Sunday, April 6, 2008

inspiration: marie antoinette & ladurée

macaroon photo from laduree
other photos: delphine



I'm usually not one for watching movies again and again (I leave that to my four-year-old). However, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Sofia Coppola's amazing film, Marie Antoinette, and have watched it dozens of times. Besides being visually stunning, the story is fascinating and heartbreaking. The underlying social commentary about the dangers of a life of excess, and the absurdity of it all, resonated with me. I live in an alternate universe called Southern California, and I could see a lot of my neighbors fitting in quite swimmingly at Versailles. Crazy but true, when J and I saw the movie at the theater, three "Orange County" cougars were seated behind us. Upon leaving the theater they were discussing how "relieved" they are that poor Marie escaped. Um...really? J and I could not believe what we were hearing, so we basically stalked them to their Range Rovers to make sure our ears had not deceived us. None of the three of them had any idea what really happened to Marie Antoinette. They went on to discuss how "scary those peasants were" and how glad they are that Marie Antoinette and her husband Louis were spared the violence. They also mentioned how they are so happy that "society has evolved" and, of course, how beautiful all the shoes in the movie were. (Though I can't really fault them for noticing how spectacular the costumes are in this film). Wow. Welcome to So. Cal, huh?

The candy color palette of the film is so FUN! The letterpress world seems stuck in a blah pastel nightmare, doesn't it? I tried to bring some of the upbeat colors into our current Marine Life collection (see the pink & turquoise jellyfish!). I heard somewhere that Sofia Coppola was inspired by one of my very favorite things: Ladurée's pretty macarons. My mom used to take me there for tea and macarons when I was a little girl and I have always been fascinated by the Parisian patisserie. When I was in Paris last October I snuck a few shots of the fabled teahouse display window between bites of pistachio macarons.

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