The Vibrant World of Russian Folk Art

Russian Folk Art gives us an insight into the ideologies and history of Russian culture. Russia is well known for its contributions to folk art, the most widely recognised being Matryoshka’s (or Nesting Dolls), which are signature figures of Russian art and craft. However, Russian folk art features a variety of characterful crafts, such as embroidery, lace-making, painting, prints and beading – all of which are of interest to us at Playful Promises! Their crafts are known for being whimsical, vibrant and surreal.

Our Playful Promises Sasha set, inspired by Russian Folk Art

If you hadn’t already noticed, unique florals are kind of “our thing” at PP, and naturally Russia’s vibrant paintings of flora are what we’ve looked to for inspiration behind our Sasha set. Russia has many different types of painting and craft techniques which include florals. One of which being Khokloma, which originated in the 17th century in the Nizhni Novgorod province, which at the time was just recovering from the damage caused by the Mongol invasion. Here, surrounded by woodland, there was an abundance of wood and many began to master the art of wood-work. The crafts were then varnished and decorated in gold and painted with floral patterns.

Khokloma art generally features red, gold and black – and these colours bear a profound symbolism for the decoration of churches, as well as decoration on eating utensils used in monasteries and nunneries. The red symbolises beauty, the gold heavenly light and the black signified the cleansing of the human soul. The “grass-leaves” style of painting featured in Khokloma is inspired by the rural-living folk artists of Russia, as well as rooted in folklore. The golden leaves and flowers are meant to signify a happy life and bring good fortune.

Gorodets painting, another art form which originated from the Nizhni Novgorod region, in the town of Gorodets. Gorodets painting is manifested by it's freehand paint brush depictions of horses, roosters and flora,  and it's graphic black outlines and intense bright colours. Another notable feature of Gorodets painting is that they do not follow the laws of perspective and therefore seem surreal with giant flowers surrounding smaller figurines. The themes are light and carefree, and therefore the technique is also known as naïve art, because of the childlike quality to them.

Playful Promises Sasha set with floral Gorodets pattern

Our Sasha collection takes inspiration from the vibrant, positive energy from the Russian countryside, using surreal and idealistic florals to make you feel bright and happy when you put your pants on in the morning! Our exclusive and designed in-house digital print is slightly modernised and symmetrical for a Playful Promises twist, paired with black mesh and a classic retro silhouette. To finish off the set, a little light blue bow contrasts against the black and compliments the floral design. This set is inspired by the classic, Russian heritage yet updated for a modern-day folktale. 

References:

http://www.dreamstime.com/photos-images/folklore-pattern-gorodets-painting-russia.html

http://www.artrusse.ca/khokhloma_en.htm

http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/khokhloma/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore_of_Russia

http://www.russia-ic.com/culture_art/visual_arts/970/#.Vv1LyfkrLcs

The Legend of the Mermaid

Seashell detail featured in our Ada set

Mermaids can be found in legends across the world dating back to around 2000 B.C. While many are familiar with Disney’s lighthearted production of the Little Mermaid, most underwater spirits in mystical folk tales were described not only as beautiful and enchanting, but also dangerous and murderous. These sirens of the ocean have always been portrayed with quite a contradictory personality: while on one hand they were often described as gorgeous maidens tempting lonely sailors at sea, they were also often portrayed as beasts drowning men in the depths of the deep black ocean. The conflicting personality of the mermaid has allowed her to remain intriguing still today.

One well known tale of the seductive deception of the mermaid is the Greek myth of Ulysses and the Sirens. Before setting sail back home to Greece, Ulysses was warned by a prophetess Circe about the beautiful but deadly song of the sirens that was known to sweetly lure sailors into the ocean to drown. When passing through the waters that these mermaidens inhabited, Ulysses ordered his crew to put wax in their ears so that they would not be able to hear the deadly song. Ulysses, wanting to hear the song himself without being influenced to jump to his death, had his crew tie him to a mast and keep him there, though he was driven to insanity begged to be released to them once he heard their beautiful song. 

The most typical storyline of a mermaid folklore across all culture involves a mermaid falling in love with a young man. If the man accepts her, she drags him down to his death in the sea, in some stories out of malice and in others simply because she forgets that mortals cannot live underwater. On the other hand if the man rejects her love, she would simply kill him. Regardless of the choice the man makes, it seems that the enchanting beauty of the legendary mermaids resulted in death for her unfortunate victim of attraction either way.

A somewhat happier example of this type of story is the Cornish legend of a mysterious woman in church one day who attracts the attention of all the young men, specifically a Mathey Trewella. At the end of the service, she lures Mathey towards the end of the cliffs at the edge of town and he is never seen again. Years later, a Cornish sailor from this town is greeted by a mermaid who sweetly asks him to remove the anchor from the entrance of her home, as it is blocking her on her way back to see her husband, Mathey Trewella. The sailor returns home startled, as mermaids were also a sign of unfortunate events to come, and puts up a mermaid figure to honor Mathey’s fate.

While marine biology was still in its infancy during the Age of Exploration, sightings of these beautiful creatures throughout Age of Exploration was quite common. In 1614 John Smith, known as the love of Pocahontas, reported spotting a lovely sea maiden “swimming about with all possible grace” and noted that “her long green hair imparted to her an original character that was by no means unattractive”.  Christopher Columbus also mentioned having seen three mermaids frolicking on the coast of Haiti during his seafaring journeys.

While today’s stories describe merfolk as a bit more gentle than the manipulative maidens of old tales, many depictions, like the mermaids from Disney’s 1953 Peter Pan, still have quite a bit of sass and seduction. Additionally, the most recent film from the Pirates of the Caribbean series in 2015 depicts a group of mermaids as their classic, seductive, murderous selves, luring pirates into the ocean to drown.

Our Ada collection draws inspiration from the enchanting sensuality of the mermaid legends with a modern retro twist. The peach satin cup is delicately embroidered to highlight the shell shape of the bra and features a delicate bow at center front. A sheer mesh above the lower shell cup adds a beautiful enticement to the bra. The peach satin brief is shaped into a shell on the front panel, topped with embroidery to pick out the details. The rest of the brief is comprised of sheer show-off mesh and a matching centre bow. This set allows the modern enchantress to show off her elegance and charm, taking a page out of the legendary mermaids’ book of seduction.

- Kristi

References:

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/fantastically-wrong-strange-murderous-sometimes-sexy-history-mermaid/

http://www.livescience.com/39882-mermaid.html

http://www.beautiful-mermaid-art.com/cornish-folk-tales.html

http://www.beautiful-mermaid-art.com/mermaid-story.html

http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/mermaid0/info/info.html

The Life of Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo is one of the few female artists to permeate the mainstream, in an industry dominated by men. She’s inspired millions, including us, as we took inspiration for our AW’15 collection from her life and work – rich colours and floral prints, snakes and palms. However, as colourful as she appeared, she was an uncompromising symbol for women of all backgrounds and abilities.

An outspoken leftist in a world of oppression, Kahlo used her art to question beauty ideals, female sexuality, gender inequalities and physical limitations. Her story is a harsh and painful one, and she dealt with her grief and suffering in the only way she could – painting.

Frida contracted polio at the age of 6, resulting in her right leg being thinner than her left. Living with this disability would have been difficult enough, but in 1925 at age 18, her life was put on hold after a serious bus accident. Impaled by a handrail, her spinal column, collarbone, pelvis, right leg, some ribs and a foot were broken, leaving Doctors to question whether she would live, let alone walk again.

It couldn’t have come at a worse time; in 1922 she was one of only 35 girls to be admitted to one of Mexico’s premier schools, Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, to study to become a doctor. Although her Mother hadn’t supported her decision to get an education, her Father encouraged it.

With her dreams and body crushed, Kahlo spent three months in a full body cast, and had over 30 surgeries and relapses of extreme pain throughout her life. Her abdomen and uterus had also been pierced by an iron handrail, severely limiting her ability to conceive in the future. After learning this she created a heart-breaking birth certificate for an imaginary son, Leonardo.

You can only imagine the grief and suffering she felt; she began to paint to occupy herself. With little but her imagination and a mirror, she painted self portraits – “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.” Her ability to create so much with just one subject is testament to her skill; of the 140 (at least) paintings she created, 55 are self-portraits.

Using a special easel commissioned by her mother, and borrowed paints and brushes from her father, she completed her first full painting only a year after her accident; “Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress”.

Having already dabbled in politics at her school, becoming a member of a socialist-nationalist group “Los Cachuchas”, Frida picked up her train of thought post-recovery by joining the Young Communist League. Through her connections she met Diego Rivera; “I have suffered two grave accidents in my life: one in which a streetcar knocked me down…the other accident is Diego.”

A renowned muralist, Diego was a popular figure in Mexican art. She showed him four of her paintings, to which he told her she had talent – clearly something else caught his eye as they began a romantic relationship. After 2 years they married in 1929, much to the disapproval of Kahlo’s mother, who described Diego as too old (twice Frida’s age), too fat, a communist and an atheist. Her father was less resistant, seeing Diego as a financial support for his daughter’s medical needs.

Kahlo suffered through various complications and an abortion as a result of her accident, and in 1932 another miscarriage resulted in 13 days of recovery in a Detroit hospital. In “Henry Ford Hospital” she paints herself surrounded by her unborn baby, a medical diagram of the female reproductive system, her broken pelvis and medical machinery. Painted on a sheet of metal, and featuring an industrial background of the Ford Motor Company (the hospital where she lay financed by Henry Ford), it also referenced her political thoughts. Unfortunately this didn’t symbolise the last of her pregnancy issues, nor her hospital trips.

Diego and Frida’s marriage was tumultuous, with both parties having affairs and bad tempers. Kahlo’s tastes ran throughout the gender spectrum, and her lovers included Josephine Baker among others. Rivera tolerated her relationships with women, but men made him jealous, and once he had an affair with her younger sister, Cristina, Frida was furious. She moved to her own apartment and didn’t paint for a year; the next painting being a clearly heart-broken “A Few Small Nips (Passionately in Love)”.

Whilst the pair were married, Diego’s fame and talent often overshadowed Frida’s, however he was supportive and instrumental to her career and development. Her art was often described as a mix of Mexican tradition and surrealism, however she never consider herself the latter: “My paintings are... the frankest expression of myself”.

In 1939 Andre Breton invited her to France to feature in an exhibition, which led to The Louvre purchasing “The Frame”, the first work of a 20th century Mexican artist they had ever displayed.

Throughout the rest of her life Frida continued to align herself politically, entertained various lovers and exhibited her work internationally. She also continued to suffer with various illnesses and pain, eventually dying on the 13th July 1954 at just 47. Diego wrote that the day Frida died was the most tragic day of his life, and that he had realized too late that the most wonderful part of his life had been his love for her.

She was clearly an amazing and inspiring woman, and her work is still just as relevant today.

The History of the Corset

Hi, my name’s Steph and I’m interning at Playful Promises this week! I’m a Costume Design student at UAL, so I thought I’d write a blog post about historical underwear – more specifically, the corset!

When we think of historical corsets today, what comes to mind is the extreme hourglass shape fashionable during the Victorian period. But when did corsets really begin?

The first instances of corsets, or ‘stays’, being used under a bodice can be traced back to the end of 17th century. These were stiffened conical shapes which lifted the bust and shaped the waist. However they were not the restrictive garments we imagine today – women at the time would stitch their stays by hand, and there were no metal eyelets for lacing, so stays could not be laced very tightly or the laboriously stitched together garment would break. 

During the 18th century, stays were laced either at the back or at the front under or over an embroidered stomacher (a stiff panel which attached to the bodice) in a zig-zag shape. In her portrait to the left, Madame de Pompadour wears a stomacher decorated with a line of bows; a look she popularised.

Towards the end of the 18th century, the fashionable waistline moves upwards (think Keira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice), so corsets also change - dresses are looser so the body no longer needs shaping in the same way. The emphasis in this period is on the bust, so cups are built into the corset for the first time, and stiff wooden busks are used to keeps the breasts apart. Below is an example of a corset from 1790.

With the advent of the Victorian period, the waist moves back down and more recognisable corsets come into use. These make use of new inventions – metal eyelets and metal busks which use hooks to allow the corset to be fastened at the front, as well as laced at the back. Criss-cross lacing is introduced, and remains in use today. It is during this period that tight-lacing becomes popular, along with the hourglass figure. Below is an example of a corset from 1864. 

Corsets largely fell out of fashion during the 1920s, as a new "boyish" shape was desired by flappers. They began to come back into popularity in the 1950s in the form of bustiers and girdles like the ones to the right.

Modern designers like Jean Paul Gaultier have revisited the corset in haute couture, and the resurgence of burlesque has ensured that corsets are once again  fashionable and desirable items of lingerie!

Ready to try out corsets for yourself? Our corsets and waspies are designed for the boudoir or as outerwear (rather than waist training corsets, which need to be specially made to safely reduce your waist-line)!

Victorian Spiritualism: Supporters and Sceptics

For this year’s Halloween shoot, we decided to take inspiration from the Victorians, and their strange obsession with the spirits of the dead!

In the previous post we looked at the rise of spiritualism and how it can be considered an important time for women’s rights; this time we'll look at the Spiritualist "celebs" and sceptics.

By the 1860s spiritualism had become a part of British Victorian culture, drawing in devotees all across the social spectrum, from Queen Victoria herself to the poor. There were spiritualist newspapers (The British Spiritualist Telegraph, Medium and Daybreak, Two Worlds and more) and societies (The Spiritualist Association of Great Britain, The Spiritualists’ National Union and more), with London having a great number of societies itself. 

With a little imagination and a repertoire of supernatural skills, mediums became celebrities. It was a calling for the theatrical of nature, with each medium able to channel different entities, each with a distinct personality. They could be aggressive, such as Annie Fairlamb's male spirit, Sam, repeatedly hitting a male guest until he guessed his name correctly. Others were flirtatious, such as Elizabeth d'Esperance's manifestation of Yolande, a girl who kissed and caressed her sitters. 

With the freedom from corsets and such an enclosed space, it was no wonder that these "spirits" were often quite sexual in their interactions; a famous example being the young and pretty Florence Cook and her manifestations of Katie King. A name that had cropped up in various séances up to 20 years prior, Katie King was said to be the daughter of Henry Owen Morgan, a long-dead pirate (who was never said to have a daughter, but would crop up in séances himself to prove this fact). In 1872 the female spirit announced that she would stay with Florence for 3 years, attempting to make herself visible via ectoplasm drawn from Florence's body. Soon Katie was fully formed, and could interact with the living world as an incredibly material form, sitting on laps, touching and on one occasion revealing her naked form. Funnily enough, she looked very similar to Florence, despite the medium being "tied up" inside a cabinet, yet none in Cooks' circle seemed to want proof of the two being separate beings. 

Others were more than dubious that such a flesh-and-blood manifestation could be conjured. On December 9 1873, a skeptical sitter, William Volckman, grabbed "Katie" by the wrist and waist in a fit of anger. Guests wrestled Volckman away, but not without the spirit ripping away a chunk of his beard, which furthered his belief that it was Florence in his grasp. Witnesses claimed that Katie King had vanished into thin air, and Florence was found still bound inside the cabinet. Volckman published his opinion, fueling the critics, while supporters denounced him for breaking the proper etiquette required in a séance; a delicate spiritual balance which could kill the medium. Funnily enough, Volckman was betrothed to another famous medium, Ms Guppy.

Concerned at this bad PR, Florence Cook approached William Crookes, an eminent scientist that would later be knighted for his work. Crookes had already been investigating various mediums and appeared convinced of the reality of the supernatural, but didn't believe all claims from individuals. They began a series of "private séances", with Florence invited to stay at his home for months on end. The idea was that Crookes would be able to witness both Florence and Katie in a room together, without the possibility of accomplices. An idea that was somewhat difficult to prove when Florence's sister, Kate, also lived in the house. Crookes created 55 photographs of Florence and Katie, although only a few remain today. Many of the photographs, as expected of the technology of the era, were poorly shot and lacked detail but did feature two figures, although only one face was in view, the other wrapped in an "ectoplasmic" shroud. 

Despite Crookes' findings, the skepticism grew; it was suggested that the two were having an affair, what with her being a pretty young woman, alone in his house. It's not unlikely, Crookes was clearly enamored with Florence, writing: "Photography was inadequate to depict the perfect beauty of Katie’s face, as words are powerless to describe her charm of manner. Photography may, indeed, give a map of her countenance; but how can it reproduce the brilliant purity of her complexion, or the ever varying expression of her most mobile features?" Bet his wife (expecting her 10th child!) was happy with that.  Did this infatuation allow him to be easily duped, or did he begin to assist in her fraudulence? 

In 1875, Katie announced she would be leaving Florence, and said her final goodbyes. With the spirit gone, there was no need for Florence to continue investigations, and she revealed to Crookes that for two months she had been secretly married to a man named Edward Corner. She left her position as a medium for 6 years, only returning to manifest a new spirit, Marie. Eventually, another dubious sitter, Sir George Sitwell, noticed that the "spirit" wore a corset underneath her robes, grabbed hold of her and pulled aside the curtain covering Florence. An empty chair spelled the end of Florence's career, and she vanished into obscurity. 

William Crookes received overwhelming criticism over his investigations, and soon ceased the research, although he remained a supporter until his death. Despite this, his scientific career was a long and distinguished one, including a knighthood. Shockingly, he wasn't the only logical thinker to be drawn into spiritualism, with another famous supporter being Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a medical man and the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle's wife, Jean, was a medium and he himself supported some outrageous claims, including two young girls who had claimed to photograph the Cottingley Fairies (they were actually paper cut outs). Doyle virtually abandoned Sherlock Holmes, and began writing books on spiritualism instead, clashing with the skeptical Harry Houdini, who argued that all spiritualism "evidence" was just cheap tricks.