UPDATE: The viral photographs of Sélika set me hunting through archives and circuses from St Petersburg to Paris to uncover the lives of elusive women who were celebrated artistes, survivors, and scapegoats of the nineteenth century. I’m telling their stories now in Amazons of Paris. You can sign up here for more information and …
Continue reading “Everything I Don’t Know About Selika Lazevski”
I’ve been reading beautifully illustrated books about horses all my life and in the last twelve years I’ve trawled all sorts of academic articles and image libraries, so it’s always delightful to find an image I’ve never seen before. The Palazzo Pitti in Florence just opened an exhibit called Leopoldo de’ Medici: Prince of the …
Continue reading “Rapunzel Horses – the hot accessory of Early Modern Europe?”
Berlin Fashion Week starts today, just to get the edge of New York, Paris, London and Milan. I suggest accessorising with a horse, as this Italian model has done.
I enjoyed talking about the history of sidesaddle on Countryfile – it was my first experience of TV and everyone was incredibly friendly and easygoing. We did a few takes of different parts of the interview and it was hard to know whether to embellish what I’d said each time or to say the same …
Continue reading “A (Not So) Short History of Women Riding Astride”
Hello folks, I’m still here! I’ve been busy writing articles and launching the book so I left the DVD extras to do my blogging work for me. I’m easing back into the daily stuff now, and have a few posts lined up. I’ve almost finished reading Donna Landry’s Noble Brutes: How Eastern Horses Transformed English …
My spies have been on the look-out in Vienna: Translation: “I don’t want a dress, I want a pony!” (thanks to James Kennaway for this) Street art from Madeleine Berkhemer, spotted by Sarah Everts. And more unusual street art captured by Michael Scott Moore.
Martha Sitwell in October’s Tatler sporting a very nice tweed habit with full-on leg o’mutton sleeves and a purple bowler. Here’s Martha hunting side-saddle in bottle green and a top hat. If I read the Tatler page correctly, she has a new line of side-saddle riding habits called Sitwell and Whippit but I can’t find …
An escaped German circus pony attempts to board a tram. A riding corset from the 1870s – you see how Skittles managed that waist. A new anti-slaughter feature film called Saving America’s Horses is underway in the USA, while a new government report looking at the negative impact of the effective ban on horse slaughter …
Thank you to Susan for sending me a link to this piece on horse prints in fashion at Style Bubble. Roo shared this, er, fascinating set of what you might call outsider art portraits of horses smoking cigarettes, for sale now on Craigslist New Orleans. Click now before they’re sold. Ed Ward let me know …
