Keep it up with the Statement

Every year, every season, brings along few statement pieces you can’t live without. Here you can see what can’t miss in your wardrobe this season.

 SLOGAN TEE

Last year was the year of ironic logo tees (see DHL yellow t-shirt by Vetements) and vintage band merch. This year is with not doubt time for the Slogan Tee, like the famous “We should all be Feminists” by DIOR – Chiuri and “No Leather” by Stella McCartney. Best thing, they fit great with everything and they are perfect to dress down a smart look giving it a smart and still edgy appeal. You just have to choose what battle you want to join.

Dior – Source: The Fashion Spot

Stella McCartney – Source: Pinterest / Stella McCartney

CLIP ART

We have seen it on Fendi’s runway, the new embellishment trend this time is for your hair. Here the only limit is your imagination: feathers, studs, pom poms, star badges and the list goes on!

Fendi – Source: Pinterest / Fendi Details

KITTEN HEELS

Put on the map by Audrey Hepburn in the Fifties, the kitten heel has made a comeback in 2017. Comfortable enough to wear it through the whole day it gives you that extra bit of lift. Dior made it the hottest shoe of the season.

Dior – Source: The New York Times

Prada – Source: Pinterest / Explore Prada Shoes 2017

EXOTIC

That unusual touch that always makes a comeback. Could be handbag or shoes, even better if it is coat. Killer look, a leopard (faux fur!) coat with jeans, oversized tee and high stiletto heels. Thank me later.

Kate Moss – Source: Vogue Paris

Lindsay Lohan – Source: Uptown Magazine

 

METALLIC SHOES

The metallic trend is one of the most versatile statement of the season. They just add the extra punch to any look like a nice piece of jewellery would.

Altuzarra – Source: Chico Shoes

 

Isabel Marant – Source: Donnaclick

 

 

Impression of a Sunrise

Sources: Awaken_girls_jubilee, Tamuna_Ingorovka, Paola Vilas, MetMuseum, Jensing Varsson.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

IMPRIMÉ

EGON SCHIELE TATTOO

GUCCI

“HEAD IN THE WALL’ – BALENCIAGA BY MARK JENKINS @COLETTE

HOUSE OF MALAKAI

Sources: Elleryland, Bullettmagazine, Made, Juergen Teller Page, Vetements Official, Matthieu Lemaire Courapied, Balenciaga, Vogue Italia, SickyMag.

Cool as a Cucumber

Sources: Odeeh Official, Linda Tol, M.onge, Vogue Magazine, Grazia.it, WsjMag, Jil Sander, Artevue

Scream if you wanna go faster

Sources: Livingly, Fancy, Vogue Runway, Another Magazine, Thisisthelifeihavechosen, We Heart, Vogue, For Love and Lemons

 

I am in love with

JW ANDERSON Ruffle Boots

Loewe creative director and founder of his eponymous label, never gets it wrong. This British golden boy already allured us with the Pierce bag and now completely conquered with this other must-have for the winter season. Only one word: Need.

 

JONATHAN ADLER Goldfinger Chair

Whatever your home looks like, you can fit this beauty in I promised. It is like Heaven made of Velvet and polished Brass, minimal and comfy at the same time. Sold.

 

COS Jacquard Boxy Top and matching Pants

It’s all about the ensemble, and this is a good one. Colourful but not bright, keeping it simple is the Cos mantra. Even if it is jacquard which is anything apart for simple by definition.

 

TOM FORD Costa Azzurra

Evocative, Salty, Sensual. If you ever visited Sardinia, you can’t forget the mix aroma of salty beaches and thickly forested landscape of this land. Here is in a bottle.

 

MARNI Trunk Shoulder Bag

Consuelo Castiglione created one of the chicest brands and here is a really chic bag. You can dress it up or down as you wish and always look stylish.

 

Sources: Modesens, Jonathan Adler, Cos, Ebay, Shopstyle.

 

 

 

 

 

Shine Brightly

Bring it on 2017!

Sources: Style.com, Nick Frank, Pretty Designs, Optical Fixation, On the Corner, M.M Andersen

Peach and Pink Cool

Combo Cool

Sources: Vogue, On-Apttherap, Adaism, Harper’s Bazaar.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera – Art Gallery New South Wales

The exhibition everybody has been talking about recently opened at the Art Gallery of New South Wales – Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman collection.

Presenting 33 masterpieces from the Gelman collection, the exhibition captures the evolution of Frida and Diego’s artwork, love and life through the first half of 20th century in a fast evolving and revolutionary Mexico. The Mexican revolution began when Frida was 3 years old but she later gave her birthdate as 1910, wanting her birth to coincide with that, so her life would begin with the birth of modern Mexico.

“I have suffered two grave accidents in my life, one in which a streetcar knocked me down … The other accident is Diego” (Frida Kahlo)

Frida represents the tormented and suffering artist par excellence: her short life has been really challenged by health problems. She contracted polio at age 6, which left her right leg permanently damaged. In 1925, she suffered serious injuries as a result of the accident between the bus she was travelling on and a streetcar. In addiction, an iron handrail pierced her abdomen compromising her reproductive capacity.

The accident left her in a great deal of pain and, during the recovery in a full body cast, she started painting, specialising in self-portraits.

“I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best” (Frida Kahlo)

Self Portrait with Monkeys, 1943 – Frida never received academic instruction but was appointed Teacher at School of Painting and Sculpture in Mexico City. Not long after she started teaching, her health condition got worsened and she had to hold classes in her own house. Only 4 loyal students attended her classes, they called themselves “Los Fridos”, here represented by the monkeys. Photo by Chiara Elena Russo

 

In the meantime Rivera spent time as part of the French avant-garde movement in Paris, before returning to Mexico to paint politically charged murals. It was here in 1927, where she first approached him while he was painting a mural for the Ministry of Public Education. He first became her mentor and then her lover. With the contrast of her family, worried by age difference, the pair married in the 1929, divorced in the 1939, and then married again in 1940, remaining together until Kahlo’s death in 1954.

Self – Portrait as a Tehuana (Diego on my mind) , 1943. Frida’s mother had Spanish ancestry and her father was German, however, Kahlo always expressed her devotion to the Mexican culture through her artwork and traditional clothes and accessories choices. Photo by Chiara Elena Russo

 

This exhibition showcases her realistic painting style which was dominated by self portraits and the works of Diego Rivera. Their paintings are displayed alongside a collection of photographs by various people from their tumultuous life together, including Edward Weston, Lola Alvarez Bravo, and Guillermo Kahlo, Frida’s father.

The exhibition offers a rare chance to see masterpieces from two of Mexican art history’s most famous names, providing a fascinating insight into both their personal life and their politics. One of the most interesting point touched by the exhibition, how both Frida and Diego lives and arts were strictly connected and influenced by the massive changes going through Mexico at that time and how they played a main role in the political and cultural Mexican revolution.

The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth, Myself, Diego and Senor Xolotl, 1949

 

Frida’s work has been often described as surrealist also by the principal initiator of the movement Andre Breton calling Kahlo’s art “a ribbon around a bomb”. Frida always rejected that label, arguing her work reflected more of her reality than her dreams.

“I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality” (Frida Kahlo)

The exhibition ends with three video showing Diego painting one of the Detroit Industry Murals, a series of 27 frescoe panels depicting industry at the Ford Motor Company, Leon Trotsky arriving to Mexico City in 1936 where he was offered asylum and where lived few years at Frida and Diego’s house (La Casa Azul) before he was murdered in 1939, and a family’s casual gathered at La Casa Azul, filmed by one of most famous Frida’s lover, photographer Nickolas Muray.

Nickolas Muray video at La Casa Azul – Photo by Chiara Elena Russo

 

Frida died on July 13, 1954. Diego wrote that the day Kahlo died was the most tragic of his life, and that, too late, he had realised that the most wonderful part of his life had been love for her. La Casa Azul in Coyoacan became a museum in 1958, housing some of her works.

“I hope the leaving is joyful; and I hope never to return” (Frida Kahlo)

It took about 20 years after her short and suffered terrain life ended, to become an icon, a politically correct heroine for every wounded minority.

“I paint flowers so they will not die” (Frida Kahlo)

Info and tickets: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/frida-kahlo-and-diego-rivera/

 

Chiara Elena Russo