Women Between Past and Present - Lalla Essaydi

Lalla Essaydi was born in Morocco, lived many years in Saudi Arabia, before she moved to Boston.
Her art shows the world of women and girls of the Islamic world, in a very intimate and poetical way. The pictoral composition of her photography cites the orientalist-painters and photographers of the 19th century (like f.e. "The Great Odalisque" by Ingres, on the picture below), but she goes further. She draws poems in calligraphy with henna over the photography, retakes the pictures, redraws,... and so on, until the pictures are perfect.
Speechless women in white empty rooms adorned with words of love, dreams, hope and fear.

Rubber Delight

House of Harlot, Torture Garden's designer-to-the-court, will soon become 20 years old. But since fetish-fashion, latex and rubber isn't a dark secret anymore, and have become the look for stars and starlets, you can find the design of House of Harlot on many celebrities.

The next picture is a sailor-outfit for Christina Aguilera's video "Candyman".

Of course Miss Dita von Tease

And for those who need an adequate outfit for the next visit of Torture Garden...

But also classical corsetry belongs to the skills of the designers and artisans of House of Harlot.

Everyone Should Wear Hats

The hat-creations by Tour De Force are always so inspiring! Like little sculptures, I want to turn them around, watch them from every side. Of course nothing for the supermarket (or by the way, why not?), but a wonderful accessory to make a glamorous entrée en scene unforgettable. The black "rose-turban" would look fab with a long, sleek, 30's style dress!

Fashion And Social Communication - Nick Knight

“Fashion is an extension of dressing. It’s a very important social factor. It amuses me that fashion and fashion photography are treated so poorly intellectually. Cultural intellectuals tend to feel they’re not qualified to discuss fashion photography, or that it’s a waste of time. I even get correspondence across the forums at SHOWstudio from people who think fashion is evil. There’s a lack of understanding, a moral dismissal, and an anger that fashion, and by extension fashion photography, is a wasteful, criminal thing. I quite like that agitation and aggression, because I don’t believe it. In a society where your first encounter with people tends to be visual, you’re sort of saying “This is who I am.” I can’t imagine a society that doesn't adorn and decorate itself and doesn't use its outer appearance in some way as a social communication.” -Nick KnightNick Knight is a great photographer, who pushed visual boundaries, and isn't afraid of provoking and talking about the racial, sexual and visual discrimination of the fashion-industry, especially of fashion magazines. But he is also trying to change things, and founded the fashion online-mag SHOWstudio, which he is directing since 2000. Too avoid the long bureaucratic ways, the partisan choices, and the economical dictates of the common fashion-medias, he was one of the first to start a fashion-website to reach out to a worldwide community.
“SHOWstudio is based on the belief that showing the entire creative process—from conception to completion—is beneficial for the artist, the audience and the art itself.” (Nick Knight)

For all German readers, you can find an interview with Nick Knight made by SPEX here.

Gaga Bond By Araki

Nobuyoshi Araki is one of Japans best known photographers, and one of the most controversial artists at the moment. His pictures are about sex, beauty and death. Trough his work (via his "Photo-Me") he tells stories between fiction, wishes and truth. Always explicit, very personal and on the edge to porn. Porn-art or art-porn? Who cares? Sexuality is a strong power, including fear, hope, anger and love, beauty and ugliness, life and death... a groundless source for art.
Not only Bjoerk is a fan of Araki, but also Lady Gaga got a shooting with him. Japans "Vogue Hommes" issue from September 09 showed these great pictures.

Araki's homepage.

Faux Vintage Lingerie

Wonderful lingerie and corsets made by "What Katie Did", a London based Design team. They make faux-vintage lingerie, what means that they take original patterns and fabrics, which were common in the 40's and 50's, and design lingerie fitted to nowadays women. Absolutely adorable!

Winter Solstice

Yay we have done half the run! Days are getting longer from today on, light is coming back. Wikipedia has listed all the traditions and myths from all over the world according the winter-solstice. Roman or Babylonian, Maya or Germanic, Japanese or North-American, we all have a long tradition of celebrating the return of light.

Reclaiming The Lucidity Of Our Hearts

Filipina activist Sass Rogando Sasot spoke about transgender rights before an assembly of the UN. It's a beautiful speach, very passionate, intense and moving. As she says: We all should have the right to live and be who we are in dignity, we all should have the right to express the uniqueness of our life force within us!

"Now is the time that we realize that diversity does not diminish our humanity; that respecting diversity does not make us less human; that understanding and accepting our differences do not make us cruel. And in fact, history has shown us that denying and rejecting human variability is the one that has lead us to inflict indignity upon indignity towards each other.

We are human beings of transgender experience. We are your children, your partners, your friends, your siblings, your students, your teachers, your workers, your citizens.

Let our lives delight in the same freedom of expression that you enjoy as you manifest to the outside world your unique and graceful selves.

Let us live together in the fertile ground of our common humanity for this is the ground where religion is not a motivation to hate but a way to appreciate the profound beauty and mysteries of life;

for this is the ground where laws are not tools to eliminate those who are different from us but are there to facilitate our harmonious relationship with each other;

for this is the ground where culture is not a channel to express the brutality of our limited perception but a means to express the nobility of our souls;

for this is the ground where the promise of the universality of human rights can be fulfilled!

And we will be in this ground if we let the sanity of our desires, the tenacity of our compassion, and above all, the lucidity of our hearts to reign in our lives.

Thank you!"
-Sass Rogando Sasot-
You can find the whole webcast here.

Eat It!

How To Eat A Guava

first rinse the fruit, rub the skin and inhale

make an incision with your eye tooth

a bite with a seesawing motion to break

that curved yellow moon surface

eat it

like you would kiss a longlost lover,

like you would taste the skin behind an ear

you cannot worry

about juice

separate the seeds from the flesh with your tongue

sift them down your throat

recall custard in expensive affair-soaked hotels

lemon mousse drowning the mouth in reckless garden sunsweat tussles

eat it

like you would plunge into a river in moonlight

like you would open your mouth and let the river in

like you would eat a stolen pear, a hot fig lush as a lovebite

eat it

like you would crush it onto skin, lower your head

confusing perfume with texture, tasting scent

under a collarbone, like you would lick a line of sweat up a spine

bite skin, flesh, seeds juice

eat it fast

like you were ravenous

parched, gluttonous, flushed with secrecy

eat it slowly

lick your fingers.

-Cate Kennedy-

A Journey Trough Life With The Selby

How do other people live? What do the homes of creative people look like? The Selby is one of my favourite interior-blogs. With an eye for details, a heart for the freaky, funny, strange side of life, the Selby travels this earth making pictures of interesting peoples homes. You may like it or not, take it or leave it, these pictures don't embellish, and they aren't voyeuristic. They just show details and pieces out of peoples everyday-lives, their mess, their treasures, their beauty.

And for all tailors, lovers of custom suits, handmade garments and the tradition of craft, here you can find workshop-pictures from Martin Greenfield's little factory in Brooklyn. I love all those old machines and the working-pics.

Les Soeurs Luxurieuse

Picture by: www.cherrymuffin-studios.com

I've got a new super-exciting project: burlesque performance!!!

I am part of a burlesque-duo called "Les Soeurs Luxurieuse". You can find Mimie and Loulou Luxurieuse on myspace with all our latest pictures, upcoming performances and films.

Check it out: www.myspace.com/luxurieuse

Russian Style

Every country or culture has it's own stereotypical symbols. Flashlight pictures from art, science, people or traditions become icons, and stand for the map of feelings of a culture. The Russian editor of L'Officiel Evelina Khromtchenko, has now published a great book that contains lots of Russian symbols, called "Russian Style" (Assouline, 60$). From Yuri Gagarin to Bakst, from Babushkas to Shapkas, and not to forget Tolstoy, or designers like Alena Akhmadulina, the icon-collection of this book is wide. Lots of symbols of a country, many people still don't know much about.

Sweet Temptation - Will Cotton

Will Cotton's oil-paintings are known for their candy sweet, surreal erotically fantasies. Indulgence, temptation, desire and gluttony are the topics of the New York based artist. Over-sweet landscapes and beautiful girls create an atmosphere of fright and lust, evil cuteness and glamorous repletion.

Metal Heads

Manuel Albarran makes metal-adornment. Wonderful extravagant jewelry, a mixture of archaic and futuristic head-wear for queens and warriors, superheroes and amazons.

Daisy-Honey

A dream of sweet, honey-dripping sunshine and yellow roses on a cold November evening.

Top-pic by Howard Berman, second pic from the wonderful heartwarming TV-series "Pushing Daisies", which is stuffed with crazy ideas, extravagant characters, funny stories, and the most vivid and inspiring range of colors for their costumes and setting.

Karl's Secret Ball

Drawings by Karl Lagerfeld for the British Vogue in December 2008. He imagined a secret ball, an exclusive soiree, hosted by a mysterious Russian lady for her billionaire husband. Elegant people in a mixture of modern high class fashion and turn-of the-century decadence.