Insufficiency

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.                                                                                                                                                      -Ira Glass 

Veruschka x Playboy '71

This is the supermodel Veruschka, daughter of the Countess Gottliebe von Kalnein.... as a rock, in Playboy '71.  Weird and wonderful.  But is it erotic?

"The body does not arouse me sexually. . . I regard it simply as one element in nature. But... that doesn't mean I'm frigid."

                                                                            - Veruschka

(IN)DECOROUS TASTE harnesses in Vogue Italia!

Ooooooh I have news! Can you believe that the (IN)DECOROUS TASTE harnesses are adorning the heads of all of the models in the decadent "Wasted Luxury" shoot in Vogue Italia March 2011?  And they're on the cover, too! Lit up with glorious head-lights (...no, literally).  I'm excited!

Harnesses aside, it's a jaw droppingly gorgeous shoot.  Shot by Steven Meisel, styled by Panos Yiapanis.  Featuring models Julia Saner, Saskia de Brauw, and Milou van Groesen.

Boticellophane

Still kickin, oh yes I am.  I'm working on lots of new things, and there will be posts galore in the coming weeks.  We have lots to catch up on.  

As the curtains opened on the avant-garde opera event of 1934, Virgil Thompson and Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts, the audience faced a vast sign of the production's cutting-edge modernity: fifteen hundred square feet of sky-blue cellophane was draped from the sides and ceiling of the stage, creating a semitransparent cyclorama, glittering under bright white lights.  The stark artificiality of the stage design proclaimed its relationship to the modern world and its unsurpassed hold on the new: 'The cellophane set, brilliantly lit to evoke a sky hung with rock crystal, defied comparison to anything the audience had ever seen. 'Some thought that [Florine Stettheimer's] costumes outdid the Ziegfeld Follies, and one quipped that the sets were 'Botticellophane.'" Plastic, that most twentieth century of materials, here transformed the stage into a powerful blend of art, glamour, and the latest technology.  We've lost, in the intervening decades, the ability to read the early-century semiotics of plastics, and particularly of cellophane.

For now:  the spring collection is up at the new shop: shop.indecoroustaste.com .  I know, I keep moving the thing around.  But really, I think you'll find that this is much easier to use/navigate.   Let me know what you think?

- From Glamour in Six Dimensions: Modernism and the Radiance of Form by Judith Christine Brown

Credits: Thank you Cristin for collaborating/modeling/photographing and putting up with MADNESS.

These are the latest iteration of the (IN)DECOROUS TASTE spiked lucite platforms. This time, I built up a secondary platform for for the foot.  It looks like a mattress, just delightful.

Fend off attackers with panache!

Crystal chandelier harnesses, nude leather harnesses, and clutches available here.

Valentines Conventions

Oh yes, we do convention just peachily over here at (IN)DECOROUS TASTE.

A box of chocolates....

(Giant delectable gumdrop rings in crystal and hot pink by Zina Sparkling)

A glitzy jewel or fifteen...

A drink (poison) ...

And...

(No, they didn't. But they surely SHOULD have!!!)

Happy INDECOROUS (no parentheses here, ha!!) V-Day!

How To Live

Sir George Sitwell had a Tom Ford moment (or is it the other way around?):

"Sir George Sitwell (1860-1943), head of that endemically eccentric family, had seven rooms he used as studies at his family mansion in Derbyshire where he occupied himself in writing such masterpieces as 'The History of the Fork' - none of them ever finished. His chief interest however was landscape gardening. He employed 4,000 men at one time to dig him an artificial lake in the grounds, with wooden towers sticking out of the water from where he could survey his various projects. To improve the view from his study window, he had Chinese willow patterns painted on to his herd of white cows. And a sign on his front door read: 'I must ask anyone entering the house never to contradict me in any way, as it interferes with the functioning of my gastric juices and prevents me sleeping at night.'"  


Now, off to watch the rest of the Keeping Up Appearances marathon. Haha superbowl, WHAT?

John Singer Sargent, The Sitwell Family, 1900

Quote from Oddballs and Eccentrics by Karl Shaw.

Epic Proportions

I love silk scarves. Wear one as a turban: you're a diva, Joan Crawford.  Wear one as a scarf, you've gone the other way: it's bon chic bon genre! Use it to tie up your beaux, you're a luxe-ified Marquis de Sade.  Instant glamour!

The problem is, I am certain that these scarves are reproducing in my closet, slowly choking out the rest of my accessories like WEEDS and planning to stage a revolution.

They demand attention, these weedy wonders.  When I see the massive, heaping, slippery pile of them, it  occurs to me a shame that there aren't enough days in the week to wear them all, unless I change turbans at four hour intervals and that requires more commitment to the cause than even I'm willing to make.

Which brings me to my preferred solution: the enormous silk scarf pillow.  I love their drama.  Like Norma Desmond, these pillows (if you can even call them that) are larger than life. The size makes them a visual production of grand proportions.

So, onto the (IN)DECOROUS drama class:

Select a pillow insert size and cut a square of lining one inch larger around than the pillow. I used a 26" pillow, so my square was 27"x 27".  Round the corners (you can use a cup to trace the rounded edges). I used a simple cotton fabric as lining.  (And, if you're looking for something even larger, it's definitely possible to find 36" square inserts...)

Lie the lining on the scarf and center it.  Pin it in place, and trim the edge.

Then, make the back of the pillow by cutting two rectangles from the lining. You want them to overlap.  So, divide the length of the pillow in half and add around 5 or 6 inches of fabric to that number to get the length of each rectangle. For this 26" pillow, that would mean two rectangles, both measuring 27"x 18.5".  The 18.5" thing isn't an exact science though, so don't sweat it.  Place the lining on the fabric you plan to use for the pillow back, pin it and trim it.  Round the corners so they match up with the front.  Fold the middle piece over and hem it.



If you're using edging (you don't need to), pin it onto the pillow front (good side), facing inward towards the center of the pillow.  Then pin the backs onto the pillow, good sides facing in.  So it's a big pillow sandwich.  When the whole thing is pinned, it should look thoroughly inside out.

Sew it.  By hand...by machine... either way works.  Was that clear?

So next time your scarves start acting up, put them in their place.  Few things make me as happy as dramatic proportions.

Simple Math

I'm aware that this isn't an earth shattering idea, but it's a swanky little trick to avoid wardrobe boredom and the cold.

It's like a facelift! Just keep it on the simple side because a nip here, a tuck there, a bit of plumage there, and suddenly you look like Jocelyn Wildenstein, understand?  Have I mentioned I have this little fur collar collecting problem?

Collars like these are everywhere on ebay, not to mention thrift shops and hanging out on old coats. Don't be afraid to scavenge: Denning and Fourcade (the design kings of opulent, style Rothschild interiors of yetseryear) used fur scraps from old coats to piece together an entire rug.  You can find really lush ones this way; just avoid dry patches like the plague.

Wardrobe basics.

Basics that have personality (multiple personalities, really):

Simple equation, see?