Painterly Impression

Bazaar September 2013

Vogue isn't the only one showing painterly gowns on their editorial pages. This multi-media seeming faux kimono is in this month's Bazaar. The dress is by Mary Katrantzou. I don't think that I've ever heard of her ... but she created quite a statement with this dress. I love trees, and particularly ones that are unleaved. I like to consider the life that lives in the dormantcy of a winter tree. A quiet power. I would like to have seen this look without the rainbow. It isn't true. On cold winter days, the sky is cold with blue, and I've never seen a rainbow in a snowstorm.

The skirt is puzzling. Is the graphic really on the dress? The boat on a steamed river looks like photo shopped play. No word is mentioned that the skirt isn't that  ... I look at the background for clues, but it as well seems fabricated. A beautiful pattern has been generated with what seems like a real wintry, forested scene, but a pattern has been added. At first, I thought that the color came from frozen berries, or dead leaves that never fell. But instead, I think, a pointillist wash was made to create what could be, in my estimation, a textile on in and of itself. I would like to see what a gown with that as its 'scene' would look like.

Bazaar September 2013

Another look on the pages is the one right. I was immediately drawn to it, not for the coat by Valentino, although it's lovely. It looks almost Delft. The evergreens are amazing in the background too, but ... this summer while I was at the University of Iowa, I walked across campus to check it out. One of the buildings that I ran across was the art building. Its structure drew me to it. And I found this:

Universityof Iowa's Art School

I don't know how long I stood and was enraptured by the figure on the pier looking out over the water. And this model reminds of the same. She's nearly as still, the sculpture is nearly as alive. When I saw it in Iowa, I immediately thought of the lovely water gardens that I visited in Japan. And here, on the pages of Bazaar, the same moment, for me, is captured. While in Japan, the weather rivaled that of a midwestern bake, and it was hard for me to imagine that it is ever cold or snowy there, or in Japan for that matter. But this picture gives me a sense of it. And whether hot or cold, the same holds true for the figure on the pier looking out over the water.