Nothing is as constant as change

Did this illustration for a Bastille Day party, but it actually captures the spirit of this NYTimes article by 

Steven Erlanger pretty well.

Serkan Cura, dreaming in feathers

In 2010 Serkan Cura gathered all his savings, to buy most of the stock of feathers of Maison Fevrier, a Parisian plumassier or feather specialist which was closing down.

Lots of these feathers are of exotic birds and they are no longer available as the birds are now protected.

Cura does haute couture creating fur-like garments, he studies old techniques and assembles dresses in a painstakingly and long process.

Born in Antwerp, Belgium, he studied fashion design at the Royal Academy of Antwerp and graduated in 2007.

He then worked for four years in the atelier of Jean Paul Gaultier.

Corsetry is at the heart of many of his looks, "I like corsets because it refines the waist and I love tiny waists that make the hips look rounder" he explains.

Robert Wagt feather head dress illustration

Anthropologie rhymes with creativity

Anthropologie is known to have some of the most creative and elaborate decor showcased in their windows and throughout their stores.

The store which opened in 1992, has currently over 147 stores in the US and two stores in the UK, most of their home good items are hand made by various craftsmen around the globe.

Check out the amazing video of the time and effort gone into these displays here.

They recently launched their new beauty products line called "Grown under Glass".

Corset, a tight fit

Decisively more comfortable than some centuries ago, corsets remain a timeless classic item of seduction.

 Banned by Paul Poiret around 1910 and revived by Christian Dior with his New Look
the corset is the subject of a number of exhibitions at the moment at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris and the Los Angeles County Museum, whereas the Victoria and Albert Museum has organized a traveling show, "Undressed; 350 years of Underwear in fashion."

 Sure to attract the crowds, interested in erotic. Or as Karen Augusta, a couture historian and auction house owner stated," people are fascinated by body shaping , by what goes on under the garment."

                                               Irving Penn - Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel

Ellen von Unwerth

Helmut Newton - Thierry Mugler

Robert Wagt for DS magazine

Summer fun

Isn't this what summer is all about? A little girl on a tire swing by a lake.

Cool in the summer soup

Extreme heat with humidity levels that are amazonian, as we were reminded in recent weeks - the 111th anniversary of the air-conditioner- is no fun.
We have greater incentive and thus inclination to retreat indoors now.
And of course, when it's the mid-90's (35C) for days in a row, not much else seems very sensible.
In terms of indoor temperature we've arguably never been cooler.
According to Con Ed, in the New York city area alone there are 525.000 central air systems now and increasing by 6% every year and the number of window units is estimated at six million.

Window and wall units are problematic because they are so poorly insulated.
Two years ago a study by the URBAN GREEN COUNCIL found that the average room air-conditioner leaked as much as a six-inch-square hole (15 cm) waste amounting to 1% of city greenhouse gas emissions.
It is good to know that transportation accounts for 33% of carbon emissions in the united states, whereas buildings account for 40%.

While larger cooling systems have become more efficient in recent years, we don't necessarily use them as well as we could.
Federal guidelines and Con Edison advise to keep your home at 78 degrees , the same as municipal buildings.
For every degree a thermostat is set below that, cooling costs increase by 6%.
Extensive research found that, 79 degrees was the upper temperature threshold at which most people could maintain comfort.
Three years ago Con Edison began offering free programable thermostats to residents with central air systems, the thermostats would allow them to adjust temperatures remotely via the internet or mobile phone, so that houses did not have to be chilled when no one was in them.
Only a small fraction of central-air customers are enrolled.
A newer program providing the same service for those with room units has only 1.175 customers signed on.

If you do have to go out, you'll find yourself wrapped up in the "summer soup", as William Bryant Logan calls it in his Op Ed piece for the New York Times.

Water vapor is not the only thing in that sopping summer air, it also contains aerosols -both solid and liquid.

They may have condensed from the gasses that emerge from your tailpipe or from a factory chimney, or they may have risen into the air from the ground: tiny particles of silicon, organic matter, threads, starch,spores, bacterial cells, tire rubber.

One of the most common aerosols in the New York City air, thanks in part to the booming restaurant scene, is fat. 

The aerosols and the water-vapor together make summer soup.

A halo of water condenses upon each bit of stuff and this spicy mixture sloshes against your skin, leaving behind a bit of fat and water, while picking up a few of your skin cells for it's own purposes.

Before the industrial age , even at the height of summer, there were not enough aerosols to mix with all the water in the air.

So a small amount of stuff would quickly attract all the extra water, making drops that were heavy enough to fall from the sky as rain.

But nowadays we put so much stuff into the air , that mot every tiny vapor puff has an aerosol partner, making for a lot of little wet airborne parcels, each to small and to light to fall.

There is on average 5% more water in the air now than there was during World War II.

This is the summer soup, it can stay put for a long time.

It envelops us with it's miscellany of flavors , solids and liquids.

It is reluctant to rain.

Today it just doesn't rain, it pours.

We get cloudbursts , the soup hangs around us for days.

Then suddenly there's a change, a cold front of converging air, or hot rising air, pushes the soup up higher into the atmosphere.

There it get's colder and the rest of it's vapor condenses.

One drop falls into another, pick's it up and slams into another.

Finally, big , thick drops come down.

Bonjour Tristesse

This illustration seemed fitting, for this New York Times article  by Maureen Dowd about the pessimism of the french at the moment, Anne Chemin in Le Monde called it "liberte, fraternite, morosite" (in french).