If I held a tea party it wouldn’t be just any old affair.
Vintage tea sets would spill out over delicate lace tablecloths with silver sugar tongs and gold teaspoons catching the chandelier’s twinkling light. And the sugar bowls. Oh the sugar bowls. They’d have dainty snug fitting lids that chimed if you closed them too hastily. Petit four and crustless smoked salmon sandwiches piled high on cake stands with care and attention.
Then you would see it.
Milan strikes me as a city not designed for rain.
The Chanel glasses that cover many fashionista’s faces are suddenly rendered useless and appear too posey, the miniature dogs found on the end of leads belonging to men who go for manicures look sad and grumpy and have wet feet. Street after street is dulled and appears a shadow of it’s former self with all the lure and colour washed down to halftones and quiet.
Jaime Hayon’s Crystal Candy Set, a collection of nine pieces for Baccarat is the Grimm fairytale I’ve been looking for to saturate my unearthly, fantasy steeped dreams. Each one has an otherworldly feeling evoking images of curiosity cabinets full of locked secrets, wraithlike druggists’ jars lying in wait for jolted lovers and hastily buried desires. The sinister ruby reds, emerald greens, slightly tarnished gold and cut crystal conjure dreams of Absinthe drinkers lurching around in darkened corners to music no one can hear, culminating in blood being spilt after arguments over pocket watches and chipped gold coins.
Ettore Sottsass’ childlike pieces are those of dreams and imagination, with lines and colour creeping into realms of fantasy that would rival most child minds. Toy-like constructions are lifted from colouring books to form highly considered, intelligent objects that still manage to evoke the simple doodles and building block towers of playgroup invention.
Tahiti lamp 1981 by Ettore Sottsass
