i spy: a painted flapper, art deco architecture, a handsome absurdist

I glean the images for these posts from my Tumblr blog, alwaysalwaysalwaysthesea, which is basically what the inside of my brain looks like at any given moment.  February may be a short month, but to look at my Tumblr, it was a busy one.  Yes, let's face it, a huge portion of my Tumblr right now is Christoph Waltz.  I don't apologize for this.  (And, as an aside:  hey bloggers?  Stop apologizing for what you do or don't post.  You don't have to do this.  Really.)  It's my blog, my brain, and Waltz to me is what I imagine a shot of serotonin would feel like to someone who has Seasonal Affective Disorder.  So there!  But even aside from all the Waltz goodness, there were an awful lot of other things that were inspiring me last month.  

Have a look.

1 / still from one of my very favorite films, The Third Man / via

2 / a great photo of Katharine Hepburn / via

3 / art deco building drawing by architect Hugh Ferriss / via

4 / postcard by Wiener Werkstätte artist Koloman Moser, ca 1898 / via

5 / handsome writer Albert Camus, photographed by Cecil Beaton, 1946 / via

1 / Flapper, painting by Margaret Preston, 1925 / via

2 / West Flanders, Belgium, photo by Mathijs Delvia / via

3 / Louis Vuitton travel library / via

4 / won his second Oscar and was the best-dressed man there while doing so / via 

5 / I was and am fascinated by the story of the discovery of Richard III's remains beaneath a Leicester parking lot / via

xo

K

deadstock men's shirts + seduction tips (you're welcome!)

Coming to the shop--starting today--a nice little collection of deadstock men's 1960s shirts to get you fellas set for spring and summer!  That's my valentine to all you vintage-loving dudes out there.  (Hey, notice my subtle reference to the holiday?)

Yeah, it's Valentine's Day.  Whatever.  Let's all just love each other a little more, every day, all the time, please.  Thank you.

So the shirts are for the guys.  This is for everyone: Christoph Waltz on the Art of Seduction.  Thanks to the awesome folk at Christoph's official fan site, Christoph Waltz Fans, for alerting me to the existence of this video.

xoxo

K

i spy: disheveled ladies, pink hair, gorgeous libraries, the divine Waltz

Good grief!  I can't believe we're almost halfway through February and I haven't yet posted my favorite images/inspirations from January.  There was so much good stuff I had to pack it into two groups: one (roughly) black and white, and the other (roughly) in color.  As always, follow me on Tumblr and Pinterest for more of this stuff!

1 / Clarissa Merton, London, 1959, photograph by Patrick Lichfield / Chris Beetles Fine Photographs

2 / Sawston Hall (UK) library, ca 1970 / Sawston Village History Society Archive

3 / Thom Brown pre-Fall 2013 / Style.com

4 / title page, Tenants of the Trees by Clarence Hawkes, illustrated by Louis Rhead, 1907 / archives.org

5 / the beautiful and talented Christoph Waltz / couldn't find the source, but first saw it here

That image of Clarissa Merton just grabbed me hard...I love the combination of an elegant wardrobe, but ruffled and windblown.  Fantastic.  Also, I just want to say that I fell in love with the new Thom Brown collection before I knew the First Lady was going to wear him at the inauguration, so I'm feeling all smart and ahead of the curve.

And can we talk about Christoph Waltz?  (If you follow my Tumblr, you know that's about the only thing I talk about lately.)  I was knocked out by his performance in Inglourious Basterds (which is one of my favorite Tarantino films), and for those who don't know, it was this performance that earned him, a 52-year-old Austrian/German actor basically unknown to American audiences, the Oscar and worldwide fame and attention.  I kind of forgot about him after that, until just last month when I saw him as Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained.  And it all came back to me...I was just enraptured by his performance.  Between these two films, his excellent performance in Roman Polanski's Carnage, and the hilariously silly bits he's done for the Jimmy Kimmel show, I'm just in love.  I strongly urge anyone who hasn't seen his work yet to check out these films.  I'm pretty sure he's going to take home another Oscar again this year.  And now I'm embarking on a most enjoyable journey to check out the rest of Waltz's many years of work (much of which is in German.  No subtitles.).

1 / "The Downs by Moonlight," a carte de visite portrait of a couple by water in the moonlight, ca 1870 / via

2 / Meri, Helsinki street style / Hel Looks

3 / Mina Perhonen printed coat / via

4 / amazing French silk nightgown with woodland motif lace and tree trunk embroidery on the bodice, ca 1936 / Metropolitan Museum of Art

5 / Schrank sleepwear ad: "But just once...just one little night...you get to bed by ten and...sure as Schrank, somebody comes borrowing something!" Sure as Schrank! / The Pie Shops

I'm loving pink and purple hair lately (did you see Helen Mirren's pink hair at the BAFTAs?).  Also, make sure you click the link to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see that 1936 silk nightgown in all its embroidered glory--a jaw dropping piece!  And finally, I have so far been unsuccessful at my new year's resolution to adopt the phrase "sure as Schrank!" into daily usage, but maybe having posted this cool Schrank ad here, I'll now remember.

Küsse und Umarmungen

xoxo

K