Black Swan

I finally got to see the film "Black Swan" the other day, starring Natalie Portman. A lot of people had mixed reviews of the film and I was interested to see what my reaction was to it. I'd heard that it was quite dark, but I wasn't expecting a psychological thriller! Portman plays a perfectionist ballet dancer who wins the star position as the Queen in Swan Lake. Her hallucinations and reality become blurred as she slowly becomes more demented and paranoid about her position being taken by a more earthy character, played amazingly by Mila Kunis. This is not helped by having an overbearing mother, also brilliantly played by Barbara Hershey.

Needless to say, the costumes were gorgeous and were designed by the design duo Rodarte. Their collections are often Gothic and dark, inspired by Japanese horror movies (see below), but I was surprised at how conventional the ballet costumes were. This is interestingly discussed in an article by Raquel Laneri who feels that too much hype was made over the costumes.

Patchwork Passion

I was interested to see Rodarte's 2011 fall collection was heavily inspired by the American Plains with silk gowns printed with a wheat field along the hem and ankle-grazing prairie coats in shades of barley. The sister design team's signature style is a devotion to craft and they had quite a few pieces that were quilted and appliqued, all by hand, as were the wool and mohair sweater designs. I'm looking forward to getting back to Tokyo and playing some more quilting ideas as well as with ideas for patchwork kimono clutch bags.....