Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Back to School - Most Stylish Films

The American Films -

Laura, with Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews

The Thomas Crown Affair, with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway

Bonnie and Clyde, with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty

The Hunger, with Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie

American Gigolo, with Richard Gere and Lauren Hutton

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, with Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman

Charade, with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant

Arabesque, with Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck

Mahogany, with Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams

The Eyes of Laura Mars, with Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones

Shanghai Express, with Marlene Deitrich and Anna May Wong

The Foreign Films -

Breathless, with Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seburg

Purple Noon, with Alain Delon

La Dolce Vita, with Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, and Anouk Aimee

8 ½, with Marcello Mastroianni

The Leopard, with Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, and Alain Delon

In The Mood For Love, with Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chui Wai

A Death in Venice, with Dirk Bogarde

Blowup, with David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave

Belle du Jour, with Catherine Deneuve

Last Year at Marienbad

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Everyone's Favorite Sister


Sister Parish was an American interior decorator and socialite. She was the first interior designer brought in to decorate the Kennedy White House. Parish's influence can still be seen, particularly in the Family Dining Room and Yellow Oval Room.

A stately and occasionally eccentric white-haired lady, Parish was the design partner of Albert Hadley, a Tennessee-born decorator, with whom she co-founded Parish-Hadley Associates in 1962. Parish was known for her homey, cluttered traditionalism and passion for patchwork quilts, painted furniture, and red-lacquer secretaries.

She was partial to the understated English country house look, and her combinations of Colefax and Fowler chintzes, overstuffed armchairs, and brocade sofas with such unexpected items as patchwork quilts, four-poster beds, knitted throws, and rag rugs led to her being credited with ushering in what became known as American country style during the 1960s.