Mademoiselle Coco's Apartment at 31 rue Cambon

This is bananas.  How did I not know about the Coco Mademoiselle website with behind the scenes tour of Chanel's legendary apartment?  I really should be quite ashamed of myself.

The mini-movie shot by Joe Wright (director of Atonement) and starring Keira Knightley is a visual delight:



Go visit the website and virtually walk up the famed mirrored staircase, gaze up at the custom crystal chandeliers with dangling 5s, Gs, and interlocking Cs, and then watch behind the scenes videos of the creation of the movie/advertisement -- they tour the apartment, visit the shop and shoot at the gorgeous Palais de Tokyo!

The apartment at 31 rue Cambon was used to receive journalists, distinguished guests and many lovers. It was also her favorite place to find inspiration. When she arrived at the apartment, one of the shop girls was tasked with perfuming the entrance and staircase with Chanel No. 5!

Adaptive Reuse: Colorado National Bank in Downtown Denver to Become Hotel

I have always been a fan of adaptive reuse.  Adaptive reuse, you say?  Adaptive reuse is the practice of taking a building or structure that has outlived its original purpose and converting its use while retaining their historic features.  A rundown church can become a restaurant, or an old factory can be converted into loft apartments, for example.

So I am soooo excited that a developer purchased the Colorado National Bank Building in downtown Denver with plans to convert it into a hotel!  Click here to see a Flickr slideshow tour of the bank building — my imagination is already running wild with ideas!

I LOVE Neoclassical-style architecture and feel that it works with a wide range of styles, from modern to, well, Neoclassical.  I hope the keep the old vault and safe deposit boxes intact and use them as a lounge, humidor, private club, etc!

John Prieto | The Denver Post


I have always been a fan of adaptive reuse.  Adaptive reuse, you say?  Adaptive reuse is the practice of taking a building or structure that has outlived its original purpose and converting its use while retaining their historic features.  A rundown church can become a restaurant, or an old factory can be converted into loft apartments, for example.

So I am soooo excited that a developer purchased the Colorado National Bank Building in downtown Denver with plans to convert it into a hotel! Click here to see a Flickr slideshow tour of the bank building — my imagination is already running wild with ideas!

I LOVE Neoclassical-style architecture and feel that it works with a wide range of styles, from modern to, well, Neoclassical.  I hope the keep the old vault and safe deposit boxes intact and use them as a lounge, humidor, private club, etc!

{click image to enlarge}

all images from flickr set unless otherwise noted

design babylon dances with the green fairy {that's absinthe, don't ya know?}

I love Halloween -- who doesn't love the chance to dress up and "be" someone else for the night?  However, I am NOT a fan of blood and guts and scaring the beejeezus out of myself.  I am attending a party at a downtown loft and the hosts request that guests bring a bottle or an app.  As I always strive to be the best guest {or host} possible, I immediately hit the internet to find a totally unique and fun cocktail to bring.  Why bring a bottle when you can bring a cocktail, n'est ce pas?

After seeing more than one recipe for "bloody eyeball punch" or "vampire-tinis," I decided to be a bit more creative and unexpected.  Did you know that Absinthe is legal again in the US?  Neither did I until I did some digging.  I also found this fab video that tells the story of Absinthe interspersed with historical images and artwork related to the Fée Verte:





Lucid Absinthe has a great website that includes an amazing selection of cocktails, new and old, that are said to release the muse in you.  I have decided to go with the Lucid Cooler, but as it is Halloween, I think I'm going to call it the Green Goblin.....

lucid cooler

Lucid Cooler {aka Green Goblin}

2 oz Lucid Absinthe

1 oz St Germain Liqueur

1 oz Simple Syrup

1 oz Fresh Lime Juice

1 oz Ginger Ale

4 Fresh Basil Leaves

5 Fresh Grapes

Muddle the basil leaves with simple syrup

Add ice, absinthe, St. Germain, fresh lime, ginger ale

Garnish with 5 grapes

Have a fabulous Halloween kiddies, hope it's full of more treats than tricks {or tricks than treats, whatever your preference}!

sound like a designer: enfilade

Have you ever been around a designer, or a designer-type when they start throwing around words like “enfilade” “en suite,” “bobéche” or the like?  Did you feel like a cartoon character with a huge question mark floating over your head?  Have no fear, db is going to teach you about the secret language of designers through a new series called “Sound Like a Designer.”  The first term in the series?  Enfilade.

Enfilade

Mannheim Palace in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

the palace of westminster

Vogue Living, Fall/Winter 2007 |Port Eliot, Cornwall, England | Photographed by Francois Halard

Pronounced “on fee LAHD,” the term refers to a straight, axial relationship between rooms.  Essentially, rooms are  aligned one after another through connecting doorways.  The open doorways draw the eye through the attached rooms, creating a sense of discovery as you progress. The sequence of the rooms  typically goes from the most public to the most private.

The layout became popular in grand European palaces during the Baroque period and continues to be popular today.  In a Baroque palace, access down an enfilade of state rooms was restricted by rank, so if you ranked pretty low on the totem pole at court, you weren’t going to get too far down the progression of rooms.  With, or without, an escort.  The end of an enfilade was usually a bedroom, an intimate cabinet or a boudoir.

The usefulness of the layout is not restricted only to grand homes and palaces, an enfilade of rooms is also put to good use in small spaces as it eliminates the need for hallways.  Parisian and pre-war NYC apartments often feature enfilades.

Farrow and Ball: The Art of Color | designer Sallie Giordano | Photographed by Edward Addeo

image from mrs. blandings

photo from mrs. blandings

design: bosworth hoedemaker

house beautiful | design: meg braff

house beautiful | photo: don freeman

house beautiful | design: william irvine

*le sigh*: Coco Avant Chanel

Quand j'ai vu cette vidéo, il a été le coup de foudre.

Loosely translated, "when I saw this video it was love at first sight."



Ah, Coco -- she is so inspiring!  She blazed her own path to become the icon she is today and I cannot wait to see this film!

The film focuses on Gabrielle Chanel's late 20s -- her work as a seamstress and cabaret singer to her life as a kept mistress of wealthy playboy Etienne Balsan and her fling with a British industrialist Arthur “Boy” Capel, all the while developing her signature style that became de rigeur for the modern woman of the 20th century.

Amy Larocca wrote a fab article for New York Magazine about the movie, Audrey Tatou and Coco Chanel herself:

Chanel was not a kind or an adorable or a particularly well-loved woman. She was, to put it mildly, the anti-Amélie. And it sometimes seemed that her main objective in designing was to point out that anyone wearing the lavish, feathered fashions of the day was basically kind of dim. “She was very severe to women, to people in general,” Tautou says. “You could even say she was misogyne.”

The world had been tough to Chanel, and Chanel was tough right back. It was a lot of work being Coco, even more so in the overwrought and seriously constricting clothes of turn-of-the-century France. “They were like a little jail,” Tautou says, crossing her tiny legs up into her chair. “You don’t breathe; you can’t move. I think she wanted so much to have the same freedom as a man, and the only thing she could start with was the freedom of movement.” Her clothes offered that, although the film suggests that this was not a grand feminist gesture, as one might anticipate from one of the first women to establish her own eponymous Parisian house, but rather a personal vendetta for something like equality, as if the wearing of trousers and tweeds could somehow lessen the humiliation of her dependence on men.

Misogyne or no, I still want to emulate Mademoiselle Chanel's style.

“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.” - Coco Chanel