No Guillotine at the Los Angeles Police Museum

Posted on June 21, 2017 by Michele

I’ve been to the police museum in Paris and I thought trying the one in L.A. as well. The one in Paris goes back a few hundred years longer than the California one and has a real guillotine! musee-de-la-prefecture There was much to see and their weekend hours are the 3rd Saturday of each month only. I loved the old posters of the LAPD magazine, BEAT.

Beat magazine LAPD museum michele roohani

LAPD museum poster michele roohani Look at these uniforms from 1886:

LAPD museum 1 michele roohani

If you wanted to call the police:

LAPD museum phone box michele roohani

The cells were so depressing…

LAPD museum cell box michele roohani

LAPD museum keys michele roohani

There were tons of different handcuffs but the painfully interesting ones were the “Thumbcuffs”!

LAPD museum thumbcuffs michele roohani

Different vehicles from all eras were on display as well,

LAPD museum patrol car michele roohani

Even some pretty scary ones,

LAPD museum rescue michele roohani

And of course the iconic LAPD bikes:

IMG_20170617_111904

There were shrines to the “Onion field”, the “Bank of America shootout”, the SLA and Patty Hearst kidnaping:

LAPD museum onion fields michele roohani

My favorite of all were the badges.

LAPD museum badges michele roohani

One wonders why go to a police museum when the weather is almost always nice in L.A…

LAPD museum andre demir

I met some beautiful women at Paris Photo

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Michele

My friend Anahita Ghabaian, the owner of Silk Road Gallery, invited me to go and see her great photo collection at the Grand Palais. I went and discovered the most beautiful women of the world! I didn’t know many of the newcomers to the scene like Paolo Roversi:

The above photo reminds me of my friend, Maureen.

I liked his other-worldly portraits where even the nudes were not in your face!

A jewel of a photo for me was Brancusi’s Eileen on the bench of his studio; I have appreciated his sculptures for ever and his “sleeping muse” kept me company for years.

The highlight for me was the Silk Gallery’s Persian Women; I met the super talented Shadi Ghadirian with her new collection of Miss Butterfly (Shahparak khanom):

A graceful and delicate butterfly/woman gets trapped in the web of a spider…

I knew her for her “Ghajar” and “Like Everyday” collections:

The late Bahman Jalali’s “image of imagination” was watching me quietly from the wall:

Iranian photographers’ works are regularly presented to museums and other institutions everywhere thanks to the Silk Road Gallery ; I like Rana Javadi’s Termeh clad woman:

There was a gorgeous sun setting on Grand Palais that made everything glow in the golden hour; perfect for taking pictures!

After Iran I went to Africa starting from Egypt and Youssef Nabil’s taunting girls:

then to Morocco and Lalla Essaydi’s “I want to be Shirin Neshat when I grow up” image; there is something about the written text that fascinates me:

The great surprise were the other Africans like this beautiful portrait, by Soungalo Malé, of this girl in her sunday suit in 1960; she looks at you with modesty but elegance:

I fell in love with this vintage photo of Ian Berry’s African Collection; a small print that made me smile:

The energy of the place made me forget my aching feet so I plowed on…

I was happy to see Sissi Farassat’s Andrea, swimming in a sea of sequins:

I love fashion photography and I wasn’t disappointed! Cathleen Naundorf’s Dior 2007 collection made me want to color it pink:

Kate Moss was omnipresent but I liked Annie Leibovitz’s protrait of hers (bellow); she is best friends with the camera and many of her portraits were shouting from multiple galleries!

I saw Leibovitz’s pilgrimage photos too and I loved them all; here is the one I like to include here with all its majesty:

On the other end of the spectrum was Chris Bucklow‘s a thousand points of light that reminded me of Castaneda’s Don Genaro!

I like big cities and skyscrapers so I easily connected with Gail Albert Halaban’s “Dance studio” from her Out my window NY city collection. Put that on your wall and the whole world changes…

The sun was shining when I went in the Grand Palais,

and I came out when it was growing dark; the site of the Petit Palais in the Parisian “blue hour” was indeed majestic:

Visit the Silk Road Gallery here

Ralph Lauren’s Mighty Jaguars to blazing Ferraris

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Michele

Museum of Decoratif Arts in Paris showcases Ralph Lauren car collection where not only you can see these gorgeous cars, but you can listen to these babies engines growl (his site does a great job at that too). I am not crazy about Ferraris but his 250 Testa Rossa (red head) was a dream in red…

I loved the Jaguars: they made the XKD to race; it has a graceful rear with a surprising fin! It was the most successful racing car of its generation. It became so successful (three consecutive victories in Le Mans 24 hour race) that Jaguar made a road version a few years later: the beautiful XKSS:

My absolute favorite was of course the magnificent Atlantic Bugatti, a masterpiece in speed and luxury made in 1938.

Ralph Lauren cars here.

my other post about fast cars here and here.

Paper, Paper, Paper: a sartorial tour de force

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Michele

I saw this fascinating exhibition the other day in Bellerive Museum, Paper Fashion:

I love paper and have worked with it for years so it was very interesting to see clothes made entirely of paper by young virtuosos and well known designers:

Stephen Hann recycles couture in his “comic fan” creation below:

This jacket took newspapers to another dimension:

This is PAPER people!

In an ad from 1960s, the International Paper Company is asking how long will the paper bikinis last…

Fancypants anyone?

Paper clothes were used for PR purposes, to spread news, or to promote politicians and their campaign. Here you see Nixon’s and Eugene McCarthy:

Robert Kennedy and Romney (the father of the 2009 presidential candidate, Mitt Romney):

“In 1966, Scott Paper Company invented the paper dress, intended as a marketing and publicity tool. For one dollar, women could buy the dress and also receive coupons for Scott paper products.”

A brief fad for paper dresses swept through America from 1966 to 1969. The ultimate gift to the lazy, adventurous youth!

There is a 40 year difference between the dress on the left (in blue) and the one made for the exhibition (in orange):

I was blown away by these intricately cut and folded hairpieces for Chanel by Japanese hair stylist Katsuya Kamo. He used 2 packs of plain white 11×17 copier paper!

Another creative genius of the show was Jum Nakao, the Brazilian Japanese designer. His “Sewing the Invisible” show was on the display and I couldn’t take my eyes off the monitor! I spent a long time on his great site. It is a spellbinding collection of paper Haute Couture:

Just noticed that both above wizards are Japanese: Master Origami makers!

Here is a little explanation for the word sartorial; let’s see if you can guess who is the sartorial queen of all times to me from the picture below:

That’s all folks! See Isabelle de Borchgrave’s magnificent creations here.

Take a look at Jum Nakao’s defilé here.

Chanel’s fabulous whites here.

To see a way better alternative to paper go here.

I met Arcimboldo and some Germans in Paris

Posted on January 14, 2008 by admin

I am sitting in this cute café which happens to have wifi! The world is changing and Paris with it.

I’ve been very busy since I am here; three interesting exhibitions in 2 days: Arcimboldo has never been so complete as in this exhibition in the Luxembourg museum.

A way more somber show was Germany, the black years at the Maillol museum. Otto Dix, Beckmann and Grosz were the most impressing but i have to admit that the German propaganda posters with Hitler’s name on them were the most striking/chilling to me.