The Fabergé Coronation Egg, 1897

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The Coronation Egg, by Karl Fabergé, 1897

As a child, I remember having loads of fun painting Easter eggs. This activity was often followed by Easter egg hunts in the school gardens.

This Easter, I have on my mind a different kind of egg, one that is a little more luxurious and most impossible to find at an Easter egg hunt – the Fabergé Coronation Egg from 1897, which is one of my favourites of the 56 produced by Fabergé from 1885 to 1917.
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Easter weather

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Photo: Jan-Erik Nilsson
A bouncy yellow despite the cold

It’s a snowy Easter for Sweden this year. A picture here of our poor Easter Lilies battling the snow in our garden. Stubborn resilience.

The editors of Göteborgs Posten loved the picture so much that they had it published in GP – Vårtecken on 22 March 2008 with JE’s corresponding caption

Vart tog våren vägen? frågar våra småpåskliljor som såg så hoppfulla ut så sent som i går

“Where did the Spring go?” asked our small Easter Lilies, bright and hopeful as recent as the day before.

Feng Shui vogue for 2008

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  • White smocked cotton voile blouse with accents of red roses
  • Red tulip shorts, Patrizia Pepe
  • Limited edition Luella Gisele bag by Luella Bartley, in tangerine
  • C-buckle peep toe shoes with wooden stacked heels, Chloé
  • Seashell ear hoops in a golden hue

I’ve always been aware that colours, when it comes to wardrobe, can correlate to a person’s mood on a day to day basis. And in a broader influence, surrounding colours can lift moods or make people depressed. An individual’s personality can also be described in terms of colour. Most would understand the sentence, Meeting Alex changed her life, where she was a walking shade of grey before, she is today a myriad of pinks, greens and vermillion!
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Geisha and Japanese architecture on the runways

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Louis Vuitton skyscraper structural shoes, Fall 2008, RTW. Photo: Matteo Volta.

Sarah Mower’s words, “…otherwise it’s lumpy going” about Louis Vuitton’s Fall RTW 2008 collection, echoed in my head when I perused the shoes that Marc Jacobs had come up with for the runway show. One can always trust Marc Jacobs to be on the innovative front and I mostly celebrate crazy innovative, but here I could mostly only gawk in flabbergast at this runway collection of shoes.

For one thing, I thought lower heeled shoes were the way to go, after previous seasons of skyscraper platforms such as YSL’s Tribute, Louboutin’s Declic and most of Gianmarco Lorenzi’s super platform boots / shoes with 14 cm heels. I was wrong. Continue reading “Geisha and Japanese architecture on the runways”

The evolutionizing concept of luxury goods

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Scarlett Johansson for Louis Vuitton, featuring the That’s Love collection of bags

The definitions of luxury

Luxury is an extensive concept which connects with extravagance, prestige and elitism (Dubois and Czellar, 2002). Some standard dictionary definitions of luxury could include:

  • Something inessential but conducive to pleasure and comfort.
  • Something expensive or hard to obtain.
  • Sumptuous living or surroundings: lives in luxury.

One could see how the above three definitions found in the American Heritage Dictionary, are intertwined and difficult to separate. A very broad definition of what is luxury, from Coco Chanel reflects this interlacing of definitions to form a concept of luxury: “Luxury is a necessity that begins when necessity ends” (Gradvall, 2007). Continue reading “The evolutionizing concept of luxury goods”

Louis Vuitton Monogram Vernis Porte-Trésor International wallet

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The Louis Vuitton Monogram Vernis line, developed in 1998 by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton began with several baby soft colours, one of which was the coveted Marshmallow Pink as you see in the above pictures of the Porte-Trésor International wallet. Other soft pastels included a lavender, a light yellow and a neutral pearly beige, which is just a tad lighter in shade than the noisette (a sort of latte) colour launched in just about 2006/7. Continue reading “Louis Vuitton Monogram Vernis Porte-Trésor International wallet”

Last days of Winter Warrior

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Although spring temperatures are beginning to set in at a constant 5 deg C, the sun outside during this time of year can be deceptively warm. Still, it’s about time to don spring outfits and coats, so it’s one of the last few days for wearing true winter wear and the last few days of being able to wear shearling boots in the northern hemisphere. Continue reading “Last days of Winter Warrior”

Spring themes in Sweden 08

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Photo: Daniel Grizelj, from två dagar, 1 March 2008.
Left ensemble: Red swimwear from H&M, apricot coloured camisole from American Vintage, pink blouse with puff sleeves from DSquared, a red tube used as a skirt, from Wolford, pink pumps from Bianco.
Right ensemble: Green cocktail dress from Coast, cobalt blue trench from Chloé with a vintage blue belt, green leopard print ballerinas from Effe.

Every weekend, Göteborgs Posten or GP issues a supplement called två dagar meaning ‘two days’ that covers plenty of interesting topics, one of its staple category being ‘fashion’.

Last weekend, the styling team from Muse Style Agency, set out some trends for Swedes this coming Spring and Summer and I thought the styling so attractive, I’d like to share it with a wider than Sweden audience. Part of this styling team are Daniel Grizelj, photographer, Jennie Bramer, stylist and Emma Nilsson, who does hair and make-up. The models were asked to pose like mannequins and that’s just about the effect that you see in the pictures. Continue reading “Spring themes in Sweden 08”

A little bit of kampong and river ways in Thailand

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Holding on to a small but growing jackfruit, just outside of the Damnoen Saduak floating market, about 110 km southwest of Bangkok, Thailand. The largest tree borne fruit in the world, jackfruits are potentially enormous things, seldom less than about 25 cm in diameter they can reach 36 kg in weight and up to 90 cm long and 50 cm in diameter.

The Damnoen Saduak floating market

Really early on the morning the 13th of February we set out to visit the Damnoen Saduak floating market in the Ratchaburi province, about one hour’s taxi ride from central Bangkok. There are several floating markets on various canals in Bangkok and other nearby provinces. Today these floating markets are kept alive for visiting tourists but were originally live wet markets for the local Thai people. “In old times the roads no good so when people want meet and trade, they use rivers.”, our chauffeur told us.

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Edible miniature works of art

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Made from yellow bean paste, these miniature ‘fruits’ make delightful eye-candy

One of my favourite Thai desserts to look out for when in Thailand are these mini works of art known as Kao Noom Look Choup. Shaped from grounded yellow beans, these miniature sculptures are then hand painted with food dyes to render the likeness of fruits and vegetables.
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