As fashion designers have acclimatised to this new, four wall-defined way of life, from Beijing to Berlin, London to Longiano, we’ve invited those within our creative community to document by hand what they can see from their work desk or window. Here we present our rooms with a view.
From Manolo Blahnik to Margaret Howell, we’ve invited fashion designers to document by hand what they can see from their work desk or window, be it a view of a verdant garden landscape, or an urban snapshot of baroque architecture.
In this special Covid-19 edition of The Florentine, rejoice in a renewed humanism from Florence, of learning, words, thoughts and creativity, with articles, poems and short stories penned by the city’s international community, plus ideas and considerations for the future from Tuscany’s leaders and institutional figures, all interspersed with iconic photography of Florence at its most restful.
An interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci about what it will take to open America back up after the coronavirus pandemic: “It isn’t like a light switch, on and off.”
Saint-Malo is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany on the English Channel coast.
The walled city had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures. In 1944, the Allies heavily bombarded Saint-Malo, which was garrisoned by German troops. The city changed into a popular tourist centre, with a ferry terminal serving the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, as well as the Southern English settlements of Portsmouth, Hampshire and Poole, Dorset.
Founded by Gauls in the 1st century BC, the ancient town on the site of Saint-Malo was known as the Roman Reginca or Aletum. By the late 4th century AD, the Saint-Servan district was the site of a major Saxon Shore promontory fort that protected the Rance estuary from seaborne raiders from beyond the frontiers. According to the Notitia Dignitatum, the fort was garrisoned by the militum Martensium under a dux (commander) of the Tractus Armoricanus and Nervicanus section of the litus Saxonicum. During the decline of the Western Roman Empire, Armorica (modern-day Brittany) rebelled from Roman rule under the Bagaudae and in the 5th and 6th centuries received many Celtic Britons fleeing instability across the Channel. The modern Saint-Malo traces its origins to a monastic settlement founded by Saint Aaron and Saint Brendan early in the sixth century. Its name is derived from a man said to have been a follower of Brendan the Navigator, Saint Malo or Maclou, an immigrant from what is now Wales.
Saint-Malo is the setting of Marie de France’s poem “Laüstic,” an 11th-century love story. The city had a tradition of asserting its autonomy in dealings with the French authorities and even with the local Breton authorities. From 1590 to 1593, Saint-Malo declared itself to be an independent republic, taking the motto “not French, not Breton, but Malouin.
NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report join Lisa Desjardins to discuss the latest political news, including the fallout from postponing so many 2020 primary elections, a phone call between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden about coronavirus response and the fallout from Trump’s firing of the intelligence community inspector general.
Le Mont-Saint-Michel is a tidal island and mainland commune in Normandy, France. The island is located about one kilometer off the country’s northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches and is 7 hectares in area.
The original site was founded by an Irish hermit, who gathered a following from the local community. Mont-Saint-Michel was used in the sixth and seventh centuries as an Armorican stronghold of Gallo-Roman culture and power until it was ransacked by the Franks, thus ending the trans-channel culture that had stood since the departure of the Romans in 460. From roughly the fifth to the eighth century, Mont Saint-Michel belonged to the territory of Neustria and, in the early ninth century, was an important place in the marches of Neustria.
When Louis XI of France founded the Order of Saint Michael in 1469, he intended that the abbey church of Mont Saint-Michel become the chapel for the Order, but because of its great distance from Paris, his intention could never be realised.
The wealth and influence of the abbey extended to many daughter foundations, including St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. However, its popularity and prestige as a centre of pilgrimage waned with the Reformation, and by the time of the French Revolution there were scarcely any monks in residence. The abbey was closed and converted into a prison, initially to hold clerical opponents of the republican regime. High-profile political prisoners followed, but by 1836, influential figures—including Victor Hugo—had launched a campaign to restore what was seen as a national architectural treasure. The prison was finally closed in 1863, and the mount was declared a historic monument in 1874. Mont Saint-Michel and its bay were added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1979, and it was listed with criteria such as cultural, historical, and architectural significance, as well as human-created and natural beauty.
Although our galleries are temporarily closed we wanted to share the Andy Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern with you. Join Tate curators Gregor Muir and Fiontán Moran as they discuss Warhol through the lens of the immigrant story, his LGBTQI identity and concerns with death and religion.
Meet the man behind the brand. It’s a Warhol you might not know, with some artworks you may not have seen before.
Watch in 4K, sound on. New Zealand Total Isolation is my latest time lapse show reel of the beautiful New Zealand wilderness landscapes. All sequences shot as full ‘holy grail’ time lapse scenes – that is full sequences from day through night back to day, requiring 3000 to 5000 frames each sequence.
While we are all in lock down isolation here due to the current pandemic situation we can only reminisce at present what it’s like to be out in the wilderness. If your like me and can’t stand being ‘caged up’ maybe watching this show reel unfold in front of your eyes will help ease your soul? I hope so.
So many times over the course of shooting these challenging all night scenes my body, soul, mind and gear were beaten up by the elements and bad luck or other unknown forces, however there is just something about our earth, our land and the time spent in it that just brings you back time and time again. I always seem to have unfinished business, chasing the elusive and beautiful landscapes of Aotearoa New Zealand, and I can’t wait to get back out there, soon, it’s still there, waiting.
FEATURES | Michael Prodger visits the newly resplendent Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden; Yinka Shonibare talks to Samuel Reilly; Seamus Perry considers the visual qualities of Wordsworth’s poems; Tim Smith-Laing on the modern monsters of Léopold Chauveau; Emilie Bickerton looks at how museums tackle the subject of cinema; Christopher Turner talks to Grażyna Kulczyk, founder of the Muzeum Susch
REVIEWS | Matthew Sperling on Picasso’s works on paper at the Royal Academy; Nicholas Hatfull on Edward Hopper at the Fondation Beyeler; Scott Nethersole on Renaissance art in the regions of Italy; Alan Powers on the life of Humphrey Stone; Max Norman on a new study of Poussin; Peter Parker on John Minton’s illustrations for Elizabeth David’s cookery books
MARKET | Tim Maxwell and Tamara Bell on cybersecurity; and the latest art market columns from Susan Moore and Emma Crichton-Miller