Lee Miller

 source: telegraph.co.uk

Right now there's a Lee Miller exhibition shown in Berlin. You knew Lee Miller, VOGUE-model, fashion photograher, war correspondent and, all in one, a very fascinating woman. She was so beautiful, smart and courageous, but her personality had a dark side too, and she was a close friend of the most Surrealists I admire like Max Ernst and Cocteau. 

I mostly appreciate her pictures from World War II, so touching and different. She shows the cruelty of the war and the Nazi crimes in a way you will never forget.

One of the most famous pictures of herself is surely the one that shows her in Hitler's bathroom. It could be seen in the gallery:

For a better view, please visit the exhibition here:

dress: Tara Starlet, years ago
lipstick: lipink Energy Red

fishnet tights: Falke

shoes: Vagabond 

bag: etsy

 The earrings I wore are very special to me and a most-loved pair in my vintage jewellery collection. The are screw ons from the late 40s and made out of pink little mussels and pearls. I bought them on a fleamarket here in Berlin from a granny, wonder how they came the long way from the tropics? Maybe a present from a GI once? A lot of mussel are missing and destroyed, but for me that makes them even more a treasure. Things with scars and a story behind are the best vintage findings, I think.

 I photographed them on the cover of her biographie I'm currently reading, written by her son. They're lying in front of her portrait taken by her ex-lover Man Ray. 

On my way back home, moved by her pictures during the Wartime, I gave an extra attention to the golden flaggins called "Stolpersteine" in German. These stones are scatterd all over Berlin to remind us of the Nazi-victims, mostly Jewish people and members of the resistance. 

I guess that those shall remind us of a mother and her two daugthers, unbelievable that one of them was only ten years old. It's good to have those stumbling blocks. Watch out for them when you visit Berlin. And when you can´t go to the exhibition, you maybe can buy one of Lee Miller's books? You will not regret it, I promise!

source: cosmopolis.ch

Seafood and Dali

my favorite capris: pinupgirlclothing 

 

Back from our backpack-trip to Spain, Andorra and France. I don't wanna bore you with touristic pictures, starting in Barcelona, we admired the Gaudi "Parc Güell" and his buildings, went shopping a bit and had a lot of great seafood at La Paradeta.

 

 

By incident at the Barcelona Harley Days.

 After the great art of Antonio Gaudi, it was time for another Catalan genius: Salvadore Dali. We waited two houres to visite the Dali museum, but it was absolutly worth it.

 Sculpture: Taxi pluvieux

Sailor playsuit: asos

After reading the biography of Gala Dali, I was very excited to see the Casa Dali in Port Lligat in real. To me it was a mindblowing experience! I loved every detail, especially the pink lipcouch at the poolside.

My shopping goodies back in Berlin:

40s landgirlstyle dress from Good Times Barcelona

Bakelite Bangle from Blow by Le Swing

soft red Mae West-Lips by Dali

Flamenco Shoes

Olé!

Bunny ring travelling

As a girl born in Saxony I´m proud of the capital city Dresden. Honey had never been there, so we decided to pay a little visit during the Easter holidays. I booked the hotel, grabbed my bunny ring and we hopped into the car.

  

We had such a freezy weather, so we spent most of the time visiting museums and exhibitions.

 At the "Albertinum":

40s style halo hat: ebay.uk

skirt: H&M

bag: Gucci

Giant: "Berserker 1" by Stella Hamberg

Seeing the original paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and Otto Dix was very impressive.

Afterwards we had a guided tour through the incredible opera house Semperoper. What an opulence! Just one little detail from the ceiling:

Aphrodite

But Easter is also about a lot of good food, wouldn't you think? We enjoyed our great German specialities at the antique restaurant "Dresden 1900".

50s Clipons: ebay.uk 

Wiggle dress: ebay.uk

Lipstick: Guerlain - excess de rouge

As a supprise, there was a special decoration at the gents' restroom:

We got a little pink Easter cake and enjoyed it while relaxing on the hotel bed.

But Dresden is not only a town full of beautiful renaissance buildings and baroque treasures, it also has an upcoming nightlife. We had a drink in a Heavy Metal bar and I loved the "Heavy Metal Last Supper"-painting on the wall, starring Lemmy Kilmister as Jesus - he is the God of Rock´n´Roll for me, too.

Looking for some more entertainment in the Neustadt, we stranded in the little Blue Note Bar. What a great place! We were listening to brilliant live jazz music, had some more drinks and talked to the sweet little barkeeper Anna for hours. 

After the sun had shown up the next day, I celebrated with my last bunny cake for this year and we said  "Goodbye Dresden, you treated us very well!"

PS: If you have to walk a lot, need comfty shoes and still wanna look like a queen, wear this:

Pumps: Miss L Fire

Tights: Falke  (they perfectly fit my 50s Clipons)

Venice – Experiences

Venice is the city of love and death in literature and in movies. My favorite movie about Venice is “Summertime” from 1955 with my beloved extraordinary beauty Katherine Hepburn. I have seen it a hundred times. Enjoy it. They’re still selling the red goblets…

Our hotel was full of Belle Epoque funiture and a bit shabby, too.

Lying in this bed we recognized that the ceiling was completely made out of golden mirrors, very hot.

Of course Venice is much more crowed than in the old movies, but it still has its magic. We tried to move anticyclical to the tourist masses and we found a lot of lonely places that way. First we stept into a little gay shop full of funny dramatic decoration and opera music. I loved this little rabbits hat:

And the town made me an unexpected birthdaypresent – the Diana Vreeland Exhebition. I just finished reading the “Allure” book about the great trendsetter, so I couldn’t wait to see something from her work on HARPER´S BAAZAR and VOGUE or something from her spectaculary privat life.

Sadly taking photographs was forbidden inside of the bad illuminated Fortuny Museum. But see what I did anyhow:

One of her favorite private outfits back in the 30s.

What a wig! I need this for OPALICON.

My friend bought me the exhibition catalog full of great fashion illustrations from the 40s to the 70s – love it, have to post some scans soon. If you like Diana Vreeland too, watch the great movie “Funny Face” with Kay Thomson playing the character Meggy Prescott – who is inspred by Diana.

 taken from here

The only plan I made at home was to visit the palazzo of Peggy Guggenheim, because I read two books about her and I wanted to see her collection of sunglasses, her collection of earrings and something that illustrated the excentric picture of her that I had in my mind. But there was nothing like that.

taken from here

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection  “just” included great paintings and sculputes from the last century. But they had the original paintings of Max Ernst, an artist I adore and so did Peggy, she was in love with this beautiful man for a while.

Max Ernst:The Robing of the Bride from 1940

Thank you Peggy, as a lady born with a silverspoon in hand you did well to promote all these great artists and your palazzo is the most beautiful. So RIP next to your puppies.

After we had seen all this it was time for good food, and the Italian knows how to do. One of the pink ones was my birthday cake. Enjoyed whit lots of Aperol Sprizzes, THE Venize drink!,

To round up the experiences, we had come a bit closer to the death theme in Venice. For that we had to go to the Cemetri – an island just full of graves. It was so special and silent there. I admired the pictures on the graves from peoples gone by in the WWII time.

The Entrée

 

The green field on her grave was 
filled with little blue forget-me-nots.

The Russian art critic and former of the Ballett russe Diachilew 

had lots of flowers and ballett shoes on his tombstone.

Sitting on a bench in the shadow we talked about our lives and what we both want to change in the next year: more effort to the career, losing weight and say once more to our loved ones at home, how big their meaning is to us.

We left the “Island of the Dead” via watertaxi, felt the sun and the wind in our faces a bit more intensive as we did before and we had a deep happiness in our hearts about beeing just alive!

Venice, I will surely come back…