Showing posts with label vintage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vintage. Show all posts

Tuesday, 13 May 2014

beach house basics


If you have had time to flick across to either my twitter or facebook page, 
you will have seen me describe myself as
 moving between the southern tip and the northern edge of africa 
Well, last month saw us spending holiday time down south,
 and for the last week we were lucky enough to sit still for a while and stay in a friends beach cottage.
 This was a cottage full of nostalgia for me, full of patina and texture from my childhood beach holidays.
 No grand vistas, vast sheets of glass or cutting edge design, but instead hot water that comes on with a woosh of the gas flame, beds that just might have a slightly grainy feeling of sand at your toes, piles of shells collected over the years . . 




I developed a little routine in our short stay there.
In the quiet morning light the moka pot was put on the stove



And then I would light an oil lamp.
Yes, there was electricity, but I just loved sipping my coffee
with the gentle warmth of oil glowing.


 

worn textures
and collectable cushions



the perfect tap for the shower
form and function



garden textures

                                 

and indigenous plants


All this under the protective boughs of  tree
which I would imagine has been there longer than the house.



Perfect!


Wednesday, 5 February 2014

a little vintage glamour in morocco




There are some wonderful vintage images taken in Morocco.
Photographers like Irving Penn, George Dambier, Cecil Beaton . . . 
they all took photographs there.
 Some iconic, 
others simply everyday pictures images of friends and colleagues.

Below are some of my favourites.




Truman Capote by Cecil Beaton in Tangiers





Talitha Getty for Vogue in 1971





 My favourite image of Yves St Laurent working at his desk in Morocco.  
 I wish I was sitting at a desk under an arch overlooking my garden in morocco right now!







 Georges Dambier photographed Suzy Parker for Elle in 1953




I love the prickly pear cactus in the background of this image - always reminds me of the moroccan countryside.





This photograph was taken by Irving Penn of his wife Lisa Fonssagrives in 1951 
So many beautiful elements in this composition!







And of course this selection would be incomplete 
without the somewhat incongruous image 
taken in Morocco in  1958 by William Klein



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