Maotei
Photo from Christies
design
Spirit animals
Chair from Anthropologie, crappy photos because I was on the go in a store at the time.
Girl boss
I have never been an adherent of the simple white T and jeans look (I like colour; I need something to give me he illusion of a waist) but Girls On Top tees might change that for me.
How great to have a day pretending you were a mighty film maker just by wearing one of these…and way cooler than a band shirt.
Plus these ones have colour…
Gallery wall
I don’t think it’s going to be breaking news that I’m a maximalist by taste, and so I very much agreed with this article’s advice on how to hang art
(photograph of Ben Pentreath’s sitting room in an earlier incarnation.)
The Village
A perfect little microcosm. Eric Ravilious “The Village” (1933)
Art ideas
As part 361 of my ongoing rant about how art and decoration don’t need to be expensive, fancy or hard to find to look wonderful, I bring forward more witnesses for my cause. First up:
these two scribble pieces, one from @jyoungdesignhouse and one from Danielle Moss of “The Everyday Girl”. I imagine they’d be quite satisfying to recreate.
Next up, again by @jyoungdesignhouse, I like these easy ways to add punk to a bit of regency art. I could see it being easy to add a splash of acrylic to a postcard bought on holiday, and then you could either clip it up, put it on the fridge, or carry the joke on and frame it in the biggest ornate frame you can buy. It reminds me a bit of this simple but effective series too.
And lastly, from @nicoledavisinteriors, this corner of family photos. Although the style is way preppier than I’d go for myself, I like the reminder of making something special out of an otherwise empty corner. It also reminds me of my favourite Cup of Jo house tour with the red frames.
Famous women
In some countries, 8 May is women’s day, so here’s a bunch more of the Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant set that will hopefully be bought be Charleston soon and remain on public display.
The collection covered dancers (Pavlova, Taglioni), political movers and shakers (Sarah Churchill and several queens), writers (Georges Sand and Eliot), artists and muses (“La Bella Simonetta” was a subject for Bottecelli) and royal mistresses.
I recognised most of the women in set, including Dorothy Osborne, whose letters I studied at uni, but Agnes Sorel had me stumped…
Photos from my visit to the Piano Nobile gallery.
Achille Castiglione
An Italian designer who would have been 100 in February, his studio in Milan is one of the most fascinating things I’ve seen.
He collected objects endlessly, getting a sense of how they worked, of how they could be stretched or improved and what the most practical next steps would be.
All photos April 2018.
Anandi Gopal Joshi
Another top graphic from the google team, this one of India’s first female doctor.
Milan apartment
Excuse the poor quality of these photos, but I literally snapped them directly from my copy of Elle Deco. Loving the wild wallpaper, jade green hall, mix of rattan and willow-weave textures in the furniture and just the simple yet bold look of this home.
