Weekend Reads: Links to the Strange and the Beautiful

Last weekend was magnificently relaxing! This weekend I hope to mix in some socializing, too! What adventures do you have planned...??

• I really want to swing on a swing-set!
• I am going to visit some estate sales.
• I have a wine-tasting on Saturday -- featuring California wines!
• I finally hope to watch "Factory Girl," which has been on my movie queue for ages.

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Here's a little link-love for ya...

♥ Check out Joan Jett's rock-n-roll inspired fashion at Refinery 29.

♥ Love words? You will adore We Make Words blog.

♥ Collector's Weekly is an amazing resource for collectors [or wannabe collectors].

♥ Hollister and Porter Hovey -- the New Antiquarians featured in the New York Times.

♥ Color Palette Generator: an addictive tool!

♥ A new Topshop line based on horror films? I can totally dig it.

♥ The Female Gaze is an amazing exhibition at Cheim and Read Gallery in NYC, featuring art by women, of women.

♥ Learn about the talented artist Amanda Spicer on Progress on the Prairie.

Photography by Lady Hawarden: Girls Embowered

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
~from Tennyson's Lady of Shalott

I am completely mesmerized by the Victorian photography of Lady Hawarden: her images are eerie, intimate, and at-times bold and provocative. The women and young girls in her photos often look you straight in the "eye," as if challenging your right to behold them...or they languish in sensual ennui, waiting for something or someone who will never arrive...



Lady Hawarden was the wife of an aristocrat, and she lived a rather secluded life in Kensington, England with her large family. She is most famous for her sensuous, loving portraits of her daughters, which she began taking around 1857.



Her use of natural lighting, elaborate costumes, and mirrors evoke a kind of feminine fantasy-land, a re-enactment of myth, history, and romantic yearning. But, they also provide us with a picture of the quietude of female love, intimacy, and the listlessness of the privileged woman's domestic life.



Lady Hawarden used wet-collodian plates of various formats to create striking portraits of her girls. Her ‘studies’, as she called them, were exhibited in 1863 and 1864 at the Photographic Society of London, where they won praise and, in 1864, a silver medal. She became a full member of the society in 1863.



As one critic put it, it was difficult not to think of Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott" as one saw these pictures. In his poem, the Lady was imprisoned in a tower, and she could only see life indirectly, using a mirror. Unable to experience the real world, she had to recourse to weaving tapestries of the inverted image. The story of Lady Clementina Hawarden is very similar, for she was a prisoner of Victorian conventions, and sought to express herself using photography [from A History of Photography].

It's an omen.

In every way, the events we chose everyday will shape our future. Whether they seem small or insignificant they do. From choosing to wear that blue fur coat instead of just a black blazer and spend the whole night standing out instead of blending in. To going from one extreme hair colour to another.

I love to change myself and I've had a very vain look back and I see.

Lots changes with a packet of dye.

Luscious black with long waves.

When Max suggested I go red about 4 months ago.

Nearly 2 years ago. Note the hectic side boob and the complete disregard for a slightly malnourished body.

And yes. I was a Blondie Barbie once. Wasn't it ambivalent. Gross and wonderful at the same strange time.

Never just fit in.

Always stand out.

Style File: Rihanna

Fashion icon of the year 2008, Rihanna continues to step out in fashion and the paparazzi keep on tracking her. Everybody wants to know what Riri is wearing and where they buy the same clothes. Rihanna isn't afraid to try out new things and push the fashion boundaries. You can love it or hate it.

Everywhere she goes people will look at what she's wearing because Rihanna has become a trendsetter in the meanwhile and she even inspired the runway with her hair style. Check out some of her fierce looks.





































Also check out
Rihanna Shaves Her Hair
Rihanna Spotted Leaving Hotel In NYC Check out Rihanna's Tattoos
Rihanna spotted leaving Da Silvano restaurant
Just Nail It
Get the look: Rihanna

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