Black Orchids

 

They're not really black, of course. Sometimes fashion has to do something exaggerated to make an impact, if not quite a statement.

The next time you stare in disbelief at one more Galliano-designed collection, remember that often times fashion is about possibility. Fashion has to exist outside the cultural restrictions/conventions of what is wearable. Or appropriate.

- AP

Comfort/Sportif

 

The Fort of Qait Bey is the backdrop, not the focus, for today. Here are residents (mainly students) and tourists (mostly retired). Here we have differences in age, nationality, and purpose for being at this location indicated through clothing.

In sum: obvious comfort on one hand, and "le sportif" on the other.

In particular: the sweater detail on the right. Too many geometric elements, perhaps, yet there is something very cool about it...something that can yield inspiration.

For those who obsess over haute couture, take heed: North Africa is YSL-land.

- AP

Like Marc Chagall

 

No commentaries on this mosaic or of Chagall's complete body of work - we're not in Art History class.

But one can't help but get a floating quality to Chagall. Dare we call it dreamy?

It's a kind of quality that happens in haute couture as well - a dress appears (always from the flou workshops) and the lightness, the flow...it's like a Chagall!

- AP

Red Gloss

 

In a sea of colors that were coordinated for consumers months (or even years) in advance, there are other colors that are perfect in themselves and do not need to be "in fashion" to remain in fashion.

Photographed near the Passage du Havre, one of those places in Paris that tourists have yet to discover.

- AP

Building Fancies

 

This building is classic example of a colonial past in a post-colonial reality. There are many ways to read this building. I offer no suggestions here, but will provide a couple of guiding questions:

1. Why this combination of ornamental styles?
2. Why is this building no longer used?
3. Why was this building built?

We no longer live in a world of obvious empires, but there was a time when the Great Powers re-made the Mediterranean into a world that only traces can be found here and there.

- AP

The Royal Ontario

 

Why spend another day in the Louvre or the British to find the same inspiration that has been keeping modern-day fashion afloat for decades? Thinking of India? Think again, for Western fashion - with a few notable exceptions - never seems to get exotic quite right.

A possible solution is the Royal Ontario Museum...where one might become inspired not only by what is there, but also by what isn't.

- AP

In a Doisneau Mood

 

Call it cliché, even trite. But Paris is romantic, inspires romance. Enjoy the photo of Notre Dame de Paris on a winter day at twilight. This cathedral, though stripped of its color by weather and human events (of course everyone realizes that cathedrals were painted in brilliant colors; such was the Medieval Age before the Black Death), continues to speak to the heart. That is nature of romance, isn't it?

Thus, this capital of fashion has the historical edge over Milan and New York; it is the heart of fashion.

- AP