At The Museum

The big ticket draw at the Museum of Modern Art is the Tim Burton exhibit but I found myself breezing past the exhibition as I expected to see a lot more than sketches, movie posters and animated features. I expected to see costumes from the movies, life-size tableaus of scenes from Sleepy Hollow or Alice In Wonderland. There were a few displays of this sort like a model of Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands, but I found this lacking.

So I rushed through the exhibit to move to other galleries and found two walls of black and white Richard Avedon portraits in a room dedicated to photography. I love Avedon's work especially his fashion photographs and portraits of society women like this one of Marella Agnelli, wife of Gianni Agnelli, owner of Ferrari. Despite her already swan-like neck, Avedon was said to have manipulated the picture to lengthen her neck a little more. I love the elegance of this photograph.

On the bottom left corner is a portrait of two of my favorite style icons: the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. I love their style and sense of fashion, especially the Duke's dandy look which remains relevant to this day.

Coco Chanel and Marilyn Monroe (bottom right) continue to be referenced and serve as inspirations for many people, especially those in the creative field. I love the photograph of Coco Chanel because it's sort of candid, as if she were mid-sentence, perhaps in the midst of uttering one of her fashion bon mots such as "Elegance is refusal."

The pictures of Twiggy, Veruschka and Brigitte Bardot (bottom) were also part of the exhibit entitled Avedon Fashion 1944-2000 at the International Center of Photography last year.

Also worth seeing is the retrospective on the work of performance artist Marina Abramovic but be warned though that there is a lot of nudity; not only in photographs and videos but in person as well. I found the exhibit very thought-provoking as it explored so much more than sexuality. It questioned couplehood, loneliness, sacrifice, deliverance and many other existential themes. Abramovic's performace was featured in a Sex and the City episode as the setting for Carrie's and Alexander Petrovsky's first meeting and first date.

Window Dressing

Fashion and Interior Design Meet at the Windows of Bergdorf Goodman

Derek Lam

This Carolina Herrera display with the upside down sofa on the ceiling reminds me of the Viktor & Rolf store in Milan

New York State of Mind 2

One of the first shows we watched on Broadway on this trip is Looped starring Valerie Harper. It is about a recording session of Tallulah Bankhead for one line for movie which turns into a whole day affair of raunchy comedy with doses of catharsis. I didn't know much about Tallulah Bankhead before the play except that she's inspired several designers.

Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead in Looped

I walked out of the theater wanting to learn more about her because she was quite the revolutionary with a tongue that was fierce, cutting and full of sexual bon mots. Kim Cattral's Samantha seems like a virgin next to her. For example:

"I am a bi-sexual. Buy me something and I'll get sexual"

or

"I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic And the others either give me a still neck or lockjaw"

or

"The worst position I can think of is on a hammock... standing"

Tallulah Bankhead photographed by Eugene Robert Richee

It's a really hilarious play and if you are in NYC, make sure to see it.

New York State of Mind

Since we are in New York right now, I would like to reprint a quote from Donna Karan — the quintessential New Yorker — from an interview with Women's Wear Daily about the current state of fashion which we totally agree with.

She said:

"Pre-fall shouldn’t exist, I’m sorry. Wrong. Let’s start there. We’ve got to bring clothes into season."

Plus:

"Resort screwed up spring. And then pre-fall screwed up spring. Everything screwed spring up. Spring got sort of caged out. I’m saying to reinvent spring again, reinvent fall again, reinvent the season we’re designing for."

This all makes sense because when it is the dead of winter (January-February), when the weather is at its coldest, you can't find a warm sweater or jacket in the stores as they are filled with pre-spring or spring merchandise. And in July and August, you'd be hard-pressed to find a straw hat or linen trousers because the stores are stocked with cashmere and shearling coats.

I've made a career about writing and analyzing fashion and while I get excited about seeing new fashions all the time, I'd like to be able to buy clothes when they are in season, not months before.

Photo courtesy of WireImage and Getty Images

New Delivery

This came yesterday:

The chaise for my closet/study in peacock blue velvet. I cant wait to organize this space so I can start lounging on it while looking at my clothes and shoes.

Waiting Game

I thought that by now we would have already settled in quite nicely in our apartment. But a month and half later several things are still missing due to the long Chinese holiday break and the unusually humid weather, at least that is what we've been told. Things get usually get done quickly in Hong Kong.

Right now we are still waiting for our bookshelf which would look like this:

So we can sort these out:

We are also waiting for our TV shelf which would look like this:

Meanwhile we have to live with this:

The dining table's new legs are supposed to come today. As will the chaise that's to go in my study and the headboard for the guest bedroom. We shall see...

Chime In

With Hong Kong winter over, we finally got to test our central air conditioning in our new apartment. Anyone who has ever moved in to a new place would know that you never really find out what’s great or wrong about your apartment until you’ve lived in it for a few days. For example, on our first week when Paul was staying with us, we discovered that there was a design flaw in the bathroom. Even with the shower curtain in the bath and shower area, water would still spill onto the floor when you shower because the tub is slightly raised than the border surrounding it. So the water would splatter on the border, collect and flow onto the bathroom floor.

As for our air condition, the first time we turned it on it kept making a vibrating noise. The repairmen came the next day and it seemed like it was fixed after they gave me a demonstration. But that night, it was the same story: the same vibrating chugging noise akin to a train about to leave the station. But that wasn’t the only noise, the air blowing from the AC unit would hit our crystal chandelier and the crystals would sway and hit each other and produce a sound similar to those of wind chimes. It’s been three nights of more or less the same thing: crrrkk, crrrkkk, crrrkkk, chug, chug, chug, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong. It’s like were roughing it out somewhere in the woods with the cacophony of noises.

No wonder I keep having weird dreams. Last night’s was especially strange as I dreamt that Andre the Giant’s son was our houseguest and because he was so huge and tall he would step on all our furniture and destroy everything. I wonder what it all means.