A BIT of fashion news to sweeten the Monday morning!
I loved the fall-winter collections I saw today on the World Fashion Channel! My TV is permanently switched on to the World Fashion Channel. On Sundays I will watch only passingly as I do the house-cleaning: in fact, watching bits and pieces from Fashion TV is the one good thing about house-cleaning!
:-)
For the fall-winter this year I saw warm colors in lovely combinations on soft, comfortable fabric. But I also saw brilliant white sometimes on soft, sometimes on satiny material. The collections bring to mind cold late afternoons, winter shopping, coming back to a cosy home, but also glitzy winter glamor!
Yet, I haven't missed winter yet! I still prefer summer, and the sunny summer months. Have a beautiful start to one more summer week! xxx
A NEW Saturday and a new Lipstick Papers Weekend Review!
This week our book is Susannah Marriott's The Ultimate Fairies Handbook, published by MQP Publications in 2006.
Susannah Marriott lives and writes from Cornwall, which is where I bought this volume! It will always remind me of having just moved back to England from Cyprus, and will always get me back to Cornwall --a place of folklore and fairy tales, an old place, where Arthurian legends are still alive, and fairies and sorceress do exist. A magic place indeed!
Theme: The book is rich with information about fairies and everything fairy tale. It is truly a handbook, because it covers a wide variety of fairy tale subjects, including fairies in literature, in art, and fairy trees and flowers.
Strong points: amazing illustrations, absorbing information and guides on how to find fairy lairs and portals to the fairy world! For me, the most wonderful feature is the Fairy Calendar! This is a Calendar of "auspicious fairy days" and they meaning, such as St Mark's Eve (if you are born on that day, i.e. 24 April, you can see fairies), May Eve, Halloween (of course), Christmas Eve (bring in mistletoe, special for the fairies) and so on.
Verdict: Totally recommended for any fairy enthusiast!
I will end with a quotation I found in the book, from none other than Albert Einstein: "if you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales"!
Until next weekend, be well and keep beauty always with you!
A THANK-YOU rose for everyone who reads this blog! I hope your summer is getting along well! xxx
HERE'S a touch of beauty for today! Barbie in silver and gold and the pink dress in Art. Let's keep our thoughts and hearts beautiful midst hardship. I wish you all a happy Friday. The Lipstick Papers Weekend Review coming soon! xxx
HIGH HEELS look great even in art, as this painting clearly proves!
Also, The Lipstick Papers is happy to report that Christian Louboutin's signature red sole comes from a lipstick! Yes!
Here's the quote from Louboutin himself: "An assistant in the office always used to wear the same color red lipstick and matching nail polish. One day I asked to borrow it and coated the bottom of a pair of stilettos just to see what it would look like, et voila! I loved the dramatic red color against the clean line of the shoe. It was the most beautiful red I had ever seen. Now it's my hallmark." (Christian Louboutin interview to Gisele Scanlon for The Goddess Guide).
High heels and stilettos undoubtedly make women look sexier and more beautiful. I hate it when women are ridiculed for their love of heels! I never wear heels myself, yet I understand that heels contribute to beauty, and beauty is valued in society. Why are women silly for wearing high heels?
However, heels need to be used in moderation, like everything, I suppose. They are detrimental for the legs and feet, and should be kept for special occasions!
Heels were first introduced in the 1590s, and have a long history; up until the 19th century they were carved from wood and reinforced with leather -- a significant development came when, in 1947, Christian Dior inserted a steel rod in the molded plastic heel. No more breaking!
If you are interested in the history of high heels, or indeed fashion in general, I would recommend The Berg Companion to Fashion, edited by the amazing fashion historian Valerie Steele.
I am currently reading Tamara Mellon's autobiography In My Shoes. Mellon is the co-founder of Jimmy Choo (though I think she has left now). More about the book in a later post!
I LIKE this picture so much, I thought I could write something about it, despite my mixed feelings towards ironing!
I have never been able to iron even the simplest item of clothing. Okay, maybe I managed to iron a T-shirt, but not much else. My ironing is terrible. I am great at housekeeping, but ironing is a different story. I don't know if this is the subconscious outcome of seeing so many "humor" cartoons in newspapers with the woman ironing while the man is lying on the couch watching TV, I just don't like it.
Still, I have always envied those who can iron. A good friend once told me that she is excellent at ironing, and that she would iron clothes for payment. I listened, all the while getting greener and greener. I was so jealous! Somehow I managed to hide it, however.
;-)
Ironed clothes are lovely and ironing is a great skill to have, whether you are a woman or man. There are no tasks specific to women or men.
In Rosamunde Pilcher's Coming Home, protagonist Judith Dunbar always associates ironing and ironed clothes with home and warmth. The smell of freshly ironed clothes is a balm in tough times, and those who can iron well are the highly competent and sympathetic characters Phyllis and Mary Millyway.
I am re-reading Coming Home after seventeen years. Despite its failings, it is a book which has a lot to say about beauty and fashion. More about this at a later post!
START THE WEEK
This is such a beautiful painting! Fashion and beauty from mother to daughter. Beauty and beauty rituals is, I think, important female knowledge passed down the centuries from one woman to another. There is nothing trivial or silly about beauty. Beauty is part of women's history, and part of who we are. Of course, beauty has also degrees, and I don't mean that we should spend hours in front of the mirror if we don't want to! I am only saying that if we do want to, it can be great fun!
Plus, the painting is a lovely way to start a week of new posts.
Enjoy the summer and sun, always with beauty and a good book!
SUMMER is quick to move on -- we are already on the first weekend of July! Which means only one thing: it is time for the Lipstick Papers Weekend Review!
Today I want to talk about a lovely book called The Hedgerow Handbook: Recipes, Remedies and Rituals by Adele Nozedar, published by Square Peg in 2012.
Theme: This is a handbook of hedgerow plants and, as the author says herself, an "ideal backpack companion for country walks and hedgerow foraging". It is a directory of hedgerow plants from angelica to cherries to ash and wild strawberries. There is a separate little chapter for each plant. The chapters all follow the same structure: illustrations of the plant, general information, culinary uses, medicinal uses, recipes.
Strong point(s): the edition is absolutely elegant and lovely, printed on thick, cream-colored paper, with wonderful illustrations which you will love! The volume is easy to use and pleasant to read. There are many things to find out, as well as recipes old and new, going from tradition to recipes found in Facebook!
Verdict: I love this book! I haven't read it all, I read bit by bit, and I absolutely enjoy reading. I have read about things I didn't even know existed, such as ground elder pancakes, fruit butters, and meadow flowers with fairy tale names such as Lady's Smock and Ox-Eye Daisy. The author also writes about alchemy, and has her own Facebook page and website which is interactive with her twitter account.
I imagine this book on the shelf of a sorceress, a wizard, a fairy, or even an alchemist! It is all about the power, beauty and magic of nature and plants!
BECAUSE I have been bombarded lately with captions like "take the challenge and fix your body to go to the beach"...
Because I have read the caption "are you confident enough to go to the beach"? about a hundred times...
Because I have seen hundreds of images of already painfully thin women stuck on articles on how to diet even more...
I have come up with the Summer Beauty Manifesto, and here it is! A few simple rules/ declarations.
1. Going to the beach is definitely not a challenge. The point is to have fun.
2. Going to the beach is not a competition or a beauty pageant.
3. The beach is not the runway. The runway is for professional models, the beach is to have fun.
4. It is good, for both men and women, to try and look well. But this is only optional.
5. The beach is not a "challenge" and I don't go there to compete with anyone. I go to enjoy the sun and sea.
6. Ice-cream is a gift. It is to be enjoyed.
7. Pictures of models are inspiring! They should not be used to make us feel guilty or inadequate. Pictures of models are there to show us how beautiful men and women can be!
Enjoy your day in the sun! Always with beauty and a book!
A BOOK I am currently reading, Jennifer Potter's Seven Flowers and How they Shaped our World, is about the stories and histories flowers have to say! How about flowers in stories? Here's some ideas!
Ophelia's wild river flowers are deadly in Shakespeare's Hamlet, but Romeo is so beautiful Juliette can only compare him to a rose!
Flowers as a token of love, passion and affection exist everywhere in books, from Charles Dickens's Bleak House to E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey. In Tara Sue Me's The Submissive, a bouquet of white roses with pink tips is fraught with meaning!
A tragic story behind flowers is found in Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth; hero-villain Henry Billingham places flowers on Ruth's beautiful hair, only to remember them later while he is ill and Ruth is nursing him, the love they once shared shattered beyond repair.
If you are interested in the history of flowers and their cultural meanings, I would recommend Edward Lucie-Smith's Flora: Gardens and Plants in Art and Literature, Brent Elliott's Flora: An Illustrated History of the Garden Flower, and Peter Harkness's The Rose: A Colourful Inheritance. All beloved books in my garden -- er, I mean library!
