On days like today, when misty rain alternates with brief periods of sunlight, I sometimes think about this cleverly designed “Sky” umbrella. It was created in 1992, by graphic designers Tibor Kalman and Emmanuela Frattini Magnusson, and I’ve probably been admiring it almost as long as it’s been sold at the Museum of Modern Art’s gift shop.
I started reading Evelyn Waugh’s fiction when I was in high school and Brideshead Revisited had just been re-aired, in all its glory, on public television. One of Waugh’s funniest novels (which is saying something) is The Loved One, a black comedy written after Waugh had traveled to Los Angeles. Short and sharp, it skewers the funeral industry, life in Hollywood, romantic courtship and, in passing, beauty products.
I stopped by LUSH’s Upper West Side boutique on Saturday to pick up a new bottle of Eau Roma rose-lavender facial spray (essential in dry winter weather!) and I was distracted by the new Valentine’s Day products, including The Kiss Lip Gloss. Can you blame me?
Even Bergdorf’s fantastical window displays begin with the most basic of elements!
Photograph by Tinsel Creation.
This one’s an easy one!
I’ve written two previous posts about advertisements for Houbigant’s Chantilly: an ad from the 1960s that borrowed an angel from a Raphael altarpiece, and and ad from the 1990s that was inspired by an Edward Steichen photograph.
This ad for Chantilly “bath tablets” pays homage to one of the most famous works in Western art history, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.
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