an attitude

at The Frick

 

Breakfast at Tiffany's

at Tiffany Landmark, Fifth Avenue

 

in pursuit of fashion....

at The MET Costume Institute...

clearly cosmopolitan

on w 97th street...

Monastic Mondays

MET Cloisters, Heavenly Bodies...
Valentino
Saint Guilhem Cloister 

oh, Mexico!

on orchard street...

lighthearted

riverside drive...

Man/Woman, a summer soiree

at SIXTY LES
Man/Woman Show celebration... NYMFW  

small treasures

happy to see my amethyst necklace again, back from its round trip journey through California to Mexico for a delicate repair....

necklace, http://debbiedelacueva.com
beach coral, punta de mita, mexico

healing heart

i lost my cherished, clear crystal Kazuko heart pendant yesterday, gifted to me years ago by a dear friend who then worked at Barneys where Kazuko's jewelry and Kazuko herself were both fixtures.

i wonder if the universe simply needed it back?

once upon a time in a 1998 feature story, an EVP of Barneys said of the Kazuko craze, " the first jewelry we had in the store was the single stones of clear crystal with bold wrapping... They were mostly pendants to be pinned on. Then she did hearts, and I didn't understand. 'Barneys is not a heart store,' I told her. But she kept bringing them back, and it became the right thing."  http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/22/style/a-priestess-of-zen-adornment.html

i always found it to be an object of incredible simplicity, beauty and calm, light and bright on the body and warm to the touch after wearing.  i already miss tucking it back into its spot in the jewelry drawer of my dresser.

the heart, and the shiny gold wire wrapped around it, also came to symbolize part of my own fashion history.  while it was given to me by one friend from Barneys, another small piece was presented to me years later by Kazuko herself through connection to yet another friend who i came to work with at YSL, all of us neatly and not so neatly intertwined through our roles and grateful for the transformative properties of Kazuko's crystals to instill in us the higher powers we needed to meet our latest, greatest challenges in the line of fashion duty...

and speaking of fashion duty, earlier this week, two of us met up for a lunch meeting at The Modern and even uttered Kazuko's name as i commented on the beauty of the signature, chunky amulet my friend was wearing.  minutes after our lunch, we bumped into none other than the legendary Andre Leon Talley at Manolo Blahnik and a brief but meaningful exchange took place among crystals of an entirely different but equally wondrous sort.

if there is a moral to the story, perhaps it is simply that positive energy and light will continue to find us when we believe they are there to be discovered.  after all, fashion is love.

small Kazuko crystal, circa 1998

love knots

http://www.jencogliantry-handmade.com

photogenic

Pier 94, capsule show

walking and talking

on Kenmare Street...

small packages

Tiffany, Fifth Avenue...

just looking

abc home...

a girl in blue

outside the MET, Fifth Avenue...

seeing stars

at Capsule Show...

PELIGRO

"PELIGRO .... is not to be part of the story."

So asserts designer Mercedes Salazar of her initiative working with men in Colombian prisons to create hand knit baskets of recycled packing tape.

At the invitation of the Aspen Institute's Artisan Alliance, Mercedes recently traveled to New York to share a video of the project and speak about additional collaborations with indigenous people in neighboring communities, highlights of which include natural woven baskets with gold thread, hand embroidered wool pillows from Chia, and delicate cotton friendship bracelets from Putumayo.

Mercedes spoke about the importance of reviving interest in local, artisanal techniques that do not appeal to the younger generations in many communities, demonstrating through her own efforts that with updates to materials and colors and patterns, the crafts can indeed claim relevance and generate valuable sources of income, too.

Her messages are built into the items she creates, literally.  PELIGRO.  Divina. Unica. Amor. The objects embody the meaning of the message and take on a power of their own.

The person who is lucky enough to wear a piece of Mercedes Salazar jewelry or enjoy a creation from her lifestyle collection knows this power because it is transmitted to them, as well.

Behold the beauty of Mercedes Salazar!!

www.mercedessalazar.com 

Learn more about the important collaborative mission of The Aspen Institute Alliance at http://www.allianceforartisanenterprise.org.

Happy Holidays and New Year!

milestone

according to Native American Indians, blue chalcedony was a sacred stone,  considered a stone of healing, nurturing, and absorbing of negative energy...

it is from the quartz family and it's light blue color is associated with meditation, nurturing, trust and good will.....

a blue stone and a birthday blog post for beth...
http://www.crystalvaults.com/crystal-encyclopedia/blue-chalcedony

vegan divas unite!

 



 

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feast your eyes and just plain feast !!  another stunning debut by Fernanda ! www.vegandivasnyc.com