Cairo

When I was about seven or eight years old, my grandparents started traveling all over the world.  They'd send me postcards that would light my imagination afire, from distant places like Amsterdam, Jerusalem, and Egypt.  When they came back from Cairo, they brought me an antique gold paperweight in the shape of a pyramid, which I still have.  The outside is smooth and has black etched lines that mimic the large stones used to build the great pyramids.  They brought my parents a small intricately gilded bowl, and I remember thinking that everything from Egypt must be golden and ornate.

I still think of Cairo in that way - as a photograph taken with a yellow lens, or at that special time right before sunset, when everything is bathed in a golden light.

One of my favorite movies is The English Patient, which takes place in and around Cairo in the years before World War II.  The main character keeps clippings and notes in his copy of The Histories by Herodotus, and he often refers back to them when giving descriptions of desert tribes and their customs.  How exciting it must have been to be among the first European travelers in Northern Africa and bring back photos from an unknown land:

Imagine wandering through the narrow streets of Cairo, and stumbling into some hidden market, with scents unfamiliar yet intriguing, the sounds of foreign tongues surrounding you.

Cairo seems decadent in a way, with its exceedingly detailed Moorish architecture and history of grand pharoahs along the Nile.  I wanted to capture this in the Cairo collection, so I chose to adorn petal appliques with intricately embroidered metallic gold threads and wires in varying textures.  Some are done with dabka embroidery, a type of work that uses coiled springed gold wire.  Others are done using zardozi embroidery, another type of metallic thread work.

It's almost as beautiful as the city of Cairo is in my dreams...

Monte Carlo

I love F. Scott Fitzgerald.  My favorite of his novels is "Tender Is the Night", which takes place on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, and chronicles the tragic romance between the innocent young American actress Rosemary Hoyt and the glamourous American couple Dick and Nicole Diver.

There's something so enchanting about the French Riviera in the '20s.  Imagine sun-bathing all day, coming home for a quick nap, getting dressed up in a floor-length chiffon gown made for a goddess, and having glamourous dinner parties with full orchestras, ice sculptures, a palm-edged dance floor, devastatingly handsome men in three-piece suits, and slightly bored-looking women, in dresses that go on for miles, sipping fizzy cocktails.  The lights of Monaco could barely compete with the glittering crowd.

I'm sure it would be just as glamourous in the winter:

Monte Carlo is the height of glitz and decadence, in an utterly refined way.  I think it perfectly sums up this collection:

                                      

And I could definitely see Nicole Diver wearing it as she's lazily led across the dance floor by Dick, Rosemary looking on in awe...

Amazonia

Since I was at least 19, but probably way before then, I've had a love affair with Brazil.  I remember the first time I heard "The Girl From Ipanema," while driving with my aunt and uncle through North Carolina in the middle of winter, on my way back to college.  The melancholy melody had such a carefree calmness about it and made me yearn for exotic shores and sunshine so warm it gives you goosebumps - the exact antithesis of the situation I found myself in (I was so dreading going back to school, and did I mention I HATE winter?).

I get the same feeling now whenever I hear any bossa nova songs - the soothing Portuguese lyrics roll off the tongue effortlessly, like waves on the beaches of Ipanema, and I am transported to a dreamworld.  I finally made it to Brazil a few years ago, and it was everything I imagined.  Beautiful people, breath-taking scenery, lazy beaches, and sunshine - what more could you ask for?

My love affair with Brazil continues.  I hope to one day make it to the Amazon, which I'm sure holds more adventures than I can imagine.  In the meantime, I have been inspired by my own ideas of it, which are translated into the Amazonia collection.  When I picture the Amazon in my head, I see miles and miles of green as far as the eye can see.  But it's not just green - the subtleties in the hues slowly show themselves, and like a peacock fanning its feathers, shades of olive, emerald, teal, copper, gold, and even hints of indigo are revealed.

                                   

I used real beetle wings on these pieces.  They come from the Asian Jewel Green Beetles, which are indigenous to Northern Thailand.  The natural iridescent color of the wings is amazing - the colors change depending on which angle you look at them.  These wings have been used to make jewelry and embellish garments for centuries - most notably in the 19th century.  The following are some amazing works from that time period:

             

                

    

You can find out more about the use of beetles in textiles throughout history, also including their use by the Shaur peoples in the Amazon region here:

 http://www.insects.org/ced2/beetles_tex.html

I've finally caved in...

...and decided to start a blog. I've been hearing so much about social media lately and how it is radically changing the way we communicate. I was resistant at first - I've heard about studies indicating that twitter and all the information we're constantly bombarded with can negatively affect our ability to empathize and experience compassion, as in the following article:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/twitcompassion/

And don't forget how hard it is for anyone to focus these days... However, I attended a conference on social media last week that made me start to think about it in a different way. I realized it can be a platform for generating inspiration and creating compassion - a place where people can share their stories and perhaps change the world.

My goal in starting this blog is obviously to promote my jewelry line Suzanna Dai, but more importantly, it's to share my inspirations and travel stories, and hopefully encourage everyone to share theirs too!