It's a cold, sunny day in Paris. Seems to be (no, it's only that I dream it since one-two weeks) a joyful anticipation of Spring, and the trees in the park in front of my atelier's window talk to me about the new season coming.
It's a secret perspective from here, and I can easily look without being seen the profile of a person through the branches, the grass, and the strands of sun painted on the humid ground.
There's also my friend ladybug on the curtain, so I think that in this silence our story can start..
© Francesca Zabarella
It's to the Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov's (1844-1908) Scheherazade and to my private passion for the late 19° and first 20° century Orientalism that some of the 2014 Spring/Summer papierdoreilles are inspired.
© Francesca Zabarella
At the beginning of 20° century Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris (1909-1929) contributed to change the perception of the orientalist imagery (India, Persia, Byzantium, Central Asia, ancient Russia) through a series of choreographies, screenplays, costume designs and musical compositions which completely re-elaborated a great amount of literary traditions, A Thousand and One Nights being one of the most famous.
The great, immense Léon Bakst designed for many choreographies signed by Fokine and Balanchine an array of costumes, extraordinary rich in precious details.
In the case of A Thousand and One Nights, the artist and costumer mixed the iconography found out into the Indo-Persan miniatures of the book's written tradition to the déco taste developed in the 1910's in Paris, following the issues of Paul Poiret and the fashion illustrations by Georges Lepape and George Barbier on La Gazette du Bon Ton.
Sketches for Scheherazade costumes and scenography, by Léon Bakst
© Léon Bakst
I've been collecting lots of images of Ballets Russes during the last years and the beautiful exhibition Les Milles et une Nuits I saw in Paris in Spring 2013, hosted at the Institut du Monde Arabe has been the last straw for my inspiration.
Scheherazade, costumes by Léon Bakst. Affiche by George Barbier, 1913.
© IMArabe, Paris
With this small collection I liked to let my imagination free to create all the things I've been lovin' to wear since my orientalist passion came to me:
. a Persian/Hindi headpiece, with a pendant cabochon hosting a couple of swans by English Victorian illustrator and artist Walter Crane (1845-1915)
© Francesca Zabarella
. a great cabochon ring with the same image
© Francesca Zabarella
. a pair of crystal pendant earrings, in between Scheherazade and Salomé
© Francesca Zabarella
. a macramé knotted bracelet, adorned of small precious metal beads,
with a Berber-taste, open-work fermoir
© Francesca Zabarella
. Byzantine rings, with corals, agate, crystals, baroque river pearls and lapislazuli
© Francesca Zabarella
. a lace ring with an opaline cabochon, better if in a calcedonium shade
© Francesca Zabarella
Et voilà.. for the moment!
This is just a preview, 'cause the collection is actually growin' up (and continues to follow Bakst instances)..
Now!! Visit papierdoreille Etsy shop to get your languid-Scheherazade outfit ;-) and prepare yourself to the whole papierdoreille Spring collection!!
Love,
franci
(Note: I am not able to give the picture credits of all the images of this post, because since it's a lot I'm collecting about Ballets Russes I can't
remember where I found some of them exactly. In any case, the pictures without my copyright marked-on are not mine.)
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