Overheard
Out of Vanity Fair,
a legend in her own time.“It’s incredible—
I’m 60,
and I’m playing the romantic lead
in romantic comedies!
Bette Davis
is rolling over
in her grave.”
Meryl Streep
Photo Credit: Brigitte Lacombe
The Errant Æsthete
Essentials for the Cocktail Swilling Savant
A
lady
does
not
place
her
weapon
on
the
table
~Queen to Princess: Pixar's Brave
Festina Lente
Deborah Turbeville
R. Kenton Nelson
Glorious Gotham: Georgia O'Keefe
Frantisek Drtikol
Art Deco
Modernisme Majestueux
L'esprit de l'escalier
L’esprit de l’escalier or esprit d’escalier (stairway wit) is the sense of thinking of a clever comeback in an encounter when it is too late.
The phrase can be used to describe a riposte to an insult, or any witty, clever remark that comes to mind too late to be useful— when one is on the “staircase” leaving the scene of the encounter.
The phenomenon is usually accompanied by a feeling of regret at having not thought of the riposte when it was most needed or suitable.
Featured: Stairway at the Louvre, Paris, 2007
Sarah Moon
Paris Style
Le Couturier des Coutouriers
Il Portiere Di Notte
Fin d'été
For the Love of a Chair
Un Coeur Tres Nature
The Grandeur of Gatsby
Summer of Our Discontent
Robert Motherwell
Sunburn Series
Jeff Zaruba
Berenice Abbott
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Michael Levin
Retro Glamour, Circa Hollywood
Things Past
Dandy or Danizette?
Noticed
Acquired Tastes
Notable Aesthete
élégance simple
Smokin'
Le Royal Dressmaker
“A man
should look
as if he bought
his clothes
with intelligence,
put them on
with care,
then
forgot
about them.”
-Hardy Amies
Anatomie de l'elégance
Grey Gardens
Dovima the Divine
In Praise of Silence
Gerald & Sara Murphy
Our Lady of the Ladle
“Life
itself
is
the
proper
binge.”
~Julia Child
Fashionably Snowed
A Life of Hats
Pantheon of Aesthetes
Sir or Madam?
Joyce Tenneson
Asaf Ben Zvi
Eugene Gabritschevsky
Larry Abramson
Will Cotton
Dietmar Busse
Maligned
Have You No Shame
Eric Baker on Design
As I bounce around online looking for images I always look for the extraordinary, the esoteric, the naive, and the emblematic of a time; works that are not the pieces we often see in design history books.
Just as a map helps us find our way and shows us where we are, looking at design from years past helps us better understand the trajectory contemporary design has taken. DesignObserver.
Invincible Summer
The Thoughtful Traveler
Poires de Vacances
Fawning for Fame
Inhabit
Peter Lippmann
Words, Wars, Weddings
Past Imperfect
Swoon Worthy
The Excellence of Habit
Irving Penn
The Epitome of Grace
Mad About Hats
The novelist Alison Lurie wrote: “Whatever is worn on the head is a sign of the mind beneath it.”
Stephen Jones, the greatest milliner of his generation, disagrees.
“Whatever is worn on the head is a sign of what a person would like to be."
Cecil Beaton
Cocktail Hour
A Bow Unbent
Solitary Walking
Desired Things
Patricia Gray
Post Wisdom
Reflections
“The golden moments
in the stream of life
rush past us
and we see nothing
but sand.
The angels
come to visit us,
and we only know them
when they are gone.”
-George Elliot
Fifi Flowers Design
Edouard Chimot
Anne Rothenstein
Edith Wharton's Gilded Age
Famed Fury - Leonore Fini
J. David McKenney
Destinations
Mats Gustafson
La Boheme: Loulou
Suzanne Katzenberg
Meisel's Models
The New Dutch Masters
William Wegman
Celestial Locomotive
ÉSOTÉRIQUE
Color
Maira Kalman
Sound Files
Hugo Guinness
Les Indiennes
Tim Walker
Lost Archives
John Keats
Faraway Places
NOIR ET BLANC
Bert Stern
George Hoyningen-Huene
Luc Dratwa
Horst P. Horst
Richard Avedon
Peter Lindbergh
Lillian Bassman
Mary Ellen Mark
Edward Steichen
Eudora Welty
Michael Magill
Michael Kenna
Unexplained Absences
L'Incident de Chanel
“I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fake Chanel”
Following her counterfeit faux pas, the culture’s rebellious “bad girl” Courtney Love has been granted a reprieve by Karl Lagerfeld’s court. Fortunately, the iconic rock star is now decidedly back in fashion.
EX LIBRIS
The Age of Innocence
In this classic novel of old New York, Edith Wharton recreates the city of her girlhood in the 1870s. The Arion edition has been illustrated with photographs of the actual settings of the story.
“Truly a thing of beauty” according to Forbes magazine, this edition celebrates a classic of American literature. The book has a special status as an affectionate record of the streets and buildings of New York City. At every moment of the novel the reader knows where the characters are, walking down a particular street, standing in front of a certain address, looking out the window of a familiar room.
The Arion Press edition is illustrated with images of the novel's actual setting, as they are today, captured by noted photographer Stephen Shore who brought to this project a personal knowledge of the historic buildings and streets that made up Wharton's New York world.
New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman raved: "The work’s laconic eloquence speaks of an era and a nation."
The Kindle
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon's sickly serene Self Portrait 1971 is a refracted faceted face akin to some of Paul Cézanne's self-portraits which are reminiscent of cut precious gem stones reflecting light. Bacon painted with a very dry brush giving the sensation of a granular, grainy effect.
The melancholia mood is of a man melting before you: a disturbing image of a disturbed man in a disturbed century. This is one of the last great self-portraits Bacon painted before he went off the rails and went back into to the lazy worn grooves of inane illustration.
Wallace Berman
Blogroll
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- Bart Boehlert’s Beautiful Things
- Bearings
- BibliOdysssey
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- Design Observer
- Easy and Elegant Life
- Emily Evans Eerdmans
- Epicurean Table
- Fashionologie
- Form is Void
- Frognall Dibdin's Shelves
- From the House of Edward
- Helen James Design
- House of Beauty and Culture
- Indecorous Taste
- Intelligent Travel
- James Wolcott: Vanity Fair
- JCB
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- the style saloniste
- Tomorrow Museum
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The Errant Aesthete©
July, 2007 - June, 2012
The Errant Aesthete©
All Rights Reserved
If you would like to reprint an article or repurpose a photo, please email for permission.
EMAIL: worddrawing@gmail.com
BD would be rolling over-though I think the lady would in general be a restless spirit! I saw and read the Streep VF piece-the pictures recall just how unusual her beauty was a the time and today as well GT
Ah, another woman who inspires- I do like your choices!
LA,
The pictures of Streep over her lifetime are visually enchanting. In many, she is quietly dazzling. You have to appreciate, too, the times that would permit a 60-year-old woman to be a romantic lead. Or a woman in her late fifties being the lead in a romantic musical (Mama Mia) or the world’s most famed female chef – Julia Childs. To think that the best Bette Davis could get at 54 was Whatever Happened to Baby Jane is really quite extraordinary.
Also thought it pretty interesting that when she was cast to play Clint Eastwood’s love interest in The Bridges of Madison County, many thought her too old for the part of a 45-year-old woman despite the fact that Eastwood was twenty years older.
Le Style,
What’s compelling about Streep is that she’s living in the time of her legend – how remarkable is that?
hey, how about a SHOUT OUT to Brigitte Lacomb, whose photos you are running without credit? Wouldn’t that be the decent thing to do?
Duly noted and corrected. An unintended oversight caused by nothing more sinister than haste. My apologies to Ms. Lacomb whose work I greatly admire.
She’s elegantly timeless and feminine. Such a regal profile.