All my life I have been privileged to be around interior designers, starting with my mother , Jaqueline who worked for many years during the 1970s in Milan with renowned Italian architect Giorgio Pes.

In the same city were I was born, I practically grew up at the house of our neighbor, world renowned designer Mario Bellini, the creative brain behind companies like Olivetti, Cassina, Vitra International and  MoMa among others. In Brussels, Belgium where I moved with my family at the age of 16, I was constantly surrounded by my parents’ friends, who were very prominent antiques dealers and architects like Gisele Croes and Axel Vervoort

Later, I moved to Brazil.  For several long years I was busy with the construction of my first house, in Sao Paulo, whose inspiration I took from the organic house ‘ Falling Water ‘ by modernist architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  The house was created by influential Brazilian architect Marcos Tomanick.

At that moment I was very passionate about collecting antiques. As a hobby I traveled worldwide, sourcing objects in the early morning, predawn antique and flea markets of London, Naples, Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Buenos Aires.  I loved looking with such excitement for that special object that would give life to hundreds of others picked elsewhere worldwide.

Once my house was ready, I called one of my favorite designers in Paris at that time.  A French designer of Moroccan origins, Alberto Pinto’s enriching consultancy lead me to become an avid collector of 17th, 18th, and 19th Century European antiques and Oriental arts purchased from the most remarkable dealers in Paris (Renoncour and Galerie Chevalier), London (Ciancimino and Mallet), and New York ’s Kenshire Gallery among with others.

At the same time, for more than 15 years, I owned several home accessory and design stores in the style of the British Conran Shop with an ethnic touch when globalization came to the door in that part of the hemisphere.  I worked with several partners like Sig Bergamin and Beto Galvez, among the best architects and interior designers  in South America.

After becoming a financial engineer at the university of Solvey, my one and only sister turned to the New York School of Interior Design where she graduated recently, creating a partnership with an icon of classic elegance: Brazilian architect, interior designer, and my dear long-time friend, Joao Mansur.

The doorman calls me on the phone. “Miss, I have a package for you!” With a lovely inserted note, I carefully open the beautiful paper surrounding a magnificent black book with a gold engraved title -High Style- Wow, I love this!!!

There is a photograph of a charming couple, a man and a woman sitting on a leather beije modernist sofa. Both are dressed in black. She’s very blond, with an Hispanic look; he’s black, very handsome, with a posture of totally unmistakable elegance. Both gaze with a purposely enjoyed nonchalance borrowed from a strange stylish melange a la Hepburn and Connery.  “But…who are these guys?” I wonder, intrigued, turning the book’s pages nervously.

“We combine California Modern with Vintage Hollywood decadence.  We call this brand of mixing the old with the new; the modern and vintage Modage. Los Angeles, California has long been celebrated for its laid back yet luxurious lifestyle. We have been influenced by its heyday of cocktail parties and grand hotel gatherings but live in the modern world of sleek, clean lines and simple opulence.”

Forgetting I must leave my apartment for the afternoon, I decide to postpone my activities until tomorrow.  This is more important.  I carry on reading: “The Modage sensibility arises from the desire to take the clients back to a time when high living was an art form in itself, without sacrificing the sophisticated contribution of modern stylists.  Modage is the signature brand of High Style. Life is the occasion.  Enjoy it, celebrate it.”

Their showroom ‘ on La Cienega Boulevard opened in 2005.  At first, the intention was for it to be the place where they showcased their treasures.  Now it is a hub of designers sourcing for famous decorators, celebrities, hipsters and those of discerning taste from all walks of life.

Clients like Cameron Diaz and Beck drop by for something special.  Designers to the stars like Jonathan Adler, Nate Berkus, Kenneth Brown and Martyn Lawrence Bullord shop for perfect pieces with which to outfit their clients’ homes.  In the shop punches of bright colors like greens, light blues and pinks create interest against the traditional black-and-white palette.

Ron Woodson’s parents were part of the black bourgeoisie and art scene of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.  His father was a jazz musician who worked with many greats such as Lena Horn, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr, and Bobby Short, just to name a few.  The only child of tobacco and electric energy tycoon James Buchanan Duke, Doris Duke bought him his first Christian Dior suit and Ron wonders today why he still loves the feel of a well-made suit.

The rich heritage of his family gave him appreciation for all things beautiful and gave him the tools for developing a creative spirit very early in life.  With a college degree in finance, he decided he did not want to only use the right side of his brain so went back to school, attending UCLA’s Architecture and Interior Design program.

He began his professional career as an art consultant and custom framer and was an avid world furnishings collector.  He and Jamie Rummerfield met at a dinner hosted in his house and immediately shared their similar goals and design philosophies.  Soon after a dinner at Jamie’s house, they almost organically created the House of Design, their boutique.

Jamie Rummerfield was born in Long Beach, California in the 1970s.  Her parents were happy hippies, and her childhood was a long summer of love. Since she was a child, Jamie was encouraged to explore her creativity and follow her bliss.Salvatore, her grandfather was a very talented furniture craftsman from Boiano, Italy who instilled in Jamie an appreciation for good design.

Celia, her grandmother from Mexico, is a vivacious and stylish woman who comes from a whole family of jewelers. The epitome of high style, she wears the finest adornments and always has her hair styled, red lipstick and heels in place-rain or shine, no matter where she’s going. From her other grandma, Jamie inherited a collection of imported trinkets and furniture from the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

Growing up, Jamie learned that it’s not about how much you spend, it’s about how you choose to see things-learning that beauty is to be seen in every experience and appreciated every one of its details.  The furniture, textiles, lighting and interiors of the late 60s and 70s Southern California influenced her aesthetic sensibilities, from her daddy’s colorful surfing ponchos surfboards and woven Mexican beach blankets to the rows of craftsman- and casita-style bungalows she saw as she rode through the city in their VW bus.

As an Interior Design graduate at Arizona State University, she moved back to the coast.  “Los Angeles has a rich history and its own special brand of nostalgia that brings me such joy – a place infused with a feeling that this is where dreams come true.”

Ron and Jamie meet at a moment where both are at growth stages with their own businesses.  With the common interest of opening a storefront to house interesting collections of home decor, they agreed to showcase and sell some “great stuff.” They ended up discovering an abandoned, run down beauty salon next to a high-end antique showroom and gallery they both frequented.Before long, the space was theirs and the House of Design moved in, white picket fence and all.

Inside the boutique -as in the book- you will find gorgeous individual furniture pieces surrounded by photo collages, wallpapers, objects and fabric swatches  A Dynamic, surprising, glamorous living spaces in some of Southern California’s hidden gems as well as its secrets to stylish living, whose basic philosophy stands on the fact that “you can live like a star no matter where you call home.”

It’s almost six o’clock in the evening. I didn’t realize I was sitting for several hours in my favorite small and comfy 1900s vintage light blue velvet upholstered armchair, near a window in my living room that faces Central Park in New York where I live now.

For several hours I California Dreamed in a magic carpet ride hosted by Ron Woodson and Jamie Rummerfield. I enjoyed outdoor entertaining life in glorious weather and magic hours with friends, strolling along the beach near an enchanted 1920s Santa Monica bungalow, mining for gold, sharpening my eye in “road shops”, riding in convertible cars into Hollywood’s cinematic and dazzling way of life where style is a dictatorship influenced by a uniquely glamorous history worldwide.

I finally realize why I have become suddenly so tuned with this charming couple’s creations, joyful exuberance and philosophy. And what is their Philosophy after all?

As my colleague Sara Ruffin Costello, creative Director of Domino Magazine says, it’s the simple ” Pursuit of pleasure taken very seriously.” In Brazil we say: Sarava

This post is dedicated to Michele Safra . May the inspiration of beauty and elegance color her life at the occasion of her birthday.

Joelle’s Picks:

The Designers: Ron Woodson and Jamie Rummerfield 724 N. La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90069/ Tel + 1 310 659.3010 / Fax +1 310.650.3070

The “  Special for the Economy ” New Design Service  : crafted for catering  those design enthusiasts wanting to beautify their living space but don’t have large budget to do it. Five consulting meetings for us $5.000 with Ron, Jamie and their design staff for five days and also receive a free design book ‘ High Style”. Check the website for more details.

The online store: Wandrlust / The favorite wallpapers: Florence Broadhurst / The Blog: Wandrstylelife

The Photographer: Jonathan Shapiro for Ron Woodson and Jamie Rummerfield- All rights reserved

There are only a few minutes left before the arrival of 2009.  I have been looking at the sky.  Like in a movie, I am watching the old year’s retrospective of events go by.  It’s dark…a cold, very cold night in New York City.  I deliberately chose to spend this transition by myself.  Hearing about my decision, friends and family thought something was wrong with me but on the contrary, I have never felt so peaceful in my mind and at heart.

It wasn’t easy to explain to the ones I love and whose company, homes, and countries I enjoy that I needed to have a chat with the sky!  If I write about my millennial “chat” with the planets, this “night off” from Planet Earth will possibly be excused and maybe understood by many.  After all, what matters is that I am coming back into the New Year’s orbit on time for the fireworks and with a suitcase filled with answers to my solitary tarot game of questions.

Among those questions was, “How can I create Good Karma for myself and others in the new year to come, emphasizing the importance of physical health, spiritual growth, abundance, harmony and peace?” The pieces of advice I picked among hundreds I sourced are based on the principles of Buddhism, Taoism and other spiritual traditions. The result is a collection of simple, immediate suggestions, possibly resolutions created to enliven and enlighten our lives in 2009.

This collection of the following short insights encompasses four fundamental principles of spirituality: Karma (cause and effect) Dharma ( cosmic law , to be in tune with nature and the world) Yoga ( enlightenment through movement) and Tao ( harmony with the fundamental essence of everything we encounter) and Kabbalah (endless receiving light, the creation of both matter and spirit)

All these principles and the many traditions listed below are meant to open your heart, rekindle your spirit, celebrate the present, and help you gain mental and physical strength.  Many of the entries will speak to you today.  Others will ring true years from now.  Some may never fit your life.  Take what you want and leave the rest.  Here are my picks:

• wait for a door to be unlocked instead of trying to break it down
• give the best information
• stop working at your computer and place your hands in Namaste ,the centered position of respect and thanks
• believe that the best is yet to be
• surrender/trust
• give away a tenth of your income to charities and good causes
• do not take life’s experiences too seriously

• repeat the sacred words of great teachers
• make your kitchen the most comfortable place in he house
• Capture pretty pictures and send them to  all your contacts through your cell phone camera
• show personal integrity
• call or write your cousins
• put yourself in someone else’s shoes
• the more attention you bring to eating, the more interesting it becomes
• give the pet a sponge bath
• live according your beliefs

• send a hand-delivered telegram of love
• listen to the whole answer
• be comfortable with ambiguity
• respect tradition
• mist your feet with a blend of tea tree and Eucalyptus oils
• when you get home kick off your shoes
• let things unfold in their own time
• learn to be your own counselor
• master a skill
• regardless the situation, react with class

• know when to quit
• treat animals well
• trust those on whom you depend,and care for those who depend on you
• start your family’s day by making fresh orange juice
• buy two copies of a book so you can read it with your sweetheart
• begin to experience the difference between love and attachment, between loss and grief
• put your jacket around someone on a chilly evening
• make kindness your true religion
• make creativity a way of life

• write three things that were great about today
• teach a child to read
• practice the ‘ letting-go mind’
• know that you are doing the best you can- for now
• grow herbs in a window garden
• simplify
• revive a lost art form
• research your opinions
• make a difference
• write or draw your anger away
• allow your day to unfold
• believe inner peace is possible

• dance in the Summer rain
• listen to Beethoven ’s Ninth
• help ban nuclear anything
• deliver compassion
• enhance even the most mundane aspects of life
• offer someone warm milk before bedtime
• never deprive someone of hope
• bring plants and flowers with their healing yang energy into a convalescing person’s bedroom
• let go of the past
• buy coffee and breakfast for the person behind you at the coffee shop

• seek the essence of beauty everyday
• don’t mind to be immersed in the future
• develop extraordinary powers of observation
• master the moment
• be in charge of your feelings
• be a mentor to a young person who admires you
• look for possibilities not limits
• deepen your relationship with nature and find great contentment

• see with your inner eye, hear with your inner ear
• nothing worthwhile is achieved overnight
• embrace aloneness and solitude,realizing you are one with the universe
• start a gratitude list
• buy comfortable furniture
• give books to the poor
• make time for meditation
• give the gift of undivided attention
• resolve to maintain a balance in everyday life
• develop your own philosophy
• live quietly
• use less share more
• go into stillness and wait
• make honesty your only policy

• don’t try to buy happiness
• rather than padding a river, flow with it
• share a chair
• do the least harm possible
• live your own life
• when you are truthful you will be trusted
• read a guide on money management
• care about yourself enough to set limits
• live a spiritual life and you will have less fear of death
• let events take their course

• use sunscreen
• grow old gracefully
• read about fashion trends in magazines-then wear whatever you want
• see life’s big picture
• take yourself to lunch
• stop trying change people
• take care of little details
• organize all of the closets
• practice waiting patiently
• remain open to experience and change
• contribute something unique to the world
• find the positive side of a situation
• wear clothes you love
• don’t jump to conclusions
• acknowledge the reality of times

• bake a pie for your mother-in-law
• celebrate good food from the earth
• win affection of children
• invent your own recipe for living
• focus on what’s important
• only watch TV programs you are really interested on
• listen children rehearse
• be endless curious about the universe
• make a PBJ from whole-grain bread,freshly ground natural peanut butter, and fruit-sweetened jam

• guess positively when you’re not sure
• find a meaningful career
• negotiate solutions to crises
• find a job compatible with your basis
• take a favorite friend to lunch
• see beauty in the simple
• freedom is found in a life where there is little choice
• choose the best response
• learn how aromas influence your mood
• donate to AIDS research

• love the rainy days too
• make your home a sanctuary
• change the way you have always done something
• know when to rest
• have faith in your own ideas
• surrender to what is
• put more value on people than on stuff or ideas
• tell a teenager something you wish you had known at his or her age
• behave during the day in such a way that you can sleep at night in peace
• stoke a dog’s ears

• write a letter to someone you care about who is no longer in your life
• let friends surprise you
• live your faith
• allow the flavor of goodness to permeate your life
• empty your mind during a walk
• build a cozy fire during wintertime
• try harder
• drink vegetable juice
• attend Earth Day Celebration
• don’t eat out of sadness or anger
• be your partner’s best friend and biggest fan
• respect those who have a different focus
• let people enjoy life their own way
• encourage people to share their excitement about life
• do a group project

• follow directions
• create imaginary allies
• be a team player
• one step starts a journey
• don’t get upset about confusion
• don’t look for recognition
• do not despise what you cannot have
• hire people who like people
• reconcile two enemies
• make up the bed with fragrant rose petals tucked between the sheets
• face life
• burn candles
• find religion
• use ears to explore the world
• just breath

• be wary of trendy magazines that focus on simplicity
• stop holding your breath and breath from your diaphragm
• read yoga tips to improve your practice
• spend one day in silence
• give yourself to the journey
• remain in the center watching
• meditate on emptiness
• don’t take a bad mood seriously
• massage your scalp with essential oils
• pardon errors

• be calm in front of someone hysteria
• release all suffering
• cleanse the energy in the bedroom several times a year
• live life right now
• teach kids to use their creativity
• wake up
• show affection
• be intellectually adventurous
• plant a tree for a baby’s birthday
• believe in miracles
• be a miracle
• put on your favorite cd and dance
• write a fun letter to your favorite author
• read a writing style and usage manual

• walk slowly
• inspire yourself
• sit in the grass
• take your vitamins
• pray under a cathedral of trees
• say a peace prayer
• spend today bringing happiness to your friends and family
• read scriptures and holy books
• sing a lullaby
• share
• revel in the luxury of being alive
• help save a’ lost soul’
• take nothing for granted
• start where you are

Joelle’s Tips

The Source : Instant Karma – 8879 ways to give yorself and others Good Karma – Barbara Ann Kipfer – Workman Publishing

Photography: ‘ Bergdoff Goodman Holiday season ” soon available for sale on line. Copyrights Joelle Maslaton Photography

Eric Lafforgue all Copyrights Reserved – Indigenous Tribe

Just like Madonna and Michelle Pfeiffer, the peace symbol is turning 50 this year. When an icon turns that age, you can start making some judgments about whether it has what it takes to endure. Madonna? Hanging in there. Pfeiffer? We’ll see. But the peace symbol–it’s 50 years young and going strong.

By now, the little sectioned circle has become so familiar, it feels as if it had no genesis, that it just emerged out of a collective folk culture, like the Star of David or a nursery rhyme. Holtom was a London textile designer who had been a conscientious objector during World War II. By 1958, as Britain, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were well into the nuclear arms race, a grass-roots movement to “Ban the Bomb” was gathering force in the United Kingdom.

But in fact it can be traced to single inventor, Gerald Holtom, whose story is woven into two new histories, Peace: The Biography of a Symbol by Ken Kolsbun with Michael S. Sweeney, National Geographic and Peace: 50 Years of Protest by Barry Miles Reader’s Digest. (See Joelle’s picks below) Early that year, a fledgling disarmament group called the Direct Action Campaign (DAC) started to put together what would be Britain’s first major demonstration against nuclear weapons.

The plan was for a 52-mile (84 km) march from London to the town of Aldermaston, home to an A-bomb research center. Enter Holtom, who brought to the DAC his design for a symbol that marchers could carry on banners and signs. He had arrived at the image by combining the semaphore signals for the letters N, for nuclear, and D, for disarmament. The first is a figure with arms held downward and out from both sides; the second, a figure holding one arm above its head while the other points to the ground.

The symbol was simple–a few straight lines inside a circle. But like a Chinese character, its form was suggestive. The straight lines hinted at the human body. The circle brought to mind Planet Earth. (It also looked a bit like the Mercedes-Benz logo, which has led to some confusion over the years.) Importantly, anybody could draw it.

Before long, millions of people did. It debuted on April 4 in London’s Trafalgar Square, the assembly point for the four-day march. Over the next few days, it appeared in countless newspaper photos and TV reports. Bayard Rustin, an American protégé of the Rev, Martin Luther King Jr. who took part in the march, brought the symbol home to a growing civil rights movement dedicated to nonviolence.

When the Vietnam War started getting out of hand, protesters discovered they had a ready-made icon to signal their feelings.There were people who didn’t like the symbol any better than they liked the movements it represented. They saw it as an inverted broken cross or “the footprint of the American chicken.” But it kept spreading through the culture.

Like the Christian cross, which has served the purposes of soup kitchens and Crusaders, the Sisters of Mercy and the Ku Klux Klan, it was adaptable. Over time, it evolved from its narrow association with nuclear disarmament into an insignia for countercultures of all kinds.

Hippies made it a sort of all-purpose symbol of peacefulness. The environmental group Greenpeace, the militant wing of flower power, adopted it for its eco-defense campaigns. Duplicated endlessly as a hip fashion accessory, it threatened to devolve into a meaningless emblem of benign and groovy sentiment.

It started looking corny, a kind of smiley face before there were smiley faces. And inevitably, the market found it. By the late 1960s, peace symbols were appearing on coffee mugs, miniskirts and ponchos and were dangling from chains around the necks of guys you would expect to see at the Playboy mansion.

Duplicated endlessly as a hip fashion accessory, it threatened to devolve into a meaningless emblem of benign and groovy sentiment. It started looking corny, a kind of smiley face before there were smiley faces.

But events have conspired to keep giving the peace symbol fresh life. The arms race rumbles along, wars keep happening, and it continually comes back into circulation as, well, a peace symbol. The war in Iraq has created all kinds of opportunities for it at rallies and demonstrations. If it’s true, as John McCain has suggested, that the U.S. may have to remain in Iraq for 100 years, then the peace symbol probably has a long life ahead of it.

“This year, I noticed that everyone was talking about the counterculture,”  said creative director Simon Doonan of Barney’s store while unveiling the 2008 Holiday windows at the beginning of this month and explaining his “Have a Hippie Holiday” theme via books by Sheila Weller (Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—And the Journey of a Generation) and Tom Brokaw (Boom!: Talking About the Sixties: What Happened, How It Shaped Today, Lessons for Tomorrow) and coffee-table tome Spaced-Out: Radical Environments of the Psychedelic Sixties.( See Joelle’s Picks)

Also: “I read somewhere that it’s the 50th Anniversary of the peace sign!”
Of course, Mr. Doonan added, “We only picked the cheery, upbeat aspects of the ’60s! No overdoses, assassinations…”

The windows included homages to denim, Afros, tie-dye, and Women of the Counterculture (Janis, Joni) and a clutch of naked mannequins awaiting custom peace-sign-adorned dresses by designers such as Alexander Wang and Narciso Rodriguez.

A VW Beetle parked on the curb had been painted with flowers and peace signs “at one of those pimp-your-ride body shops on Long Island,” and would be raffled off to a lucky winner.
“Hippies didn’t have a lot of stuff,” said Mr. Doonan.

“Now there’s been this long period of bags, shoes… With this shift in the economy maybe people will be thinking they don’t need 5,000 handbags!
“But they do!” he said, quickly contradicting himself. “And they need to come buy them at Barneys!”

Joelle’s Tips:

The Source: A Piece of Our Time
By RICHARD LACAYO Mar. 27, 2008 Times Cnn

The Store: Barney’s Madison Avenue
660 Madison Avenue New York NY 10065 TEL: 212.826.8900 / FAX: 212.833.2293
info-madison@barneys.com

The Window Dresser: Simon Doonan Contact Info

View the Photo Gallery: Times 50 years of the Peace Symbol

” When I was a child, I always wanted to know how fashion could transform you..”

Simon Doonan

I love Simon Doonan . I really do. He is a creative genius, high spirited, writes humorously and wikedly well. But, I am sorry, his latest book Eccentric Glamour is a guide for- American -women-only.

Glamorous eccentrics are irresistible people. They are irreverent, occasionally impertinent, a tad mysterious, charming, often self-invented, good at applying eyeliner, and above all nonconformist. They are a fabulous confection of style, self-empowerment, and black patent sling backs. Everyone wants to be one, but how? The ubiquitous Simon Doonan style guru has the answer.

By no means a typical how-to manual, Eccentric Glamour is a mixture of cultural commentary and personal disclosure, generously seasoned with gushings of wildly dictatorial, provocative, and reckless style advice. Through cautionary tales and inspirational examples, Doonan shows how to develop your own brand of eccentric glamour — by magnifying everything that is already unique and idiosyncratic about you.

In these comic essays, interspersed with one-on-one interviews with some of the world’s most glamorous eccentrics (including Iman, Lucy Liu, Tilda Swinton, Malcolm Gladwell, and many more), Simon Doonan offers the women of America an alternative to the cheapness and tackiness that currently pass for personal style. Eccentric Glamour is intended as an antidote to the epidemic of slutty dressing and porno-chic that has taken over since the arrival of Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith (may she rest in peace).

While the typical TV boobs ‘n’ Botox makeovers force every woman to look the same, the transformations this book strives to inspire are the very opposite. Dressing like a ho is not just bad taste but boring! In Simon Doonan’s book, conformity is the only crime and dressing down the only faux pas.

Eccentric Glamour is every woman’s birthright. SO SAY NO TO HO!…and yes to ECCENTRIC GLAMOUR! Publisher Comment

Joelle’s Tips:

Watch the Video: Eccentric Glamour

“I’d like to be remembered as a person who deeply loved the woods and the people, the animals, the trees, the waters, the waters, Life” — Paulo Freire

To celebrate Earth Day tomorrow the beat of Brazilian drums will be heard on city streets, shamans will be seen hailing taxis and thousands of New York City residents and tourists will be transported to the heart of the rain-forest as part of Amazonia Brasil. The city-wide event will promote sustainability and show the interdependence between the Amazon and New York City.

World renowned Brazilian photographer Araquem Alacantara who just launched an impressive book called Chapada Diamantina will be exhibiting among others more than 80 photographs from his Amazonia the world forest project at the Pier 17 in New York City.

Chapada Diamantina located in the heart of the arid back-land of Bahia, 400 kilometers from Salvador, is currently one of Brazil’s most important ecotourism destinations. It’s unique landscape presents every potential for sustainable tourism.

Since January 1980, when he got the impressive photo of a jaguar biting the trunk of a tree in the Guedes Igarape, near Manaus, Araquem Alcantara has been systematically documenting the people and the nature of Amazonia.

In 1996 during his four month expedition through the six states of the Amazonia’s region as it is officially defined as Brazilian law, he once again came upon a jaguar while climbing Pico da Neblina.

The only photo that he managed to take at the moment made the cover of the book Terra Brasil, a best seller in its fourth edition with more than 80 thousands copies sold, which has become a mandatory reference for travelers, photographers,and environmentalists. Terra Brasil took more than nine years to complete and its the first visual documentary of the Brazilian national parks.

As a “worlds collector” the way he defines himself Araquem Alcantara dedicates himself to the formation of amateurs and professionals that have interest in eco-tourism photography. His workshops are theoretical technical, preparatory together with field and evaluative classes where he will take the participant to some of the most spectacular sites in Brazil.

The participants will acquire a preservation consciousness and the correct posture and values when confronted in the natural environment. Furthermore a good knowledge about the Brazilian flora and fauna and most gaining experience of how to present their work in magazines, newspapers, and the organization of your their own data base.

Araquem is a visionary, a precursor of environment preservation a silent messenger between the encounter of man and nature through eternity. He’s the example for all who wish to live in a better clean and responsible world.

May this true “collector of worlds ” be blessed.

Sarava!

Joelle’s Tips:

Araquem magnificent pictures can be admired, or purchased together with the books at Terra Brasil Imagens.

Watch Araquems’ video interview in Portuguese

Chapada Diamantina workshop information: workshops@araquem.com.br / +(55 30 ) 441013 /+(55 30)55725539

“When a Banana Republic catalog starts to look like the trendy, vacuous pages of Wallpaper, and Club Monaco is indistinguishable from Prada,” “you know it’s time for high style to move on.” — Amy Spindler, Director of Style, The New York Times Magazine, 1999

Tony Duquette, the brilliant and eccentric California designer of interiors, stage sets and jewelry, this season is rediscovered as the inspiration in Wednesday unveiled New York Fifth Avenue luxurious Christmas windows at Bergdoff Goodman retailer and his vision rendered in scenarios that are part Elsie de Wolfe and part Brothers Grimm. With the arrival next month of “Tony Duquette” , a hefty lavish monograph on the late designer, the style world may be getting a kind of gilt-edged Post-it note, an overdue reminder to a market dominated by monotonous status goods that nothing is quite so luxurious as an individual eye.“There is way too much out there that feels corporately and central-office driven,” said Linda Fargo, the fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman. “Tony always said he was about beauty and not luxury, if you’re going to define luxury by cost,” Ms. Fargo said.

Enthusiastic about raiding the storehouses of the past for his projects, Duquette was also audacious in his use of shoestring effects to set off important antiques. “He was Rumpelstiltskin spinning gold from straw,” said Ms. Fargo, echoing Tom Ford’s observation that only Mr. Duquette could see a piece of junk and imagine a pagoda.

“Duquette’s work was either haute Bohemian or Bohemian masquerading as haute,” Mr. Bofferding said. “You did not necessarily want to see in by the light of day.” Still, he added: “the vision was informed and full of historical reference. And he looked at things as an artist does,” with an emphasis on color and texture and aesthetics instead of price tags.

“When I interviewed Dominick Dunne,” Ms. Goodman said, “he said, ‘Tony always made me gasp.’” Imagine, as Mr. Dunne remarks in the new book, going to dinner at Duquette’s studio in white tie and finding Garbo and Diana Vreeland and the actor Gardner McKay with his pet cheetah on a leash.Imagine curtains parting to reveal the stage on which Duquette’s dinner parties were mounted and there is a Balinese gamelan orchestra at his house that he and his wife called Dawnridge “Stars now save it for the red carpet and the cameras,” Ms. Goodman said, paraphrasing Mr. Dunne. “They don’t do it at home.

People visiting Dawnridge would tell Duquette, “This house is nice, but I couldn’t live here myself.” To which Tony would reply, “Well I didn’t build it for you to live here.”
This season then, you might reconsider what you have always wanted to wear, and how you wanted to live but you were afraid to ask…

Don’t worry, Tony Duquette presence is brilliantly back as a holiday gift, and has the answers you need in the new book. Check it out and dare!

This post is dedicated to designers Michele Safra and my good friend Joao Mansur that together are enjoying creating with their charming clients some of the greatest homes in the city of New York.

…May Tony Duquette immortal essence be the source of their inspiration when he once said :
” Decorating is not a surface performance, ” It’s a spiritual impulse, inborn and primordial.”

Joelle’s Picks:

Sources: In Luxurious Detail, Guy Trebay The New York Times

The Book: Tony Duquette by Wendy Goodman, Hutton Wilkinson, Dominique Dunne( Foreword)

The Store: Bergdoff Goodman 754 5th Avenue (58th Street)(212) 753-7300

The Music: The Gamelan Music From Bali

Stess is taking over me. I must shop for fall.

The problem is that I am not “getting” the fashion this year. I hate everything in my closet from the past years and have no idea how to match what I must buy with what I already have, everything looks so un-mach-able .

Harssan the Hindu magazine stall seller with an enormous smile piles up this month’s issues of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Nylon, W Magazine and a few others I have never heard of but they are all talking about the New fashion, this is very important! My shopping bag is heavy, and Harssan says with another smile -” Edggioi Miss“.

I head home thinking of hot Dargeeling tea to help my concentration, when a large portrait in a Bergdoff Goodman window on 57 street , catches my attention. Its from the New York Look Book, published by Melcher Media, and apparently new in stores this week. I notice from the pictures in the windows display, some individuals of all ages and gender, dressed in a very personal and peculiar way emanating somehow a powerful and vibrant magnetism from their looks and attitude.

From vintage Gucci glasses, to red hair, impressive skin tattoos, large Hermes Birkin bags , colorful striped wool sweaters paired with animal faux skins, countless silver bracelets and ring collections, loud red lipsticks, Panama hats, furs bought at a Niagara Falls family Thrift shop, bran new Puma sneakers, belts from Guatemala, suits from Brioni, old Missoni socks, Rogan t-shirts, Vintage Betsy Johnson, ponchos, H&M scarves, Marni coats, grandparents watches, Hong -Kong Swiss cotton tailored shirts , mum’s 70s cowboys boots, Christian Laboutin to- the- edge sandals, all telling visual stories about those who wear them. I like that. I am buying the book right now. Sold out. Will order on line.

At home, in the August 26 New York Times Magazine Style issue (my favourite) Women’s fashion fall 2007, pictures of Jean-Baptiste Mondino, in the article United colors of fashion finally comfort my deranged soul as I start relaxing with appreciation the strong Dargeeling aroma of my tea, and the multiple variation of possibilities in my closet. Models wear layers of colorful un-match-able coats, sweaters, shoes shirts and pants and who cares what other think? It looks so great, so free spirited!

I always thought of myself as a daring personality in the way I dress especially with accessories and jewelry, but I realized once more, strolling through the white background studio-like pictures of photographer Jake Chessum and quick impertinent but respectful interviews by writer Amy Larocca of the New York Magazine, in the project that started a year ago in the randomly picked New York streets of Manhattan, that style is nothing more than the personal expression of the self and the revelation in depth of one’s personality. It’s about courage, vanity, certainty, most of all freedom to flaunt one style like plumage as read in the New York Look Book foreword by magazine editor-in-chief Adam Moss.

This city is full of globally eclectic stylish people, apparently they sound the way they look. In the Look Book among them some exotic names: Mica de Jesus, Anjel Garcia, Raven Burgos, Shakti Westrom, Alain Ades, David Rauch, Par Parekh, Jamie Pesavento a mother of cute stylish twin babies’s pooches are called Venus, Aphrodite, and Zena. In a way all, men and women are seriously committed in thinking of making their look their own.

The popular Sartorialist and other recent blogs have already proved that the examination of style in the streets has become something anthropological and the New York Magazine with their last photographic and documentation project, has certainly made contention that the streets in New York are giant runaways, and each passerby plays the role of model designer of his own style.

Very well…… I am on my way to buy that bright wool psychedelic H&M scarf and hat, sure it will look absolutely gorgeous with my Hermes Kelly crocodile burgundy handbag and my Jodhpur Khakis bought in 1980 at a Kerala local market by the sea. I will then candidly take a straight walk on Madison Avenue, who knows luckily and accidentally Jake Chessum eye might catch the personification of my look and feature my style in next week issue?…My answers to Amy are perfectly ready.

I will cross my finger a say a little prayer to Hashem.

Joelle’s Picks

The book: The New York Look Book A Gallery of street Fashion , Amy Larocca and Jake ChessunBuy on Line at Amazon

The Vintage Look shopping on line : Adore Vintage

The look Book Party pictures

” Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful”

Sophia Loren

She grew up in northwest of Colombia, a place where Nina Garcia editor in Chef of Elle Magazine says, style and art were part of the culture were women knew how to buy the right clothes for their bodies, how to edit out what what did not suit them, and to stay away from fads and maintaining an aura of eternal style. Nina’a purpose with her out – this month from Harpers Collins little Black book of Style , is to inspire us the way these women inspired her.The fashion director of Project Runway fame has one of the best eyes for style in fashion biz. It is a great book filled with quotes and iconic trend-setters from retro to obscure—even sourcing famous artists—for her daily inspiration. These little snapshots will help us distill iconic from costume-y as we draw inspiration for our wardrobe from so many famous faces.

The illustrations by Ruben Toledo and the girly graphic design style of the book just make it all the more lovely to read. The watercolors brilliantly feel like fashion sketches while encouraging the reader to imagine her own creations. (Ruben’s wife Isabel is a famous fashion designer herself. What a duo!) Nina’s book will remain timelessly illustrated.

Nina Garcia, who spots amazing new fashion talent all the time, tells us that it’s all about personal individual style, not about being perfect and about fashion as a way to communicate. The point is that fashion is a “quality of your creative character” and that is not something that necessarily comes naturally but is acquired with time and experimentation. Much like a writer tries out different styles we must find our “fashion voice” and cultivate it.

Grab this month’s Elle for a peek into just the first section of this chapter, “How to invest in the bones”—those pieces which any of us need to build a wardrobe around. More importantly you’ll get a private lesson on how to “edit” your wardrobe (stylist-speak for how to know what your wardrobe needs and what to toss out)…

The book purse-sized format is nice and elegant, and easy to take on a trip, it is the best “how-to” in any style guide on the market. Nina will enlighten you with her view on global style.

It’s a perfect stocking stuffer for every girlfriend, cousin and probably a few moms too. Just don’t forget to keep a copy for yourself!

Joelle’s Picks:

The book: The little Black Book of Style , Nina Garcia Harper Collins Publications available on line at Amazon

The other book: Ruben Toledo: Fashionation (Hardcover) available also at Amazon

“If you don’t know Patrick McMullan you ought to get out more!”
– Andy Warhol, The Andy Warhol Diaries

Arriving Fall 2007, Glamour Girls by Patrick McMullan boasts one of the largest collections of photographs ever published of the world’s most celebrated women. Glamour Girls features over 1400 images that spans Patrick’s career. The book chronicles everything from the sophisticated society galas, to the flirty Hollywood parties, to the famed New York nightlife and everything in between.

The Source: Patrick Mc Mullan press release

The Book: http://www.amazon.com/Glamour-Girls-Liz-Smith/dp/097739851X

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