Moda Operandi

Moda Operandi is a dream of a website, where one can pre order clothes and accessories from the runway - known as trunkshows. The website also has select designers who sell items too.  I came across this coat by Marc Jacobs and this pink is one of my favourite colours and is in a beautiful cut.

Rose cashmere wrap coat by Marc Jacobs

Images are from http://modaoperandi.com/marc-jacobs/fw-2013/rtw-1319/item/rose-cashmere-wrap-coat-171951

Projects

Konrad Filip (1874-1940)

Peonies in a Vase

One of my projects this spring is to study and paint peonies.  I started to a couple of years ago but abandoned this after not being true to myself by getting distracted and affected by other happenings in my life. In addition to this I want to learn portrait painting.

"This luxuriant still-life with its intense pinks contrasted with the sharply defined dark-green leaves and stems appears to float in mid-air owing to the virtual transparency of the glass vase. Filip imbues his subject-matter with great voluptuousness. In this picture Filip makes little attempt to produce a realistic botanical likeness. Instead, he is far more interested in inspiring a certain set of emotional responses in the spectator relating to the strong visual impact of the image. Filip is part of the same tradition as the Symbolist painter Odilon Redon in that the aim is not to achieve the mimetic precision of more conventional academic painters such as Fantin- Latour but instead to generate a chain of visual and sensual resonances in the spectator in much the same way that Baudelaire and Rimbaud had sought to do with their highly evocative synaesthetic poetry in the latter part of the 19th century. The painter encourages us to embark on a journey of free association where our senses are brought into play to produce a complex emotional and aesthetic response.

Filip was a Croatian painter born in 1874 in Zagreb. He studied at the Vienna Academy and also at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. For much of his life he lived and worked in Munich where he died in 1940." Source  http://www.haninafinearts.com/art/art_single.asp?artid=450

A list of things I'd like to do and achieve for the remainder of my life and in no particular order are:

1) Paint and study peonies

2) Learn to paint portraits

3) Make a film

4) Buy a place for myself with a garden

5) Visit South America

6) Visit Provence

7) Eat healthy food

8) Exercise on a regular basis- running, jogging, cycling

9) Fit yoga and pilates into my daily routine

10) Be happier with myself

11) Create a small library

12) Learn to play the guitar

13) Pass my driving test

14) Pass my professional qualification

15) Tailor my vintage dresses

16) Wear more of my vintage dresses

17) Attend sample sales to get good bargains

18) Learn flower arranging

19) Cook more

20) Plant roses and other beautiful flowers in my garden

21) Create a herb garden

22) Volunteer for youth drama club

23) Go to the theatre a few times a year

24) Read books for the non fiction book club

25) Read more poetry

26) Write a book

27) Write a play

28) Visit South East Asia

29) Relax

Konrad Filip (1874-1940)

Peonies in a Vase

miu miu

On keeping a notebook

I came across this fantastic site called http://www.brainpickings.org and wanted to share this.

Joan Didion an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism

She sees the deepest value of the notebook as a reconciliation tool for the self and all of its iterations:

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.

[…]

It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.

 Reproduced from www.brainpickings.org

What's in your bag?

Several years ago I was obsessed with photography and Flickr. I took part in a "What's in your bag" group and wanted to revisit this question to see how much my lifestyle has changed with time.

My bag contains on a daily basis:

A mobile phone
My Purse
A book- currently Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
A magazine- often the free Stylist distributed widely in London, Tank magazine or The Gentlewoman magazine
A moleskine purple daily diary
A small moleskine purple notebook
A small Map book of London-  I struggle to cope with maps on my phone, it takes a while to load and the blue flashing arrow is rarely accurate, I almost was late to an interview a year ago while relying on this, thankfully friendly strangers helped me when I frantically sought the obscure street in the dark evening. Tip for non-Londoners- London is a crazy place regarding streets and finding places - always travel to get to appointments super early. I find my little map book so reassuring.
Receipts
Old train tickets
A few pens
Lip balm- Neals yard and Korres wild rose
Tanin lipstick by Bite beauty
Lip brush
Small mirror
Keys

muted dreams

I have been reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and I am now currently reading Thinking Fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman.

I have been feeling in limbo and realise that I need to live in the present, life is terrible thinking about what if's and wondering why the people in your life choose to ignore you. This has been painful for me as I had previously sacrificed my personal plans (time and money) to keep in touch with friends  "past" friends

 I used to volunteer for a trust and someone there once said if everyone kept in touch with everyone nothing would get done. Such true words. Life is getting on with what you want to get done. You can't really count on others to care, help,support you or even ask how things are- I learnt the hard way.

Therefore I am putting together a bucket list for my plans for the rest of my expected life..... I may post this on this blog.....

Me-time inspiration

Magazine inspiration- Self Service

Hair