BAROMETER...

I find that my Svpply is a fairly accurate barometer of my thoughts and preoccupations at any one time. 

{Details here.}

THE SEA...

Before the great rains of April came, this happened.

Balmy weather, half a cider before lunch, days on the beach, shorts, sandals, binoculars, all the beach huts but a few still closed for the winter, bracing swims in the freezing sea (not me). And that was that.

A PICTURE IS A PICTURE...

I've been having some slight technical issues with my Canon A-E1 recently...

The winding on arm has disappeared. Where it is, I couldn't tell you: at the bottom of the grand canal, on a plane, buried in the sand on a Dorset beach? Wherever it's jet setting, it's gone. So I bought a back-up Canon AE-1 body for cheaps on ebay to strip for parts and... you know how the winder on arm is not SUPPOSED to come off? I can't get it off the camera. I do not have the correct implement.

Until I can find someone who does, a random assortment of inferior picture taking devices will have to suffice. But as a wise woman once said to me, a picture is a picture.

PERSOL 0649s FOR SALE...

{SOLD}

I am very regretfully selling these Persol 0649 sunglasses - which I LOVE with their Marcello Mastroianni connotations and general extreme coolness factor - because they do not fit my stupid face! My cheeks (stupid cheeks) stick out so the bottom of the frames stick on them. Annoying.

I thought I'd offer them up for sale here before anywhere else.

The colour is Havana (24/51). Frame size small (49). Will be sent with the original case and cleaning cloth.

I paid €140 for them in Paris and have only worn them a couple of times - selling for £80 GBP. Free shipping within Europe. (If you're outside Europe please comment with your location so I can work out your shipping cost.)

Leave a comment if you're interested or email me at: lolaisbeauty at hotmail dotcodot uk.
Paypal only please!

MOSTLY BEEN WEARING...

Nails, nails, nails; navy, navy, navy; Family Affairs tiny stars and Fellini stripes; rings, rings, rings; Dr Martens Alfred white soled brogues, vintage polka dots; peter pan collars; le fresh cut.

MIRAMARE...

Castello di Miramare, on the Gulf of Trieste. It was completed in 1860 for the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian and his wife Charlotte of Belgium. In 1864 they left to become Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota of Mexico. In 1867 Maximilian was assassinated in Mexico and Charlotte returned to Castello di Miramare, but she 'slowly lost her reason' and was taken back to Belgium by her family. Such a tragic story and such a short time they had at this spectacularly idyllic and peaceful location.

VREELAND IN VENICE...

I'm two weeks behind and still have loads to show from Venice. But it's about time I got to the point.

This year, as it sometimes does, my birthday fell on Mothers' Day. (In the U.K. but not the rest of Europe.) All props to mums but I don't have one and I'm not one - so trying to celebrate your birthday when everyone around you is celebrating mum-ness can be a little... grim?

So this year I took positive action. I'd wanted to try and go to Venice in March to see the Diana Vreeland exhibition at Palazzo Fortuny anyway. Throw in my birthday and some good friends and an escape plan was hatched.
I got on a plane on the morning of my birthday, was met at the airport in Venice by sweet friends and an hour later we were at the DV exhibition.

If you've ever been to Palazzo Fortuny you'll know that the main room is beautiful and atmospheric - hung on all sides with heavy draperies, with low lighting and glimmering pieces of art; even if it was empty it would strike you as special. But this time it had Diana Vreeland's clothes and personal memorabilia displayed in cabinets: all her shoes (always the same style made by Dal Co. in Rome) lined up neatly side by side on a tooo higgghhh shelf, the originals of family photographs and portraits of her I've seen reproduced in books a million times, a huge glass case filled with Harper's Bazaars and Vogues from her time working there. It was almost a shock to see how modern some of the covers from the thirties or fifties looked. The exhibition is intentionally staged not in chronological order but as a narrative, perhaps to place the importance on imagination first and foremost, rather than as a straight up retrospective.

The second floor is more to do with curation than with Diana Vreeland somehow. It was the curators' interpretation of what she represents, is the best way I can describe it. In any case I got the feeling they'd had free reign with this floor, and while it was interesting, sometimes the connection with DV was a little tenuous - though I'm never going to complain about seeing beautiful clothes. Every decade she influenced is represented in some way. Another possibility is that this floor relates to DV's work at the Metropolitan Costume Institute, where she freed up the way exhibitions could be curated and displayed: on entering the room you're greeted by a large white calico covered horse {here} placed with some 1960s Pucci and Missoni - a triple reference by the curators Judith Clark and Maria Luisa Frisa: one, to the infamous Tahiti shoot where DV sent photographer Norman Parkinson in 1965 with strict orders to shoot a picture of a beautiful white horse with a long tail, plaited to the ground using pounds of fake Dynel hair she gave him (DV's favourite prop in the '60s). Upon arriving in Tahiti the crew discovered there wasn't a single white horse on the island. The second reference is to her Costume Institute exhibitions where she would always place a huge prop at the entrance, to set the scene. For her Balenciaga exhibit she used a 17th century white horse, but here the horse is Italian (apparently!). And thirdly, choosing Pucci and Missoni clothes from the sixties to remind us that the exhibition we're seeing is in Italy. (I'm not sure the casual visitor would have picked up on all that!)

At the end of the exhibition (right about the time I overheard two guards discussing 'that girl who keeps snapping away with her cellphone, I've told her time and again not to take pictures' - sorry guards, but you didn't threaten to kick me out!) was the most beautiful display against the stripped, layered, mottled wall of the palazzo: two Fortuny delphos gowns in silvery gold, a Schiaparelli cape from Judith Clark's personal archive and this shimmering soft gold Chanel tailleur from the twenties.

All in all, a fantastic birthday treat!

{Diana Vreeland After Diana Vreeland is on at Palazzo Fortuny, Venice until 25 June (closed Tuesdays).}