So, we were just talking about the great blue shoes Katie Holmes wore with her red Armani gown to the Met’s Superheroes Fashion and Fantasy exhibit at the Costume Institute and I couldn’t get over the color….of blue, then along comes Oscar De La Renta’s resort 09 collection suggesting he’s taken a fancy to that color too….yes, and yummy!

Mind you, he had lots of other color options and styles to choose from (like this great print…he’s so on with his ethnic prints right now), but his solo blue confections or blue mixed with red just seemed really masterful to me, and so well accessorized.

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Other items of interest regarding shoes came to light during the opening of the Metropolitan Costume Institute’s exhibit, “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy,” and I really must share.

Cathy Horyn, the New York Times Fashion critic and of On the Runway blog fame, wore the perfect shoes to the opening party. What she wore and how well it came off indicates or should anyway how important it is to think these details through. The shoes were the perfect compliment to her outfit, the trends, and the length of her skirt. It all came together to make her look quite leggy….something one may only expect of fashion models, but not true. We can all look like that if we put on the right shoe with our outfit. (for more on what all the style mavens wore for the gala, see style.com)

A strappy heel is what I called it. Then about the same time, Bill Cunningham, the New York Times on the street fashion photog and documentarian, photographed a lovely segment on hats and shoes and among other things also noted the strappiness of the heels but also the uniqueness of the shoes. Take a look.

But then, there were Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise perfectly captured going up the stairs to the Met’s entrance for the exhibit…she looking like the superheroe Cinderella that she is in a red sequined Armani and these daring do “Blue” shoes and he, Tom, looking like the perfect prince pulling her up the stairs (also dressed in Armani). The best shot of the evening came from Reuter’s photog, Lucas Jackson, shown alongside Eric Wilson’s funny and quippy first impression article for the New York Times of the evenings happenings, “Stars and Superheroes Sparkle at Museum Gala.”

Nonetheless, it was the blue shoes that really made the impression……hmmmm, I wondered aloud to myself, could this have more meaning than for creating a fun yet beautifully themed ensemble for the evening? Then I spied with my little eye the cornflower blue Puma First Round Hi-tops at Urban Outfitters and knew instantly, yes, that blue has life well beyond the Superheroe exhibit and Katie Holmes’ outfit for the evening.
(okay, it’s a little lighter shade, but nonetheless has superpower written all over it)

In fact, I am hoping I can score some great same color blue sandals and/or flip flops for this summer somewhere….Mary Hart of Entertainment Tonight has been wearing these fantastic cobalt blue dresses and suits on the show and while interviewing (image from January 2008 SAG awards). I think she knows something too about this color of blue besides that it looks good on her.

So, KERPLOW! and, and, PLUNK! that.

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Weird concept, I know, but I couldn’t help but think of Cheez-Its when I looked at Kate Spade’s homepage this evening….I’ve been thinking about the Cheez-Its box style for awhile since the yellow and red color combinations right now are so popular, but it just spoke so clearly to me from the Kate Spade page I was moved to finally post about it.

The one thing Cheez-Its doesn’t have though are those cool leopard print sling backs……work on that, okay, Cheez-Its?

Now, I guess I’ll be in trouble with this post for the link to Kate Spade’s homepage when it changes as I am sure it will with the season at minimum, but the Cheez-It box, now it has been that color combination forever, right? Wonder if their sales have increased at all this year because of fashion’s current love affair with red and yellow? Does anyone else think of Cheez-Its when they see these colors combined? Surely I am not the only one with that association in mind…the real question is, who is the beneficiary of the association?

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These images just make me swoon; as published in Vogue Living James Silverman, the photographer, was on assignment in Marrakesh.

I fell in love with the courtyard because of the tiles, the symmetry, and the colors, and the b’hoos (the his and hers canopied nooks, one on each side of the courtyard, but they put b’hoos up around the residence, there were those “lushly upholstered with many constructed around antique Morrocan beds the owner collected from the boutiques of Marrakesh”). This was the home I discussed in my post And Now for a Break, We Go to Marrakesh, where the villa is a result of the joint project by architects, Knut Hovland of Tupelo Arkitektur (Norwegian) and Abdelkarim el Achak (Morrocan). The owner, Scandinavian, wanted to “blend the best of both universes to create a private home suitable for entertaining guests.” I’d say the project was a success….while I may never get an invite, I can at least enjoy the images. I think it’s the nighttime shot of the courtyard that really got me though. I call them “Daytime at the Oasis and Midnight at the Oasis.” Apt, don’t you think?

For further info on the photog, James Silverman, you can visit his website which I encourage….there’s another unbelieveably enchanting photo with yet a different kind of magic. I don’t know but I think this guy knows how to shoot a picture.

The Marrakesh residence featured in Vogue Living is actually made up of three separate dwellings, the Villa Principal (the main house), the Villa Secondaire, and the La Tour (tower). The above image is of yet another option......3 structures, a yoga studio, a stream room, and a massage space all overlooking their own pool with a Carl Milles sculpture emerging from it and a fireplace off to the side. Each gathering place offers openness and yet its own particular intimacy. The Villa Secondaire is a four bedroom dwelling with its own garden and shares a pool with the two bedroom La Tour.

Stepping stones in a green pool coming from the main entrance lead you to the courtyard of the main house are encased by linear and structured fortress walls, and at the same time are dense with the textures of the Morrocan culture, a perfect meld of the two worlds, Nordic and Morrocan, in preparation for what lies ahead.

The above and the rest of the images below are of the main house…and the tiled courtyard, the very first two above images, is off to the other side of the main house.

Silverman manages to capture the vast expanse of a Nordic world along with the craftsmanship and texture of the Morrocan culture in almost all of the photographs. Granted the architects put them there, let’s just say, nothing was lost in translation, only enhanced.

And, all through the residence, regardless of the building there were nice plays of natural light against the interiors of the structures, which Silverman also captured handsomely. Nighttime just makes it all that much more dramatic.

I feel as if I’ve had a long leisurely vacation after looking at these images. Thank you James Silverman. I hope to see more of his work soon. (I made an inquiry into where I might find more of his work, and currently he has the cover of a French magazine, Residences decoration, featuring the home that is on his website).

all images are copyrighted James Silverman
-if interested to publish contact info@jamessilverman.co.uk

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This line of product, reduce, is from basebrands and I found them to be particularly creative, nice and helpful regarding these items and their claims of environmentally friendly materials….also quite solution oriented.

The first is called Melaboo (isn’t that clever?) and is made up of 60% bamboo fiber and melamine compounds. This makes it 100% biodegradable……primarily because of the bamboo, but also because the melamine compounds themselves will break down in the environment, it’s just that the bamboo makes it break down faster and in landfills……then there are the colors we can talk about, which is a pretty wide range to choose from. They were particularly careful to choose colors that worked because the bamboo had a tendency to lighten what colors they used, but these still came out fairly saturated to me, and the dyes which came from the melamine are FDA approved.

Next, WaterWeek, the reuseable water bottles created to address the overuse of plastic water bottles use a material called SAN and are BPA free so you have no leaching of the material into the liquid which is what makes them reuseable, over and over. And if any of you out there are House (the irreverant Dr. House) freaks, like I am, you saw the show where the guy was poisoning himself because he was drinking from plastic water bottles and refilling them repeatedly everyday; because of the type of material the plastic water bottles are made of, you can’t do that……..too much bacteria buildup, as well as the toxins from the BPA leaching. ICK! The reduce bottles are dishwasher safe, made to slip over one of the spindles in your dishwasher and you are good to go. These can be purchased in 5 day packs so you can fill one up for each day and take with, and keep refilling. Fill, chill and go!

Hey, it’s a step toward reducing the over 30 million bottles of water that are thrown out everday. In case you haven’t seen it, I did a post on this devastation in landfills per the CondeNast Portfolio story on photog and artist Chris Jordan’s show “Running the Numbers.” If you haven’t seen it, I strongly encourage you to visit…..it’s an interactive slideshow so you’ll have to be a little patient with it, but the rewards are beyond words, literally. Jordan, in this case image number 2, Plastic Bottles, photographed 400 plastic bottles he had in his driveway over and over and over until he reached the 2,000,000 number which are the number of plastic bottles used every five minutes, and that’s just in the U.S.. When you look at his image from far away it’s hard to break down what it is, but use the reset button in the top right hand corner and you can zoom in to see that these are plastic bottles…..a picture is worth a thousand words on this one. It’ll make you want to buy a WaterWeek five pack for each member of the household.

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