Knocked Sideways
Such a simple idea, flipping photographs on their side. Photographer Laurent Dejente overturns gravity and creates a feeling of vertigo in his captivating, surreal images. Blink and look twice.
Visit the Scophy website and scroll through the other cool images in the Photo Tuesdays collection.
A Regency Touch
Ball Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s RepositoryI am really obsessed with vintage fashion plates at the moment. No surprise about the vintage fashion bit, but it’s really the look of the antique colour-tinted illustrations from Regency fashion periodicals that I fancy.
The pages are yellow and foxed, which lends an appealing nostalgia, but it is the overall delicacy of each drawing that is so charming. Perhaps the pages are merely faded, but the linework seems to be rendered in a subtle grey rather than harsh black – or maybe that was just the quality of the ink?
Ball Dress, 1809, from Ackermann’s RepositoryColour is applied with a light touch, in the pastel shades so in favour during the Regency years: rose, pistachio, butter yellow, celestial blue, but white predominates, for this was the most appropriate hue for débutantes.
There is such exquisite detail in each of these drawings too, in the lace trimmings, the feather plumes nodding atop bonnets and the becoming pink flushing in these young ladies’ cheeks.
I’m being inspired to try my hand at a modern version, perhaps a series on those few vintage clothes I gave away long ago and subsequently infinitely regretted. An aptly nostalgic style for long-lost garments.
If you’d like to see more – lots more – the website of EK Duncan features several wonderful galleries.
Evening Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s Repository
Evening Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s Repository
Evening Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s Repository
Walking Dress (just look at those darling lace-up slippers!), 1815, from Ackermann’s Repository
Walking Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s Repository
Parisien dress, late 18th century 
Adorable jackets, a Roxburgh (left) and spencer (right), 1807, worn on top of walking dresses. Click through to read about the amazing Quinn, a modern-day Regency-loving chick who goes to great lengths to reproduce vintage garments.
Cold. That is all.
It’s cold, that’s what it is. Cold. :: Loftus // DC // No flashIt’s cold. It’s cold outside, and it’s cold in my apartment. I do have a heater and it’s cranked to the highest heat setting possible. Yet despite this, it’s a lousy 18° inside. I call that poor. And mysterious. In fact, I call that cold when it’s 18° outside.
It was so cold on the weekend that I was inspired to write ‘COLD!’ in the condensation on the window. I felt like a heroine out of a Charles Dickens novel or something.
Actually, the truth is the condensation was caused by the steaming laundry on the clothes airer – which I had placed plum in front of the heater. It did make a nice photographic effect though – a bit like the Vaseline-on-the-lens trick of yore.
Excuse me while I go put on my fingerless gloves and peer pathetically through the window into my neighbour’s cosy sitting room …
Condensation :: Tejas // Rock BW-11 // No flash
A Croon in Joon
Bing, Decca Gold Label Series, 1958It’s the first of the month again, and June’s rolled round so quickly. I’ve turned the page of the calendar once more, and find some playful Steinweiss album covers rather influenced by Magritte, methinks, and celebrating that ol’ crooner Bing Crosby. It’s quite a departure from most of the other record covers in the series, with a nice, light touch for summer … if one was living in the northern hemisphere rather than freezing in the south! Happy June!
A Musical Autobiography of Bing Crosby 1927–1934, Decca Gold Label Series, 1961
A Sweet Thank You
Thank You :: Ben Watts // Blanko Noir // No flashIt was Cupcake’s last day on Monday. How sweet is this little thank you scratchie postcard she gave me? As a child I adored scratching the silver stuff off anything I could get my hands on. (That ‘silver stuff’, by the way, is usually made from latex.)
These cards by TMOD are cute and interactive – what’s not to love? As they say on their website, the scratchie cards ‘blend vintage motifs with the charm of secret messages and magic tricks.’ Each card also comes with a scalloped heart charm, which undoubtedly will go straight to every little girl’s heart and into her trinket box. Check ’em out.