Tips please!

I am quite new to blogging, so any tips on what you would like to see or read on this blog would be great! Leave a comment here, or email me at info@anzu.co.uk

Have a great weekend!

A festive summer

The sun has been shining for most of the week, everyone is wearing pretty summer dresses, the air is full of butterflies and birds and I am busy painting Christmas cards and trying to get into the wintery feel of things! Buyers start wanting to see the new Christmas cards around this time, so I usually paint them now. When I finish I'll be sure to give you a preview here! Above is our Snowflake bag card from the current collection.

Inspiration no.2

PAUL POIRET

Continuing my inspiration posts, I would like to add Paul Poiret. One of the first couturiers working in the era of the belle epoque, Poiret created sumptuous clothes. He also designed interiors, threw indulgent often eastern inspired parties, had amazing illustrations done of his work by such artists as Raol Dufy and George Barbier, and was the first fashion designer to add perfumes to his range.

This out of print book is especially inspiring, Poiret by Yvonne Deslandres. It was quite hard to get hold of and in the end, I had to have to have it shipped from a book dealer in New York, but it was well worth it as you can see from the pictures in this post,  which are from the book.

I even love the design of the labels of the clothes, which were illustrated with his trademark signature, the rose.

Poiret recommended that clients spray perfume on the hem of their dresses so the perfume would spread as they walked. This is an illustration of this by me for a private project.

New bridal cards

Wedding season is in full flow and following the success of our bridal notebooks, we have decided to bring back these images on a collection of five cards in England (US to follow soon!). Each of the five cards features an illustration of dresses worn by five iconic brides from Audrey Hepburn to Carolyn Bessette Kennedy with their story on the back. For me, Grace Kelly is the quintessentially iconic bride - see this amazing footage of her wedding below. Call us or your local agent if you would like to see the full collection of cards!

Couldn't resist posting these!

I think I might walk into the offiice like this every morning. I know this is a film, but were fashion shows in the 60s really like this? From Vanessa Redgrave and Candice Bergman's serious faces I'm guessing so

Is this the cool world?

Why not? (no.8)

Why not buy shutters to display your cards? This is especially great for a Summer display filled with cards suggestive of the beach, bikinis and summer dresses। Just looking at the display above makes me want to go on holiday!

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

Marilyn book

I am starting work on expanding my icons or 'So' range and was very happy to get a catalogue of the Marilyn Monroe auction that Christies held in 1999 today. I bought it on ebay so I wasn't sure what it was going to be like, but it is just jam-packed with beautiful photos and pictures of Marilyn Monroe's clothes and possessions from her feather boas to her white grand piano. It's going to be great to work from - I especially like the broderie anglaise dresses below

Pulse photographs

Here are some photographs of our new stand at Pulse. Thanks for everyone that visited us - it was a really great show!

Why not? (7)

If the cards you are selling feature hand-painted images like anzu cards or are hand-made why not emphasise this quality by making a little display of them with paints or hand-crafted materials that they can also buy? This should draw your customer to their unique quality and perhaps even inspire them to get creative themselves.

Pulse trade show starts today!

The Pulse show starts today and we have been so busy all week preparing for it and the new look stand. We customized these trunks found in a cheap hardware shop (they were a very nasty shade of brown before), gilded tons of frames, and worked from morning until bedtime.

Below, Jasmine amongst the daisies in "Operation Goldfinger"

We still had time for some treats though! If you would like to visit our stand, you can find us at stand number, F28

Progressive Greetings

Delighted to see that we are in Progressive Greetings this May, in their article on Retail Therapy. I've been in that kind of therapy for years now, and would like to say a big thank you to the magazine for featuring us!

The Jungle

Some friends came to see the office for the first time over the weekend, (or the jungle as Jasmine has nicknamed it) and said I should put some more pictures up on the blog. It has turned out to be an inspiring and relaxing place to work in, and here are the photos.

As you know, I had this cabinet shipped over from Sri Lanka and it's now full of my cards, books and everything from perfume bottles to paper roses

The mannequin comes in very handy for getting shape into my dress paintings

The first day that I moved into my office, I looked around and was extremely apprehensive as it looked like David Brent (Ricky Gervais in the Office) should be sitting in there. There was a whole bank of whiteboards, but once we removed a couple and set about putting these blossoms around the remaining two they started looking really nice, and they are SO useful.

The fashion tea event

I thought you might like to see a couple of pictures from the fashion tea event. With rose petals scattered along the staircase and bouquets of fresh roses everywhere and lots of shopping and pampering going on fun was had by all! Hope that all of you that could make it had a lovely time!

Why not? (no. 6)

Why not display your men's cards with men's clothes or accessories? I love these ideas that Jasmine came up with, of clipping the cards onto ties, (which you can hang from a clothes hanger) or slipping into the brim of a hat. I think it would also be fun to have a row of bowler hats (Avengers style) with cards all attached to them.

National Stationery show

A big thank you to everyone that made it to the Stationery show and for making it a success! Hope to see you in Atlanta too - lots of new cards in the pipeline.

Above: My Mum and Colleen in a relatively serious moment on the stand

The art of writing

I love receiving hand-written letters and cards. The choice and texture of the card or paper, the character of the handwriting and the stamp chosen all make it so personal and something you want to keep. E-cards feel like an afterthought by comparison and a love email doesn't quite have the same ring to it does it?

On my trip to Bath, I went to the Jane Austen centre, which had a letter written to her sister Cassandra (see above). At the time Jane Austen was writing, letters were written on paper that was folded into four with one side being used for the address as envelopes weren't used. The recipient of the letter had to pay for delivery costs and part of that was determined by the size of the letter, so it was polite to fit as much writing on the page as possible. Letters were written with quill pens, usually using goose feathers and on personal letters, the sender would often spritz the letter with their personal scent or use scented ink to write with.

To make your own scented ink:

Mix 100 drops of essential oil such as rose or lavender with a teaspoon of vodka

Then very gradually add the mixture to 2 ounces of ink (dark colours work better)

Stir and use

The finishing touch would be a seal (have your own personal seal, or use a signet ring for the imprint). At the stationery show, my Mum spotted a stand just selling sealing wax. Have a look at their things on www.nostalgicimpressions.com

James Bond

I notice that Royal Mail have released some special James Bond stamps. The stamps cover six of James Bond's books from Goldfinger to For Your eyes only, with each extra long stamp featuring four different cover editions of each. I love the James Bond books I have with vintage covers (see below), and when I started designing men's cards and was thinking about what to do, my friend Derek said to me that every man likes to think of himself as James Bond so now when I paint a new men's card I like to keep James Bond in mind.

One of the things I really like about James Bond, aside from his daredevil can do anything antics, and the glamorous locations that he frequents, is that he is a connoisseur with great taste, and is very particular about the refined luxury brands he uses. He likes Mouton Rothschild '53, smoking Morlands of Grosvenor Street cigarettes, or sampling Beluga caviar. Breakfast for James Bond is a speckled brown egg from a French Marans hen served in a Minton egg-cup, followed by wholewheat toast with Jersey butter and Norwegian honey from Fortnum's, with a cup of the strongest coffee from De Bry of New Oxford St.

Of course, one of the things he is most particular about is his Martini, which is actually a vodkatini made with vodka, shaken not stirred to show Bond's rebellious side and served with a twist of lemon peel. When I painted the Shaken not Stirred card above, I was sure to base my illustration on a 1960s Wolfschnitt vodka bottle design, the preferred brand of James Bond, and by being inspired by a 1960s design I liked to think that it would be Sean Connery sitting there drinking it.

Painted images above: the Convertible card and the Shaken not stirred card.