{white & gold for all hallow's eve}

. . . positively smitten with the idea of white and gold for halloween -- delicate garlands made of lacy doilies and white pumpkins among gold confetti, silver flatware on white linen and elegant packages for stylish guests, tied in the most charming polka dotted ribbon . . .

{p.s.} brushed in gold

{photography by andrea dozier for hooray}

This is the best costume of the day

Yoo hoo, Edie.

Is it too early for Hallow's Eve ideas? I think not.

Tom Banwell Masks

On my "To Do List of Life" is to attend the Carnival of Venice. These masks by Tom Banwell would be perfect for a carnival in Venice or for next Halloween.

(via Bits of Beauty)

The Trumpet of the Swan

I'm a little late to the game for a Halloween post, but it's my favorite holiday of the year so I hope you'll indulge me.

After contemplating some (in my opinion) excellent costume ideas, in the end I went for: BJORK!

Ingredients:
-1 white bubble dress from Forever 21
-4 feather boas from a fabric store
-1 pair of white children's tights from The Children's Place
-The Bunny's white socks
-A little bit of ribbon and 2 buttons
-The insanity and drive to make this happen

It was a hit and I had a LOT of fun.
Seriously, I dare you to be an Icelandic musician for Halloween and NOT have a ball.

Impressions of Bjork. She's a true original....

I studied ballet for many years and it's one of the TRUE loves of my life.
No swan costume would be done justice without the opportunity of being photographed in the final pose of the "Dying Swan."


I was a pretty HAMmy swan:

The Bunny decided to be an egg, since Bjork laid an egg (or rather, an egg-shaped purse) at the Oscars during a Red Carpet interview; I think there's a Freudian message in there somewhere...
I went to Mood fabric and picked up some white felt and constructed a just-this-side-of-amorphic blob for him to wear. He was Grade A, all the way.

As for next year...
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera?
Geisha and American Businessman?
Oh, the possibilities!

Cxx.

It's 1963 somewhere

Halloween was a fun one this year. Usually I'm boring and don't dress up but why turn down a day that allows you to wear a fabulous costume all day?

I went to a block party last night so the fur was appropriate and appreciated. I scoffed at the scantily clad girls that were freezing all the while sipping my gin and tonics. If only I could wear hats and gloves all the time!

I was born in the wrong era.

Janie Bryant even commented on my costume (via Twitter!) I can't get enough of Mad Men. It's too bad next week is the season finale.

Halloween Paris

On streets of the Marais yesterday afternoon!!! Happy Halloween. Carla x

{weekend + links}

happy halloween! hope your weekend is filled with the soft glow of flickering jack-o'-lanterns, spiced cider and far too much candy, and most of all, mysterious masquerades . . .

have a magical weekend, everyone!
xo


{p.s.} a few fun halloween links:
* DIY: snowflake pumpkins
* fun costume: mrs. robinson

{as always, some things you may have missed:}
* halloween inspiration: orange
* better in gold: gilded pumpkins
* grey skies + crimson leaves
* fall lookbook: lyell
* backstage photographs: more lyell
* paris in black + white

{images: valentino haute couture, photography by sofia sanchez & mauro mongiello for vogue italia september 2009 via a glamorous little side project}

{brushed in gold}

. . . a little halloween inspiration in shades of hazy blue and gold . . .

{images: 1, 3 martha stewart; 2 - flickr via design lovely}

{happy halloween!}

Hope you have fun things planned for tonight -- be certain to eat too much candy and snuggle up with the ones you love by the glow of jack-o-lanterns.

Have a magical weekend, everyone!

{image: via démodé}

Have a Vintage Halloween!

If ever there is a day to wear orange, it's Halloween! This gorgeous suit was shown in the December 1957 issue of a fashion magazine. The magazine calls this color "golden apricot" - um, OK. Orange. The suit is by Handelsman & Raiffe and is trimmed in lynx fur. It was available at Henri Bendel for $185.00 ($1420.00 today) I can't find any references to "Handelsman & Raiffe" anywhere, and the label is unfamiliar to me, but isn't the suit yummy?

My impression of this photo? Love the suit, but the model is way too thin! If you thought super thin, anorexic models were a modern phenomena, think again. This gal is so thin, the back of the skirt is sagging because her non-existent derriere can't fill it out. Perhaps a little trick-or-treating would help!

Have a fun vintage Halloween, watch out for ghosts and goblins, and play safe!

{happy halloween!}

Couldn’t think of a more fitting artist for a Halloween post than Damien Hirst, an artist born in Bristol to a lapsed Catholic mother and a mechanic/car salesman father who left their family when he was only 12 years old.

Despite his humble beginnings, (or perhaps because of them), Hirst would later become the most extravagant living artist in the world.

Damien Hirst's work centers around death as its main theme. The artist is best known for his Natural History series, in which dead animals (a shark, a sheep or a cow) are preserved in
formaldehyde.

In May 2007, Hirst exhibited his latest work, Beyond Belief, at the White Cube gallery in London. The centre of this exhibition was a Memento Mori titled For The Love of God, which featured a human skull recreated in platinum and adorned with 8,601 diamonds weighing a total of 1,106.18 carats. Approximately £15,000,000 ($30,944,726.60 USD) worth of diamonds were used. The work was based on an 18th century skull, with the original teeth incorporated into the artwork. The work's title comes from Hirst's mother who asked him, “For the love of God, what are you going to do next?”

This piece, which was cast from an 18th-century skull he bought in London, was influenced by Mexican skulls encrusted in turquoise. “I remember thinking it would be great to do a diamond one — but just prohibitively expensive,” he recalls. “Then I started to think — maybe that’s why it is a good thing to do. Death is such a heavy subject, it would be good to make something that laughed in the face of it.”
{from the NY Times}

On August 30, 2007, For the Love of God sold for £50,000,000 (100 million dollars or 75 million euros), giving the piece the auction record for the most expensive work of art by a living artist.

White Cube gallery sold several limited-edition silkscreen prints of this work, priced from £900 to £10,000, for one sprinkled with diamond dust.

{high-end halloween}

It's that skull and crossbones time of year again and what could be more fun than wearing posh, brightly-coloured skulls?

Dior Joaillerie's Coffret de Victoire collection includes: ring in 18K yellow gold, diamonds, pink sapphires, turquoise and mother-of-pearl (above left); and pendant in 18K yellow gold, diamonds, pink and green tourmalines, aquamarine, tanzanite, pink sapphires, amethysts, chrysoberyl, sapphire, emeralds, cultured pearl and coral (above right). Any piece from this collection (or anything by Dior, for that matter) will ensure you're the talk of the costume ball . . .


Not to be outdone is Tom Binns' Tough Chic collection of less precious, but still loads of fun punk-infiltrated creations (below). The Irish-born Binns was a one-time collaborator with Vivienne Westwood and favours rock and roll interpretations of jewellery classics, where diamantes and pearls sit alongside bullets and skulls.