Ode to the little black dress

We all know the Iconic little black dress, most of us have at least one in our closet for a night out or a special event. Little Black Dress and purples or little black dress with Doc Martens, depending on your look, we love it and you in it.

Dress from YouMeWe

So one of my best friends (I have 5 of them), is getting married and wants the bridesmaids to wear black dresses, this caused the great, oh wow I don't have a black dress anymore that fits moment. This week is the pop up shop of SAFashion week, Clara will tell you more about it. We went and walked around just to see the dresses and whats new and hot. I found myself obsessed with their dresses and the prices are really good for what you get. Best part, they do custom tailor dresses to any body shape and size, no diets needed.

What I am happy about is their two main deigns for dresses are multi purpose, the way you tie it or the way you wrap it changes them from tops, skirts to dresses, the one has 12 ways to tie it and the one in the picture has 8. So basically you have a black or any amazing print you want, item of clothing that fills a huge gap in your cupboard without taking a lot of space.

If you want, you can contact the girls behind YouMeWe and go to a wonderful day in their studio trying on dresses and giggling while figuring an outfit out.
Hopefully we will be posting a lot more about them in the near future.

How to contact them:
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Website

Please note this was not a Sponsored Post.

Happy dress shopping,
Chandré

Green Beans and Coffee, I say I am

Sometimes amazing artists walk with flair and an in your face attitude of I am so amazing that you should bow down and kiss my feet. John Robbertse does not do this, he is great, on the verge of becoming famous and yet walks with a quiet humbleness and openness about him that is far greater than his amazing art.



So Clara (The Ginger) and I, did a quick and easy interview with him. Well how hard could five questions be?

1. The ice-breaker or calm down question of ours, if you could chose would you rather hug an honey badger or a grizzly bear?

Honey Badger [I did a happy dance in my seat about this ( Honey badger 2-Grizzly bear 3)] because
you can cradle it like a baby.

2. What is currently your biggest inspiration?

There was a few seconds pause before he answered, The Sea, Van Goghs' tragic life, Dali and fairy tales. The eccentricities of how life works and (I think the most current one) his own heritage as an Afrikaans person, the culture and the society of it.

3. Tell us about Spoons:

He is fascinated by spoons and the stories they have to tell. A spoon is an object that has been used so many times and so many hands have touched them as spoons are one of the most commonly used items. he loves found objects and up-cycling by giving new life into old things, his entry to the Sasol New Signatures art competition is evidence of this (pictured above), he likes giving almost human qualities to inanimate objects, a comment about the positive and the negative parts of society.

4. Favourite medium?
"Oil paint definitely, it has such a rich history in art. it is the motherboard or mafia of all art mediums. It is the rockstar of all mediums." Which is cool since John is an amazing glass artist as well.

5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?
1 or 2 solo exhibitions as well as travelling around the world and hopefully lecturing art somewhere.

If you want to get a hold of John, he is on facebook. We will be following him and hopefully having more to do with him in the future.

Books to Read before the end of the year

I used to be one of those people that if you saw me, there would be a book in my hands. my favourite way to spend the day would be on my bed, under a soft warm blanket reading with a cup of coffee and a grouchy cat.



I would love to say that I am still that girl but I really am not. I still want to be but life and hobbies and studies have gotten in the way of how much I read. Sadly unless you are studying English Literature and really love reading the classics sometimes reading a lot won't help you pass varsity.

The problem is I miss reading a good book and having that moment when your toes curl because the story is so good or crying because your favourite character died, always a fan Dobby. So I made a list 5 just 5 books that I really want to read before the year is through. They aren't studies related or even on the list of soon to be classic literature but they are books that I do want to read and hopefully will have me happy to have read them.

1. Helen Fieldings- Bridget Jones, Mad about the boy
I have heard it is a going to be classic, I have been meaning to read it for months, the problem; I hear it is very different from the first two Bridget Jones books and that makes me sad as I love those books so crossing fingers that the book will be good, for me that is.

2. Robert Galbraith- The Silkworm
JK Rowlings' other pen name, I really enjoyed the first one in the series, they were beautifully written, just a tad dark and the lead character Cormoran, is amazing, so as soon as I can get a copy that I can afford, I am buying a copy.

3. Robert Jordon- A wheel of time
The Ginger is the worlds almost biggest fan of these books, I have yet to read more than 5 pages of these, so obviously I am hoping that they will be as amazing as she keeps making them sound.

4. Eleanor Catton- The Luminaries
Everytime I walk past this book in the book store, I hear it calling my name, whilst I am fully aware not to judge a book by it's cover, surely when the cover calls you, one must respond? After all would they put a bad book in such a beautiful cover? 

5. Neil Gaimon- Coraline
It's a children's book but it looks amazing, it looks like what every child and child at heart should have read or be reading really soon.

Happy reading and many cups of coffee,

Cinnamon

Decorex Johannesburg

The month of August marks a few significant events. It is the month when OppiKoppi and Decorex Johannesburg takes place; it is also Women’s Day on the 9^th. Funnily enough all three these events tend to happen in the same week and in this year’s case all three were on the same weekend. Although I did not attend OppiKoppi, or the celebrations at the Union Buildings for Woman’s Day, I did attend Decorex.

For anybody that is in a design field, Decorex is an event that is a must-see every year. Mostly it is a tradeshow for interiors; the information gathered on design trends and colour schemes is always useful. One can also network and mingle with other designers and find useful contacts and suppliers. Another very significant part of this year’s show was the 100% Design, a showcase of new ideas and fresh cutting-edge design. The public could also attend talks by the artists and designers taking part.

As a crafter I always head for, well, the craft section. Floorboards, kitchen appliances and shower heads are things that I will pay attention to when I grow up and have my own house to renovate. The Department of Trade and Industry sponsors selected crafters from each of the nine provinces in South Africa to exhibit their work, giving them a good platform to market their work, which is often connected with a community project. Seeing the amazing contemporary crafts that these artists produce is awe inspiring, yet the crafts never lose their South African flair.

Apart from this section and that as a crafter it is always both refreshing and relaxing to see other artists and designers excel at their craft I had another motive for going. I went to see my own work on display. Earlier this year I was given the opportunity by Marileen van Wyk to send scatter pillows to Decorex with her company, The Glass Forming Academy. It might seem a bit strange; obviously the scatter pillows are not glass. They are in fact pure cotton that I dye, embellish and sew by hand. Along with my dyed work, there was ceramic pieces, printed canvases and an array of quaint glass beads, key rings and teaspoons.

 Negative heart pillow by Clara Jansen

 Black Geometric pillow by Clara Jansen

 Purple split pillow by Clara Jansen

Not knowing what to expect in terms of feedback from Decorex I am quite nervous to hear how it went. When I visited there was not really time to talk. I am truly grateful for the opportunity given to me and fellow designers and artist by the Glass Forming Academy to be able to showcase our products at Decorex. Please visit their website www.glassforming.co.za.

Peace and love

Clara

Dying to colour wool

I love yarn, I spend way to much money on it and find myself obsessing about spinning and weaving, both crafts I do not yet do. A while back, I wanted to learn how to dye yarn but my access to dying yarn and knowing what I was doing is limited. After a lot of research I figured it out.

Clara aka the Ginger will be able to tell you all the fancy names of the dye processes, she mentioned them over coffee today and I completely forget what she called it. I think cause we were both so tired, printing is hard work.

So what you need:

• 1 Ball pure wool yarn
• 1 cup of Vinegar
• 1l of water 
• Gel food colouring
• Container

Steps:

1. Soak the wool overnight in a container, in the mix of vinegar and water. please note in this I soaked the entire ball after unwinding it and tying it into a large loop.
2. Carefully lift the wool out of the container and add a few drops of the food colouring to the vinegar water, intensene as desired, the more colour the darker the wool. 
3. Put the mixture in the sun for a few hours or a warmish place. 
4. Carefully remove the wool from the container, and rinse it clean. 
5. leave to dry, in order to dry it faster, I wrapped it around the back of a chair and put the chair in the sun. 

For the ombre effect, I put more food colouring in with every ball and added darker colouring as well. The exposure to the food colouring if you used enough viniger, results in the dye being picked up fairly fast by the wool. 

Art in the Capital City

My home town, Pretoria, does not always seem to be a great place to live when one is an artist. Yes, I know it is the capital city, but there is something nostalgic about calling it a town. Artist André Naudé once told me that he sees Pretoria as still being a “dorp”. How will the Jacaranda city respond to Cape Town being the 2014 design capital of the world?

The answer is an initiative called The Cool Capital 2014 Biennale. It is described on the official website, www.coolcapital.co.za, as “the world’s first uncurated, DIY, guerrilla biennale: a place for citizens of the Capital City to collectively contemplate and express why we love our City and how we can improve it”. For someone who really loves Pretoria I think this is an amazing concept and a chance to show the country what we have to offer in terms of not only visual arts, but performing arts as well. From 29 August to 15 November Pretoria will showcase what the city has to offer in terms of art, architecture, design, film and music.

Not only do I support Cool Capital 2014, I am very proud to say that I will be an active part of it. Keep 1 November open as we will be having a fashion show at St. Lorient Fashion and Art Gallery. The show will be collaboration between fine artists, fashion designers and textile designers from Pretoria. It works as follows: the artist will choose one of their works, in any medium and hand it over to a team of fashion designers and a textile designer. The team will interpret the work and create a garment and hand printed fabric based on their understanding of the artwork. The resulting garments will be showcased in an event at the gallery on 1 November. The garments, along with the artwork will then remain on display for three weeks.

Artists taking part in the collaboration are André Naudé, Celia de Villiers, Tommy Motswai, Petro Neal, Anton Smit, Thelma van Rensburg, Gwenneth Miller, Tanisha Bhana, Gordon Froud and Michaela Janse van Vuuren. To view their work, visit www.art.co.za.  The two artists that I will be working with for the show are Thelma van Rensburg and Gwenneth Miller.

Hope to see you there!

Peace and love

Clara

PS: Biennale refers to an event taking place every second year. Here’s hoping to participate again in 2016 and a successful 2014.

PPS: St. Lorient Fashion and Art Gallery’s address is 492, Fehrsen Street, Brooklyn Circle, Brooklyn, Pretoria and readers can visit their website at www.stlorient.co.za .