Ping Pong

An addition to yesterday's post on Walter Gropius, and while I'm at it, another nice shot in the same sports category.

Mr. Gropius plays ping pong

Couple playing ping pong in Tompkins Square Park, NYC 

Architect Walter Gropius

Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (1883 – 1969) was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture.

In 1915 Gropius married Alma Mahler, widow of Gustav Mahler, but divorced after 5 years. In 1923 he married Ilse (later changed to Ise) Frank, and they remained together until his death in 1969.

Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler (with beret)

Drafted into the army, he survived WWI both buried under rubble and dead bodies, and shot out of the sky with a dead pilot. He was awarded the Iron Cross twice. Gropius then, like his father and his great-uncle Martin Gropius before him, became an architect.

In 1923, Gropius designed his famous door handles, now considered an icon of 20th-century design and often listed as one of the most influential designs to emerge from Bauhaus.

The rise of Hitler in the 1930s drove Gropius out of Germany, to Britain and in 1937 to the United States.

Gropius dies on July 6, 1969 and today is remembered not only by his various buildings but also by the district of Gropiusstadt in Berlin.

Orcon

Orcon is a privately owned New Zealand telecommunications company. It is New Zealand's fourth largest Internet service provider (ISP).

Previously known for its association with questionable internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, it now hooked up with a beret wearing Ché based dictator character to get its commercial message across. 

Woman Pilot Jean Pearson

Jean Pearson, pilot trainee in Women's Flying Training Detachment to later join the all-civilian Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, using a beret & a ribbon-tied hair knot to keep hair fr. flying, in cockpit of trainer before takeoff at Avenger Field.

Ensouled Berets by Pupak

These berets  are made by the artisan Pupak, who uses wool right off the sheep. They can be worn as planetary remedies, or to attune with the energy of a particular planet. Fits around the head above the ears of an adult or over the ears of a child.

"In the days of old, when people engaged their hands, hearts, and mind to make the basic necessities of life, most things were ensouled.  You can tell it by the object’s soulful quality.  It has a qualitative vibration.

A well-crafted, hand-made and ensouled item is an endangered species in our present cultural climate. It is something in good need of nurturing back into life.  Mainly because of economic competition with cheap labour, hand-made goods have been sidelined and cut in price.  At the same time many thousands, no millions of people are ‘looking’ for jobs, for livelihoods.  

How about looking closer at home and allowing ourselves to develop our innate soulful and crafty selves through our hand-made goods?  And the ‘unemployment’ pain would dissolve of its own accord."

Jennifer Moon

Jennifer Moon lives and works in Los Angeles, California.  Jennifer is currently working on the second part of Phoenix Rising, a three-part mediation on love, revolution, and personal change.

The project is both an act of self-examination and disclosure, as well as a manifestation of The Revolution, a self-authored philosophy for transformation and expansion authored by Jennifer herself.

Jennifer puts it more eloquently below, she is not asking viewers to believe in The Revolution.  Nor is she espousing it as a global system that will work for everyone.  What she is doing – and what the work models – is challenging the viewer to operate from a position of belief, and not belief in Jennifer or her beliefs, but in themselves.  It is this challenge that makes Jennifer’s work so compelling, and unique among the artists living and working today.

La Fiesta de la Vendimia

The wine-harvesting festival in Cangas del Narcea (Asturias, Spain) is a great occasion to spot berets, or boinas, in the wild of Spain.

I am especially delighted to see so many Bordeaux coloured berets, my personal favourites. 

The streets are filled with stalls selling crafts and traditional products. Visitors can participate in many of the festive events. including a dramatization of the transporting of the grapes in typical Asturian grape-carts and the traditional pressing of the grapes by stamping with the feet.

Naturally, visits to local vineyards are prominently on the program.

TheatrHall and Pebeo Berets

Parisian company TheatrHall specialises in theatrical clothes and disguises (jabot shirts with lace, capes, berets, wigs and Venetian masks, vests and old trousers) for theatre, fancy dress, costumers, and public spectacles.How much longer they'll be able to supply the Pebeo beret is questionable - get one of the very last at Blancq-Olibet's clearence page here!

The Duke of Edinburgh as a Commander (Royal Navy), HMS Magpie

Photograph of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (b. 1921) standing in right side profile on the deck of HMS Magpie wearing Royal Naval Commander's uniform, a beret and sunglasses.
The Duke of Edinburgh took command of HMS Magpie in September 1950. He was promoted to Commander on 30 June 1952. This was to be his final active naval appointment. In 1953 he was appointed Admiral of the Fleet.

Rabbi Paul Roitman

Paul (Pinchas) Roitman (1920 - 2007 ) was aPolish born, French rabbi and a member of the Resistance.

In 1938, Paul starts studying medicine, but due to the war, stops three years later. In 1940 he fled to Toulouse, where he was recruited into the Jewish (Resistance) Army. Arrested in December 1942 by the Nazi’s, he was interned in Fort du Hâ near Bordeaux, transferred to the French internment camp of Merignac , Gironde and released by miracle (the day before Purim ) on intervention by his younger brother Leo Roitman, one of the heroes of the Jewish Resistance.

Toulouse, 1942

In January 1945 , he married Leah Schleicher, a young social worker who worked with him in the Resistance . The couple moved to Paris.

Paul decides to dedicate his life to the Jewish people. He entered the Israelite Seminary of France with the intention of working with youth as a rabbi, but by the end of 1947, he leaves the rabbinate to devote himself to education.

In 1970, Paul Roitman emigrated to Israel and amongst many other activities, founded the youth movement Tzedek , which over the years dealt with more than 20,000 children, including immigrants from Ethiopia and Russia.

Rabbi Paul Roitman with his fiancee Lea

Paul Roitman died August 21, 2007 (7 Elul 5767) in Jerusalem .

Fort Dorset

Taking my wife to the airport on this beautiful day (despite the wind gusting at 100 km/hr), I decided to go for a walk around nearby Fort Dorset, in Wellington's Breaker Bay. 

I love living in New Zealand, but there is one thing is miss terribly: anything old! Ruins, castles, fortresses, abandoned factories, etc. The most NZ has to offer in this respect, are the few remains of it's coastal defense works. The oldest are forts built during the Russian (tsarists) scare in the 1880's, the later ones from WWII.

Fort Dorset was located in the suburb of Seatoun at the entrance to the harbour of Wellington. Apart from it's obvious military importance, it is one of the most beautiful natural areas of the city. It is also land of Maori significance; formerly the site of the Oruaiti Pa (fortified settlement), an old Rangitane stockaded village near where Kupe landed.

These days there is a large variety of bunkers, gun emplacements, observation posts and other unidentified concrete structures.

The views over the Pacific, the harbour entrance and the entrance to Cook Strait are breathtakingly beautiful. 

Oh, and the beret du jour was the navy coloured Auloronesa in 11 pouces...

Vulture Attack

Jean-Pierre Pommiès, see yesterday's post, inspects the damage done to a Blonde d'Aquitaine calf by a group of 40 vultures. 

"Neigbours warned me of a large flock of vultures cirkeling over my land, but by the time I arrived, the calf was dead and the mother cow running around crazy." Jean-Pierre Pommiès is adamant: "The calf was viable at birth. The mother cleaned the placenta, licked her calf, proof that he was alive. When we arrived, it was still warm".

It is the old story of farmers and hunters on one side, the conversationalists on the other....

Shepherd Jean-Pierre Pommiès

Jean-Pierre Pommiès (1965) works as a shepherd in Coarraze, in the province of Pyrenees Atlantique, herding béarnaise cattle and sheep.  

Over the summer period he follows the age-old method of transhumance, grazing his  animals in the valley of the Ouzoum, a small and wild little-known Pyrenean valley. Nestled in the heart of the western Pyrenees, Ouzoum Valley is a mountainous country located between the Ossau valley and the Val d'Azun. Pastoralism is still alive.

Jean-Pierre holds the state certificate of mountain guide. He is passionate about his work and the mountains, besides his daily work enjoying mountaineering and skiing.

Shepherds Cheese of the Haut-Béarn

"Les Bergers du Haut-Béarn" ("Shepherds of the High Beam") is a group of artisan cheese producers who formed a collective to market their products.

The cheeses are all hand made on their farms in winter or "on location" at the high summer pastures over summer. 

It begins with the Pyreneen soil, which is rich and oily, taking advantage of the Pyrenees rainfall and the micro climates of the valleys. Then comes the transhumance, the migration to the high pastures over summer. In spring, the Shepherds of haut-Béarn leave their villages in a festive atmosphere. They lead the herds of cows, sheep and goats for several days to reach the summer pastures. All summer, they make the typical and tasty cheeses. In autumn, they descend into the valleys to protect animals and refine the cheese. It is an age-old tradition that continues today.

Naturally, the labels of the cheeses show prominently the headgear of the shepherds/cheesemakers...

Laulhère's Brand New Video - A Scoop for The Beret Project!

South Pacific Berets was given the privilege to launch Laulhère's new commercial. A beautiful short film combining origins, history, artisan beret manufacturing and contemporary fashion. 
Laulhère is France's oldest beret manufacturer. Working with unsurpassed raw materials, traditional hand-crafted production, and age-old know-how, Laulhère’s workshops all come together to make the beret a noble product. It takes two full working days to make one, and sometimes longer, and a vast number of checks and adjustments to make each item a unique piece.

Laulhère’s products are made of pure Merino virgin wool from the best flocks around the world. A noble and living raw material which through a complex manufacturing process gives their berets the high quality Laulhère is famous for: softness, water resistance and durability, thanks to exceptionally fine and sense fibres.

The products are knitted and felted using naturally brown raw wool, then are dyed with mixtures of pigments based on recipes perfected in-house over the years. The process demands great care and dexterity to make sure the dye “takes” evenly across the entire surface of the beret and reaches the exact colour desired, again and again. But it also achieves beautiful depth and brightness.

The unique dying, shaping, and shaving processes all add to our particular quality. At every stage our quality team verifies every little detail in order to achieve the high standards that Laulhère proudly advertise.

Get your own here.

Knitter

Sock knitting Basque gentleman.

Questionable...

"A Rembrandt though I'll never be
My work is really classy
But his attraction won't compare,
He didn't have my chassis."

Fiona Timantti

Fiona Timantti is a milliner and costumer from Helsinki, Finland.

Helsinki Burlesque DJs, Miroslove Satan & Fiona Timantti

Timantti's vintage style, high quality hats and headpieces are made with love and old school millinery techniques. She prefers recycled and vintage materials. She makes unique and delectable headdresses for femme fatales, vintage vixens, burlesque beauties and for anyone who wants to add class and glamour into their style.

Fiona Timantti is a funloving femme fatale; adventurous, ambitious and hopelessly romantic. But apart from her work as a milliner, she is a vintage collector, costumer, Helsinki Burlesque DJ, part-time model.

This is her blog; about her, her hats, her cats, music, movies, vintage fashion...and everything!

Castelbajac's Purses

Louis Marie de Castelbajac, the founder of the Armagnac 700, and LeVoid, inc. and Castelbajac Lignee believes in challenging  the cultural status quo.  He is committed to reinterpreting elements of our daily life—from the alcohol we drink to the clothing we wear--by combining beautiful design, quality, tradition, simplicity, culture, and humor. 

One of his other creations is this 'beret-bag'. In his own words:
"Having grown up in Paris and going often to the Southwest (where my family originates from) I grew up in an environment informed by both the sophisticated and the artisanal works. In France, as it is widely known, the Beret is conditioned as a symbol of French tradition and culture. But, what I always found beautiful about this object is its universality. With a beret, one can be well-dressed in a simple of outfit and adding a beret imparts an extra style and flare that encapsulates the DNA, and timeless elegance of France. In working on this bag I was inspired by the unexpected clash of textures; the matte felt of the beret and the high- gloss of the crocodile combine for an exotic elegance. In many ways, it’s an homage to the Simone de Beauvoirs, who so gracefully allied style with intelligence and respect."

Personally, I prefer to see crocodile leather on the crocodile, not as part of a rich woman's purse. ..

K-pop Beret

K-pop (an abbreviation of Korean pop) is a musical genre originating in South Korea that is characterized by a wide variety of audio-visual elements. Although it comprises all genres of "popular music" within South Korea, the term is more often used in a narrower sense to describe a modern form of South Korean pop music covering mostly dance-pop, pop ballad, electronic, rock, hip-hop, R&B, etc.

K-world Style  (“where kpop fashion lives) is a blog run by a group of kpop lovers, dedicated to finding the style of k-pop, k-drama, and anything "k-world" – taking “K” a step further.

No surprise berets do well in K-style and yes, I like seeing this beret-ad of boy kissing boy.