) now hangs in my living room:She did a whole series of these small portraits, which were all very pretty. Those who know my Facebook avatar might have started to wonder about that one now... now, that one's by me, a small experiment which was of course inspired by this portrait. Mine's a bit smaller though, and I used acrylic paint:I googled Andrea Holzinger, out of curiosity - and she still does gorgeous, colorful photo-realistic paintings, which can be seen on here website. I really like these other paintings too. If I ever happen to have big, white, empty walls wherever I may live in the future, this is the kind of thing I would want to have hanging on them, I think. Well, I can dream, can't I?

A fun blog showing another way of turning something old into something new is New dress a day, which my friend alterted me to. What fun! It's all about seeing something in a dress that one would probably usually not look at twice at the thrift shop. I admit there are quite a few that I would honestly just pass over without thinking twice ;-). Her ideas are just so clever.

As for myself, I have recently done another Willy-nilly, though this is a personal one - a card to accompany a wedding present. I cut up the vouchers for the things I had picked from the wedding gift wish book (gifts for the honeymoon in Florida) and added vintage brochure cutouts and pictures and scrapbook-stickers. I spent a fun afternoon cutting, puzzling and gluing. No kidding, this is a serious business - cutting things up, putting things together in the right way, finding the right mix, the right look...So, now I'm off to sew a vintage slip down to my size (yes, it was my size considering the measurements that were given, but it turned out to be still too big...).

Karin