Demel (Wien): Friedrich L. Berzeviczy-Pallavicini

Designed by Friedrich L. Berzeviczy-Pallavicini for Demel, K&K Hofzuckerbäcker (Wien)

Paper Box

circa 1930s (?)

    Another understated masterpiece made for Demel. The soft yellow stretching across the six paper panels draws together the illustrations as if they are floating along a similar sun-dyed skyline. They seem to slowly drift and bump into one another, softening or denting their brown contours like delicately-shaped clouds. The ripe flowers, the tentacled shisha and the weightless birds all circle around the cross-legged figure who serves as the all-seeing genie guarding the box’s only entrance and exit. But what could have been inside? 

     It is likely that the artist planted and played with certain motifs in order to hint as to what edible mystery lay hidden and waiting. The Persian qualities of the figure’s headdress and shoes, for example, and the extravagant style in which the figure sits to smoke, could denote that whatever the box contained was similar to the bitter delicacies found throughout the Near East. These may have been coffee beans dipped in hardened honey, spiced cashews or cacao beans or even some form of tea leaves. The colour yellow, too, suggests Eastern cultures: respected in many senses, it is used sparingly on imperial chinaware of the Far East or used profusely in design schemes for Indian saris and tapestries. It is a colour rich in power and meaning according to the different cultures of the Orient, and its use on this confectionary box may very well be to express that something more exotic than an ordinary (though no less delicious) Austrian treat resided inside - something as exotic as the swooping finely-tailed birds and the great perfumed blossoms. In their simplicity the illustrations elegantly compliment the box’s general purpose, even if it was only a miniature Sachertorte or Sandguglhupf that it once held.

Giovanni Boldini

Giovanni Boldini

le Hamac

circa 1874

     Here, nature has transformed itself into a cradle. In its green abundance it crowds around the woman like a great, big cushion, its soft noises soothingly drumming against her temple as if trying to draw out and away her pestering thoughts. From the way the parasol lies on the ground it seems likely that the lady plopped herself down in a kind of sudden exhaustion, one that may have slowly built itself up over time and that caused her to finally tip over and surrender from its weight in the safety of this sympathetic refuge. Her posture is of someone who is willingly giving in to a force they know is greater than any attempt of resisting it. She believes herself to be alone; her slipper-less foot dangles aimlessly over the side of the hamac, her head droops slightly onto the bay of strings and her arms, both outstretched, appear to be miming a silent show of frustration. 

     But what force could she be welcoming, if any at all? Is it something from within her, like an emotion she has repressed for so long that she can no longer contain it, and that the overpowering presence of nature - its tenacious growth, its lack of boundaries and rules and its disregard, even embracement, for its own irregularities and blemishes - has vehemently awakened it in her? This may be so. A respectable woman as she, judging from her understated jewellery and the frilled finery of her dress, was unquestionably accustomed to living by the rules that her nineteenth century society deemed appropriate for her status, and it is for this reason that she may be so shamelessly shunning them in this scene. She has had enough; she no longer cares about tact or perfection or about forming a pretty picture for those too limited to look beyond their definition of ‘acceptable’ to admire. But rather than trying to change them, her critical audience, she chooses a different path of assault, which is to relinquish herself to the origin of all things, to the hands of nature, in the midst of everything wild and openly pure as if she were being born again. And it is now that she knows what it is to be cradled and soothed, and to be reassured of the beauty in facing with pride rather than with shame whatever she has denied herself, and others, the most.

Michel Chaudun: Chocolatier de Paris

Michel Chaudun

les Figurines ou ‘Trophées’ du Chocolat

circa 2014

     Of the four intimately decorated vitrines paving the façade of this chocolaterie, I looked most closely at the one displaying this sweet huddle of animals. Their features, perhaps difficult to see from this photograph, are moulded and carved so finely into the chocolate that it is clear the artisan(s) left no detail unchecked. The brooding hen and her hyper chicklets could easily illustrate three-dimensionally a quality children’s tale, with both a visual and tasty satisfaction for any child who may only have a ten-minute attention span. The rabbits, too, are as animated and as skilfully rendered, to the point that they may even discourage one from nibbling off so much as the tip of an ear. Being incredibly small (the darkest ‘Thumper’ rabbit in the foreground measuring only half the length of a regular pinky finger), it is also surprising to realise that, up close, the animals are quite sturdy for such edible creations. I was nearly tempted to buy one merely for the sake of preserving it in a glass jar, but I then thought better of the idea. Eternalising such transient treasures as these into words is better than selfishly caging them in a mould-prone coffin. That said, it is fortunate for us that singular boutiques as Michel Chaudun strive to keep alive the timeless legacy of hand-made, beautiful creations in an age where too many are slowly succumbing to the mirth of heartless gadgets and falling standards.

Alexander McQueen: the Clothing (Part I)

Alexander McQueen 

Ensemble from The Girl Who Lived in the Tree (collection)

circa 2008

     There is a line in Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo that reads as this: ‘…the men had been prepared to discard caution and the women, custom: curiosity had pricked them with its irresistible spur and overcome all other feelings’. This McQueen ensemble, with its dress of silk tulle and its jacket of crisp velvet, gold embroidery and a touch of shearling, echoes these words; it is a contemporary statement of mysticism. Whether worn or not it is something that demands full attention of its audience. It strikes the eye like a curio, tickling the retina with a faint trace of the familiar, but also with that of slight unease. 

   The ensemble is, in a way, an emblem of the stealthy Dantès himself: queer but unquestionably distinguished in dress; perfectly in tune with not only the current times, but with those past and future; and unnervingly aware of something deeper than the superficial. Mixing the feminine and the masculine, it is an ensemble that shamelessly discards caution and custom - exactly like the impression, quoted above, that the masked Dantès instils in his guests when for the first time they visit his home in Auteuil. Just as they are pricked with an unnamed curiosity, we fall under a similar spell when looking at this ensemble: we recognise something peculiar in its design, in its structure of texture and colour and in its concentrated, ornate flashes of the Orient, of early twentieth century Russian dance and of gestural, expressionistic modern painting. It is a mix that subtly and slowly intends to shock, just as Monte Cristo does over his years of tenacious but patient planning of revenge. It is a body of accumulated detail and execution that extends its irresistible spur closer and closer to us, and instead of running from this foreign mélange of tissus and tastes, we stare and may even gawp at it. Like insects drawn to a lit lightbulb we behave just as Monte Cristo’s naïve prey do whenever they find themselves in his presence. Surrounded by a majority of false and fleetingly boring fashion pieces, many of us admit to being unaccustomed to such a fine work of fabrics as this. And for a moment we, too, may feel overcome by it, overwhelmed - as singular and impressively odd as it is.