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Monday, September 30, 2013

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-A Period History Of Pearls From The Early Roman Empire To Today Exhibited On V&A


About the exhibition

A stunning array of pearls dating from the early Roman empire to the present day is on show at the V&A, demonstrating the long association of pearls with wealth, royalty and glamour.
Rare natural specimens of pearl are display, as well as portraits and photographs. Among the exhibition’s highlights is a pearl necklace once worn by Mary, Queen of Scots, a group of magnificent tiaras worn by European royalty and a pair of pearl drop earrings owned by Elizabeth Taylor.
Pearls is on display at the V&A, London, from 21 September 2013 to 19 January 2014. For more information, and to buy tickets, visit the V&A website.
Earrings, gold with natural seed pearls and diamonds, France, 1795–1810 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Grand Jete, gold with diamonds and two cultured baroque pearls, London 1999 © Geoffrey Rowlandson

Cross pendant, gold with rubies and natural pearls, Germany 1500–25 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Necklace, natural pearls from the Gulf with platinum and diamond clasps, 1930s by Cartier © Photo: Sotheby's

Necklace, natural pearls set in coloured gold, probably England c1850 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Gold hair ornament, set with natural pearls, emeralds and sapphires, Roman, 3rd Century AD © The Trustees of the British Museum

Brooch, natural brown pearls set in platinum and diamonds, France, 1900 © Albion Art

A rare selection of natural pearls from the Qatar Museums Authority Collection © Photo: Creutz

Frozen, silver nylon, freshwater pearls, 2011 © Photo: Petra Jaschke



Edited By Royal Wang





Sunday, September 29, 2013

Mini Magazine


-Event Today-Rick Owens SPRING 2014 READY-TO-WEAR

SEPTEMBER 26, 2013PARIS
By Tim Blanks
Rick Owens thinks of himself as the classic American in Paris, mesmerized by the culture that surrounds him. So he wanted to give something back with his new collection, something from his world. But there was no way that Parisians—or anyone anywhere, for that matter—could be prepared for what Rick gave today.

For inspiration, he looked to stepping, the hybrid of step dancing, cheerleading, and military drill that is as competitive as cheerleading in African-American colleges. For the past five months, Owens and his people worked with stepping teams from four sororities—Washington Divas, Soul Steppers, Momentum, and Zetas—to produce a performance that was as spectacularly synchronized and spotlighted as a Busby Berkeley celluloid set piece from the golden age of Hollywood.

Forty dancers—features set in a scowl steppers call "grit face," intended to intimidate the competition—pounded the catwalk in outfits that transfigured Owens' signature wrapped, draped tropes. These women needed to move. The clothes were adjusted accordingly, hiked, laced, slit, zipped to allow maximum motion. It was a revelation to see Owens' clothes so transformed: immediate electricity rather than the monumental serenity that has pervaded his womenswear of late. If he's always wanted to create clothes that were, as he said, "a cross of elegance and roughness," this was the time and place he made that happen. In his hands, the notion of extreme sportswear became something as gorgeously unlikely as the NBA in Vionnet. And that was some kind of vision.



More than that, it was bliss to experience Rick's joyous assault on fashion orthodoxy. "We're rejecting conventional beauty, creating our own beauty," he said. He's acutely aware of the accusations of cultishness that are leveled against his clothes, but all those body types today added up to as inclusive a catwalk vision of womanhood as we're ever likely to see. Such a gentle notion, and yet it struck home with a sledgehammer force. Sure, the breathtaking presentation counted for a lot, but it got its overwhelmingly timely weight from the culture of denial and exclusion that is currently eroding American politics. (resource:Style.Com)

Opinion Story

The huge feat of rotating the cruise ship, in Italian waters since January 2012, has been completed.
Patrick Chappatte is an editorial cartoonist for the International Herald Tribune. View more of his work, visit his Web site or follow him on Twitter. (resource:http://nypost.com/)


Friday, September 27, 2013

News Recipe


Fashion:
From "New York Times"

-Dries Van Noten: Gold Standard


PARIS — Gilded frills cascaded down the sides of a raw cotton dress, as if a Plain Jane maid had magically been touched by Milady’s glamour. By the end of the Dries Van Noten show on Wednesday, all the women — dressed in dark, plain plants or with rich fat flowers on slim dresses — were lined up against a golden wall for a touch of gorgeousness.



Wellness:

From "The Los Angeles Times"

-Steps, time, distance: However measured, walking can reach health goals

Walking, whether measured in steps or time, is a good way to begin a journey to better health. Guidelines and devices can help along the way.

Walking 10,000 steps in a day requires some planning to reach your goal. Most don't reach 10,000 steps without adding in some moderate exercise. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

At a time when many Americans spend their days exercising nothing but their thumbs to exhaustion, others have grown obsessed with steps.
Each footfall, from getting the mail to getting in a run, is tracked on the way to 10,000 — a not-so-magic number that's been turned into a fitness grail. Ten thousand steps is about five miles, depending on the stride, a distance that seems shorter when you start adding in every step from waking to sleeping. Still, many people barely log 3,000 steps per day.

Travel:
From "The Wall Street Journal"

-Three Books That Turn the Page on Travel


F. Martin Ramin/The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas
1. 'Passage to Burma' 2. 'Art Cities of the Future: 21st-Century Avant-Gardes' 3. 'Swans: Legends of the Jet Society'
1. Photographer Scott Stulberg's "Passage to Burma" opens a window onto a country whose government only began encouraging foreigners to visit in 2011, when its military rule relaxed. Starting in 2001, Mr. Stulberg began traveling frequently to the country to take photos. The book contains 270 images he's returned with, including shots of Buddhist monks in saffron robes, women and children in face paint made from ground bark and fishing boats silhouetted against vibrant sunsets. $45, available in October from Skyhorse Publishing