FEAST OR FAMINE

  Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon (2018) is the memoir of the 97-year-old New York fashion icon, textile manufacturer, and interior designer.     Iris Apfel (1921-) is a unique woman with an unapologetic way of dressing for herself in her own style. This is not a typical memoir. Instead, it is a colourful book of anecdotes, stories, information, quotes, and advice.    When Iris Barrel married Carl Apfel in 1948, they established an international textile manufacturing company, working on replicating fabrics for the White House for nine American presidents. Retiring from the business in 1992, Iris continued to work in textiles and fashion.    She is well known for layering her clothes, saying ‘More is more, and less is a bore.’ She is also noted for her iconic glasses and her love of colour (‘I never met a colour I didn’t like’). She calls herself ‘the World’s Oldest Living Teenager.’ Her lessons for a long life and energy include ‘having a sense of wonder,...

MARTINA NICOLLS Website Martinasblogs Publications Facebook Paris Website Animal Website SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES    MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author   of:  The Paris Residences of James Joyce   (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Two tapestries – The Bath and The Letter – are on display at the Cluny Museum in Paris.  The Bath (16th century) is a Renaissance wool and silk tapestry made in southern Netherlands. It is of the millefleur type (thousand flowers) – decorated with a profusion of plants and flowers in the background. It shows a young woman bathing among musicians and assistants.  The Letter tapestry was made during the same period as The Bath tapestry, by the same artisans. A woman sits in an armchair decorated with millefleur tapestries. She is spinning wool while a young man presents or reads a letter to her. There is a small dog in the lady’s lap and a cat at her feet. The birds in the foreground include a partridge, a spoonbill, and a bird flying above her. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A M...

The Cluny Museum in Paris, also known as the  MUSÉE NATIONAL DU MOYEN ÂGE –  the Museum of the Middle Ages, currently has an exhibition, from 14 July 2018 to 25 February 2019, called Magical Unicorns. Around the year 1500, the unicorn image was the object of desire and fantasy, seen in art, porcelain, sculptures and tapestries.  The main feature of the exhibition is The Lady and the Unicorn wool and silk tapestries, dated around 1500. The tapestries arrived at the Cluny Museum in Paris in 1882, after being located in 1814 in the Boussac Castle in the French department of Cruese.    Author Tracy Chevalier wrote about the tapestries in her 2005 book called The Lady and the Unicorn. The six tapestries date back to Jean Le Viste, a nobleman of King Charles VII – the time of the crossroads between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.    Jean Le Viste commissioned artist Nicolas des Innocents to design the concept pictures for the large ta...

MARTINA NICOLLS   is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author   of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom   (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author of:-  Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).