Spain Snapshots

1. Visiting Parc Guell in Barcelona

2. View from Montjuic in Barcelona

3. Paella

4. Matador gets hit at the bull-fighting

5. Surprise birthday treats from my Air B & B host in Barcelona

6. Lilac Architecture

7. Parque del Retiro

Tranoi NY FW '15

Emerging designers are the underlying pulse of the fashion industry. The "underground" community of hungry designers brings a refreshing new wave of design aesthetics and undiscovered "it" brands. We all know, love and respect the major labels, Prada, Chanel and Celine are some of my personal favorites, but they too were once just budding names breaking in with the desire for their collections to move, and dress, the world. Tranoi NY, an international fashion trade show, provides a platform for brands within the emerging design community to make a name for themselves.

Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic

Tonight, I finally made my way to the Kehinde Wiley exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. It's the latest, talk-of-the-town installation and well, that's because it's brilliant. It is Wiley's signature to utilize traditional European portraiture to portray conventional images of black men and women and his "A New Republic" exhibit is right on time. In an age of the perpetual propagation of a harsh and darkened black people (the other darkened), Wiley's response to the biases on race, class and gender is a unique medium that paints (pun intended) a much brighter and entitled image than the prejudicial mainstream. 

Wiley's works juxtapose seemingly innocent images of black men and, a recent addition to his works, women onto grandiose oil canvas paintings, gold leaf mounts and even stained glass with each piece intricately detailed down to the delicate outline around the flowers. He takes care to capture his subjects in their natural element whether they are wearing sundresses and suits or sneakers and a hoody (hoodies up). With the rarity of suit-wearing, sister-hugging, home-relaxing, family-loving, and everyday, beautiful black individuals portrayed as such in the media, Wiley's exhibit shifts the focus of black culture that way via his magnificent artistic talents. Ain't black beautiful? 

Oh, P.S. I snuck in some pics of the other great works I checked out in the BK Museum tonight. 

Zuhair Murad Fall 2015

There are some collections that you just KNOW the fate of: flowing effortlessly on the bodies of make-you-want-to-work-out celebrities all up and down a red carpet. Grammys, Oscars...and you can probably guess a famous face or two who will be wearing them (or at least look damn good in it). Zuhair Murad's Fall 2015 collection is the epitome of dresses and designs that the average person would be hard pressed to find an occasion for (save weddings, and it must be a special one at that - like your own). Some of his form-fitting and, dare I say, scandalous designs command a double-take to decipher between natural skin and slinky flesh-tone linings while others scream "baddie" with a side of "boss" and the remainder exude modern day elegance.