It is only fitting (sorry) for the city of haute couture to house one of the finest fashion museums in the world. So if you visit Paris this summer, take a break from visiting the current palaces of haute couture to check out the Renaissance style palace that houses over 100,000 items of clothing and accessories from the 18th century to the present. You’ll find all the major articles of clothing, plus lingerie, gloves, jewels, shoes, scarves, muffs, hats and fans, from the simple to the most extravagant. All the major couturiers of the past and present are represented. It’ll put your Parisian shopping in the proper historical perspective. And since the only items to buy are in the gift shop, you won’t dent your budget. For more information, go to www.musees.paris.fr. Click on Musee de la Mode—Le Palais Galleira.
Archive for June, 2009
The History of Haute Couture
Portland Gallery Finds: Annie Meyer
Annie Meyer works in a variety of mediums, but my favorites are her landscape paintings done in oil and acrylic. She has visited the Sancerre region of France for one month a year for the past 13 years and she uses the paintings and ideas gleaned on these trips as inspiration for additional landscapes she paints in her studio during he rainy Portland winters. I find in her work a Zen-like focus and harmony, with it’s simple, solid fields of colors and isolated highlights.
Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies
For the gastronomically challenged, this recipe guarantees success with a minimum of time, energy or effort. Take 1½ cups of flour, a pinch of salt and sugar, two sticks of butter and one egg and pulse in a food processor until mixed. In a bowl take 2 cups of oatmeal with 1 cup of raisins and mix with the dough from the food processor (it’ better to mix by hand). Form the cookies with your hands to the size you’d like. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, or until brownish. Remove from baking sheet to cool. Now melt 4 ounces of chocolate (I prefer 60% cocoa), and when the cookies are cold dip one side into the melted chocolate. Place on a cookie sheet and refrigerate to harden the chocolate. In the summer I keep the cookies in the fridge to keep the chocolate from melting. The combination of oatmeal, raisons and chocolate is a bit out of the ordinary and very tasty, to the point where my husband is showing a slightly unhealthy obsession.
The Likeness by Tara French
Until now I’ve focused on books with either an interior design or French cultural motif, but this book is such an enthralling mystery that I feel compelled to recommend it, especially during summer beach reading season. The Likeness is the second book by a young Irish novelist. Her first was also brilliant (In the Woods), but the second is even more sophisticated and psychologically puzzling. A policewoman is persuaded to go undercover because she is the uncanny physical double of a woman who has been murdered. Not only that, but the name of the dead woman is an alias the policewoman used on a previous undercover assignment. She enters the hothouse atmosphere of a group of graduate students in a Dublin country home, who’ve been told their roommate survived the attack. So our hero is pretending to be this dead woman, among friends who knew her intimately. And possibly murdered her. For mystery lovers, it’s irresistible.
Drama in Blue and White
Whether their stylistic influences are Dutch Delft or Chinese ceramics, blue and white accessories can make a dramatic statement. They may be vases, brackets, covered ginger jars, bowls, or candelabras, and you can feature them on cocktail tables, bookcases, sideboards or display cabinets. Wherever they are placed, the result is a compelling visual statement, particularly when used as a counterpoint to navy blue or chocolate brown walls
A Garden of Earthly Delights
In the summertime my backyard patio and garden becomes my favorite living space. Outdoor lounge furniture and decorative trellises, armilaries and other architectural pieces, supplement flowering plants and shrubs. I even have a topiary version of the Eiffel Tower. Here are some outdoor furnishings I particularly recommend. Metal furniture requires a minimum of care, looks great and allows you to comfortably read for hours on end. The teak versions do need more taking care of (unless you don’t mind the wood weathering to grey), but the look is unsurpassed. Armillaries, which are celestial models of the heavens, usually in metal, are eye-catching and add dimension to any garden. As are trellises, pots and topiaries, which are lovely cradles for plants and flowers.
If like me you live in your garden during the summer months, you’ll want to make your outdoor environment every bit as visually appealing and comfortable as your interior environment.
Giverny off the NJ Turnpike
If you can’t get to France this summer to see Monet’s Garden of Water Lilies at Giverny, you can do the next best thing by taking the NJ Turnpike to Exit 7A. After driving through some unlikely industrial terrain, you’ll arrive at Grounds for Sculpture and Rat’s Restaurant. You might think that, like Alice, you’ve gone through the looking glass, because you will enter gardens modeled on a French village like Giverny, down to the bridge over the lily pond that so fascinated Monet. There are all manner of sculpture, from abstract to very lifelike (including some typical 19th Century Giverny inhabitants), that dot the lush grounds. The food is excellent as well. This charming and eccentric destination is well worth the trip to Exit 7A. ym2uwrc6xi
Peel Me a Tomato
Since I was a child I’ve always had a distaste for the skin of fruits and vegetables. To this day I find that removing the skin creates a different and subtler taste to tomatoes, peppers, asparagus, and even grapes. In France it’s more common, but I’m always surprised how few of my friends enjoy vegetables prepared this way. It’s easy to peel a tomato: immerse in recently boiled water for one minute, and then transfer to iced water. You’ll find the skin pulls off easily. They are perfect for a salad served as a light lunch or the first course to a meal in your summer garden, prepared with sliced egg and fresh tarragon.
Le Notre’s Gardens
This book of beautifully reproduced black and white images represents a photo journey through the gardens created by Andre Le Notre, the most important garden designer at the court of Louis XIV. The photographer is Michael Kenna, whose work has been exhibited in the finest museums in Paris, London, San Francisco and Prague. In approximately 6o plates on 80 pages, he takes the viewer to 10 different locations in France including the Tuileries in Paris, Versailles and Fontainebleau. The photographs are superb, taken at dawn or dusk when the natural light is at it’s most evocative. They are haunting, mysterious, at times surreal images, complemented by an essay which explores both Kenna’s expressive work and the magnificent gardens of Andre Le Notre.
The Rose City
We recently returned from Portland Oregon to visit our son, and one of the standout attractions was the Rose Garden in Washington Park. In size, variety and quality, this rose garden is the most impressive collection of roses I’ve ever seen. Portland is the Rose City, and even the police cars are adorned with the image of a red rose. The climate and a tradition going back to the 1917 (it’s the oldest public rose test garden in the US) have produced an unsurpassed example of the glory of horticulture. Needless to say the coffee in Portland is very special (try stumptowncoffee.com to sample Portland’s favorite) and the food is superb as well. Bicycles are the preferred means of transport, and partly as a result cars are driven with a restraint and civility that are gratifying compared to the road rage prevalent in New Jersey. All in all, Portland is a low pressure, high quality of life town.
