The Emanuelle Chair: a Sex Icon made of Rattan

Posted on 08/05/2018 by Mimi Berlin Amsterdam

Emanuelle Chair

The Peacock chair became the Emanuelle Chair In the 1970s. This throne-like chair with a massive back made of rattan, became a tool for being sexy after the release of the film and the poster-image for the rated X movie Emanuelle; in which the lead-actress Sylvia Kristel posed topless in such a chair. (She did that, or had to, for many years to come.) It became an iconic image associated with sensuality and/or plain sex. Anyone who posed in a Peacock chair became sensual in an instant. And so, it those days you will find images from Julio Iglesias to Brigitte Bardot in a Peacock chair. Amazing!

1976 Summer Fashion By Couture Designers ©Getty Images

1976 Summer Fashion By Couture Designers 1976 Summer Fashion By Couture Designers. EMMANUELLE’ chez CHANEL: Dans un fauteuil en rotin, Sylvia Kristel, héroïne des deux ‘EMMANUELLE’, pose en studio, vêtue d’une robe longue en mousseline rose pâle dont le haut est surpiqué, parée d’un gilet à manche longues, en guipure blanche, rehaussée de motifs jaune d’or. Prise de vue de face sur fond orange vif. (Photo by Jean-Claude Deutsch/Paris Match via Getty Images)

Interior

Photo by Francis Giacobetti, 1974

PHOTO magazine may 2067, Photo by Francis Giacobetti, 1974

Exotic Morticia Addams Chair

For people who were old enough to watch TV in the 1960s: you know the chair probably as being linked to the The Addams Family tv series. Mom Morticia Addams sat in one all the time. If you were born in the early 1900’s the peacock chair would have an exotic connotation to it as well, For the first time western culture came in touch with Asian design and materials.There lies the origins of the peacock chair: to be specific in the Philippines.

Twenty First Century designer adaptations of the Peacock chair
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The Rainbow Flag ‘designed’ by Gilbert Baker

Posted on 03/04/2017 by Mimi Berlin Amsterdam

The Rainbow Flag ‘designed’ by Gilbert Baker

Added knowledge: A flag with a seven-striped rainbow design is used in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador is anachronically associated with Tawantin Suyu, or Inca territory. Even today in the city of Cusco, Peru it is common to see the flag around the city displayed even in government buildings and in Cusco main square. The flag is inspired on the wiphala which was part of Inca symbolism and used in the Tahuantinsuyo and traces its existence to the early 1920s.

Gilbert Baker, the man who came up with the Rainbow flag in1978 has passed away

Thursday night (March 30, 2017). He was 65. “Discussing his design at a 2015 exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art, Baker said: “I decided that we should have a flag; that a flag fit us as a symbol, that we are a people – a tribe, if you will. And flags are about proclaiming power, so it’s very appropriate. Baker’s design placed meaning on each colour: Pink (sexuality), Red (life), Orange (healing), Yellow (sunlight), Green (nature), Turquoise (art), Indigo (harmony) and Violet (human spirit). It has since been reduced to six colours, with pink and indigo removed. Blue is now used instead of turquoise.” (Read more at nme.com)

The Rainbow Flag designed by Gilbert Baker

(credits: Getty Images via nme.com)

The iconic Rainbow flag, which has been created to unite the gay community, fits perfectly In the series ‘Yes, that has been designed by a person’. Sometimes, with too uber-familiar symbols, you forget that there actually was a person who designed it. Just like the designers of, for example, the smiley or the peace-sign they often stay nameless. Hence this post.

Have a nice day! xoxo Mimi

Veronica Lake’s Hairstyle

Posted on 21/06/2016 by Mimi Berlin Amsterdam

Veronica Lake’s Hairstyle

From pin-up to patriot.
About Ms Lake’s hairstyle before and during the second World War: taming Veronica’s cascading blond manes.

Veronica Lake and her famous and very populair peek-a-boo or witch-lock hairstyle in 1942 (image via lisawallerrogerss)

Veronica Lake was so populair in the forties that women copied her hairstyle. In the clip below (is it propaganda or plain advertising?) Ms Lake was set an example for women who had to wear safety hats while working at the factory during the second World War. Because “The Lake’s eyeview is entirely out of place on a war production plant”/ “Uncontrolled hair will never stay in place”/”the rhytm of precision work can be upset resulting in faulty work”.

Veronica Lake “put glamour in it’s proper wartime place” and changed her hairstyle on camera in an, ironically, German-like-bunroll-style which was also cute but not so much sexy. The poor factory girls however had to put on even less sexy and seriously ugly hats at work. The, safe, uniforms were sold as “Industrial Fashions” to women in the USA.

More Veronica Lake on this Blog

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Peace Symbol Designed by Gerald Holtom

Posted on 01/06/2016 by Mimi Berlin Amsterdam

Peace Symbol Designed by Gerald Holtom

Yes, someone designed the Peace Symbol!

ln 1958 Gerald Holtom designed the logo of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The logo was not copyrighted and later became known in the wider world as a general-purpose peace symbol.The design was a combination of the letters “N” (two arms outstretched pointing down at 45 degrees) and “D” (one arm upraised above the head) of the flag semaphore alphabet, standing for nuclear disarmament.

Cher in Marc Jacobs Winter 2015 Campaign

Posted on 30/05/2015 by Mimi Berlin Amsterdam

Cher in Marc Jacobs Winter 2015 Campaign

Cher, the ageless singer/actress/icon, is the new model for the Marc Jacobs Fall/Winter 2015 campaign. How lovely she sits there in the red, almost like a porcelain Victorian doll, posing for photographer David Sims. The picture above is taken from @themarcjacobs instagram, posted 3 days ago. Yes, we know it’s not breaking news anymore….

More than a Nice Read; Alexander Fury explains why designers are turning to stars (independent.co.uk)

Birkin Kelly Gisele Daphne Coppola and Del Rey

Posted on 08/08/2014 by Mimi Berlin Amsterdam

Birkin Kelly Gisele Daphne Coppola and Del Rey. We all are familiar with The Birkin and The Kelly but did you know about the Gisele or the Daphne, we at Mimi Berlin sure didn’t and we found out why.

SC Bag by Louis Vuitton Photo courtesy of Louis Vuitton.com

Del Rey by Mulberry. Photo courtesy of Mulberry.com

Pre owned Luella Black Leather Gisele Handbag. via bagboudoir.co.uk

DAPHNE 2 CROSSBODY by Jason Wu Photo courtesy of Jason Wu.com

35cm Black Togo Leather Retourne Hermes Kelly at/via Heritage Auctions Special Collections at lyst.com

Hermes 35cm Birkin in beautiful rare BLACK TOGO with GOLD hardware. via janeFinds at 1stdibs.com

Matching the actual product above with the advertisements and other alluring pictures below can be a nice game! Try it, (without enlarging the images)

Jane Birkin with “her” bag by Hermès . Photography by Karl Lagerfeld, styling by Carine Roitfeld taken from their book The Black Jacket (via mybirkinblog.blogspot.nl)

Jason Wu SS14 AD campaign,(without Daphne Groeneveld) photography by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin

Gisele Bundchen opening the Luella show holding her namesake Fall 2002 (via style.com)

Princess Grazia/Gtace Kelly with her Kelly Bag by Hermès (photographer unknown)

Sofia Coppola for Louis Vuitton (photographer unknown)

Mulberry’s Del Rey bag in their autumn/winter 2013 campaign Photo: Tim Walker/Mulberry

Kelly Bag / Grace Kelly / Hermes 1935

The beginning of the Kelly bag design as we know it now started in the 1930s. In 1954, Hitchcock allowed the costume designer Edith Head to purchase Hermès accessories for the film To Catch a Thief, starring Grace Kelly. According to Head, Kelly “fell in love” with the bag. Within months of her 1956 marriage to Prince Rainier III, the pregnant Princess of Monaco was photographed using the handbag to shield her growing belly from the paparazzi. That photograph was featured in the Life magazine. The bag was officially named Kelly Bag in 1977 (via)

Birkin Bag / Jane Birkin / Hermes 1981

This bag is the most famous in the fashion world. The legend behind the creation of it is known to everyone. In 1981, Hermès chief executive Jean-Louis Dumas was seated next to Jane Birkin, a singer and actress, on a flight from Paris to London. She had just placed her straw bag in the overhead compartment of her seat, but the contents fell to the ground, leaving her to scramble to replace the contents. The woman complained to Dumas that she wasn’t able to find a roomy but elegant bag she liked. And already in 1984, a black supple leather bag was designed for her. Birkin has been using the bag for herself since then.

Gisele Bag / Gisele Bundchen / Luella 2002

In 2002 when the Luella brand was on the verge of bankruptcy Gisele was asked to carry the new bag named in her honor on the runway. Soon after the show the bag started selling very well. The Gisele Bag by Luella literally saved the company but is hard to find nowadays, it hasn’t become a real classic, and we at Mimi berlin predict it won’t be (read more at millionlooks)

SC Bag / Sofia Coppola / Louis Vuitton 2009

In 2009, Sofia Coppola arrived at the historic Louis Vuitton ateliers in Asnières, near Paris to design her very own bag. A close friend of Marc Jacobs, then Creative Director at Louis Vuitton, the movie director wanted a bag for a women who “is always on the go and has things to do, something between the Speedy and the Keepall“. And so the Sofia Coppola came into being, and was later marketed worldwide. The Coppola is an ideally sized bowling bag, with clean lines and a timeless design – it’s a travel bag for everyday city life, and has fast become one of the French brand’s most recognizable products. (via vogue.fr)

The Daphne Bag / Daphne Groeneveld / Jason Wu 2012

Jason Wu met Daphne Groeneveld when she first arrived in New York and just fell in love with her. Daphne’s striking, classic with a twist look reminded him of this bag and he decided to name it after her. ” I created the Daphne in her likeness, casting a modern spin on a 1940s frame bag by lending it softer structure and a more relaxed look. Well, that doesn’t sound very inspiring does it? The Daphne bag won’t stand the test of time like the Birkin or the Kelly have done. Ms Groeneveld doesn’t wear this bag in public, we could’t find any pics except for the one above. (via neimanmarcus)

The Del Rey / Lana Del Rey / Mulberry 2013

The Del Rey has a timeless style and sensibility that evokes thoughts of both retro and modern luxury. Inspired by the nostalgic style of singer Lana Del Rey it exudes simple, refined elegance and an understated, common-sense practicality. The shape implies a structured smartness but in reality celebrates the tactile quality of buttersoft leather. Ms Del Rey has been spotted wearing this bag many times! (via mulberry)