Three days to the kick-off of our holidays!! Pucci-style silk, Hawaianas, lots of bangles, a funky Fahrrad, lots of friends to meet…
Of course we are not heading to Ibiza, but for parties on the Spree!
(better bring an anorak too?).
source: Dr Oetker
One year ago BerlinRomExpress was born, on a hot Roman evening. Time goes by, many events have unfold since then. The Crisis. The total disappearance of the Palast der Republik in Berlin and the appearance of a big green meadow. The Macro opening postponement in Rome. And so on.
We took this picture 2 years ago, during our holiday in Berlin in August 2007. Would it be crazy, we thought, to consider Berlin like our home away from home?
Radio 3, our Multikulti, has started a series on the Turkish presence in Berlin on its programme called ‘Percorsi’ (=paths).
Podcasts were finally loaded onto the website, you can listen to them here below. Not very original content to be honest. However one must consider that anything multikulti is welcome and to some extent courageous, in a country whose government just stated “we do not want to have a multicultural society” (sic). Continue reading ‘Turkish path’
Bingo…40 degrees in Rome today.
In the city center, on the sanpietrini I could fry an egg. At the bus stop I start to have mirages like in the desert (is that the bus 491, or my imagination?). The wisest thing? To copycat our cats.
Achtung. You are leaving now the Cooking Sector. The fridge is my oyster…
Saturday and Sunday were two of those days. When everyone you cross on the street looks absolutely gorgeous. When the most anonymous balcony seems to deserve a Piranesi sketch. And the summer is just perfect: sun kissing your skin, balmy breeze, a spring to your step. Rome was really gorgeous, and the photos do not do her justice. So you have to trust me. Continue reading ‘the perfect roman urban (urbe!) weekend’
My friend L. is writing articles on the fall of the Berlin wall for her newspaper. Yesterday we talked over the phone and compared the best books we read on the topic, the best radio series we listened to…
This video feels just right now.
Look at the BBC video showing the eROCKIT, a bike behaving like a motorbike provided that you pedal!
“A Berlin inventor has come up with an electric bike which you power by pedalling that can reach speeds of 50 mph.
Stefan Gulas has developed a system that amplifies the effort you put in by a factor of 50, meaning you can accelerate quickly and maintain high speeds with very little effort. Steve Rosenberg reports”.
From the official eROCKIT website we discover that:
“The eROCKIT bridges the gap between the regular two wheeler categories. On one side the muscle-powered two wheelers, on the other side, the motorcycles. The eROCKIT concept requires a continuous muscle deployment from the rider. The vehicle’s electronic system multiplies this muscle power and deploys it as vehicle propulsion.
For the first time in the history of vehicle construction, the driver’s physical power becomes just as relevant for driving dynamics and speed as technical vehicle properties and engine power”
Source: BBC, eROCKIT websites
I had never been to a catwalk, so yesterday’s Sarli defilé at S.Spirito in Sassia was a première for me, thanks to my friend GB. We were not spared our share of crepages de chignons among ladies fighting for their place on the bench next to us. Tom Ford dashed en grande forme to the director’s cabin in order to see and not be seen. The sponsor’s logo, a constructivist roman she-wolf, très mutine.
The clothes were indeed impressive. The inspiration came from the universe of René Gruau, and the sartorial prowess of the couturières and petites-mains behind the scenes emerged from fan motives, plissés, floating silks, elaborated accordeon shoulders and origami collars. Mmmh…I quite like this one, a balancing act between 1940s Katharine Hepburnesque boldness and vague reminiscences of the 80s without bulky excess, with a blessing of shogun aesthetics on top. And I have already the shoes and gloves that go with it!
Emerging markets were taken care of and carefully targeted with the fabulous fan motives, once more inspired by Gruau…look at this fabulous rising sun…
When you think to these couturiers you realize that the Sarli and Valentino of this world are agé gentlemen, and what will be the future of these brands, these archives, this craftmanship going forward?
Similarly to our best monuments and triumph arches, their creations are icons of design of their respective ages. But if you read the press the recurring words are polemics and clash, especially surrounding the organization of the events. Some designers flock to Paris, other to Milano, Rome seems unable to canalize efforts.
Therefore the contrast with Berlin’s “raw energy” (Suzy Menkes, IHT) is even stronger. Sweatshirt-trimmed sportswear is no “mikado overcoats with fan-shaped sleeves, boucled palettò brushed with yellow feathers”. But the polemics de basse cour sound like an insult to the hands who are behind those plissés and jais body-tattoos.
Berlin seems to take good care of its street-wear designs and budding couture, even when not ripe yet. When fostered and encouraged, talent can blossom. On the other hand, Rome’s blasés institutions are too busy in navel-gazing and leave the juicy craftmanship treasures unnoticed, while pushing balkanization scenarios a step further. Very Visconti, very Gattopardo indeed. Splendeur et décadence vs. bread and butter?
Photos: Repubblica, Alta Roma Alta Moda, Bread and Butter
Even with the current S-bahn chaos in Berlin, it was a pleasure to get to Berlin late at night on Wednesday. Kastanien trees lining Berlin streets are gorgeous in this season, by day but also by night, the strong graphic pattern of the trimmed leaves against the nordic sunset sky. U-7 actually had just a bit of a “pendler” traffic pattern (umstiegen 3 times), but the only inconvenience was extra 10 minutes for the journey from the airport to our Kiez. The air was full of flowery scents from the neighboring park…
Once more a busy 72 hours of ticking to-do lists while hopping on and off the U-bahn, one moment with sun and blue sky, at the following station with heavy rain and strong wind shaking the linden trees vigorously. Always have a waterproof jacket at hand, was the takeaway of these 3 days in Berlin.
On Friday morning I allowed myself a break and went for a trip to Mitte. First of all I stopped at Gendarmenmarkt, I was curious to see the Shan hairstyling cafe’, but I forgot the look up the address and ended up visiting Joop’s Wunderkind store. The first time we visited Berlin 7 years ago, Quartier 219 and Jean Nouvel’s Galeries were the newest additions, and since then I didn’t particularly fancy visiting the boutique street, with so much to discover in Berlin. An illycrema and I moved on.
Like a country mouse going to visit the cousin city mouse, I went to have a better look to the gallery streets, Auguststrasse and the like. Had a look to the Do you read me? magazine-store, where I could discover more about a new magazine called Abstieg und Fall whose advertising haunts Berlin streets in these days. I was curious but I preferred to have a look at the beautiful AKRIS book. We need beauty in our lives. Especially with such capricious weather.
Talking about beauty, I was lucky not to miss the work of Nanaé Suzuki at the Stella A gallery…beautiful watercolours staging Kapuzinerkresse, flowers which flood the blaconies of our neighbors in the Kiez and which I used to grow with success (also to the benefit of my salads) when I still had a garden in Triest.
I was curious to explore Gipsstrasse after the Monocle article and talking about Made in Berlin, I found something I like a lot: the atelier (in the real sense, ie the laboratorio) of Claudine Brignot. I love the skirts and jersey tops she creates. Especially this black heavy satin and gray sweatshirt trimming skirt of the Berlin Maritim collection. To me what she does is “distilling powerful German aesthetics”! Moreover her clothes seem also very comfortable. Ok, I am not on the way to “memérisation” but I love clothes in which you can move around in the city, work, go for an aperitivo, catch a plane or a bus or even hop on a (motor)bike, not those merely decorative clothes and heels who are suited only for being (trans)sported in air-conditioned cars. Because form follows function etc etc!
Tacheles, Clärchen Ballhaus, everything is around the corner, but my journey in German design was far from over, I went back to work in the afternoon. You will know more by visiting our sister blog, Aflatinberlin…
It was a pleasure today to discover in the International Herald Tribune an article about Berlin, not covering politics, or elections, but…fashion. The occasion was the Bread and Butter fashion show at Tempelhof.
Suzy Menkes writes about Berlin. You’ve been warned! In the same page of the online newspaper “Haute faces uncertain times” and news on the Lacroix tears. The energetic, maybe confused, but definitely vital and vivid green shoots of a new era? Maybe some shoots are still very green…but Michael Sontag does things I’d love to wear tomorrow, between a meeting, a plane and an aperitivo at the Astor Lounge.
“How long will it be before Berlin comes up with designers whose creativity has a unique voice?” asks Menkes…probably a while according to Joop (“Berlin has good productions, good red carpets, good parties, better hangovers, but the fashion still needs some work.”). But maybe we’re at a turning point, and times are ripe to “distill that powerful German aesthetic”…
BERLIN — Scattered slabs of concrete, still daubed with their original graffiti, are pertinent reminders that 2009 marks 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the cultural revolution that came with the fusion of the city’s East and West is even more visible as arty photographs in smart spaces, music pulsating from abandoned government buildings and fashion that reflects this hot, hip and happening city. Continue reading ‘Menkes sees green shoots in Berlin’
