Category: Art
The Christmas Spirit..
Have you seen the rather lovely John Lewis Christmas advert about a rabbit who wants his hibernating friend Bear to see Christmas for the first time?…
……What about the latest copy of Private Eye??
Hehe..
Laters, Kate x
Urban Adventure Part 2 x
So the second part of the Urban Adventure? Kaori and I went to the Paul Smith Exhibition at the Design Museum..
I love Paul Smith. I love his ability to see beauty in the ordinary and his understanding of what makes objects desirable.
It’s why he’s such a voracious collector, happily sucking on the marrow of life.
He knows the beauty of detail, whether it’s the unexpected lining of a jacket or the ribbon running on the inside of this covetable retro inspired cycling shirt.
Or the colour of a button.
But he never gets stressed by the obsession. He embraces it..
From the clutter everything is impeccably crafted and he always remains the epitomy of cool.
How cool is that?
A kaliedoscopic gathering of ideas that suggests why always look to the future?
When we have a wealth of unexplored inspiration at our fingertips..
I couldn’t agree more.
Laters, Kate x
Once Upon a Christmas…
(Cameras are banned so Pictures secretly smuggled from Time Out)
It was a tough call and no easy task..but rest assured, we rose to the challenge..and YES, Christmas is saved for another year! Whooooo hooooooooooo! You can thank us personally later..
What do you mean you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about?
You know nothing about Cinderella’s troubles in Pantoland??
What can I say? Except The Husband and I spent last night roaming all areas of Covent Garden (and I mean all areas: Sprinkler cupboards, shops, the bowels..) trying to make sure you’d all have a damn good knees up these coming festivities…It’s not often I get to run through a crowded pub and drink honey tea with a Grayson Perry look-a-like holding my hand, but for you..I did.
This was highly secret work..I can’t say much more…all I can tell you is it started by knocking on a very specific Georgian black door somewhere in Covent Garden..and then the adventure begins…
(Tickets from here)
Probably one of the most bizarre nights of my life..It was a bit like falling down a rabbit hole and arriving in a real Harry Potter world with the unexpected round every corner..(and half the fun was watching tourists eyes popping out as you had conversations with yet another whacky character)…But it was absolutely bloody brilliant and a genuine 24 carrot Christmas treat!
Laters, Kate x
An Urban Adventure..
Yesterday I met up with the lovely Kaori from Twist and Turn for a Mystery Tour around London..
We started in the atmospheric Borough Market. A foodie and visual delight, particularly at Christmas..
Then we headed towards London Bridge and the Thames, past the Shard – Kaori thinks the Shard looks just like Sauron’s Tower from Lord of the Rings. She’s not wrong!..it looks almost unreal next to the traditional Georgian houses.
Just passed London Bridge is the Peter Layton Glassblowing Studio and Gallery. A warm (particularly given the freezing wind) and wonderful place where you can watch the artists at work as well as buy their work. (Go this week and there’s mince pies and mulled cider as well!) When the kids can be trusted I will be buying one of their exquisite baubles, they look like suspended bubbles of glimmering oil…covetable.
Their work ranges from Huge installations to delicate pieces of jewellery, including an artist specialising in sea glass.
They also offer hands-on experience days to have a go yourself.
Check the website for more details.
We did more..we headed on to the Design Museum..but I’ll leave that for another day!
Laters, Kate x
A Bright Shining Star..
Tzaporah Salamon hits the wall and drives straight through it, exuding a ferocious energy and defying you to suggest that ‘old’ is a bad word – to be old is to have had the time to amass a life-times wardrobe put together with wisdom and experience. A true visionary in her ability to salvage and re-invent, she dresses like she does for the sake of her soul.
And I love her. Yes, it’s five minutes of your life..but you won’t regret it.
Promise.
Laters, Kate x
Toy dogs x
As a child I was literally obsessed by the small, the cute and the handmade. There was a shop in Highgate Village near where I lived called ‘Animus’ full of beautifully made mice and cats from Beatrix Potter that I drooled over..I still have the shop from there I got in my stocking one Christmas – it was a fruit shop and every individual piece of fruit was painted clay and each was a tiny parcel of tissue for me to open. Probably my best stocking present EVER. These micro delights from Suami on Etsy remind me of those days….the workmanship just takes my breath away.
It’s funny though as by nature I love beauty and practicality rather than ‘stuff’..but there’s an invisible line that still gets crossed and suddenly I want to own and covet special things and have them live in a beautifully crafted wooden Victorian treasure chest with hundreds of tiny drawers and hidden secrets and spend hours sorting out which treasure goes where…and then re-arranging them all over again..
The miniature Molly dog has to be a favourite..
Laters, Kate x
After a hard night..
The joy that is Banksy…turning the mindless into witty treasures.
Laters, Kate x
Soul Searching..
There are times when you need to stop the day-dreaming and get down to the real knitty gritty of life…
I think it might catch on..
Laters, Kate x
Blog Paaardy!
Do we need a reason to celebrate? NOOOOO! But it has been a smooth transition to this effectively new Blog ‘Maison Bentley Style’..I had no idea you could change your url and still manage to hold everything together, but you can and I am very grateful!……So let’s get this disco ball rolling!!
The rules of the game:
1. You are ALL invited! to accept, please leave your Blog address in the comments below.
2. The party will take place on Sunday 27 October starting at 9.00am GMT but don’t worry if you’re on the other side of the world..because of all the time differences the last party went on for 2 days!
3. Write a welcoming post with ‘Welcome to the Maison Bentley Style Blog Party’ Somewhere on the page..think of it as the welcome mat to your Blog. It’ll make people feel connected and part of the fun, feel free to talk about your Blog and what people can expect to find – the last time we did this everyone experienced a huge surge in stats and followers so it’s really worth doing some house cleaning and tarting up the paintwork..have some nibbles handy and a glass of something special ready..music anyone? If you’re behind UK time, think about putting up your post Saturday night.
4. We live in a virtual world..so this is YOUR chance to wear/interior design/gourmet your food/dream the dream to WHATEVER LEVEL YOU FANCY..that little Chanel number you’ve always lusted? It’s in your wardrobe..in your taylored-to-fit size too..those Valentino shoes? On your feet! You live in in a CASTLE? REALLY? The sky is the limit..put up pictures and let us know because all you need to do is tell us in your post! And quite frankly, the more outrageous..the more outrageous! To give you an idea, this was last partie’s post.
5. This post will stay up till Saturday evening, then I will list all the participants in a new post for Sunday..and then it’s super simple..we fly around on our magic cyber carpets and visit all the names on the list…and try not to get too drunk!
Can’t wait!!
Laters, Kate x
Maison Bentley Style x
Are we all here? hope so! I think I’ve done it…but I suspect time and the dreaded stats will be the only way to truly know. I do plan a visual face lift FOR THE BLOG (sigh) at some point, but I think it might be wise to let all these technical bits bed down first. Feel free to look around and play ‘spot the difference’..it’s going to take a while to settle but hey, there’s a Blog Party to think about and Vintage Attitude is already buffing her baby cham! I’m rapidly writing invitations as I type and full details will follow in the next post..
But onto matters close to my heart..on my many wanderings round the web I stumbled across Mr Gugu & Miss Go. and was particularly enamoured of their sweatshirts (I’m thinking pencil leather midi with dramatic statement necklace combo?), not only do they offer their own ingenious designs from a whole cornucopia of ideas that would put an Oscar winning bobby dazzler on Mary Katranzou’s face, but you can also upload your own photos or artwork (Holzfeder?(who is running a fantastic charity campaign on her blog – well worth checking out by the way) and The Crazy Bag Lady? up for it?!) it would create a properly personally dramatic and unique piece..and all for 55 euros (about £47) including European delivery…bargain!
Based on a carpet! J’adore!
There’s something about this one..
Would you? Could you?!
The Christmas party?
There’s a fine line between bling and sing, but these are just sirening how terribly hashtag buy.me.now…..
Laters, Kate x
Maison Bentley Style 
