Flying to the Moon!

To the Moon or...to St Peter's Gate with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in The Ziegfeld Follies!

Toronto's Design Week is On!

Jaime Hayon

I officially declare Toronto's Design Week opened!

For Marco and I, it all started last night with Made's show Radiant Dark, entitled Assets & Values.

On tomorrow's menu: 2 mind-blowing encounters with...
- Tord Boontje, lecture at OCAD @ 6PM.
- Jaime Hayon at Jonathan+Olivia, in partnership with Lightforum, Metalarte and IDS10.

And Saturday will be another busy day full of great design shows:
-Heavy Metal Show (8-11 PM)
-Come up to My Room at the Gladstone ( 7-10 PM)

Design Week will end on Sunday with a visit to the IDS10...

I can't wait to come up to all these designers' rooms!

Putting on the Ritz with the 1920s!

Spadina Museum will be opening its doors on Saturday, January 30 for one night only to celebrate the inter-war period restoration currently underway.

When I first visited Toronto in 2006, the authentic charm and beauty of the Spadina Museum (pronounced Spa-deena) was undeniably one of the reasons why I fell in love with the city, and decided to move here in September 2007.

So, if in town, you simply cannot miss that great 1920s party thrown in Spadina's elegant Victorian decor.
Pick up your phone and book your tickets NOW! It's filling up fast.

Costumes or glad rags from the 1920s are welcome! The museum plans to photograph participants during the event to keep our audiences up to date on restoration happenings and events. Fantastic prizes will be awarded for Best Individual Costume, Best Couple and Best Celebrity Impression.

PS: I still don't know what I will be wearing...But if like me, you need to polish up your retro look, you can find affordable 1920s clothes and accessories at Gadabout on Queen Street East, at Cabaret on Queen Street West, or at Courage my Love in Kensington Market, or again at Fashion Crimes (fake pearls and cigarette holder for next to nothing!).

Hope to see you there ;o)

No Milk Today? Ok, but a lot of Mjölk instead...

Don't miss it !
Last weekend, Marco and I paid a visit to the new-born store of the Junction's eclectic neighbourhood : Mjölk ( say Mi-Yelk). The shop has been voted new shop of the week by NOW magazine and best new design shop of 2009 according to Blog TO! It has been designed and built by Studio Junction, (go see their website; I am a great admirer of their work)...

...and is run by John Baker and Juli Daoust whom we first met at the IDS09 as they stopped by our booth and eventually decided to feature Marco's chairs on their blog: Kitka. They are young, moving forward at the speed of light and have got a passion for Scandinavian and Japanese design that is contagious.

Our suggestion: if you decide to discover the area, also go to Smash, vintage furniture shop, and take a healthy break with organic foods at the Beet, miam-miam!

Take a day out, or at least an afternoon out, to discover what's new in the Junction; you won't regret it !
Croix de bois, croix de fer, si je mens, je vais en enfer...

Rising Legacy

"My road, in a way, is my roots."
( Interview by Rupert Bottenberg, in Montreal Mirror )

Lhasa de Sela (1972-2010)
Montreal-based singer songwriter Lhasa de Sela died on New Year's Day after a 21-month battle with breast cancer.

Listen to "Rising" from 2009's self-titled album, LHASA:


Rest in Peace, bella Lhasa.

If you want to be You...Be a Fantastic YOU!

Being true to oneself is not easy everyday... It could even be considered as one of the biggest ordeals we have been assigned to achieve, don't you think? Hence my interest in two films that I saw recently. Both deal with the topic with such bravado that I felt I had to share the good tips with you, my dear readers.
Fantastic Mr Fox by Wes Anderson. I saw it on January 2nd at the theatre, thanks to a couple of wonderful friends, Rob and Trelawnie, who had invited us for the occasion. They thought it would be a good way to celebrate the new year. And they were right; it was a FANTASTIC and spectacular way to step in the new decade!

I found this stop-motion version of Roald Dahl's classic tale very foxy (;o), witty and delightfully satirical, but also quite down-to-earth as it is also based on good commonsense...All in all, Mr.Fox (George Clooney's voice is perfect here) cannot help being himself, i.e a "wild animal". After this fantastic screening, we were hungry like wild horses (they eat all the time in the film!), so we decided to treat ourselves to the Golden Thai on Church Street. From Fantastic to Golden, how better could that get?

Now, just a few days ago, Marco and I felt so free, so high and so happy to be you+me that it was the perfect night for us to welcome Harold and Maude at home...The VHS video having been bequeathed upon us by the good graces of Rob & Trelawnie (the same amazing friends, yes), we watched it again for our viewing pleasure. What a roller-coaster!

Just in case you too felt the connection between Wes Anderson's films (Rushmore, for instance) and Hal Ashby's dead pan humour (see Being There and Harold & Maude, of course), you would be perfectly right. We discovered that Wes Anderson was greatly influenced by Ashby's Harold & Maude.

Now let's play a little game...
Click on the picture below. Then enter your first name, surname and password (character):

P.S: I am Lettres Ornées, and you?

New Index for Atelier Jacob!

Marco Jacob in "Poetics of Structure" by Anna Sulikowska, Slash Magazine (Summer 2007)

Last week, Marco Jacob, my husband, and I, celebrated the launch of his new website!
It took him some time to transfer the data and upload the new material, but the result is really interesting. Instead of updating his old website with the help of a webmaster, he opted for a format that is called Indexhibit. He researched a lot, browsed on many sites that had been built with Indexhibit, and learnt how to master this new tool. Being independent in how to display one's creative work is, I think, of paramount importance for an artist. It therefore was a huge step that this more user-friendly format enabled him to take. He now can go through the regular updates of his multidisciplinary work himself, which is revolutionary.

Marco and I would like to invite you to browse through his new website, so you can see some of the projects he has been working on lately:

www.atelierjacob.com

Identity design and stationery for Plutino Group. 2009.


Fabrication of maquette for artist Luis Jacob. 2009.
Used in a competition entry for a public art project.


Warp lounge chair. 2008.
Vacuum formed plastic. Prototyped by UB Signs.

Set design for photo shoot featured in Fashion Magazine. 2007.
Photography Miguel Jacob.


Temporary installation initiated by the studio. 2007.


Installation at the Gladstone Hotel's Come Up to My Room exhibition. 2007.
Photography Anna Sulikowska and Chris Curreri.


Louise armchair. 2006.
Baltic birch plywood. Prototyped by Matt Wood.

Hope you enjoyed the visit! Please, leave a comment to let us know your impressions.
We'll take good note of it.


Marco Jacob. Photograph by The Sartorialist.

Twenty Ten, here I come!

Bichonnade Leaping - by Jacques-Henri Lartigue © Jacques-Henri Lartigue Foundation

The holiday season is over. The snow has, at long last, made its way to Toronto. This new whiteness is cold and blinding, but I love it!
The holiday season is over. No more leftovers in the fridge to lure me into delicious but excessive feasting. The holiday food has been replaced by simpler food. Now is time to pull myself back together, and get back to work! I am fortunate I just got a new job as a French teacher for a private school that works for the Government. Starting this week with intense one-on-one classes that can be 6 or 7 hours a day- oulalala, that sounds like an interesting challenge to take up!

Jacques - Henri Lartigue,
Album 1967 July: London
© Ministère de la Culture-France / A.A.J.H.L.

Yes, hum- I definitely need to get back in shape. Well, let's go for the commonsense formula that is sure to guarantee great success : eat less rich food, get back to a healthier diet, and shake-shake-shake our sacred vessel with more regular work-outs.

My cousin Simone. 1913. ©Jacques Henri Lartigue.

Twenty Ten. I really feel ready for growth, ready to inaugurate the new decade with tangible lightness. Let me tell you about my end-of-the-year misfortune...Shortly before New Year's Eve, I started to suffer from an eye infection (probably due to dust or the heating system), which resulted in swollen, reddened eyes.

Photo by Jacques-Henri Lartigue

Pffew! I feel and look better now, the allergy is nearly gone. My husband told me it looks like I am undergoing a renewal procedure. Like a snake shaking off its old skin...Yes. Quite like it. I feel rejuvenated.
On New Year's Day, comfortably seated at the table of a café, my husband and I took down a few goals that we are planning to reach. We decided against any good resolutions as there always is an underlying sense of guilt associated to them. So I ended up with...Secure a good home for our potential 2010 baby. Work on my foreign languages, i.e brush up my German and get started in Spanish. Oh, and also, find new directions in my blog writing. Any suggestions?

Wishing you plenty of budding dreams and exciting ideas for the new decade, or for the next ten days - or the next ten hours...;0)

Jacques-Henri Lartigue, My seaplane and me in my bath, Paris, 1904

Happy New Decade!

Bonne Année 2010!
Wishing you big smiles aplenty for the new decade!

Christmas "Exquises Esquisses"

My husband and I have been spoilt for our first Christmas as a married couple! We had decided to host the family dinner potluck party (15 people) at our place on Christmas day, and everyone seemed to rejoice over the warmth of the occasion. Joy, and love were aplenty !

I felt like a child offering my homemade Christmas presents (see my other blog, Mon cher Coco) : orange marmalade, chutney, Christmas cookies and truffles, all wrapped up in hand-made gift bags. But I also felt the intense joy of receiving in front of so many generous earthly presents! To list but a few : from my husband, I got a camera (to shoot more and better pictures for my blogs!) and a set of 2 CDs that he illustrated (with our faces) & compiled for us and our loved ones; we, as a couple, also got books on cooking, fashion illustration, and on independent pop culture magazines. Not to forget the Oh my Lord! gift, a master Vita-Mix juicer-blender from Zuly, my mother-in-law. Read my other blog, Mon cher Coco, for a post on this juicy Christmas...

But yesterday I was offered one more gift, a very simple and precious gift! As my husband was away at work with his twin brother, I decided to focus on my creative skills and on something I had discarded for a long time. Inspired by my dear husband's passion for illustration, I sat down and sketched several studies of bodies, heads and feet... and finally ended my drawing session with the more detailed sketch of a man's head.

I like the idea of developing new self-taught skills through regular practice. I have always found drawing as a great way to focus and apprehend the sensual dimensions of outlines, colours and textures. I naturally started as a kid. When idle, I would always end up looking for a good picture, often taken from art books, in order to copy it in my sketchbook. I was never bored, it kept me busy for hours. I enjoyed this interest in drawing a lot until, let's say, my early twenties when I found other devouring interests like drama and singing. But that's another story.

Marco's illustration work and my first sketches -after a long time- with the help of the Essential Fashion Illustration Men by Chidy Wayne (Rockport Publishers): I chose to draw the face of a curly haired model who reminded me of my chéri when he was younger...Yes, I am a woman in love!

The interest for material, textures, lines and figures is back. "Exquise Esquisse" (exquisite sketch), as Serge Gainsbourg said in his controversial song, Lemon Incest. That's a precious gift that I got from you, Marco! Thank you for another invitation to share in one of your many passions - from the bottom of my heart. Next time, I will try my hands on pencil and watercolours...

Hohoho-O'Horten!

After two days away from my computer, too busy celebrating good times with my loved ones (What a wonderful Christmas I had !) I am back to the screen with a film or two for you...I will start with a Norwegian bittersweet comedy. O'Horten, directed by Bent Hamer, is the story of Odd Horten, an engineer who once off his train, is derailed... I highly recommend it to you. I watched it before Christmas and it put a big smile on my face. I tremendously enjoyed the odd story it tells about our human condition... Hope you too will...Let me know.

The soundtrack, composed by Kaada, is also part of the trip

Merry Christmas! ** Joyeux Noël!

Hope you enjoyed it.
Joy, love and harmony to you and all your loved ones!

Now, don't forget to also check out my other blog, Mon Cher Coco. Another present is waiting for you under the Christmas tree...

Great Balls of Fire for the Winter Solstice!

KENSINGTON MARKET FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS

Monday December 21st, 2009
Parade begins at 6pm Sharp
Meet at Oxford and Augusta (just south of college) and go with the flow!

If you are in town, don't miss this quite unique opportunity to celebrate the winter solstice by passing on the light to your loved ones!

http://redpepperspectacle.wordpress.com/festival-of-lights/

Friday's Eye Candies /Histoires sans (trop de) Paroles

Photo by Cédric Roulliat

My foot!
This hilariously odd photo of a séance reminds me of a film I have seen recently, Paranormal Activity. Go see it to experience a good story of possession that should make your hair stand on ends...

Toronto-Lyon: Let there be light!

The Newborn. c. 1645. Oil on canvas. Georges de La Tour. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes.

While Toronto is greeting the winter cold with the Cavalcade of Lights, Lyon (France) does so with another ritual of multicoloured Lights that is celebrated on December the 8th; it is called the Festival of Lights -or Les Illuminations du 8 décembre.

Several stories explain the origins of this festival, but most commonly it is agreed on that the tradition started in 1852 to express gratitude toward the Virgin Mary for sparing Lyon from the plague (back then in 1643). Since then, tradition has had it that the citizens of Lyon, and of the nearby towns, place little candles on their windowsills to celebrate the Lights on December 8th. Simple, sobre, and luminously warm! Today's festival also includes other activities based on light, and usually lasts 4 days, with the peak of activity occurring on the 8th.

The intimacy of a chiaroscuro by Geoges de la Tour

On the first weekend of December, my friends then walked the streets of Lyon to see the Illuminations. Obviously, I could not partake in the event this year as I now live in Canada. But, if I delve well into my memories, I still have clear images coming back to the surface. To me, the most poetic representation of Lyon celebrating the Lights will remain the lumignons, these little colourful candles, forming lines of light defying the dark of the night. The visual beauty of such sobre ornaments is just magical! With the windowsills all decked out, new shadows would be projected, thus reshaping the contours of the buildings, and I would gape at the rediscovered beauty of these facades.

Another memory was when I ventured into the old town (Quartier du Vieux Lyon - St Jean) with my college friends while studying in Lyon. Believe me it was dangerous back then! One had to dare the crowd of well hidden enemies, waiting for the ideal candid targets to drop a load of flour and eggs from their windows...It has now been forbidden, I must admit that the stains were hard to remove and some people could easily get hurt in the process of receiving an egg dropped like a bullet...Today, many tourists come for the occasion and enjoy walking in the heart of the old town without being hit by any projectiles of the sort. Little do they know how lucky they are! A sign of the times..Lyon's Festival of Lights used to be a local, regional festival, and now it has become an international event, with many (too many) installations on a bigger scale. The light spectacles produced these days are a far cry from the original candles and flare...

I was not in Lyon, but my good friend Cécile was! An artist herself, she enjoys the festival every year. Here is her impressions for this year's enlightening festival:

Faite des lumières (Made of Lights)... On the dance floor, Cécile Cornu, our special reporter for the Festival of Lights- 2009, in Lyon.
(Photo by Cédric Roulliat)

"Des tableaux sur une roue, des Fiat 500 qui se draguent sous les draps qui sèchent au son de "Ti Amo", des mecs lumineux qui parlent, des bâtisseurs de cathédrale sur la cathédrale, des lutins en quête de lumière : magnifique et poétique nourriture pour les yeux! Le vendeur de vin chaud et de crêpes du coin de la rue, lui, s'est bien occupé de nos estomacs. Moi, je l'aime mon 8 décembre à Lyon!" Cécile Cornu

Fête des Lumières : La Grande Roue, Place Bellecour - Lyon 2009 (Photo: Cécile Cornu)

Fête des Lumières : La Préfecture- Lyon 2009 (Photo: Cécile Cornu)

Fête des Lumières : La Préfecture - Lyon 2009 (Photo: Cécile Cornu)

Reading suggestion :
Illuminations, poems by Arthur Rimbaud

Video Phone, Gaga... or not ?

Au fait...Have you noticed like me that, nowadays, the use of a video phone has become one of the ultimate weapons of seduction? While Beyoncé features Lady Gaga on her video phone hit, I wonder...Shall I upgrade my basic Sony Ericsson phone for a more gogo-LadyGagadgeto one? Have you ever gone through that dilemma recently? I have the feeling that I am not the only one out there. It has become a Big Brother epidemic, a contagious iconoclastic frenzy spreading among us. I spy with my little eye...

Look at these ladies, playing it like Reservoir-Dogs-meet-Barbarella with their décalé hip-hop- discoide looks. Reckless Amazons of the wild West, performing belly-dancing on oriental electro music. Phones shooting like guns; wild girls walking the docks, or riding their motorbikes with the wind in their hair, and a gun held on close to their well-decked busts. Oulala! Can a video phone cause so much turmoil in girls? I wonder.
But wait a minute, I don't really need a video phone! For the anecdote, like many of you, I already have an ipod, which I hardly ever use, and a camera, which I often use...So I am good, all set. I don't need a video phone, even if I find the idea of having it all in one quite appealing, hum to some extent.
No. Reason will have it. Honestly, I just need a fancier 2G phone to call and text. I am not so gaga about the new-technology frontier, anyways. Yes, I will resist the temptation...I don't feel quite ready yet to enter the video phone dimension.

Blog Award for Christine Rochet-Jacob

The blogs Bonjour Romance and The Romantic Query Letter and the Happily Ever After gave me this award for Kreativ Blogger. I feel very grateful that some of you put up with my constant flow of impressions as a French woman abroad!

For accepting this award, I need to:
- Copy and paste the award and post a link to the blog that nominated me.
- Tell seven things about myself.
- Nominate seven other bloggers and pass the award along.

So let me tell you seven ordinary things about moi TODAY - i.e things that reflect my mood of the moment (because I don't believe in generic labels):

1. Today's Sound of Music: Donna Summer's I feel Love

2. Latest though-provoking reads: I loved... Madeleine Vionnet by Pamela Golbin, & Les Déferlantes by Claudie Gallay (in French)
3. Art matters...Visually Important : As I'm writing now, I strangely think of Georges Seurat's The Circus. I owe a lot to this painting! A copy of it was hanging from the wall at my GP's office, when I was a child. It helped me bite the bullet more than once... My imagination would transport me on horseback with the ballerina acrobat, and my doctor could practise his art of the needle at leisure for the sake of my vaccination!

Georges Seurat. The Circus. 1890-91. Oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France.

But I also think of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Gustave Caillebotte, and Edgar Degas ( Ahhh, La Coiffure, because I've always loved having my hair combed)...

Combing the Hair ('La Coiffure') by Degas, about 1896 -National Gallery, London

or Felix Vallotton (I'm a big fan of his woodcuts, and their bold designs, influenced by Japanese wood-block prints), and finally Hiroshige.

Morning glory. Woodcut print, Kakyo Tokyo meisho,

by Utagawabe Hiroshige III (1842-1894). Tsunashima Kamekichi, 1881.
Courtesy of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, The New York Botanical Garden
Photo: New York Botanical Garden

4. I love the city where I live... because that's where my love is. ;0)
5. Sportswise? Getting there...I like the rush of adrenaline and the healthy exhaustion one gets from physical effort. And yet I have to push myself to go to the gym twice a week, or so - my membership is a great reminder! I like Pilates & Yoga, Badminton, Squash and Tennis. But Aerobics is my new target! I want to exercise with the legendary 1980s sexy trio of the 20-minute work-out videos, which I just discovered on Youtube- remember I am a French woman frecentlly landed in North America!

I used to love riding my bike in town - in France with the V'Lov system in Lyon, and the V'Lib in Paris. But Toronto is way more dangerous! I stopped riding after falling over the handlebars... my wheel got stuck in the streetcar tracks, ouch! Oh, but nothing can stop me from walking the streets of the city. Occasionally, I also love hiking in Canadian reservation parks...Peekaboo, Caribou!
6. Mood of the day: Every day is a beautiful day! (*quote from the film Harvey). And also, for those who can understand a bit of French, watch the following video showing the casting of the young "gouailleur" (cheeky) Jean-Pierre Léaud for the 400 Blows by François Truffaut. It will make your day!

Casting de Jean-Pierre Léaud pour LES 400 COUPS
Uploaded by CinemaMonAmour. - Independent web videos.

7. Scents of a French woman : Among my favourite palette of scents, are...Nature before and after the rain/ Freshly cut grass/Anything cooking in butter on the stove /The subtle notes of a fragrant Bordeaux-Graves/ The head-spinning fragrances of lilac in Eastertime... Not to forget Coco by Chanel, my perfume, and Vétiver by Guerlain, my husband's fragrance.

To learn more, go to Mon Cher Coco, my other blog!

Here are 7 other blogs that I love visiting:
♥ Food Box
♥ A Foodie Froggy in Paris (bilingual)
♥ Lovely Morning
♥ 2 or 3 Things I know
♥ Style Files
♥ An Affordable Wardrobe
♥ Please Sir