Happy chic with Jonathan Adler

“Make your own – Personal style means having a space that’s comfy but filled with stuff that has meaning to you. It should hold things created and inspired by passionate people. Personal style should make you happy and happiness is chic.” Is one of designer Jonathan Adlers Design tips.

Jonathan Adler, A potter by trade, and well-known for his "happy chic" approach to home furnishings and interior design, developed a unique style that mixes modernist forms with bold colours and "groovy" graphics.

In his Soho studio, Jonathan and his team design and sculpt every prototype. Adler connected with Aid to Artisans, a non-profit organization that connects designers in America with artisans in developing countries to promote fair trade. The skilled artisans at the workshop in Peru make molds from the prototypes and then hand craft each piece from high-fired stoneware or porcelain, which peeks through the sheer white glaze. Each unique piece has a lifespan because only so many of each are made.

Fans of Jonathan Adler with a little hipster flair will enjoy the Utopia collection, a playfully chic universe of vases, vessels and objects. I know I do. The collection is inspired by mid-twentieth-century Scandinavian ceramics. Adlers Man/Woman Vase features a man's face on one side and a woman's face on the other.

Enjoy,
Nancy

This dress is on my wishlist. Fendi's Silvia Venturini, head of accessories had described a picture of a woman who inspired Lagerfeld to his fall winter collection 2011: a buttoned-up-to-the-neck art teacher who was still wild enough to wipe her paintbrushes in her hair and unleash the animal within.

I think nowadays especially women in the streets unleash their personalities more and more by wearing what they like and not by what their surrounding ask them to wear. Hooray to this women.
Thanks to shops like H&M, Zara and Topshop it is also much more affordable to look a million dollars. But let's not forget the art teachers like Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Sonia Rykiel and Consuelo Castiglioni who teach us the real thing.

My family(read: the men in my family) don't always share my passion/obsession for couture and high-fashion. But I'm so lucky they still love me inspite of my expensive hobby... wearing a Fendi dress or most likely without this gorgeous dress.

Enjoy,
Nancy

MATHILDE WILLINK VERSUS LADY GAGA

Fong Leng was the first Dutch designer that gave Dutch fashion an extravagant and glamorous international appeal in the seventies. She is an inspiration for designers like Viktor & Rolf, who dedicated one of her shows to her.

In 1971 Fong Leng opens a studio on Amsterdam. For 10 years she designs the most incredible and spectacular haute couture creations. The robes. Her theatrical coatdresses and skirts with quilted applications are named ‘Bird of Paradise’ and ‘Chinese love couple’.

Her most famous client was the eccentric Mathilde Willink, also know as ‘the Living Work of Art’. For five years Mathilde, The lady Gaga of the seventies, bought her entire wardrobe at Fong Lengs studio, the creations costing 10 – 30 thousand Dutch guilders (5 to 15 thousands euro’s) a piece. Thanks to her extravagant lifestyle her husband and magic-realist painter, Carel Willink became more famous. In 1977 Mathilde was found dead in her own bed with a gun lying next to her, a still unsolved mystery.

Mathilde versus Gaga

In 1982 Fong Leng closed her studio and starts a new career in interior architecture and art.

Enjoy,
Nancy

AMSTERDAM SUNDAY MARKET

Sundaymarket Amsterdam

alittlecowsdream.nl

carlashommage.nl

dPommerie

Restaurant Rainarai

Enjoy,
Nancy

CHALLENGE WEEK

(Monique Collignon)

TIt's been a crazy busy week. Deadlines, deadlines and then I also got a last minute request. This asked for creative thinking. The result was amazing. As soon a I get the pictures I will show them. From being courier to sitting front row at a Private Viewing (of Dutch Couture Designer Monique Collignon). I did it all this week. My workspace looks like a hurricane went trough it. Stacks of paper, paint and ink everywhere. Just when I start asking myself why I am doing this to myself, I receive an e-mail: : "We received you work, WOW!!".

I have the answer. I love fashion, I love to paint and I love to share my passion.

I love my work.

Enjoy,
Nancy