Mary Delany's Cut-out Flowers

"I have invented an new way of imitating flowers."

I recently picked up a biography about a remarkable 18th century gentlewoman called Mary Delany who, in 1772, at the late, great age of 72 began to produce the most amazing paper 'mosaicks' of flowers. Noticing the resemblance between the colour of a sheet of pink paper and a geranium petal, Mrs. Delany took up her scissors and began to cut. Upon seeing them, her friend the Duchess of Portland mistook the petals for the real thing, and so began a passion that, by the time failing eyesight forced her to stop in 1782, produced almost 1000 artworks of the most breath-taking and painstaking detail. Colouring and cutting sheets of paper into hundreds of different pieces, she would then glue them to black-painted card to form flowers. Her skill was such that the great eighteenth-century botanist Sir Joseph Banks declared that these collages were ‘the only imitations of nature that he had ever seen from which he could venture to describe botanically any plant without the least fear of committing an error'.

I've made the pictures as big as possible so you can better see the details. Unfortunately, with the passing of time, the glue has also started to show a bit although they are beautiful nonetheless.

All images from the British Museum online archives here, biographic information about Mary Delany here

DIY | Inspiration

Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones actress, in Chanel Resort 2013 dress at the 2012 Emmy Awards. What an interesting skirt to the dress, definitely worth a DIY ; either cut an old skirt up the middle and layer it, or take a billowy fabric and put it on elastic. Add a removable skirt piece over a sift dress and, ta-da, new outfit!

Image from here

H&M Streetstyle

Streetstyle photos of chunky statement necklaces that would definitely be worth a DIY from H&M France shot by Lital Marom. I especially like the one that looks a bit like crocheted see urchins and the  tassels, which a) would be easier to replicate and b) were all over the runway again this season. Tassel up for ship-shape dressing!

Scarf Dress

Thank you Peony Lim for demonstrating a particularly well executed DIY scarf dress. An achingly simply concept that, more often than not, turns out achingly amateurish. You see, in wrapping and knotting a length of material around yourself, it's difficult to make the transition from child-playing-dress-up to outfit-to-be-taken-seriously, let alone seriously enough for NY fashion week. Knotted, belted and casually worn off the shoulder, bravo!