Happy New Year!

Every year my diary gets filled with quotes that I come across during the year that have made me think and that have given me inspiration, peace, faith, happiness and laughter.  I would like to share 2013's entries with you, as I believe words are gifts.  Where the authors are known, I have attributed them, unfortunately not all are........

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind - Shakespeare

Today is a brand new day.  A fresh start.  Replace any negativity with positivity.  Think happy thoughts.  Exercise.  Drink lots of water.  Fill your body with fuel.  Healthy is happy.  Inspire yourself. Create, laugh, play.  Go for a run.  Do some situps.  Give someone a compliment.  Tell yourself you are beautiful.  Spread love.  Be kind and create good karma. Take chances. Experience.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.  - Guillaume

Water is God's tranquilizer - to look at it, to feel it, to drink it.  - Diana Vreeland

Imagine what you will be and it will be so.

Only three things truly matter in life:  how fully you live; how much you love; and how gracefully you're able to let go.

No pleasure without conscience.  No science without humanity.  No religion without sacrifice.  No politics without principle.  No wealth without work.  No knowledge without character.  No commerce without morality.  - Gandhi's Seven Principles

Tomorrow' a new day.

Love cares not about time.

Words are silver, silence is golden.  - Vautrin

Buy less, choose well.  Vivienne Westwood

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.  - Nora Ephron

Trying to be a man is a waste of a woman.

Love is the new black.

Normal gets you nowhere

Still fit into high school earrings - Kimberly Kilroy

Every problem has a creative solution - Donna Karan

I complete me.

You are what you believe.

Details make the design. - Ray Eames

Don't give up what you want most for what you want now.

To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong.  - Joseph Chilton Pearce

When the Gods want to punish you they answer your prayers.

Cinderalla is proof that a new pair of shoes can change your life!

Good artists borrow and great artists steal.  - Picasso

If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. - African proverb

For every bad thing, there's something good.

I'm profoundly optimistic about nothing.  - Francis Bacon

Wishing you a Happy New Year filled with love, laughter, health and inspiration.

Cheers,

Deb xx

New Year's Eve................

Every New Year's Eve, Sydney puts on the most spectacular fireworks display in the world.  They actually have two shows on New Year's Eve - one at 9 p.m. and one at midnight.  This year the event coordinators plan on doing three individual firework displays.  And each year the Sydney fireworks have a theme - this year it is 'Shine.'

Wishing you all a happy and safe New Year's Eve and hoping that something makes you 'shine' tonight........

photo by Deb for From My Files

photo by Deb for From My Files 

photo by Deb for From My Files

(all other photos via Pinterest)

Cheers,

Deb xx

Art imitates life........

I liked the movie American Hustle but I loved, loved, loved the fashion - the 70's never looked so good - well for the ladies anyway.  The references to Halston, Diane von Furstenberg, Gucci (and others) were fabulous.

In the 1950's, before Halston designed couture, he was a hatmaker - most famously known for designing the pillbox hat the Jacqueline Kennedy wore to the presidential inauguration in 1961.  He was also the first major designer to use a synthetic microfibre fabric, invented in Japan, known as ultrasuede - it became his trademark.  He was the designer to the international jetset and listed Bianca Jagger, Lauren Hutton, Liza Minnelli, Anjelica Huston, Lauren Becall, Elizabeth Taylor and others as clients.

Diane von Furstenberg launched the wrap dress in 1972.  The wrap, made of jersey fabric, liberated womens' style and movement around the world.  By 1976 she sold over a million wrap dresses, landing her on the cover of Time magazine.

Vintage Halson ultrasuede

Vintage Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress

Jewelry designer Elsa Peretti wearing Halston

Vintage Halson trench coat

Vintage Halson dress

Bianca Jagger was famous for wearing Halston

Halston and his models

Diane von Furstenberg debuted the wrap dress in 1972

Gucci necklace

Hat by Halston

photos via Pinterest and Tumblr

Cheers,

Deb xx

A Night to Remember........

With New Year's Eve soon upon us, I was thinking about parties.....great parties.......

In 1966, at the Plaza Hotel in NYC, Truman Capote, at the height of his fame (author of Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood) gave the 'party of the century' and it became the pinnacle of New York social history - never to be surpassed.  The final guest list was a mix of New York socialites, Hollywood idols, artists, authors and writers and political powerhouses that included Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow, Johnny Carson, Candice Bergen, Henry Fonda, Kennedys, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Whitneys, Andy Warhol and many others. The guests were instructed to wear masks of only black and white.

It is said that Truman made 500 friends and 15,000 enemies that night.........

Plaza Hotel New York City

Invitation to the Black and White Ball

Truman said the people were the only flowers needed at the ball.

Lee Radziwill - Jacqueline Kennedy's sister.

Interior Designer, Billy Baldwin

Marella and Gianni Agnelli (Fiat magnate)

Henry Fonda and Shirlee Mae Adams

Johnny Carson

Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra

Candice Bergen

Lee Radziwill and Truman Capote

Andy Warhol

Princess Luciana Pignatelli wearing a 60 carat Harry Winston diamond on her forehead

Gloria Guinness

Katharine Graham

Truman Capote

(all photos via Life Magazine, Party of the Century by Deborah Davis, Pinterest and Tumblr)

Cheers,

Deb xx