Balenciaga suit, Régine, Paris, 1950 Cristobal Balenciaga, (1895 – 1972) a Spanish Basque fashion designer and the founder of the Balenciaga fashion house. Balenciaga was a master of illusion. He projected ideal garments, but allowed for human imperfection. He was, in fact, an inexorable flatterer, a sycophant to the imperfect body. To throw back a rolled collar [...] Read Full Story

The long awaited and repeatedly delayed memoir that has tongues wagging and aesthetes yearning across all continents has finally hit the shelves, dear readers, and this breathless read on party monster extraordinaire, social raconteur, designer, author of the maddeningly coveted Sheer Opulence, and master of the well-dropped name, Nicholas Ponsonby Haslam’s Redeeming Features is rumored [...] Read Full Story

“He was an urbanist historian, a Balzac of the camera, from whose work we can weave a large tapestry of French civilization.” ~Berenice Abbott) A century ago, Eugène Atget roamed the streets of Paris, photographing the city inside and out. Bringing together his splendid, romantic portraits of authentic Old Paris with photographs of contemporary interiors, this compilation [...] Read Full Story

Former House and Garden editor-in-chief Dominique Browning goes greener, starts writing monthly column for the Environmental Defense Fund.   A new website, Sight Unseen, unveils the creative processes (and über-cool studios) of designers and artists.   An idea whose time has come.  Pop-Up Flea Market this weekend in New York City, with vintage objects by designer/collector extraordinaire JP Williams, [...] Read Full Story

As an equal opportunity blogger with a real yen for the classic shoe of all time, a moment of reverence, please. While I may be ridiculed or derided for being sloppily sentimental, exceedingly mawkish, or just the least bit misty eyed over a pair of shoes, I am but a humble follower of the newspaper [...] Read Full Story

It’s been said that if you removed the lyrics of Johnny Mercer from the American songbook, you’d be left with a gaping silence. Imagine clubs and concert halls without the ineffably poetic words for “Skylark” and “Laura,” “One for My Baby” and “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “Old Black Magic” and Autumn Leaves,” “I Remember You” [...] Read Full Story

Someday there’s going to be a Broadway musical about Sarah [Palin], maybe based on the book. I see Going Rogue! (the exclamation point will be a must) as a blockbuster in the tradition of Annie Get Your Gun, Gypsy, and Funny Girl. Or, come to think of it, Evita. Every 40-plus diva on both coasts [...] Read Full Story

Radiator Building at Night, New York, 1927 Enthralled by the barren landscape and expansive skies of the desert, Georgia O’Keefe would become chiefly known for paintings of flowers, rocks, shells, animal bones, and the quiet beauty of open skies and sun-drenched terrains. Yet, it is her paintings of New York city done in the 1920’s that [...] Read Full Story

Leslie Howard, in the Studio, 1934. Photo: Edward Steichen Leslie Howard (1893 – 1943) diffident Hollywood actor, author, director, producer, sympathizer for the Allied war effort in World War II. Well known for playing stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen, yet best remembered for the character that will always be associated with him, that of Ashley Wilkes, the honour-bound disillusioned [...] Read Full Story

These large, elegant and most mysterious paintings of the necks and heads of women are a reflection of Christian de Laubadere’s fascination with the sophistication and sensuality of women, past and present. He paints on paper and canvas using lead pencils, smoke and charcoal as well as printed and embroidered fabric. Selections from China and [...] Read Full Story