I Sea Stripes on Holidays

I Sea Stripes on Holidays

I Sea Stripes on Holidays

The Last Post

Well, the last post for this year, that is... I Sea Stripes is going on summer holidays, joining Santa at a warm Waiheke beach.

To keep the project going, interesting, funny and sexy pictures from the archives will be posted in my absence!

Enjoy your Christmas and best stripes for the New Year!

Rafael Alberti

Rafael Alberti Merello (1902 - 1999) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. Alberti published his first books of poetry towards the end of the 1920s: Marinero en tierra ('Sailor on Dry Land', 1925), La Amante ('The Mistress', 1926) and El alba del alhelí ('The Dawn of the Wallflower', 1927). 

During the 1930s Alberti's work became overtly political, beginning with Con los zapatos puestos tengo que morir ('I Have to Die Wearing my Own Shoes', 1930). The establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931 pushed Alberti towards Marxism and he joined the Communist Party of Spain. His poetry from this militant period is collected in Consignas ('Orders', 1933), Un fantasma recorre Europa ('A Ghost Stalks Europe', 1933), 13 bandas y 48 estrellas ('13 Stripes and 48 Stars', 1936) and El poeta en la calle ('Poet in the Street', 1938).

A Loyalist in the Spanish Civil War, Alberti fled to Argentina following the victory of Franco in 1939. Here he continued writing and painting. His work in exile is full of nostalgia for Spain, notably the poetry collection Entre el clavel y la espada ('Between Carnation and Sword', 1941). He also published collections inspired by various themes, including painting (A la pintura ('On Painting', 1945))--Alberti had briefly been a painter before turning to writing--and the sea (Pleamar ('High Tide', 1944), Oda marítima ('Maritime Ode', 1953)). His autobiography, La arboleda perdida ('The Lost Grove') was published in 1942.

After living in various European cities, including Paris and Rome, he returned to Spain in 1977. Shortly after his return Alberti was elected deputy for Cadiz in the constituent Congress of the Spanish parliament on the Communist Party Ticket.

In 1983, he was awarded the Premio Cervantes, the Spanish literary world's highest honour. He was also awarded Lenin Peace Prize for the year 1964 and Laureate Of The International Botev Prize in 1981. He died at the age of 96 from a lung ailment. He was married to the writer María Teresa León.

Pat Matheny

Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny (1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer.

One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, post-bop, latin jazz and jazz fusion. Pat Metheny has three gold albums and 17 Grammy Awards. He is the brother of jazz flugelhornist and journalist Mike Metheny.

Metheny's versatility is almost nearly without peer on any instrument. Over the years, he has performed with artists as diverse as Steve Reich to Ornette Coleman to Herbie Hancock to Jim Hall to Milton Nascimento to David Bowie. He has been part of a writing team with keyboardist Lyle Mays for more than twenty years - an association that has been compared to the Lennon/McCartney and Ellington/Strayhorn partnerships by critics and listeners alike. Metheny’s body of work includes compositions for solo guitar, small ensembles, electric and acoustic instruments, large orchestras, and ballet pieces, with settings ranging from modern jazz to rock to classical.

Thanks, 'Frenchie'

Reds

 

Mama Michelle Phillips

Michelle Phillips (1944) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She gained fame as a member of the 1960s group The Mamas & the Papas, and is the last surviving original member of the group.

While a member of The Mamas & the Papas, Phillips co-wrote some of the band's hits, including "Creeque Alley" and "California Dreamin'". During 1970, Phillips sang backup vocals on a Leonard Cohen tour. That year, Phillips married actor Dennis Hopper. The marriage lasted eight days. 

In 1986, she wrote an autobiography, California Dreamin': The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas, released just weeks after her former husband John Phillips' autobiography Papa John. In it Phillips describes such events as the first meeting between her and fellow Mama, Cass Elliot, winning 17 straight shoots at a crap table in the Bahamas when the band was broke and could not afford plane fare back to the United States, and how her writing credit on "California Dreamin'", which still nets her royalties, was "the best wake-up call" she ever had (she was asleep in a New York Hotel room when her then husband John Phillips woke her up to help him finish a new song he was writing).

KT Tunstall

Kate Victoria Tunstall, better known as KT Tunstall is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. She broke into the public eye with a live solo performance of her song "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on Later... with Jools Holland. 

KT Tunstall was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to a half-Chinese, half-Scottish mother and an Irish father, and was adopted 18 days later by English parents who lived in St Andrews, Scotland. Her adoptive parents had no interest in music and owned no records—the only tape her father owned was a comedy recording by mathematician and musical satirist Tom Lehrer.

Tunstall grew up in St Andrews, a town in Fife, attending Lawhead Primary, then Dundee High School and Madras College in St. Andrews, but spending her last year of high school in New England at the Kent School, a selective prep school in Kent, Connecticut.

After school, having learned the piano, flute, and guitar, she left her native St Andrews to take up a scholarship at Kent School in Connecticut, New England, where she formed her first band, The Happy Campers.

She spent time busking on Church Street in Burlington, Vermont, and at a commune in rural Vermont.  She has said that: "...My earliest memories are Californian...", attributed to a sabbatical that her father took at UCLA in 1979.

She is influenced by David Bowie, Patti Smith, The Velvet Underground, Billie Holiday, Joni Mitchell, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.

Marilyn Monroe - Striped

The photographic journey of Marilyn Monroe begins with those by Bill Carroll, who captured the image of a beautiful 19 year old girl, dreaming of stardom on a sunny beach in California. The pure innocence and simplicity in these portraits present us with an era long gone by. 

The legendary photographer of the stars, Bruno Bernard of Bernard of Hollywood™. His many photographs of Norma Jeane to Marilyn Monroe capture the dramatic metamorphosis of this aspiring model into the world’s most provocative legend.

Gypset

I found this book by accident, going through my local library and if it wasn't for it's sick title and the author's Texas-sized ego, it would be a fantastic read.

Gypsetters are artists, surfers, designers, and bon vivants who live and work around the globe, from Jose Ignacio, Uruguay and Ibiza, Spain, to Montauk, New York. Gypset Style explores the unconventional, wanderlust lives of these high-low cultural nomads and the bohemian enclaves they inhabit, as well as their counterculture forbears, such as the Victorian explorers, the Lost Generation, the Beatniks, and the hippies. And along the way, author Julia Chaplin looks back at quintessential gypsy boho moments in social history - according to the publisher.

Author Julia Chaplin

Chaplin finds some very interesting characters, living their dreams to the max and she wholesales in fantastic ideas about how and where to live the perfect life. Great pictures, inspiring people, showing that everything you believe in is possible...

What I don't like is the title: the fusion of 'gypsy' and 'jet-set'. Chaplin refers to Gypsies (Rromani) as the ultimate bohemians, people full of wanderlust, happy wandering people - living the free life.

You don't need to be an Einstein or a Rromani scholar like Ian Hancock to come up with a comment like this on Amazon's book review.

The people Chaplin writes about couldn't be further removed from the gypsies she romantically associates with (but yes, she is a good advocate for the striped shirt...).  

When Pataugas meets Jean Paul Gaultier

French fashion shoe emporium Pataugus joined forces with Jean Paul Gaultier, like everyone else in the fashion, furniture and design business, it seems... 

Great video though, of an encounter between Pataugas shoes and a marinière by J.P.G. 

Picasso (3)

Following the previous post showing photographs of Picasso with his marinière, here are two of his lesser known paintings, showing painters wearing a marinière. 

They are part of "The Painter and his Model" series, painted in 1970. 

Picasso (2)

I wrote about Picasso before, likely the best known wearer of Breton shirts and some of the pictures depicting the master in a marinière will be as recognizable 'Picasso' as any of his artworks. 

The pictures posted here are not as well known: photographs by Edward Quinn, the chronicler of the 1950's-70's Côte d'Azur, showing Picasso at home an at work. 

Go in Style - Get Your Own!

Get your own, brand new Soul-of-the-Sea-Shirt in 100% cotton, now with a genuine and original Cinese Red Scarf @ $32.00 here:

PRC Shirt and Red Scarf

XL XXL

Chinese size XXL = European size L/XL; Chinese size XL = European size Medium!

Sinny

From the most beautiful photo-site on the web http://heroines.tumblr.com/page/31 comes this picture and story: 

Hi my name is Sinny and this is me after a couple of months of chemotherapy, I had to endure the fall of my hair and the constant pain and with everything it was happening to me I made my life as normal as possible, I’m a cancer survivor, I was 17 years old when I was diagnosed with Lymphoma Hodgkin, luckily in its first stage, the process lasted a whole year, ‘til I was 19 years old, because of illness I can’t go to college when I corresponded, but now I’m totally healthy and I can go to college, I begin next month my studies of Cinematography and audiovisuals. I feel happy despite all the proof that I’ve had to approve.
Good luck to you, Sinny!

Japan's Girl Sailors

Google something like "Japanese Girl Sailor" and you'll get an overdose of semi-nude Japanese girls in striped tops and smocks. It's only my guess whether they pose for Japanese fetishists or as an export commodity. 

The origins are easy to trace: school uniforms. Japan introduced school uniforms in the late 19th century and today, school uniforms are almost universal in the Japanese public and private school systems. They are also used in some women's colleges. The Japanese word for this type of uniform is seifuku (制服).

Most uniforms are based on the traditional sailors outfit.

'Le Male terrible' - Underground

#2 in Jean Paul Gaultier's video campaign for Le Male Terrible.

Waris Singh Ahluwalia (वारिस सिंह अहलुवालिया) in Stripes

Waris Singh Ahluwalia (वारिस सिंह अहलुवालिया); b. Amritsar, Punjab, India, 1975) is an American Sikh jewelry designer and actor. 

Waris immigrated with his family to the US at the age of five, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He is based in New York City but has also lived in LA and travels frequently to Italy, Japan and Rajasthan, India, where most of his jewelry is made. He sells his jewelry through his company, House of Waris, and has collaborated with the fashion designer Benjamin Cho. House of Waris came into being after the owners of Maxfield's in LA noticed Waris's elaborate diamond rings and placed a large order, which sold out.

In addition to his work in jewelry, he has had a number of small roles in films, most notably by those of his friend Wes Anderson, and in commercials.

The Terrible Night Stripe Tribe

Jean Paul Gaultier continues to find new avenues for his sailor striped theme: Le Male Terrible is a fragrance for men, a new fragrance introduced in 2010. The nose behind this fragrance is Aurelien Guichard. Top notes are grapefruit and pink pepper; middle notes are lavender and vetyver; base notes are amber and vanille.

The introduction of his new perfume goes with some beautiful video clips - sailor striped overtones, of course. 

New Navy Shirts Are In!

I am very happy to announce that they are in, finally: the long sleeved striped shirts of the Chinese peoples Army (Navy)! 

Not speaking Chinese, obscure addresses of old-time communist uniform factories, the unavailability of Paypal and various problems with customs have all been overcome - they are here for sale!

This marinière, or "Soul of the Sea Shirt" in Chinese, or haihun shan, or 海魂衫, is big in popular street- and underground culture in China.  

For decades it was just the standard issue undershirt for sailors and seamen, but over the years it has evolved into a fashion/youth culture phenomenon, thanks to rock stars like He Yong and Zhang Chu, counter-fashion magazines and the film industry.

I stock a number of these Soul of the sea shirts in XL and XXL (that's what it says on the label; in reality it's more like M-L and L-XL). 


Get your own, brand new Haihun Shan in 100% cotton @ $28.50 here:

and also still available, the short sleeved Chinese People Navy T-Shirt @ $23.50.