Staff • L'équipe
-
colour© S. Sampson
Out of the blue
Blue is a colour it’s a pleasure to discover in Paris. Perhaps because of its prevalence in the language, in which it indicates countless different moods and expressions, one starts seeing it everywhere.
The blues of the dictionary are just a starting point: steel blue, sky blue, navy blue, Royal blue. Within the world of fashion and furnishings, innumerable artists, creators and makers find their own – from the R...
-
en passant© S.Sampson
Two odd birds for Tate Britain
The objects, one hanging suspended and the other lying side-swiped, are decommissioned war aircraft. They comprise the Tate Britain Gallery’s 2010 Duveen Commission by artist Fiona Banner. The curator is Tate Britain’s Lizzie Carey-Thomas.
Ms. Banner admits to a long obsession with fighting aircraft. She once created as art a “wordscape” by transcribing the whole of the movie ‘Top Gun’. He...
-
memoryMuseum of London
Time-travel, pure Pleasure
A tourist attraction for two centuries, Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens once kept all of Europe talking. During Queen Victoria’s reign, however, it vanished completely. All that is now left are memoirs and depictions – many from names such as Samuel Pepys, Dr. Johnson, William Thackeray, Canaletto and Charles Dickens.
But you can still get a taste of it at the Museum of London. There, among the five galleries opened in 2010, a...
-
Perfect Parisian style revisited
The artiste was originally known by his full name, Monsieur Henri Donat Mathieu-Yves-Saint-Laurent.
Now, he is known as both a three-letter logo on pricey lipsticks and, to costume historians, the architect of a total revolution in women’s clothing.
On this occasion, the visionary behind le smoking (the “women’s tuxedo”), safari jackets and see-through chiffon, has received a massive summer 2010 retrospective at t...
-
object© Jean Sherrard
Let them eat cake…carefully
The object of desire is the fève, a special good-luck charm.
You find it during consumption of French galettes des rois, which takes place on January 6 (or the first Sunday of that month) every year in commemoration of Epiphany. Officially a commemoration of Jesus’ presentation to the Three Kings, les rois, the festivity is really rooted in winter solstice rites. It was during these that the Romans ate pastries containing...