Do you remember Gil Elvgren pin-up girls? Our friend gave as a wonderful gift – a calendar with Brown & Bigelow reproduction paintings. My husband and I got so used to the company of these pretty girls that we felt really pity when year 2012 was over. That’s when we decided to make a do-it-yourself…
FROM RUNWAYS TO OUR HOMES Looking at spring collections of top fashion houses it looks like all designers just fell in love with black and white geometric prints. Without doubt, it has become the hottest trend of Spring 2013. Judge yourself: Black and white has always been a classic combination but this season the striking…
Luxury belongs to those ephemeral terms such as happiness, beauty, style, which are quite difficult to explain and even more difficult to define… So many times reading design books and magazines I have noticed expressions “luxury lifestyle”, “luxury living” and “luxury homes”. But what exactly do they mean? What are the indispensable attributes of luxury…
Quba is the ancient carpet producing province in Azerbaijan. Some of the finest authentic handmade carpets are made here. During our last trip to this region we had a chance to get to one of the mountain villages to see the process of making flat-weave rugs called Soumak (Soumakh or Sumak). Flat-weave rugs have appeared…
It looks like Baku, Azerbaijan seriously has taken the route to becoming the most ultra-modern city in the region. I have already highlighted some futuristic buildings of this city , but since then I came across several outstanding projects which I just cannot skip. Most of them are already built, some are in construction process,…
Remember those sweet lace tablecloth your granny used to have? When I was a child they were super popular and I even used to do them myself. Then all in sudden they became unwelcome – we took them away, considering too rustic and old-fashioned. If you didn’t throw them away, you can celebrate now your insight….
This is the second article in a series of creativity exercises. If you missed the first one, you can find it here. One of the key points in my first post was that creativity is mainly connected with three human abilities: – to observe – to make connections – t0 look at things differently Let’s…
Steampunk… What have you heard about it? Perhaps now you will remember steam-powered machines, flying boats and submarines: This is correct but not complete. In fact, the popularity of steampunk over the last years is growing intensely and it has transformed from a niche subculture into design mainstream. This fact has been recently proven by…
In my latest posts I talked a lot about Gaudi’s architecture, Jugendstil in Riga, Modern buildings in Baku. Perhaps you already understood that Art Nouveau is one of my favorite styles and in this post I will write about its use in Interior Design. The “New Art” appeared at the end of XIX century and…
This is the first article in a series of “Creativity exercises” that I will post. Creativity is considered to be an essential skill for designers, artists, writers, musicians, though it is as much important for people with less “artistic” occupations as well. If you develop this quality, you will be able to offer new solutions…
If you want to explore Art Nouveau architecture (also known as Modernisme in Spain, Liberty in Italy, Modern in Russia and Jugendstil in Germany), one of the best places to go will be Riga, Latvia. It has more than 800 houses constructed in this style (for comparison, St. Petersburg in Russia has 1000 buildings). Specifically…
Plain off-white lampshades may look so dull. My table lamps in the bedroom already started to irritate me, because the fabric on them was scratched, stained, dusty and so boring. I decided to refresh them by doing this easy do-it-yourself project. For those, who are like me, live in a rented apartment, it might be…