Blog
Le Stanzie Dal 1980
Driving through a dirt road that wafts through miles of ancient olive and fig trees, in the heart of Salento, I am fantasizing about living out my ‘chic peasant girl’ lifestyle. I am on the way a la Sophia Loren, circa 1967 in C’era uno Volta. I think of the delectable slow food experience that awaits me at Le Stanzie. A Masseria complete with pomodora pendula (hanging tomatoes picked in July and used throughout the winter), an assortment of cows (all milked by hand), goats, chickens, pigs, oversized terracotta pots storing black chickpeas and black-eyed beans, rustic tables with checked linen cloths and, of course, the Italian poetry of washing line drying in the Salento Sun. This field-to-plate farmhouse restaurant serves rustic masterpieces, all ingredients are grown on their own farm. Here you can experience the decedent delight from homemade ricotta, mashed broad beans tasting, to chunks of horse meat, grilled vegetables and pittule. At Le Stanzie, a Sixteenth Century rural farmhouse, Sophia would feel right at home, writing poetry, whilst baking bread in the stone oven. Modeler Tip: Visit the chic little bar Farmacia Balboa nearby in Tricase, a farm-to-bar, owned by Helen Mirren and her filmmaker husband Taylor Hackford.
The Story of Nonchalant Style
Mise en Scène 1969. Côte d’Azur, Sizzling hot. Bohemian Atmosphere, calm surroundings. A swimming pool. Sexual Tension. Jealousy. Hints of a ménages à quatre, and ‘Nonchalant Style’, are all the ingredients of La Piscine, the iconic French film. Where our Club T-shirt, ‘1969 Riviera Souvenir’ plays a dreamed up leading role … amongst Romy Schneider , Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet & Jane Birkin. The T-shirt is 100% cotton, hand painted by me, hints at belonging to a local Club in that scene, and couldn’t be more nonchalant. A Stylist’s chic prop for shoots. The story goes… ‘1969 Riviera Souvenir’ is the kind of souvenir that Romy Schneider and Alain Delon would grab from their local Côte d’Azur, epicerie before catching the plane home …
The Ancient Myth Workshop
Walking into this poetic workshop, hidden at the back of the L’Officine Universelle Buly, is a rural storehouse, selling dry flowers for bottled or hand arranged bouquets. Right out of an ancient myth. As you enter, a medley of magnificent dried flowers hang from the ceiling, and then you find the beauté Japonaise, clad in the uniform of a couture atelier – the white coat. The Ancient Myth takes a step back into more meaningful and romantic times. Modeler Tip: Ask the beauté Japonaise to calligraph your bouquet.
The Vegetable Salon
Hiding in the tiny, surf chic village of Guéthary, outside Biarritz is the fantastical Vegetable Salon, Yaoya. Seduced by its otherworldliness from the beautiful pages of The World of Interiors, whilst sipping British milky tea back home, in my mother’s guest house… A Basque village, with an Epicerie with such finesse had to be explored. So I did. Aï and Cédric, a Japanese/Basque couple bring the creme de la creme of French produce to Yaoya, down to the magnificent & mountainous organic sourdough bread, made by Bertrand Ducauroy in his Ciboure bakery, Etxe Goxoan. The locals’ repeat bread orders makes for beautiful assemblage on the corner wall, where the bread is cut. One can imagine them as art. Every nook and cranny here is thought through and has profound meaning. … a Vegetable Salon it is.
A Chic Existence
A visit to Chris Brock and Paul Fortune’s mountain top chic existence in Ojai. Elegantly old world, sensual, and – totally badass – just like Brock’s Pottery, whose first collection sold out at Rick Owens in LA 2016. Since then, swooning collectors wait in line at JF Chen Gallery where Brock shows exclusively. With their almost ceremonial presence, the majestic pottery dotted around, provides the house’s anchor. Chris oozes elegant otherworldliness, from his ‘18th Century artists’ style’ journalling, to reading books by Teresa of Ávila, the Spanish Carmelite nun and famed mystic, to being a chic Gardener and Reiki Master…. I can’t get enough of this man. A lucky weekend guest gets to nap in the impossibly chic guesthouse vintage trailer. Decked out in beautiful textiles, glorious books and an assortment of objets that keeps one definitely ‘in’ mischief. To quote the Ceramist and his Sinatra lingo: “It was a gas meeting you, Chris.” Club Modeler Privilege: One majestic ceremonial pot by Chris Brock is available to purchase on our Club Modeler shop. Price $6,500
Antoinette Poisson
The Marquis de Pompadour Manifesto (Full Name: Jean Antoinette Poisson, 1729) 1. Become a lover of art and wallpaper – or « dominoterie » as they called the artisanal technique in 18thC France. 2. Live in Paris 3. Meet heritage restorers : Jean Baptiste Martin & Vincent Farelly. 4. Go to their Atelier: A Paris chez Antoinette Poisson. 5. Engage in an enchanting conversation with the restorers. How they came across fragments of the historic domino paper in a hotel particular in Auvergne, and became so obsessed that they decided to revive this long gone art. 6. Order rolls of their fantastical hand blocked domino paper made from the archives. 7. Surround yourself with the poetry of your dominoterie in the salon, whilst waiting for your Louis. 8. Attend the masked ball at Chateau Versailles. My bijou cloakroom covered in boutons de rose, is my nod to the Marquis.
La Colombe D’Or
La Colombe D’or ‘s iconic recipe The Art, The simplicity, The hand painted menu, The Crudités, The feel of the place, The poetic memories in every corner, The insouciance in the Provencal sunshine, The mysterious ingredients for the good life. FIN
An Institutional Lunch
Kronenhalle oozes tradition and art from its every classical, mahogany paneled corner. The Chagall Room is where Coco, Yves, Pablo and others alike had long debates, dined and had a jolly good time together. I love doing the same, even if I am in Zurich for only a few hours. Watching the old school and formally dressed Swiss regulars dine on their oxtail soups and Chateaubriand under Chagall, in the hushed ambience, transports one to another world. A very romantic world – gone by. Tip : Across the street is the Angela Weber Möbel Collectibles, dreaming up a Zurich pied-à-terre …
Chez Frey House II
I have a crush on Albert Frey. And my husband knows it. An elegant man and avant-garde, who integrated his house into the surrounding desert, lived in a glass box with a huge piece of rock couldn’t be sexier. The ‘petit Américain’, as Le Corbusier referred to him, was a Swiss, modernist and minimalist architect, and the visionary of Palm Springs. His architecture is as complex as him. This tiny gem, as compact as a ship was his main residence. The stunning yellow curtains echo the blooming Encelia** (desert wildflower) in Spring, adjacent to the house. And the turquoise blue formica of the cabinet and ceiling reflect the blue sky beyond. Frey, a nudist, also installed a Swiss Cow’s bell outside his residence for his guests to let him know upon arrival, so he could get dressed. It was night that Frey enjoyed most: “watching the lights below, you don’t feel like you are alone at all”.
instagram:
Error: No feed found.
Please go to the Instagram Feed settings page to create a feed.
