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?

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.

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!

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!

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".