An Angel At My Table

An Angel at My Table is a 1990 biographical drama film directed by Jane Campion. The film is based on Janet Frame's three autobiographies, To the Is-Land (1982), An Angel at My Table (1984), and The Envoy from Mirror City (1984).

Janet Frame, born in 1924 in Dunedin, New Zealand, was a celebrated author known for her novels, short stories, poetry, and autobiographies. Despite a challenging early life marked by personal tragedy and misdiagnosed mental illness, she became a highly acclaimed writer, both nationally and internationally.

It shows many berets; in New Zealand (much more present then than now…) and in Spain.

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The film was very well received. It won awards at the New Zealand Film and Television awards, the Toronto International Film Festival, and second prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Adolphe Menjou in 'Across the Wide Missouri"

In the 1951 film Across the Wide Missouri, Adolphe Menjou played the character Pierre, an old French-Canadian trapper.

Pierre serves as a crucial character in the film, notably acting as an interpreter and a guide for Flint Mitchell (played by Clark Gable).

He helps facilitate communication between the white trappers and the Native American tribes, including Mitchell's Nez Perce wife, Kamiah, as they travel through the Rocky Mountains. 

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic A. H. Weiler wrote: "The adventure, which treats the questing trappers—the 'mountain men' who broke the trails into the vast Northwest Territory during the early decades of the nineteenth century—could have been the rich substance out of which moving history was made.

It is, instead, merely a halting, sometimes verbose Western, which only rarely captures the imagination and fleetingly portrays the excitement of the period or the fearless, sturdy men who were responsible for the epic story inherent in the period."

Jean Delpech

Born in Vietnam in 1916, Jean Delpech was a unique artist. He studied at the Albert-Sarraut High School Hanoi (formerly Tonkin) where he was a classmate of North Vietnamese general Võ Nguyên Giáp and Phạm Văn Đồng.

After graduating, Delpech joined the School of Fine Arts in Hanoi, where he studied lacquering and painting.

The works conserved at the Musée de l’Armée, mostly drawings and prints, trace his career during the Second World War, from his military service in the 15th Alpine Hunters Battalion (BCA), in which he was mobilised in September 1939, to his stay in Germany in 1945, as a war correspondent with the 1st Army.

Delpech was influenced by the country of his childhood and his youth. In Paris, he enrolled at the School of Fine Arts. He won first prize of Rome in engraving intaglio in 1948: it follows a stay of four successful years in Italy. He subsequently taught drawing, painting and printmaking, among others in a workshop in Paris at the École Polytechnique.

Jean Delpech trained many young artists, many of which have since achieved fame (Philippe Mohlitz, Doaré, Houtin, Desmazières, Fernand Teyssier). He also produced postage stamps, illustrations for books and magazines, theater sets (for Dullin), medals, paintings and even stained glass.

From 1944 to 2004, his work was the subject of numerous exhibitions, individual or collective.

David and Igor Oistrakh

Violinist Igor Davidovich Oistrakh was born in Odessa, to a Jewish family and was the son of Tamara Rotareva and the violinist/conductor David Oistrakh.

Father and son Oistrakh in the United Kingdom, 1966

Oistrakh appeared frequently internationally, both as a soloist and in joint recitals with his father, or with his father conducting. His wife Natalya Zertsalova is a pianist and has performed with him. Their son, Valery, is an active violinist.

After living and working in Brussels (Belgium) with his family, Oistrakh returned to Russia in 2011.

Igor Moiseyev

Igor Aleksandrovich Moiseyev (1906 –2007) was a Soviet and Russian ballet master, dancer, choreographer and pedagogue. Moiseyev was widely acclaimed as the greatest 20th-century choreographer of character dance, a dance style similar to folk dance but with more professionalism and theatrics.

Born in Kyiv, Russian Empire, he was the only child of a Russian lawyer and a French-Romanian seamstress. His family lived in Paris until he was 8, and throughout his life he spoke to Western journalists in fluent French. Moiseyev graduated from the Bolshoi Theatre ballet school in 1924 and danced in the theatre until 1939. His first choreography in the Bolshoi was Footballer in 1930 and the last was Spartacus in 1954.

Igor Moiseyev with his wife Irina

Since the early 1930s, he staged acrobatic parades on Red Square and finally came up with the idea of establishing the Theatre of Folk Art. In 1936, Vyacheslav Molotov put him in charge of the new dance company, which has since been known as the Moiseyev Ballet.

In 2001, he was awarded the UNESCO Mozart Medal for outstanding contribution to world music culture. He died in Moscow on 2 November 2007 aged 101. 

Igor Moukhin

Igor Moukhin (1961) is a prominent Russian photographer and teacher celebrated for his candid black-and-white documentation of the Soviet underground and the dramatic transformation of Moscow since the 1980s.

During the Perestroika and Glasnost era, Moukhin gained fame for photographing Soviet youth culture and rock legends such as Viktor Tsoi, Boris Grebenshikov, and Petr Mamonov.

Since the 1990s, he has focused on the evolution of the Russian capital, capturing the shift from the collapse of the USSR to contemporary Russia. His work is descriptive and objective, often described as a "birds-eye view" rather than a subjective point of view, focusing on everyday life without ideological filters.

 

Sándor Márai

Sándor Márai (1900–1989) was a prolific Hungarian novelist, poet, and journalist, widely regarded as one of the most significant European writers of the 20th century. Though he was a celebrity in Hungary during the 1930s, his work was suppressed for decades by the communist regime and only achieved global recognition posthumously in the late 1990s.

Márai authored 46 books, primarily in Hungarian, even while living in exile. His writing often explores the decline of the Austro-Hungarian bourgeoisie, the complexities of friendship, and the psychological impact of social change.

A staunch anti-fascist and anti-communist, Márai fled Hungary in 1948 after the communist takeover. He lived in Italy and eventually settled in San Diego, California, in 1979. Despite writing for Radio Free Europe, his fame faded into obscurity during his years in the United States.

Márai's final years were marked by profound loss; his wife, Ilona "Lola" Matzner, died in 1986, followed shortly by their adopted son, János, in 1987. Isolated and suffering from failing health, Márai committed suicide by a gunshot to the head on February 21, 1989.

Only months after his death, the newly democratic Hungary awarded him the Kossuth Prize, the nation's highest literary honor. Since then, his works have been translated into dozens of languages and are frequently compared to the classics of Thomas Mann and Stefan Zweig.

The film Az Emigráns, by fellow beret-wearer István Dárday depict the final years of Sándor Márai's exile in San Diego, which led to his suicide in 1989. Based on his own diary.

István Dárday

István Dárdai (March 25, 1940) is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, producer and editor.

From 1968 to 1972, he studied at the Higher School of Theatre and Cinema. He studied photography and literature. While still a student, he made documentaries that received international recognition. He headed the Balázs Studio. He was one of the founders of the so-called "Budapest School" (a movement in Hungarian documentary filmmaking based on the combination of documentary and feature film elements). He wrote the screenplays for his films together with his regular collaborator, Györgyi Szalai. From 1981 to 1993, he was the artistic director of the creative association of documentary filmmakers at the Mafilm film studio.

Sidney Hook

Sidney Hook (1902 –1989) was an American philosopher of pragmatism known for his contributions to the philosophy of history, the philosophy of education, political theory, and ethics. 

After embracing communism in his youth, Hook was later known for his criticisms of totalitarianism, both fascism and Marxism–Leninism. A social democrat, Hook sometimes cooperated with conservatives, particularly in opposing Marxism–Leninism. After World War II, he argued that members of such groups as the Communist Party USA and Leninists like democratic centralists could ethically be barred from holding the offices of public trust because they called for the violent overthrow of democratic governments.

Hook's memoir, Out of Step, recounts his life, his activism for a number of educational causes, his controversies with other intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, and his recollections of Mortimer J. Adler, Bertolt Brecht, Morris Cohen, John Dewey, Max Eastman, Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell.

Juliusz Joniak

Juliusz Joniak (1925 - 2021) was a Polish painter, graphic artist and teacher.

Juliusz Joniak - Self-portrait

His works can be found in many museums and private collections both in Poland and abroad, including the National Museum in Kraków and Warsaw. His wifeTeresa Wallis-Joniak  was a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and a Kraków painter.

Moonfish Felt

Yang, founder of Moonfish Handmade and Moonfish Boutique, loves nature and enjoys delicious food. 

Working closely with experienced gemstone artisans and small local businesses, she strives to work on affordable high-quality products that bring her customers joy. 

Her felt artwork is handcrafted with natural materials in different varieties, which are great for people who enjoy cozy and slow living. 

Find her on Instagram @moonfish_handmade.

Domaine des Garriguettes - Le Béret Bleu

In France’s Southern Rhône Valley, just 12 kilometers east of Avignon, lies Domaine des Garriguettes, a four-generation family winery, in the village of Châteauneuf de Gadagne.

Domaine des Garriguettes benefits from the idyllic Mediterranean climate and exposure to the warm southern Mistral wind, both of which provide optimal conditions for organic and biodynamic viticulture. Old olive trees cohabitate among cinsault, grenache, mourvèdre, and syrah vines on the property, many of which have been in the family for generations. Garriguettes was the first vineyard in their village to embrace organic agriculture and continues to be a natural winemaking leader in the region.

In the cellar, Sébastien works in an intuitive manner with the least amount of intervention possible. Every vineyard and cuvée is handled individually; the only formula at the winery is excellence. Indigenous yeasts are used for alcoholic fermentation for the entirety of the cuvées, and malolactic fermentations are spontaneous and never rushed. Added sulfur dioxide is not used in the Le Béret Bleu.

Janot - Bérêt Basque Et Bottes De Cuir

Jean Fauque, better known by his pseudonym "JANOT", recorded this single in the summer of 1983.

The song's title and theme are a playful parody of the French title for the classic British TV series The Avengers (known in France as Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir, or "Bowler Hat and Leather Boots"). While the original TV show title references the iconic styles of John Steed and Emma Peel, Janot’s version swaps the sophisticated British bowler hat for the traditional French Basque beret.

Uwe Ommer

Uwe Ommer has been a photographer since 1957 and began a commercial apprenticeship in a photography shop in 1961. In 1962, he was awarded the German Youth Photography Prize at Photokina for a picture of children playing football. In 1963, he moved to Paris, where he worked as an assistant to the advertising photographer Jean Pierre Ronzel.

He won the German Youth Photography Prize again in 1965 and 1966. He mainly took fashion and advertising photos for smaller women's magazines. He had his first independent campaign for a French shoe manufacturer in 1968.

His photographs appeared in Esquire, Zoom, Photographie, and other magazines. He also made a name for himself with erotic and exotic nude photographs, which were published in several books.

Maximilian Feuerring

Maximilian Feuerring (1896–1985) was a Polish-Australian painter, art critic, and professor known for his experimental and expressionistic art, who survived a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II before emigrating to Australia.

Maximilian Feuerring (R)

Born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Lwow, Poland, Feuerring studied art in Berlin, Florence, Rome, Paris, and Warsaw. He taught at the Jewish Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1934 to 1939.

He served as an officer in the Polish army during World War II and was interned in a German prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in Murnau, Germany. During his imprisonment, where he experienced starvation and hardship, he gave art classes to fellow officers using materials sent by the Red Cross. Fifty-two members of his family perished in concentration camps.

After the war, he was appointed a professor at the UNRRA University in Munich and organized exhibitions for displaced artists. In 1950, at the age of 54, he migrated to Sydney, Australia.

In Australia, Feuerring supported himself as a stage designer, restorer, and teacher, though the initial response to his work was indifferent. He became a prolific artist, known for paintings that explored "problems and conflicts of spiritual or emotional origin". He was friends with other émigré artists like Judy Cassab and Louis Kahan and was a member of the Antipodean group of artists in the 1960s. He twice represented Australia at the São Paulo Biennial. 

Tabard & Beret

The tabard (el tabard) appeared from around 1940. It was a kind of jacket, three-quarters longer than the fur coat and usually made in shades of gray, brown, or greenish, woven in a herringbone pattern. It could have fur on the lapels and was fastened with a double-breasted closure and a belt.

 It usually had four outer pockets, two at hip level and two on the chest. The latter were used to keep the hands warm, as gloves were not part of men's clothing. 

Belts (El Cinto)

More on clothing and it's evolution in Spain: belts (el cinto).

Belts began to be a common accessory in men's clothing when the rolled-up sashes, which previously served the same purpose, stopped being used.

Trousers could also be held up with a simple esparto rope tied with a knot or bow.

Since the trousers were much higher than the man's waist and, moreover, it was not common for them to have belt loops, they were fastened to the body only by means of the buckle (in Alcozar it was called herbilla) of the belt.

In times when the motto "spare the rod and spoil the child" prevailed, the boys had no alternative but to flee quickly and escape when their father threatened to take out his belt.

A Celebratory Special

It’s not often the morning news calls for a proper celebration — but today does. After 16 years, Viktor Orbán is out in Hungary — a moment that will echo far beyond its borders. Not exactly the outcome hoped for by Mr Trump and Putin, but a clear win for democracy, human rights, the EU, and — importantly — Ukraine. If ever there was a reason to tip a beret, this is it.

I’d have loved to celebrate with Hungarian-made berets, but the Serbian-made Grof berets are a very достойная stand-in — and more than worthy of the occasion.

So let’s mark the moment properly: for a very limited time, 50% off all Universel, De Luxe, and De Luxe Ardennais models.

A small nod to big changes — and a fine excuse to top things off in style.