The Color of Luxury

Some will say it's purple, the color historically associated with royalty. Some will say jewel tones. Others swear by black and still others go with gold.

When it comes to an instantaneous communication of affluence however, the colors of these boxes speak their message loud and clear. It hardly matters what's inside. And a ribbon is fine, no need to wrap them.

Didn't they look fabulous under your tree this morning?

Days of Burgundy and Dusty Rose

A friend snapped this lovely palette of vintage containers (Tupperware?). I was inspired to indulge in some chromatic free association.
























Top to bottom
Vintage covered containers; Bobbi Brown Makeup; Pink Lincoln 6-cent stamp (1879-1882); brick wall; vintage book on Window Display; anatomical model, cross section of head; Balthus, 'Girl and Cat', 1937; Porsche color chart, Florence Broadhurst fabric, Aubrey; scene from Anchorman, old painted Borden factory door in Wassaic; anatomic diagram of 'A Woman and Her Foetus', by Mansour b eliyas Chirazi, circa 1425-50.

Lure Skirts

Don't ask me what these are, because I really couldn't tell you. if you'd like to see more go here and just keep scrolling. Enjoy!

Les Trois Musiciens: The Prequel

LES TROIS MUSICIENS, FERNAND LÉGER, 1932

I'll admit it. I'm in a yellow phase. Have been for well over a year now. I still love orange, and will not be giving up my mid-century orange fiberglass chairs or Heller plastic any time soon, but I've moved on to yellow. So when I saw this version of Les Trois Musiciens, which sold recently at Sotheby's for $5,000,000, it just knocked my socks off. It could just be a matter of my current color bias, but the black and white treatment of the musicians with the solid yellow background is so fresh and contemporary. It's got that altered-b&w-photo look of Baldessari or an iPod ad. Check out the 1945 version of the painting at MoMA. It looks quaintly "modern" by comparison.

Found Palettes: eBay

Yet another reason to love eBay, it’s great for color ideas.


Enamel skillets


Vintage plastic tumblers


Fisher Price records

Shades of Gray

Basements. All big buildings have them. Subterranean symphonies of meters, pipes, metal and concrete--and gray. Lots and lots of gray.


They all manage to be oddly familiar ...


and creepy at the same time.


In this particular basement, I couldn't help thinking about ...


Giorgio Morandi ...




Brice Marden ...




and Edwin Dickenson.


These three painters know a lot about color --


and a lot about gray.

La Boca

Facades of brightly painted corrugated metal--it’s now a total cliché, but I still love seeing what sunlight does on colored walls. To see more, do a google image search for "La Boca buildings."









I wandered around the less touristy parts of La Boca, the Buenos Aires barrio, but didn’t get to take many pix. Every time I took my camera out, someone would come over to me tell me to put it away because it would be stolen. Even on the bus, when I was shooting from the window, the woman in front of me said that “they” would reach into the window and grab my camera if I had it out.

Pimp My Bus

From the moment I saw my first Linea 17 turquoise bus on day one in Buenos Aires, I was hooked. There are 144 different bus lines in BA all privately owned and operated. A total eye-feast of color and typography, but really nothing compared to the old days when buses were rolling works of genuine folk art. See pre-1970s buses covered with the scrolling flourishes of ‘fileteado’ here and here. The drivers personalize the interiors as well-- there was at least one instance of fuzzy dice, and fancy cut glass mirrors are installed over many of the windshields.