DEATH NOW Our perceptions of death have continued to shift and evolve yet still revolve around a type of instinctive fear of the end of life. Sometimes we re-direct our attention to life affirmation in order to conceal a latent anxiety regarding its cessation.  Michel Foucault has remarked how this emphasis on life—as a method of hiding the realities of illness and death—has been re-enforced by social institutions such as the hospital or retirement homes in a manner that separate the sick and dying from our direct, mundane life experience. In recent decades, we have rebelled against the threat of death by inventing new technologies and medicines that have drastically increased our life expectancy—diseases and disabilities are gradually diminishing but not disappearing. We don't have the black death but we...

DEATH AND THIS DESIGNER What does death look like? Goya's corpse hauling itself out of the grave in Nada? Or like bloodied and gutted bodies hanging from trees like crows crowding onto a morbidly stiff and gnarled branch, pointing into the darkness in Jacques Callot's war etchings? The proliferation of skulls, taxidermy, vintage war paraphernalia and other incarnations of death in design as a massive trend might not interest me aesthetically, but conceptually the idea of living amongst the lifeless as a design choice is compellingly disquieting.  Maybe what is so disquieting about it, is how totally ordinary and not disquieting it really is in today's incarnation. Shouldn't it be uncomfortable to nonchalantly place a skull on the coffee table next to a stack of magazines and bowl of starburst?...

Clearly we are talking 60's Biba style interpretation of the gypsy look rather than actual gypsy, although a post on actual Roma beauty routines and lore sounds a little more interesting...hmm..stay tuned for that. But for now, the Penelope Tree perfected, swinging London, hippy, gypsy look will be just fine. It's a lot Edie Sedgwick, minus the mod. More opioid than amphetamine. Pair some huge earrings with a decadent Etro-esque headscarf and it takes the fortune teller fashion down a few notches. I know a lot of people are averse to drawing on lashes but I'm a huge fan. A very thin liquid eyeliner makes the job really easy and if you are uncomfortable, I would suggest only drawing on the outer 3 lashes. If this is still too much...

GLAMOUR AND GOULASH DAHHLINK Zsa Zsa. Eva. And lesser known Magda. They dripped in diamonds, were forever swathed in fur and between them, racked up a staggering 20 husbands (and one shared one between them-does that bring the number to 19?). Because you can never have too many diamonds or husbands. Frankly I think one husband might be one too many. I do see the wisdom in the go big or go home school of thought though when it comes to husbands. I mean either be mysteriously single and fabulous or work that vegas drive thru and become a connaisseur or collector of male specimens. See thats the anthropologist in me-always a collector! They say the Gabor sisters were the Kardashians of yesterday. I sort of hope they were a...

ERZSEBET BATHORY: THE COUNTESS WHO BATHED IN BLOOD Erzsebet (Elizabeth ) Bathory was born in 1560 to Baron George Bathory and Baroness Anna Bathory. The Bathory  family was one of the most powerful Protestant families in Hungary, and included warlords, politicians and clerics within its ranks. Elizabeth's ancestor Stephan Bathory had fought alongside Vlad Dracula in one of his many successful attempts to reclaim the Wallachian throne. Elizabeth's cousin, and Vlad's namesake, became Prince of Transylvania in 1571, and elected King of Poland. For a young female of her time,Elizabeth was highly educated and spoke Hungarian, Latin and Greek fluently. Elizabeth was also renowned for her great beauty. As usual, all we have to go on is accounts from not necessarily reputable royal staff and not necessarily reputable court painters. Knowing...