Taste the music: an audience eats algae fed by an opera singer’s breath

 design, opera  No Responses »
Sep 272012
 

Alge Opera Taste the music: an audience eats algae fed by an opera singers breathLast week­end at London’s V&A museum a gim­micky but fas­cin­at­ing piece of silly sci­ence was part of the Lon­don Design Fest­ival.

The Algae Opera has been formed for the event by the After Agri col­lect­ive. Mezzo-soprano Louise Ash­croft was the singer. Here’s the blurb from their site:

The algae, which are a phở­to­syn­thetic plant-like organ­ism, feeds on the car­bon diox­ide in the singer’s breath. As an import­ant future food source, the singer’s algae can also be eaten. Along­side listen­ing to her music, the audi­ence can also taste her song.

To increase the growth of the algae the body of the singer is trained to use her extraordin­ary large lung capa­city to pro­duce the highest qual­ity algae-product. The com­pos­i­tion of the song and the singer’s vocal tech­nique are redesigned to spe­cific­ally pro­duce algae and enrich its taste.… [con­tinue reading]

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Priscilla the Musical gives the Milan catwalks an added dash of kitsch

 design, fashion, musical theatre  No Responses »
Feb 252012
 

Priscilla Milan 1 Priscilla the Musical gives the Milan catwalks an added dash of kitsch

Today is car­ni­val day in : Sabato Grasso. It comes later than all the other car­ni­val cel­eb­ra­tions, and this year was blessed with a 20°C sunny day which gave the tour­ists a good excuse to get out their shorts and sandals.

Priscilla Milan 2 Priscilla the Musical gives the Milan catwalks an added dash of kitsch

As car­ni­val week also coin­cides this year with a fash­ion week, Mil­ano Moda Donna, the streets were crowded, espe­cially out­side one of the strangest cat­walk shows Milan has seen this week. The pro­du­cers of the musical cap­it­al­ised on the big crowds to give Oscar-winning designer Lizzy Gardiner’s cos­tumes an air­ing out­side the walls of the theatre. The crowds loved it…

Priscilla Milan 4 Priscilla the Musical gives the Milan catwalks an added dash of kitsch

Priscilla, La Regina del Deserto: Priscilla Palace –Teatro Ciak, Milan… [con­tinue reading]

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Armani luxury hotel opens in Milan — close to La Scala and via Montenapoleone

 architecture, design, fashion  No Responses »
Nov 102011
 

armani hotel milano exterior Armani luxury hotel opens in Milan close to La Scala and via MontenapoleoneGior­gio Armani opened a lux­ury hotel in the centre of today. It is in via Man­zoni, near to La Scala, the Mon­tena­po­leone shop­ping dis­trict, and that other great Mil­anese hotel Grand Hotel et de where lived and com­posed and every­one from to has stayed.

Armani’s new hotel will surely attract some super­star names too. Jes­sica Alba and Isa­belle Hup­pert were among guests at a cock­tail party to launch the new Armani Hotel Mil­ano which is the second hotel in the Armani hotel and resort port­fo­lio. The open­ing fol­lows the suc­cess of the Armani Hotel Dubai, loc­ated in Burj Khal­ifa, the world’s tallest building.

The designer said he wanted to merge aes­thetic excel­lence with the concept of com­fort.… [con­tinue reading]

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Ballet Brooches: “Set in Style — The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels” at the Smithsonian

 art, ballet, design  No Responses »
Jun 242011
 

Camargo montage Ballet Brooches: Set in Style The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels at the Smithsonian

The Camargo Brooch, made in 1942, com­bines plat­inum, dia­monds, rubies and emer­alds for a clas­sic Van Cleef & Arpels bal­let design. The paint­ing above of Marie Camargo, La Camargo Dan­cing, was cre­ated around 1730 by Nic­olas Lan­cret (1690–1743) and can be seen in the Andrew W. Mel­lon Col­lec­tion at the National Gal­lery of Art, Wash­ing­ton, DC., and another ver­son can be found at the Wal­lace Col­lec­tion in London.

Since its open­ing on the Place Vendome in Paris in 1906, Van Cleef & Arpels has played a lead­ing role in style and design innov­a­tion. Its time­less pieces have been worn by style icons, includ­ing the Duch­ess of Wind­sor, Grace Kelly, and Eliza­beth Taylor.

This exhib­i­tion, now exten­ded until July 4, explores the his­tor­ical sig­ni­fic­ance of the firm’s con­tri­bu­tions to jew­ellery design in the 20th cen­tury, includ­ing the estab­lish­ment of Van Cleef & Arpels in New York with the advent of World War II.… [con­tinue reading]

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Tracey Emin among 12 British artists chosen to design the 2012 Olympic posters

 design  No Responses »
Jun 212011
 

seb coe tracey emin 400x259 Tracey Emin among 12 British artists chosen to design the 2012 Olympic postersTwelve artists includ­ing Tracey Emin, Mar­tin Creed and Chris Ofili will design a set of posters for the Olympic and Para­lympic Games next sum­mer, as Bri­tain seeks to use the events to show­case its cul­tural heritage.

The nom­in­ated artists were chosen from a list of some 100, but organ­izers would not dis­close how they came to their final decision. Asked why Damien Hirst had not made the list, for example, Ruth Mack­en­zie, dir­ector of the Cul­tural Olympiad, replied: “I think the answer is, we’re not going to go there.”

Emin told report­ers at an event at Tate Bri­tain gal­lery, held exactly a year before the Lon­don 2012 Fest­ival event gets under­way, that she wanted her poster to be a cel­eb­ra­tion of life in the city.… [con­tinue reading]

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Marilyn Monroe subway dress is auctioned for $4.6 million — record prices for Debbie Reynolds Hollywood auction

 cinema, design  No Responses »
Jun 202011
 

My Fair Lady 342x600 Marilyn Monroe subway dress is auctioned for $4.6 million record prices for Debbie Reynolds Hollywood auctionThe pleated ivory dress that blew around Mar­ilyn Mon­roe in an iconic scene from “The Seven Year Itch” sold for $4.6 mil­lion at a week­end auc­tion of Hol­ly­wood cos­tumes — far exceed­ing its estimate.

The so-called “sub­way” dress is per­haps the most recog­niz­able in movie his­tory. In Billy Wilder’s 1955 movie, a passing train sent a draft through a grate as Mon­roe gid­dily stood above it pro­claim­ing, “Isn’t it deli­cious?” The Wil­liam Travilla design was estim­ated to sell for between $1 mil­lion and $2 mil­lion, the crown jewel at a 12-hour auc­tion of nearly 600 cos­tumes and pieces of mem­or­ab­ilia being sold by act­ress in Beverly Hills on Saturday.

Monroe’s red-sequined dress from “Gen­tle­men Prefer Blondes” went for $1.2 mil­lion.… [con­tinue reading]

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Debbie Reynolds auctions her legendary memorabilia collection: costumes worn by Leslie Caron and Barbra Streisand, Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe, Julie Andrews and Cyd Charisse are up for sale

 cinema, design, fashion  No Responses »
May 272011
 

Movie cos­tumes worn by Charlie Chap­lin, Judy Gar­land and Mar­ilyn Mon­roe will go up for sale in June from a col­lec­tion belong­ing to fel­low act­ress .

Monroe’s sub­way dress from “The Seven Year Itch,” Judy Garland’s blue cot­ton dress and ruby red slip­pers from “The Wiz­ard of Oz” and Charlie Chaplin’s “Tramp” bowler hat are among the 3,500 items up for auc­tion in Beverly Hills on June 18.

’s sleeve­less gold vel­vet, jeweled gown from “Hello, Dolly” — said to be the most expens­ive dress ever made for a film — will also be up for sale as will Audrey Hepburn’s Ascot dress from “My Fair Lady” and Julie Andrews’ cos­tumes from “The Sound of Music.”

Reyn­olds, 79, who starred in such films as “” and “The Unsink­able Molly Brown,” has been col­lect­ing film mem­or­ab­ilia for more than 50 years.… [con­tinue reading]

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