The Neptune Pool:
The Roman Pool:
These mosaics are done in 24K Gold
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
More Mosaics
I'm still thinking of Italy and Greece.... I found these photos of Hearst Castle, William Randolph Hearst's breathtaking estate in San Simeon, CA. This place is so amazing - it sits on a hilltop right off the Pacific Coast Highway, and you can tell the inspiration was overwhelmingly ancient Greek and Roman, with a 1920's twist. It's like a dream straight out of The Great Gatsby. Can you imagine a cocktail party in the summer with a live 1920's orchestra on the grounds? Swoon. I want to live there!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Amalfi
Italy - beautiful country of aesthetic treasures, where modernity is a glance away from the ancient, and both are constantly playing off of each other, in a mesmerizing pas de deux. Southern Italy, with its glittering sun-kissed Mediterranean waters, intensely passionate and warm people, and historical riches, is where I long to be - particularly Capri and the Amalfi Coast.
I went to Capri in May 2004, after convincing my family that we HAD to go there over Venice. I won that battle, but really we all won, because Capri is beautiful. It greets you with its arms wide open, and embraces you in a warm sun-drenched kiss. When you are there, colors are more brilliant, food is more flavorful, and life is filled with possibilities that start somewhere between the azure sky, deep turquoise sea and distant lazuline islands. They all merge together in such a burst of blue that you couldn't tell where one ends and the other begins, were it not for the golden sun.
There are ancient ruins on the island that remind me of Pompeii and the amazing mosaics which are still preserved there. I always remember this kind of intricate mosaic work when I think of the Amalfi area and its turquoise blues and greens. This ancient craft of mosaic work, and the colors of Amalfi inspired the collection after which it is named.
I went to Capri in May 2004, after convincing my family that we HAD to go there over Venice. I won that battle, but really we all won, because Capri is beautiful. It greets you with its arms wide open, and embraces you in a warm sun-drenched kiss. When you are there, colors are more brilliant, food is more flavorful, and life is filled with possibilities that start somewhere between the azure sky, deep turquoise sea and distant lazuline islands. They all merge together in such a burst of blue that you couldn't tell where one ends and the other begins, were it not for the golden sun.
There are ancient ruins on the island that remind me of Pompeii and the amazing mosaics which are still preserved there. I always remember this kind of intricate mosaic work when I think of the Amalfi area and its turquoise blues and greens. This ancient craft of mosaic work, and the colors of Amalfi inspired the collection after which it is named.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Art Deco Is Alive and Well
I've recently read that Art Deco is dead, but I could not disagree more. Lately, it's been one of my biggest inspirations.
In fact, I recently did a collection for W Hotels the Store's "Global Glam" program, and Art Deco was the main theme. The pieces I designed were inspired by old Hollywood glamour, and featured deep crimson reds, jet black, sparkling silver, and smoky grays - a color palette perfect for a screen siren. Think Veronica Lake.
Here's a sneak peak of a few of the pieces:
In fact, I recently did a collection for W Hotels the Store's "Global Glam" program, and Art Deco was the main theme. The pieces I designed were inspired by old Hollywood glamour, and featured deep crimson reds, jet black, sparkling silver, and smoky grays - a color palette perfect for a screen siren. Think Veronica Lake.
Here's a sneak peak of a few of the pieces:
Deco Cuff featuring red silk and chain-embroidered tulle covered gems
Deco Fan Earrings
Deco Chain Necklace embroidered with large gems and cascading chain loops
This collection will be featured exclusively at the W Hotels this spring, so be on the lookout for it, and bring out your inner movie star!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
La Dolce Vita
One of the most inventive fashion designers from the 1930s is Elsa Schiaparelli. In typical Roman form, she had fun with fashion and didn't take anything too seriously, often working with surrealist artists such as Jean Cocteau and Alberto Giacometti to create whimsical designs with a tongue-in-cheek appeal. Perhaps most well known is the lobster dress, the result of a collaboration with Salvador Dali, and worn by Wallis Simpson (the future Duchess of Windsor) for a 1937 Vogue spread photographed by Cecil Beaton:
She made these quirky gloves, upon being inspired by a photograph taken by Man Ray of hands Picasso painted to look like gloves:
Schiaparelli also did some amazing embroidery and beadwork using metallic gold threads, mirrors, and sequins, which really inspire me:
embroidered Versailles cape
design collaboration with Jean Cocteau
I think Schiaparelli embodies the Roman design aesthetic perfectly - it's decadent, fun, and glamourous, with lots of bold color tinged in gold. If anyone knows how to do over the top, it's the Romans!
Her interpretation of the trends in art and culture during the late 1930s, along with all that intricate beadwork, really inspired my Rome collection:
Rome Necklace
Rome Drop Earrings
Rome Cuff
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Hot Spots
It's cold. Really cold. Whenever it's this cold, I always start thinking about where I can go that's warm, sunny, and far away. I grew up in Houston, and although I've been in New York for the past 10 years, I don't think I will ever get used to the cold. Call me crazy (and many people have), but I actually like hot, humid weather.
During summers in Texas, it's so hot outside that every building you enter is air-conditioned as cold as the freezer section in a grocery store, and you have to wear sweaters inside. After being inside such a cold place for hours, I would look forward to going outside and being embraced by a thick heat. I had a ritual where I would sit in my car, all the windows closed, and absorb the heat until I got goosebumps and started to sweat. Only after about 5 minutes of this intense heat would I turn on the engine and the air conditioning.
We've got a ways to go until it gets that hot again - at least 5 months. Sometimes looking at photos of a warm place makes me feel better and forget for a second that it's 19 degrees outside, so here are some photos I took at various hot spots around the world. Until I can get there again, I'll be dreaming about them...
Brazil - these were taken in Rio de Janiero, or on the beaches in Buzios, in 2006
During summers in Texas, it's so hot outside that every building you enter is air-conditioned as cold as the freezer section in a grocery store, and you have to wear sweaters inside. After being inside such a cold place for hours, I would look forward to going outside and being embraced by a thick heat. I had a ritual where I would sit in my car, all the windows closed, and absorb the heat until I got goosebumps and started to sweat. Only after about 5 minutes of this intense heat would I turn on the engine and the air conditioning.
We've got a ways to go until it gets that hot again - at least 5 months. Sometimes looking at photos of a warm place makes me feel better and forget for a second that it's 19 degrees outside, so here are some photos I took at various hot spots around the world. Until I can get there again, I'll be dreaming about them...
Brazil - these were taken in Rio de Janiero, or on the beaches in Buzios, in 2006
Tulum, Mexico - these were taken at the Mayan ruins in Tulum, in 2004
India - these were taken last summer (2008), in Agra, outside of Delhi, and Bangalore
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.
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.
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