Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Go West

There's something so American about taking a road trip.  At the back of our psyches is a constant pull to run away, hop into a car and drive as far as the road will take us, to no where in particular, all our problems left behind in a cloud of dust, the empty road ahead a beacon of endless possibilities.



A real road trip must be driven west, through desolate deserts so flat the sky opens up before you like a giant fan and keeps expanding forever. In the desert colors come to life. Driving through Arizona, the sky bursts into a brilliant technicolor blue when contrasted with the orangey-red canyon rocks.




Dried golden vegetation, the color of angel's hair, along the back roads of New Mexico, plays against the purple clouds, which float effortlessly across the sky.



The sunsets are incomparable.







When night falls, blackness shoots across an endless sky filled to infinity with glittering stars and faraway galaxies.  You'd swear the sky would collapse from the weight of all the stars it holds.

I first went west when I was 17.  My best friend and I drove from Houston to San Francisco, stopping at various spots along the way: El Paso, where the blatant discrepancies between the wealth of the US and poverty of Mexico are revealed shamelessly across the width of a river; White Sands, New Mexico, where miles of alabaster sand dunes stretch out forever without an ocean in site;



The Petrified Forest,



Meteor Crater,



and the awe-inspiring Grand Canyon, which changed me by highlighting the insignificance of my life as a tiny blip in the eternity of time.



Driving through the Painted Desert and Indian reservations so secluded and removed from civilization, I was given a certain sense of peace, which I have not found anywhere else.  Although I recognized how small I was in comparison to the overwhelming landscape and canyons which record the history of the earth in their infinitesimal geological layers, I felt a true sense of belonging and oneness with the universe.



Lately I have been feeling an almost magnetic pull to go west again.  I was looking at a book this weekend with beautiful photos of Southern Utah and Arizona, and something in the pictures lit a spark inside, urging me to drive away.  A longing to escape this crazy, unnatural city life, a longing for centeredness, a longing for connection...

If I tried to convey my feelings about the desert through a piece of jewelry, my best efforts wouldn't do it justice.  I came as close as I could with the Sedona necklace.  The blush colored oxidized sequins try to capture the myriad of colors in a Sedona sunset.  The multiple layers of silver and pewter chains mimic the flow of water when the long-awaited rains finally come to the desert and cleanse the landscape, triggering a renewal and rebirth.


Thursday, November 19, 2009

Paris

I fell in love with France when I was about 12 years old.  One day I woke up and decided I was going to be French.  Well, maybe it was that I was going to be a fashion designer...  Anyway, everyone knows that if you're a fashion designer you have to live in Paris, so naturally had to learn French.  


On the first day of French class, I was so excited - I was going to be a French girl!  I started doing everything French - wearing red lipstick, eating croissants, putting my hair in a French twist, flipping through copies of French Vogue...  



We started with the basics - Bonjour, je m'appelle Suzie, comment ca va? etc, etc.  Then came the first verb and its conjugation chart: aller.  Je vais, tu vas, elle va, nous allons....  What???  I was so confused.  What was a conjugation chart?  Why had I never heard of this before?  This wasn't what I bargained for....  I slowly started to panic - I would never learn how to speak French or be a French girl, and all my big dreams of becoming a famous French fashion designer started to crumble...


Thankfully when I showed up to class the next day, everyone was just as, if not more, confused than me.  After a few days, everything started to magically click, and I was again confident that I would one day be French.

That is, until the end of the school year...  I enrolled in French II, but there were not enough students signed up for the class, so they decided they weren't going to offer it.  I was crushed.  How could they not offer French II?  After I had learned all that vocabulary and those verbs, and - didn't they know I was going to be a famous French fashion designer?  I mean, this wasn't just a foreign language class; this was my life


I came home so upset.  My father finally calmed me down and talked to the school counselor the next day.  They were able to work out a plan so that I could attend another school for my French class the next year.  I had to get up at 5 am every morning to do this, but I was determined.  Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking...  I had magical images in my head.


By the time I graduated high school, I had completed 6 years of French.  I took two more years in college and spent a semester in Paris.  It was pretty amazing.  The first 24 hours in the city were like a dream.  Part of that was probably the jet lag, but it was my first time in a foreign country (besides the Texas/Mexico border, which doesn't really count), and I was overwhelmed with the sense of adventure.  It was a mixture of fear, anxiety, curiosity, and excitement - the same feeling I get today when traveling to a new place.


Paris is a city of quirky free spirits and artists, who sit in cafes in the Marais having intense intellectual discussions about poetry, literature, and art.  It's a city of elegant, wasp-waisted women riding their bicycles along the Champs Elysees, with the obligatory baguette and little dog in the front basket.  It's so tantalizing and appealing.  Who wouldn't want to be French?


There is so much attention to detail and beauty as a part of the French culture, and I think that's what I so strongly identified with.  I remember being in a cafe and looking at the intricate mosaic tile pattern on the floor - a fan of scallops, with ombre shading in copper and rose gold edged in a delicate line of pewter danced in front of my eyes.  The gradations in color were accented by the dim lighting in the cafe. 

This inspired me and ultimately led to the Paris collection:

Monday, November 16, 2009

More Color Inspiration for Spring

In one of my recent posts, I talked about color as a major inspiration for me.  Recently I have become obsessed with Ballerina Colors, but also mixing metallics and the mixture of metallics with a pop color.  This is very evident in my new diffusion line, Suzie by Suzanna Dai.  You can read more about it on my friend Erin's blog, Sugar Rock Catwalk: http://sugarrockcatwalk.blogspot.com/2009/11/preview-and-interview-suzie-by-suzanna.html


Two sets of necklaces and earrings from my new Suzie line, which mix metallics with a bright pop of color.

When I was younger, I thought mixing metallics (like silver and gold) was a major faux pas, but I've come to realize that they can look quite nice together.  For example, I LOVE the mixture of gunmetal, pewter/antique silver, and coppery rose gold.  It looks so new and refreshing, and I just can't get enough.  


Paris Cuff from the Spring/Summer 2010 Suzanna Dai line

I also do like the mix of gold and silver, in many variations: pewter mixed with antique gold and a pop of bright silver looks very edgy and mysterious.


Necklace and Earrings from my new Suzie line

Mixing bright silver with pale gold and champagne renders an entirely different look - very clean and proper.

Paris Necklace in pale gold and silver from the Suzanna Dai Spring/Summer 2010 line

I've always experimented with color, for as long as I can remember.  When I was six, I vividly remember wanting to wear red and pink together, but my mother wouldn't let me because she thought they clashed.  To this day, I still love the combination of red and pink and continue to experiment in mixing colors.  It's so exciting to me.  Luckily, a lot of the old rules no longer apply.  I love winter whites, so that rule about not wearing white after Labor Day?  Gone.  What about not mixing black and brown?  As long as it's done with intent, anything goes, although I have to say, I've never been a fan of mixing navy and black...

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Bavaria

Aren't fairy tales nice?  Actually, now that I think of it, some of them are quite scary, what with all the witches, evil stepmothers, and old women who like to eat little children...

No, I like the kind of fairy tales that take place in a deep, lush German forest - in a place filled with tall fir trees, ornate castles, pixie dust, dragonflies, and magic.  Bavaria is the perfect setting.







There's actually a fairy tale road in Bavaria, which winds through medieval villages, romantic castles, and dense forests that were the inspirations for such tales as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Rapunzel, among others.

The Bavaria collection was designed as an homage to this land of fairy tales and fantasy -  a place filled with fairies and gnomes; a place far removed from reality, where a valiant prince searches for the beautiful princess who has been asleep for a hundred years, and will only awaken with his kiss; a place where when the sun sets, it mixes with pixie dust and casts glitter over the needles of pine trees.





That's the Bavaria for me.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

St Petersburg



Taken from the point of view of a Dostoevsky novel, St Petersburg is dark and dramatic, with an undertone of romantic melancholy.  As in Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," the characters live in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status, and seemed doomed to a life of restrictions.  Like the Victorians in England, everything has an almost Gothic feel.


                                                          Greta Garbo as Anna Karenina (1935)

But the Russian melancholy is fully embraced and exalted so that if one loses it, one also risks losing one's identity.  Many a tortured artistic genius has been nurtured in this environment of dark winter days, strict social hierarchy, and the ennui of life.  Just take for example Balanchine, Chagall, Dostoevsky, Erte, Tchaikovsky, Pushkin, Anna Pavlova, and Anna Akhmatova, as a few of many.  They all created something beautiful from the harsh conditions in which they lived.

Like Anna Karenina, who feels thoroughly repressed and trapped in the society in which she lives, I designed the St Petersburg necklace to be a reflection of that.  The jewels are covered in layers of tulle, so that their sparkle and sheen becomes muted; thick cording runs back and forth, encasing tiny gems as if holding them prisoner.  The necklace, like a character in a Russian novel, revels in and surrenders to its melancholy, until it takes on a life of its own, and ultimately transforms into something beautiful.



The burden of being alive is part of the human condition, which we all can relate to on some level, and through all of the pain of living, doesn't some beauty inevitably evolve?

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Ballet Colors

Have you ever fallen in love with a color?  I think I can fall in love with just about anything - a country, a foreign language, a letter, or a word, and most definitely a color.  In the past it has been all shades of green - from lime to kelly, apple and chartreuse to olivey tourmaline.







Sometimes I get so obsessed about finding the right shade that I drive my family and friends crazy.  I remember in high school trying to find the ideal red - toothbrush red, as I coined it.  It's the perfect shade (the same color as a red transparent toothbrush - hence the name) - deep, rich, with a slightly blue undertone.  I'd stare at my red toothbrush, examining the depth of color, wanting to dive inside and swim through the beautiful shades garnet, crimson, and vermillion.  I get a little carried away...

Lately I have been mesmerized by soft, dusty hues - blush, taupe, pewter, pale rose gold, antiqued silver, bronze, smoky lavender, and warm gray.  Ballerina colors.

It's a bit odd for me to like such neutral colors, as I usually go for anything bright and vibrant, but it's a feeling I've been having for the past few months.  These shades make me think of the Bolshoi Theatre, vintage ballet costumes, and Charles James ball gowns from the 1950s - colors that, though faded, grow more enticing with the passage of time.






Thursday, October 15, 2009

Antwerp

In my last post, I mentioned a Belgian artist named Jan Fabre, who did the beautiful beetle wing installation at the Royal Palace in Brussels.  He's originally from Antwerp, and it just so happens that I designed a necklace with the same name.  This was before I knew about him, but it's somehow very fitting.

I think of Antwerp as a very progressive and edgy city that simultaneously reveres its past; there are so many amazing artists from Antwerp - Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Teniers - van Gogh even lived there for a while.





More recently, Antwerp has become known for its avante-garde fashion.  The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, one of the most important fashion schools in Europe, is located there, and has produced visionaries such as Ann Demeulemeester and Dries van Noten.





Antwerp is in the Flemish part of Belgium and has historically been heavily influenced by the Dutch.  I suspect this is why Antverpians are so modern and forward-thinking; the Dutch are well-known for their open-mindedness and tolerance of other cultures.  Yet Antwerp is not so progressive as to erase its history - beautiful architecture from its Golden Age in the 16th century is painstakingly preserved.




In designing the Antwerp collection, I wanted to capture the modernity of the city, merged with its rich past.  I mixed metal components in bronze and pewter with rows and rows of delicate chains, which gives it a Medieval/Deco/Rock'n'Roll feel all at once - like Joan of Arc riding a motorcycle to a soiree at Jay Gatsby's estate... or something like that!


Saturday, October 10, 2009

More Beetle Wings

I was talking to a friend last week about the Amazonia necklace, on which I used beetle wings, and she told me about an amazing exhibit she saw in Brussels.  There is a Belgian artist named Jan Fabre who decorated the entire ceiling of the Royal Palace in Brussels using beetle wings, and the results are breath-taking:



He called this work Heaven of Delight and used over one and a half million wings to cover everything. Even the chandelier is covered - amazing!  Check out the detail:



This is about one of the coolest things I've seen.  I think someone should decorate ceilings in the NYC subway stations like this!

Monday, October 5, 2009

Reykjavik

I remember looking at globes and maps of the world in my father's study when I was younger.  One day I noticed Iceland and Greenland, and my father told me that Iceland was in fact much greener than Greenland, and that Greenland was mostly covered in ice.  When I asked why they would falsely name the countries like that, he said the Vikings did it to confuse people.  If they named Iceland Greenland, as it truly was, then everyone would want to go there.  Apparently it was so beautiful, they wanted to keep it a secret for themselves.  I have no idea if this is true - my dad does like to make up stories - but it captured my imagination.





Recently one of my friends went to Reykjavik.  He was traveling with an older woman who had wanted to go to Reykjavik her entire life.  They spent a few weeks traveling through Iceland, and he told me about the dramatically rugged landscape, which was formed by glaciers long ago, the natural hot springs, and the vast difference between Reykjavik and its surrounding areas.

                            




Reykjavik is only slightly south of the Arctic Circle.  During the winter months, it gets about 4 hours of sunlight a day.  The remaining hours are shrouded in darkness, but surprisingly, the population does not suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), as many in North America do.  According to Eric Weiner's "The Geography of Bliss," the disorder has been weeded out of the gene pool.

Still, I think I would prefer to visit Iceland during the summer months, when there are seemingly endless hours of sunlight.  You can even see the sun at midnight.  That's my kind of place.

                            





I made the Reykjavik collection in response to these beautiful images of the midnight sun over lilac skies, glaciers, and hot springs.  The icy gray color of the mother of pearl beads and crystals are reminiscent of its location just south of the Arctic Circle and the glaciers that formed its landscape, while blush-colored accents remind one of the four hours of daylight the city receives in the depths of winter.  A fringe of smoky gray feathers cascading down the front brings to mind steam from the hot springs in Reykjavik, which inspired its name, and loosely translates to "Bay of Smokes".