Taeeun Yoo

See what I mean about Stendhal Syndrome? See Taeeun's work here.

The Design Files

Sometimes I feel completely overwhelmed by the creativity of other people, not at all in a bad way, more akin to the Stendahl Syndrome. It's for this reason that I don't often read sites such as Bloesem and Design Sponge too often, but recently I rediscovered The Design Files, and I feel that if I don't read it regularly, I'll be missing out big time. See it here.

Image of Tarlo and Graham from The Design Files

The Amazing Ann Wood

Link to Ann's blog is in my side bar.

Images from here

The Three Lives of KT

In my daily read of Style Bubble, I came across her post on KT Jewel. Somewhat unthinkingly I clicked on the link and then absent mindedly perused the images. Then something felt familiar; the style of jewelry, the name and the type KT was in... then some quick reading of the profile and I realised that it was the same woman behind KT Kiosk B, the place where I bought one of my absolute favourite pieces of jewelry, and whose style was highly influential on me even way back then. I kept her old card and I used to love looking through her tiny shop, knowing I was going to buy a piece, just deciding which one it would be. Luckily I did eventually make up my mind because one day I went back and she wasn't there. I asked around the neighboring shops and someone told me she'd gone to London. And looking at her pieces, that are now stocked in shops like Selfridges, I can't be sorry that she left for bigger and better things.

The necklace

KT Jewel (one off piece line here)

KT Elizabeth (diffusion line here)

So of course now I'm scouring her site for my next purchase, only ten years later!

Old School

Andrew was talking about polaroids today and that jogged my memory about a) downloading this software, and b) this girl. I used to read her blog, Fashion Weakley, religiously. It was one of my main inspirations for beginning my own blog, but now she's either not doing it or has made it private. You can still access her photos on Flickr though, and her trademark was polaroids. Her photos are still my favourite blogging images.

BorschVodkaTearsPaperScissorsStone

I spent this morning sampling for my next piece, a larger wrap to sit along side the ruffle scarf. I then raced out of the house for two meetings. I had plans to make my hair all nice and everything, but as usual, I only had time to pull on my old jeans, collect all my stuff and go.

First meeting was with Kayo. I am a big advocate of mixing business with pleasure. I hate the idea of a professional job running parallel with my hobbies and interests and never meeting. I want to mix it all up and be interested in everything, all the time. So, my first meeting was here.

Delicious! Such a cute place and nice service.


Second meeting was at this amazing place. This is Kate's old friend Andrew's design studio. Too much talking here to take photos, but this is their annual publication showcasing highlights of their work:

Hable Con Ella

One of my favourite sequences of things to do is:
1. Have a bite to eat at Tiamo
2. Browse in Readings
3. See a film at the Nova

Related only on the film point, this is one of my favourite scenes, ever (from Pedro Almodovar's Hable Con Ella).

Poulier and Poulier

I've heard many horror stories of guests who don't know better trying to clean up with the tea towels that aren't meant to be used as tea towels. I myself have had a very small collection of said tea towels, but somehow I was the one who accidentally used them. If I owned any of these however, they would not kept anywhere near the kitchen area!

Tea towels by Poulier and Poulier

Timorous Beasties

My mind is still completely occupied with this old vs new aesthetic. In the Fabric for Interiors world, Timorous Beasties are the kings. Their trademark prints are a complete take on the traditional toile de jouy. Their prints look traditional, but if you look closely, there's a less than savoury life shown. They also do lots of other amazing fabrics and products.

Inner Geek

I am terrible at buying electronic goods and would much rather spend money on other things (like new clothes), so as a result I'm always a million years behind everyone on the technology front. But my birthday came early this year and the Rayman has become to the rescue, saving me from a slow and painful digital camera death. As I've said before, I don't want to be mean to my old camera (an entry level Canon Powershot that the Rayman also bought me about six years ago), but I did some comparison shots, and well, the new one is just great. I decided on a Canon Powershot SX200IS. It's very compact, so it is a perfect daily/travel camera, but the great thing about it is that it has full manual controls. The 'template' settings the camera comes with will probably be ok but having the manual control is great when you want to start experimenting with effects, like deliberately underexposing, playing with blur, grain and so on.

This is the old camera, just on normal view, but with white balance set to tungsten.

New camera, from same position. On auto mode (didn't adjust white balance). The big difference is the 28mm wide angle lens.


Old camera, on maximum zoom


New camera, maximum zoom (amazing - those woman are in the photo on the far LHS. You can only just make them out in the photo before).


Old camera at closest focal setting


New camera at closest focal setting

I decided against a DSLR because I actually have a cupboard full of old cameras, including a Nikon F2 that I inherited from my dad. It is older than I am and was the professional camera in its day. One day I'm going to get it all cleaned up and start using it again. It's so heavy though so not a great camera for the handbag. I also have my eye on a Lomo LC-A (inspired by this girl) but am saving that for later.

Ok, just had to get that all out. I hope my photos look better from now on and I promise no more camera geek talk!

All I Want

I'm kind of liking this:



See Sarah's blog here

Nancybird

How cute is this little purse from Nancybird? And how quickly I've decided that I really need one!

Phoenix are Coming

Phoenix Melbourne show just announced here.

Astier de Villatte II

The pictures from Iselin reminded me of this site, which I have referred to before, but didn't post any imagery. This is my type of escapism (and the best possible way to sell a product to me).

Optikiselin

Intriguing product shots from Iselin. A bit like a night time Tim Walker.

Tim Walker Pictures

And following on from the last post, I am beyond excited. I have been coveting this book for months and now it's sitting on my coffee table. Kate and I equally love it so we bought it together and I'm having first turn!