Happy Stories From our customers

Check out a recent article in the New Yorker that details the discovery of a trunk of intricately designed Callot dresses, designed by three sisters who are considered by some to be the most amazing designers in fashion history. Their detail to craftsmanship is astounding and will inspire us to continually raise the bar higher.

A “Callot dress” is one that was made by the Paris haute-couture house Callot Soeurs—Callot Sisters. The sisters are not much remembered now: there has been no monograph on their work, and no retrospective. Yet, not long after Callot Soeurs opened their atelier, in 1895, they became one of the great names in Belle Époque fashion. Madeleine Vionnet, one of the most influential and radical designers of the twentieth century, was the sisters’ head seamstress. She ranked them higher than the self-proclaimed King of Fashion, Paul Poiret. “Without the example of the Callot Soeurs,” Vionnet said, “I would have continued to make Fords. It is because of them that I have been able to make Rolls-Royces.”

Few dresses made by Callot Soeurs have survived. So when the cache of some twenty gowns was found moldering in the trunks in the villa, it was a major discovery. The villa was La Pietra, built by a Medici banker and bought, in 1907, by Hortense Mitchell Acton, a Chicago heiress, who was the wife of Arthur Acton, an Anglo-Italian antique dealer. Their son, Sir Harold Acton, the Oxford memoirist, historian, and aesthete, bequeathed the estate to New York University, in the nineteen-nineties.

 

One of Hortense Mitchell Acton’s Callot Soeurs gowns in the Camera Verde of Villa La Pietra. The gold and silver lace at the neck, the apron skirt, and the five metallic rosettes across the chest recall the forms of a Gothic cathedral. The sleeves are made of metallic lace, now oxidized.

 

“Without the example of the Callot Soeurs,” Vionnet said, “I would have continued to make Fords. It is because of them that I have been able to make Rolls-Royces.”

 

An orange silk dress with silk and metallic fringe, in the garden of La Pietra. Hortense Mitchell Acton likely wore it at one of the extravagant parties she hosted there, among the Actons’ collection of sculpture.

 

Made of silk velvet, and embroidered with blue silk, this dress suffered from being stored beneath a gown with “glass-bead disease.”

http://youtu.be/zAis7YS-et8

2ct center stone

It’s that time of the year again where we box up the wintery wear and blow the dust off of lighter, prettier things. Even jewelry needs a spring-cleaning. It’s a perfect time to clean your jewelry as well as getting rid of old pieces that no longer serve you. Don’t be too dear. Think in terms of wardrobe that you simply couldn’t do without. The remainder? Take it to your local thrift store so someone else can enjoy it.

Here’s some sage advice from Daily Mail:

Choose an afternoon where you won’t be disturbed. Put on some music and wear nice underwear (you’re going to be looking at yourself in the mirror a lot) and comfortable clothes that are easy to take on and off.

Start working your way through your wardrobe, trying on each item as you go. You want to create three piles of clothes: one pile for items you are throwing out/donating to charity/ friends, one for items that you are keeping and one for items you’re not sure about.

Try on each item and ask yourself the following questions: does it suit you? Have you worn it at all in the last six months? Are you keeping it because it was expensive or a present? The only clothes you should keep are the ones that really suit you – be honest.

Good reasons for throwing clothes out:

• They are old and worn
• They no longer fit you
• You’ve never worn them
• You don’t feel good in them

Pack the pile of clothes you’re not sure about into a box and leave them for a month. If at the end of the month you haven’t missed them they can be given to charity.

Personal heirlooms such as Grandma’s old shawl and clothes of other sentimental value should be boxed up with cedar blocks to keep the moths away and stored away from your wardrobe to give you more space.

By the end of the afternoon you will find yourself with a much smaller wardrobe – now is the time to work out what’s missing.

Don’t be buried alive!

One can only imagine the creative abilities of a Neandrathal from 130,000 years ago. Well actually, we can do more than imagine. Witness their jewelry making abilities below. (The Neandrathals appear to be more stylish than one would think. I may have seen a similar necklace at Burning Man.)

Long before they shared the landscape with modern humans, Neanderthals in Europe developed a sharp sense of style, wearing eagle claws as jewelry, new evidence suggests.

Researchers identified eight talons from white-tailed eagles — including four that had distinct notches and cut marks — from a 130,000-year-old Neanderthal cave in Croatia. They suspect the claws were once strung together as part of a necklace or bracelet.

Source: NBC News