Shocking pink

The days are so dull at the moment, I thought I'd add a colourful post and brighten a grey day with some shocking pink. You could buy a vintage Schiaperelli dress (the designer famous for making hot pink so fashionable),

send our Anzu fifties style dress card or hot pink Patent card,

add touches to your house, as in this interior with the signature Schiaperelli pink hat boxes,

lounge on a Salvador Dali sofa (based on the lips of Mae West),

step out on the town in this Lanvin dress

or join India's Pink gang. As Diana Vreeland said 'Shocking pink is the navy blue of India'. The Pink gang, or Gulabi gang have hijacked trucks laden with food for the poor which were being waylaid by corrupt officials and stopped child marriages. In India they have become folk heroes! Read more on www.worldproutassembly.org

Inspiration no. 1

PERFUME BOTTLES

I received a comment from a French reader of my blog, asking me what my inspirations are, and I thought it would be nice to do some blogs on a lot of things that inspire me and that I love.

So my first blog on this is on scent bottles. I love scent bottles, the mystique and art of the perfume world, and these images crop up in my paintings repeatedly (above is the anzu perfume card).

image courtesy of flickr

I love Lalique crystal, classically simple Chanel, innovative Schiaperelli, and elegant Guerlain bottles. Guerlain have always produced decorative, indulgent and distinctive bottles and I was delighted when they and Aqua di Parma asked me to do this illustration for them, which they later used for their invitations (see below).

I also like going to Les Senteurs in Elizabeth Street, London, which has a great selection of scent and reading books on perfume. Reading I would especially recommend are 'Alchemy' by Mandy Aftel, recommended to me by a perfumier, 'Perfume bottles' by Judith Miller, the scent chapter in Diane Ackermann's excellent 'A natural history of the senses', and the blog boisdejasmin.typepad.com